IN the stormy city of Gotham, Jessica landed on the wet concrete of an abandoned backlot.
She still had not mentally prepared herself for the fight she was about to have but, if she can steer it in her favor, she could save her mother. Jessica turned her gaze up to see Bruce in all grey metal body armor, he was ready to fight one of them.
Keeping his smirk, his whole demeanor changed from who she once knew him by. "Well, here I am."
Jessica sucked in a deep breath. "Look, Bruce, I know you're mad. I need your help to...-"
He stepped back when he saw her coming forward. "The goddess pleading for help? How disgusting."
"Bruce, please." She begs. "I understand, you, me, and my brother have this bad feud, but this goes beyond that." She spoke, walking closer to Bruce. She noticed him taking cautious steps back as if they were perfectly calculated. "You have to listen to me. Lex wants us...-" Jessica's foot triggered something, a wire of some sort.
This activated a high pitch screeching sound that hit Jessica so fast, she couldn't think where it was coming from. She watched the way the rain froze in its spot. She moved her eyes, watching the way the vibrations in the air were seen more clearly now.
Jumping up, Jessica used her laser vision to destroy the hidden machines. She landed back on the floor gracefully, her hair sticking to her face, coiling to reveal her naturally curly hair. She grits her teeth again. "You don't understand, there's no time!"
The two met in a close standoff, Jessica's hands-on Bruce's armored chest. "I understand!" He growled.
Jessica felt her eye twitch in anger. She didn't have time for this, for any of this angry boy drama. Jessica lightly pushed him away from her but to Bruce, it felt like a full-on tackle. He bounced a couple of times off the floor, landing with a groan.
Realizing what she did, she covers her mouth with her hands. "I'm sorry!" She gasped, running to the man that lay on the ground. "I didn't mean...-"
Bruce pressed a button, revealing two giant laser guns to appear from the walls. They locked onto Jessica's form but before they could shoot at her, the angry Kryptonian grabbed the manhole cover from beneath her. She ripped it apart and threw it like a frisbee to either machine.
Now, she was allowing the anger to take over. There was no way she's going to be able to reason with such a pig-headed man. "Stay down!" She ordered. "If I didn't care about you, you'd be dead already!" When she noticed Bruce getting up off the ground, she levitated above the ground. "You want me to be the bad guy? Fine..." She changed her position to being as flat as a board, fists out in front of her. "I'll be the bad guy."
Jessica flew forward, grabbing Bruce and flinging him up to the top of the building where the giant bat light was held. She flew up, landing on the roof with anger in her eyes. She watched as Bruce scrambled for something a few feet ahead of him.
Jessica began to walk forward with a heavy heart, her cape flapping in the wind along with the rain. She grabbed him by his black cape, swinging him around until she slammed him down onto the floor.
Bruce grunted at the force. "Are you ready to listen to me now?" She asked.
Bruce aimed his, overly, large gun at Jessica. Pressing the trigger, a canister shot toward Jessica. The super caught the grey canister like Mr. Myogi caught the fly with his chopsticks.
A beeping sound caught her attention, she took a closer look to see a beeping red light on the side of it. Before she could throw it away from her, she was met with a cloud of green smoke. Unable to hold her breath, she breathed it in with much difficulty.
The gas instantly burned her insides like a toxin. It felt as though everything inside her was on fire, eating away at her like a parasite. She gasped and wheezed in pain; her lungs were on fire. She fell to her knees, trying to get away from her horrid attacker. Inept to move any further, Jessica collapsed, face down, on the floor.
She felt Bruce grab her by her throat and lift her small figure in the air. "Breathe it in. That's fear, pain, betrayal." Jessica watched him, unable to breathe. He tossed Jessica's body to the floor. The woman did her best to scramble to her feet, wheezing as though she had asthma. She ran at him wobbly; she charged her arm back to throw a punch.
Bruce grabbed her fist in his large hand with ease, his other hand grabbing her throat again. He used his head to headbutt her until she was bleeding from her nose. "You see, you and your brother aren't brave, men are." He hissed, throwing her body through a large glass window.
A large crack emitted from the weakened glass underneath her. It whined at the sudden motion of Jessica trying to get up, but she didn't have a chance to when Bruce jumped up. He sent all of his weight to his feet so it sent the both of them crashing down into the abandoned building.
Jessica's body couldn't recuperate fast enough, especially after that weird gas was spit in her face. Bruce has information she doesn't, and it pissed her off beyond belief. She got up a little faster than Bruce did, stumbling about towards the man to attack. She was running out of time.
She brought her fingers up to her nose to see the sticky red blood on her wet fingers. "We are running out of time!" She wheezed, her voice booming off the walls. She stalked the giant room, looking for Bruce. He was known to be sneaky and silent; she had no control of her X-ray vision, so she was left powerless.
She felt Bruce kick her into a wall, plaster and paint chips exploding from the impact. She looked around to see she was in another room from the ground. Jessica saw Bruce grab a sink from off the wall, walking over to her to smash it over her back.
When he got close enough, Jessica spun onto her back, using both of her feet to kick him down to the floor. She stood up to her feet just in time to see Bruce running at her. She felt her eyes widen in surprise at how fast he got up.
The skilled fighter began to throw multiple punches. One to her left ear, another to her right ear, one to her stomach, and a forceful jab to her throat. Jessica's hands flew to her throat, gagging at the pain.
When she recovered, Jessica did a cartwheel, grabbing a large piece of glass and cutting open Bruce's armor with it. The skin split open with a tangy ripping sound, Jessica could smell the metallic fill in the air. With Bruce cradling the new wound on his chest, Jessica grabbed Bruce by the ears on his mask, bringing his face down onto her knee. The crack of her knee, when it collided with the metal of his mask, made her cry out.
Bruce took this as his opportunity to tackle her into another wall. While doing so, he slammed her against a sturdier wall. Bruce swung his fist into Jessica's face, the force of the blow snapping her head to the side.
Lucky for her, Jessica was starting to feel the effects of the gas wear off. Bruce was able to land a couple more punches before Jessica's face remained unmoved. The evil glare in her eye slightly frightened the Bat.
Jessica smirked at the man; it was now her turn. She grabbed Bruce by his throat, swinging him into the giant mirrors behind them. He grits his perfect teeth in pain. She landed on her knee to catch her breath. She hated this, the fighting. "Why did you have to be so damn stubborn?" She huffed. "I don't want to fight you." She wheezed as she began to hover above the ground, her balance was wobbly, but she was getting the feeling in her legs again.
She began to fly through the giant hole that she sent Bruce through earlier at full speed. Jessica noticed Bruce was scrambling about for something, catching her off guard. At that moment, she just saw Bruce, the man that showed that he cared for her, the man that would travel almost an hour every night to visit her at her apartment balcony to just talk about her day. What happened to that? What happened to the late-night talking in her bed?
That's what happened, ignorance and anger to two people who just wanted to change the world.
Bruce immediately aimed the gun with the green Kryptonite gas at Jessica again. She collapsed onto her hands and knees, gasping for air again. This time unable to move to get away from the gas, Bruce walked over with a broken sink in his hands and slammed it down onto her back, successfully this time.
Jess cried out in pain and collapsed onto her stomach. Bruce proceeded to wrap a wire around her ankle, dragging her down the long corridor to where a set of spiral stairs rested and below, a pile of rubble. "I bet your parents told you that you could overcome anything..." Bruce spoke, his voice modulator buzzing in and out with his broken mask. "My parents taught me a different story." Bruce pressed a button on the gadget that was attached to Jessica's ankle, instantly dragging her to him like retracting measuring tape.
She skidded onto the floor as Bruce used her momentum to throw her over the large hole in the middle of the stairway. Jessica landed on the rubble with a loud oomph, everything hurt, her body, her mind, her heart. She couldn't kill him and now her mother was going to pay the price.
Jessica laid unmoving; her face plastered into the pile of rubble beneath her. She just wanted the world to swallow her whole, she wanted to die. Bruce jumped down with the help of his grappling hook right in front of her. He walked down to her ankle yet again and walked all the way to the center of the room.
"My parents taught me that the world only makes sense of it if you make it." He pressed the button yet again and retracted her to him yet again. Bruce began to swing her in the air, crashing Jessica into pillars along the way. They began to crash to the floor, one by one until he finally slammed her down onto another pile of rubble, face first.
Jess groaned in pain, her hair hiding her bruised face that has still yet to heal from the attacks earlier. She heard Bruce shuffle around, his heavy footsteps fading then reappearing louder. The Kryptonian tried to shift her head to look, see what he was doing but had no luck. She placed both her hands on the rubble, trying her best to push herself up, not ready to give up the fight on her mother's life but Bruce beat her too.
He used his heavy boot to kick her back down. He turned Jess over with determination in his eyes, a heavy sphere with a pointed green type of rock on the end of it. When it got closer, it seemed to glow brighter.
"You were never a God," Bruce took the sphere and cut Jessica's cheek with it. Jessica gave a loud, painful groan the closer the sphere got. "You were barely even human." Bruce spits, swinging the sphere upwards to strike her.
Before Bruce could end her life unjustifiably, she croaked out a sentence under his heavy boot. "You're letting him... kill Martha!" Bruce froze at those words. "Find him... save... Martha!"
Martha? His mother Martha? "How do you know that name?"
"Please!" Jessica choked with Bruce's giant metal foot still on her chest. Thick beads of tears fell down her cheeks, thick wet ropes of her curly hair stuck to her face. "Save... my..."
"How do you know that name!" Bruce shouted. "Martha! Why did you say that name!?" He bellowed.
The sounds of Lois's heels echoed through the walls. "Jessica!" She called out, her running never faltering. When Lois saw the giant green glowing spear aimed at Jessica's chest, she was sent into an even further worrying frenzy. "No! Stop!" Lois yelled, falling to Jessica's aid.
"Why did you say that name! Martha, why did you say that name!" Bruce shouted again.
Lois took it upon herself to answer. "That's her mother's name!" She hissed, cradling Jessica's head. "It's her mother's name... please let her go!" She shouted to the very stunned Batman.
Bruce blinked a couple of times, stepping back from both Lois and Jessica. His face remained stoic but the look in his eyes said it all. He was disgusted, ashamed, not with Jessica but with himself.
He was so hell-bent on destroying the evil that took thousands of lives when the evil wasn't them at all. She was risking her life to save her mother, and he was going to kill her for it.
Bruce took a good look at the state Jessica was in, bruised face, cut cheek, heartbroken face. The woman he promised, to himself, he wasn't going to let anything harm her was almost killed by his hand. His hand of ignorance, anger, and vengeance. He swallowed thickly almost on the verge of tears until the sounds of him giving a loud yell in anger and threw the staff far away from Jessica.