BAE Chapter 106

Lucius Fox throws his coat at the rack and jogs through the opulent parlor in his shirtsleeves. The thunder sounds ominous and he can see the distant searchlights of GCPD airships over downtown even from this far outside the city.

He reaches the bookshelf in the billiards room and pulls on the old, leatherbound edition of Hamlet. A weighty click comes and the grandfather clock to his right slides aside. Lucius ducks into the narrow stairwell, descending at a run to burst into the Cave, where he leaps onto the lift.

Below, Alfred stands alone in front of the array of monitors beside the computer.

“Alfred! What the hell is going on? It’s like World War Three out there!”

“That’s accurate,” Alfred replies tersely, swiping and typing rapidly.

“How can I help?”

“Any experience coordinating airborne rescue?”

“I flew a kite once,” Lucius says, opening the gate to leave the lift and hurrying over in the shadow of the giant penny.

Alfred throws Lucius a headset.

BAE

“A bomb? OK. I’m on it.” Stephanie fires her grapple and leaps, flinging a Batrang to break a GCPD window. She flies through and disconnects, smashing through a dark office to roll into a hallway with two dead bodies in it. “Oh my god. Alfred, it’s bad in here.”

“Down, Ms. Brown. You must descend four levels.”

Stephanie tears down the corridor and kicks open the door to the stairwell, where there’s another dead body. An insane amount of shooting is going on far below.

“There are people in trouble, Alfred.”

“They’ll be worse off if a building falls on them,” Alfred reminds her coolly.

Cursing, Stephanie vaults the railing and drops. The next corridor is even more brazenly destroyed, full of dead and wounded cops and assassins. She spots several Batarangs buried in the walls.

“Babs was here,” she says.

“Ahead and to your right.”

“Are you OK?” Stephanie asks; a woman is bent over another woman on the floor, keeping pressure on a wound.

“Ms. Brown! There’s no time!”

Stephanie can’t wait for a reply. She sprints to evidence storage. The door lies on the ground off its hinges and the room reeks of smoke.

“Load-bearing supports should be easy to spot. That’s the likeliest place to start,” Alfred says in Stephanie’s earpiece. “How many freezing tablets are you carrying?”

“Two.”

“If Ms. Al Ghul was telling the truth, there’ll be more than two devices. Wire clippers?”

“Uh, I have one of the sharp Batarangs.”

BAE

Kate never expected to find herself behind the wheel of the Batmobile. Like everyone else, she always liked her bike. Back when she’d been out every night as Batwoman, Bruce had more or less approved of the work she’d done, but not of the shambles of her personal life. Her sister. Her father. Everything that happened with Maggie and Renee.

She had been good enough to be tolerated, and to be fair, tolerance from Bruce was high praise. But he hadn’t been about to invite her to the cave and hand over the keys to the toys.

The Car blasts through the streets without a hint of stealth, its engine roaring deafeningly, drowning out even the miniguns firing from the front. Sparks and twisted metal fly and another GCPD van careens out of control. Another tire blows and it flips, slamming down on the pavement and sliding with a wail of tortured steel.

Alfred’s busy with Stephanie, so Kate’s on her own. She can hear the **** pleas for help on the scanner, but she can only do so much. A part of her wants to let the Al Ghul soldiers just run, but there’s always the chance that the real payload’s in one of these commandeered vehicles. She zeroes in on another and works the gears, planting her foot to send the Car screaming into a 180 before rocketing after it.

BAE

Dr. Pamela Isley holds her cup of herbal tea halfway to her mouth. It went cold long ago as she stands in her quarters, lit only by the TV.

The news coverage of what’s happening downtown is chaotic. There’s aerial footage of falling airships and the Batmobile blasting police vehicles in the crowded streets with live ammunition.

“Reports of the masked vigilante or vigilantes known as Batgirl being on the scene are starting to come in,” a breathless Summer Gleeson reports, lit by orange flames on a crowded street behind a police cordon. “The Batgirl or Batgirls are understood to be inside the building and aiding the police!” Summer screams and flinches as gunfire breaks out and the camera wobbles.

The feed returns to the studio and two shaken news anchors.

Ivy’s brows rise.

“Wow,” she says.

BAE

“Don’t be stupid!” Selina snaps.

Barbara shoves her away and spins around, firing her grapple. She lunges forward and leaps off the roof of GCPD, swinging out over the golden lights of Gotham as white lightning streaks through the sky.

A uniformed shape plummets past her, then another that she recognizes instantly, even in the dark: Nightwing. He catches the falling man and grapples to the nearest building, dumping him unceremoniously and immediately backflipping off, straight into the cockpit of the Batwing.

That’s all Barbara has time for as her grapple retracts, pulling her up to Talia’s rising chopper with a high-pitched whine.

The door opens and an assassin leans out with a submachine gun; they must’ve felt the jerk of the grapple. He’s too late; Barbara knocks the gun aside and wraps her grapple cord around his neck. The assassin’s good enough to get his hand in the way, and Barbara kicks him out the open door, into the howling wind. The chopper shudders as he falls to dangle, caught on the line.

Clutching her bleeding side and clenching her jaw, Barbara turns to Talia and the remaining assassin, neither of whom is foolish enough to try shooting inside a chopper in flight.

Talia has nothing smug to say now. Knives gleam as she and her guard strike in perfect sync. Barbara catches one knife in her gloved hand and wrenches it away, grappling with Talia. She hopes to get Talia between her and the assassin, but Talia’s not a bad fighter herself. She boosts off the nearest seat, wrapping her legs around Barbara’s head and taking her to the floor of the helicopter. Only Barbara’s reflexes save her from having her neck broken. The assassin sees the stun grenade that Barbara just primed and kicks it out of the open door a second before it detonates.

Talia’s thighs are stronger than Barbara can hope to fight, but Talia isn’t wearing a mask. Barbara throws a sleep pellet blindly, and Talia has **** but to let go and throw it out of the chopper before it can go off.

Ignoring the pain of her wound, Barbara rolls to her feet and catches the assassin’s wrist before he can stab her. She twists, but before she can throw him, Talia’s there. Barbara tries to dodge, taking the blade in her shoulder. She’s annoyed to find that her armor doesn’t help at all; the blade goes right in. She headbutts the assassin and dives for the briefcase. She grabs it as Talia kicks her to the ground. Barbara rolls over and the assassin takes a kick to the knee, then the briefcase to his face. He drops without a sound.

Talia pounces on Barbara, fighting her for the briefcase. Barbara lets go. Talia stumbles back, startled. Barbara leaps to her feet and launches a fierce roundhouse.

Talia’s reflexes give Barbara exactly the outcome that she’s hoping for. Talia blocks with the briefcase and Barbara’s kick sends it flying out of the chopper. The briefcase pops open and Barbara clearly sees translucent cards laced with golden circuitry flutter away in front of the sparkling lights of the city as dark clouds begin to block out the red sky.

Talia stares in disbelief. That look turns to rage.

“Bruce wouldn’t have let you have those either,” Barbara says, raising her voice over the noise of the chopper.

Talia’s gloved hands relax, then tighten on the hilt of her dagger. Barbara stands there bleeding on the floor, one arm hanging useless at her side. Talia lunges and Barbara leaps backward and out of the helicopter. The dangling assassin cries out in agony as she catches his belt with her good hand, swinging out of control. The nearest roof is at least thirty feet down. Barbara wants to wait and let go at the end of the swing, but Talia’s about to slice the line free; she doesn’t care about the life of her guy.

Barbara lets go and falls, an elaborate skylight rushing up toward her. Glass shatters and mahogany splinters as she crashes through the plate glass, then the massive table below, coming to rest covered in blood and glass.

She lies there, gazing up at the jagged hole in the skylight, ears ringing as Talia’s chopper vanishes into the night. Wind, sirens, and chaos sound very far away. Her good arm hurts but still works. She lifts it to see a large piece of glass sticking out of her. Grimacing, she taps the side of her cowl. Her earpiece is broken. Arduously, she brings her wrist to her mouth to use the backup communicator there.

“Alfred,” she gasps.

“Ms. Gordon, are you all right?”

“We got it,” she says faintly. “It was Tetch. Hatter tech. Mind control.”

“Dear God. Were you able to secure it?”

“No. It’s gone. Talia doesn’t have it.”

“Thank goodness. I shudder to think what Al Ghul could do with that technology.”

“Agreed.” Barbara sees black spots swimming in front of her. “She got away.”

“That hardly matters. Are you all right? Your locator shows you in the penthouse of the Hurst building.”

Barbara winces, hesitating.

“Alfred?”

“Yes?”

“I might need a little help.”

[ This is the end of this story arc. There will be several epilogue chapters (which will include some lewd content) to show where everyone who survived stands and the short-term consequences of what has happened. There will also be a Telltale Games-style summary that will directly state some outcomes and Barbara’s relationship status with key characters. I’m good with continuing 2 weekly stories if people want them, so the choice this week is voting yay or nay on another arc of Batgirl, or maybe you want something else. It’s also fine to give feedback on BAE in general. I would try to pay attention to what people liked or didn’t like if we did a future arc. I know BAE was pretty messy, and I’d want to do a better job in the future. ]