2019-05-05 - The Bloodiest Knight

Summary:

Batman is lured to a house of a conspiracy theroist who was trying to figure out his real identity - only to discover that, apparently, he has murdered the entire family?

Log Info:

Storyteller: Cessily Kincaid
Date: Sun May 5 22:06:02 2019
Location: New York City - Residential Area - Brownstone Home

Related Logs

None

Theme Song

None

bruce-wayne

Tonight was going to be one hell of a night.

The blood moon.

Not only a full moon, when, reportedly and by experience the Caped Crusader knew would bring out the most dire of chaotic actions by thugs and ambitious villians alike, but tonight had even further implications.

The police, of course, were already busy and out in force, patrolling, and responding to the more mundane of the crazies, the thugs, keeping people in line and keeping citizens safe as much as they could. They were good at their jobs, most of them. But, they were at times also understaffed.

"Unit 77. Please respond. Strange noises heard in Brownstone at 1287 Frazier Dr. Possible domestic dispute, but caller concerned because noises lasted only a few seconds. Might be something else."

"Unit 77 here. Will respond ASAP. Got two more stops to make before I can get there. Two break ins to cover."

"Confirmed, Unit 77. Be advised no gun shots heard. Report in once you've checked the address."


The Blood Moon in Staten Island seems to always be exceptionally bad. Every since the Island's population swole after the events of 9/11, it seemed that the crime went up with it. Batman always found it to be a very busy time. And now with his own progeny out on patrol - along with the return of one he didn't expect - things have the Bat further on guard.

Usually, a domestic call wouldn't draw his attention - but it turns out that he was already within the block. And much closer than the police were. There's a momentary pause as he listens over the police frequency. The address is pulled up on his systems, along with any information on the occupants.

This is all done en route as he fires the grapple line to grab a nearby building and swing across Frazier drive and covers the 1200 block quickly along the rooftops. Landing at 1280 Frazier. he starts to make his way towards 1287, bringing up his suite of gear to try to ascertain the sitation as his last grapple line lands him on the edge of the rooftop of the address, just over the back courtyard as he turns and places his fingers against the glass to try to listen in.


The street outside the brownstone is dark. The streetlight hasn't just gone out - it's been shattered. Recently. Glass is strewn about on the sidewalk. A single dim light inside the brownstone is one, suggestive it's an ineterior light, and just barely reaching the second story window.

The exterior of the home is in disuse. Worn. The sidewalk, save for the minimal care the city might provide, is unkept. Weeds. Overgrowth.

But outside the home? There is no activity. The street is empty. That sort of 'too empty' that one might envision only in watching a western before the big showdown, or a horror movie before the creature jumps out unexpectedly from behind the bush.


As Batman accesses the situation, his lips pull into a thin line. This doesn't read like a domestic dispute. And he's worried that when the NYPD arrives, they may come across something worse. It's because of that he heads to the roof of the brownstone. Landing on it, he moves around to the side of the building and jimmies open a back window.

Once it's slid open, he slips inside the upper floor of the brownstone, and flicks on a flashlight. He's not sure if he's ended up in one of the bedrooms or somewhere else - but this will be where the investigation begins.


Instantly, the flash finds something worth investigating.

It's a conspiracy theorists wet dream.

Pictures. Articles. Colored threads, and lines. Some look like they've been there for years. Others, newer but still somewhat faded by the sun or lamplight.

Most of these pictures, most of these articles have a red 'x' through them. Most.

The articles, generally seem to go with the faces and pictures on one wall, while threads lead said pictures to other articles. THose other articles?

News stories of various escapades, sightings of the Batman.

There are hundreds of these pictures on one wall, most of which are crossed out. There are just about twenty or so that are not crossed off - and Bruce Wayne is among those elite few, along with several other very rich people, and several others that would have access to large databases of the sort of information that the Batcomputer provides the Batman with.

Even among all this, though, there's something even worse to discover.

A blood spray, coating the mid-section of the wall with the articles, the sort that only an immediate an instant slashing of the throat from behind would make. The fresh corpse below it couldn't be dead a half hour and the slit-throat from ear-to-ear was done with a savage precision of experience.


The lenses of the cowl flare and narrow. Already the onboard HUD is scanning everything. He's pulling up the address of the house in the database. Who owns it.

As he makes his way along the lines of the Venn diagram and it's numerous parallels and crosses. It's not the first time he's seen the accusation of who he might be under the cowl. But it has been several years - he had hoped that with others filling in for him after the Brooklyn Blitz that theory would be laid to rest.

But it's in places like this that hope dies. Broken, ruined, desecrated brownstones, lined like the tombstones they sometimes represent.

That's when the beam of light settles on the blood spatter. Fresh.

It doesn't take even a rookie detective a few seconds to realize that he's not going to be getting up. He checks the floor carefully. There will be no stepping into the pool of blood to leave a track, even as he moves over to see if the victim has a computer.


The HUD comes up with the information neatly, efficiently. Owned by Kyle Denver. Kyle Denver's ID and easily grabbed stats come up, and it's instantly clear that Kyle Denver won't be answering any questions anymore about who he thinks is the Batman. But the terror on his face suggests shock at the time of death, but due to his experience with crimescene, Batman is able to leave the crimescene unsullied.

There are no signs of technology, though. No computers. Not even a wifi signal, save for the weak signals from neighboring brownstones.

A few rooms away, a telephone begins to ring. The old kind of phone. Connected to lan lines, and made out of pale green bakalite plastic with the spinna-roonie numbers.

In the same room as the phone, is another body. This one of an older woman. Jane Denver, the HUD will display. Further inquiry will provide they've been married for just over twenty years. She, too, has had her throat split from ear to ear.

Laying in the pool of blood near her pone form? A batarang.

It's an 'older model'. Batman certainly is always updating his gear, and some of the curves and edges are just different enough to identify it as such.

The phone stops ringing after several rings. Then, after a few heartbeats, it rings again. And again. And, again.


The study of Kyle's body takes only moments, before he hears the ringing of the telephone. Lifting his head, the detective's lips pull into a thin line beneath the curve of the cowl. He moves across the hallway, only to discover a second body. The wife. And of course, the murder weapon.

His senses were already on alert for the high crime that usually comes during this time of the month - and with the recent return of Jason Todd to the city and his approach of Helena..

It stinks of a setup. But he's not sure if it's meant to set up himself, or someone else. Even as the phone rings. Again.

It's incessiant. And it means someone's watching. Or was waiting, and expecting.

Moving his hand to his utility belt, a small device is moved to the old-fashioned phone. While it is much easier to plug a tracing program into a newer phone simply by jacking it into the power supply, the old landlines take a little more work.

One side of the phone is lifted, leaving the prongs pressed down to prevent the connection.

Ring.

With the phone tilted, the detective's hand moves to a pouch on his belt. Opening it, he takes out a small mouth piece and slips it over the phone speaker. It's going to take longer to track through the old copper wiring.

Ring.

He picks up. There's no words spoken, the receiever brought up to near his ear, and he listens.


The voice that speaks is one that should make another person's skin crawl. It is cold. Calculating. Psychotic. It is bereft of any humanity at all. It is the voice of someone who not only kills, but enjoys killing. Not with the joy of mayhem and chaos, the mad but genius absurdity of the Joker, or the practical for-profit of various leaders of gangs.

It is simply the voice of a man who kills for no other reason -but- to kill.

"One," the male voice counts. There is a shivering shudder of ectasy.

"Two." Another sigh of release.

"Three."

The phone hangs up.

The tracer doesn't have much information, but what information it does have will lead Batman to suspect what he already guesses. A burner phone. And one that will be exceedingly difficult to trace.

Outside the brownstone, through the window, there is a scream of, "Oh my God! Police! POLICE!!!"

The stink of a setup only gets more profound.


"Hnh." The phone is slammed down, the tap yanked away. There's no time to seal the scene. Or to investigate further. This was a setup. Pure and simple.

And his arrival at it has only sprung the trap.

Batman was /never/ on the best of terms with the Staten Island precients. He didn't register. He avoided arrest. He makes their cases so much easier - but also so much harder in the courts at times.

And now, it seems that someone wants to make sure that all the Police attention is focused squarely upon him.

If this were anyone else. Dick, Selina, Helena, Barbara - he would destroy the evidence. But instead, in this case, he knows that doing so may force the police to focus their attention harder.

Turning from the window, the Bat moves back into the darkness of the house as he reaches down to scoop up the Batarang.

It's not because he's hiding the murder weapon. No, the police have all the breadcrumbs they need to be walked to a suspect - this he believes, was a message directed to him. And it may hold information - not that it's going to be taken back to the cave first - no, there will be a thorough check of it first.


The batarang comes free, easily from the pool of blood it was set it, and examination reveals it, indeed, is the murder weapon. Of that there can be no doubt to a forensics expert like Batman. The blood has only just begun to set, so it begins to pool, very slowly, very thickly as it is disturbed.

A chip on one corner suggests it was probably one of the 'lost' batarangs that hit a brick or steel structure and that were never recovered.

There are, however, no fingerprints.

Then even more hell breaks loose. Police sirens. A call, from a police car loudspeaker: "Stay where you are, Batman! Turn yourself in!" Followed immediately by several gunshots, that seem directed down the street, rather than at the Brownstone that Batman is currently occupying.


The Batarang is sat back down, and that's when he hears the call out from the street. The shots are unexpected - but their direction is off. Clearly, something happened /outside/ he suddenly realizes.

Moving quickly away from the crime-scene, he ascends the stairs, back onto the second-floor access and pulls himself with a clean flip onto the rooftop.

It's to get a vantage point - to figure out what the NYPD are firing at.

Because if they're firing at what they believe is /him/.

The burner phone may not have been that far away after all.


Batman's hunch is indeed correct. The HUD will even show Batman that the figure moving and twisting down the street is /him/. Down to the exact muscle build, height, and suspected weight.

'Batman' turns the corner, then, and the officers get back into the car, while one of them clearly is calling for backup, and the car tears down the street, sirens still blaring.

Down on the ground, at the entrance to the Brownstone is another corpse. One that /wasn't/ there when Batman first checked out the Brownstone. This, a young man. Bradley Denver. Age 22.

Three.

Bradley's throat is split from ear to ear.

Not too far from the fresh corpse, another sight will catch Batman's attention. Something metallic, spinning slightly in the breeze. Something clearly /he/ was meant to find first. The burner phone.


There's a moment where he's torn. Go after himself - or the phone. It takes only a moment to make the decision.

Pressing a button on his right gauntlet, he sends a signal to the Batmobile to intercept him at his current coordinates.

Then he comes off the rooftops, opening his cape to pull drag and flare it open to drift quietly down to the ground.

Landing near the tree, he moves to it quickly, snagging the phone where it hangs from a branch. It's studied, quickly, as he waits for the car to arrive.

His breath is quiet, kept in reserve. While most people would be in a panic that he's been framed for three homicides, the Bat is more concerned with the motive behind it.


Fame isn't even the word. The phone displays a video on it's playback feature. A fifteen second feed. Which is about the time it will take for the Batmobile to scurry down the streets and arrive at the predetermined location.

It's a video, of Bradley Denver being murdered by Batman. The boy going up the walk, and Batman moving from around some darkened corner, grabbing Bradley's forehead from behind and using a Batarang gripped in his hand to slit the young man's throat.

Then, the figure in the video turns, and throws the Batarang at the person holding the phone. The video ends.

There are more sirens, now coming in from every direction. And soon, the place will be swarming with law enforcement.

And they will be looking for the Bloody Knight. And, the truly Damned Batman.


"Dammit." Batman breathes beneath the mask. Someone's a professional. It has all the hallmarks of it.

And he hears the sirens, the calls of the police. He hears the chatter of the police band inside the cowl.

Part of him actually considers surrendering. But.

That would expose /everyone/. It's not going to happen. When the Batmobile arrives, he's already sending a message to the Batcomputer. "Record all frequencies - timestamp 23:47 to present."

Moving to get into the vehicle immediately, he heads to the nearest alley - and then starts to head towards an intercept on the police chase.


On the police frequency: "I don't care if he's listening!" THe gruff voice may be a familiar one to Batman; it's one of the men whose proven to be a stand-up cop for years under the Commissioner, and often the Commissioner's 'right hand' man, though he's been in trouble often enough for his unconventional methods. Detective Sam. "Get those helicopters into the air, and get them searching the grid! I want a full search! He can't have just disappeared!"

Sam had -always- been of the mind that, despite everything Batman had done for the city, it was to cover up his own crimes, for his own motives. He might not have access to the media like JJJ did, but he would be as close to Batman's JJJ as one could get. Except he's on the force.

"Unit 23. No sight of the Batman."

"Unit 34. No sight here either. Continuing patrol."

"Unit 77. We're retracing. Lost him after he went around that Brownstone."

Sam's voice comes back: "Then get out and search on foot, you peons! I want that Bat before this gets out to the media! Or we're going to be a laughing stock. You hear me! Nobody goes home tonight until we find him."

The 'chase' it seems has 'ended'. At least, sight of the Batman has. The 'chase' is going to continue, for some time.

Ahead in the distance, the bright search lights and looming shadows of helicopters against the night sky can be seen as they are put to task for an aerial search.


"Hnh." Batman grunts beneath his breath. No, this is not the time to stir things up further to cause more distress.

Instead, as he enters an alleyway some distance from the Denver home, he drives through a lot of crowded cars.

Where the Batmobile enters…

…several minutes later, a sedan comes out. The holopaint is engaged as he moves to head in a round about away from the search, and then double-back to Wayne Manor.

If the police are going to be coming to the Manor later - he wants to make sure that he's had time to get settled in.


The police aren't going to show up to Wayne Manor anytime soon. But, the news, and media will be all ablaze with reports. The video, somehow, Batman will find, has already made it's way online.

And, as online people are wont to do, many are calling it fake, a hoax, a practical joke. But just as many comments and feeds are saying how disappointed they are in Batman, demanding his head, and a large number of those calling for justice against the Bat are saying how they 'knew it all along'.

But, as Batman drives away in the safe sedan, once again as Bruce Wayne, the unhunted, there is something that burns in his mind, stirs in his gut.

This is just the start.

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