Charlatan

Ext. Gotham’s southmost shipping yard - A windless, cloudy night

 

We were at the docks before I could even process the journey. There wasn’t any talking, but our destination arrived just as quickly as if there had been. Ivy was walking on her own. The occasional bud springing out of a crack in the asphalt would give out a wretched squeal when she passed near it, and I remembered why it never worked. She never hid pain.

 

Zodiac was tense enough to jump at a shadow; even with him at the rear of our troop, I knew as much. Alternately, the “Electro” character was tromping ahead of even me, reciting at varying volumes what were allegedly alien war chants. Morgan’s leathery tail slapped the ground once we had halted; that, I could stand least of all. The thought that he too was straining at the leash, that he cared like I did. As if he ever could.

 

Without us having to question the exact meeting place, we were given an indicator. Above a makeshift arena comprised of industrial crates and truck cabs, a lone being was poised, wearing a conspicuous and showy cloak, like I myself might have donned, if I were in another mood. Fit for a painting, the moon was positioned just higher and beside him, concealing the face. I now led the party forward, noticing glints of light in windows and behind boxes as I proceeded. We were undoubtedly surrounded.

 

I don’t care. I draw my dagger. The one that first granted me the moniker of ‘murderer’, and the one that would likewise take my final target’s life. I call to the man, before Electro can blurt out an unwarranted speech of conquest.

 

Myself: Any part of you that continues to stand between my son and me, I relieve you of.

 

I hear a crackling sound as the figure rolls his neck and looks off to the side, as if weighing my ultimatum.

 

The man: That… will do. I do miss your more prolix ways of confrontation, but I suppose that was forfeited when you decided to once again embrace your old and truer… might I go so far as to say, BOVINE disposition.

 

He paces his words with his progress down the stack of crates, like it’s his hundredth rehearsal. The voice itself has less appeal than that of burning rubber.

 

The man: You will be resorting to more impressive shows of barbarism than that blade, I hope. I know your elasticity has been restored. It will be a shame to not see the tyrannical Clayface in all his odious glory, for what will be his grand finale. Eh, and your “co-stars”, as it were… you might have opted for greater star power than… this blue halfwit.

 

Electro (leaping at the chance): Ah! The cringing dictator acknowledges the bringer of his relegation! SOON you will address me as this sector’s indisputable…

 

Myself (stopping him again, turning back to my approaching prey): Let me be clear. I’m gutting you like a game bird. And I’ll be sure to miss vital organs at first.

 

The man (nearly underneath a lamppost): Oh, I like that one even better! But between you and I, I know that was misappropriated from an old Silverblade film. Which one… the ninth? They all run together at that point. Certainly so, with just how many we were privileged to work in, my friend.

 

And I feel a great empty swell inside me. No…

 

Familiar eyes set within a browned and mottled skull lock with my own, as Paul Sloane, alive and semi-well, is fully illuminated. The only man I could ever call a father without a hint of scorn. The only kill I ever went back on. Whatever I have in place of my blood boils now.

 

Myself: I let you LIVE…

 

Sloane (shouting, spitting): As any sniveling, false and unappreciative ward would! You made away with my identity as freely as dropped change. No identity of your OWN, mind you, no drive or aspirations, yet I took you in, when you would have otherwise been eaten alive by the industry! You didn’t have the decency to wait until I was dead and buried before you took every semblance of my career, my legacy, and I could only watch from afar and rot while you parasite… charlatan… smiled for the crowds that would have been mine.

 

I couldn’t help but recall similar words coming from my own mouth whenever I had made mention of the others who labeled themselves ‘Clayface’. No. That… that was different. My knife raises slightly. The others are nearing Sloane and me, except Zodiac, leaning from heel to heel and scanning the buildings.

 

Sloane (just a gravelly murmur now): And then you came back, after you ran all your undeserved glory into the ground… you came back to blame me. Mutilated me, in a fit of anger that would be ill-befitting of even a child…

 

Zodiac’s restlessness was evidently called for, as now, scores of dark figures have crept from every obstruction in sight. They are not strangers to me. Nearly all of them, markers of my criminal legacy. Standing over me as hateful, judging monoliths, erected throughout my selfish life.

 

Emile Dorian snarls from his vantage point. His fur mangy and matted, on an even more malformed body than I had last seen him with. His accomplices were nowhere in sight. Mitchell Mayo however, gripping his weapons and nursing an equally great grudge, was flanked by Sweet Tooth and the Pieman. Burke too hadn’t forgotten my betrayal after all these years, and Ulysses, inflammatory and rebellious to the last, was in attendance, dressed in his usual red. Even that lunkhead with a missing arm was back for more. I wouldn’t spare any one of them. Morgan bares his teeth, hunching in anticipation. Electro grins widely.

 

Myself: Where is my son.

 

Sloane (about to retreat behind his forces): There’s no need for that information just yet…

 

I won’t play this game. Before he can make a second step, I surge forward and grasp an enlarged hand under his arms and around his throat. The dagger all at once seems so quaint. I’ll absorb him. Slowly. I bark at the rest to back off, my allies included, but they’re all seemingly waiting patiently. Sloane is trying to laugh between his screams. I yank him closer.

 

Myself: What was the plan, you old fool? You think these cowards would…

 

I feel his mind as I tighten my hold. He is afraid, that much I know… but the anger… it’s hollow. It’s more like a wistfulness. It’s not him. It’s…

 

Myself (disgusted): You’re… indicating, Hagen. You amateur.

 

I toss the sod away, the dramatic and horrifying visage of a burnt Sloane smearing away into Matt Hagen, as he was before his accident. He looks even more petrified now than when I was peeling away his sanity. In unison with the first roll of thunder the night has produced, a strangled cry emits from behind the rows of opponents encircling us.

 

The voice (closer): No, no, NO… You’ve ruined it, both of you! He saw through you instantly, Hagen, you…

 

When I see him, it’s not the despair that came with thinking Sloane had returned, nor my annoyance at Hagen’s stale performance. It’s disbelief I’ve never known. All I can do is stumble back.

 

Harry Sims stomps up onto an overturned van, mask and all.

 

Sims (chillingly grim): It was going to be picture-perfect.

 

Ivy and Morgan share my speechless stupor.

 

Electro: The whelp is their informant!

 

Zodiac: How COULD you?!?

 

Ivy, Morgan and I turn to him.

 

Zodiac: … What? That’s like, really brutal, honestly.

 

Sims: ‘Brutal’. You want a refresher course on what ‘brutal’ looks like? A few images come to mind, for me…

 

Myself: Harry, you…

 

Sims: A childhood going down the drain when the kid comes to terms with the fact that he gets a kick out of capturing moments of pain and violence on his Polaroid. His parents, his friends, disowning him because they couldn’t show a single moment of empathy. Every job application denied, after they dug up his history…

 

Myself: Harr-

 

Sims (his pitch lowering): Spending his entire adult life in the service of a man that finally accepts him the way he is, until this man just decides to have a goddamned mental episode and throw away everything they’ve both worked for, to ease a guilty conscience that he was never bothered by BEFORE…

 

Myself: I’m SORRY, Harry!

 

Sims: DON’T YOU DARE say that now! You conceited bastard! You want to be some do-gooder now? Fine; heroes are historically great at getting their family killed. Yeah, you know what? The jig is up. Bring out the freak’s kid.

 

Otis Flannegan emerges only partially through the mass of villains. He has my son by the collar.

 

Flannegan (shrugging at Morgan’s guttural hiss and Ivy’s blazing eyes): Just a job. What are we, pen-pals?

 

Morgan (drooling): I’m gunna BATHE in your innards, rat.

 

My son has my exact outfit, and the same globular face that I’m not bothering to maintain. His elbows stick at ninety degrees like an unmanned puppet as he’s forced to kneel. His eyes won’t settle on anything. I look at Ivy. She knows it’s really him.

 

Sims (kicking at nothing on the ground, and shooting daggers at me with his stare): It’s as simple as it looks. You come and try to take him. I get to document the epic sendoff of the once-great Basil Karlo. Slain by his very own ‘Victim Syndicate’… everyone you’ve screwed over, while you were pinning ribbons on yourself.

 

Myself: I won’t give you a show.

 

Sims: No, you wouldn’t, would you? No I had to MAKE my show, just like I had to make everything else work out for us these past years. I had to recast Sloane, because that geezer is at death’s door, probably doesn’t even remember you. I scheduled this for an atmospheric rainstorm… You know how hard it is to make a death-ray that can kill something like you, when your main ingredient has been shanghaied across the country?

 

Myself: Kyodai…

 

Sims: Great meta-ability, “the death touch”. I’ve made some friends who’d kill to experiment with a cadaver with those properties, making it even more effective.

 

Behind him, a man in green and a rounded helmet snickers at the mention.

 

Sims (continuing): Me, I’d even go so far as to, say… accidentally reveal a young, vulnerable vigilante’s identity to a black ops organization, get her captured, use her best chum as cover just to reach my target…

 

I’m going to kill him.

 

Sims: … Then you went and got everyone out of their cells, and made it that much easier for me to find Kyodai while we were separated. I only needed a small sample from him, but man, it felt too good to get back at him for how insufferable he was on poker nights.

 

Sims’ goons have been inching nearer. They’re in need of an example, and Sweet Tooth is getting brave. Stupidly brave.

 

My arm lashes around him, and drags his gut straight across my blade. He gasps desperately as I throw him right back to his fellow degenerates. Mitchell comes to a dead stop and dry heaves. Simon weeps openly, collapsing next to Sweet Tooth, whose only sign of residual life is in his eyes. Sims appears genuinely surprised, or is he only mocking? I can’t tell any longer.

 

Sims: Christ, Basil, I still could’ve tried to salvage this, make it look really grandiose in post, but that was… pretty low. Was he even armed?

 

My son is watching. I swore he would never be a part of this side of my life, yet here we all stand. I feel Ivy’s disapproving gaze, Morgan’s growing ferocity.

 

Myself: This ends one way…

 

“I agree.”

 

The voice is from the rooftop blocking the street leading away from the waterfront. Every one of us knows that voice.

 

Sims (crossing his arms): The Batman.

 

Sure enough, the familiar, demonic silhouette of the Caped Crusader looms high above. Tetch and Mitchell immediately think to run away underneath him, but with glaring headlights and a rev that could shatter glass, the Batmobile swerves into view, braking feet away from the panicked throng of villains.

 

Sims (observing Hagen, still cowering): Well, you did one thing right, anyway, getting HIM here. That kid had better be pulp at this point.

 

Myself: Cassie… She’s..?

 

Batman’s is looking directly at me. I wish I had never seen him with that much anger on his face.

 

Batman: I’m taking every one of you in, tonight.

 

Electro (distraught): I DON’T KNOW ANY OF THESE PEOPLE!

 

Myself (yelling into the air): Lynns!

 

The fully-armored Firefly swoops in, his flamethrower already belching out an inferno before him. Batman has already leapt from his perch, tossing an adhesive grenades in his place. It bursts and clings to Lynn’s rotors. Shouting expletives, he spirals into a nearby crane. Before sticking his landing, The Bat unleashes wrist blades that incapacitate two of Tetch’s thugs. He flicks his cape out just before reaching the ground, directing the new momentum into a punch that lands between Thomas Blake’s eyes. He’s out like a light, as Batman doesn’t break a stride, backing every one of us towards the dock. A plume of smog has obscured Lynns’ fate.

 

Sims whistles, and I spot a newcomer. Everyone does. He’s bright yellow and orange with stripes decorating a clunky scuba suit, and he’s risen out of the bay on jet-powered skis.

 

Scuba man (holding a harpoon gun at a jaunty angle): ‘Kay Birdman. I’m your date.

 

Batman continues in a straight line, zeroing in on my group next.

 

Scuba man: Hey, I’m wearing this ridiculous shit for you, you winged wanker.

 

He fires a harpoon-cable that zips past Batman’s temple. It hits his true target, the Batmobile’s hood, and the newcomer reels the cable back in before Batman can dodge. The vehicle and its owner smash into the stranger, who has already pounced at the incoming crash. All three carom off a large container, and to the shock of us all, they hurtle beneath the harbor’s black surface.

 

Myself: And that’s our cue.

 

} Part 6 of 7; final battle will be uploaded sequentially. {

Done