The Batman: Downfall Ch. 04

He thought about ignoring her then said, "They look like Joker's men, but Joker is not in that building."

"Harley Quinn?" Batgirl asked and he nodded. "You got heat vision in there," she asked him and he nodded again hitting another button.

The men stood out against the cold street and he found himself squinting as he scanned up the building, the middle floor was an intense mix of red, yellows and white. "Third floor, there is a massive heat signature, either a party or a lot of equipment working overtime."

"Then we go in through the roof, work our way down."

"There is no we! Go home." Batman stood up his lenses returning to normal letting his eyes adjust to the darkness around him as he worked through how he was getting into the building. He felt the girl move closer to him an act of defiance to show that she was not scared of him. Batman turned around looking down on the young pretender, "People get hurt, I get hurt if this is some sort of thrill seeking adventure for you then you need to exit right now."

Batgirl shook her head, she had felt her cheeks blushing when he mentioned thrill seeking, but she had that under control now, now she was here to help people and to make up for the fiasco at the museum, "I am not going anywhere, you need my help, besides," She took a few steps back and lifted her makeshift cape and twirled around, "No more smoke bombs," she was pleased to see a slight wrinkle at the corner of the Bats mouth, "I can handle myself, you know that. But I am no Batman, not yet anyway."

Batman was impressed by her little speech and thankful she had gotten rid of her arsenal, perhaps there was hope for her yet. Batman groaned, "You follow my lead, you do as I say," she opened her mouth to say something and he lifted one black gloved hand and halted her, "no arguments." Before he turned back to the old building he reached into his belt unhooking a small mask and unclipping a couple of small capsules. He handed them over, "wear this mask at all times. There are going to be chemicals in there that are highly dangerous." He was glad to see her take the mask and briskly put it on, then she delicately took the capsules, "smoke bombs, just in case you feel the overwhelming urge to throw something."

She smiled behind the mask, the tangy metal taste in the respirator a little cloying but already she was getting used to it. "You always carry a spare or were you expecting me?" He stared at her, deep brooding eyes boring into her, no other reply came he simply turned around and shot his grapple gun at the closest building and flew.

Batgirl was impressed watching the Batman work up close, they had swung onto the roof and he had taken the guard out with a choke hold, the guard hardly wheezing and what sound escaped him was snatched up by the wind. She watched Batman's feet, how he moved silently without even trying. Though covered in body armour she could make out the bulk of the man beneath, she found herself wanting to know what that body felt like and scolded herself for thinking those thoughts.

Batgirl followed his exact path, though her feet crunched a little louder on the grit and dirt of the rooftop he did not tell her off. When she reached the rooftop door he had already worked the lock open with a tiny lock pick. His mouth was now covered by a ridged flat mask. She had not seen him put it on so it must have been built into the mask 'I really need to see if he will let me have one of those.' She thought giddily. The thrill of the battle ahead was building in her as was the terrifying feeling that beyond this door something nasty waited perhaps a whole bunch of nasty's and she would find herself outnumbered and in trouble...only that made her adrenaline pump even faster.

The door opened with a horrible squeak and both of them tensed up and remained still, after almost a minute of no activity Batman moved forward, a fluid motion as if he were nothing more than a shadow when Batgirl followed she felt clumsier than ever before. 'How is he doing that?' she asked herself watching him almost float down the stairway as she moved as swiftly as possible behind him. He crouched down when they reached a turn in the corridor, there were three more floors to traverse down and the quickest way was the main stairwell at the end of the corridor.

Batman peered round the corner most of the lights had blown giving him, giving them the cover of darkness that was best for them. Not one guard or goon was visible, even a quick switch to night vision revealed an empty corridor. A small alarm went off in his head, a sense of unease crept into his being at the total lack of people. He turned the corner and moved at a brisk pace down towards the red door at the end of the corridor, he kept the left hand wall against his shoulder leaving the middle of the corridor totally clear, a quick glance and he was impressed to find that Batgirl had pinned herself to the right hand wall.

The door to the Laboratory of Doctor Jason Woodrue hung loosely on one hinge. Years of accumulated debris had recently been disturbed and pushed to either side of the doorway, though dirt and dust was already gathering where it had been cleared. Batman hit a switch and his gas mask slid silently up, "There's no one here." He heard Batgirl take a gulped of air as she removed her own mask. He stepped into the laboratory and stood still letting his head move from left to right his eyes taking in every detail. Someone had been here, there were clean spots here and there on the work surfaces, one bulb bare in its holding was dust free so had been placed in there recently. He looked down noticing a mix of foot prints, different sizes and different wear and tear nothing of use.

"You see those vines?" Batgirl whispered and pointed to the smashed windows. Batman nodded, the tips of the vines were partially outside, thin tendrils that gathered rapidly in thickness as they headed to the floorboards and then disappeared beneath fallen plaster, brickwork and other debris.

"Ivy's handwork no doubt," It atleast gave him some indication he was on the right path, but did she know he would be coming here, perhaps so, Ivy was clever, more so than Harley Quinn and after the botched museum job she may have felt compelled to move. Batman stepped further into the room now, moving slowly around the work benches heading towards a blackboard that had been hastily scrubbed clean.

Batgirl shivered, the feeling of being watched had hit her the moment they had walked through the door into the laboratory. The vines made her uneasy too, they moved and she had first put it down to the wind, but somehow that did not seem right to her. Her eyes flicked this way and that, on one work table she could see two handprints near the edge of the table, more dust had been wiped and spread, two marks were visible and Batgirl got the feeling she was perhaps looking at the prints of someone's breasts.

Batman worked quickly, he took a still image of the board then worked through filters, he could see numbers, letters, equations spanning off of others though now too faint. His lens filters worked together and gradually the board came into focus. Batch #35 had been here, in this very lab and Ivy had gone to work trying to replicate and improve it. "Something's not right here, can you feel it?" Batgirl said almost right behind him, she had moved quietly and it had even startled Batman. The shock of her being so close brought him out of his deep and troubling thoughts, he had started to see the end of the equation and the start of something quiet worrying the ability to condense and put Batch #35 into an aerosol. "Didn't you say there was a massive heat source here?"

That made Batman spin around, his eyes shot this way and that and he stepped defensively in front of Batgirl. He had seen the blackboard and instantly went to it, ignoring all the signs of a laid trap. His eyes flicked to the windows at the sound of falling glass, one green tendril had come away from the window and had slithered further up the wall coiling around the wooden beams above. Batman flicked a switch on his wrist and his heat vision kicked in.

The floor they were stood on was blinding with heat, the tendrils they could see led down beneath the floor, to a room below a room that was a rainbow mix of heat. Tendrils spread across the walls below and in the centre a huge egg shaped plant that now began to split open. "We need to move," He began to move quickly off his eyes firmly fixed on the door. The floor erupted after his first four steps.

Batgirl fell to the ground she had seen Batman start to move when the floor exploded and a mass of green spewed out. The ground beneath her feet gave way and had sent her tumbling, she registered a thick tendril appearing where she had stood only moments ago twisting and writhing in the air before smashing down and tearing the blackboard in half. One leg went numb and she looked down to find a tendril had wrapped viscously around her just below the knee, she jerked her leg hoping to break free with little success, she let out a scream as she was lifted into the air more tendrils moved over her, caressing her finding arms, legs and waist and tightening.

If he had not fired his grapple gun Batman would have fallen straight into the waiting mouth of the monstrous plant beneath him. He remained aloft for only a few seconds, watching the thick green, brown and sticky creepers of what appeared to be part Venus fly trap and part Cape Sundew. The mouth opened and closed with a horrible snap as its tendrils frantically hunted its prey. Batman landed on one work top just as the ground beneath it gave way and it fell with heavy thud into the room below he somersaulted over to the next just as the beams holding up the ceiling were ripped loose.

He heard Batgirl scream just as the roof gave way and the room filled with a cough inducing mix of debris and blinding dust. The remaining floor of the laboratory groaned and rumbled and Batman watched fascinated as the mutated giant plant began to pull itself up into the room. His grapple gun fired blindly and he swung through the air, one tendril swung down and with one hand Batman deftly let fly two Batarangs, both landing with a dull thud into the tendril, it curled in on itself and recoiled backwards.

Batgirl was trying to scream, her eyes wide behind her mask as the plant pulled itself into the laboratory, her breathing was laboured as one tendril tightened around her throat while another prodded at her mouth slipping into her parted lips making her gag as the sticky warm mass probed her mouth. Her eyes dropped as her lungs screamed for air, she saw a black figure swopping through the dust filled air as she finally blacked out.

Batman saw her body go limp, watched as the tendrils tightened their grip and start to pull in opposite directions. With a flick of his wrist and a squeeze of his palm the side of one armoured arm slid open and a titanium circular saw neatly popped free, spinning with high pitched whine. He aimed for the green limb around her neck getting grim satisfaction as the saw cut through with ease, he could feel the plant tremble behind him as the wound was felt. Batman wasted no time and cut away freeing her arms then legs and finally her waist, catching her limp body as it fell free.

Each cut had brought consecutive tremors from the body of the plant and it now turned every tendril onto catching the Bat. Batman looked up seeing the clear night sky above and fired the Grapple gun skywards. Tendrils, sticky and hot found him but with Batgirl slung over his shoulder the best her could do was kick and stamp. Batman felt his right arm jerk as the grapple gun kicked in, his shoulder threatening to dislocate as he was suddenly pulled upwards.

His body bounced off exposed beams and concrete struts as he struggled to hold the lifeless body of Batgirl on his shoulder while his other hand was curled in a death grip around the handle of the grapple gun. He had looked down horrified to see that the plant had started to give chase, pulling itself from the laboratory to the floor above and continuing up in a flurry of angry green creepers that pulled its body upwards or swung out in an attempt to capture the Bat with their sticky surface.

The grapple gun came to an end a foot below a window pane free skylight, he dangled helplessly unable to swing up any further to find a handhold to which he pull them up and free. He felt the thick, hard mass of one tendril brush across his feet he looked down and saw that within another few seconds he would be in easy reach. If things could not get any worse when he looked up to see the night sky for perhaps the last time a figure stood over the skylight blocking the view moonlight highlighting the smooth sleek surface of the gun that was pointed right at him.