Batman
landed in a cape flurry at the main entrance of the bank. He figured that if
they expected him to either come in from above or from the closet, he might be
able to surprise them by just waltzing in through the front.
He
flickered the lights on inside once again. Using his detective vision, he could
see that the men weren’t rushing to form up again. Instead, one of them broke
off from his established pattern and ran to the maintenance closet to
investigate. The rest of them kept patrolling the area.
Once
the criminal arrived in the closet, he rushed over to the circuit breaker,
looking to see if something had happened to it.
Batman
shut down his connection to the disk attached to the power grid, then placed
himself right in front of the door. He watched, analyzing the heat signature in
the closet for the proper moment. Shortly thereafter, the man reached out for
the machine, perhaps having seen the disc and making an attempt to remove it.
Bruce
detonated the device, blowing it up in an electrical burst.
He
watched the intruder go rigid as he was zapped by a few hundred volts. When the
electricity subsided, he fell over, knocked unconscious by the blast. At the
same moment, the circuit box- overloaded by the current- fell apart, turning
out the lights inside the bank. The backup generator activated, running
auxiliary power to the emergency lights inside. Cries of alarm sounded out from
within the bank, the first noises they had made since Bruce had arrived.
Batman
deactivated his detective vision and kicked in the large wooden doors.
As
he had predicted, the men inside seemed completely surprised by his loud
appearance. They tried to adjust, many of them turning around in shock, but
only a few were actually in their practiced formation. Some had probably
assumed that the lights had been flickering due to power failures.
Batman
fired his grapnel gun up to the skylight. The hook shattered the glass, but
caught within the frame. As the rope tightened, he tossed a smoke pellet before
himself and jumped, allowing the rope to pull him up a few feet. The criminals
charged for the smoke, but Batman swung over their heads on his own tether.
Near
the end of his momentum, he released the hook from the skylight and continued
forward, landing right on top of the man running toward the vault. He fell with
a shout, but his cries cut off once his head banged against the floor, putting
him out of the fight.
The
possible leader of this band was running toward the vault as well, coming from
Batman’s left. With one hand, he gripped the grapnel gun and pointed it toward
the ceiling. With the other, he leveled the Batclaw at his running foe.
Both
devices fired at once, with the hook of the grapnel wrapping around a support
beam near one of the chandeliers and the head of the Batclaw grasping the man’s
leg. He transferred the line shot from the grapnel to the rope leading to the
criminal, the ends snapping together by a magnetic clasp.
The
criminal continued his charge, diving in a desperate attempt to grasp his cape
before he was abruptly ripped up toward the roof. He flailed, swinging the rope
back and forth as he rose feet-first about a meter or two above the ground. He
stopped there, his body jerking to a halt.
Loading
a fresh line in his Batclaw, Batman fired up to the chandelier nearest to the
slowly-dissipating smokescreen by the front entrance. After a good tug, the
structure collapsed from its near forty-foot height, dropping all the way to
the floor. It crashed with a pronounced clang.
Several
men screamed in pain from within the smoke. The flashlights, dimmed by the
refractory smoke, shook all around the smoke, more than a few of them spinning
around the floor. With a few extra seconds of time before the criminals began
attacking him again, Bruce reloaded his grapnel gun with a fresh hook and
readied a trio of Batarangs in his off hand.
The
smoke cleared from the desk, allowing the cluster there to reaffirm where the
vault was. They ran to him, not all of them realizing that he stood between
them and their goal.
Eighteen guys, no guns, and a base
to defend, Bruce
thought. Simple enough. Just stay on
target.
The
first to fall ran right for the vault and never knew Batman was there. Bruce
raised his arm and swung it forward in a straight lariat, causing him to slip
and kick up as if he had run head-first into a metal bar.
He
spun around, tossing the three Batarangs in an outward motion into the charging
crowd. At least one of them found flesh, though the throw had been meant to
stall the ones in front more than actually hit them. Luckily, the closest to
him flinched backward, causing two of his fellows to crash into him from both
sides, sending all three of them stumbling in front of him.
One
was low to the ground, keeping himself from falling by holding himself up on
his feet with hands against the floor. As he tried to rise, Batman jammed his
knee upward into his face. The blow nearly brought him to a standing position,
but he immediately toppled over on his front after that.
The
other two who had stumbled regained their footing and were joined by a dozen
more men, arranging themselves in a shrinking half-circle around him and the
vault. One man in the center tested forward in a feint, trying to give those at
the edges cover to get to the handle wheel.
Bruce
fired his Batclaw at one man near the outer edge to his right, pulling someone
to within a foot before him in an instant. Slinging his right arm under his
target’s chin and around his head, the vigilante jumped, going nearly horizontal
in midair as his feet found two men’s faces. The motion had him falling to the
floor behind the man whose neck was caught between his forearm and bicep. Just
as Bruce’s knee hit the tiled floor, he pulled hard, forcing the man into a
spiraling backflip and an inevitable collision with one of his fellows.
Another
man, coming from the other edge of the half-circle, tried to attack Batman
while he was floored. As he raised his foot to stomp down, Bruce pushed back
onto his own shoulders and nipped up, gaining enough height from his jump that
he could bring connect both fists in a downward strike to the attacker’s dome.
Stunned, he wobbled in place, nearly buckling one leg before quickly pulling
back to his base. He seemed to have no control of his arms.
So
Batman grabbed both of them and swung him around in a gaining arc, releasing
him in the direction of a man trying to rush for the vault door. They both hit
the wall from Bruce’s perverted hammer throw. Then, knowing without having to
look, he grabbed a Batarang from his belt and tossed it to the other end of the
half-circle. A man who had been trying to sneak through Batman’s defense got
hit by one of the blunted portions of the projectile, knocking him back a few
paces but not causing any real damage.
A
bunch of men suddenly broke ranks and fled from the fight, rushing toward the
front exit, leaving only five conscious men to fight him. Bruce allowed them to
run; he had a video recording of all of their faces, and their locations could
be tracked down later. He had to deal with these five first so that none of
them could access the vault…
Bruce
spun on his heels, noticing the man who had been flung into the wall trying to
crawl toward the vault handle wheel. His leg looked severely disjointed at the
knee, but he was still trying to fight. Make that six, then.
One
of them tried to strike at Batman from behind. He ducked a punch meant for his
head, coming up behind the man. He swung around for a return stroke with his
elbow. Bruce ducked this attempt too, countering with a spinning backfist to
the man’s gut. He grunted in pain, backing up a step. He tried to bring his
knee up into Batman’s face as Batman himself had done to one of his fellows.
Batman
grabbed his knee and ankle before it could make contact with his head, then
yanked both up into the air. The rest of his body soon followed, allowing Bruce
to grab him with both hands and slam him violently into the ground. He went
limp, dazed.
The
next man to try his luck against the Batman led with his flashlight, one of the
few men to still hold one. He swung it from the side, trying to catch Batman in
the ribs. Bruce blocked it with his gauntleted arm, then used his free hand to
grasp the attacker by the throat. As a second man came up beside Bruce to flank
him, he grabbed this man by the throat as well, lifting both of them into the
air beside one another. They looked at him desperately, trying to reach for his
face and scratching at his arms.
A
third man came up between the two choking criminals, kicking at Batman’s legs.
With both arms engaged and carrying some extra weight, Bruce couldn’t avoid the
attack. His footing fell apart, Batman going down to one knee and returning the
two he had choked to their feet. Though he still had hands around their necks,
he had lost the leverage. They ignored his hands and all three began clubbing
him in the back of the head, neck, and shoulders.
Bruce
gritted his teeth, removing his hands and covering up his head. That had been
embarrassing. This was why he still used armor.
He
caught a split-second between blows and shot up to his feet. The two who had
been choked before started; they thought that he had been close to defeat.
They
couldn’t be more wrong.
Batman
clocked the one in the middle with a fist to the chest, then quickly grabbed
the others by their heads and banged them together. Both fell to the ground
without a word. Bruce then turned around, seeing the man he had slammed before
trying to sit up. He stepped forward and punted him in the cheek, spraying
blood and a few teeth across the tile floor. He slumped backward into
unconsciousness.
He
spotted the one-legged criminal crawling toward the vault door. He was too far
away from the handle to be a threat yet.
Instead,
Bruce shifted his focus to the man who had received a blow to the chest. He was
in the process of finding his feet again, taking a few steps back to join a
gathering mob of men…
He
frowned. Those men who had abandoned the half-circle before had not been
fleeing the bank after all. In fact, they had gone to close the front exit. But
if they hadn’t tried to escape, why had they run? They didn’t appear to be
carrying any weapons, except for one person still holding a flashlight.
That
person raised his flashlight beam on him, trying to shine it in Bruce’s eyes.
His cape fluttered as he spun around and threw a Batarang at the light source.
The bulb broke inside of the stick, and the impact caused him to drop the
flashlight. It clattered against the floor twice as the light dimmed, spilling some
strange crystal out of the hole made at the top.
Doesn’t look like that belongs
there, Bruce
thought. Some sort of flashlight modifier? Or were they actually robbing the
bank, but only taking the jewels from certain deposit boxes?
A
pair of men rushed forward, the rest of them crowding around each other from
behind. Bruce counted fourteen men, including the man with the broken leg.
Several of the men trying to distract him from the vault had minor injuries
themselves from the fallen chandelier; one of the two men leading the charge
had some blood running down his chin from his nose.
The
two men split off in opposite directions, getting on either side of Batman.
Curiously, the rest of the men remained behind, hanging around in a solid
formation that appeared to protect someone sitting in the center.
They’re hiding something, Bruce observed. With a quick tap on
his gauntlet, he confirmed that none of them were carrying any firearms, but
someone in the center appeared to be carrying something in both of his hands.
It had the size of a soccer ball, but he couldn’t identify it through all of
the bodies shielding it from his unaided eye.
After
turning off his detective vision, Bruce entered into his combat stance to
defend against hostiles from both sides. The two men seemed content to wait for
his strike first.
Fine
with him.
He
pounced onto the man to his left, embracing him with arms locked around him.
The man struggled against his armor but could not free himself. As the other
attacked, Bruce slid down and pulled the captive rider over his head, throwing
him into his friend. The two men’s skulls banged together, Bruce releasing his
hold as he felt the body go limp. From underneath the newly unconscious
criminal, the second attacker groaned, trying to remove himself from his
position beneath non-moving body until Batman threw himself into a low knee to
the face.
Bone
crunched in the man’s nose as he fell back to join the man lying prone atop his
body in a slumber. The pad covering Bruce’s knee had a few extra red spots on
it after that.
Twelve
men left.
Two
more stepped forward to do the same as the previous two. Bruce noted their
rather practical group mentality. These men were readily willing to wholly
sacrifice themselves just to ensure that he was distracted for a few precious
seconds. Such utilitarianism was rare in bank robbers.
Whatever
they had up their collective sleeves, Bruce wasn’t inclined to allow them to
try anything. As the two men approached him, he grabbed another smoke pellet
from his belt and hurled it at the ground before him. Men coughed, but they
formed no coherent words.
Batman
turned around and ran toward the still awake robber near the vault. He was just
a few feet away from the edge of the steel door. Another ten seconds, and he
would have made it. He was reaching out for the hinges with both hands.
Batman
slid like a baserunner, cracking him with both feet and trapping his head
between the Dark Knight’s boots and the concrete wall. His head banged off of
the stone surface, then dipped down and cracked against the floor.
Eleven
men left.
As
the smoke continued to billow, Bruce pulled out his grapnel gun. From his
seated position, he fired the gun up to the manager’s office window,
conveniently directly across from him. The hook disappeared into the smoke for
a moment until it came out on the other side and smashed through the window.
The
grapnel gun began pulling him toward the smoke. Bruce extended his legs and
allowed the gun to lift him a few feet off of the ground.
He
cut a swath right through the middle of the group, kicking six people as he
passed by, all blows right to the head. Out the other end of the smoke, he
continued his ascent until he was close to the height of the second floor.
He
detached the hook, ending his upward progress but not his forward momentum. He
hit the wall just below the window, quickly activating his detective vision and
rebounding off the wall and back toward the smoke.
Batman
scanned for any sign of the person holding the “soccer ball” in case he had not
been among those who had been hit by the swinging kick. He saw the object on
the ground inside of the smokescreen, and none of the others were able to find
it. The Dark Knight flexed his cape to form his gliding apparatus, floating
down inside. As he came close to hitting another criminal, he disengaged his
cape, folded his arms, and somersaulted forward. As a result, he struck the man
in the head with a flipping axe kick and landed on his feet.
Four
men left.
The
smoke began to clear, allowing one man to see him and attack. He yelled,
throwing a right hook at the vigilante’s head. Bruce backstepped and swatted
the strike aside, then avoided a second punch from the man’s other arm.
He
rolled underneath another strike, standing up with his Batclaw in hand. He
fired at the back of a man running for the vault, then pulled him down to the
ground. With a forward slide, he wound up beside the supine robber, then
delivered an inverted vertical elbow strike to his jaw.
Three
men left.
The
man who Bruce had struck in the chest earlier dove for him, landing on top of
Batman as he turned over onto his front. He kept atop of the vigilante’s back,
trying to pin him down as his two remaining allies made a final, desperate
attempt to reach the vault.
Batman
struggled, trying to roll away or take a Batarang out from his belt, but his
hands were stuck under his own chest. Straining, he inched his left forefinger
over to his right gauntlet, trying to locate the button he needed.
One
of the men got his hand on the handle wheel.
Batman
hit the button. The blades on his gauntlet ejected, jumping from his arm and
embedding themselves in his opponent’s hip.
He
whimpered, curling up in pain, giving Bruce the opportunity to catapult the man
over toward the vault door. He landed on his back right in front of the
criminal with his hand on the wheel. He started, shocked by the sudden crash
beside him.
Batman
dashed over to him and jumped, landing with both feet on top of the floored
attacker’s chest- again- and using him as a platform to jump up again and
dropkick the closest robber. He flew away from the handle wheel and knocked
over the other man close to the steel door. Bruce landed with one last elbow
drop to the chest of his former platform.
He
groaned, nestling his cracked ribs. Batman left him to his misery, fully
expecting him to pass out in a few seconds.
Two
men left.
He
walked calmly over to the two men trying to stand up. To their credit, they
didn’t at all look frightened. In fact, they appeared to be as stoic as he
normally was, with a tinge of anger lacing their jawlines.
One
lunged in a tackle attempt, the other reaching for the handle wheel again past
him. Batman sidestepped the lunge and cradled the man’s head with both arms,
flipping him forward and onto his rear. In one motion, he spun around and
kicked him in the side of the head, hitting the other man in the knee on the
follow through.
One
tripped, the other fell unconscious. The Dark Knight stepped over to the vault,
grabbing the final man by the back of his collar, dragging him away from the
handle. This one tried to spring to his feet and swipe at him. Bruce dodged the
backhand, ducking under his arm. Straightening out, Bruce grabbed him by the
face, clasping tight. Ignoring the screams vibrating against his palm, Bruce
lifted him up off of the ground before smashing the back of his head into the
ground.
All
hostiles neutralized.