18 Chapter 18: The Night of the Hunt (2)

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"How can you destroy a monster without becoming one?"

– Kaneki, 'Tokyo Ghoul'

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"Br-Bruce i-is that, are those d-dead bodies?" Selina said verbally stumbling in fear. She had seen a lot of suffering in the streets and the orphanage but this was the first time she saw someone lying dead like that in their own home.

"Kitty, go to your room," Bruce said with a stern tone after controlling his shock at the unexpected sight of the gruesome scene. He didn't want to let Selina see everything here and ruin her innocence so soon even though he doubted if any child in Gotham ever truly had an innocent childhood.

"No, I wanna watch. I want to find Helena and make sure that she is okay." Selina said with tears in her eyes while holding Bruce's hands, begging him to let her stay here with him.

"Fine. But first, call Alfred to inform him about this and tell him to contact the cops as soon as possible. He should have already dropped Vicki at her home by now and should be on his way here." Bruce ordered her with a tone that meant no nonsense.

"Can't we ask him to go to Helena's home first and try to see if... try to find her? It would be quicker than the cops." Selina said in a frustrated voice.

"No. Alfred is just one man. This is probably the work of either a criminal gang or an experienced serial killer. Sending Alfred there alone would be jeopardizing his life. I doubt he even took his gun with him. So just tell him to call the cops, particularly James Gordon, and tell him that we received the information from an anonymous source about the crime and then order him to come straight home." Bruce instructed.

Normally the excuse of receiving information from an anonymous source doesn't work in front of most cops as they insist on knowing who the anonymous source is but Alfred worked for the Wayne family and that alone would make his words a hundred times more credible and believable than anyone else's. No cop would be stupid enough to try to force Alfred on revealing how he got the information about the crime even before the cops did.

"O-okay," Selina said as she quickly went to the main manor to ring up Alfred from the mansion's landline.

Truthfully Bruce could have done the same from the cave itself since not only did his bat-tool also function as a phone but also Cortana herself could make the call. But Bruce sent away Selina because he didn't want her to see the rest of the bloody scene in Helena's house, he didn't want her to see the dead body of one of her friends since he didn't know if Helena was even alive at this point. But most of all, he didn't want Selina to see what he was gonna do if he found the ones who did this.

"Cortana release the spiders" Bruce instructed with a cold expression.

As soon as he said it, the stomach of one of the bat drones opened slightly and about a dozen tiny crystal-like objects dropped from it which soon began to move and morph into shapes of spiders. They even began to crawl on the walls just like normal spiders would.

[(Image)]

"Generation-one Spider drones released," Cortana followed his order without any question or delay. Even she sounded somewhat cold right now, maybe because she too was angry that one of her newest friends might have been murdered in cold blood along with her family and she wasn't able to do anything to save her.

As soon as she said it, a dozen more live feeds became visible on the screens showing the same room from different angles.

"Spread them all over the mansion, try to find out if anyone is still alive. Also, call the other bat drone inside and release its spiders as well. And station the combat drones outside the mansion, be ready for heavy battle in case anything goes wrong." Bruce said with determination.

He didn't know if Helena or any of her family members was still alive or not. But he swore that he wouldn't allow any criminal to escape alive from this mansion today, no matter what. Criminals who can kill children are the worst type of criminals and one of the very few ones who don't deserve the least bit of mercy.

"Multiple heat and sound signatures detected." Cortana suddenly announced as one of the feeds became slightly enlarged on the screen and two burly figures became visible shooting another smaller figure.

"Okay, that's the last maid. *Sigh* I tell you, these Bertinellis have too much household help. Even Mr. Galante doesn't have these many servants. He should have given us an assault rifle to kill all of them instead of just pistols." The first man said.

"Yeah, I agree. I had to use three rounds of ammunition to kill everyone. We were lucky that Santo was able to convince the Bertinelli slut to open the doors at the back or this hit would have been impossible. I still remember the expression on Franco Bertinelli's face when he learned that he was not just dying but was dying as a cuckold." The other man broke out in laughter which the first man also joined.

"Anybody else?" Bruce asked after hearing out their conversation.

"There are also two more men in another room which seems to be most probably the master bedroom of the mansion where Mr. and Mrs Bertinelli slept. They are currently searching for something in one of their safes.

Everyone else in the mansion is either already dead or in critical condition and cannot be saved in time. The drones still haven't found Helena's body anywhere. However, there is a small mild heat signature under one of the tables in the dining room. It might be a small child or a pet of some kind." Cortana answered him dutifully.

"Send one of the bat drones to the area and check if it is Helena right now," Bruce commanded.

"BD-002 is already on its way to the dining room," Cortana said as another screen became highlighted on the computer where the camera recording the feed seemed to move at rapid speeds through the mansion soon reaching an extremely long old-fashioned table normally seen in old movies about crime families.

As the bat drone wiggled to go under the table, a small silently weeping figure was seen on the screen much to Bruce's relief and increasing anger.

"Switch on the microphone. Helena, can you hear me? If you can hear me, please just nod your head." Bruce whispered after the sign of the microphone activated. He was whispering because he didn't want to take any chances and attract the attention of one of the gang members.

Immediately Helena was surprised and looked around trying to find where the voice of her friend which she easily recognized was coming from. Not finding anyone nearby, she just fearfully nodded her head, hoping that Bruce would be able to see her.

"Good. Now listen to me very carefully Helena. The cops are on their way to save you. The bat-shaped drone near you is the machine through which I am talking to you. It will protect you until help arrives. So just sit back and wait patiently. I'll be here with you the entire time." Bruce said to make her relax.

"Okay," Helena whispered between silent sobs after she noticed the bat drone sitting near her. She was using her hands to forcefully close her own mouth and make sure that she didn't make any sobbing sounds that would attract the gangsters.

After seeing her terrified and sad face, Bruce was angry. No, he was beyond angry. Before this, he still wasn't sure if he wanted to go into the entire saving people and punishing criminals business but now he knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to get rid of the useless filth that dirtied this world, that hurt the truly good and innocent people like Helena. And he would start all that today with the people of this mansion.

He would not only become what Bruce Wayne was meant to become but even more. He would be Vengeance, the purest and most brutal of its kind.

"Cortana, lock targets on all four gang members and then use Spider BYTE on them," Bruce ordered after a slight second of deliberation.

"Are you sure Bruce?" Cortana unexpectedly asked for confirmation this time. She knew the negative effects this single command of her maker could bring on his young mind.

"I said DO IT," Bruce said determined. He was doing this for two reasons. One was out of raw spite and hatred against these criminals for killing innocent people and most of all, little children. But the other primary reason was to protect Helena. The cops still hadn't arrived and he didn't want to bet on the possibility that none of the gang members would find her within that time frame.

"Command confirmed," Cortana replied with a low cast voice.

As soon as she said it, the spider drones nearest to the gang members quickly moved towards them, crawling with absolute silence, making sure that they could not be seen or heard by the targets. They moved like little assassins climbing up on the gang members towards the areas on their bodies which were not covered by any clothes.

As soon as all of them had reached their target areas, small syringes stuck out of their mouths and pierced into the skin of the gang members as they injected a small solution inside them within a millisecond.

The gang members only felt a small slight prick and didn't even react much. They just tried to itch the area where they had been bit, thinking that they were just bitten by a small mosquito but the spiders were long gone by now. They had retreated to safety the moment the solution was injected into their targets' bodies.

[(Image)]

Now, Bruce just waited for the effect. For a few seconds, everything was normal but soon the gang members began sweating. They didn't realize that something was wrong with them and just continued their search and looting thinking everything was going their way. But the truth couldn't be more different.

What they were experiencing while sweating crazily like pigs was a small toxin of Bruce's own design. A very easily made (for him) solution of electrolytes in their bloodstream which right now was affecting their physiologies, dehydrating their entire bodies at a marvelous rate, shriveling their organs, and making their bodies nothing more than just dusty withered remains of their previous selves.

Bruce had made this poison for all beings with humanoid physiologies who survive on water. Once this poison enters their bloodstream, then no matter if it's a human, Atlantean, Amazonian, or any other water-consuming race whose bodies' major parts were composed of water, they will die as a mummy without any chance of survival. Intake of more water to balance the dehydration would just be uselessly prolonging their suffering.

Similarly to its intended effect, the men too tried to search for water to satiate their increasing thirst but three of them died even before they could get close to any source of water while the fourth even after continuously consuming glass after glass of water from the kitchen sink, still died after his body could no longer keep up with the continuous dehydration. And all this happened within just a single minute after injecting the toxin in them.

"I guess Spider BYTE is another huge success. It will be useful for low-key assassinations in the future." Bruce had a cold smile on his lips.

"One of the combat drones seems to have found another one of the gang members near the back door of the mansion. It looks like he is guarding their escape car." Cortana said as the camera view of the shriveled-up dead bodies changed to an image of a man smoking while standing with his back against the door of a black-colored car.

"Lock target on him and use low pulse sonic turret," Bruce commanded.

Under Bruce's orders, a barrel peeked out from one of the combat drones and targeted the smoking man's direction. After a three-second charge, it began to fire a continuous pulse of sonic sound, so strong that it was almost visible to the naked eye.

It was another weapon that Bruce had installed in his combat drones for not only dealing damage to physical objects and humans but also beings that were way more durable than humans but had a superhuman sense of hearing. It could fire pulses of sonic sounds at a wide range of frequencies that could crack crystals, metals, bulletproof glass, and even liquefy people's brains like the unfortunate smoking man who was its first field target.

Within just five seconds of continuous firing, dark red-colored liquid began to leak from the man's ears, eyes, nose, and mouth signifying that whatever limited amount of brain the man had was now slowly leaking out of him like water. Even the glass and mirrors of the car behind him had all cracked under the pulse's devastating effect.

"Cortana, note that the pulse guns need to be further modified. Its effect is too slow. We need to either recalibrate the frequencies to fasten the rate of damage or increase the strength of the pulses to maximize the effect." Bruce said with a neutral expressionless tone.

"Are you okay Bruce?" Cortana asked with worry in her voice.

"Yeah, of course, I am. Why wouldn't I be? I just cleaned up some garbage from the planet and made it a slightly better place than it was before." Bruce said, not changing his emotionless tone.

Truthfully he didn't know what he was feeling. He had watched the deaths of every one of the gang members with utmost focus. He wanted to see what he felt after seeing their deaths, knowing that he was the one who decided their deaths, he was the one who gave the order for them to die, and he was the one who decided if the trigger should be pulled or not.

But he didn't feel anything. A small feeling of guilt had risen up in his stomach but it disappeared as soon as it rose up. In fact, he felt somewhat glad and happy and proud of himself for protecting his friend and 'punishing evil'.

'Maybe that's why the original Batman never killed. Because he knew he would feel the same way I do and that he would never be able to stop killing again.' Bruce wondered to himself.

But he stopped thinking about stupid stuff like that. He had a friend to console right now and by the sound of footsteps, it also seems that Kitty was also coming back.

He would be conducting his research on his feelings and psyche later. For now, it was time to be a good friend. It was his duty, not just as Bruce but as a man. To put the happiness of others close to him before himself.

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