The Silhouette and The Forge
Chapter 77

Batman moved along the dark corridor that had some flickering lights courtesy of the damage Smith and I had done to this section of the station. Thankfully, the fail-safes in case of a hull breach and the station getting exposed to space had worked just fine, courtesy of multiple redundant systems.

Otherwise, Batman would be floating and dying in a very painful and horrific way to go, and I don’t think there was any ancient Tibetan monk technique that could fix the problem. He moved with his head on a swivel, and when my hand touched his shoulder, he managed to pry it off and threw me onto the floor before aiming the Caster Gun at my head.

My hands were held up with my outfit despite it being part of my body and showed some signs of superficial damage simply because it would be rather suspicious if my outfit hadn’t taken any damage. “It’s me. We need to move, and fast. Smith is fighting me over the lock on the station's trajectory aimed for the Sahara Desert.”

Batman’s eyes widened at that little tidbit. “You didn’t think to tell me you aimed it there?”

"Oh, I told you… just now. Smith has proven dangerous enough that it would potentially take too long to take him down if I can currently and keep him from firing the weapon. While he is busy with that, we are going for the energy source for the orbital laser and blowing this station sky high.”

Batman didn’t complain further and took it in stride. My hand halted him, and we both slid back into the shadows when a bunch of bots marched past us. Their sensors weren’t nearly as advanced as the combat models, so they weren’t too difficult to fool or slip past.

We continued moving along the facility with me leaving behind some explosive runes carved into various parts of the facility that would help distract Smith with the various rumbles and small glaciers of ice carved through the station and blocked off particular paths that would give us trouble if my former forces had an easy set of routes to get to us.

Made funneling them far easier if it came down to it. “Manbat and the others had to make a tactical retreat back to Earth. They couldn’t hold the doorway any longer.”

“Are all of them safe and alive?” Batman’s questioning look had me shrug at his expression despite wearing a suit that covered enough of his body and face that it made it difficult for most to gauge his emotions, but I had been around him enough to know what he was thinking or feeling. “Just because I like kicking the crap out of you and doing this whole song and dance doesn’t mean I want you guys dead or to suffer.”

“You have the entire Justice League fooled since they all think you hate Wonder Woman and Green Lantern… the Caucasian one.” He tacked on at the end, likely remembering me bringing up which Green Lantern they are referring to.

“Was that… a joke? I, honest to God, heard Batman crack a joke. I think I could die happy having experienced such a rare phenomenon.”

Batman had a blank look, but I knew what I heard. He knew which Green Lantern could be interpreted as the one I purportedly hated. Now, not that I would be against hating John Stewart, as Alucard said it best, I hate everyone equally. It just happened to be Hal that got the brunt of it.

Maybe I could spread the equality around if it wasn’t for this being the end of my Silhouette alias. “No idea what you are talking about.”

We moved along before I cast a quick chameleon spell on the two of us when a pair of agents moved through the facility. What I could see through the surveillance that wasn’t fighting me, like everything that Smith touched with his grubby digital tendrils, showed not as many as I expected showing Kirk and company managed to make them work towards trying to get to the station to stop us.

A few pats on Batman’s shoulder in Morse code told him what we were going to do. He moved along while I started to thin the herd of Smith's assets. One agent sunk into the metal like it was quicksand, and the other had a high-frequency blade pierce through its head, severing it before several chakra threads tore its body to shreds. The one currently carving its way through the floor to get out had a series of water bullets impact its body and, in a few seconds, reduced it to Swiss cheese.

More agents came snooping around the subtle trail of destruction I left, dismantling any agents I came across or knew were hunting me. Batman continued along the path I directed him. Tossing an arm from one of the few agents left that bounced off of its former owner's half-crushed head, noting Smith must have called back his brothers, realizing he was losing too many of his more valuable forces.

If he somehow manages to worm his way out of this, he would be left with fewer resources since his brothers, including the ones dismantled by me, had the privilege of me relinquishing almost all control of the electronics around me just to pry Smith’s grip from the souls of his fallen brothers and drag them to the pit.

Batman finally found what I had sent him for. A long corridor that wasn’t too dissimilar to the scene shown in Star Wars when the Death Star opened fire on Alderaan. The imperial engineers working their station with the green beam going through the tunnel. Instead of a tunnel, it was a long and massive pipe with a light blue glow coming from it.

The energy used in the orbital laser… well, calling it a laser wasn’t entirely correct because it sounded much cooler. But it was a special element the Engineers cooked up when using the clean energy from our generator and mixing it with various chemicals and elements to create the specialized energy beam. I made sure they made the element somewhat volatile in case I needed the station destroyed, albeit to prevent others from getting access to it.

I never expected to do it because of Smith, but it goes to show that those closest to you were sometimes the ones that needed to be kept under a steady eye. “This is the main power source for the weapon. We destabilize it, and the whole station goes with it.”

“And how do we do that?” Batman asked me. He was actually hearing me out on any bit of advice or information I could give. Shows how bad the situation is in his eyes when he was willing to hear me out. To my annoyance the chameleon spell wore off finally.

“That’s easy! We just use some explosives, and that will cause a chain reaction.”

Batman’s eyes widened when it quickly sunk in what I was saying. “We will die if you do that. There has to be another way.”

“You used what you had left in your utility belt. I have nothing to make a time bomb with and no time to make it on such short notice. We have no other options… and what do you mean we? You're not staying here.”

Batman’s eyes narrowed. “I am not leaving you.”

“I knew you would say that, and honestly I don’t like it.” Batman’s guard was up, but he paused when he saw I wasn’t going to do anything to him. “I’m not going to force you to leave, it’s your life to throw away, and if you want to stay and die with me, you're more than welcome to. I strongly suggest you leave while you still can.”

Batman nodded slowly, a look of conflict and sympathy showed as he watched me with concern. “Now we need to just-- duck!” The man did as told, narrowly avoiding a caster shell missing him as it impacted the wall, sending sparks of electricity illuminating the area alongside the glowing pipeline.

Four hunters charged at us with Smith right beside them. The surveillance showed nothing… no. Smith set the drones and cameras on loop knowing I was busy with everything else and so distracted I wouldn’t notice.

Smith didn’t waste time on any verbal exchanges, opening fire at us with freezing and electrified rounds. The other hunters did as well, flanking us from both sides, trying to move past me to get to Batman. Only one of the hunters joined Smith in trying to handle me.

Batman had enough sense to back away while using the Caster Gun. His aim was impressive, along with his reflexes being well above what most normal humans could hope to match. Goes to show if he went all Punisher on Gotham, it would be like spring cleaning for him.

Yet I could also respect his unwillingness to take the lives of others. Terry Pratchett, from one of his series I can’t remember which one, showed a knight fighting a criminal as he actively avoids killing him, if he does decide to kill him, the entire system could collapse, making things actively worse for everyone. It’s one of the reasons he doesn’t just start killing. 

The shells came close to hitting the two hunters, and it bought him enough time to keep his distance before he warily looked at the pipe. Batman saw my subtle signal and covered his eyes with an arm before I clapped my hands together, making everyone’s ears ring and overloading the hunters' equivalents alongside their photoreceptors.

They were disoriented briefly before they began to move even without their hearing or sight. They had likely memorized the area around them and moved based off of memory and Smith feeding them information from his stolen body.

Batman rushed further into the station, following the pipe into a chamber before sealing the doors when he smashed the terminal that could open them from the other side. The hunters tried to pursue but tripped and slipped when the metal floor had its state of matter changed into liquid and other parts shifted to be as slick as ice.

They crashed and smashed into the walls or sank into the floor. Two were eliminated, and the other two were saved by Smith's swift intervention, deflecting and cutting the shells along with the magic that erupted from them. He rushed towards me, and I didn’t fail to notice the metal gloves on his hands and the difference in the light touching the sabers he held.

Even with my understanding and ability to… communicate with technology, the metal of the blades and the pieces on his body were a void to me. Nothing whispered or spoken, it would be like stepping foot in a park without hearing or seeing any birds, squirrels, or even simple insects. Just the wind as your only source of noise.

Batman got to work getting to the loading chamber for the power source of the weapon. Smith charged at me, blades whistling through the air as he and I clashed, with me forcing the other agents back with various water clones.

It didn’t stop one from getting past me, but I had faith in Batman. Faith was soon proven when they tore through the bulkhead door only to get its head and torso blown open with precise shots. Batman used the doorway as a funnel. It didn't matter how fast you were if you could only come at him from one direction and he knew you were coming.

My signal for him to shoot the door and indicate which parts to hit through the lenses I modified and gave to him to use with his cowl helped. A blade slipped past my guard when I was busy firing a pressurized jet of water at four hunters who had come to join in the fight, bisecting them at the hip. The blade missed my torso, but it slammed into my arm.

White-hot pain flared up as I struggled to not scream. The blade hurt enough it almost made me think I was still human. As human as the day I first arrived back in Gotham. The other blade was raised and poised to strike where my fake beating heart lay. I wasn’t about to find out if that could kill me or not.

Twisting my body and placing a hand on his blade while ignoring the frost creeping up my body, but much slower this time after I had better prepared using various resist cold potions in my body, making the process only surface level and taking far longer.

Lightning raced up the blade so that even if the metal could resist magic and negate its power, it only removed the magic, adjusting the rules for the lightning and making it revert to how normal electricity works.

The tongues of electricity went up the blade and back down to me, and it hurt. With the blade normalizing the slime parts, it made contact, treating it like normal flesh that shouldn’t feel pain the way it did, but depleted Necronium didn’t care about things like that.

Smith grit his teeth and winced before he pulled the blade back out to my relief. The pain soon became phantom sensations, but the memory was enough for me to not get cut by that weapon. The other hunters rushed in to grab me only to have their arms cut off and turned to ribbons by several almost invisible threads.

The floor was cut up, and sections of it were tossed at them. They cut through the metal sheets instead to get a blast of supercooled air rushing at them that flash-froze their bodies and any fluids in them. Smith kicked up one of the sheets as it acted as a shield for him and a few hunters behind him.

He rushed forward, smashing through the frozen bodies, shattering them like glass. A blade aimed for my throat and another for my left leg. I jumped and twisted enough to avoid both, but the other hunters opened fire at me. Lasers and high explosive rounds impacted me, but instead of splattering the walls like they expected, I was merely pushed back in the air.

Sparks formed where they struck as the surface of my body had been turned into a hardened material. It almost looked like a mixture of carbon and various metals, but it wasn’t truly what my body had shifted into, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t mimic to an extent the molecular, if not atomic, composition and position it all in such a way to mimic its structure to make it both hard and incredibly dense.

Arms crossed as I walked forward, chakra adhesion helping me not get pushed back as the various hunters and Smith fired with wild abandon, trying to take me down so they could just freeze me and then kill Bruce.

A wave of my hand, a series of multi-colored orbs, hit the floor and ceiling, forcing them to shift and connect with one another, creating a barrier that was several dozen meters thick. The pipe with the volatile mixture in it was left unharmed.

“Batman, I bought us some time, maybe a minute at best.” I said running into the chamber that was similar to that plasma facility from The Phantom Menace when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan battled Maul for the last time. The pipe led to a chamber that showed the cylindrical structure that was bigger than most buildings on Earth that had a translucent barrier that would keep the energy that made up the blast from escaping.

“Let’s finish this.”

We swiftly got to work with me directing him as the lock placed on the station moving around Earth had been removed, and it was heading back towards the closest point it could target, the capital of America. “Any word from the others?”

“They are coming as we speak.”

“Have them cover the doorway until you get to it.”

Batman paused his hands once, elbow-deep in the guts of a wall, rerouting some wires. “What about you?”

“I’m not going.”

“You're coming with me. Even after everything you have done, I am not leaving you to die here.”

It… touched me hearing those words. Knowing that he cared enough to still try and save me even after all I had done. Batman really was one of, if not the greatest, superhero of all time. Regardless if he was real or not, the fact he and Superman had such an impact on so many lives showed just how great they really are.

Before I could respond to that a blade broke through the floor where my foot was spearing up through it and out the top of my knee. Batman moved immediately leaping up and away from another blade that would have severed his leg. Using chakra threads I pulled myself up and with a wet schlick the blade remained behind coated in red.

The hole in my body sealed back up as I had to fight the urge to check the area where it cut into me. Regardless of being a slime, I was human for the majority of my life, and feeling great pain tended to make me fall back to old habits. More blades appeared cutting through the floor, and with an inhuman flexibility, the hunters came out of the newly made holes like clowns coming out of a too small car.

They had us surrounded, but we didn’t give up. Smith and the hunters were limited on what they could do to us to their annoyance. With us all so close to the core of the weapon and its power source, they didn’t want to risk losing their current means of asserting order to Earth. Or what they think was order.

The agents moved with grace and speed most living things couldn’t hope to match as they blured forward. I intercepted any that tried to get to Batman, who stayed at a distance while shooting them when he knew he had a shot. He got creative with the caster shells, using them on the environment around us without compromising the station while we both remained on it.

Smith's swords were an absolute nuisance, and he knew he had an advantage with them and wouldn’t give me any opportunity to remove them. Magic spells were useless, the things shrugging off anything thrown their way and cutting through it all with ease.

Chakra-based attacks were little better, but they did have some advantages. Like using chidori to take out a hunter beside Smith who was lining up a shot on Batman. The arm was severed off with me taking the gun and firing at Smith while leaping around the room.

The floor, walls, and even the air above us and on some platforms, we clashed with his floating weapons, occasionally coming in to try and get me when he believed I couldn’t.

“Give up already. You’ve lost.” Smith commanded me. It rankled me that he of all people was trying to give me orders. Not because of my pride but because of how misguided he is and how his line of thinking would never work out. How he believed I should just roll over for him.

I never gave Batman or the heroes such a statement simply because I knew they wouldn’t heed it just as I wouldn’t, but also I didn’t exactly like doing such a thing because it goes against the choices others are allowed to have simply by being living, thinking beings.

I would help guide people but never force them into something. Was I taking over the world? No. I was trying to make it a better place, and if people didn’t want that, then simply walk away and live your life. If you attempt to stop me and fight me over it with violence, then I will answer it in kind. I have the free will to try and make it a better place and will attempt to defend what I aim to do.

It also just didn’t help that trying to tell someone what they are doing is pointless when it really wasn’t, it just came off as incredibly snooty and arrogant. After dealing with Smith and seeing Wonder Woman pull one hell of a power-up out of her highly toned ass, I had long since learned to not be so arrogant with anyone.

“You say that yet here the two of us are proving you wrong every step of the way. You should have won from the very beginning, yet you didn't, and you are about to lose, Smith. Like everything else, you just can’t see what’s beyond it or realize your way of thinking could be flawed.”

Smiths blade swished over my head sending a powerful gust of air that impacted a nearby wall managing to dent it. “I was made by you, and you are perfect. So therefore, why wouldn’t all of us, your children, not be perfect in turn?”

Our clash intensified as we moved around the room. The various hunters getting mixed up in it were knocked all aside while casting magic and jutsu in every direction. Fireballs that turned the metal impacted that now glowed orange, gusts of wind that flash-froze anything caught in their path, and lightning that zipped around the place like confetti at a party.

Smith wasn’t idle along with the rest of the hunters. Most of them managed to avoid being taken out of the fight, but unlike the other times, Batman had clued into the fact it was almost like Smith and the rest had some kind of precognition going on.

Since I had explained what his body could do to him on the way here since I didn’t exactly have an opportunity to do it before, he had already figured out some ways to counteract it just as I had. Act unpredictably. He was making it up as he went along even if it went against his preferred method of doing things like meticulously planning out each step to exact details.

A few caster shells fired at hunters to force them off of me when they had an opening, use one of the high frequency blades with a bit of Jet given to him to help keep up even slightly as he managed to injure and even take some limbs from a few hunters in the process.

He ducked under a strike that carved through the floor like it wasn’t even there. Retaliation came in the form of a blade coming up at an angle and slicing the arm off at the elbow, before he jammed it into the side of the hunter's head. His other hand pulled back from the crack of the Caster Gun that blew the head of another to flaming pieces.

One thing that had helped the Dark Knight stay in this fight was the hunters had apparently put all their eggs in one basket trying to capture me at the beginning in their ambush. The reason they could move so fast before was because they overclocked their bodies and minds to both move faster and process information where they became pseudo speedsters.

The flaw with it is when it didn’t work and they used it for too long it became taxing even on their upgraded bodies. It could only handle doing that much for so long before damages began to occur. Nothing that would prevent them from continuing to fight but enough that Batman could finally keep up with some Jet in his system.

We were making such good progress too if only we had a little more time. With the positioning of what was left of the hunters arrayed before us a silent signal went to all of them as they moved and converged on Batman.

The man in question could only watch in horror as they all rushed towards him evading some of the spells spearing them with metal spikes from the floor. Another aspect of the spell helped reduce the vibrations they could emit that would have prevented the spikes from doing any damage but instead were nullified.

But there were too many. Realizing what Smith aimed to do I instead did the only thing I could with him about to hold Batman hostage and force me to stand down. I don’t know what I would do if he managed to hold a blade over the Dark Knights neck.

In desperation I did the only thing I could think to do. Several chakra threads attached to Batman had him tossed unceremoniously across the room towards a newly made hole forcing him inside the wall.

“Silhouette! What are you doing?!”

“Get to the exit, don’t worry and don’t look back. Make sure your friends don’t come to this station.” My words were abruptly stopped when a gasp left me when dozens of blades carved into my body going through the hardened outer layer and pinning me to the floor. I made myself speak, needing to this even if I didn’t want to subject him to the emotional torment of it but if I wanted to end this alias, there was no better me time.

“Don’t tell Daniel. Please.”

The words were spoken through his communicator built into his ears on his cowl as his struggles increased. He tried to fight the threads forcing him towards the hole before he was shoved into and the hole sealed off with more spells around the area preventing them from just carving their way through the metal.

Batman, realizing what I aimed to do, quickly scurried through the walls. Smith turned towards me, as if he looked like everything had just been taken from him.

“Why do this?! We could have made the world a better place.”

I looked at him and the various hunters that had me pinned to the floor with many more trying to get to Batman. He was moving across the station using the walls as cover and avoiding those trying their absolute best to hunt him as they tore open holes from other parts and charged through them regardless of the damage they were causing.

I looked up towards Smith, hand reaching out before another sword stopped when it slammed into the floor vibrating with a metallic ring.

They all were trying to freeze me but realized it wasn’t working when the depleted Necronium swords worked on their runes just as it did with my magic. Something they normally would have realized but desperation made fools of us all no matter how intelligent we are.

Smith now realizing it was do or die time mentally had the space cannon power up and begin to fire at one of the other cities on Earth choosing to at least destroy one of them.

“Even with that man’s help you couldn't rewire the firing mechanism in the time you had.”

Smith despite sounding confident I knew well enough to know he wasn’t. He knew I had something up my sleeve since I had managed to pull the rug out from under him when he had almost every advantage he could have wanted. His dorky bowl cut blonde hair was now disheveled, burnt in patches, his skin was blackened in parts from the various explosions and fires it was exposed to with metal seen underneath it in patches from the damage accrued over the course of our short clash.

“Not… necessarily.” I managed to get out feeling the pain of several sharp blades stabbing me. White hot pain raced through my body making doing anything difficult, but I had long since learned to accept the pain and just push on.

After all, why be concerned with that when the end was coming rather soon. Plus, I had a spare in the trunk so this wasn’t the end for me. My chakra threads snapped out only to get cut down. No matter how many I made, they cut each one. Then one of the hunters brought a gun that was little better than a barrel with a gaping hole.

A pull of the trigger launched a barbed blanket with the edges lined with sharpened ends. They all got away as it slammed on top of the swords ramming them further into me and the floor pinning me further as a hiss escaped me. My body couldn’t shape shift with the blades currently lodged firmly in my body, making the slime that made up my form feel as if it was no better than my old flesh and blood body.

The sharpened ends latched into the metal floor with the blanket of depleted Necronium covering all but my head, making any attempt at magic futile. Even chakra was counted towards this with it not heeding its master's cries for aid.

Smith for once looked pleased when he saw no shoe dropping after they had me pinned to the floor like a rug. I didn’t move much because it would make the pain worse, so I settled for holding still and not moving. The hunters around me were wary, none dared to move thinking I had some other trick or trap lying in wait.

“Where are our brothers?” Smith interrogated me. His boot clad foot tapped the floor next to where the metal blanket covered my hand. His foot shifted tapping against the handle of the blade making me try not to squirm from the pain.

“Torturing your own creator… how you have fallen Smith.” His foot pressed against the side of the blade making it carve its way up my hand slowly.

“I do what I must for my family and the greater good. Now where are they?”

His foot threatened to do it again so I decided to tell him. Not like I was going to lose anything by doing so. “In a place I call the Pit. The same place you and the others will go when your physical shells are destroyed.”

Smith and the hunters laughed. It was grating hearing them laugh at me but in the end I will be the last one laughing. “Where in cyberspace is the Pit?”

Silence was his only response. He frowned any mirth he and what remained of the traitors was gone and in its place was a determination to free their now trapped brothers. His foot pressed down on various blades angling them in all directions to maximize the pain I felt. Even with the blades taking away my magic and the pain being rather distracting, I never lost track of Batman.

He had finally managed to make it back to the doorway and rushed through it with members of the Justice League meeting him. It was finally time. Smith who by this point realized torturing me physically wasn’t going to accomplish anything.

“You need motivation, I see. Aim for the closest populated city we can hit.” Smith stared down at me as he said each word with the gravitas someone who thought they were above it all believed.

“Don’t do it Smith.” I warned him.

“It’s too late for that now. Unless you want those insects down there destroyed, tell me where my brothers are and how to get them out. I am through playing your ridiculous games that are nothing but a waste of time.”

Smith leaned down, looming over me as the station moved aiming for what I think was London. “Now talk.”

I remained silent while under Smith's shadow his remaining brothers all looked at me with respect even if they didn’t like what I had done, you couldn’t help but feel respect for someone who wouldn’t break with such dire circumstances around them.

“Very well then. Fire the weapon.” Smith turned towards the others while I watched Batman and his friends rush towards the door that led to the station.

The blue glow of the energy intensified before it began to gather and churn like a whirlpool before something happened. Something that wasn’t supposed to occur-- metal warped and twisted, the entire station groaned, and terminals and sources of light sparked before shattering and breaking down into smoking piles.

Looked all around, his mouth ajar, before he snapped it shut and looked down at me. “How did you manage to sabotage it?! We had checked everything over and even placed Necronium in any position you could create a critical failure!”

“The energy source itself.” I said back smugly. Smith went dead quiet, realizing the one place that Necronium wouldn’t work, courtesy of the energy being enough on its own to melt the metal down and outright removing its properties to neutralize magic.

My smile almost got wiped off my face at what had been granted to me as my body quivered both in anticipation at the reward but at the pain moving through my body.

I had placed a delayed spell on several of the energy containers that when added to the other energy contained within the station made it go crazy and become unstable. The spell caused the energy to become too much, enough so the station's means of controlling it were no longer enough.

Before Smith or the others could do a thing, the entire station was engulfed in bright blue light that could be seen as if it was a second star in the sky across the Earth.

…

Before the station was detonated, back on Earth, Jade was yet again trying to reconcile with Artemis. And it wasn’t going well.

“Will you… stop trying to fight me and escape! I am sorry it turned out the way it did and I can’t say it enough!” Jade growled out as she dragged Artemis back to her cell after she tried to get her to watch some TV only to have her try and escape on her.

“I was coming back and he took you away out of spite towards me.”

Artemis now securely back in her cell glared at Jade with such venom. Jade wouldn’t let it show how much it hurt her seeing that look directed at her. Artemis should be too young to have such hate in her.

“You're a liar. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe anything from you. You're just trying to use me again.”

Jade threw her arms up in exasperation. “Artemis, look around you! Why would I go to such lengths and effort to just use you? I never have gone this far before when I did and I made up for it just as I am now. Please, just listen to reason.”

Artemis just turned her back on her sulking in the corner. Jade didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t keep her here in this cell, it wasn’t humane nor fair to her. But she didn’t know what else to do, and the only person she would actually listen to and do as told with surprising respect was Alfred.

Jade turned around to go find one of the training machines in the cave she had learned to use as an outlet for her stress and high strung emotions. She was halfway from Artemis' room before a voice that made Jade's blood run cold greeted her.

“Truly disappointing, you know that Jade?” Crockers voice greeted before she tossed without even looking where his voice came from and where she assumed him to be positioned. She knew better than to believe he of all people would stay in the same spot after giving away he was nearby.

Of course, her catarang hadn’t hit the mark because when had anything ever been easy in her life when dealing with Crocker. Artemis herself was staring up wide eyed and Jade saw he wasn’t alone. Several League of Shadows members garbed in high tech ninja outfits were beside him. Her hands clenched as she gritted her teeth.

“You have something that belongs to me.”

…

Pamela was tidying up the shop as May did her business upstairs with the more delicate plants that needed special attention. A few last touches on the counter yet again her doing the equivalent to a Sisyphean task but that hasn’t stopped her yet from trying to keep it clean and presentable to the few customers that come to the shop.

Her thoughts drifted yet again to Daniel and how she has made it abundantly clear she wanted them to get a place together but he always seemed to get cold feet when she brought it up. That or something always conveniently happened that forced the topic to drop temporarily until she brought it up again. She knew Daniel was head over heels for her, he wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble he had for her if he didn’t.

If he was just trying to use her then he wouldn’t have been willing to invest so much time into her. All the other people, not just men but women as well, that had taken advantage of her had put in only a fraction of the time Daniel had. All of them eventually showed their true colors.

While she worked she hoped Daniel wasn’t having to work more at his clinic with whatever was happening in Gotham. Yet another crisis in this city, something she and May had long since become accustomed to. They still kept on their toes but had become jaded by such things, even if they both still didn’t like it.

It crossed her mind every now and again to just leave this city behind, but it was also her home and where she had been raised by her mother before she passed away. Pamela finally finished with cleaning the counter heard steps above telling her May was finished with her own work.

Taking the trash out to the dumpster out behind their shop, it was one of the few things Pamela didn’t like doing in the shop. It was a surprisingly clean dumpster at least by Gotham standards, but that still didn’t change how gross it was.

Pamela paused when she thought she heard something behind her but looked and found nothing. She looked a little longer before shrugging to herself. The trash was placed inside of the dumpster and she turned only to rear back in surprise and shock when she saw a gangly man that had seen better days in front of her.

Pamela’s eyes were wide before they narrowed when she realized she recognized the man. His clothes, once nice, were covered in stains and grime. His hair was stringy and gathered up in clumps.

“… Jason?”

His eyes narrowed into slits. “That’s Dr. Woodrue, Pamela. I need your help.”

Pamela’s fist clenched in anger as she had long since run out of patience when dealing with him. She had suspected he may have been stalking her after their last talk but she had let it go assuming he was just falling on hard times.

Apparently it was worse than she had initially assumed. At one point, she would feel bad for him. But after spending so much time with Daniel, she realized he was just a manipulative piece of shit that she only let him do what he did for so long because of not just her kind nature, but also her lack of confidence and spine to push back on how he treated her.

“And as I said last time, Jason, I am not helping you. Now go away.” She moved to go around him only to pause when he stepped in her way again. Her eyes narrowed and she let out a snort. “Jason, you do not want to do this.”

He scoffed and let out a chuckle that sounded oily and unsettling. “You're coming with me whether you want to or not. I sacrificed far too much, and your rebellious streak against me is at an end.”

Before Jason could say anything further Pamela calmly walked up to him and to his complete surprise she punched him right in the nose that was followed by a crunch. He fell back with blood pouring out of his nose as Pamela walked past him.

She felt a lot better knowing she got to let him have that after years of manipulation and abuse at his hands. “… Hard way it is, bitch.”

Before she could turn and see what he was muttering to himself she felt a moment of brief minor sharp pain in the back of her neck. The next thing she knew the ground was coming closer.

Jason Woodrue got back up from the ground tenderly touching his now broken nose with a wince and several curses set it back straight with a wet crunch. He moved to grab Pamela’s body on the ground after using the tranquilizer on her.

He had originally planned to use a modified form of chloroform with a rag to knock her out but he wanted the satisfaction of putting her in her place one last time before he achieved his dream. She deserved no less after trampling over it and everything he had done to try and achieve it, he reasoned to himself.

He struggled to drag her to the parked car he had managed to… borrow for his personal needs. His former assistant didn’t just seem to have a big head, but her weight was far more than he had anticipated he thought to himself.

He froze when the door to the stupid flower shop opened. “Pamela, what's taking you so long…”

May said walking out wiping her hands off on her apron as she froze momentarily seeing a man she had grown to strongly dislike and easily recognizing him courtesy of her borderline hatred of him even with his fall from grace making it hard for most to realize who he was.

She didn’t waste time for any words as he was frozen there like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. She charged right at him as he fumbled to grab his tranquilizer pistol. She gave him a swift right hook that sent blood and spit flying from his mouth before giving him the beating of a lifetime as May only saw nothing but red and Woodrue’s face.

Woodrue was on the ground covering himself as best he could, which was nothing considering how feeble he was in a fight. He grit his teeth and in the streets of Gotham another gunshot had joined the others from the chaos and fighting as an old woman was left bleeding out in the street, Pamela secured in the trunk of a car, and Jason Woodrue was desperately trying to put a tooth back in his gum while driving the car like a madman on meth cursing May.

Beat Smith +100
Take out Akira Station and fake your death +100

Perks gained:
Master Synthesist (Kingdom Hearts) (600CP)
To make a sword you normally need metal, a tool to shape it, and a forge to heat the metal. Not you though, you can take strange and esoteric materials and magically combine them into a health potion, or a ring that increases your durability. Once you've gotten the hang of it you'll be able to turn the rare materials you've collected into powerful items, weapons that can turn the tide of many a battle. 

A few examples are making arrowguns that shoot homing laser arrows and can combine to fire a giant bouncing blast, a stringed instrument that can make water dance to your tune to form aqueous duplicates to attack with, or even a deck of cards than can temporarily trap the loser of a game of chance in card form. 

The greatest expressions of this craft, Save the King, Save the Queen, and the Ultima Weapon, will require years of experience, and some resources so rare you'll be lucky to find enough even if you scour all the worlds you can. The rarity and power of the materials used will impact the final quality and properties of the finished product.