Disclaimer: This story, though maybe not in this chapter but in subsequent chapters, will have celebrities in it. I have no knowledge of their sexuality and this is not intended to imply their sexuality. This is all from my own mind. Scary!! People actually get a glimpse into my mind!!!
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Angel and all related characters created by Joss Whedon. Copyright 20th Century Fox.
Batman, and all related characters created by Bob Kane. Copyright DC Comics and Warner Bros.
X-MEN, and all related characters created by Stan Lee. Copyright Marvel Comics and 20th Century Fox.
Star Trek and all related characters created by Gene Roddenberry. Copyright Paramount Studios.
I don't know for sure if I will use all the above elements, but just in case, I have myself covered.
In this story, which has been floating around in my head most of my life, you will find many universes merging, as the above copyrights reveal. I hope you all enjoy this. I appreciate any feedback that you may want to give. This story doesn't deal so much with sex, sex, sex, but more of my feelings that I struggled with and am starting to come to terms with. Part of his background is mine. I do hope that you enjoy it!!!
Any emails you send, please tell me what chapter you are commenting on. Thanks.
jmsotc@yahoo.com
Chapter 39 Wheeling and Dealing
I looked over at the redheaded blue-skinned mutant standing in my living room. She wore nothing, but you couldn't really see any personal areas. She seemed to be covered in scales on certain parts of her body. Interesting.
"So what can I do for you, Miss...?"
"We have a problem."
"Who is 'we'?"
"My associates and I. We have a problem that will require your expertise...Batman."
"How did you know?"
"I saw you enter your apartment through the window. Since I don't see Batman in here or hear any rummaging around, I can easily surmise that you and he are one in the same." I looked at her apprehensive. "Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me."
"Okay. Now you have leverage to blackmail me if you need to. You're good. What's going on?"
"We have a problem. My associate developed a special device and we need you to get it for us."
"Why can't you get it?"
"Because the company that is holding the device has special mutant detection devices. When I morph, it would pick up the activity of my mutant gene. If you, however, go in, as Batman, you might be able to find a way to circumvent the security. We have yet to find it."
"Will this make us even?"
"That's something I will have to discuss with my associates."
"Fine. When do you want me to go?"
"Tomorrow night. I'll drop off the information tomorrow afternoon. Good night."
I watched as the mutant changed back into her cop disguise and left my apartment. For some reason, I was very leery of this new partner. But a deal is a deal and I'm a man of my word.
The following day went well. Hunter seemed rather quiet toward the group. I felt bad for him. He's gone through a lot and didn't seem willing to share what he went through. And I couldn't offer any support or it would expose I'm Batman. That is a risk I could not take, no matter how much I wanted to.
When school was over, I went home to find an envelope sitting on my kitchen table. The mutant obviously told the landlord that she needed to give it to me. Of course, being in the form of a cop, the landlord would not have questioned her.
I sat down and opened the envelope. It contained blueprints to a building indicating the location of the device I needed to get. The following pages described the location I was to take the device and a picture of the device itself. It looked like a giant salad bowl with square holes and a perfectly square chip out of the top.
"What in the world would they want with a freakin' bowl?" I wondered out loud.
Not wanting to rack my brain with questions, I suited up and headed out.
I arrived at the building fairly quickly. It was a computer science building, much like the building in the movie "Terminator 2". Security would be tight. But this would help me prove my ingenuity.
I got to the top of the building and found an access door leading into the building. I pulled out the papers the mutant gave me and found the types of security they have for the building. It was going to be really tricky. I guess, though, with my mutation I wouldn't have a problem. But in order for my mutation to work, I have to be under emotional distress. What could I think about that would make me emotionally distressed?
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a van pulling into the parking lot.
"Kind of late for a delivery," I said aloud.
I watched and out of the van popped Mrs. Freeze, Freeze junior and their cohorts. I decided to watch them to see what they were up to. No good, probably, but at the moment, I was not one to judge them.
Mrs. Freeze pulled out her gun and froze the wall. She motioned to the guys to get their stuff ready. Then, she punched the wall. It shattered at the impact. They entered the building.
"Perhaps I will alert the police to their presence."
I shot a rope into the wall and jumped out, swinging myself into the glass, shattering it. I waited for the alarm to sound, but it didn't. The place she froze must have been the location of the security. The cold must have short-circuited it. No matter. I had a job to do. I wasn't going to bother with her tonight.
I headed right to where the "bowl" was supposed to be. I found the vault that was holding it. There were several desks sitting around the room, perhaps one of them had the pass code to the vault. Desk after desk I searched and could not find a thing that would help me. It was very frustrating. I was getting angry. I felt something stirring inside. My mutation must have been working. I held my hand palm-up to the door and it began to shake. Something was happening, though I'm not sure what it was. It was almost as if my mutation could think for itself as to what I needed done. That helped me, as I didn't need to figure it out.
The door began to creak off the hinges opening just a little bit. I ran over and pulled as hard as I could. My mutation must also have given me strength beyond the norm as the door slowly opened. When it was wide enough for me to fit through, I entered the vault. It was very claustrophobic inside. I don't like enclosed spaces and this was very enclosed. I ran over to the security drawer it was supposed in and opened it finding the bowl.
"Funny. Upside down it looks like a helmet. Maybe that's what it's for."
I grabbed it and took off out the vault. There standing in the doorway of the room was Mrs. Freeze and company.
"You're just a thief, too! Imagine the possibilities! Would you like to join us?"
"No thanks."
"Really? We could own this town."
"I'm nothing like you."
"Well, I am," a new voice said. I turned to see Catwoman standing in the corner. "I never thought anyone would take the image of a bat and dishonor it's image by stealing."
"You wouldn't understand."
"Wouldn't I? I'm a thief. You tried to stop me the other night from stealing something. Are you going to deny that this is the same thing?"
"I'm not doing this for profit." After making the statement I realized how wrong that statement was. I was stealing this for profit...after the fact. I agreed to this in exchange for information. But the information wasn't illegal information. What I was doing was illegal. It was wrong.
Turning, I entered into the vault and put it back. When I turned around I found the door sealed with a wall of ice. Mrs. Freeze must have done it. I pushed on the wall but nothing happened. I tried to keep calm about it, but it was difficult. I was sealed in a room that seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. My claustrophobia was getting to me.
"Stay calm," I told myself. "Stay calm. You can get out of this, Batman. This is the kind of thing you thrive on, getting out of difficult situations."
The door slowly creaked, then flew off it's hinges. Standing in front of me was the man Phoenix referred to a few weeks ago as Magneto. Beside him was the blue mutant and a rather large man who had some body armor that matched the helmet I had nearly stolen.
"Good choice, Mystique," Magnet said. "You were right. He could get us into the vault."
"And now for my helmet," the man said. He walked passed me and opened the drawer. Placing the helmet on his head he turned back. His muscles seemed to strengthen before my eyes.
"What is this?" I asked.
"This is Juggernaut," Mystique replied. "We needed to get him his helmet."
"What for?"
"To reek havoc on those who hate our kind," answered Magneto.
"You mean vengeance."
"Take it however you want to. We would like to thank you for your assistance in getting us inside the building. We were having difficulty but you knocked out the power generator."
That must have been where Mrs. Freeze fired her gun. She knew what was going on. But where was she now?
"I'm not going to let you take the helmet, Magneto."
"I don't think it's an option for you."
Juggernaut grabbed me from behind and picked me up by my throat. The next thing I knew I was flying out of the vault and crashing into a desk.
"My strength is slowly coming back," Juggernaut said.
"Excellent," replied Magneto. "Now finish him and we can be on our way."
Juggernaut approached me with a wicked grin on his face. I pulled myself together and stood up on the desk. He swung his fists down at me. I rolled to the side and off the desk as it splintered under the force of his impact. The helmet must have given him the super strength.
I grabbed a coat rack and brought it up, preparing to use it to strike. Magneto lifted his hand and the rack jerked out of my grasp.
"What the..." I said. Magneto just grinned at me. "Haven't you ever heard of a fair fight?"
"That's fair. No weapons. Hand-to-hand."
"But his strength!"
"He's a mutant. So are you. Deal with it."
I jumped away as Juggernaut took a swing at me.
"Listen to the puny thing whine," Juggernaut said.
"I'm not a thing," I said angrily.
I jumped at him to be met by a fist. My head seemed to explode with pain. I flew back with great force and landed by the window. Frustrated and angry, I stood. The eerie wind began to blow whenever my mutant power kicked in to move things around. I felt my consciousness stretch out and grab everything in the room. A desk lifted up off the ground and flew at Juggernaut. It hit him and knocked him back, but not completely out. The next thing to move was a file cabinet. It flew at Juggernaut but stopped in mid-air. Magneto was doing something. It inched toward me slowly.
"Since you want to play like that, I can play like that, as well," Magneto said.
I looked around for something to send at him. I ended up paying too much time looking around and Juggernaut came up and punched me, knocking me out the window and down to the parking lot. As I came to myself I had enough time to roll out of the way of the filing cabinet as it came crashing down. I got to my feet and turned at the sound of footsteps.
"What are you doing here?" I said.
"We could ask you the same," Phoenix replied. Wolverine and Shadowcat were with her. The way Phoenix looked at me told me I should keep quiet. She must have read my mind as to my reasons for being here.
"Who all is here?" Wolverine asked.
"Magneto, Mystique and ..."
"JUGGERNAUT!" Shadowcat screamed as several objects came flying out the already broken window, including Juggernaut.
Phoenix closed her eyes and put her hands to her head. The falling objects seemed to slow down, then move over and drop safely away from us. All that is except Juggernaut. She managed to keep him in mid-air.
"Wolverine!" she called out.
Wolverine immediately leaped up and landed on Juggernaut's back. His claws extended outward and he jabbed them as hard as he could into the edge of the helmet.
"Get off me!" Juggernaut cried out.
"If you would have been a good little boy and left your helmet alone, we wouldn't be doing this."
"It's not your helmet! It's mine! You have no right to keep it from me!"
Mystique flipped out the window and landed on the pavement. Magneto floated out the window. I turned to Shadowcat.
"I'll get Mystique."
I moved in between her and Phoenix knowing full well her intentions.
"Get out of the way, Bats," she said. "You're out of your league."
"Try me."
Mystique grinned at me. She swung a leg at me and I ducked. Coming around she brought her other leg at me. I brought my arm up and blocked and then punched at her. She grabbed my hand and flipped me over her shoulder. I held fast to her arm and brought her down with me. I wrapped my legs around her getting her in a scissor hold and squeezed.
"I can't breathe!" she called out. "I can't breathe!"
I squeezed until she lost consciousness, knowing I did not kill her but rendered her unconscious. I stood and saw that Juggernaut was now on the ground facing off with Wolverine and Shadowcat and Phoenix had their hands full with Magneto. Analyzing the situation I believed Juggernaut to be the more immediate threat and so I acted.
Raising my arm I shot a bat out of my wrist. I went into the opening that Wolverine's claws made earlier. I grabbed the rope and yanked as hard as I could. It didn't do much but make him mad. Juggernaut grabbed the rope and pulled me into the wall. The impact knocked the wind out of me.
I noticed the wind beginning to blow as if a storm were blowing up.
"Storm!" Shadowcat called out.
I looked up and sure enough Ororo was floating in the sky. Juggernaut looked up at her and screamed out. A lightning bolt shot down and hit his helmet. The electrical shock knocked him unconscious. Wolverine ran toward him to remove the helmet but froze in place. I looked up and saw Magneto with his hand out toward him. I shot a line up around Magneto's hand and jerked hard pulling him out of the sky. He came down with a crash as Wolverine got over to Juggernaut and removed the helmet.
No one noticed Mystique stand up and disappear into the night.
I ran over to the others as Storm landed near them.
"Victory," Shadowcat said.
"No thanks to Batman," Wolverine said looking over at me.
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is I know why you're hear. I saw Mystique at your place last night."
"That doesn't prove anything."
"But you were going to steal the helmet for her," Phoenix chimed in. "I read your mind."
I looked from face to face. They were right. I couldn't deny. Someone read my mind and knew.
"What do you have to say for yourself now, bub?" Wolverine said. "You're not the great hero you proclaim to be."
"I never said I was a hero," I replied anger clearly in my voice. I turned to walk away.
"Where are you going? We're not through talking with you."
I kept going ignoring Wolverine. I had nothing to say to him. I had no defense. I was guilty of making a deal with the devil. Not too many steps later, I found Wolverine grabbing my arm.
"I said we are not done talking with you."
"But I'm done talking to you."
"Listen, bub, you said you wanted us to help you. If you want that help, I suggest you come clean."
"You already have made your verdict, Wolverine. All of you have. I cannot say or do anything to change that, so why frickin' bother." I jerked away from Wolverine. "Now get your paws off me."
Wolverine's claws came out ready to strike. "Just give me an excuse."
"You don't need an excuse. Attack me. I want you to."
"Wolverine!" Storm said.
We both looked over at her. I took the opportunity to run into the night away from the X-MEN, the group I, not too long ago, wanted help from to get control of my mutant powers. Now I'm a collaborator with the enemy. I was reducing myself to their level, to the level of a thief, all because I had a vendetta against bigotry and hatred.
Nothing I could say or do could change what I had done. I couldn't erase it or make it all better. Thankfully they were present to fix my mistake. How many more mistakes will I make in this job? Will anyone be at risk because of me? Did I really have any justification to be Batman? It's not like the comic books. My parents weren't killed before me. I didn't suffer some childhood trauma. I was doing this because this is what I felt led to do. Did that make it right, though? Should I continue being Batman?
To Be Continued...
Hmm, some more stuff for Eric to think about. He's got a lot on his plate right now, lots to think about. What do you think? Email me! I'd love to hear your point of view on this. Does it make Eric bad for keeping his word, even though it turned out to be stealing? If you can't keep your word to an enemy, how could you convince them you are a person of your word? It wouldn't encourage them to change and be more like you because they can't trust you. And if they can't trust you, a good person, how can they trust any other good person?