(This was my initial entry into the Fan-Fic tournament organised by @irishlad that sadly died due to many, many factors. Rated MA, owned by DC)
New Gotham, 2033
Batman looked down on broken, bleeding and battered face of a very old man. Batman held him by the collar and dangled him over the edge of One Gotham Center. The man squirmed in the rock hard grip.
“How’s your mother?” he panted, blood burbling on his lips.
Batman’s eyes narrowed, his teeth audibly ground together as his mind went back to the day that Talia al Ghul died...
Acme Chemical Plant, Gotham, 2013
Damian Wayne spun his katana round in his fingers, his Robin cloak bristling in the breeze as he sized up the four opponents. They were his mother’s Man-Bat ninja’s but filled full of Venom and Joker poison.
“Stop hiding behind my mother’s playthings!” yelled Damian as he launched his assault “Face me like a man!”
A full belly laugh echoed through the chamber as the Man-Bat’s and Damian fought. He tried to follow the no killing policy his father had attempted to drill into him, but since Nobody’s death, it was harder and harder to rein it in. The katana sliced open the winged membrane as he ducked and weaved between the quartet, using his size and agility against the hulking drug-infused attackers.
“They were useless when they were simply Man-Bat’s” scoffed Damian as he took out the eye of one and smashed a handful of gas capsules into the mouth of another “What makes you think drugging them will…” Damian stopped as the claw ripped across his chest, tearing away the Kevlar Robin emblem leaving red gashes on his bare flesh.
“Kiiiiii-yaaaa!” Damian drove the katana up into the soft underside of the Man-Bat’s chin and right through the skull. He kicked the convulsing corpse away to deal with the remaining wounded trio. Damian pummelled a Man-Bat about the face with his escrima sticks, weapons he once mocked Dick about, as his foot broke the jaw of another. Damian was like a tornado of pain flipping between his enemies taking them out with an attrition of blows.
“Batman would’ve been here by now!” mocked a hollow voice that echoed through the plant.
“SHUT UP!” Damian jammed an escrima stick into the throat of the broken jawed Man-Bat, wedging it in his trachea. He flung a set of bolas entangling another as he leapt and jump-kicked it in the sternum, shattering the ribcage. Damian landed and glared at the final Man-Bat.
“I am Damian Wayne! Son of the Batman and Talia al Ghul, grandson of demon’s head! Stand down or die!”
The engorged Man-Bat shrieked and took to the air, hovered and zeroed in on the brightly coloured boy.
“TT” said Damian as he took out a batarang and lashed a grapple cord to the end. The Man-Bat power-dived down towards him. Damian ducked, the talons shredding his cape. Damian flung the batarang, looping around the Man-Bat’s feet and quick tied the end to the railing. The Man-Bat came to a spine jolting halt, swung in an arc and crashed into the underside of the elevated platform. Damian brushed himself off and pulled the katana out with a sickening pop.
“Release my mother Joker, and I’ll kill you quickly” yelled Damian as he stormed towards the vat room door and kicked it open. Dangling by a chain noose was Talia al Ghul, his mother.
“MOTHER!” he charged forward to free her when WHAM! A large boot caught him across the stomach sending him flying backwards.
“You really think the Joker is capable of kidnapping the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul?”
Damian wheezed and looked up at David Cain, master assassin who stepped from the shadows.
“It was quite easy to make you think the Joker did all this.” he laughed as he drew a set of wicked knives from his belt “After all that trouble he gave you recently. Plus this location of course.”
“Release my mother!” ordered Damian as he got to his feet.
“I intend to, but not how you’d like little bat” Cain pulled a lever and Talia fell several feet before jerking to a sudden stop. She gasped for air like a landed fish. “You should’ve accepted my offer?”
“To have sex with Cassandra!” yelled Damian hurling a handful of flash-bang rounds into the air “I’m ten, you sicko!”
Damian lashed out at Cain, the elder assassin parrying and commenting “Hapkido! Kung-Fu! Krav Maga! He even taught you Sambo!” Cain grabbed Damian by the arm and flipped him across the room “There’s 127 martial ar…”
Damian kipped up to his feet “Actually 128!” He clicked open his extendable bo staff “The last one’s called Kicken-Yur-Ass!” Damian vaulted off the staff and superman punched Cain right in the mouth taking him by surprise.
“Yours and Cassandra’s child would be the Ultimate Weapon. She the child of Shiva and myself; you the son of Batman and the house of al Ghul” Cain’s knife split open the back of Damian’s hand “Trained by me to be death incarnate!”
Damian threw another impressive series of strikes; all blocked or dodged “I’m TEN! I like teasing Pennyworth and punching the crap out of bad guys! Pennyworth aint here!” Damian pulled out a batarang from his belt and jammed the point through Cain’s foot, pinning him to the floor “Stick around!”
He ran for the chain holding his mother when gunfire rang out. Damian leapt to the side, tucked and rolled out of the way as the bullets pinged around the metal pipes. Cain ripped the batarang out of the wound and reloaded a fresh magazine into his pistol.
“You may be only ten but you fight like a professional” commended Cain.
Damian stepped out of the shadows, scooped up his staff and broke it across the nose of Cain with a sickening crack! “You’re dead old man!”
BLAM!
Damian hit the floor as the bullet whistled over his head “Gotta be quicker than that”
Cain smiled through the curtain of blood on his face “I wasn’t aiming…for you”
Damian turned to see the chain splinter and Talia al Ghul plummeted into the vat of bubbling chemicals with a splash.
“MOTHER!”
New Gotham 2033
“She didn’t survive the Lazarus Pit, Cain” stated Batman hauling the old man so as to be eyeball to eyeball “You killed my mother!”
“Technically, you did!” laughed Cain through his broken old teeth “If you hadn’t of ducked…”
“Poor choice, of last words!” with that Batman launched the aged assassin out into the abyss. He silently watched as he fell to the street, splattered like an overripe melon, then being run over by a refrigeration truck that had no chance of stopping. Batman spat and glared down at the horror scene that took twenty years to finalise.
“Skyhook!”
Batman stood on the building as the wind flapped around his trench coat, waiting until the bat-drone locked on his position and whisked him off. He silently sat inside the drone, his eyes staring at nothing in particular. Finally the drone arrived back at his cave and he exited, ripped off his mask and fell to his knees bawling. Damian Wayne slammed his fists into the cold rock floor and howled like a baby for his mother.
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