DCU Batman #2- Chiroptophobia
====Gotham National Bank====
"Master Bruce, how is the suit treating you?"
"It'll have to do."
The fight with Metalhead damaged my last suit beyond repair. Though I had Lucius's newest prototype ready to go, Alfred was insistent I use an older model, reminding me yet again who has to clean my suit each night... It has it's benefits- for one, it's more padded, but it's at the expense of other aspects. It's slower, clunkier, but with my injuries perhaps that's for the best. From what I've heard, Flannegan is hardly a fighter...
Four men with guns. One dead guard, five hostages in the back. On any other day, this'd be over in seconds, but I'm still recovering.
I fire the claw, mooring a fire extinguisher to the thugs in the back, masking my movements. That's two down. Two to go.
"What the hell was that?"
"Sounds like the vault... Sid, check it out."
"What, why me?!"
"Because if you don't, you'll have to explain to Mr Falcone that Penguin's men stole our score. Again."
The man sighs, but reluctantly, heads my way. Sidney Debris, goes by the Squid. It's his partner I'm really after- Slugsy Kyle, the first criminal I ever put away... That's Gotham's justice system on show- so long as the mob has power, men like Kyle spend, at most, one night in Gotham lockup.
I make quick work of Sid, but he won't be out long, just long enough to secure some one on one time with Kyle.
"I'm warning you, I'm armed I- you! What the hell are you doing here?!" Kyle jolts back, and I grab the gun from his hand, emptying the clip.
"Otis Flannegan."
"Don't know what you-"
I twist his arm behind back, pinning him to the vault walls
"Last time we met, you wore an arm cast for two months. Don't test me. Tell me about Flannegan"
"Please, I don't-"
"The Ratcatcher! Talk!"
=====One Hour Later====
"Master Bruce, your vitals are spiking, are you sure you won't just come home-"
"Not now Penny-One, I've almost found him"
My investigation has brought me here, The Henry Cobblepot Subway Station, disused ever since the roof caved in on it's opening day. 200 hundred people dead, just like that... They never did recover all the bodies. It took some... convincing, but Slugsy Kyle told me exactly where he'd be. Said he seen Flannegan sending rats out of the sewer grate here almost daily.
"Penny One, I'm hearing noises, 100 yards north."
"The children?"
"Could be. Switching to thermal imaging."
"Yes," Alfred murmurs. "I see them too. Four, six, ten, no, twenty of them."
Twenty? But GCPD said that no more than ten were missing...
"Orphans and runaways, I'd assume. Master Bruce... Your heart rate... you're spiking again-"
"I'll be fine... I just need to."
"Master Bruce! Master Bruce are you there?! Bruce! Bruce!"
Head's spinning... Can't walk straight, it's Flannegan. Gassed... I've been... Rats, rats everywhere... Biting, chewing... Eating. They're eating me!
"Babies! Babies, what have you caught for me this time?"
That voice... Muffled, nasally... Has to be him. He's holding an oil lamp in his hand, his breathing's heavy... Excited.
"The Batman! You aren't supposed to be real... Heck, you aren't even supposed to be human!"
"Flannegan... Where are the children?"
"The children? The children! There ain't anyone here but us rodents!" he says, winking.
"I saw... I saw their vitals... Now bring me to them!"
"You ain't in no state to give orders," Flannegan grins. "You're barely the full shilling."
"If you've drugged me-!"
A second voice... Singing... "Bah bah black sheep have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir. Three bags full." Older, maturer...
"It's quite alright, Mr Flannegan... The Batman, isn't it? Apologies for the smell... Can't be helped..."
It looks... it looks like a scarecrow, must be the ringleader.
"We pump the toxins through the boiler here, but we never imagined it would bring *you* here! What a day... You're resisting it aren't you? Fascinating! But it's too late, those toxins are in your lungs, they're in your blood and they're in your soul."
What... What has he-?
"The children... Where are the children?"
"My little *lab rats*? Of course, you'll want to see the full effect... Flannegan, strap him to that gurney, we might have to increase the dosage by 50%, he must be kept secure."
No... The screaming... The screaming... Not frightened, angry!
"You maniac!"
I grab his noose and pull. Hard... but my hands... Hands... Hands slipping.
"That's -urk- hardly necessary... We're quite alike you know. The fear tactics, the scare mongering... The flair for dramatics... And the power... Oh the power...
And yet, you what? You use it to help people... How banal."
Arming himself... Needles, syringes... Have to get free, have to- nrng!
"Don't. You. See. We're at a turning point Batman. Gang wars, hijackings, cultists in the sewers, and it all sprang from you. Their *fear* of you. If the police escalate, so must they, and naturally, the opposite is true. You've caused uproar, panic on a scale even I'm impressed by."
"So you kidnap children? Torture children?!"
"All in the name of innovation! Science doesn't develop from hypothesises and theory alone. A practical approach is needed. So I take the outcasts, the weak and alone and I give them purpose. Just like organ donors, these people give themselves, their bodies, to my research, in service of fear.
This one, Batman, suffers from acrophobia- the fear of heights! This one, astraphobia- fear of thunder, fear of lightning!
And this one... Little Chloe Marsh, an amputee at one year old... she suffers from chiroptophobia, which I'm sure you're familiar with...
Say hello child."
She's screaming... Always screaming... Like... Like that night.
The pearls... I see the pearls... Mother... Father...
"You failed me Bruce... You took us to that film, that godforsaken film, and it killed me! Killed your mother!"
"Father, please," I beg. "Mother, don't listen-"
"You failed us Bruce... You said you wouldn't, said you would never again... But you have. You were supposed to save Gotham, save the world."
"I still can," I plead. "I still can!"
"Deacon Blackfire? Deadshot? The Penguin? Punch? Zodiac Master? That Blackgate Bug? What about their victims, Bruce, did you save them?"
"I... No. No I didn't."
==The Gotham Subway Station==
I open the car door, and call back to my "date"
"Thanks for the lift."
The man, Ted something or other, holds my hand back. Great Kate, just great, why do you always choose the clingy ones...
"Hey, we can still stay a few minutes longer, can't we?"
I smile the nicest smile I can muster, (any longer and I might just have to punch him) and pry his hand away "Yeah... Sorry, you're not my type."
"Not your-? What the hell are you wearing?"
"Got to go." Police scanners said Batman entered the tunnels somewhere around here, I just have to find him.
Is the suit too tacky? Probably... But I did always like red.
DCU Batman #2- Chiroptophobia
====Gotham National Bank====
"Master Bruce, how is the suit treating you?"
"It'll have to do."
The fight with Metalhead damaged my last suit beyond repair. Though I had Lucius's newest prototype ready to go, Alfred was insistent I use an older model, reminding me yet again who has to clean my suit each night... It has it's benefits- for one, it's more padded, but it's at the expense of other aspects. It's slower, clunkier, but with my injuries perhaps that's for the best. From what I've heard, Flannegan is hardly a fighter...
Four men with guns. One dead guard, five hostages in the back. On any other day, this'd be over in seconds, but I'm still recovering.
I fire the claw, mooring a fire extinguisher to the thugs in the back, masking my movements. That's two down. Two to go.
"What the hell was that?"
"Sounds like the vault... Sid, check it out."
"What, why me?!"
"Because if you don't, you'll have to explain to Mr Falcone that Penguin's men stole our score. Again."
The man sighs, but reluctantly, heads my way. Sidney Debris, goes by the Squid. It's his partner I'm really after- Slugsy Kyle, the first criminal I ever put away... That's Gotham's justice system on show- so long as the mob has power, men like Kyle spend, at most, one night in Gotham lockup.
I make quick work of Sid, but he won't be out long, just long enough to secure some one on one time with Kyle.
"I'm warning you, I'm armed I- you! What the hell are you doing here?!" Kyle jolts back, and I grab the gun from his hand, emptying the clip.
"Otis Flannegan."
"Don't know what you-"
I twist his arm behind back, pinning him to the vault walls
"Last time we met, you wore an arm cast for two months. Don't test me. Tell me about Flannegan"
"Please, I don't-"
"The Ratcatcher! Talk!"
=====One Hour Later====
"Master Bruce, your vitals are spiking, are you sure you won't just come home-"
"Not now Penny-One, I've almost found him"
My investigation has brought me here, The Henry Cobblepot Subway Station, disused ever since the roof caved in on it's opening day. 200 hundred people dead, just like that... They never did recover all the bodies. It took some... convincing, but Slugsy Kyle told me exactly where he'd be. Said he seen Flannegan sending rats out of the sewer grate here almost daily.
"Penny One, I'm hearing noises, 100 yards north."
"The children?"
"Could be. Switching to thermal imaging."
"Yes," Alfred murmurs. "I see them too. Four, six, ten, no, twenty of them."
Twenty? But GCPD said that no more than ten were missing...
"Orphans and runaways, I'd assume. Master Bruce... Your heart rate... you're spiking again-"
"I'll be fine... I just need to."
"Master Bruce! Master Bruce are you there?! Bruce! Bruce!"
Head's spinning... Can't walk straight, it's Flannegan. Gassed... I've been... Rats, rats everywhere... Biting, chewing... Eating. They're eating me!
"Babies! Babies, what have you caught for me this time?"
That voice... Muffled, nasally... Has to be him. He's holding an oil lamp in his hand, his breathing's heavy... Excited.
"The Batman! You aren't supposed to be real... Heck, you aren't even supposed to be human!"
"Flannegan... Where are the children?"
"The children? The children! There ain't anyone here but us rodents!" he says, winking.
"I saw... I saw their vitals... Now bring me to them!"
"You ain't in no state to give orders," Flannegan grins. "You're barely the full shilling."
"If you've drugged me-!"
A second voice... Singing... "Bah bah black sheep have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir. Three bags full." Older, maturer...
"It's quite alright, Mr Flannegan... The Batman, isn't it? Apologies for the smell... Can't be helped..."
It looks... it looks like a scarecrow, must be the ringleader.
"We pump the toxins through the boiler here, but we never imagined it would bring *you* here! What a day... You're resisting it aren't you? Fascinating! But it's too late, those toxins are in your lungs, they're in your blood and they're in your soul."
What... What has he-?
"The children... Where are the children?"
"My little *lab rats*? Of course, you'll want to see the full effect... Flannegan, strap him to that gurney, we might have to increase the dosage by 50%, he must be kept secure."
No... The screaming... The screaming... Not frightened, angry!
"You maniac!"
I grab his noose and pull. Hard... but my hands... Hands... Hands slipping.
"That's -urk- hardly necessary... We're quite alike you know. The fear tactics, the scare mongering... The flair for dramatics... And the power... Oh the power...
And yet, you what? You use it to help people... How banal."
Arming himself... Needles, syringes... Have to get free, have to- nrng!
"Don't. You. See. We're at a turning point Batman. Gang wars, hijackings, cultists in the sewers, and it all sprang from you. Their *fear* of you. If the police escalate, so must they, and naturally, the opposite is true. You've caused uproar, panic on a scale even I'm impressed by."
"So you kidnap children? Torture children?!"
"All in the name of innovation! Science doesn't develop from hypothesises and theory alone. A practical approach is needed. So I take the outcasts, the weak and alone and I give them purpose. Just like organ donors, these people give themselves, their bodies, to my research, in service of fear.
This one, Batman, suffers from acrophobia- the fear of heights! This one, astraphobia- fear of thunder, fear of lightning!
And this one... Little Chloe Marsh, an amputee at one year old... she suffers from chiroptophobia, which I'm sure you're familiar with...
Say hello child."
She's screaming... Always screaming... Like... Like that night.
The pearls... I see the pearls... Mother... Father...
"You failed me Bruce... You took us to that film, that godforsaken film, and it killed me! Killed your mother!"
"Father, please," I beg. "Mother, don't listen-"
"You failed us Bruce... You said you wouldn't, said you would never again... But you have. You were supposed to save Gotham, save the world."
"I still can," I plead. "I still can!"
"Deacon Blackfire? Deadshot? The Penguin? Punch? Zodiac Master? That Blackgate Bug? What about their victims, Bruce, did you save them?"
"I... No. No I didn't."
==The Gotham Subway Station==
I open the car door, and call back to my "date"
"Thanks for the lift."
The man, Ted something or other, holds my hand back. Great Kate, just great, why do you always choose the clingy ones...
"Hey, we can still stay a few minutes longer, can't we?"
I smile the nicest smile I can muster, (any longer and I might just have to punch him) and pry his hand away "Yeah... Sorry, you're not my type."
"Not your-? What the hell are you wearing?"
"Got to go." Police scanners said Batman entered the tunnels somewhere around here, I just have to find him.
Is the suit too tacky? Probably... But I did always like red.