Post by Spider-Man Beyond on Aug 21, 2007 16:45:09 GMT -5
Truth & Justice I #8
Written by JC Roberts (Calamityjamie)
Edited by Daniel Dyer (Spider-Man Beyond)
Owls are a natural predator of bats, but the occasional hoots he would hear each spring on the grounds of Wayne Manor had never bothered Batman. Reports of the creatures in the more central areas of Gotham – where they had never been found before – concerned him greatly. A man who can create a fleet of murderous mechanical butterflies could probably do worse with an army of razor-taloned raptores. Batman was hunting owls in the inner city. It might have been a long shot, but two days of searching for the Joker and his new sidekick – if that’s what the technopath was – had exhausted his other leads.
Word had it that the men were still holed up somewhere in Gotham. That was no surprise. Batman suspected the ring of police and National Guard surrounding the city had little to do with Joker’s decision to linger. Clowns like him – whether they wore the make-up or not – seemed determined to rub the Dark Knight’s nose in the fact that they’d gotten the best of him More often than not, that was when Batman ended up getting the best of them.
Quiver had phoned in an hour ago to report that she was turning in. She had joined the hunt upon her return from Myanmar, where she, Arsenal and Gren had stayed behind to apprehend the bombers. It had been a bitter affair – the terrorists had been deeply entrenched within that country’s despotic government and Quiver was convinced the perpetrators had been released as soon as Gren had flown her father and herself out of the country. She had been glad to join a pursuit she believed would result in some actual justice.
Batman moved cautiously down an alley where a series of hoots and fluttering sounds had been reported by an informant who was an expert on predators – human and otherwise. Because he was not sure what to expect – or even whether he was pursuing a worthwhile lead – he had equipped himself for the worse. His fighting suit included torso armor that extended to his chin. The mask he’d chosen completely covered his lower face. Only his eyes were exposed. On his back was a device that would emit a small electro-magnetic pulse – one that would knock out anything electrical within the space of a city block.
He had not asked about Superwoman, but Quiver volunteered the information that Martha Kent had returned to Gotham General late that evening as soon as she’d left her job at Arkham. Asylum and hospital were still catastrophe sites and Lian was concerned about Martha’s ability to cope with the workload she’d taken on. From what Lian could tell, her roommate hadn’t slept in days.
She always fights her heart out.
Batman winced at the unwelcome memory of Martha Kent’s battered face following the fight with DevilDog. Not for the first time following an encounter with her, he felt slightly ashamed. He had not gone to Gotham General with the intent of provoking her, though he could not pretend he had not known she would be there. He had watched for several minutes while she performed a tracheotomy on a patient gurgling on his own blood and Batman found himself impressed by her calm professionalism. Roy hadn’t been wrong in creating a spot for Martha as the Justice League’s doctor, he thought. She knew her emergency medicine and she seemed to thrive under pressure.
Batman had been about to seek out the ER director to get an idea of the body count when a patient two stretchers away from Martha went into cardiac arrest. He had watched, riveted, as she tried futilely to revive the woman. When Martha put down the paddles after a failed fourth attempt, her forlorn face made Bruce recall Clark’s quiet declaration that his daughter was not invulnerable. That had been when she had decided to step outside, and when he’d walked around the back of the hospital to join her.
He stopped for a moment, listening to the ambient sounds of a Gotham City alley – distant sirens, the crunch of shoes on glass, the hum of a streetlight that would soon need a new bulb. This angle was beginning to feel more like a waste of time. He’d give it another hour, maybe less, before heading back to the cave to regroup.
It was not lost on Batman that he seemed most likely to provoke Martha Kent when she was particularly vulnerable. He neither liked nor understood this tendency and as he turned the corner into an adjoining alley – this one just as dismal as the previous one – he remembered her look of weary disdain outside the hospital and knew it had probably been deserved. Batman had not appreciated the instant back-alley psychoanalysis, but it had not been unexpected. In truth, he had felt a certain satisfaction in drawing such a fiery response from her. It did not justify his impulse to antagonize a tired and despondent woman who had so recently fought by his side.
He had not apologized to Martha after the Slipp affair because she had been perfectly pleasant to him the next time they’d met and he hadn’t wanted to needlessly stir up hard feelings. This time, he didn’t see how he could avoid –
Hoot.
Batman froze.
Hoot. Hoot.
Shit.
It wasn’t just a misplaced owl, not even one put there deliberately to taunt him. The night bird’s call was flat and mechanical. This alley was occupied – perhaps loaded – with ominous flying weapons with better night vision than Batman’s.
He had no qualms about summoning Superwoman now. Batman raised the armored left sleeve of his fighting suit to his mouth and whispered a code into the cellular phone implanted there. It did not activate and he knew he was in trouble. Without hesitation, he punched the button that activated the EMP. Not a single city light extinguished and he could hear cars motoring down a nearby street. He jabbed at the button again.
“Don’t think that’s working,” said an amused voice from the shadows just up ahead of him. “Your phone neither.”
Before Batman could as much as shift his eyes towards the voice, he was hit by a barrage of mailbox-sized projectiles, all of them screeching and hooting with synthetic fury. The robotic owls slammed into his chest and head, knocking him backwards. He barely had the chance to shake a pair of night vision goggles into place, protecting his eyes and allowing him an eerie vision of frenzied owlish attackers that he would take to his grave.
The armor he wore over his arms, torso and groin prevented the owls from hurting him there, and the headgear was holding as well. But he was pinned down by the weight and momentum of the creatures. Within seconds, the owls honed in on his most vulnerable spot – he had never been able to develop armor for his legs that would not cripple his mobility. His suit was laced with the sheerest Kevlar, but it wasn’t impenetrable. He could feel jagged beaks and razor-like claws, tearing away at his thighs and shins.
You could beat every criminal in the city for three decades and still the thugs would underestimate you, he thought, forcing his arm to his belt through a torrent of vicious owls. The technopath had failed to do his homework. Batman never allowed himself one contingency plan. There were always three or four.
He unbuckled the belt and started to slide out of it, his progress hampered by the onslaught of mechanical raptors. They had managed to tear away most of his fighting suit and were gnawing away at his legs, but Batman focused on his task, ignoring the pain he knew would soon be over. Finally, he managed to slide the entire belt to his right side. He felt for a large compartment near the buckle and flipped it open.
It was if the ferocious flying robots had been sucked towards a black hole that was located in his belt. A technopath might stop the triggering of an electromagnetic pulse, but there was nothing he could do against a powerful natural magnet. When he’d excavated the cave many years ago, Batman had found large deposits of lodestone. Eventually, he’d learned to enhance their natural magnetic power.
Struggling to his feet was torture – his legs were torn and bleeding, though most of the damage deemed superficial. He scanned the alley for his nemesis, half expecting him to have run off when his robots failed to accomplish their mission. Part of Batman was sorry – he wanted a crack at the bastard, soon, and preferably without his deadly mechanical menagerie. But Batman also knew his wounds could use tending. And he needed to re-stock his weapons and think through the strategies that would make capturing the technopath easier.
But the villain had not run. Batman could hear him giggling softly.
“Got yourself a name?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” the technopath replied. “You should know the name of the guy that kills you. My name is Fray. But maybe you wanna call me “Flay”.
And he uncoiled a long, thick whip that Batman could tell was nothing like anything Indiana Jones had cracked.
Fray was a big man, but Batman had fought much bigger. The technopath’s size didn’t disturb him and he was unlikely to turn out to be a weapons master. But this scenario didn’t seem to fit – this guy manipulated technology. His use of an ancient weapon seemed incongruous – and foreboding.
Snickering nastily, Fray stepped out of the shadows. And his whip came alive.
Ordinarily, Batman relied on two focal points when battling an opponent with a flexible weapon – the operator’s forearm and wrist and the tip of the implement itself. Even with a longer whip, it was possible to anticipate the weapon’s trajectory and disarm your attacker. It was merely a matter of waiting for the right moment.
But while Fray was holding the whip, he clearly wasn’t using his arm to control it. The attacks came from random directions; Batman found himself barely able to block the first blow. It was not until the second strike that he was able to seize the lash.
It was a stunning piece of machinery, seemingly comprised of silicon and a synthetic technology Batman couldn’t immediately identify. As the lash slipped from his grasp, he could see it was long and flat – maybe two inches wide and half a centimeter thick – rather than the standard round woven leather variety.
On his third attack, Flay attempted to put some torque into his blow and Batman could tell the lash would sail in an arc towards his head. He readied himself for the catch, determined this time to hang on to the weapon – but it never came, because the whip had twisted itself in mid-air and had snapped around his right leg with blinding speed and force. He looked down through incomprehensible pain to see the lash wrapped from the middle of his thigh to just above his ankle. Knowing he could not disentangle himself without controlling the weapon, he reached for the whip where it started to wind around the top of his leg.
He heard Flay say, “I don’t think so, Batty.” And then what was already a nightmare turned infinitely worse.
Jagged, saw-like teeth emerged from the edge of the lash that was already biting into Batman’s leg and began to burrow into his flesh. Flay gave a hard jerk on the whip and was treated to the rare sound of Batman crying out in agony.
“I guess a lot of guys think that they’ll be the ones to kill you,” Fray said, watching in satisfaction as his weapon ate through Batman’s leg. “But looks like I’m the one who actually does it.”
Any moment now, the whip-turned-saw would slice though his femoral artery and he would bleed to death less than a minute. Batman felt himself losing consciousness and his footing at the same time. If he fell, he would be helpless and in seconds, he would die.
Mustering whatever small amount of strength and will he had left, Batman wrenched his left leg upward and slammed the steel toe of his boot into Flay’s right temple. He could not be sure of the strength of the kick and there would be no follow-up blow. His shattered body slammed into the ground at the worst possible angle, and the impact made him feel as if his lungs had been filled with cement. He could no longer hear the buzzing of the saw, nor could he feel his leg at all, but he was sure the artery had been severed. He was blacking out.
His head had fallen onto his left arm and without stopping to wonder if it would work this time, Batman mumbled a code into the phone built into his sleeve. He thought he heard a ring, and a voice, but he could not be sure.
“Help me,” he whispered, before the world disappeared.
—