Crimson Knight - Loose Ends

The time draws near. I can feel it. Bruce and his devoted followers have abandoned their base in preparation for the coming attack, but nothing good will come of it. No matter where they’ve gone, no matter where they choose to hide, we will find them and we will dispose of them. But that won’t be too difficult. Wayne is many things, but he’s no coward. In fact, he’s quite the opposite as demonstrated by him facing me in the sewers beneath Gotham mere days after I’d brought a building down on top of him. Though that makes his decision to abandon the League and forsake the title of Heir to the Demon all the more confusing.

 

What sort of a man surrenders such power so willingly and for so little? The answer to that is rather simple. He’s blinded by ideology. Unable to accept that there may be more to this world than simply good and evil. No-one is all good, and no-one is all bad. He of all people should understand this. Especially after spending so much time swimming in the swamp that is Gotham city. So how can he subscribe to such a dogmatic view of the world? What does he see in himself that makes him better than us?

 

His rule on not killing?

 

Please, that’s not a sign he’s a good man. If anything, it demonstrates the opposite.

 

Good men don’t need rules, and he knows that.

 

Yet still he pretends that he is.

 

It’s little more than window dressing, but he does all that he can to at least give the image of a good man. Little does he know that in trying to help a single person, he’s holding everyone else back.

 

Humanity has evolved based on the principle that only strong can survive. Only they deserve to create the next generation. What Bruce does, with that blind moral code of his, is ensure that the weak survive too. What sort of a species does that make us? If we allow the weak to walk amongst the strong? To act as though they are equals? It makes us weak. It means that the next generation will be weaker than the last, and the next one, and the next one.

 

Soon our strength will be lost, and the strong will have been purged from the system.

 

Then our wars won’t be won because of our strength and resolve, they’ll be lost because of our cowardice. Our need to compromise, to capitulate rather than conquer. This cannot be allowed to continue.

 

Grandfather has always believed a demonstration of these flawed beliefs falling to sheer strength and will is necessary. By all accounts, he’s longed to make both Bruce and Gotham the examples of this failure ever since Bruce fled the League and returned to Gotham. For him to have halted those machinations so abruptly points to only one thing.

 

My birth surprised him.

 

He’s never admitted it to me, but it’s clear at times that he never anticipated my existence. Why else would he halt such well thought out plans to assault Gotham City seemingly out of nowhere? The death of Marcus Wayne? Irrelevant. With or without him Grandfather would have continued onwards. Black Adam’s rise to power in Kahndaq? Also irrelevant. Adam is no more a threat to Grandfather than he is to the United States. Left alone long enough it was all but inevitable that they would deal with Adam for us. They have yet to do so, but it’s all but inevitable.

 

So, with all that considered there can only be one logical conclusion from all of this. I was unplanned, but not unwelcome. From what little I know of Bruce’s past prior to his recruitment by Mother, he’s always longed for a family ever since he lost his own when he was just a child. How pathetic. But useful.

 

Grandfather is known for preying upon your weaknesses and exploiting them for his own advantage. To give Bruce what he’d always wanted, and then turn it against him, it’s hard to call it anything more than monstrous. However, that doesn’t make it foolish. In fact, I think it’s brilliant.

 

My time is drawing near.

 

I can hear the faint sound of footsteps on one of the platforms above.

 

It won’t be long now…..

 

Mercenary 1: Do you hear that?

 

Mercenary 2: It sounds like footsteps above.

 

Mercenary 3: Is it el diablo? Has he come to finish us.

 

Mercenary 2: No, it’s not the Bat’s style.

 

Mercenary 1: Sounds like more than one person.

 

Mercenary 3: Do you think it’s Bane? Has he come to rescue us?

 

Damian: No. It’s not either of them.

 

Mercenary 2: You know who it is?

 

Damian: I do.

 

Mercenary 1: Who is it?

 

Rather than answer this fool’s questions, I decide to tie up loose ends.

 

I climb to my feet and walk towards one of the mercenaries.

 

Their usefulness is at an end.

 

Mercenary 2: What’s wrong?

 

Without say a word, I grab hold of his throat and slam him up against the wall. As you’d expect, his two colleagues don’t take kindly to my actions.

 

Mercenary 1: Put him down!

 

Mercenary 3: Do it right now!

 

Since they seem so concerned for his safety I decide to oblige, grabbing hold of the assailant’s waist with my left hand before turning to throw him at my other two cell mates. Their friend’s weight keeps them briefly pinned on the ground, long enough for me to walk over and twist his neck.

 

As you’d expect, they really didn’t take too kindly to that.

 

Mercenary 1: BASTARDO!

 

You can tell they’re pissed. I’ve brought the Spanish out of them.

 

This should be fun.

 

Working together, they push their comrade’s body off them and both attempt to charge me. How naïve. Rather than humour myself I decide to keep this short. A quick and precise kick against the first mercenary’s right knee brings him crashing down to the floor whilst I throw the second mercenary against the wall.

 

Before he has a chance to move, I pin him up against it and grab hold of his head. Realising what’s about to come he desperately pleads for his life.

 

Mercenary 3: No! Por favor!

 

Pathetic.

 

My response to his plea is clear. I slam his head against the wall. Then again.

 

And again.

 

And again.

 

He screams with every blow.

 

It only takes two more times before his head is coated in blood and he’s as good as brain dead. Much to the horror of his colleague.

 

Mercenary 1: No! Please! Please don’t!

 

Damian: I had hoped you’d do the honourable thing and accept a warrior’s end.

 

Mercenary 1: You…..you don’t have to kill me.

 

As he desperately begs for his life, I notice two figures cloaked in black robes come into view.

 

Damian: Oh, I’m afraid that I do.

 

Before he can react, I slam my foot down on his back wrapping my right arm around his throat.

 

Damian: Only the worthy may gaze upon the Demon’s head.

 

Whilst the mercenary desperately reaches for anything he can use as a weapon, his actions begin to slow as his body begins to react to oxygen deprivation all as a hooded figure walks down the steps and slowly begins to approach my prison cell.

 

Grandfather….

Done