(Read the Authors Notes, following the story for an important notice)
Gotham City
Officer Rene Montoya quietly slid along the side of a large warehouse,
her police issue in her right hand, preceding her by a few inches.
Raising her sidearm over her head she prepared to step around the
corner.
"Montoya!" a slightly muffled voice yelled from behind her. Slightly
startled, she spun around quickly to face the voice, accidentally
firing off her gun into the air. The slug flew up and embedded itself
in a jutting ledge above her, letting out a sound that echoed through
the entire industrial park.
"Bullock!" Montoya yelled back at the trench coat wearing detective.
"Are you goddamned nuts?" she said with a significantly lower voice.
Bullock looked shocked for a moment then furrowed his brow and stuck
out a pudgy finger in her direction. "Who said you could first?" he
blurted. "This is my operation, you do things by my book."
Montoya slightly shook her head and looked around, "I don't care," she
said. "Lets just hope that half the city didn't hear that."
"Don't count on it honey," a strained voice said from behind Bullock.
The two cops turned to face the voice and were greeted by three very
well built men in black trench coats and carrying Tommy guns. "Drop
the piece," the man spat.
Montoya released her grip on her sidearm and let it fall to the ground
with a thud. As soon as the sound reached her ear, another man came
from the shadows and grabbed her, pulling her arms around her back.
"You too, mammoth," the original man said to Bullock.
With a angry puff, Bullock reached into his coat slowly, pulled out
his revolver and dropped it to the ground. Reluctantly, Bullock rose
his hands into the air as two men came to his sides and began ushering
him and Montoya around the building.
"Da' boss wants to meet his guests," the man said, with seemingly
ominous tone.
*************************************************
[Open to a shot of the moon, pan downwards to the skyline of Gotham.
A single low note from a Saxophone plays in the background, sometimes
changing slightly with the speech.]
BATMAN: Gotham City. A city in trouble. A city infected with the
disease of crime. Someone has to clense the city, who else
could do it, it would have to be me.
[A shadowy figure swings on a rope into the camera, blanketing it in
darkness. Fade to the same moon with a chunk taken out by GENOM
tower]
SYLIA: MegaTokyo. A city in trouble. A city slowly being eaten away
by the daily workings of a single corporation. Someone has to
stop them, who else can see it, it would have to be me.
[The cityscape fades to black. Fade to a picture of Batman looking
over Gotham City from a balcony, his cape flying in the wind, on the
left half of the screen. On the right half, a picture of Sylia in
her hardsuit, looking out over MegaTokyo, with GENOM tower in center
screen, with her hand on her side.]
[A drum roll leads up to a symphonic crash of notes that coincides
with a large explosion on both halves of the screen. The respective
person leaps off of their ledges and head toward the explosion.]
[Cut to various scenes of Batman fighting shady looking criminals
using his fists and toys. All scenes are from 'Batman: The
Animated Series'. The music is a hyped up jazz version of the Batman
theme as heard in the episode: "A Bullet For Bullock."]
[The music fades with the screen and changes to scenes of Sylia
fighting boomers all by herself. The music still has heavy jazz
roots, but it's a different theme, closer to "Tonya wa Hurricane."]
[Fade to a picture of Sylia (without her hardsuit) fighting, then
superimpose the hardsuit on top of her. As she winds up for a
punch, the hardsuit dissapears and her image mutates into Bruce
Wanye, fighting a bunch of men in the dark. He hits one of them to
the ground and the camera follows him then pans to look up at Bruce
fighting another man. A flash of lighting in the darkness lights
everything up and when it fades, Batman is fighting the man now.]
[Music crescendos to a crash then fades to a softer theme as we see
images of Robin and Batgirl fighting henchmen mixed in with images
of the rest of the Knight sabers fighting boomers.]
[Fade from all these images to pictures of Rene Montoya and Leon
McNichol firing off rounds from their guns at unseen enemies. Fade
to black.]
[The cast of Batman all drop down or run over to the left side of the
screen and pose. The cast of Bubble Gum Crisis run over to the right
side of the screen and pose. Across the bottom is the title:
AS DARK AS KNIGHT
[Two hands appear from opposite sides of the screen and shake, over the
image of both casts. Pan backwards from the image to see Leon
shaking hands with Barbara Montoya. Pan all around them before
panning upwards to show the moon with the symbol of Batman except
for a white 'K S' in the center.]
[Show caption across bottom of screen:
CREATED BY ADAM CHRISTOPHER LEIGH
[Fade to black.]
*************************************************
As Dark As Knight
Episode 1
"You two watch out for the Bat," said a voice inside the warehouse.
"And you, keep loading up, the rest of the police are sure to follow."
A trio of acknowledgments responded to the voice and scurred off into
the darkness again. As Montoya and Bullock were pushed past a stack of
unmarked crates, they got to see the owner of the voice.
The man had his back turned to the two, but they could see that he was
a tall man, with a dark brown coat tightly buttoned up, holding a gun
in his hand and his other, gloved, hand clenched around something. As
he turned to face the intruders, he stuck his gloved hand into his
pocket.
The shadows blocked off his face, shielding it from the view of
Montoya in a veil of darkness. "Detective Bullock," the man said, his
voice coarse and low. "Ahead of Batman for a change, I see."
"Don't patronize me," Bullock yelled back. "Ya' messed up psycho! I
can beat the Bat at anything."
"Except making the catch," the man said turning to examine one of the
crates beside him. Grabbing a crowbar from one of the men around him,
he began prying off the top. "Batman will show, but I don't plan on
being around when he does."
"How do you plan that?" Montoya yelled. "He could be watching from the
windows above us right now and you wouldn't even know."
"I doubt that," the man said reaching into the now opened crate.
"I've got people all over the city watching out for him. He can't make
a move unless I find out."
"Others have underestimated him before," Montoya countered. "Just you
wait."
"Wait?" the man said jokingly. "I'm not TRYING to get captured,
Officer." He pulled out an object from the crate and held it up to the
light. It was a glass container with a metal top and bottom,
containing a greenish liquid that seemed to be boiling for no reason.
"This stuff is more potent than any mixture of explosives to date.
This much could level a city block," the man stopped suddenly then
lowered the container. "If ignited, that is. If ingested, it has a
completely different effect."
"What, you get a high that wont go away for a year?" Bullock said
sarcastically.
"That's for us to know," the man said then took a step forward into
the light. "And for you to find out." The man's face was contorted
and misshapen and had a greenish tint to it on one side, but perfectly
fine on the other. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and opened it,
revealing a silver dollar.
Montoya gasped as she realized who it who had captured them.
Two-Face.
"You're completely right about underestimating Batman," Two-Face said,
placing the container back into the crate and motioning for one of his
men to load it. "So I'll need one of you for an insurance policy, the
other, dies. Which one will it be? "
"Quit the melodrama ya freak," Bullock snorted. "If Bats does show
up, you'll be sorry."
Ignoring the ranting of Bullock, Two-Face turned to Montoya. "What do
you say, Officer?" he said, holding up the coin. "Good heads, I take
you, the young officer. Bad heads, I take Bullock, the rotten
detective. Fifty-fifty chance."
"You'll never get aw�" Montoya started to say again when Two-Face
flipped the coin into the air. She held her breath as it flew into the
air and tossing and turning, end over end, before finally striking the
ground and bouncing up again. Each second passed like eternity as the
coin bounced again, then began to spin like a top. Another second
later, the coin settled on the ground, giving it's supreme judgment to
it's crazy follower.
-*-
MegaTokyo, Many Years Later
"So, Leon,' Nene Romanova said hanging around Leon's desk. "I hear
you have a new partner and it's a woman."
"Huh?" Leon McNichols said initially then nodded his head. "Oh, yeah,
Daley got knocked one last week so he pulled out his vacation time and
left for Maui. It's only going to be temporary partnership until Daley
gets back."
"So what's she like?" Nene further inquired.
"Actually, I haven't met her yet. She's supposed to be an officer
from the U.S. that just moved here recently."
"Ouch, so you probably gotta play tour guide as well, huh?"
Leon chuckled, "It looks like it."
"Officer McNichols," the Chief said walking towards Leon and Nene.
They immediately stood at attention when he got near.
"Sir," Leon firmly returned.
"At ease officers," the Chief said before turning to motion to someone
unseen. "Officer McNichols, this is you new partner, Officer Barbara
Montoya."
As the Chief finished, a woman walked up next to him and stood. She
was a little taller than Nene with dark hair held in a ponytail that
fell to her shoulders. She held out a hand to Leon. "Pleased to meet
you, Officer McNichols," she said.
Leon shook her hand and put his macho grin across his face, "Call me
Leon."
"Alright, Leon, I'm Barbara," she said with a soft smile.
Leon broke their handshake and motioned to Nene. "This is Nene, she's
a friend of mine."
"Hi," Nene said with a small wave.
"Good," Chief said after the array of greetings had ended. "You two
will show her around won't you? I have work that needs to be done."
"Yes, sir," Leon replied as the Chief walked away. "So,' he turned
back to Barbara. "I heard you used to work in the United States."
Barbara nodded, "Yes, but I don't like to talk about it."
Leon raised his eyebrows, "Okay," he said. Then motioned to the door,
"I guess I'll show you around then. After you, Barbara."
-*-
Sylia sat in the booth at a rather interesting Italian restaurant,
idly flipping through the day's newspaper that she'd printed out
earlier. The news was generally mundane today, as it had been for a
few days now. There was a report on the USSD launching of it's two
hundred and twenty second "special" satellite, which meant that they
had a new toy to kill you with if they ever felt it necessary.
She was relieved of her boredom when a man sat down opposite her on
the table. She placed her paper on the seat beside her and latticed
her fingers on the table. "You're late, Fargo," she said.
"Sorry," he said responsively. "Have you ordered yet? You should try
the lasagna, it's magnificent." He lowered his voice and leaned
forward. "The secret is they use *real* cheese, made from cows milk
instead of the synthetic milk they use everywhere else. No mean feat,
considering the bans placed on natural dairy products."
"I'm here for business, Fargo," Sylia said with a shake of her head.
"Not lunch."
Fargo leaned back and crossed his arms. "Fine, starve to death," he
said flatly. He waved over a waitress and ordered some lasagna before
turning to Sylia again. "What paper are you reading?" he asked Sylia,
looking beside her at the folded paper.
"Why?" Sylia asked, slightly angry now.
"Try this one out," he said handing her a paper he was holding, opened
to a specific page. "Third article from the top."
Sylia quickly scanned the third article. It was a report of the shut
down of some shady corporation for allegations of gun running and trade
of illegal goods. Sylia frowned as she looked over the rest of the
page noticing articles about public events and parades she hadn't heard
about before.
"What paper is this?" she asked.
"Times Picayune II," he said. "It's a U.S. newspaper published
internationally. Used to be located in the former New Orleans before
the rising tide washed out the city and almost everything around it.
Now it's located in New York."
"What's the job then? Why is this important?"
"There are indications that this corporation came to MegaTokyo. The
client is ready to offer ten for any information you can provide
concerning the truth to this matter. Fifteen if you can get
substantial information concerning it's whereabouts and current
operations."
"Fifteen just for information, that seems like a lot. Who's the
client?"
"Somebody in the U.S., signs everything with a B/W. I tried to get it
hacked but whoever they are, they cover their tracks well. I trust the
source though, it's a genuine offer."
Sylia leaned back in the booth and looked over the article again.
Anonymous offers never amount to anything good, but if it's just
information they need, she may not even have to get into a fight at
all. Would be nice to have information on a new threat anyway.
"We'll do it."
-*-
"You damn Bat!" Bullock said with an ample amount of spit accompanying
it. "You show up every goddamned time a cat's in trouble and this is
the time you decide not to show."
Batman silently turned from the detective and began walking towards
the docks. His boots crackled as they crushed charred pieces of
building and crates.
"Yo! Bats," Bullock called out. "Where you think you're going?"
"After Two-Face," Batman responded without turning his head. "And
your partner."
"The hell you are," Bullock yelled as he ran after Batman. "You
aren't going anywhere without me. It's my fault she's in this mess."
"Go home, Bullock," Batman said jumping into the Batplane. "You've
already blown up a warehouse tonight, you've filled your quota."
"Yeah, that's funny, Bats," Bullock said sarcastically as the canopy
for the Batplane closed. The sleek plane lifted off the ground and
jetted off over the water, leaving a slight wave in it's wake. As soon
as it was out of sight, the sound of sirens cut through the gentle
sound of the waves crashing into the dock heard.
"Shit," Bullock cursed.
-*-
"Take an inventory, find out how much of the stuff we got," Two-Face
sharply said to a pair of his men. His three piece suit was now
charred all over after the blundering luck of Detective Bullock.
Brushing away some of the soot on his blazer, he turned to Montoya.
"You're a very lucky person," he said throwing her a towel. She had
gotten at least a container's worth of the green liquid on her, maybe
more, but thankfully she hadn't caught fire when everything else did.
"A few feet closer to that fire and you'd be burnt to a crisp."
"Being here isn't much better," she snapped. She struggled with the
towel as it began to stick to the green liquid which had suddenly
turned quite viscous. "What the hell is this stuff?"
"The wine of the gods," Two-Face said with a sort of glimmer in his
good eye. "A interesting compound I got from our resident one." His
normal half grinned coldly while his other half contorted as it tried
to mimic the other side but failing.
"Sir," a man wearing a bluish suit said coming up to Two-Face. "There
are six undamaged containers in the hold, and two which have... well,
you better take a look at them sir. It's interesting."
"I will," Two-Face calmly said and walked after the man out of the
bridge of the ship leaving Montoya with her two armed guards and the
rest of the bridge crew.
Two-Face walked across the deck and down the stairwell to the cargo
hold to see a group of his men huddled around a corner of the hold.
The man in the bluish suit pointed towards the group of men.
As he approached, the men slowly parted to show two of the containers
that had once held the green liquid. The liquid in the container now
was a red viscous concoction that seemed to be flowing around the
container under no visible means. Two-Face leaned forward at stared
into the glass container.
"How long has it been this way?" he asked.
"We carried those two onboard as we were running from the fire," a man
said softly. "We didn't notice the color until we put them down here."
"They were damned hot," another man said. "Musta' been caught in da'
first explosion."
Two-Face frowned and looked up from the container. "Heat did this?" he
asked the second man.
"Uh, uh-huh," the man responded quickly with a nod of his head.
Two-Face looked back at the jar for a second then turned and started
moving towards the stairwell again. "Put those containers back in
crates," he said over his shoulder. "And no one touches them!"
As he moved up the stairs he heard the quick scampering of his men
moving the containers into boxes. When he reached the deck again, he
walked over to the railing and leaned over.
In the distance, the sun was beginning to rise. A new day was
starting. He would only have to endure three more like this one before
his plan would be brought to completion.
-*-
"Got anything yet, Nene?" Sylia asked as Nene tapped away her
computer. As a large array of information came onscreen, she picked up
her cup of coffee and took a sip.
"There is a large amount of funds and equipment that come from the US
into MegaTokyo every day," Nene began, placing her cup down beside her.
"Mainly from four key places: New York, Chicago, New Gotham City, and
Metropolis."
"Checking back the past three weeks, there have been three created
corporations in MegaTokyo, along with one destruction."
"Check for large deposits of money for those corporations," Sylia
said.
Nene tapped for a few more seconds. "They all are small time, and
don't appear to have any connection to imported goods."
Sylia sighed. "Trace the sale of�"
"This is interesting," Nene interrupted. "USSD received a hefty sum
of money two weeks ago. Of twenty six bank accounts that made large
sum transactions in the US that week, nine accounts went to USSD." She
turned to look at Sylia. "All owned by the same person."
"USSD?" Sylia said skeptically. "What are the accounts under?"
"Looks like an alias," Nene said. "It's under a single name: Janus."
"Janus..." Sylia echoed. "Something familiar about that. Anyway,
check everything USSD has done in the past week and a half. Any
information you can get your hands on. Especially if it mentions this
Janus character."
Sylia turned around and leaned against the large console with a coffee
cup of her own in her hand. USSD, she thought. I wonder what could be
going on. All this shady information going on, I hate feeling out of
the loop.
"Sylia," Nene's voice broke her chain of thought. "Sylia, USSD took
on a project called 'The Wine Of The Gods' on the same day that news
article occurred. Since then, it's been kept under heavy
classification."
Sylia looked over Nene's shoulder at the data. "The Wine Of The
Gods," she repeated.
-*-
"What is it?" Quincy asked from behind his desk.
"No one seems to know," Madigan replied in a cold manner, looking down
at her clipboard. "Our operatives at USSD can't get a single shred of
information on it."
Quincy leaned back in his chair and turned to face the large window in
his office. "Do you believe it's of any worth to us?" he asked.
"If they went to the trouble of keeping it from us," Madigan began.
"I would assume so, sir."
Quincy nodded slowly. "Then investigate," he said shortly. "Find out
what you can, use whatever force you feel is necessary." He rose an
eyebrow and stared at Madigan through the corner of his eye. "Just
make sure our name doesn't surface."
"Yes, sir."
*************************************************
[Display Ending Credits over a still of Bruce Wayne and Sylia in their
business suits looking all professional. Halfway through credits,
change to a picture of them in their battle garb.]
Story By Adam Christopher Leigh
Based On:
"Batman," Originally Created By
Bob Kane
&
"Bubble Gum Crisis," Originally Created By
Suzuki Toshimichi
"Batman: The Animated Series" was brought to homes by
Warner Brothers Domestic Television Distribution
"Bubble Gum Crisis" was brought to America by
AnimEigo
All Rights Reserved.
Authors Notes:
I would be fooling myself, as well as lying to all of you, if I didn't
say that I didn't get this idea from rpM. I'm not very innovative when
it comes to themes, so I have to credit the mixture of BGC with BTAS to
rpM. However the story is of my own creation and influenced by my own
recent fascination with DC comics. The style in which I'm telling this
story comes right from the pages of "Federation," THE best Star Trek
novel in existence.
I also have to tip my hat to a friend of mine who helps me keep the
Batman characters in check. We spend lots of time sitting around
talking about the future of Batman, and how much the new 'Batman
Superman Adventures' on WB is disrespectful to the glory of BTAS.
Well, at least, that what *I* talk about. :)
His name is Jeff Novotny. He insists people call him 'Batman.'
(The Importaint Notice) Finally, it must be said right now that I will
NOT continue this series past this point unless I'm sure at least a few
people are reading it. I can't take the stress anymore and I really
should be working on Full Circle instead of this. So if anyone wants
to see this completed, tell me now, so that I know that I have an
audience.
Otherwise, this will fade away into the wind like all my other
uncompleted fics.
While this story incorporates characters held under copyright by
others, this work is Copyright 1998 by Adam Christopher Leigh.
***** SPOILER TRIVIA ******
- 'Janus' is a god that roots itself in European Mythology. Janus has
the ability to look into the future and into the past because of an
interesting trait. If you discover this trait, you're halfway into
discovering exactly who Janus, in this story, really is.
----------------------
Adam Christopher Leigh
Omicron@sprynet.com
http://dogbert.simplenet.com/Tempest/