The Batman: Downfall Ch. 01

"Come on Bullock!" Travis shouted from the driver's seat of his car, he had already stuck the blazing blue bubble to the roof the moment the radio erupted. Now he sat impatiently waiting on his partner Harvey Bullock to get his ass out of the coffee shop. "Finally!" he snapped as the bear of a man came stumbling out of the coffee shop with two over flowing cups that splashed over his bare hands causing him to swear and toss the Styrofoam cups to the ground.

"God damn it, what is it?" Harvey shouted in anger as he trotted over to the car.

"We got a Terrorist attack at the chemical plant." Travis said gunning the engine as Bullock got in. He tossed a hastily scribbled note onto Bullocks lap, "A toxin has been used to take out the guards, don't know if they are alive or dead, but one guy managed to get the call out before he got caught."

Bullock scanned the short hand note, just about making out what had been said. "Says here one perp?" Travis nodded, as Bullock slowly read on he groaned audibly, "female, red hair, green in colour...ah Christ what is it with these costume freaks?"

Travis laughed and looked in his rear view mirror, "Speaking of which."

Bullock had no need to look behind them, the noise was loud and building in ferocity was all the clues he needed to guess who was coming up behind them. He could feel the engines rumble in his bones, it made his head hurt the louder it got. He looked out of his window just as the black car sped past causing Travis to suddenly veer into another lane before quickly righting himself. "Fucking Batman, that's just great." Bullock grabbed the radio transmitter with one fat hand, his eyes remaining on the tail lights of the rapidly dwindling car. "Dispatch this is Bullock, wake up old man Gordon will ya'?"

Travis spared a quick glance over at his partner, "Why you getting the Commissioner up?"

"Because I need to know if I can shoot that creep on sight instead of yelling stop at him again." Bullock replied slamming the radio transmitter down.

Gotham Axis Chemical Plant 1:40am

The Gotham Chemical plant was treated almost like the cities dirty little secret, crossing the Vincefinckel Bridge brought you out to an old wooded area a quick drive brought you to the smog and fume enshrouded plant. The ground around it arid and dead, it lived up to being Gotham's dirty little secret well. The Batmobile ploughed down a gentle sloping hill, lights off and foot held high above the accelerator as Batman looked beyond the windshield at the already arrived police vehicles, two swat vans and five police cars, with more arriving from the north and across the bridge behind the Batmobile.

A small access road appeared to Batman's right and without hesitation he turned into it hundred meters down he came to a stop and killed all power. The full moon was not a problem now that heavy cloud had rolled in casting moving shadows across the field between Batman and the chemical plant. He approached quickly, the weight of his black body armour suddenly forgotten as his training kicked in. Police officers were already fanning out around the plant, stopping anyone leaving or entering. Batman crouched down, night vision on picking out the ethereal shapes of armed officers moving with little grace and flashlights that would leave them night blind. After a minute the sporadic movement calmed down and he picked the perfect spot to climb the chain link fence.

Officer Warren had only been a Gotham City law enforcer for a year and in that time had never seen the Batman. He had heard the stories, what rookie didn't? His son always asked him when he came home after his shift "Daddy did you see him? The Batman was he there." The reply was always "No," yet his six year old would ask him again the next day with the same excitement.

So it was with surprise that he lifted his torch at the sight of the man who suddenly came leaping out of the tall brush not more than ten feet from him. Officer Warren lifted his torch the light picking out pointed ears, a long cape and a face half covered by a black mask. The idea of who it was registered but long after the torch in Officer Warren's hand shattered suddenly causing him to drop it with a gasp. The man pushed him aside with one black gloved hand, the sharp teeth on it catching some shirt and ripping it then he was over the fence with fluid ease and lost in the shadows of the chemical plant. Officer Warren reached up to his chest and pressed the side of his radio transmitter, "This is ah, this is Officer Randy Warren and well...you see...Batman's here he's just gone into the plant." He depressed the switch then looked at the rip in his shirt his son would go bananas over this.

Gordon rubbed his finger and thumb either side of the bridge of his nose, eyes closed as the rookie ended his transmission, "What was wrong with my instructions to keep people out, especially the Batman?" The officers around him looked at one another and shrugged.

One Captain cleared his throat then said, "Well it's not the first time Commissioner, who knows maybe he can stop her."

Jim Gordon rounded on the Captain, "That's my point, it should be us in there stopping her not Him." He had spent yesterday afternoon in the mayor's office trying to explain once again how the Batman was not actually helping but hindering the G.C.P.D, three hours later he had been given the ultimatum once again that the Batman was to be stopped and that the G.C.P.D needed to start catching criminals once more. "Get the swat teams in there," he spun back around to a map of the chemical plant that was spread out on the hood of a police cruiser, "Alpha team in the rear and Bravo team providing distraction going in through the front."

The blaring car horn made Gordon turn around again, the brown sedan skidding to a halt and the unmistakable overweight figure of Harvey bullock stepped out of the passenger seat, "Gordon, dispatch told me you were here, you move quick for an old guy." He said as he approached.

Gordon clenched his jaw, his teeth snapping together as he tried to calm himself down over this man's lack of respect for him, "No Bullock, you're just slow, as usual."

Bullock thumbed behind him, "Blame it on twinkle toes there, he didn't want to be speeding on the Bridge." Bullock pushed past the small group of officers, ignoring there tuts and hard stares. He looked down at the map on the hood of the car, "Is he here yet?" Gordon looked up at him, "Batman is he here?" Gordon nodded and Bullock pulled his revolver from off his belt. He had already heard from one of his sources that the Mayor had asked for Batman to be put down, he was now just wondering if Old man Gordon would have the balls to give the order.

"Both teams have the order to shoot on sight," Gordon wanted to wipe the big fat smile off of Bullocks face it was shit eating grin from the worst cop on the payroll. Bullock barged past the officers again and made his way round the patrol car heading towards the entrance to the chemical plant. "Where the hell are you going?" Gordon shouted after him.

"I'm going to kill me a bat!" Bullock shouted over his shoulder.

"Shouldn't we stop him sir?" The police Captain asked.

Gordon shook his head, "No leave him to it, who knows he might just get caught in the crossfire," Gordon could not hide the small smile that was spreading beneath his moustache, "one less crooked cop to worry about." The officers around him exchanged guilty glances.

Poison Ivy tapped her fingers impatiently on the guard rail of the platform she was standing on. The fumes in here were making her weak and sick. She had been here almost half an hour, the guards she had knocked out would not be bothering her, they still had a couple of hours to sleep off but they would be lucky to wake up at all if Ivy had her way.

She looked down again at the huge vats of chemicals, a disgusting mix of agents that would make more earth destroying plastics and other such rubbish that man would consume and chuck aside without any regrets. It was an irony that what she sought something so natural would be found in a lab in such a desecration of Gaia as this chemical plant. Ivy could not help herself and reached into the small bag strapped to her waist, brushing past a smooth box with a switch to the vial that was her true reason for being here, her fingers ran across the smooth glass. "Oh what fun we are going to have my little Harley Quinn." Ivy mused to herself.

"Waiting for someone?" The gruff voice broke her out of her trance and caused her to spit angrily at her own weakness. Batman was crouched on the platform his feet curled beneath him on the guard rail, sitting there like a bird of prey. "An odd place for a first date isn't?"

Poison Ivy laughed, "Honey for odd people like us this is perfect." She had hardly finished the sentence when he leapt forward with blinding speed. Arms thrust forward to grab her, Ivy leaned back her body slipping over the guard rail sending her into free fall, the rope that held her to the rail pulling taunt at the last second, almost snapping a rib but allowing her to land with some grace onto the metal grated floor beneath. She looked up at the masked face staring down at her as she cut the rope free, "Need to be faster than that Batman." She hurried further along the walkway between the giant green vats, the sound of heavy boots landing behind her echoing off the vats as she moved swiftly.

She turned one corner then doubled back behind the vats, slapping small devices to the individual vats, a red light blinking to life as they stuck. She went to stick the last device but a heavy hand from the shadows reached our wrapping round her wrist and tightening like a vice. Ivy was prepared and lifted her head, face to face with the Batman. The spoors on her lips quivered as she puckered up then blew them off gently right into his face.

It was as she did this she noticed the funny mask that now covered the Bats mouth, the spoors landing harmlessly on the breathing apparatus, she let out a hiss and felt a stinging blow on her face as he slapped her, "You're not supposed to hit a lady," she spat out.

"You're no lady," he replied sounding metallic and amplified. It was all the time she needed, her legs wrapped around his arm that still held her hand, she yelled and spun pulling him from his feet, unsteady with the sudden change in tactics from her. She landed hard on her back feeling the jolt of a joint in the Bats arm popping and the unmistakable gasp of pain from behind the mask, she scrambled to her feet and darted away from him. She watched him scramble to his feet, his arm dangling in a bad way. "Why were you waiting for me?"

Poison Ivy had the story laid out, and most of it was true as well, "Because I wanted you to see who has bested you for the last time." Ivy held up the detonator from her little bag, "no countdown, no wires to cut, I hit the switch the place goes up in flames. Batman dies and the sins of Gotham are paid for."

"Sins of Gotham?" he asked and moved one foot forward.

"This plant is a curse on Gaia, it expels more toxins than most third world countries it kills without mercy the life that Gaia has nurtured." Ivy could feel herself getting into the speech a little too much, ego was a terrible thing and she so desperately needed to stay on the right side of it. The Batman was creeping forward, clearly hoping that Ivy would be distracted in her proclamation, a few more steps was all she needed from him. "One flick of the switch and this place burns to the ground and Gaia can reclaim it once more." Her speech was done and yet he lingered, perhaps she had done more damage to him than she had realised. No matter.

His arm throbbed, it was not fractured just dislocated and severely pulled but that was bad enough. He hopped Ivy had more to say, the swat team was only just getting into the room now. If her detonator really did set the explosives off instantly then everyone was as good as dead. Ivy looked up at the sound of running feet above her and he leapt forward, good arm reaching out grabbing her hand, putting his finger between hers and the switch. "Not this time Ivy," he said.

"Sorry honey, this time indeed." She jolted forward her head connecting with his hard mask it sent her flying back but also separated the two of them. Blood was already running from the open wound on her head, looking almost black in the gloom, she smiled in victory and hit the button. And hit again and again...nothing. Ivy screamed in anger and fled down the walkway.

Ivy counted down the seconds in her head, the exit was just ahead but her vision was blurry, he had jumped her too quickly, the head-butt was ill advised but she had no breathing room for anything else. She deserved an Oscar for her scream of betrayal too, but the acceptance speech would have to wait, the exit was still twenty feet away and she had reached the five second mark, now four seconds. The swat team were screaming out, she could hear gun fire yet she felt not a single bullet graze past her or bounce of the metal walkway beneath her.

Two seconds...one Second....detonate.

The blast knocked her off her feet, her head smacking off the walkway, her vision swam with black blooms as she scrabbled to find something to hold onto the floor tipped sideways, the metal buckling as the containers spilled their contents. The heat was intense, the soles of her feet burnt and the skin blistered, Ivy found a hand hold and pulled herself up, the whole room was ablaze the sprinkler system was on but the chemical flames were impervious to their weak spray. Ivy limped through the exit, the door no longer attached.

The Bat moved quickly up, his grappling gun putting another floor between him and the swat team before the explosions came. He had ducked as the first peal of bullets had thundered past him, the next wave held off as the swat leader screamed at his men not to shoot the vats, atleast one of them had some sense of their surroundings. On the gangway he could see Ivy down below running towards another exit, he started off and that was when the world exploded. The gangplank melted beneath him, had his grappling gun still not been in his hands he would have fallen into the inferno beneath him. He fired blindly hoping anywhere was safer than where he was.

Batman ended up just above the swat team, most of who were burning brightly and screaming their last breaths. He froze watching them unable to help he felt the anger surging through him at such a waste of life. The gangplank buckled with the heat and Batman grappled further down the room, moving as quickly as he could with one arm screaming with pain. Ivy was gone and right now he had no choice but to abandon the chase, if karma had its way she would find herself trapped somewhere watching the flames of her revenge approaching and then consuming her too.

Out of the vast room he found his feet again, concrete floor made moving quicker, the whole building shook as more explosions erupted behind him, the fire was burning fast and hard the whole plant would be an inferno in no time at all and he had to get out. The gunshot that hit him in the side sent him tumbling into a wall and crumpling to the floor.

"Oh yeah, freeze!" Bullock laughed, even though the place was going to burn down and he could feel the heat from down the corridor as well as the sight of chemical fires consuming all in their path. He strolled over to the fallen foe, his eyes stung with smoke and unknown toxins and his brain had started to do a jive in his skull, If the last thing he did on this earth was kill the Batman, he would die a happy man. "New rules Batman, you are no longer to be apprehended but shot on site as a danger to the civilians of Gotham City and surrounding boroughs." Bullock had even seen this via an email from another source; Gordon was releasing it in the morning, across the whole force. Bullock could see he had not killed the Bat outright, he still breathed, he could tell by his chest plate rising and falling with heavy breaths. "Sucks to be you right about now," his voice slurred and his own breathing now rasping, unaware of the nose bleed that had started to gush from both nostrils he lifted his service revolver and pointed straight at Batman's head.

The kick took Bullock off his feet, the motion making him jerk the trigger, the gun firing a bullet into the wall relieving Batman of one bat ear in the process. The chemical fire was destroying all in its path at a ferocious pace. Batman staggered up and kicked the revolver away. "You idiot the place is burning down," he growled at the slob of an officer, the response was a pool of yellow bile that he burped up.

There was an office across the way, a big window that looked out at the woodlands in the distance, at the moment though black smoke hid the view. Even though the man had shot him, he lifted him from the ground and dragged him into the office, if it were not for his gas mask the fumes would have laid him unconscious too, with his last store of strength, he screamed loudly, the breathing apparatus, amplifying it and warping it into a scream from hell itself as Batman launched himself through the window.

Gordon could not believe what he was hearing then seeing. At first Alpha team had decided that Batman was the main target not Poison Ivy and had begun firing on him, Gordon was holding the radio up to his mouth to get them back on track when the explosion made him drop the transmitter. Within one minute one side of the plant had gone up in flames and smoke, the rest of the plant was following quickly behind. Some officers had gone in after Bullock and had managed to locate the security guards who were being dragged out when the explosion happened now they half dragged, half ran the limp bodies as quickly away as possible, fellow officers running to help.

Gordon was speechless he had never seen anything quite like it, had his swat team caused this? He hoped to God they were not at fault. Around him men were running back and forth, cars reversing making way for the fire engines that were moments ago only there as a precaution, now called into action. "Commissioner we need to get your men back, the fumes from that thing are going to get very nasty."

Gordon railed on the fire chief, "I have men in there," He could see by the look on the chief's face that whoever was in there was as good as dead.

A window exploded somewhere followed by shouts and calls. An officer scurried over to Gordon with a service pistol drawn, "Sir we have Batman,"

Gordon had seen the Batman in better condition, currently he was crouched down, cape smoking, an ear missing and an arm that had seen better days. It took Gordon a second to register the unmoving form of Harvey Bullock just in front of the Bat. "What on earth?" Gordon exclaimed.

"He came through that window sir, carrying Bullock." A faceless officer called from the crowd that had their guns pointed at the Bat, he could see red eyes and hear harsh coughing, someone being sick followed by another, one officer stumbled then fell to his knees. The smoke was toxic as hell, yet his men were trying to do their job.

"Lower your guns," Gordon growled, at first no one moved, "Lower them dammit!" he shouted and the guns slowly lowered. Gordon stepped forward, the heat of the blaze on his face making him squint. "The next time we see you it is shoot on sight, do I make myself clear?" Gordon could feel the eyes of the Bat boring into him; the single nod was a relief. Swiftly, but again not as swift as he once was the Batman stood and moved off, disappearing through a ripped hole in the chain link fence. "Get Bullock to an ambulance. Then all of you get the hell out of her before we all die." Gordon shouted over the roaring flames. He did not need to look back to know his orders were being followed.