Issue 32: Ninth VI - Welcome To Gotham

Following Olgar's advice, I bowl my hands together and try to smash her head in, yet my fists find only rubble and tiles as her head moves a few centimeters away. Olgar hypes himself into standing up from his position, mostly by roaring like a caged beast and while he does that, Angela shakes off the dent in her jaw and quickly rolls onto all fours.

"Still not dead?" I ask solemnly, wishing that she's on her last leg.

She scoffs, saliva and blood pooling together to spray mist. "You don't know who you're messing with, kid."

"I'm gonna kill you like you're a whistleblower in the Soviet Union." I say before barking in laughter.

Before she knows it, another portal opens up above her back while one appears a meter away and into the ground. I jump into the portal with bent knees and land onto her back with a furious kick, smashing her body against the floor.

I jumped away just in time for her counterattack—an over the shoulder swing of her blade. Her Katana works does not favor her current position as the tip of the blade proves to be harder to wield when the weight of her body and the blade is against her arm. 

She rolls sideways, picking up her blades and positions into a crouch. Although the only visible injury in her body is the butter knife on her shoulder blade, her ragged breathing and irate grunts are telling of our insignificant victories against the assassin.

She crosses both blades, metal sliding against metal that produces fiery sparks that light up even amidst the sinking smoke of the explosion. She rushes forward, quickly crossing the berth between her and me before thrusting her Katana at my chest.

Danger weaves through nerves, and towards my brain while my body moves faster than I can perceive. No, it's not my body that's moving faster. The world is slowing to a crawl again. The only sound I can hear is my breath and that of my heart, which is beating slower than my normal resting rate.

'Calm down. Now's not the time to coo about this. Let's see if this can work again.'

Knowing that she's a trained assassin, and most probably trained or sent by the League of Assassins, I instruct myself not to lose focus as her Katana drives into my chest. The wideness and thickness of the blade does not inhibit the weapon's sheer sharpness as it tears through my chest cavity, lungs, and stomach like a Jaws of Life.

Pain threatens to break my plan into shards, but her Katana does not equal the hours of tribulation I have felt during the ritual. As her blade continues to punch through my body–cutting through my spine and making an exit hole–I open an Optic Leap a centimeter away from my back.

I picture what Jake had told me in that inky dreamscape. I capture the smell of the smoke as I jump onto her back. I memorize the feel of her clothing as I shiv her in the shoulder blade, and graze her hair and neck as I try to smash her head in.

All that culminates in a meter long Optic Leap a centimeter off her back that transports a fifth of her blade and stabs her in the back. The pain causes her to seize up in surprise, which I used to grab a hold of the blade past the short cross-guard and push it deeper into my chest.

A wide, toothy smile appears on my face as I watch the light in her eyes blinking in fear and apprehension. The blade goes deeper and deeper until the hilt is at my chest and a third of the blade is in her stomach.

"Olgar, now!"

The Russian man makes it through as he pushes through the smoke and aims Glock-19 on the side of Angela's face. 

"Welcome to Gotham." He says before unloading all seven bullets that were left before the fight began.

Flesh and blood sprays in my face as Angela's own face becomes a pinhole. The light in her eyes dims as she lets go of both her swords and drops like a puppet cut from her strings. The blade in her stomach is the only thing keeping her from dropping to the ground as her weight tilts my part of the sword.

"Ha! King Kong does not have–Oh, shit." Olgar interrupts his celebration when notices me being lifted off the ground by the blade.

"J-Just pull it out. I can r-regenerate." I whisper, eyes getting blurry as blood gushes out of my holes like a fountain.

Without so much as a hint of hesitation, he pulls the Katana out of me in one pull as I sever the connection to the portals. I fall down to my knees, eyes and fist clenching in pain as I feel thousands, if not millions, of ant-like creatures scouring every wound and injury in my body. It feels itchy, but not the rash kind, more like the compulsion to scratch the living shit off my skin. A different kind of pain, one that bears down on my psyche. Perhaps it's the gravity of my injuries that makes this regeneration particularly nasty.

"You are fine. Strong man, you are." Olgar pats me on the back, recoiling a bit when a blood spurts out of the healing hole. "Take five. I'll handle the goons."

Olgar walks away, leaving me–a nine-year-old kid who has his guts and entrails nearly touching the floor–alone. Still, I take the time to crawl towards Angela and rifle through her body. She may have something stored in her person, a paper or a message. Perhaps that will tell why they are attacking the manor.

Sure enough, I find nothing of worth in her clothing, but I do find a small locket clinging behind her waist sash. In it is a small rolled-up paper with a single sentence written in thick ink:

Your name is Angela Jung.

"Well, thank you for the information." I mutter, inwardly face-palming myself for thinking that an assassin of her caliber would carry something pertinent. "At least I know you aren't one of Ra's daughters or relatives or something."

Noticing the screams becoming lighter and being buried by the heavy fighting, I stand up on my shaky legs. With the composure of a lion in a human body, I take out the butter knife in Angela's back before limping towards the exit.

"Now where the fuck is Martian Manhunter?"

•••

*Bruce Wayne (POV)*

In the event of my death, a trust will be created for Richard Grayson–nicknamed, Dick–to be opened on his 18th birthday. In that trust is the deed to a dozen estates all throughout the continental United States, small business holdings in Los Angeles and New York, and the deed to Wayne Manor. Of course, stocks to the various companies I have invested in are included, as well as my majority stake in Wayne Enterprises.

Temporarily, however, Alfred Pennyworth–manservant of the Wayne family for the last twenty years and my most beloved father figure–will be holding the deeds to the manor while Luscious Fox will be acting CEO and COO of the company. Granted, of course, that they live long enough for Richard's 18th birthday. If not, then I fear that Gotham may as well be ruled by the fists of criminality.

One might think I am being facetious and, quite possibly, nihilistic, but given the situation at hand, I do suppose I have every right to be so.

Shiva drop kicks me in the chest, having deftly used the chandelier as a Trapeze. My body goes flying, tumbling down the hall in a manner befitting of Bruce Wayne. Still, the intricacies of my alter egos pale in comparison to the wide gash on my back, further exacerbated by the beating Shiva has dealt to me in the past five minutes.

Air escapes my lungs, pain is no longer an unfamiliar concept to my body, which helps me stabilize my yet-not-destroyed internal organs. If not for the decades of physical conditioning, my legs would have been unable to move after Shiva's ambush.

"You are a lucky man, Bruce Wayne." She clicks her tongue in annoyance.

"Really?" I question while pushing myself off of the ground with a running start, only to stumble and nearly fall again. "I don't feel so lucky."

"If not for my current allegiance to the League, then you would be in six pieces by now." She says, meandering towards the stairs to retrieve her weapons. "Tell me, is this what the Bat of Gotham is worth? Are you truly this weak?"

"Not usually. I've had a few drinks, you know?" I smirk at her before gently removing my torn-up blazer. The response was unbecoming of me to be sure and had little tactical advantage, but on the off-chance that a Gothamite is near or can hear our conversation, it's best to continue the pretense that I'm still the playboy billionaire—albeit one that can take on an assassin for minutes on end.

She matches the smile on my face and scoffs, "Do you want some more beating? You are no match for my martial arts. Frankly, your skills are beyond sub-par, which makes me wonder if the old man in the mountain is losing his head."

I throw the blazer in front of her, flopping in between us unceremoniously. "He won't like you questioning his authority."

She snaps her arms and rushes forward, opting to play with me without a weapon. Her legs whistles through the air like a whip as it swings upward, predictably blocked by my left arm. Though not without further pain rousing within my forearm. She doesn't let up as her claw-like hand wind towards my face yet, like her leg, is caught by my right arm. Her free hand makes a quick strike to my chest, releasing air in my lungs, yet her other arm is still within my grips.

Without waiting for another attack, I begin countering on my own. I pull her arm in, head smashing against her nose and breaking it with a satisfying crack. While the headbutt disorients her, I implement what Koroshi Sensei taught me.

The art of empty-handed fighting: Vital Points.

With only two fingers, I stab her in the spot just below her chin–not too deep, merely an inch or two–which temporarily closes up her throat. The sudden inability to breathe further increases the duration of her disorientation.

I strike her chest bone, in between her chests and five inches to the left of the heart. A difficult point to paralyze to yet an easy one for my master, but then again, my skills are subpar. The point creates a crease in her heart, causing it to palpitate and beat in a manner which is seen as erratic.

She loses stable footing, so I let go of her hand before winding my right arm and striking the side of her torso. A well-placed kidney shot will not incapacitate her, but it will jolt her senses. Although if she's as good as I know her to be, that hit will reset the functions of all the vital points. It does, however, give me one good thing–Her pain receptors are now at their maximum receptiveness.

My fists rears back and find another purchase at her face as blood and a single tooth sprays downwards. I grab hold of the side of her face and send fists after fist, allowing myself to regain my martial confidence as I descend into a tableau of roadhouse fistfight.

By the seventh punch–her face bulging from injury and bruises–she takes back control of the fight by chopping my elbow joint and my throat. As my throat closes up, she steps back and spins before smashing the soles of her foot at my chest in a roundhouse kick.

I had forgotten that I, too, have my pain receptors up to the max, but am quick to be reminded when my body crashes against the walls of the hall. The ridges on the wall press against the deepest part of the gash, my spine vibrating with the overwhelming pressure of wood and concrete.

I fall to my knees, no longer being able to afford the cost of the battle.

Shiva kneels down and draws near my ear before whispering, "Shall I take your arm as a trophy over my victory?"

"I don't think so!" A familiar yell interrupts her gloating, one that I had hoped to have enough sensibilities to run away in the face of immediate danger.

'I guess there are some things that I can't take into account.'

I would laugh at my thoughts If I'm able to, but breathing is the first and last priority of mine. Second only to seeing Dick jumping onto the chandelier and hitting Shiva in the chest with a drop kick.

Still wearing his crimson red suit that Alfred had bought him on the day of his first birthday with us, Dick rolls away from Shiva's follow up attack with deft expertise. A yellow makeshift mask, cut from a table cloth somewhere, covers his entire face with three holes for his eye and ears, sways along as his natural talent quickly proves to be an effective evasive tactic against Shiva's straightforward offensive nature.

That wouldn't last, however, as sooner or later, Shiva would be dealing him a heavy blow. And I can't let that happen.

But before I can even move from the position I had allowed myself into, footsteps echo behind me–louder than the guns and grunts of the bodyguards fighting against the League's assassins.

"Oi! Oriental bitch!" A thick Belarussian accent reverberates across the hall and so does the clicking of a gun as Olgar, Edmund's bodyguard, aims a sub-machine gun at Shiva. "I'm going to give you and your people three seconds to choose to leave voluntarily or be taken out in a body bag."

Shiva scoffs before she tilts her head in contemplation. "We'll be leaving."

"Kid, get the fuck back here." Olgar orders, staying a few dozen feet away from Shiva.

A logical decision given that she could slice the gun apart in a moment and leave him for death in the next. Dick follows the bodyguard's order as Shiva chuckles at the sight of my slowly leaking body.

"I'll be seeing you, Bruce Wayne." With that, she drops a few smoke bombs which hides her presence from us.

I try to stand up, grateful for the assistance Olgar has given me and Richard. Yet my knees buckle not only at the pain, but from the sheer exhaustion of the fight. I'm now running on fumes and yet I need to move.

"Olgar. Where's the diplomat?" I ask, picking up my blaze and tying its fabric against the largest of my wounds.

"Hedge maze." He answers before he trudges towards the main exit, hurrying along as if realizing why I had asked in the first place.

"Wait! Let me come–"

"No." I shout, extending my hand to stop him. "The assassins are gone now that the diplomat isn't here. Help the survivors and don't lose your mask. Understood?"

I don't wait for his answer as I follow Olgar, removing ourselves from the manor to see the utter chaos the League has assaulted the estate. If not for the presence of scant police officers, then the stampede of surviving press officials and surviving elite would have created more deaths than necessary.

The fire caused by the explosion has stopped, but the lingering smoke still echoes within the smoldering walls of the manor. More so are the few limbs and entrails that carpeted the floor alongside the debris of wood and rock.

"Do you need a gun?" Olgar asks me as he converges with a crew of bodyguards.

"No." I glower, hands clenching into a fist. "I have a suit."