Mine and Tatsumi began to jump from rooftop to rooftop to find their target. Mine only had a high powered sniper rifle now since she lost Pumpkin a while ago, and now had Tatsumi as a partner since Sheele went to the retribution group.
Mine: "I can't believe I got partnered up with you again, I am not going to play babysitter for the newbie."
Tatsumi: "I'm not a newbie anymore, in fact I should be around the same rank as you."
Mine: "Do not pit me with you and your friends newbie, you barely have seen any action as of yet."
Tatsumi: "I killed some targets."
Mine: "Yet none of them had any teigu's, so don't get cocky just because you killed a few low thugs."
Tatsumi: "What about that time that I helped kill that imperial fist master."
Mine: "Yeah, but that that's the most action that you have seen, which isn't much."
They stand on top of a building in front of the house of where their target was located, their target was a imperial captain that has been somehow been learning the every move made by the eastern front of the revolutionary army.
Mine: "Now shut up, I'm concentrating."
Mine began to look down the scope to see that the lights were off to his house.
Mine: "Now that's strange."
Tatsumi: "What is?"
Mine: "Our spy said that they would be home by now, and normally they would be reviewing information."
Tatsumi: "So what do we do?"
Mine: "I'm going to call the spy."
Mine pulled out a radio to call in to their spy only to have nothing in response. Mine began to have a bad feeling, so a part of her began to get suspicious of this assignment.
Mine: "Their not responding."
Tatsumi: "I think we should go check what's going on."
Mine: "Maybe but I don't like the look of it."
Tatsumi: "Then let's go."
Tatsumi began to head into the building with Mine following behind him. Both Mine and Tatsumi was cautious when they began to open the door to the building giving an audible creak. Looking in the dark room sent alarms through Mine's body, it was way to easy to get inside, this place was meant to be built like a fortress with reinforced walls and doors. Yet the door was unlocked and there wasn't any guards here, it was all too easy.
Tatsumi: "It's quiet, too quiet."
Mine: "No shit Sherlock."
Suddenly the doors behind them shut, this caused both Tatsumi and Mine to panic.
Mine: "Great the rookie walked us both right into a trap."
Tatsumi: "What the your blaming me for this?"
Mine: "It was your idea."
Suddenly the lights came on where they saw three men on chairs, two of them they instantly recognized, one of them was their spy and the other their target. The revolutionary spy had a tape over his eye's, the imperial captain had something over his ears, while the third one a mystery man had tape over his mouth.
Mine: "What the hell?"
Tatsumi then began to walk up to the revolutionary spy, where he began to check his pulse to find out that this man was alive.
Tatsumi: "He's alive."
Tatsumi was about to get the man off the chair, until Mine noticed a thin strand of string connecting him to the chair.
Mine: "Tatsumi, wait!"
Tatsumi stopped moving and began to slowly put the man back onto the chair.
Mine: "He's attached to an explosive."
Tatsumi: "Yeah, I saw that before I could activate it."
They see that the chair was arranged in a triangle with a bomb under each chair, the bomb was small enough to hide but powerful enough to blow up the entire building. Both Mine and Tatsumi then began to look onto each person on a chair, so they decided to check if they could remove their tape. When they removed the revolutionary spy's duct tape over his eye's to reveal that this man had his eye's removed, with only bloody sockets.
Tatsumi: "God, who does this to a person?"
Mine began to look around the room to see that there was a letter on the only table in the room.
Mine: "To the Batman? Tatsumi I don't think we are supposed to be here."
Tatsumi walked towards Mine where he saw the letter, so Tatsumi decided to open the letter to see what's inside.
Mine: "Wait don't."
Tatsumi: "Why not if we don't do anything he could die."
Mine: "We don't know that, plus we can't be in the same place for too long."
Tatsumi: "So your suggesting we abandon him?"
Mine: "No but what good are we, if we're dead. So I need you to slow down and refrain from touching everything."
Tatsumi: "Okay."
Mine then began to analyze the room where she tried to think of anything to get their spy out of the situation, she could care less about the other two.
Mine: "Alright let's open it."
Tatsumi then nodded and opened it to see the note that said 'To your mysterious friend' she then opened it to see a string of strange symbols.
Mine: "What the hell?"
This was confusing to Tatsumi and Mine so they gave up with the note, and decided to simply disarm the bomb and get out of there.
Mine: "Alright I think I can do this."
Mine began to slowly but surely disarm the bomb, but she was moving at a snails pace doing her best not to make a single mistake that will blow up everyone in the building.
Tatsumi: "Hey, Mine are you almost done?"
Mine: "No, why are you asking?"
Tatsumi: "Because I think we are on the clock here."
Mine then began to hear many footsteps approaching the building, this caused Mine to slightly panic while Tatsumi began to barricade the door even though it was steel reinforced.
Guard 1: "Captain, are you there?"
Neither Tatsumi nor Mine answered.
Guard 2: "Something is not right."
The guards tried to open the door, with the door being locked.
Guard 1: "If there is anyone inside open the door!"
The guards began to try to force the door open only to not budge the door.
Guards 2: "It's not budging, get the others."
With one of the guards continuously banging on the door while the other guard began to run to get reinforcements which spelled bad news for Tatsumi and Mine.
Tatsumi: "Shit, Mine you got to hurry up."
Mine: "I'm trying, but I can't make a mistake or we are all goners."
Mine was beginning to become nervous due to the fact she was at a point of no return, so she's going to need as much time as she can get. Seconds begin to feel like minutes, minutes felt like hours, ten minutes pass with their stress increasing over each agonizing second with their life could end depending on who is on the other side of the door. Neither of them have a teigu with Mine losing hers and Tatsumi never getting assigned one in the first place.
Mine: "Come on. Come on!"
Tatsumi: "Hey Mine, we got a problem."
Mine: "What kind of problem."
Tatsumi: "You know that girl with the biological teigu that you described when you and Sheele fought her."
Mine: "What about her?"
Tatsumi: "She's here."
Tatsumi saw the auburn haired woman and her biological teigu Koro, who was approaching the building with at least a dozen guards with her.
Mine: "I almost got it don't worry, just give me a few seconds."
Tatsumi saw Koro grow the size of a small house with arms as thick as a person.
Tatsumi: "I think we are out of time."
Mine: "I got it."
Mine barely removed the bomb with Tatsumi tackling both her and their spy trying to find another way out by going through the upstairs. They quickly hear the sound of metal being torn apart, safely assuming that was Koro breaking through the door, with many footsteps enter the building.
Mine: "We got to head to the roof, ground is too dangerous."
Tatsumi: "We got to find a way out first."
Mine then saw something out of the corner of her eye, a latch to the attic.
Mine: "Over there."
Tatsumi looked over and immediately began to head over to the attic quickly climbing up and closing the door behind them. Only to find that the windows have also been reinforced making it a dead end.
Tatsumi: "Shit, it's a dead end. What do we do now?"
*Bang*
Tatsumi looked over to see that Mine shot at the roof wall, with a couple of more shots following. Mine quickly found out that the walls weren't reinforced and made a hole for all of them to go through. Mine got out first with Tatsumi carrying their ally then gave him to Mine, finally Tatsumi was the last one out as they began to run as fast as they possibly can away from the building. They both soon heard a roar along with a crash, Tatsumi then looked back to see that giant dog destroyed the attic and was trying to sniff them out, thankfully though it wasn't able to.
Tatsumi: "We made it."
Tatsumi took a sigh of relief after escaping their dire situation.
Mine: "Barely, but we should retreat and get this man some medical attention."
Mine then noticed that this man had burn marks on his back, these burn marks looked similar to the symbols that were in the letter. Sadly she left the letter back in the building, nor did she care about the letter.
Mine: "Come on we should go."
Meanwhile in the building Seryu was looking around the room to find the letter with a the words to Batman. She went over to grab it to see the strange string of symbols that was inside the letter, the she closed it seeing the back of the letter to see a strange question mark.
(Meanwhile)
About half an hour ago while Tatsumi and Mine were hunting their target, Bulat and Sayo were heading for their target. It was some strong noble who possessed a teigu, this noble would use both his political power and teigu to control those under him with fear.
Bulat: "Stay close Sayo, let's not waste any time. This man has many guards surrounding the place."
They began to enter the building where things began to seem suspicious due to the fact that there were no guards. Bulat was getting a bad feeling that this may be the work of the batman, but it didn't sit right on his instincts.
Bulat: "Keep an eye out, something's not right."
Sayo gave a nod and continue to follow him, after a few minutes of nothing happening she got curious.
Sayo: "Where are the guards? Did the Batman get here before us?"
Bulat: "I think so, it matches his MO. Yet at the same time I have this terrible feeling that something is wrong."
Suddenly they find the nobles bedroom where they open the door to see that the noble was sleeping on the bed. They began to approach the man with Bulat pulling up his spear and impale the man in the center of his chest, with no reaction. Blood began to leak from the wound but Bulat didn't trust the situation so he pulled the blankets to see that the man's head was facing 180 degrees, with his body facing down on the bed while his head was facing towards the ceiling.
Sayo: "What the?"
Bulat: "We got to go, now!"
?????: "You, are not the bat."
They both turn around to see a huge man who was nearly seven feet tall, wearing a trench coat, black pants, and boots, but they couldn't tell any facial features due to this man was wearing some kind of weird mask.
Bulat: "Who are you?"
?????: "My name isn't important. From your armor I guess that you are Bulat the hundred man slayer."
Bulat: "What if I am?"
Suddenly Bulat felt a boot land onto his gut causing him to get launched across the room and out the window. Sayo saw this and tried to kick the strange man on his side while he was busy with Bulat only for the strange man not even react to the kick. The man jumped out the window to go after Bulat where he only found the small crack on the pavement floor where he landed. The man looked around to see that the door was slightly ajar, figuring out that Bulat went back inside. With the next second the sound of window crashing with the spear flying towards the man's head, which he caught mid air.
?????: "Playing games are we?"
The man began to walk inside into the dark building, walking around trying to find Bulat. Behind the man was Bulat using his teigu's trump card of invisibility, due to the fact that Bulat knew that this man was stronger than him even with Incursio.
?????: "So the legendary hundred man slayer decides to hide in the shadows."
The man began to walk around the corner with Bulat was slowly following behind trying to conceal his presence from this man.
?????: "You think darkness is your ally?"
The man walked into another corner only this time it was much darker due to no windows in this corridor. Bulat followed suit only to lose track of the man in the dark corridor, Bulat began to try to find the man.
?????: "You merely adopted the dark. I was born in the darkness, molded by it."
Bulat was trying to find the man by following the sound of his voice, unknown to Bulat he was the one being followed now.
?????: "I didn't see daylight until I was a young man."
Bulat then realized that the voice was now behind him, Bulat now didn't have any idea where he might be. The only other person that was able to do this was Batman but at least with him he knew that his life, but this man had a different atmosphere to him, much more dangerous.
?????: "Even then it was nothing to me but blinding."
Bulat felt a hand grab onto his throat when the man said that last word, completely sneaking up on him. The man slammed Bulat onto the wall causing cracks to form on the wall, with the sheer amount of brute force caused Bulat to knock the wind out of him. Then the man slammed the bottom of his boot on Bulats face which caused the entire wall to break apart, Bulat felt as if a cannon hit him in the face.
?????: "The shadow's betray you because they belong to me."
The man began to pull Bulat out of the rubble, Bulat tried to fight back by throwing a punch at him. Only for the man to catch it mid air and force Bulat's fist back at his own face, then the man threw a hook to Bulat's rib's causing one of them to break on impact. Bulat then staggers onto his knee, before he could do anything Bulat saw the man's knee head towards his face causing him to get knocked back onto the floor.
?????: "A hundred common soldiers maybe, an admiral feat. Nothing to the degree of those of the initiated."
Bulat forced himself back up even though he was struggling to stand up straight, he was suffering from a concussion.
?????: "Good stand up, show me more of your great legend."
Bulat got into a fighting stance summoning his spear in order to improve his chances against this man. Bulat then charged at him trying to decapitate the man only for him to merely take a backstep to avoid the slash. Bulat followed up with a multitude of his signature slashes, but this man was able to dodge every single one of them without a scratch. Suddenly the man caught the spear and pulled Bulat close for a headbutt causing Bulat to let go of the spear. The man then flipped the spear and stabbed Bulat in his stomach.
?????: "Is that all? How disappointing."
The man then brought his fist onto Bulat's face with an uppercut, the punch was enough to break Bulat's jaw. While he was on the floor the man approached Bulat and began to throw punches to his face, with Bulat unable to defend himself. Each punch began to hit harder than the last, at the end of the assault Bulat had various cracks all over his helmet. The man then grabbed his helmet with both of his hands and with almost no effort, he tore the helmet in half revealing Bulat's face.
?????: "You are just like the rest-"
The man then carried Bulat over his head, Bulat didn't have any strength left and was doing what little he had left to stop the bleeding from his stomach.
?????: "Broken."
The man then threw Bulat down onto his knee, Bulat's spine snapped in two from the sheer force as he screamed in pain. This caused Bulat's armor to retract into it's dormant state, this caused the spear that was lodged in his stomach to disappear. The man then tossed Bulat to the side, tried to gather whatever strength he had to hold the sword of incursio while trying to keep his intestines inside and bleeding at a minimum. It was all no use, Bulat knew his death will be inevitable.
Sayo: "Bulat, NO!"
Sayo finally came to witness the breaking of Bulat, she was frozen unable to do anything until Bulat was tossed to the side. She pulled out her bow and began to fire arrows at the man, this would only annoy him as he dodged or caught each arrow.
?????: "Pathetic."
The man then began to approach Sayo, she was trying her best to kill him. He then was in front of the Sayo, who then saw how big this man was. Sayo then pulled out a knife where she tried to stab him, only for the man to grab her wrist and twist it, causing her to drop the knife. He then threw her across the corridor landing next to Bulat, she was slightly disoriented and looked up to see that the man was already in front of her. This man was holding her knife standing well above her, he then picked up his foot and put her head under his heel.
?????: "Your not even worth the dirt under my boot."
Bulat the gathered his strength and used incursio's sword to try to slash the man, but only resulted with the man lifting his foot off of Sayo and stomped onto Bulat's hand. An audible crunch as Bulat's hand was crushed from the sheer force
?????: "You wish to protect this one?"
Bulat merely glared at the man, but it was all he needed as a response.
?????: "Very well."
The man lifted his foot and began to walk away, granting the warrior his final wish.
?????: "Oh, I almost forgot."
The man then threw the knife to Sayo's leg as she was trying to stand up, causing her to scream in pain falling back down. The man began to walk over to her, and lowered himself down to her level.
?????: "I need you to give a warning to the batman. Tell him that he will be the next one to be broken under my strength, that I will be his bane of his existence."
Sayo: "Who are you?"
?????: "Just call me Bane"
Bane then began to walk out of sight from the two of them. As soon as he was out of sight, Sayo then began to try to treat Bulat's wounds.
Sayo: "Don't worry Bulat I'll help -"
Bulat stopped her.
Bulat: "I'm done, Sayo."
Sayo: "No, no, don't say that. I'll find a way to save you."
Sayo then began to hear footsteps approaching the building.
Bulat: "Go, they will be surrounding the building soon."
Sayo had tears going down her face as she watched Bulat weakly give her Incusio.
Sayo: "I'm sorry for being so weak."
Bulat gave her a smile, and put his hand on her head in order to comfort her.
Bulat: "You and your friends have the potential to surpass even me, so grow stronger."
Sayo then nodded and took incursion in her hands.
Sayo: "Bulat I -"
Sayo looked up to see that Bulat had his eye's closed with his breathing coming to a stop. He died then and there, Sayo began to hug Bulat with tears in her eye's before running out of the building the best she could with her wounded leg. Once she was about mile away from the building, she turned around to see that Bane was standing on top of a building watching her escape.
(Meanwhile)
At a Noble's manor, in their underground bunker that is meant to keep Nightraid out if they were to invade his house. This bunker was well hidden and strong enough to survive the strength of some teigu's. In this bunker there was a meeting of a multitude of different people each a noble of a different estate in the capital, although there are a significant number of empty chairs in this meeting.
Noble: "Damn it, so many of our people are now dead."
Gang leader: "Do you think they got killed by nightraid?"
Imperial captain: "Probably, but now there has been new freaks out there. Have you heard about the clown?"
?????: "Quiet all of you!"
They all looked over to see their boss, Syura who teleported into the room, he got these nobles together in order to try to gain power throughout the capital behind the scenes. Although right now it seems to be collapsing due to the uprising of vigilante's and assassins.
Syura: "Now I am going to get back here with a team that will take care of all of our problems."
Imperial Captain: "Well I hope so, because I believe that Captain Gordan has been on my trail. "
Syura: "He won't be a problem."
Gang leader: "What about the Bat."
Syura: "Please he won't last once I return, rest assured that you will be safe."
"Ha hA ha HA ha Ha Hoo hOo ho Hi hi hI ha."
They all turned around to see some strange man who looked like a clown with a grin wearing purple coat.
Joker: "And I thought my jokes were bad."
Noble: "How did you get past the guard?"
The noble hired a master of the imperial fist to keep a look out for any of their enemies.
Joker: "I heard that he should keep an eye out."
Joker pulled out two eyeballs from his pocket and tossed him onto the table, this horrify everyone at the table.
Joker: "He he hE Ha hA HA"
Everyone at the table was on edge from the Joker's horrifying, insane laughter.
Imperial captain: "Why don't we just pull the clowns head off."
Joker: "Well then how about a magic trick."
The Joker pulled out a pencil and stabbed it into the table, while one of the crooked captains bodyguard began to walk up to the clown. The bodyguard tried to grab the Joker only to have the Joker to grab his hand put it behind him, then the Joker slammed the man's head onto the pencil. This kills the man instantly where the entire room saw that the pencil was lodged into the man's eye and into his brain.
Joker: "Tada! It's magic."
Syura: "Well then, what do you have to say, uhm?"
Joker: "The names Joker, my card."
The Joker then tossed a joker card onto the middle of the table.
Joker: "As I was saying, let's go back about a decade ago, the time before batman. No one would ever dare cross any of you, especially you Syura son of the Prime minister. You and your father had control of over nobles who had would give you riches, crooked cops who controlled the law, and various gang members who would control the people. No one would cross you."
They all looked around to see now the pathetic state of what was left of their group, Syura used to have his own empire.
Joker: "Well what happened? Did your balls drop off? So with a guy like me -"
Imperial captain: "A freak."
The Joker merely gave the man a side glance and for a split second his smile disappeared.
Joker: "Well I know why you guys prefer to have your meetings in the daylight and all the -"
Joker then looked at the eyeballs on the table.
Joker: "Security, He hA ha. I know why your afraid to go out at night. The Batman. You see Batman has shown your true colors unfortunately, and Gordan he's just the beginning."
The Joker then pointed at Syura.
Joker: "And purple rain here, who believes that his team will surely take out the batman. Didn't we see this before with the Elite seven, Oarburgh clan, Retribution group, Nightraid, and the most recent Jaegers all failed. What makes him so different? You know what I think, Batman will get to him because Batman has no jurisdiction nor boundaries and will make him squeal. I know the squealers when I see one and him -"
Syura didn't like what the Joker was saying and was about to do something until someone asked the important question.
Gang leader: "What do you suppose we do?"
Joker: "Simple we, uh kill the Batman."
This caused everyone in the room to give a chuckle.
Noble: "If it's so simple why haven't you done it?"
Joker: "If your good at something, never do it for free."
Syura: "How much you want?"
Joker began to think for a couple of seconds.
Joker: "Half."
This caused the Imperial captain to be fed up with the Joker, where he slammed his hands on the table.
Imperial Captain: "Enough with the clown"
The captain then began to walk to Joker but the Joker pulled out a gun and opened his vest to reveal a bomb with the trigger attached to his finger. Seeing the bomb made everyone in the room panic and with Syura who simply teleported out of the building back where he was, leaving the rest at the mercy of the Joker.
Joker: "Let's not blow things out of proportion"
Imperial Captain: "Alright, let's not get crazy, I'm only joking."
Joker then pulled the trigger causing a little sign to come out of the barrel of the gun that said 'bang'.
Joker: "So was I. He hE he."
Joker then began to wave the sign in front of him, the guard gave a sigh of relief and looked at the others. In that split second of him looking away caused the Joker to point the gun at him and pulled the trigger again causing the sharp end of the sign to be imbedded into the lung of the Guard.
Joker: "Oops no I wasn't. Ha HA AH HA hA HA AH."
The Imperial Captain began to cough up blood he wasn't dead from the shot, but if he didn't get any treatment he will suffocate on his own blood.
Imperial Captain: "You son of *cough* bitch, I will ha find you ha ha and ha Ha hA kill - HA HA HA hA Ha HA HA HA HAHAHAHA"
Unknown to him or anyone else in the room other than Joker, the sign was laced with an unknown toxin. This toxin caused the victim to laugh uncontrollably laughter, so the Guard was laughing uncontrollably and due to his blood entering his lung. He began to cough up blood and he couldn't get any breath from the amount of laughter along with his face contorting into a impossibly wide smile. The gang leader and the noble were watching in horror as they watched the guard's life slowly lose the life from his eyes, with his laughter slowly die down with gurgle.
As he died all they could hear was the Joker's laughter