The Surfer has arrived.
Commence the dogpiling.
Commence the dogpiling.
@Master Bruce@Byrd Man[@Morden Man Any of you currently about?
Question pertaining to next post :P
Hoping to get this arc finished this weekend, because I'm simultaneously trying to move house.
Heading back to the ground and setting the drone down, I tell Batman what I've found.
"Otisburg," I say. "Stagg Enterprises has a server farm there, looks like it's mostly automated, completely empty at this time of night. The building has a large transmitter tower on top, and I'm seeing pretty large spikes of electricity being diverted from the city's power grid to feed into a single room on one of the building's sub-levels. Thick lead shields around the room itself, so I can't see if the Toyman's actually there. But I'd bet good money that's where we'll find him."
That steel-bending determination in Lois's eyes must have rubbed off on me with that kiss. Now, suddenly, getting myself airborne isn't a struggle at all. I take to the sky, and then turn back to the vigilante in black.
"Are you coming, or what?"
"I....I wasn't...." I start to sputter. "Livewire, she......my mind, it's not.....I'm not......oh, God......I'm sorry....."
Earlier today, I'd been talking with her about the potential run-in with the Batman. I'd been the one willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, to think maybe there was more to him than what the media had made him out to be. Now here I am, proclaiming judgments and ready to cave his skull in.
Maybe Lois was right. 'Sometimes a wild animal is just a wild animal.' But maybe Batman isn't the animal here.
"Easy there, Big Guy," she says, taking a few tentative steps closer to me. "It's gonna be all right. Maybe you weren't yourself for a moment there. But you are now, right? You're gonna get a hold of yourself, and you're gonna make this right.....right?"
".....right...." I mutter.
"And you," she says, turning to the prone form of Batman, "First and foremost.....thanks. Dr. Irons and I would be dead if it weren't for you. Secondly, I'm guessing you've got a bunker or a headquarters or somewhere that we can take Dr. Irons where the Toyman can't reach him. And thirdly, while we're there, I'm also going to assume you don't go to a public hospital to patch yourself up, and I'll be honest, unless there are two of you all of a sudden, I'm a little worried I might have a concussion. Think it'd be possible for you and my man to stop hosing down the street with testosterone long enough for us to take five?"
"I don't know how you've gotten wrapped up in the Toyman's plot," I say, lunging towards him and giving him a shove that sends him sprawling back. "And right now, I don't really give a damn. I've let you go unchecked for too long, let you snap limbs, put police officers in the hospital, attempt to assassinate a district attorney."
I rush him again, grabbing him by the front of his costume, clenching the bat-symbol in my fist and feeling it tear free. The part of me that's seeing red right now wants to really unload on this lunatic, show him the same kind of brutality he's inflicted upon this city. Another part of me is holding my fist back, pleading that maybe there's more to this than it seems, that I'm missing something.
I won't hurt him, if I can avoid it. But I will stop him, here and now.
"You've turned the people of this city into a cowardly, superstitious lot," I say, hoisting him up off the ground, "convinced them that you're a monster, a bogeyman, something to be feared. But I'm not afraid of you, Batman. I'm not going to fall for your tricks, or buy into your illusions. You're not some creature of the night. You're a sick man who needs help before he hurts anyone else."
With that, I toss him up and back, not with the intent to do damage, but to get the message across that he's not going to win this.
"I'm only going to tell you once," I tell him. "Stand down, or I put you down."