The Edge of a Blade
Chapter 8
By Draco664
In the cool, dim environment of the Batcave, Tim sparred gently with Cassandra. The pairs' playful fighting was slowly rebuilding Cass' stamina and agility, though she was still far from her best. Tim found he rather enjoyed spending time with the oddly childish young lady, at least for the present, while he could keep up with her.
The pair twisted and flowed over the tatami sparing mats, their battle more like a dance than a sparring match. Gently, slowly, Tim built up the tempo, pushing Cass' fitness to keep pace with the rest of her recovery.
A genteel cough interrupted their fun. They turned to see Bruce, dressed in slacks and a woollen turtle-neck jumper observing their fun.
"Sorry to stop your workout, but MacLeod has just left. Tim, off you go."
Tim sighed, and slipped his mask over his eyes. While having Russell Nash in Wayne Manor made it easy to keep an eye on the powerful immortal, the fact that he seemed to lead a very boring life was getting Tim down. Bruce had insisted on him following the antiques dealer on his nocturnal outings, which had given the teen a wonderful tour of the city's churches and temples.
"But all he does is sit in a church for hours!"
A small frown flittered across Bruce's face, and Tim swallowed. "All right, I'm going, I'm going," he said.
Cass giggled at the sudden reversal. Tim threw her a dark look. Bruce just gave her a wink behind Tim's back.
Cass continued her workout after Robin left. She had been chafing to get back to work, and in her opinion, both Alfred and Bruce had been overly cautious regarding her recovery.
Making up her mind, Cass stopped attacking the poor dummy and made her way over to the safe where her 'Bat-clothes' were kept. Opening the door, she extracted and struggled into the tight-fitting costume, frowning slightly on the realisation that she had put on a couple of pounds while confined to bed. Not that she was too surprised at that; Alfred had insisted on feeding her four or five times a day. It was hard enough to convince the man that she was full from eating the meal in front of her, let alone explaining that she wasn't hungry.
Bruce sat in front of the giant computer screen, already dressed in his own protective gear, except for the cowl which hung down at the back of his neck. Cass had noticed that when he wasn't wearing the mask, Bruce's voice and demeanour were far more friendly and open. Once the dark mask was drawn over his eyes however, he became Batman, his voice becoming deeper, and his personality becoming ruthless.
A sudden incoming signal startled Cass out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see Robin's face on screen. The odd perspective caused by the position of the tiny camera in Robin's watch.
"Batman!" Robin hissed quietly. "MacLeod is moving! The target met him in a church on the south side of town, and they're heading out somewhere!
Bruce nodded and rose quickly. "I'll be there in five minutes. Keep an eye on them. Out."
The cowl was pulled over and put in place. Batman turned, pausing when he saw Cass dressed to go. Pursing his lips in thought, he finally said, "Ok, buy you're on rescue detail. Get any civilians clear."
Despite the sudden sensation of disappointment in her gut, Cass nodded. Even with such a boring task, it would be good to get back into action. She quickly ran towards the Batmobile, and leapt into the cabin. Two seconds later, she turned to see where Batman was.
He wasn't anywhere in sight. Scrambling out of the sleek car, she trotted over to where he had been standing. A flash of movement caught her eye, pulling her attention downwards.
Cass watched with interest as Batman quickly descended deep into the vast, shrouded depths of the Batcave. After an instant of indecision, she made up her mind, and crept along behind, scaling down the craggy walls as silently as a fly. Batman dropped to the bottom level, just above the groundwater circulating at the bottom of the crevice.
She watched in fascination as he opened a massive vault door on the floor, one she hadn't noticed before. Not that her ignorance was a surprise, Cass had never descended so far into the cave. She had no idea that there was anything of interest this far down. The massive vault looked like it wouldn't be out of place protecting the entire contents of Fort Knox. Batman entered the vertical passageway, and closed the door behind him. A series of muffled hydraulic groans and compressed air hisses indicated that a second vault door underneath the first was being opened.
What could be down there? Cass wondered to herself. The security on the Batcave was beyond extensive, bordering on paranoid, yet this lower section was even more heavily fortified, not to mention secret.
Again, the muffled mechanical noises caught her attention, signalling Batman's return. Hastily, she ascended the walkways, climbing back up to the main level. A minute later, Batman appeared, carrying a cloth-wrapped item, a little over four feet long.
"Don't ever follow me down there again," he said sternly.
Cass blushed. Despite her caution, she'd been seen. As chagrined as she was, she knew she shouldn't be surprised. This was Batman, after all.
"What's down there?" she asked, intensely curious.
"Nothing that concerns you, or anyone else for that matter. It is for my eyes alone."
Throughout the frenzied, high-speed drive, Robin updated them twice on MacLeod's movements, directing the pair to a warehouse near the docks. The pair entered one of the massive warehouses, the thin walls and many broken windows allowing Robin a good line of sight to his targets. The Boy Wonder found a vantage point on a nearby building and wrapped his cloak around his body, keeping out the early evening chill.
There was nothing left for him to do but keep an eye on things. He could easily make out the heat signature of the two men when he used the infrared lenses in his mask.
Robin tightened his grasp of his cape, and shivered slightly as the two men below began fighting.
Connor feinted left and stabbed right, only to have Damien follow with morale-sapping ease. Restricted as the Highlander was, fighting in a fencing style which couldn't make use of his katana's curved blade and wicked edge, he knew he was at a significant disadvantage.
Connor caught Damien's descending blade cleanly, and steered it away to the side, opening him up for a counter attack. The evil Immortal knew what was coming however, before Connor even launched his attack. Damien danced aside and resumed his defensive posture with a smugly superior grin.
Again, Damien took the advantage, making Connor react to his moves. His sword arced around and down, over and over, and it was only the Highlander's exceptional skill that kept his own sword from being sliced in two.
Rather than the usual loud ring of steel clashing on steel, the noises the blades made when connecting were softer; more genteel. But there was nothing gentle about the motivations behind the two warriors. Both knew that one of them had to die this night. Both knew that it would likely be the Highlander.
Connor mistimed a parry, and Damien's blade gashed open the Scot's left shoulder. Suppressing a yell, Connor kicked some dust from the floor towards Damien's eyes, before running towards one of the many ladders. With adrenaline masking the pain in his shoulder, Connor hauled himself up onto one of the massive shelves in the warehouse, rolling away from the ladder quickly.
Damien followed casually, deliberately showing that he was in no hurry. Once on the thin platform, he changed his stance. The restrictions on the pair's footwork would work to Connor's favour, something Damien had no intention of allowing.
"So, where is your guardian angel? The big, bad Batman?"
Connor's eyes twitched with annoyance. "Hunting, no doubt."
Damien nodded with a smirk, lazily launching a couple of high attacks, aimed to gain him nothing more than a moment to test his balance on the platform. "Too bad he's not hunting around here."
Batman drew the Batmobile to a skidding halt behind a neighbouring warehouse, and leapt quickly from the car, sliding the covered object into a pocket sewn into the lining of his cape. Without hesitation, he quickly scaled the building and took up a position overlooking the warehouse from where the clash of swords could be heard. Scanning the building where the two Immortals were fighting, he mentally noted the positions of several traps.
As Batgirl reached his side, he threw a batarang across the gulf between the two massive buildings, and swung across with casual skill and ease. The masked teen watched him go, remembering the orders he had given before they had left the Batcave.
With a sigh, Batgirl crouched down on the edge of the roof, and waited.
She was the first to note the arrival of a new car.
Batman climbed in through a broken window near the roof completely silently, only to watch in horror at the scene below. The duellists performed their deadly dance on the shelving in the middle of the building, knocking dust into the air as the structure shook.
Damien battered MacLeod back using a series of high strikes, pushing the Scot right up to a stack of crates. With an expert move that even had Batman blinking with surprise, Damien disarmed him, spun, and drove the stolen katana point-first through the Highlander's chest. MacLeod slumped, his strength obviously leaving him, but the katana had been driven straight through and into the crates behind, pinning the Highlander to them like an Immortal butterfly.
Damien grinned with satisfaction as he stepped back to admire his work. Blood was rapidly staining the Highlander's chest. MacLeod weakly gripped the katana's intricately carved hilt and feebly tried to tug it out, blood bubbling from his mouth with each dying grunt.
Damien nodded to himself. "And so it ends. Goodbye MacLeod. There can be only one." With that he drew back his sword for one final strike.
As he began the swing, a tiny dark flicker in his peripheral vision gave him an instant of warning before a metal object skipped of the side of his head, a second slamming hard into his side, audibly cracking a rib. The evil Immortal stumbled, leaving himself exposed for one hundred and thirty kilograms of enraged Kevlar-covered Bat to crash into him.
The slender man was hurled off the platform like a leaf under a blower, tumbling haphazardly to the concrete floor below.
Making a split-second decision, Batman left his target and stepped in front of MacLeod. He looked over the dying man critically, then gripped the katana hilt with a determined expression. The ancient blade drew free from its human sheath with an ugly, steely hiss.
Renee Montoya had simply been driving home from the cinema when she saw the Batmobile thunder past. She was three days into a well-deserved fortnight vacation, and the last thing she wanted to do was get into a situation where she had to risk her life.
But very few people had seen the Batman in action. It was a chance few ever got even once.
The decision to follow had led her here, and she crept up to the filthy warehouse window just in time to see the Batman pull a sword from the chest of a stricken man.
Renee gasped, clasping her hand to her mouth. Had he just...?
No, he had just pulled the sword out. But if that was the case, then he had interfered with a crime scene.
Renee glanced around hurriedly. With one final glance through the dirty window, she ran up the fire escape steps leading into the manager's office on the second floor of the building. Before she was halfway up the stairs, she had already called for backup on her mobile.
Batman grimaced as MacLeod collapsed bonelessly, without his own blade supporting him. The Scot almost fell from the platform to the floor beneath, something Batman could not allow to happen. Batman stabbed the katana down, pinning the Highlander's overcoat to the wooden shelves, securing the Immortal to the spot. Batman nodded to himself, quite satisfied. when MacLeod awoke, he would easily be able to free himself, but it would keep his body up here and safe, away from the vengeful Damien.
Batman turned and slotted his infrared lenses in place, instantly discerning Damien's heat signature. Without any more wasted time, he ran and leapt into the air, coming to land in a crouch directly behind the evil Immortal.
Without the benefit of heat-sensing optics, Damien had no hope of making out Batman's dark clothes in the dim light of the warehouse. As Batman landed, the red-head twisted and swung his sword in a wide arc at chest height behind him. Batman, whose pointed ears were just centimetres beneath the blade's path, calmly waited for the right instant, surging forward and striking with surgical precision his father would have been proud to display.
The deadly sword clattered on the floor five metres away, and the pair began to fight in earnest.
Renee shouldered the fire escape door open and stumbled into the floor manager's office. Ignoring the room, she raced over to the office door, and wrenched it open. She drew her Glock and took two deep breaths, before stepping out onto the walkway overlooking the warehouse floor, her gun held out and ready in front of her.
The man who had been stabbed was lying on the central shelves, the sword pinning him in place. But what caught her eye was the fight. On the floor beneath both her and the dead man, Batman was calmly, almost sedately, kicking the shit out of some poor bugger.
Anger flooded him. Rage pulsed through his veins. Every move was fuelled by his ire.
Batman used them all like old friends. He had lost himself in his negative emotions in the past, but he had learned to use them productively rather than let them use him.
Once more, Damien was both injured and stunned. This time, he was disarmed, fighting with only what skills he had at unarmed combat.
Not that they were in any way inadequate. The slender man had countered the majority of Batman's attacks, and his unnatural healing ability gave him an unsurpassed advantage, but he was battling arguably the best martial artist in the world.
On his part, Batman let himself go. No more did he have to rein in his instincts to kill. He didn't have to select only non-lethal attacks. After Bane had broken his back, the Lady Shiva had insisted that until he had killed, his training with her was not complete. At the time, he had to use a dangerous deception to convince her he was a killer.
Now, there were no inhibitions. No restrictions. It was almost with relief that Batman threw off his self-imposed limitations and attacked to kill. Damien's jaw shattered under his fist for the second time in a minute. In his heightened awareness, the few counter-attacks Damien made were almost offensively easy to evade.
The man's instinctive defenses were fully intact however. Fighting constantly against experienced opponents for eight hundred years ingrained your reflexes and honed your skills to a razor edge. Without thinking, Damien was able to keep the majority of Batman's attacks at bay.
It was a battle of attrition though. For every bone Damien healed, Batman broke two. Eventually, Batman snapped Damien's left ulna with a savage knifehand, leaving a tiny gap in the Immortal's defenses.
It was with almost savage joy that Batman launched a leopard blow, the very same strike that he fooled the Lady Shiva with.
It mimics the bite of a leopard. The bridge of the nose is driven into the brain. The front of the skull is shattered by each of the five fingers, sending sharp slivers of bone slicing through the frontal lobes. Death is instantaneous.
Damien's temporary corpse fell to the cold concrete floor. Batman fought the urge to tilt his head back and scream with primal victory.
Renee froze as the Batman destroyed his opponent's face. The body collapsed backwards away from the Dark Knight, obviously lifeless.
She swallowed, drew a deep breath and shouted, "FREEZE!"
Oh my God, she thought to herself. I'm going to try and arrest the Batman!
"FREEZE!"
Batman snapped his gaze up, finally noticing Officer Montoya's presence. Ice trickled down his spine. "Don't Move!" he thundered.
The policewoman blinked, not used to having her commands repeated back at her. "You're under arrest. Don't move!" she shouted.
Batman clenched his teeth together and shook his head. "Officer Montoya, you are standing on a trap!"
She stiffened, slowly lowering her gaze. For the first time, she saw the recent modifications to the walkway, her dark eyes widening with fright. Her head snapped back up again, and she looked back at Batman imploringly, completely missing the irony of the fact that she desperately wanted his help, yet still had her sidearm trained on his heart.
With a growl of annoyance, Batman quickly studied the scene, mentally noting points of cover, danger and certain death. Drawing a pair of batarangs from his belt, he leapt back up to the central shelving where he had left MacLeod pinned. With a running leap, he tossed both into the distance, each setting off a tripwire during their flight, fired his grappling hook up, and swung out and around, gaining momentum.
On the end of a batrope, Batman swung around and snatched Renee from her perch just before the landing she had been standing on collapsed down into the dusty depths. Detonations from explosives set in various places rocked the building. The pair swung down and up, finishing on the walkway around the edge of the warehouse, just below the ceiling.
"You killed h-" Montoya started, before Batman covered her with his cape and forced her against a vertical, heavy steel support.
More explosions filled the air above them, and the entire corrugated iron roof gently slid off its supporting structure. Lethal sheets sheered down the outer sides of the warehouse, and would have severely inconvenienced anyone looking in the windows or climbing up the outer wall.
Officer Montoya peeked out from under the heavy cape, looking up at where the ceiling had been. She coughed, and tightened her grip on her pistol. "You're under arrest," she said, sounding almost as nervous as she felt.
"For what?"
She blinked. "You killed that man!"
"That one?" Batman asked lightly, gesturing down towards the floor beneath.
The policewoman glanced down, half expecting a trick, only to nearly drop her gun with surprise. The victim of Batman's assault was slowly rising to his feet, manually straightening his broken limbs. Had she imagined it? Had Batman's strike not killed him? She gave a gasp of shock when she noticed that MacLeod was also up and about.
"But... But he had a sword through him!"
Batman nodded his head. "I know. They can't die. But I have to stop him. Stay here."
Renee nodded fervidly, tightly clutching the steel support that used to hold up the roof. Despite the fact that she was uncomfortable with heights, she didn't want to soar through the air with him again.
Connor slowly stood, sliding his overcoat up the katana's blade, then gripped the hilt and wrenched it from the wood. He looked down at his clothes. They were drenched in his blood.
Ignoring the explosions that were going off all around and above him. Connor jumped down from the central shelving. His sneakers made very little noise as he landed. Once again in the deep shadows of the building, even with light from the city's neon jungle pouring in from above, Connor took a deep breath and sighed, leaning back on the shelving. After being stabbed through the chest, as the world faded around him, Connor had thought he was dead. It was only in the last flicker of consciousness that he saw the Batman attack Damien. Once more, the Batman had saved his life. It was becoming a habit.
Connor mechanically checked his sword, nodding with satisfaction that there were no nicks and scrapes. His fencing style had prevented a great deal of damage from being inflicted. With a soft grunt, Connor pushed away from the shelving and back out into the warehouse proper, hunting a red headed Immortal.
Not that it was difficult to find him. Damien and the Batman had squared off again, only this time, Damien had dried blood all over his face and arms. Connor grinned to himself. The Batman had obviously treated him to a world of discomfort.
With more light, his sword in hand, and ready for his opponent, Damien's defenses were a match for the Batman's attacks. Oddly, Damien was using a similar style to Conner, attacking with jabs and feints. There was no hint of the majestic sweeping strikes that he had used against MacLeod.
The Batman must have done something to force a change on his opponent. The answer came shortly.
Damien tried a more formal cutting attack, which the Batman easily caught by clapping his hands together on the blade. Connor nearly applauded the incredible act of reflex and timing.
But Damien twisted and kicked out at the Batman, now unable to use his hands to defend. The Dark Knight accepted the blow to his ribs, falling back and exhaling to cushion the hit.
Something twanged in the darkness, and a taut steel cable flashed out at neck height. Once more, Connor was amazed at the sheer speed of the Batman's reflexes, since the big man had ducked under the lethal trap before Connor had even realised where the noise had come from.
But with something rigid in the lining of his cape, it got caught instead, pulling him roughly away from Damien. The Batman crashed into another set of shelving, knocking some heavy crates down from above, one landing hard on his shoulder.
Damien drew back for a final strike to the pinned man when Connor barrelled into him, sending the Immortal pair tumbling. Both rolled quickly to their feet and lashed out at the other. Once more, the pair fought.
Connor caught the invincible blade on his katana, trying to cushion the blow so that it didn't damage his sword. With an evil grin, Damien hooked the tip of his sword under the curved edge of the katana, and twisted the ancient sword out of the Highlander's grip. It clattered away a few metres to Connor's right.
Connor responded with one of the first tricks he had ever been taught, snatching a handful of his opponent's clothes, pulling him forward and flattening Damien's nose with his forehead. The red head staggered backwards with tears filling his eyes.
Thank you, Angus, Connor thought to himself, thinking of the gentle giant who forced the Glenfinnin villagers to let him go after he had first awoken as an Immortal. A shout from his left caught his attention.
"MacLeod! Catch!" the Batman shouted, throwing a bundle towards him. Batman kept a grip on one corner of the cloth covering the object, causing it to unravel in the air. When the cloth ran out, a slivery sabre with a mirror finish rolled through the air between the two men.
Connor caught it by the guard, fumbling slightly. The sword was slightly heavier than his katana, with a much wider blade. The bell guard covered his entire hand, and the edge gleamed.
In the second it took the Highlander to grip the sword correctly, Damien was upon him, delivering an overhand blow that would have cut through anything. Instinctively, Connor raised the blade, and both edges crashed together like the crack of doom.
One sword's blade was severely damaged. It wasn't Connor's.
The look of surprise on both combatant's faces was almost identical, but their second expressions couldn't be more different. Damien looked as though he had been fatally wounded, while Connor's wicked grin betrayed his delight at the reversal of Damien's main advantage.
"Heh, heh, heh," Connor laughed in his trademark breathy way. "Time for a little head hunting."
With a guttural roar, Damien slashed at Connor again, only to have his attack easily blocked. Once more, not a single scratch marred the surface of Connor's new weapon.
The pair squared off, and began to battle in earnest.
Without the roof, the warehouse was lit far more effectively from the city lights. Batman spared a handful of seconds to watch the two ancient warriors battle beneath him before trying again to shift the forgotten crates that had his cape trapped.
An unwelcome noise intruded on his task, and Batman almost groaned with irritation. How many more times would a distraction occur?
A police helicopter arrived and hovered over the denuded building, kicking up dust and debris from below. A connection formed in his mind, one that didn't bear thinking about.
"No!" Batman screamed, desperately waving his arms over his head. Beneath him, the two figures slashed at each other with animalistic fervour. "Send the helicopter away!" he shouted towards Renee.
"What?" shouted Officer Montoya, holding her hand cupped behind her ear, her hair and clothes waving around in the violent downdraft of air as she clutched at the exposed steel structure of the building.
Grinding his teeth in frustration, Batman looked down into the now-exposed building. With the roof gone, and dusty bales strewn around on the floor, the wind from the helicopter's rotors was whipping up the extensive deposits of dust from below. Visibility was reduced enough that he was forced simply to following the two silhouettes as they continued their frenzied, lethal dance. From this distance, without the ability to make out individual details, Batman couldn't be absolutely sure which was which.
Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he signalled the pilot of the helicopter using semaphore, though without a bright object in each hand, the attempt was unsuccessful. With a tug, Batman tore part of his cape away, freeing himself from Damien's trap. He turned away from the battle and scrambled up the wall, reaching the lip of the building in seconds.
In a crouch, he scuttled along the building's edge, his exceptional reflexes allowing him to keep his balance even when under assault by artificial high winds. Closing in on Officer Montoya, he again shouted, "Order the helicopter away! It's in danger!"
Renee frowned, still clutching the support beam. "What? Why?"
"Just do it!" Batman all but shrieked, only to stop and turn when he a noise he had been hearing for several minutes simply stopped.
The clash of metal on metal.
Batman snapped his head around and looked straight down into the dust-filled atmosphere. Only one figure remained upright. As Batman desperately examined the blurred figure for details which would identify him, the figure dropped his sword and held his hands out to his sides, as though impaled on a crucifix.
The air suddenly felt heavy. Blue tendrils of Quickening began arcing off the exposed metallic skeleton of the building. Renee gasped and shook as the column she was holding onto grumbled and groaned at the unexpected sensation of potential energy.
Mentally screaming a curse, the Dark Knight whipped his gas-powered grappling hook from his utility belt and fired it, directly at the hovering helicopter. Misjudging the air turbulence slightly, the hook passed beneath the body of the helicopter instead of through the open side doors, but did pass over the metal runners beneath the fuselage.
With a jerk, Batman reversed the mechanism, reeling the hook back so that it latched onto the 'legs' of the vehicle and pulled him up. As the air filled with bursts and bolts of tightly knitted blue lightning, Batman reached the helicopter.
The pilot was swearing loudly, struggling to maintain control of the now useless electronic circuitry. Even this far from the battle, Quickening visibly surged through the interior of the cockpit, shorting out panels and blowing up components.
Ignoring the terrified shouts from the passengers as the craft lurched to the side, Batman heaved himself into the body of the helicopter and lashed out with his last batarang, using the sharp edges to slice through the safety lines securing the two crewmen and one pilot to the hull of the doomed vessel. Somehow managing to keep his footing in the jumble of flaying limbs and rapidly changing centre of gravity, Batman passed his left arm through the shoulder straps of the struggling crewmen's halters, and got a firm grip on the clothes of the pilot. He deliberately waited for three quarters of a second as the helicopter dropped and twisted, then threw himself out the side door.
Renee screamed in agony as the surging trails of blue lightning seared the skin on her hands. As the latest tendril vanished, she slumped, looking desperately around for a way off this ruined building. The Batman had disappeared up to the helicopter for some unknown reason. She glanced up at the craft, hoping to get a glimpse of him, perhaps to let him know she needed help. Again.
To her horror, the blasted blue lightning was sparking and exploding off the police helicopter. As she watched, the craft twisted and swayed, obviously out of control. It tilted and dropped, heading towards the street below in a lethal sideways dive.
A figure leapt through the side door, though with the helicopter nearly ninety degrees on its side, it was probably closer to being the ceiling door.
The amorphous figure rolled gracefully to the top of its parabolic arc, before a line shot from it, anchoring above Renee's head. As the figure swung closer, she recognised the Batman, holding onto three figures, all rigid with fright.
Despite the fact that the shortening line meant that the quartet wouldn't be swinging to the end of the line directly into the ground, they did accelerate quickly into a window beneath Renee. Her fear of the blue lightning gone in her terror for her workmates, she followed the flight path and shrieked with grief as the four crashed through a large glass pane and into the wooden shelving beneath her feet. Containers exploded around them, and her terror turned to tearful relief as she recognised what they had landed in. Gotham's forgotten stockpiles of loosely packed wool bales.
A deep, masculine shout of agony snatched her attention, and the blurred figure in the middle of the destroyed warehouse raised his arms from horizontal to high above his head, and the lightning from all around shot towards him in a rush. In one instant, the figure lit up, and appeared to be fried by the energy coursing into him.
The structure, already weakened by the unnatural phenomenon, crumbled beneath her. All along the wall, the shelves collapsed, sending bags and bales flying. Weevil infested flour bags burst, sending grey powder into the air, further lowering visibility.
Breath was blasted from Renee's lungs as something slammed into her from behind. Strong, slender arms encircled her waist and easily lifted her from her precarious perch. Renee and her rescuer fell in a controlled manner towards the soft wool below, the howl of pain from the blurred figure in the centre of the lightning storm echoing through her ears.
She had hardly landed in the soft wool when a hand like a vice clamped down on her ankle, jerking her into a different direction. "Down!" the Batman shouted, burying both her and her rescuer deep in the wool, before the world went white and filled with almost solid noise.
The explosion ripped through the warehouse, forcing the building's structure out and up. Renee felt herself screaming, but couldn't hear her voice over the noise. Then darkness gathered in her vision, and she descended gratefully into cool blackness.
Jim Gordon drove the squad car towards the glowing building far to quickly for Sergeant Bullock's nerves. The car almost lifted onto two side wheels as it raced in and out of the heavy traffic.
"You know, Commish, better late than never," the fat policeman said, gripping the dashboard with one meaty hand and his seat with the other.
Jim ignored him, desperate to cover the relatively small distance between HQ and the docks in as little time as possible.
The pair arrived ahead of even the second police helicopter sent to the scene, Gordon all but standing on the brakes as the car skidded towards the levelled building.
Sergeant Bullock gingerly exited the car far more sedately than his boss, who was out and running across the debris covered street like a man a third of his age. Bullock focused on where the Commissioner was running, only to start running in that direction himself.
Batman emerged from the flames, his cape nothing but a ragged scrap of material covering his shoulders, carrying Officer Montoya with one arm as though she was an overgrown toddler. Behind him with his other arm, he dragged two other members of the GCPD out of the flaming building. The young woman who often joined him on his nocturnal hunts helped another policeman out of the building, one who was conscious, but had to lean on the slender young woman to walk.
"Are... they...?" Jim asked, pointing at the helicopter and panting heavily.
Batman nodded wearily. "I got the crew out of the helicopter before it crashed, and covered them and Montoya here before the explosion. They're all present and accounted for, but will need medical attention. They'll all live."
Jim slumped in on himself, managing to hold himself up by putting his hands on his knees, relief dissolving his adrenaline-fuelled strength. "Thank you, old friend," he said sincerely. "And thank you too, young lady."
Batman and Batgirl nodded, the former gently lowering Renee to the ground.
"What happened?" the Commissioner panted. "Bomb?"
Batman shook his head. "No, flour dust in the air hit with a lightning equivalent caused the main explosion. The roof was removed earlier by controlled detonations. I have to go back in there, Jim."
That brought the Commissioner up short. "What?" he blurted, as Sergeant Bullock attended to the wounded officers. The building was in flames, the fire beginning to really take hold.
"There's a headless corpse in there, Jim. I need to find out if it's our head-taking murderer."
"What? You know who killed those people?"
Batman nodded. "It's a story I'll share another time. I have to go."