Rain drummed coldly against the roof, forming winding trails of water across the dark body of the Jeep.
The Cherokee sat hidden in the shadows of the woods near the massive suspension bridge leading to Blackgate Isle.
Through the rain-blurred windows, the silhouette of Blackgate Penitentiary loomed—a gargantuan stone fortress on a lonely island, currently illuminated by the staccato rhythm of muzzle flashes and the occasional fireball of an explosion.
"It's started… I thought that drawbridge was supposed to be raised?" Wilson shifted in his seat, sounding restless. "Are these guys just that damn confident?"
Jay stared at the bridge, which should have been hoisted high. Instead, the massive steel deck was firmly connected, bridging the island to the mainland, allowing Black Mask's convoy to drive straight through.
"The bridge is down… Dammit, there's an inside man for sure."
This was no coincidence. As one of Gotham's highest-security facilities, Blackgate's first line of defense was that drawbridge. Regulations dictated it be raised and inspected every two weeks.
Then again, "regulations" in Gotham were about as substantial as a wet paper bag. He suddenly lost faith in his own logic.
Heavy fire had already broken out at the prison's main gate. Black Mask's men, bolstered by superior firepower—specifically several light machine guns mounted on modified vehicles—were pinning down the SWAT teams trying to hold the line.
Explosions thundered, and flames licked the sky; Black Mask's crew was clearly using high-grade demolition charges.
"Rifle grenades! Rifle grenades!"
"F***! Where did these guys get M249s?!"
Wilson watched with morbid fascination until a blast far more violent than the others shook the ground.
Even at their distance, they felt the vibration. The heavy metal gates of Blackgate buckled and twisted under the force of the explosion before finally collapsing inward, kicking up a storm of dust and soot into the rain.
"The gate's breached!" Wilson shouted, excited.
"Whose side are you on exactly?" Jay shot him a look of disgust. "Breaching the gate doesn't mean squat. I've been here twice before for Otis's business. With the firepower inside, they'll lose half their men before they even clear the threshold."
Sure enough, as Black Mask's men cheered and surged forward, the sniper towers and bunkers inside the perimeter walls spat lethal tongues of flame. The dull roar of heavy machine guns drowned out the rain and the small-arms fire below.
They wove a lethal crossfire—the Scythe of the Grim Reaper—harvesting the gunmen attempting to flood the gate.
The lead shooters were shredded into raw meat instantly, collapsing into the mud without even a scream. The following group was hammered back by the sudden ferocity of the defense, forced to cower behind vehicle wreckage or jagged rocks.
The momentum of the assault ground to a halt.
"Tsk, tsk… credit where it's due, SWAT reacted fast," Jay muttered, watching the defensive points reap lives like wheat. "Black Mask just hit a brick wall. Numbers and guts alone won't break a crossfire like that."
He reached for the center console but grabbed air. "Hey! You ate all the chips!!"
"Guess we aren't needed?" Wilson sounded relieved.
"If nothing changes, probably not," Jay nodded. "Shit, we won't even get to scavenge the battlefield… Wait, what is that?"
From the rear flank of Black Mask's squad, a bizarre figure stepped out.
He wasn't particularly tall, but he was incredibly bulky, encased in a thick, black rubber suit. He wore a full-face helmet, a massive meter with flickering indicators strapped to his chest, and a heavy-looking metal box on his back.
Most striking were his hands: heavy insulated gloves with conductive batons protruding from the fingers, flickering with a ghostly blue light.
"What… what the hell is that?" Wilson's eyes went wide.
Under the cover of Black Mask's core gunmen, the freak moved toward the wall, ignoring the stray bullets whizzing past. He slammed the two batons together.
CRACKLE—ZAAAAAP!!!
A blinding, massive bolt of blue electrical energy erupted from the tips of the batons, instantly illuminating the entire island. For a split second, the dense curtain of rain was vaporized into ionized mist.
The man let out a muffled roar and swung his arms forward. The arc of lightning, like a living monster, followed the moisture in the air and lashed out in a wide fan toward the perimeter walls.
"ARGHHHHH—!"
On the walls, screams instantly replaced the gunfire. The SWAT members operating the machine guns, and even the guards nearby, went into violent convulsions the moment the high-voltage arc—conducted through the rain—touched them.
Their eyes rolled back, smoke puffed from their mouths and noses, and they collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.
The massive surge caused the floodlights and the lights of the entire prison to flicker violently before bursting, showering the area in glass shards.
Jay was stunned. He shouted instinctively:
"Holy shit! The Electrocutioner!"
Wilson, equally shell-shocked, turned his head. "The what? You know him?"
"No, I don't," Jay shook his head with a touch of nostalgia for a memory that wasn't his.
In a single discharge, four or five key defensive points were silenced. The air filled with the acrid, sickening smell of scorched flesh—an odor so strong they could almost smell it across the bridge.
"Damn… where did Black Mask find a freak like that!"
As the current dissipated, the glow on the batons faded. Then, the metal box on the man's back began to glow with an orange light, and the brightness of the batons began to slowly recharge.
"We can't let him keep doing that!"
Jay dropped the binoculars and hopped out of the car. He dragged a long, hard-shell case from the back seat, threw it on the ground, and flipped it open to pull out a rifle.
It was a tuned SSG69. An old bolt-action, but high precision. He had liberated it from Cobblepot for a rainy day.
BANG!
A circle of distorted air seemed to bloom around the freak as the bullet arrived.
The shot was perfectly aimed, but the bullet suddenly looked like it had been dipped in molten steel; its velocity plummeted instantly, hitting the target's helmet with a dull DUANG before falling harmlessly into the mud.
At that same moment, the batons slammed together again. The blue lightning serpent slithered along the walls through the rainy night. The remaining guards shrieked as they were fried, some even being blasted off the wall by the sheer force of the discharge.
Black Mask's men swarmed from behind cover like a dam breaking, rushing through the shattered gates and into the heart of Blackgate Penitentiary without further resistance.
The sporadic sounds of internal combat were quickly swallowed by a chorus of gunfire, explosions, and maddened howling.
The freak casually shook his head and turned his gaze toward the woods where the Jeep was hidden.
"F***, bulletproof helmets don't do that!"
Jay threw the rifle back into the case. "U-turn! Get us out of here!"
Wilson didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled into the driver's seat. Jay tossed the gear in and hopped into the passenger side.
"Go, go, go! Just drive!"
The Cherokee, like a startled beast, backed out of the trees silently and vanished into Gotham's endless rainy night, leaving the smoke-shrouded hellscape behind.
Jay glanced back through the binoculars. The freak didn't seem to be chasing them; instead, he followed the masked gunmen into the prison.
"What in the hell was that thing?" Wilson glanced at Jay. "Was that Thor?"
"That's from Marvel next door!"
"??? What's a Marvel???"
Jay let out a long breath. "We need to put in a request for larger caliber weapons. And next time, remember to pack the insulated boots and the electrician's gloves."
"I hope that wasn't just some laid-off employee from the power company looking for a career change…"
——————
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