The Lone Knight (Under The Cowl Book #1)

CHAPTER 23

     Felt throughout the top floors of the Gotham high rise and heard from well over a half-mile away, an explosion erupted and shrouded the point of origin with fire and smoke.

Without hesitation Stephanie pass through the sea of flames with a running leap out the window.

Her cape sprawled behind her back, flew gliding across the air with the help of the wind to carry her. Like a bird ever so graceful without the need of its wings to keep her in flight, gained altitude and ascended high.

But far from looking to escape, Stephanie released her grip on her cape and drew her grappling gun from her hip.

She turned and fired towards the edge of the roof.

She connected.

Quick to feel the pull from her decent reverse, Stephanie raced across the side of the building scraping and fracturing the glass under the pounding of her boots.

She could smell the steel wire burned inside the barrel of her grappling gun. The gears inside spun violently with no give. Her eyes on the top floor of the high rise, Stephanie released the hook her grappling gun had on the edge of the roof the second she was able to grab hold of the window frame and pull herself inside Rachel's apartment.

Expecting a faceoff with hostages to her back she knew she'll have to defend, Stephanie instead found Bruce standing alone with a tied up Rachel at his feet.

Stephanie stood confused. Where had everybody gone? What of Mike? He was with Rachel. She could only pray the worst had not come to pass.

"I came here tonight with a single purpose. But this has turned into quite an unexpected development I cannot ignore." Bruce said with a shot gun in hand, his voice different, almost monster-like. Made to sound as if two voices have become one, it was difficult to say if that was even Bruce Wayne anymore. "Heroes, the bane of human existence, I thought I eliminated all of you."

In the light where he stepped forward, Stephanie started to see it was no longer Bruce speaking; but the Mask of Ruin. Nearly a third of Bruce's face stood covered, his eyes a golden-red glow like that of a demon. "Don't you find it a bit lame to force another to fight your battles for you?" Stephanie mocked.

"I'm not doing anything that is undesired."

"I don't believe you."

"Perhaps you are naive to think man cannot be broken. Mr. Wayne has accepted me and my power. And in return I grant him what he truly desires."

"And that is?"

"Oh I think you know, Batgirl. You have the familiar face of another, though quite older. Assuming you're the same girl I had in my grasp before we found ourselves rudely interrupted by the Kyptonian."

"Bruce, if you can hear me, I'm here to tell you this is not you."

"Bruce Wayne hears what I allow him to hear."

"You recognize me, right?" Stephanie continued to speak to Bruce. "And not just from our last two encounters. My name is Stephanie Brown. My mother is Crystal Brown and Father is Arthur Brown. On this Earth you knew them as the parents of the little girl you adopted, Grace." Stephanie pulled off her cowl from over her head. "I am that little girl. But I'm from a different Earth. Please, stop this."

"You think sentimentality will save him from me?"

"I'm here to tell you this is not what Grace would have wanted you to become. She would not have wanted her father to turn into a murdering vigilante and discard the hero she idolized, the very same hero who saved me back on my Earth. I understand corruption is a plague, and how much it destroys lives. But what you are doing, killing people, that's not making any change. Accountability, responsibility, these are things you've educated the next generation to follow so they can shape a better Gotham."

"... Accountability?" Bruce's voice broke through.

"Yes." Stephanie replied with wide-eyed relief.

"My daughter is gone because someone wasn't held accountable. Justice for my daughter was toss aside because of corruption. Used as a propaganda tool to elect a man like District Attorney Lee into office. And doctors like David Howard who didn't want to perform surgery on a dying child because he'd rather introduce his psychiatrist friend to his investment broker's teenage daughter who decided to drink and drive after leaving a party, a daughter who hit and killed my little girl while she was riding her bicycle. I've finished snuffing out the corruption in this city held responsible for letting my little girl die. The private jet transporting Malcolm Hart crashed in the Atlantic this afternoon. All that's left is to have the one who killed my Grace answer for her crime in blood."

Stephanie watched Bruce turn to look down at Rachel.

"Struck with fear, guilt, and the memory of what she did, what she tried to forget with alcohol, money, and sex, will not free you from your pain."

Bruce turned the barrel of his shotgun towards Rachel.

Rachel screamed and cried through the duck tape on her lips.

"Please wait!"

"Convincing me revenge will not bring my Grace back will not stop what will happen," Bruce said with the rise of his shotgun and finger on the trigger aimed at her, "because you are not my Grace. Nor will I allow you to shame her image any further while in that suit."

Stephanie watched Bruce's finger move towards the trigger. 

Her life immediately flashed before her eyes, from the first time she watched her mother fall onto the floor after a late night bender to her father's empty promises until she helped Batman put him in jail. And to the nameless daughter she gave birth to only to never see again.

This can't be the end.