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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:47:24 GMT -5
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:49:03 GMT -5
The Batman
Issue 9: "Escapism"
Written by Charles HoM
Cover by DrDread
Edited by David Charlton |
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:50:50 GMT -5
Two emails arrived in Bruce Wayne’s inbox yesterday evening. Bruce Wayne was busy at the time though, out till late, asleep till the afternoon, and busy till the night begun anew. It’s an endless cycle, one that will only broken when Bruce Wayne awakens a bit earlier than usual, but so far this month, he’s been on a downward spiral of self deprecating, self hating, jumping into the fire antics, and only now, he breaks the cycle. He yawns as he enters his father’s study, now his own, high in a tower in Wayne Manor. He clicks onto his email account, and opens up the file.
The Genesis Corporation
Building a better world.
Bruce arches an eyebrow, and scrolls down.
Building a better future.
What was that about? That was the end of the message, and what a message it was… He wonders what it means, and shakes his head, opening the second email.
Information is the best currency.
- TQ
TQ? Bruce feels his eyes widen. TQ? The Question?
“Vic?”
He clicks on the attachment, and downloads the document through ciphers and firewalls; ensuring nothing in the document is harmful.
“The Underworld is abuzz with a new presence. Not an old hat trying a new trick, but a newcomer. I’ve been travelling since we last spoke, and on my travels I discovered this piece of information. Your city, your domain to protect, not mine to interfere in. Below is all the information I’ve acquired on Mister Miracle, the man who the bosses won’t stop talking about. This is important. Do with this what you will. We’ll meet again soon
Bruce, thanks for believing in the answer.”
That was Vic all right. Sending him information like this was a new deal though, so Bruce was curious. He read the advertisement, an old scan of an old performer. He reads the date on the edge of the paper, more than 20 years ago… Mister Miracle? And his age then… The attached bio says mid thirties, later maybe. Interesting. What does this all mean? Bruce Wayne looks out of his window, sees the darkness spread across the city below his manor home, and then nods. Time enough later to think on this piece of information. But now it was time for the dark avenger of Gotham to make an appearance… Time for The Batman.
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:51:14 GMT -5
Predator and prey in Gotham City are harder to discern than ever. You have the crime lords, the drug dealers, the pimps, and on the other side the police. That’s an easy enough distinction to make, but when you add to the equation another form of hero and villain, the lines blur, everything changes, and the night falls, hiding the truth behind shadow and darkness. Gotham City has met the threat of the Joker, with horrific results; they’ve met the Riddler, Hugo Strange, Cavalier, Bane… They all reside in Arkham Asylum, Home for the Criminally Insane, or Blackgate Maximum Security Prison, where the worst of the worst are put to rehabilitate. Some come and go on a whim from the Asylum like a momentary distraction for the inmates before they are broken out, escape, or murder once more. Death becomes Gotham City, and things haven’t been the same since the end of the city’s golden age, an event that occurred when, scholars believe, Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered before the eyes of their only child, Bruce. Things are changing, and not for the better.
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:51:47 GMT -5
Batman pulls the grapnel from his belt and fires it off across the void of space over the skyscrapers of the city. He takes a breath, filling his lungs, and then swings out across the void, floating across the distance, almost flying, before he hits the opposite building, rolls with his momentum and retracts his line. He sprints across the building and leaps meters until he hits the next roof, and continues until he reaches the harbor, and the assorted men and women below. He crouches against the rooftop, and takes a small wire from his belt, and guides it over the top of the roof, and then presses a button on the side of his belt that causes a quiet amount of feedback to flood his ears. When that moment’s distraction is done he can hear everything that occurs below, and as he listens, he learns.
“You know what I heard?”
“What did you hear, Joe?”
“He’s immortal. Unkillable. He can escape any trap you set for him, any trap including poison, explosives, knives, guns, anything. He can’t be killed. Always wearing that costume…” Batman smiles. Are they talking about him? Has the fear made him an unkillable urban legend? He smiles, something that he rarely does, and continues listening. “And always smiling beneath it.” Strange. When he’s in the street, doing the gritty stuff, doing the fighting and brining the pain like none others before him, he never smiles. He hasn’t smiled in costume since Dick wore the green and red of his Robin costume.
“What’s the freak’s name? The freak that caused Don Cleaver to go down for another ten? I heard he was part of some outfit from San Fran. Powers, Inc. or whatever. Mr.… Marvel? Marvelous?”
“Like the Captain? Nah, I doubt it dude. Miracle. The Miracle. His name was the Miracle, was it not?”
“Nah, nah, you’re wrong. Mister Miracle. That’s it. Mister Miracle, the World’s Greatest Escape Artist…”
Batman finds himself frowning slightly, a bit disappointed at not being the one these mooks feared so much.
“Hey, enough small talk. You got the gear?”
Oh, jackpot.
“Ha, enough to sort those ones up at Chandelier for a month.”
Chandelier. That’s the name of the high-class club up on the good side of the city, the kind of place where the rich and the pointless gather together to compare tennis scores and priceless diamonds. A lot of famous people go there, a lot of famous people including Bruce Wayne. Haven’t been there for some time, Again, last time he’d been through those doors was when Dick was in the city, about a year ago, before The Joker, before Julie.
“Them spoiled rich kids love their coke, eh?”
Cocaine. There we go. He peeks over the ledge for less than a second, and then falls back down, smiling slightly. Two bulges beneath their jackets, and another to the dealer’s hip. He can’t see the rear of the other criminal but he assumes the worst, assumes he has another weapon somewhere, and then he jumps.
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:52:06 GMT -5
Shadows come and go in Gotham City, a strange occurrence due to the lack of light on the streets, but also suggested to have something to do with the innate magic of the city. But then again, when men rush around like men possessed in the alleys and the dark places, shadows flitter in and out of focus like an old movie… But now, in the full moon, when the wolf emerges to drag souls to hell... If any city could hold credence to that kind of claim it would be this one. Gotham is steeped in ancient magic. Progression comes at a price and the price for Gotham has been known to forget what has come before, the history, the former glory. If the devil emerged to plague the world then it would emerge from here, in Gotham, the darkest, dirtiest city in America. Shadows come and go in Gotham, and these two men are about to wish they’d stayed in home tonight.
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:52:24 GMT -5
Batman spreads his cape, appearing as a silhouette against the moon, causing the two men to jerk upwards and to pull their pistols. Before they can blink the guns are in the ocean, two razor sharp blades digging into their palms before they can scream. Batman is on them, punching and kicking, sending one man into a warehouse wall with an almighty crash, dazed, dizzy, and ready for interrogation later, when he’s done with the other.
The man called Joe ducks underneath some massive containment tanks, water crashing below his feet beneath the pier, and hides in the shadow, pulling the blade from his hand and pressing the wound tight against his chest. In his other hand is his back up, the weapon he hid behind his back, loaded and ready. He cocks back the hammer, and takes slow breaths, trying not to give away his position. He knows about the Bat-Man. He can smell blood, smell sweat and fear and if he gets a whiff of what this man is giving off, he’d be sure to pinpoint his position.
He keeps the gun raised, ready, and looking everywhere over the harbor, making sure he can’t be picked up from above or to his sides, in front or behind. He sighs slightly, no noise coming from anywhere. Where’d he go? Had he left back to the rooftops whence he came? No. It couldn’t be that easy. He leans against the metal container, and then hears a creak. He spins around, his gun raised, and sees nothing. Again, another creak. He spins around the other way, trying his best to see where that damned noise was coming from, but not being able to pinpoint the location. Where the hell was this freak? He shakes his head, and walks forward, only to hear a cracking noise behind him. He spins around and a hand explodes from beneath him, grabbing his foot and yanking him down, wood splinters entering his leg like daggers. As the man hits the harbor floor another fist shatters through the brittle wood and hits him square in the jaw, knocking him out instantly.
Batman pulls himself up out of the broken wood and smiles, his boots wet and his cape heavy with water. The water below the harbor had hidden his movements from this man, and made one hell of an entrance for him. He smiles slightly, and then drags the bleeding man over to his friend.
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:53:00 GMT -5
The venue wasn’t the best. It was dark and dusty and no place for a performer of his apparent status. Mister Miracle was the best there was, and he could bring crowds of thousands to the smallest venues, but as the new face beneath the mask, he had something to prove to himself and to his mentor, and he started at the bottom of the ladder, on the lowest rung, entertaining crowds of drunks and deviants, until he found himself ready for the big leagues.
Scott Free smiles, and walks on stage, an awkward silence meeting him from the men at the tables, and the waitresses serving. He was wearing the bright red, yellow and greens of Thaddeus Brown’s costume, but he had taken the time to streamline the costume, making it more functional for him, weaving in his own instruments and materials till it fit him like a glove. But their eyes said something else to the exile from another plane of existence… They hadn’t seen the color. The brightness of his costume. So long had they been in the shadows, in the absence of light, they had forgotten that there were things more than the blacks and grays they suffered in through the daily dregs of life.
He smiles beneath his mask, and his assistant, a young man named Shilo Norman, a friend of Thaddeus’, walks onto the stage with the material and utensils ready to begin his act. Shilo attaches the straightjacket and yanks on the buckles, ensuring Scott is tightly packed. He then wheels on a massive cylinder, and Scott smiles. This was one of Thaddeus’ favorites, one of his greatest escapes. Sure, the jumps from the tallest buildings and being found in the bar opposite buying everyone in a round was flashy, but the cylinder escape was always something that took concentration, memory. Passion. You had to do things in order, had to focus on the task at hand or burn. He had taken liberties with the escape too, as well as the costume, but as a boy becomes his own man, he most become comfortable in himself, and not the way people feel ought to be.
He sits down on the stage, and Shilo brings out a small winch, a device that lifts the young escape artist off the wooden floor and into the cylinder. The assistant then slams shut the metal lid and locks it tightly. Then it gets interesting. A voice emanates from inside the cylinder, Scott talking through a microphone in his costume.
“The cylinder is airtight my friends, I’m sealed in, and all this talking will surely waste what little oxygen I have left. But to advance your enjoyment of the escape…” he motions to his assistant, soldering iron in hand, and the crowd watch as the escape artist is sealed into the tube. “Now I must ask for a volunteer. Shilo, please, do your thing.” Shilo hurries off the stage and pulls a waitress from the bar area, and brings her on stage. “Hh…” Scott takes another breath, the lack of oxygen already getting to him. He had endured worst, but not for a long time, and for all his vicious training, he wasn’t fully ready. This would count against the escape. He knows this and files it to the back of his mind, then continues.
“Miss… always a Miss, isn’t it, Shilo?”
The young black man nods and smiles, and the young waitress blushes. “Simple task, Miss. Pull that switch on that table.” He motions towards a small table, and the woman picks up a small device, and as soon as she presses the button on it, the inside of the tube erupts in flames, causing Scott Free to vanish in the inferno. The crowd rumbles with surprise and worry, and Shilo Norman puts his hand on the young lady’s shoulder, reassuringly. The flames inside of the tube subside, leaving the crowd gasping for breath, totally taken unawares by this stunt. A voice at the back of the audience causes everyone to turn and look, and Shilo Norman stands there, smiling. After that, they spin back round to the stage to see Mr. Miracle with his hand on the woman’s shoulder, a smile beaming from beneath his mask. The escape was worth it, he thinks, as the woman flings her arms around his neck and kisses his mask.
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:53:31 GMT -5
Boom. An explosion causes windows to shatter everywhere down Kane Drive. Shards of falling glass fall to Earth and a man… A God… Walks the streets of Gotham. It has begun… A devil has emerged from Gotham, a pestilence that could engulf the world, and it has crawled from its bestial home to the surface of this once fair city. The Pursuer is here. Pursuer has come and pursuer shall leave… With it’s quarry. Scott Free, time to come home.
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:53:52 GMT -5
It’s a simple task of removing the data disc from his utility belt and tending to the criminal’s wound. Batman doesn’t want those who he has caught to bleed out before they can be sent down to Blackgate for their crimes. He takes out the disc and attaches it to the injured man’s head, and quickly draws a black bat atop the other man’s forehead. Gordon will know that this was him, and will understand the message. He smiles slightly, and then, after contacting the Major Crimes Unit office, fires off his grapnel, and vanishes into the night.
It’s not long before he picks up the call from police headquarters asking for any and all assistance. Something’s on the loose downtown, and he’s slaughtering any one who stands in his way. Batman grimaces. Who is it? An old hat? A new face? An old hat with a new gimmick? He presses another button on his belt, and a roar of engines over tires fills his ears. The car. He lands in the middle of a deserted street, past rush hour, past the time when men and women drive down the streets looking for a good time, and before the morning hurry. He picks up a manhole cover and jumps down into the sewers. He feels his way a couple of meters down the sewage covered walls and then finds the brick that is pushed out more than the others. He presses down hard on it and then the wall opens up, and the car sits, purring, ready. He leaps in, presses down hard on the ignition, and flies down the abandoned subterranean railway, and heads for where he’s needed.
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:54:29 GMT -5
Scott Free jerks up in bed. He was tired after the show, and had fallen fast asleep when he returned to his motel room. He was tired before, but now he was buzzing, awake and ready. Something had stirred in the back of his head, an itch returning from his past. He’s not alone on this world anymore. Someone has followed him to Earth… Someone has boom-tubed through reality to land here; on the planet he sought refuge. How can that be? How can an agent of Apokolips, an assassin of Darkseid reach this plain of reality?
He was being pursued by Devilance… He was going to die. He was going to die even before he could see his most loved… No. Scott stands up, shaking his head. You don’t hide from the omega. You confront the end, head on; take a ride on the fringe of death and then you ride resurrection outwards and onwards… Devilance was death to his freedom, but to run from this challenge would be running from a challenge. He had to escape, not from the threat, but from the fear. Scott smiles slightly, sweating all over, and picks up his costume. Devilance was coming, and he wasn’t going down without a fight.
The car slides up onto the street and speeds down the road until it reaches the police cordon. Gordon is there, shouting through the megaphone, giving out orders and trying to contain the situation. The car streaks next to him and brakes all of a sudden, allowing Batman to step out of the vehicle.
“I’m glad you could make it.”
“I was at the harbor, dealing with someone trying to sneak cocaine into Chandelier…”
“I’ve lost some good men, Batman. We need to end this… But this guy is taking all our artillery, all our firepower, and just walking down the road. He’s heading somewhere, and we don’t know where.” he removes his glasses and wipes them on his shirt, clearing the lenses. “Thoughts?”
“How many men have you lost?”
“Too many, too many.”
“Call your men back. Let me take a shot.”
“They won’t like that…”
“If I fall, then they can take up the fight, but I want a chance to see what this guy’s made of.”
Gordon nods slowly, and gives the order, calling the men and women back behind the cordon. The police officer turns and looks at Batman, but he’s already gone, a whip of his cape vanishing into the car and then speeding through the cordon until the vehicle collides head on with the villain.
Gordon blinks. Then blinks again. The man is encased in the vehicle, steel and plastic wrapping itself around him on collision. He blinks again. The man tears himself free, and continues walking, Batman’s vain attempt to stop him failing.
Where is the Batman? Where has the hero disappeared to? Three batarangs shoot down out of the sky, and then another five, three, six, impaling the creature’s armor, and then as the final one collides with the material a massive detonation erupts from the blades, the car erupting in a fireball, engulfing the creature and causing him to vanish in the flames. Batman stands atop the side of a building, his arsenal of batarangs gone, hopefully stopping this unstoppable force. Wishful thinking. The man continues walking forward, his attention now turned to the man draped in shadows.
“You fight like one of our. Down and dirty with tricks aplenty. But that is something Scott Free would never do. Never… ‘Reduce’ himself to. I am searching for the Escaped. Give him to me or perish.” The man speaks fluently, clearly, and the words are strong, bold. Batman grimaces.
“I don’t know anyone by that name. And even if I did, I wouldn’t let him get anywhere near you.” Batman dives down off his perch and lands near the man.
“Then I will have to kill you.”
Batman shakes his head, and crouches, getting into a fighting position taught to him by N’ahari, Son of the Lion, an African chieftain he stayed with for six months on his travels. The two men look at each other, take each other in, and make their moves.
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:54:57 GMT -5
First rules of a fight. You know your stuff. You know your moves and you know how to throw a punch. Technique is good, but style… That helps. Second rule of a fight. Keep moving. You keep moving, you don’t get punched through the stomach and find your spine is in the hand of some steroid pumped ex super soldier who was a failed military experiment from the 1940s. You keep moving, you go for nerve clusters, pressure points, and you take your opponent down.
Batman is doing everything that he’s been taught, and this guy, this oddly-garbed, massive stranger, takes his pressure punches, his knock-out blows and bone breaking kicks, silently, and keeps walking. Batman frowns. The muscle on this freak… it could be super steroids. Meta enhancements. Something buzzing beneath his skin granting him invulnerability.
Batman can barely react before the man goes for his own attack, raising a strange spear like weapon from out of nowhere, and striking it down against the pavement, causing a tremor to shoot outward from the point of impact. Batman rolls back, kicking himself clear of the man, and looks down at his arm. A thin gash is bleeding across his shoulder, and the wound threatens to widen. Batman shakes his head and rips his own cape, binding the wound before it can become worse than it already is.
“I can kill you on a whim, champion… But you offer me a pleasant diversion from my mission. It shall be an enjoyment to have your hide in my chambers.”
“The only hide you’ll be getting…” Batman leaps up, and delivers a crushing blow to either side of the man’s neck, a blow that would shatter any human beings bones, but only causes the man to stagger. “Is the hiding I’m about to deliver now…”
The strange warrior lashes out, and sends Batman flying into a wall with a crash and a rain of dust and dust. This wasn’t going well.
“Get away from him, Devilance!” A new voice enters the fray, a loud, imposing, impetuous voice. Devilance the Pursuer turns in its direction, a smile forming on his lips.
“SCOTT FREE! You show yourself at last! Our lord and our leader, the dread Darkseid has sent me forth to return you to Apokolips… So prepare yourself for your return!”
Scott Free, clad in his Mr. Miracle costume, stands about thirty meters away from the massive hunter, and shakes his head. “I think not. You can leave now, or endure the consequences. Return to your master with your tail between your legs, or suffer, Devilance.”
Devilance smiles slightly, and shakes his head. “We both know that is an impossibility. But I thank you for your offer.”
“I tried.” Scott throws down something, and vanishes in a flash of light, leaving Devilance confused. Before he can react, another flash of light emerges from the debris strewn area where Batman landed, and then another, showing that Batman and Scott Free are gone for now, but Devilance has his scent, his aura has flittered across his eyes, he can find him anywhere, track him to the ends of this Earth.
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:55:35 GMT -5
Batman moans slightly, the pain in his arm overtaken by the pain in his back. That hurt like the devil, and he needed something to lash out on. Scott Free stands next to him, shaking slightly, taping his foot impatiently.
“Mr.… Mister Miracle, I presume. But maybe not just him… Scott Free, I presume?” He stands up, dizzy.
“Yes, yes, I am he… both of them. That one you faced down there… his name is Devilance, an old acquaintance of mine.”
Batman shakes his head, confused. “Where do you come from, that breeds such… Powerful men?”
“Men? Oh, you are mistaken Batman. We are Gods. New Gods. I am Scott Free, and I have escaped just that… But… Now my hopes of freedom are over. Devilance will be upon us soon, and I fear that we cannot stop him.”
“We can damn well try, Miracle.” Batman shakes his head. “You’re an escape artist are you not? I recently heard of you. Twice in one night indeed. I think they call that a cosmic coincidence.”
Scott Free grabs Batman’s shoulders, and shakes his head. “There is NO such thing as a cosmic coincidence. There are webs of chance underlying this reality, an underspace that dictates everything that occurs, and all these webs of chance link to the Source…”
Batman pulls himself free and looks the man up and down. “What are you?”
“I have told you, Batman. A New God… Born of Genesis, raised on Apokolips…”
A noise interjects the conversation, the sound of crushing brick slowly approaching. The caped duo pop their heads over the ledge of the roof and gasp. Devilance was pursuing them, even up here, and he was approaching slowly but surely.
“You can tell me your life story later. Assets. List our assets. We’ve got our heads and our bodies, my utility belt and anything else I have on my body, what about you? Some kind of short range of teleporter…”
“Mother Box.”
“Mother Box?”
“Something I’ve tried not to use so much, in case they can track its use. She talks to me, and I know this might seem like the ramblings of a madman, but you must believe me, Mother Box is the greatest asset we could have.”
“What does Mother Box do?”
Scott Free pulls off the sleeve of his costume revealing a device strapped to his shoulder. A ‘pinging’ noise emerges from the small box, and Scott touches Batman’s shoulder with the same limb it resides on. At that very moment, their minds touch. They connect in a way impossible by human standards. Everything is revealed to each other, the horrors they have both endured, and the trials they have suffered through…
Batman pulls himself free, and looks at Scott “What in… What in God’s name was that?”
“Mother Box connected our minds… It was the only way I could show you that I wasn’t lying… We’re now connected through the reservoir of thought in your mind that dictates logic… But even then, Mother Box spread itself, and you are now protected… Bruce.”
Batman shakes his head, confused. “I saw… Fire falling into the sky… People being tortured… Is that where you have come from? That place?”
Scott Free nods. “Yes. I’m sorry that I did that to you, but I… I had to make you know…” He pulls off his mask, showing his young face, not even out of his twenties, his eyes belying an ancient wisdom. “He is nearly upon us…our assets… Mother Box is connected to everything. A living uplink to the Source… We can use that I think… But how… How will reveal itself to us when the time is right…”
Batman clenches his fists, anger spreading through him. “Now is the right time!”
Before they can continue their conversation Devilance leaps upwards from where he was climbing and slams himself down next to the two men, grabbing Scott Free by the leg and dragging him down floor by floor through the building as the force of his leap sends them dropping earthward. Batman spins around, and fires off his grapnel, then dives down the quickly growing tunnel, following the two men as they approach the floor. The two New Gods come to a halt, and Devilance tears something from his belt, but before he can trigger it, Batman grabs Scott’s hand, and his grapnel sends them both shooting into the sky. “Activate your teleporter!”
“Mother Box says that this is a bad idea!”
“He’s going to catch us and take you back, you know it, and I know it, so DO AS I SAY!”
Scott obeys, activates his teleporter, and then the two are suddenly high above Kane Drive, flying upwards, their momentum from before being transferred as they jumped through reality. “Oh I see…”
Batman turns and sees Devilance emerge from the crater in the building and quickly evaluate what was happening. As the two men find gravity taking effect Scott activates the teleporter again, sending them five buildings across.
“This is pointless! He is the pursuer! He will pursue until we fall and die. Five buildings may as well be five steps…”
Batman shakes his head. “Think positively. What was that device your friend was pulling in the building back there?”
“Boom tube trigger. A portal back to Apokolips. Created by Himon, my mentor, and the all-knowing Metron… Powered by the a fraction of the X-element… A molecular slither of the x-element, and powerful enough to allow the bearer to travel through reality itself. A tool used by Darkseid to conquer galaxies.”
Batman notes Scott flinch at the words. Darkseid. The name oozes with evil, death… Darkseid.
“Boom tubes send your people back to whatever realm you came from?”
Scott nods. “Yes.”
“Plan forming. Give me Mother Box.” Scott looks at Batman and shakes his head.
“What?” The machine pings excitedly at the aspect. “No, you stay with me… Why? But… Ok. Ok.” Batman frowns. The machine… The Mother Box was talking to Scott through some kind of telepathy. Scott unravels the living computer from his arm and passes it Batman. “What are you going to do?”
“Think on my feet. Keep that creep occupied.” Batman leaps backwards off the building and as he vanishes from site, Scott can hear him utter the word: “…Escape…”
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:56:41 GMT -5
Devilance is on top of Scott before he can think. The Pursuer unleashes a blast of energy that strikes Mister Miracle’s back, but not close enough to kill the young hero, only remove his flowing cape. Scott vanishes in a burst of light but his enemy is ready, and Devilance backhands mid air, causing the rematerializing hero to fly over the rooftops. Devilance leaps over to where his prey lands and smiles.
Swinging through mid air, the light floods his mind. He sees his Mother and his Father smiling, his father holding a red balloon his mother wearing the pearls. What is this? Batman shrugs slightly, but then feels his mind moving. He comes into view in his own daydream, a small child only wanting to be embraced by his parents. A smile spreads across his lips. Mother Box was granting him an image of his past, one unfettered by the darkness that came later. Mother Box had spoken to him in this dream, and the vigilante knew what to do.
“Your friend abandoned you. As they all shall in the end when the master arrives. Alpha, Omega, he is coming. None can escape the unblinking, all seeing gaze of Darkseid.” The villain pulls his trigger from his belt and presses the red square button, causing another explosion to wrack Gotham. Windows left untouched by the first boom tube are shorn from their moorings, and Devilance picks up his young quarry.
“Devilance!” Batman emerges from behind the villain and smiles, causing the triumphant New God to hesitate. “Give me enough time before hand, and I can plan the fall of Gods. And this is your Gotterdammurung.” he raises his gloved hand where Mother Box is attached and nods slowly. “That man told me something minutes ago that stuck with me. ‘Mother Box is connected to everything. A living uplink to the Source… We can use that I think… But how… How will reveal itself to us when the time is right…’ and guess what, Pursuer? That time is now.” Mother Box explodes in a cascade of color, and Devilance drops Scott, his hunter’s belt where the trigger lies glowing brighter each moment.
“What deviltry is this?” Devilance pulls the trigger from his belt and throws it away from himself, but it hovers in mid air, and flies back to the New God.
“Connected to everything, Mother Box is a living connection to the Source. And X-Element… Is a part of the Source. Meaning… Mother Box can control where you travel through that Boom Tube.” Batman presses a button on his belt and a high pitched squeal fills the air.
A black shadow moves across the clouds and suddenly ducks beneath them, the Batwing, hurtling towards the New God at amazing speeds. Scott Free looks up and smiles wearily, then vanishes in a flash of light, and Batman throws another batarang, one that causes the New God to stutter and flash and electricity race to through him. He looses his footing, and the jet streaks into him, sending the villain into the rapidly closing boom tube, and to parts unknown.
Scott Free appears next to Batman, and the vigilante takes off the quietly pinging Mother Box and returns it to the New God.
“You are like an Apokoliptian warrior. You do not know how to give up.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Batman nods slowly and smiles.
“Did Mother Box speak to you?”
Batman looks up and smiles. “Yes.” He was happy. For the first time since Dick had flown by his side as Robin, he was happy. Mother Box had alleviated a burden, taken away his pain for brief moments, but that peace could last however he wanted. “She did.” He changes the subject. “What now? What of you?”
“I came to this world looking for my people. My friends. The denizens of Genesis.”
“Genesis?” Bruce’s eyes widen.
“I wish to be reunited with my father… he sent me to Apokolips for reasons known only to him. Will you help me, Bruce?”
“Scott… I will do anything in my power to help you find your people.” Batman looks up to the sky and nods, then frowns. A massive echoing explosion fills the air. But the echoes are not echoes, but the repeating of the same noise. Batman and Mister Miracle’s eyes widen. Scott uttered the creatures’ name, as Batman stood confused.
“Highfather! Parademons…! Apokolips has come to Earth!”
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2006 19:59:24 GMT -5
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT MONTH WHEN THE DC2 LAUNCHES THE CONTINUITY-WIDE MEGA-CROSSOVER EVENT, CRISIS: THE APOKOLIPS IMPERATIVE!
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Post by mockingbird on Jul 29, 2011 11:02:25 GMT -5
To let us know what you think of this issue, please visit the letters page here!
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