<P>Lady Eldritch#3: The Butt Kicking Will Now Commence

[ladytrident]

Lady Eldritch #3: The Butt Kicking Will Now Commence!


“Stephanie Brown, Batgirl V3” created by Chuck Dixon. DC Iconics owned by DC Entertainment.




Ballistic, extreme-pressure formed boot-sole flew with nano-servo assisted strength and accuracy into the Madcap’s jaw snapping loose a couple of teeth. Eldritch’s glove-clad hands held to a Wag’s shoulders splitting her legs over his derby, snapping her boots into her other Madcap targets and back together as she rolled over landing with a three-point landing of boot and hand. Her other hand planted a device on the Wag’s lower back- knowing it would explode in a few seconds. With a leap, she landed on the other side of an SCU officer’s desk. Her deep-black scalloped cape of finely-woven ballistic fibers absorbed ranged attacks from the few dozen Joker goons. Landing exactly on toes, assisted by gel impact-absorbing insoles and shock absorbers in her ankle and knee joint supports. She rolled back under a standard issue office desk and planted her soles on its underside. The desk may as well be made of Styrofoam for her to kick it at the attacking minions. It landed with a heavy thud as it took out another four. The momentum carried her into an aerial flip and somersault to land ready for action.


Oh. My. God, how she had missed this.


*


Commissioner James Gordon looked on at the crowd, filled with younger, more attractive people than himself: an old well-worn beat cop. His reddish brown hair long turned to grey since the years and stress of the Job had taken its toll. His keen senses let him know that something was happening behind him, the crowd was parting. He looked down as his daughter, Barbara, exited the sea of people that had allowed her passage as if she were an angel.


Which, to Jim, was exactly as she appeared.


He had seen Barbara, nearly every week, mainly because he was always a doting father and she was a protective daughter. So many aspects of her mother, but she had always had his eyes – keen, curious, intelligent, and at this moment, laughing. A lavish red evening gown cut to show off her womanly curves, yet not get intertwined in her chair’s wheels. But there was more, Jim had seen the dress. Almost as if the devil, or in this case the angel, was in the details. Earrings, bracelets, and rings gleamed in the lights. Nails were freshly painted, makeup seemingly professionally done, who had Barbara gone to for this night. It was just a simple city banquet, yet Jim worried about her not getting out enough of that stuffy office of her’s. Her consulting for WayneTech had her working inhuman hours, in fact he had complained to Bruce about it in the past, but Wayne had said that Barbara’s schedule was her choice, and had to fumble with his computer in his penthouse office to even look up the database for her charged fee-hours. He had chuckled that his inability to even find this simple piece of information on his desktop was why he needed people of Barbara’s caliber.


Men being men would have never guessed that this vision of beauty had an IQ north of 180. She wheeled up to him knowing that all eyes were on her, and likely each and every red blooded male wanted to know who she was and what her phone number was. “My goodness, B, Ba, Buh-“


“Barbara,” she smiled as she assisted her old man in merely saying her name.
He adjusted his glasses, regained his composure and continued, “Yes, Barbara, you look b-“, B’s were clearly causing him difficulty tonight.


“Beautiful?” She supplied, almost without a hint of her ‘smarter than everyone else’ childhood teasing.


The taunt snapped him back to ‘Dad-mode', “No, smart-mouth,” he teased in return, “I was going to say breathtaking, but I see that by your glib attitude, that you are still indeed my daughter.” He bent down, ignoring his groaning knees.


“Hi daddy,” she kissed his cheek, “I see you started the party without me.”
He chuckled, “Oh no, now it’s a party that you are here, everyone else just showed up early.”


*


Who, the bloody hell, wraps people in presents?


Steph ripped open, yet another, green and purple gift-wrapped death-trap and found a barely conscious SCU officer inside. It tried to close but she locked the servos in her arms and shoulders, “Hey you, wake up!” The SCU officer‘s adrenaline snapped him awake and he looked in fear at the sharpened steel teeth all while becoming aware of the constant laugh playback on repeat, over and over and over again.


God, Stephanie hated that laugh.


The SCU officer seemed to be terrified and unable to decide what to do, Stephanie decided he needed a little more help. She jacked the volume on her helmet-vox, “You in the present, please exit the death trap NOW!” Maybe it was her tone of voice, perhaps the sound of her yell bouncing around amidst the blades and drill bits of the gift’s interior. No matter the reason, he leapt out and scrambled towards the exit. She released her joints from their lock lettting it slam shut bare micrometers from her helmet. Disturbing noises of the recorded laughter and drills inside made her momentarily shiver as she readied herself for her next target. The door downstairs had a control access she needed to hack.


Backhanding one of the anarchists with her shock plated bracer, the electric jolt from the shock plates assisted him in being unconscious. She hit the door release and moved into a combat position. Above her, an insane voice screamed at her from a hastily placed speaker, with scribbles next to it declaring ‘Hey Rookie, check your corners!’


Her eyebrow raised under her helm as the recorder spoke, “Oh I’m sorry, did you think that was the door control? Now, where did I put that pesky thing? Oh well…” She heard electric sparks to her left, as hidden toy boxes stapled in the back of the Joker’s goon squad jolted her previously knocked-out opponents awake and aware of her. She looked up at the speaker in distaste; well at least she knew which direction the door release was.


She turned her suit’s efficiency to ‘11’ and jumped back down the hallway.


*


Barbara remembered why she never liked these parties, usually all the pretty “trust fund brigade” came out to be seen and make all of the fashion blogs and publications. Sadly, most of Gotham’s events, fund raisers and charity celebrations were crime-prevention related. While she was hardly old at her mid-thirties, she was unable to wear the engagement ring that Dick had given her until she told her dad about it, which meant an undercover engagement until Bruce and Dick's “future father-in-law” could both find it in their very busy schedules for a grown-up sit-down talk. This wasn't something you just emailed or changed your status on your Facebook page with. She smiled wondering if Batman or Commissioner Gordon even used social networking?


Sadly, being unable to announce her status of being taken on her left hand’s ring finger also meant more than one glance her way. She felt conspicuous and unusually noticeable. Oh, why had she let Steph glam her all up?


She answered her own question: Because she had wanted to look nice for her father and not like she spent eighteen hours a day in front of eight computer monitors. As rewarding as being “Oracle” was for Barbara, she had to admit not a day went by that she didn't miss swinging through the concrete jungle that was Gotham.


From across the room, Bruce Wayne saw Barbara alone in the crowd. He felt guilty once again for what had happened to her. Damian, his son, had been killed in the line of duty a few months earlier, forcing him to face the regrets of long past, including those that had fallen in The Mission.


Truthfully, it was his calling to be in the Dark Knight, these children had insisted on joining him and as much as he tried to dissuade them, it only made them more determined to fight by his side. He had accepted that he would likely have no heirs to carry the Wayne name, knowing that The Mission would likely die with him. He also knew that either Selina or Talia was the closest he would ever have to a “dating pool”, as Dick put it. He remembered back when Dick and Barbara had been engaged a few years back. Now, both were grown up, apart from each other and fully entrenched in The Mission as much as he was.


Alfred had tried to convince him this wasn’t the case, but he just couldn’t see how anyone under his Bat-Banner could ever have a normal life. Cassandra Cain in Hong Kong seemed happy with any mission at all and the others all over the world under the Batman Inc. umbrella seemed at peace with it as well.


But, Barbara…


She was always one of the daughter’s he had never had. It pained him to see her in the wheelchair and broke his heart as he remembered holding her hand while she lay in the hospital bed, unable to feel her legs.


His mind drifted momentarily to another daughter in a hospital bed, though she had been dying. The Spolier, one of his Robins, Stephanie Brown had been beaten horribly by the Black Mask after she had tried to institute one of his plans to bring down the heavy hitters of crime in Gotham, all in an effort to prove she was worthy of being Robin.


What the hell had been wrong with her?


And what the hell was wrong with him?


Now, Stephanie was back and calling herself Eldritch, meaning the darkest and blackest of night.


He chuckled; apparently England had been good for her flair for theatricality.


As explosive as Stephanie’s adventures were, including using a cargo plane to knock out a transmitter that was controlling the minds of Gotham’s population, he had to admit she had heart.


He had given her a protective combat suit, using technology that was bleeding edge: far above military-grade, and would supervise her missions until he was sure she was ready to be released. Even now not far away, she was securing the SCU’s mainframe from the Joker’s Goon Squad while he was focusing on the Joker’s main target. No way was he letting Stephanie anywhere near the Joker.
Which reminded him: it was time to get Barbara out of here with her father. He called a waiter over and played up the playboy aspect of his persona having a discrete note passed to Barbara.


Joe tutted to himself, was Brucie hitting on a cripple? Oh well, he had a girlfriend that dressed up in spandex and carried a fifty pound whopper of hammer.


Who was he to judge?


Hee hee.


Joe had to admit, his alliance with Morrow had given him all kinds of toys to mess with. All of his mooks-from-a-jar were scattered throughout the party with all of the pretty-pretty-goooooorgeous people as the wait staff, all wearing disguises that even the great Batmaaaaan hadn’t be able to detect.


And Bats was totally off his game- he had heard through the villain grapevine that the Boy Blunder had went off and gotten himself gakked, and it hadn’t even been him that did it.


Ah well, maybe next time. There were always more Robins.


Bats handed a note to Joe, asking him to pass it to the Commish’s daughter, who was a total hottie tonight – not that she needed legs to do what he had in mind for her (Hubba Hubba). He loved that Bats thought his seeecret identity was still a seeeecret.


Duh.


Joe had known for years who The Batman was, even given himself a tour of the Batcave more than once. The point had never been to kill or maim (well, maybe maim) the Dark Knight. Batman was his soul mate, his other half.


If anything, Joe felt protective of the big lug.


Under his holographic mask (Mission:Improbable eat your heart out) he played the role of a waiter and as soon as Waynie-pants slipped away to get his Bat-Pajamas on for the inevitable “Fight of the Titans” he knew he would have to suffer through, he promptly ate the note.


Once swallowed, he walked over to his Future-Paramour-on-Wheels and asked in his ever-so-proper-best-impersonation-of-Alfred, “Miss, can I interest you in some champagne?”


*


Oh.
My.
Freakin’.
God.


How many goons did the Joker have? Stephanie punched out yet another minion. Even with the assistance of the suit, she was getting tired. She had to admit when the score was Steph: 90 and Joker Good Squad: Zed, she was allowed to get a little winded.


She slipped the high capacity thumb drive into the mainframe and turned to defend the big computer center from clowns as the drive did its job. Though the drive couldn't hold all of the information from the hulking system, she knew it could broadcast an encrypted signal to Oracle’s nest of operations and up to the Bat-Cloud servers.


Finally, standing over a pile of clowns, the HUD in her vision told her that the information was safe. Stephanie made for the fire exit and flew up to the top of the building, removing her helmet to get fresh air (or whatever passed for fresh air in Gotham).


She closed her eyes for just a millisecond before her headgear spoke to her, “Eldritch.”


“Bugger,” she mumbled as she slid the helm on.


Batman came up on a vid-within-vid communications display. As usual, he got to the point, “You did a great job securing the information but, I need you to get over to the banquet celebrating the opening of the SCU. I need you over here to back me up.”


Back up the Batman? Like you had to ask twice?


She ignited the cold burning repulsors in her boots and hands as afterburners to the Valorium-sheathed flying systems of the suit and hurried to the party.


*


Joe could kiss Morrow.


He had just done his best Batty-man impersonation over the Bat-Faaaaaaamily’s coded frequencies and now: one of his other little playmates was on the way.


He didn’t know who she was, but she seemed cute too.


Maybe, he could have a threesome with her and the redhead.


Or Hey! He could complete a set. Harley was a blonde (he had checked to make sure), Babs was a redhead and this Ms. Hottie McHotterson was apparently a raven hair!


It was going to be a hot time in the old town tonight! He just had to gas everyone at this party first.


Sigh- Work before Play, after all.


After all, if he didn’t give the Dark Knight a distraction from his depression over losing his mini-boy wonder, Brucie might give up their game.


And that, Mr. President, was not an option!


The Joker put Morrow’s toy back in his bag of tricks and awaited the bagging of two bats.


Game On.

[Cara Lace]

nice job