Tower of Light (Under The Cowl Book #2)

CHAPTER 17

     Down into the basement of the Doom Patrol Headquarters, the steps creaked loudly under the weight of their feet.

"You seem to know your way around here quite well." Jessica said.

"Niles and I became friends."

Jessica scoffed. The word "friend" was never a word used by anyone she ever met when describing their relationship with the Chief.

"Is that funny to you?"

"The Chief didn't have friends. He had those who piqued his curiosity.

"That is how we got to know each other."

"Really? What was it about a plain policeman that drew his attention?"

"Perhaps he was looking to expand his friendship circle."

"Or you were his lover."

They reached the bottom of the stairs when Jessica watched George become slightly startled. "I was told to be careful around you."

They way he looked at Jessica forced her to find her reflection off to the side. Her eyes expelling a violet colored light of the Violet Lantern Corps, ring too.

"You cared about being accepted here."

"What?"

"The color of your eyes does not need to tell me that, although it is."

Normally to urge to change the subject and run away would take over. "I thought I had been accepted, until Chief kicked me out because of my unpredictability."

"That's not why he kicked you out."

With a flick of a switch the center of the basement floor opened up. A light shined from below. "No, he wanted someone he could control."

George shook his head no. "Wrong again."

Jessica followed George down another flight of stairs. Longer and deeper this time, the light below was getting brighter with each step she took. Jessica was starting to get an odd sense of relief, like a weight was pulling off her shoulders.

"Niles was building something. And the reason he needed you to leave, was because your presence would have an adverse effect on what he was building."

Jessica suddenly felt the relief of love lost leave her body, the rejection of man she saw as a father figure, gone. She watched the violet color on her lantern ring wash away. She followed the light to the bottom of the stairs and into a giant Central Power Battery. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Niles needed you far away from this battery in order to get it to work properly. He didn't tell you about what he was working on because he didn't want you to get your hopes up."

"That doesn't sound like him at all."

"No it doesn't. But people tend to surprise you when you least expect it. He also needed your emotions to go on uninfluenced by promises."

"Are you saying he needed me feral?"

"I wouldn't put like that. Casey told me that Dawnbreaker came here to destroy this power battery. Funny how he couldn't that it was right under his nose."

"Why destroy it?"

"The Phantom Ring can power the Tower of Light. But great control is what a bearer of the Phantom Ring needs in order to use its power that way. This giant battery will help you control the Phantom Ring. I've noticed that you've done well on your own for now. But you will only get stronger and so will the ring. This custom made battery will help you."

"So what now? I can't actually lug that around everywhere I go."

"I was thinking the exact same thing." a voice tucked away in the shadows suddenly asked.

George found himself on high alert, quick to stand between the voice in the shadows and Jessica. "Who's there!" he demanded to know.

"Calm down, Commissioner Emmett. Don't feel too inadequate. I sneak up on everyone. But you must be really old to have not heard me till now."

Jessica couldn't shake the feeling that she's heard that voice before.

"Show yourself, now!"

"Why? So you can bash my head in with your Nth metal? Where is it anyway, tucked under your wings?"

"Nth metal?" Jessica asked.

"I thought I'd come here and destroy that thing with the toys I brought from home. But to no avail, I've failed to make it go boom."

Jessica aimed her lantern ring toward the darkness and revealed what stood hidden in its shroud.

A man dressed in fitted black leather from head to toe. Long and tall with chains wrapped around his knuckles, wrist, and forearms. Jessica froze across from what stripped her of her voice. Her mouth felt dry as her lips parted and jaw slacked. 

"Batman?" she barely whispered to herself in a hushed but doubtful tone to even her own conclusion. But with the cowl of the Batman on his head, who else could it be? Although he's different, more ominous, looked as though he'd come from a bizarro world. Was this a twisted version of the caped crusader? Or a pretender? 

"Oh, you're not supposed to see me yet." he said through the collar covering his mouth.

"And why is that?" George asked, taking the reins after he noticed Jessica's confusion.

"Because then you'd have to see him too."

His warning brought a deathly chill.

Jessica and George turned to find an armored beast of a man ready for war towering in front of them. From his helmet with the wings of a bat, his chest plate and its symbol of a "W", similar to the Batman symbol, Jessica knew that this too was Batman. "How?"

And with a sinister laugh stretched across the underground, the man in black leather said, "You might want to prepare yourselves, he can be quite.... merciless."