Who: Rorschach, Corbinian, Robin, Cipher, Oracle, the Bat, and (perhaps the final appearance of) the Mask Killer Onomatopoeia. What: Bullets, explosions, fights, and moving rescue missions. EVERYTHING ANYONE COULD ASK FOR. Where: An apartment building at the edge of a river-like stormdrain, down a cistern hole next to it, and in the stormdrain itself. When: After this. Warnings: Violence, creepy, and... probably language somewhere. (Thanks Max.)
Luke was already out and on the move when Thomas came in over the commlink, and he’d kept moving even while the subsequent communications played out in his ear. Below the rapid thump of his heart lay a desperate sort of determination that fueled him forward to the coordinates where both Thomas and the mask killer were located. The gunshot was enough of an indication that it likely was some kind of trap, as Corbinian had suggested, but he didn’t care. He was consumed by a need to save the man and no amount of bullets or danger were enough to stand in his way. Boots hit rooftops and pushed off as he became weightless in the air, pulling the grapple gun’s line taut to increase his speed. He was close, so close; the others were on their way but he knew he was ahead of them. Hopefully not too far ahead, since he wasn’t sure just how long he could hold off on acting just to await backup.
There were less voices in his ear now, yet when he finally reached the coordinates Luke was aware of it and informed the others promptly. He dropped soundlessly into the shadows and surveyed his surroundings with eyes that were wide with alert and purpose, registering the nearby freeway and identifying the traffic sounds from the commlink he was still listening to. That meant he was nearby, but it had sounded too loud for him to be inside the apartment building or the warehouse. No, if the mask killer was anywhere he would likely be hidden somewhere like that, but not Thomas. Thomas was somewhere else.
Beneath the overpass was a stormdrain, one he wouldn’t have paid attention to if it hadn’t been for little things coming together. The traffic, the empty space, the apartment building. The realization that Thomas clearly couldn’t get out from wherever he was. Luke’s breath caught in his throat but he waited, curling his hands into fists and counting the seconds as they ticked by. They needed to come, and they needed to come now.
Max had stopped the truck just short of the coordinates, calmer than she’d been in days with Thomas in her ear. He wasn’t lucid, but he was alive, and Oracle was talking to him as Max parked the truck and took the key from the ignition. She was still wearing the bulletproof vest, and she tugged her loaded her gun and readied it as she moved, staying close to the truck’s side and using it for cover. She heard a sound behind her, and she took a few steps forward, enough to leave no doubt that she was being trailed, and she turned and fired instinctively, low and hobbling, not going for a death hit on whatever had snuck up behind her. She winced when she saw Corbinian, and she gave him an apologetic look that said she hadn’t slept in days. “A few yards south,” she said, waiting for Corbinian’s ankle to heal, and then moving forward. They still had the cover of building, and they weren’t near the stormdrain and Luke’s position yet. Corbinian covered, and she kept her gaze up, toward the building tops, where she knew the biggest threat was. The Mask Killer liked his guns.
Corbinian had made it to the scene as quickly as he could on foot, arriving roughly the same time as Max and watching her pull up from a short way off. He came up behind her, staying in the shadows and moving quietly. They had know way of knowing where, exactly, the Mask Killer was, but Luke was just ahead according to the coordinates he’d given.
Corbinian intended to check on Max before moving any further ahead, a move which she swiftly cut off by shooting him in the ankle. She’d pulled guns on him before, of course, when he’d snuck up on her, but she’d never gone so far as to shoot him. He fell against the side of the car, swearing colorfully but quietly under his breath. “First man down, and to friendly fire no less.” The bullet had passed through his ankle clean, so it wouldn’t take long to heal, even if it did hurt. He was just grateful it hadn’t been the other ankle - he had no interest in getting fitted for another monitor by Oracle. With his ankle healed, he moved ahead of Max, covering her with his body from the front. They couldn’t be sure where the Mask Killer was, but the rooftops seemed like a good bet.
The Mask Killer was waiting for a clear shot. The adrenaline was singing in his veins and he was crooning soft things he had learned from the Bat over the last forty-eight hours to his rifle, a magnificent, gloried thing camouflaged from the light zipping past on the freeway. The Killer had trained, trained until there wasn’t anything but the training, not even oxygen or his own name. He was comfortable here, and he was sure. It had taken a long time, and he thought perhaps the Bat would die of the poison before whatever he heard and saw drove him to call the others here, where the Killer could see them--and where they would die, each in turn, but he had been patient. He waited. They would have to go to the Bat, even if he was only a corpse. At some point, they’d have to.
Even if Oracle hadn’t given him the coordinates, Rorschach couldn’t have missed the location even if he tried. It was a mountain of glowing gold, towering over the freeway beside it. As he approached, the gold dimmed enough for him to make out the building’s features, the landscape peppered with concentrated blots of darkness. Hands in his pockets, grappling gun hanging from his hip, he approached from several yards behind the truck Cipher had driven. He stayed by the back tire, body shielded by the vehicle’s cabin.
Corbinian and Cipher were already moving forward, the former shielding the latter. Rorschach opted to hang back, narrow gaze on the massive building before him. It was all decked out in gold, all bathed in God’s light. So where was the Mask Killer? He should have shown up like a Christmas light against a dark tree, but Rorschach couldn’t see him. Hand braced against the truck, he continued to look, holding still. The others were there for the Bat, but Rorschach had another purpose: the Mask Killer’s career would end tonight.
The Killer was hunkered down in his hide, and the cheap old apartment building was far enough away that one must make out the dark windows and the flapping laundry only as shadows (or, in Rorschach’s case, bright flickering of starshine on gold). The Killer made up a little song to himself about ‘Amanda’ as he looked down his scope. This was an art, a precision art of mathematics, wind and careful, careful measurement. He didn’t like it as much as he liked seeing someone’s eyes widen down the line of his 9mm, but it was still a unique art of its own. Finally, targets moving. He recognized Corbinian, and he had to stop and steady his hands before he could start his calculations again. Corbinian should be dead. Would be dead.
The .300 Win Mag was an elegant little bullet, and it exploded out of the Killer’s careful M40 so quickly that it would hit before anyone heard the sound. The Killer was already reloading and sighting.
Corbinian felt the shot before he heard it, the momentum of it knocking him backwards as he made a faint sound, and he caught himself on his back foot. Once he regained his balance, he grabbed and shoved Max forward toward cover, hard. Pain splintered across his chest, blood running over his front. The bullet had punched through his chest cavity with the ruthless efficiency one would expect, and as his body struggled to mend the hole through muscle, lung, and bone, he made an attempt to keep moving. He’d been shot on numerous occasions before, but never by such a high-powered rifle. There was no option but to keep moving toward cover – it was too late to turn back – and hope he continued to draw the Mask Killer’s fire.
Max had plenty of experience with sniper rifles, but she hadn’t been expecting the tactic. Which was, in retrospect, stupid of her. She’d always thought the Mask Killer the kind of man to like to be close-up when his targets died. Dammit. She didn’t resist when Corbinian grabbed and shoved, because she heard the bullet’s song, since Corbinian was so close. She rounded a corner, staying low and covering, and moved ahead of Corbinian, until her back was to the alley wall ahead of her, her heart racing in her chest. She didn’t bother wasting bullets, because the Mask Killer was too fucking high to get with the range of her weapon. “He’s got a sniper rifle,” she said into the comm. “Robin, stay up, not down. He has a better vantage point.” She looked at Corbinian, finally, looking to see where the bullet hit. “You need to get to Robin without being seen.” That sounded like an order, because it was one.
Another bullet screamed and pinged off the side of the truck where they’d just been.
Fortunately Luke hadn’t moved from his initial position when the first bullet was fired, too distrustful of the situation to allow himself to become vulnerable without knowing the mask killer’s exact location. It didn’t sound particularly loud to him, the bullet, but Max confirmed what it was a moment later when her voice came in over the comm. He froze in mid-crouch when the second bullet hit the truck, the sound of metal against metal more audible than metal against flesh. “Corbinian, don’t move,” he hissed into the comm, already scanning the surrounding buildings and wondering how high he could get while escaping notice. “I’m fine. If you try to get to me he’ll see you.” Right now the mask killer wasn’t firing at him, and Luke needed it to stay that way.
It was with painfully precise slowness that he got to his feet, although he remained crouched over instead of standing straight. The building closest to him was his target, and once he got to higher ground it would (he hoped) be easier to stay out of the mask killer’s line of fire. The grapple gun would be too loud, which forced him to use the fire escape while making as little noise as possible. It was risky, but there was little cover on the ground unless he hid - which wasn’t going to happen.
When the second bullet rang out against the truck, Max pressed herself further back against the alley wall. Then Robin spoke, and she felt unbelievably thankful he hadn’t been spotted. “Okay,” she said into the comm. “You’re right.” She looked back toward the truck, saw movement there, familiar white and black, and she pressed back against the wall again. “There are three of us down here, and we have his attention. Can you see the Bat from where you are? If we hold the Mask Killer’s attention, can you get to him?” Max asked,and she wasted a perfectly good bullet by standing for a moment and shooting across the corner, over Corbinian’s head, as if the shot came from just beyond where they were standing, before moving for cover again.
The sound of shots did nothing to sway Rorschach’s determination, though he did hunch just slightly. On any other day, he would have reacted to the fact that Corbinian - his friend - had been shot in the chest. But today, right now, his entire focus had collapsed into finding one opening, just one. He flinched as the bullets hit the side of the truck, reaching up to draw the sides of his dark hood further over his face.
But now, they knew where the Mask Killer was. Rorschach looked up to where it seemed the bullets had come from, eyes narrow and focused. He heard voices, voices in his head talking about Robin and Bat and Corbinian. But all those voices were just white noise. Dipping into a crouch, he rested a hand against the truck’s tire, taking very slow steps towards its front. Face turned to the apartment building, he froze, a statue waiting to animate. “Waiting for opening,” he grunted into his communicator. “Can distract Mask Killer.” Though he planned on doing more than just distracting. Much more.
Luke didn’t answer right away. He wasn’t thrilled about the three of them drawing the mask killer’s fire on themselves, but it was the only hope he had of getting to Thomas without being shot down himself. He paused near the top of the building and peered over the edge, enough to get another look at what he had to work with without revealing himself, and decided that he might be able to get to the warehouse before becoming visible was inevitable. “I can’t see him, no. But... I can see a stormdrain, close to the overpass. If the mask killer has a high vantage point then he must have the Bat somewhere that we can’t get to without giving him a clear shot.” He wasn’t positive, but he had a distinct feeling of certainty and that was good enough for him. “If he’s distracted, I can get there.”
He prepared to move, muscles tensed in anticipation, when he heard Rorschach. If he could actually get to the mask killer... “Between you two and Rorschach, it should be enough for me to make it. On your word.”
Rorschach’s voice was reassuring to Max in a way it normally wasn’t, just because she hadn’t actually been in the field with him before. It was a dangerous plan, yes, but it was the best shot they had. She knew that if the Bat had been aware of what they were about to do, he would have been fucking pissed. Luckily, the decision wasn’t in his hands. She looked around, tried to gauge where the sniper was, based on how the bullet hit Corbinian. “I think he’s on the southeast building somewhere. Rorschach, stay near the truck. He’s already firing there. Corbinian, straight east. I’ll keep to the north wall. Everyone keep cover and go for noise a few feet away from you. We want him to hear us, not see us. Robin, when you hear the first bullet go.”
The Bat, stuck without visual and knowing exactly what that kind of rifle sounded like without actually having heard it in two days of delirium until now, came back on to the open comm. He sounded at once like himself and yet unlike: he talked far too much and tended to leave sentences hanging. “He knows you’re coming here, it’s not going to work, he knows...”
Corbinian listened to the chatter on comms, looking over to Max when she began speaking. Their only real option was to draw the Mask Killer’s fire while Luke ran. Hopefully Rorschach’s distraction would work - hopefully the Mask Killer wouldn’t hit him in the head, rendering him useful to no one. He touched Max’s arm. “Be careful.” Then, on the comms, “Moving,” and he broke from cover and headed directly east.
The Mask Killer’s scope swung after Corbinian, and he was angry, but not quite angry enough to fire blind without any of the calculations he needed to advance a man running at full tilt. He watched him run through the scope, pressing his eye so close he felt it cut into his cheek, waiting for him to at least slow... he fired, and a bullet spit gravel up at Corbinian as he ran away from the Bat’s prison. Wait--away? The Killer swung the scope back toward his bait.
Once Corbinian took off, Rorschach waited a few seconds before going on the move as well. Robin needed more than one moving target to keep the Mask Killer distracted, and Rorschach was fine with being moving target number two. Besides, he was hoping to make it to the other side of the chess board. He moved in a series of zig-zags, pattern erratic and quick. Gravel flew around his boots as he ran, not thinking about Corbinian or Robin or Cipher or Bat anymore. He was focused on the golden palace before him, the gold that surrounded the Mask Killer’s domain. They were his pearly gates, and he was due home.
Max waited until she heard a bullet hit the gravel, and then she waited until she heard Rorschach’s feet on the gravel behind her. She edged forward into a safe spot, inaccessible from above, but with a clear sightline of the stormdrain. “Bat, it’s okay,” she said, trying to keep her voice soothing, despite how fast her breathing was. “Robin, go,” she repeated, just as she began adding to the distraction with shots directed upward. Dammit, what she wouldn’t give for a good scope. She fired in the general direction of the Mask Killer, up and high, and she kept an eye out for Robin, ready to call for back up for him if he ran into trouble.
The Killer didn’t understand how Corbinian could be running, and running still. He was sure he had hit him solid, and there was no reason he should be running, but there he was, dashing across the field like a rabbit, and only now moving out of range. The Killer didn’t see anyone going for the Bat yet, but he saw his old adversary in the ink-stained mask coming straight toward his building with a kind of distracted amusement. He abandoned the manual rifle and turned to another he had set up on a stand. There were supports to keep the recoil from shoving it too far back, and a kitchen timer that would pull the trigger shut every forty-seven seconds or so, a time period that was a-rhythmic enough that the Killer hoped to get down from his hide and kill at least one more mask before he killed the Bat properly and made his escape.
Another bullet spit out onto the pavement near the truck and Max. Forty-seven seconds later, another. Another forty-seven seconds, another bullet, this time slightly askew, and the targets would keep moving as the timer reasserted after the recoil. The Killer abandoned his spot and slid through abandoned apartments decimated by the Reavers, dropping through holes in kitchens to come out in ransacked bedrooms.
As soon as Corbinian said he was moving Luke snapped into action, hauling himself onto the rooftop and pushing off the ground to give himself a running start. Gunshots and voices blurred together to become irrelevant in comparison to his goal, and things like fire escapes and spaces between buildings that normally would have made him pause were practically afterthoughts. He never once looked back. His grapple gun came into play when he came to the edge of one apartment building and needed to get to higher ground, but the movement was fluid and quick due to the single-mindedness of his current focus. The stormdrain was close now, a couple more drops and he could reach it, so he instinctively began to slow his speed. “Almost there,” he said breathlessly, the rush of air hissing in his ear as he dropped down.
The warehouse was low enough to offer a good view of what was below before he leapt, so Luke kept low to the ground and peered over the edge. A gaping hole that should have been covered stared back at him, shadowed and dark in the lack of light, and the bits of wood left over told him what had happened. “Keep him busy,” he said into the comm, pulling the grapple gun from his belt. “I have to get down there and get him. Listening, Bat? I’m coming.”
Max saw Luke drop down, but something was bothering her about the shots being fired from overhead. She realized, after two more bullets hit close to the truck, that is was the predictability of them, the perfectly spaced timing. “He’s somewhere on the ground,” she said into the comm, hurried and quiet, conscious of the fact that he’d had at least three minutes to get down, that he could be anywhere. “The bullets are on a timer. Repeat, he could be any where. Guard your back and draw him away.”
The Bat had disappeared from the comm after his last useless warning, and did not immediately respond. There was no sound from the bottom of the pit, either, but Luke’s training might give him a split-second warning about the step that ghosted up from behind. The Killer was moving fast in the dark, trying to avoid pursuit by Rorschach, the person closest to him. The gunfire coming from the area of the vehicle--Max--didn’t trouble him in the least, too far away to be a danger, but he knew that someone would come for the Bat, and someone had. A kick sliced out of the darkness, and the intent was to knock the new, smaller mask into the pit, one trap for two men.
Luke was admittedly focused on trying to determine how deep the hole was and whether or not he’d have enough line to get down, but he wasn’t oblivious to everything else happening behind him. He heard Max say that the bullets were on a timer, registered that the mask killer’s position was now unknown; so when that single sound caught the edge of his attention he knew it wasn’t Corbinian or Rorschach. All he had time to do before the kick came was throw his weight into a side roll, away from the hole he couldn’t let himself fall into. It wasn’t enough to avoid the mask killer’s attack completely but it was enough to keep him from going forward, and he tried to use the force to keep himself moving away from the mask killer without slipping over the edge. One hand reached out for anything to grasp while his feet fought for traction, and in a completely instinctive move he fired the grapple gun in the direction he thought the kick had come from. At the very least it might be a distraction to keep him temporarily at bay.
“I need help, he’s right near the stormdrain,” came out in a breathless rush, both into the comm and for anyone who might be near.
There was a scuffling sliding noise nearby as the Killer barely avoided the pit himself, a blackness in so much more blackness, and more rotten wood and debris fell within. There was a short silence before any sound echoed up from the bottom, indicating that it was very deep indeed. “He’s here,” a whisper slid out of the darkness, in a sick greeting of acknowledgment for the boy. He recognized this one, though he was much faster than he had been several months previous. The grapple went off into the darkness, and the Killer pursued the boy in the dark, sacrificing silence for speed.
Corbinian had seen the stormdrain from a distance, but he'd been moving toward the building. When Max indicated that the Mask Killer was on the ground somewhere, he'd begun cautiously moving toward the back, and when Luke came over the comms he broke into a run. Luke and the Mask Killer came into sight in the dimness, and he narrowly avoided the hook flying back from Luke's grapple gun. Now there was a string, Luke followed by the Mask Killer followed by Corbinian. He shouted to draw his attention back. "Want to try to kill a ghost again!?" He needed to get his attention long enough to incapacitate him, at the very least long enough for Luke to get a safe distance away.
Max had moved closer, also, when Luke requested assistance, and she came just close enough to have a good view of the three of them - Luke, Corbinian and the Mask Killer, and she pulled the iTouch from her pocket and scribbled with nervous fingers, words only for the Mask Killer, sounds, confusion, walls that weren’t there and shadows when he looked toward the others. “Ignore anything you see that isn’t what you expect,” she said into the comm as she wrote.
The walls began to fade around him as the approached the golden city, dimming just slightly in his peripheral vision. Rorschach kept his gaze forward, ever forward, and his gait never slowed. He was like a lurch set after a hare, stubborn and single-minded. Nothing mattered but that hare, nothing mattered but finding his target. Sounds, light and indistinct, served to distract him, but he never faltered. As he approached the storm drain, he saw a figure, dark. And then, clear as day, there were two figures - gold.
Only familiarity with one kept them from becoming a single entity, kept them from being double vision brought on by a gnawing madness and singularity. There were words in his ear, words all around, the sound of someone falling. Rorschach wasn’t sure how these events fit together, or why. But he saw his mark. And that was all the cared to see.
Stealth and subtlety had been lost long ago, among other things. The Mask Killer knew there were others present, had heard the sounds. Rorschach honed in like a heat-seeking missile, aimed right at the heart of that burning golden wick that nearly blinded him. Squinting, perspiring, he flew over the ground and impacted. Rorschach’s fist was extended, his shoulders square, and every ounce of his body weight followed that punch.
A gunshot exploded only seconds, even less than a second, before Rorschach hit a soft target. The Killer wanted Robin dead, and if he could pile him up on top of the Bat, that was only going to be better. He was making a continuous string of sounds, familiar sounds of the Bat on the commlink, complete with the distressed sentences and panicked confusion. They were at almost imperceptible level until you got very close, but he was saying them to himself like priests sang mantras. The gun swung toward the shout of Corbinian in the confusion of Max’s distractions, but before it could fully complete, the tan shadow of Rorschach loomed huge out of the Killer’s peripheral and both tumbled over and over toward the blank cement of the false river leading past the buildings toward the sea. The Killer lost his gun somewhere but focused on trying to stop the tumble and come out physically on top, where he could reposition into a choke. “Don’t know where he is,” he commented softly, as both skidded down the slope and the Killer dug his heels in.
The sound of the others approaching was a small relief when the mask killer was in such close proximity, so Luke did his best to remain low to the ground while putting as much distance between himself and the figure intent on seeking him out. He’d gotten close to the opposite edge and considered dropping down when the gun went off behind him, sounding louder than it probably was, and a sudden flash of pain shot down his right arm when he tried to protect his head. It wasn’t unbearable compared to the last encounter he’d had like this, and once he rolled over onto his back he discovered that he could still flex his hand around the handle of the grapple gun and bend his elbow with enough success that he decided it wasn’t bad.
Luke heard a fist meeting flesh and hoped it was the mask killer on the receiving end, confirmed when he looked up in time to see the man in question and Rorschach tumble out of sight. Then he was struggling to his feet and moving forward, focus once again on the hole and the Bat.
There was no sound from the very bottom of the drain, and only blackness, but patience and the eyes would resolve faint signs, something stuck to the bottom of the side very far down, too far down for anyone to reach the top. There was something far more troubling, however, a silver line about the consistency of a fishing line spanning the top of the hole and stapled into place. Something dangled from it and reached down into the darkness below, echoing whispers of the Killer’s voice even as he tumbled away.
Luke stared down into the darkness and waited for his eyes to adjust, panic spiking at the absence of sound from Thomas in reaction to everything that was happening above. He squinted when things began to sharpen into proper focus, and although he wasn’t quite able to tell what was stuck to the side so very down below he had an idea of what kind of attempt it had been. It was all the incentive he needed to resume what he’d been about to do before the mask killer interrupted, which was to propel down and make sure Thomas was alright himself, but he paused when he caught a flash of the barely-there line. Leaning forward as much as he could without the risk of falling forward, he cocked his head to the side and listened. Once he realized what he was hearing a sharp stab of anger shot through him, and he fastened the end of the hook onto the edge even as he spoke.
“He’s not here, Bat. Ignore whatever else you’re hearing and just listen to me instead. I’m coming down.” Luke only paused for a second to glance back at Max. “I’ll get him out.” The line would hold his weight, and he’d used it enough to trust that it would do the job. Getting out would be trickier but he’d focus on that once he reached the bottom.
Halfway down the whispering of the speaker suspended from the wire stop, and a female scream issued forth in absolutely uncanny accuracy, cutting off in silence and leaving echoes over the faint sound of rushing water from the floor. It was a long way down, and the darkness only made it seem longer, but the round prison didn’t go on forever, and a dark shadow among the other dark shadows was curled into the curve of the wall.
Luke could have gone down faster than he currently was, but that was a risk he wasn’t willing to take. It was slow work, going down inch by inch with nothing but a secured line to rely on, and it felt like it took an eternity just to reach what he thought might have been the midway mark. Luke wasn’t expecting the whispers to stop and the sudden scream startled him, enough so that he nearly lost his grip and as it was he slid down for a couple of heart-stopping seconds at an alarming speed before he regained control. “Bastard,” he muttered, taking a deep breath before continuing. After what seemed like endless hours he finally neared the bottom, but he didn’t let go until he was absolutely sure the drop was short enough to allow him to be able to reach the grapple gun again.
Luke approached the dark shadow curled against the wall with slow steps, stopping a short distance away and kneeling in front of him. “Thomas?”
It was Thomas, or the Bat, rather. His arm was in a sling that even in the dim light it was clear that he had fashioned himself. The silhouette of cowl was hidden as his chin was dropped into chest under the protection of the cape, which, according to the blueprints that would come to mind, was insulated as well as light and flexible. His eyes weren’t open and the suit made ascertaining a pulse completely impossible.
A familiar smell was gaining strength under the sour and the damp the longer Luke was down there, and the running water below, barely visible under the drains bolted into the cement, began to seem sinister.
Once the Mask Killer, Corbinian and Rorschach had left Max’s line of vision, she had two options. Following them, or staying where she was in case the Mask Killer came back and tried to get to Luke or Thomas. She opted to stay put, knowing she’d distract Corbinian more in a fight than she would out of it (which frustrated her to no end). So she waited until she was clear, and she edged to the stormdrain carefully, iTouch still in her hand, gun tucked in beneath her waistband. “Light?” she asked into the comm, hardly able to see in the stormdrain once she reached it, and before Luke could answer she gave him illumination, but nothing bright, not wanting to shock Thomas’ senses, more glow than anything else. “How is he?” Which meant how hurt is he?
Luke took in the makeshift sling and his general position in one quick sweep before moving forward to grasp Thomas’ shoulders, trying and failing to find some way to check for a pulse. Beneath his rising panic and the sound of running water he became aware that the longer he wasted time down here the worse things were going to get. Thomas hadn’t been himself over the comms, that much was obvious, and whatever caused it was down here. “Wake up,” he pleaded in vain, barely even registering Max’s voice in his ear. “Come on, please...” He trailed off, realizing that it was hopeless. It wasn’t easy due to the sling and his weight, but he managed to pull Thomas away from the wall and dragged him beneath the open hole and the dangling line, ignoring the way his injured arm screamed in protest.
“He’s... his arm is in a sling.” It was a delayed response, as though he’d just managed to remember that Max was up there. He froze for a moment, unsure of how he was supposed to get them both up, but then the smell of gas finally registered and he moved with desperate intensity. Thomas’ belt was hooked onto the line while Luke kept hold of the gun to control the speed, using his free arm to keep hold of the other man as best he could. The combined weight of both of them made it a slower process than he would have liked in his panicked impatience, but there was nothing he could do except hope the line held and pray for it to go faster. If they got out of this alive Thomas was never going anywhere on his own as long as he had anything to say about it.
The line didn’t break, neither of them fell, and they didn’t end up dying in a rush of heat and fire. As soon as the line reached its end Luke used every bit of strength he had to pull the two of them up and over onto flat ground. “Max. We have to get away from the hole, now.” It would have been nice to stop and breathe for a minute, but time wasn’t something any of them had.
On the surface, only minutes before, Corbinian ran after Rorschach and the Mask Killer. Just as he was about to run over the edge of the slope and down, he spotted the gun. All he had on him in the way of weaponry was a knife, and that wasn't going to do him any good if the killer had another gun on him. He slowed only long enough to pick up the weapon, then took the slope at a run. He knew theoretically that he wasn't supposed to kill anyone here, but if the Mask Killer pulled another gun on his friend, he wasn't going to hesitate. For the moment there wasn't enough clarity to shoot, but if he could get a clear shot he was taking it.
Movement was a funny thing. Fluidity, even more so. One second, Rorschach was slamming into a body, feeling flesh give just slightly under his fist. The next, he was tumbling, spiraling down in a whirl of color. Gold and darkness blended like creamer into coffee, and soon it was all one and the same. Finally, his back flat against a hard surface, he came to rest with a heavy weight suspended over him.
Hands were clamped around his neck, tight hands that knew where to push. Rorschach didn’t bother trying to breathe, didn’t waste time on that struggle. The taunting words were ignored in lieu of focusing once again on his fist, his sword. Feeling stars begin to burst in his eyes, he thrust his fist forward in a short, straight punch directly aimed at the glowing Mask Killer’s abdomen, just below his diaphragm.
The Killer’s breath went out in an oomph, cutting off the whispering, but he was soon back in a delighted sound very like a baby’s giggle, his grip loosening and then tightening again. “I know you’re there,” he said in the Bat’s deep, angry voice. It was almost conversational, but Rorschach got another hit in and they went over and over, taking the clear shot away. “Please don’t kill me,” the Killer said, in one of his victims’ voice, a female. The baby’s giggle came only seconds after, and he threw a knee up into Rorschach’s ribs to try to disable his struggles.
It was frustrating, hitting him and not silencing him completely. But Rorschach new frustration, and he was patient. Unfortunately, his breaths came irregularly, little gasps whenever the Mask Killer’s grip loosened. But finally, they pitched to the side, Rorschach pulling the other man close to try and control the spin. As they fell still, he situated himself on top, pushing down on golden shoulders. Those hands were still keeping their vice grip on his throat, his lips turning bluer by the second. The strike to his ribs didn’t help, his shoulders sagging forward as the pain radiated through his body.
Opening his eyes wide, Rorschach released the Mask Killer’s shoulders, taking the biggest breath he could muster. Gaze focused on the other man’s elbows, he brought both arms inward and struck outward with his forearms, as if he were breaking through a set of beaded curtains - if the beads were made of lead and muscle. Keeping his right arm from flailing out of control, he brought it close and slammed his fist downward, aiming for the center of the Mask Killer’s bullseye face.
The Mask Killer had a nose just like everyone else, and it made a wet snapping noise when Rorschach hid it. The Killer let out a strangled shriek that sounded downright feminine, and his broken grip flailed back. Pain and panic (automatic reactions to assault) gave him strength too, and gold arms swung up to blind Rorschach as the Killer threw a hip up to dislodge him while reaching for a gun strapped down his thigh.
Corbinian still had the gun, but it was proving useless in a fight this close, so he chose to even the playing field. He'd been following the pair as they fought, and now he came up from just ahead. He saw the Mask Killer writhe and then reach for something at his side. He had just enough time to register that it was a gun before aiming for the Mask Killer’s arm as he reached for it and firing.
The bullet was at point blank range, but luck had the Killer’s arm out of the way just in time--instead the bullet ricocheted up, spraying both with gravel and doing the job anyway; the Killer let go of the weapon and had to scramble for it again--and then suddenly he gave up, and his arm made a strange movement for his lapel. He was also laughing; a soft male laugh that had no clear owner.
Taking the blow to the face and the hip check in one blunt wave, Rorschach pitched to the side. Without anything to hold onto, he fell on his shoulder just beside the Mask Killer, chest half-supported by the other man’s shoulder. With a wheeze, he started to straighten up when a bullet went off, spraying them both with gravel. Hissing, he held an arm out to shield himself - a pointless gut reaction - as the last sound he ever expected to hear filled the air.
He saw the Mask Killer reach for his lapel, and Rorschach immediately knew that whatever he was reaching for would not create a happy ending for them all. On impulse, he shoved at the other man’s hand, a clumsy action as he fell across the Mask Killer’s chest.
Back at the stormdrain, Luke had just pulled Thomas onto flat ground, and Max noticed the blood on Luke’s arm as she neared, and under any other circumstances she would have asked if it was a bullet, if it had gone clean through, but these weren’t any other circumstances, and she dropped to her knees and tried to feel for a pulse through all of Thomas’ kevlar instinctively, just as Luke began to speak. His words made her look up, to look him in the face, but she never made it that far. She noticed the ignition line, running along the ground and into the hole, familiar from her years in the military. She was on her feet before she even caught the hint of gas on the air, and she reached for one of Thomas’ arms. “PULL,” she said, and then into the communicator, for Corbinian and Rorschach’s benefit. “He has an ignition line, and there’s enough gas in the stormdrain to blow us all up. RUN.”
The Killer couldn’t see the pit any more, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they got down there, and he wanted a body count. With difficulty, his mask stinging from gravel, Rorschach’s cursed weight holding him down, the Killer struck at the inked face and pulled something that looked like a silver watch out of his lapel. Deep in the hole, a baby’s scream pealed out into the darkness just as the Killer hit the button and a roar of fire and pressure mushroomed out of the cylinder in the ground, lighting up the world around them. The Killer pulled the gun in the space of sound, and he got one bullet off before he and Rorschach were struggling again, this time for possession of the weapon.
Before he could move again, the world exploded into stars. Shaking his head, Rorschach flailed an arm to the side, fingers closing on air. Cipher was shouting, something about gas. Blowing up. Storms. Hoisting himself up with one hand, he moved to try and deter the Mask Killer again when he was too late. Rorschach turned his head as his fingers wrapped around the Killer’s wrist, only able to watch uselessly as the other man’s thumb pressed against the silver button in his grip.
The noise was deafening, and the sudden movement of the Mask Killer beneath him was disorienting. However, he could still hear the gunshot, and soon he was locked in combat once again. Rorschach kept his grip on the other man’s wrist, attempting to force the gun’s aim away from Corbinian as he threw all his weight forward, pressing a knee into what he thought was a soft abdomen. Though he was in a flurry of gold and darkness, noise and silence, he was able to shout two words into the communicator lodged against his skin. “Corbinian out!”
All that Corbinian knew was that there had been an explosion, that Max had screamed and there had been an explosion, than she had been up there, just beyond the top of the channel, when the explosion had happened. Something snapped in him. He walked toward the gun pointing in his direction, walked up until the muzzle was almost flush against his chest, and then put his gun under the Mask Killer's chin, expression caught in a strange rictus that could not possibly be mistaken for a smile.
The Mask Killer knew that he had been cornered, yet he did not lose his tension nor give up the gun Rorschach wanted. He matched Corbinian’s grin with one of his own, but you couldn’t see it behind the blank target mask. “I know it’s you,” the Mask Killer informed Corbinian, in the Bat’s voice. “No one is coming.” Then, in a softer rendition of the same grating voice. “Just kill me.” The Mask Killer’s ability to mimic the voices and sounds of others always seemed a background to his other traits, his need for death and his single-minded pursuit of what he wanted; but this time it filled the senses until that’s all there was: voices. A second later, as he saw Corbinian’s hand tighten, he went one better, and Max’s voice said, “Go!”
Corbinian’s trigger started to click and the Mask Killer fired and hauled on his gun-arm with everything he had, yanking Rorschach between himself and Corbinian with everything he had to avoid a point-blank death.
Corbinian was trying to make a decision - fire, or incapacitate. And frankly, for whatever reason, he found himself leaning toward incapacitating the Mask Killer, striking him over the head and dealing with whatever shots he did manage to get off. Then the Mask Killer fired, and Corbinian, reflexively, fired back without thinking. It was far too late to do much but pull his aim a touch by the time he realized that Rorschach was being pulled across into the path of the bullet.
Satisfied that Max had a decent hold on Thomas’ other arm, Luke had maneuvered around the sling as best he could and pulled as instructed. Together they managed to drag him backwards and away from the hole, but it wasn’t enough. They needed to get further, and he turned to tell Max exactly that when the world seemingly exploded into heat and noise. He lost his balance and fell backwards, still gripping tight to Thomas’ shoulder, but once he hit the ground and pain once again shot up his arm he couldn’t help letting go. His eyes were squeezed shut tightly enough to be painful and there was an odd ringing in his ears, but he was alive even if his breaths weren’t regulated yet. For a moment he lay on his back and stared at the darkness behind his eyes, but once everything stopped being so fuzzy he rolled over onto all fours and opened his eyes.
He didn’t have a chance to see what condition Max was in, not when flames were steadily creeping up the still-unmoving Bat’s cape. Without anything he thought could conceivably be used to put out the fire Luke acted instinctively instead, throwing himself forward and beating at the flames with any part of his body he could.
Max was trying to calculate the distance that the explosion could reach when the thing went up, and she’d known they wouldn’t be able to get far enough, even without knowing where the Mask Killer was with the switch. He hadn’t set this up to fail, the Mask Killer, and she wasn’t really surprised when the the suction-explosion sound of the blast reached her, well before the heat and flamed knocked her to her knees. She guarded her stomach, rolling onto her back and draping an arm over her face, the searing heat scorching away the sleeves of her shirt. But she didn’t have time to worry about that, because Luke was up and moving before she managed to catch her breath and roll over with a groan. She tried to grab at him, reaching for his good arm. “Pull him away,” she said, getting to her knees. “You, too.” She touched her ear, checking for the comm there. “Status? We need medical.”
Trapped between two gold titans in a world of uncertainty, Rorschach did the only thing he was good at - hang on. He clung to the Mask Killer’s gun, not taking it but not releasing what little grip he had. It was minor, but he kept it, fingers wrapped tightly around wrists and brushing metal. The taunts that came, the sounds of uncertainty that followed, fell on deaf ears. Rorschach was focused on his body, trying to forget the sights and sounds. And then there was a blur.
Suddenly, focusing on his own body wasn’t such a good plan of action. The pain radiated from one small point in the middle of his right upper arm, coursing through the rest of him in a heartbeat. Rorschach let out the howl of a wounded animal, a sound he tried to hold back and failed. Biting down on his tongue to silence himself after, his left hand slackened, fingers instantly releasing the Mask Killer’s wrist. Nerves on fire, he flailed with his right arm, trying to draw his left closer to his body. He slapped at the Mask Killer’s blank face with his right hand, recalling the sensation of his nose breaking earlier. In pain, he was focused on dealing back what he experienced.
Rorschach shouted. Corbinian registered that Rorschach was shot, and then he fired on the Mask Killer. The shots weren't aimed lethally, but he did empty the bullets in the gun.
Whatever else he was, the Mask Killer was not immortal, and a bullet knocked him back just as a blow did. Already falling, he felt the impact against his shattered nose and the hail of bullets cut off his child’s wail of agony. He hit the ground and he was already losing blood fast, half down the slope to the bottom of the drain, trenchcoat spread out with mud and stained with gas. The bullseye mask stared up at both of them.
Corbinian turned back to Rorschach. "Are you hit?" he asked, and saw almost before he was done asking that he was. He reached for the communicator, finally responding to Max. "Mask killer down." Corbinian had emptied the gun into him. He had tried not to, but it had to be done. It felt like nothing, not a catharsis nor a balm for his anger. He would have happily put a dozen more bullets in him, but he didn't, and he wasn't even sure why not. "Wounded critically. Rorschach - he's been shot, but it's not life threatening." He paused a moment, collecting his thoughts. "We need to leave, the sooner the better. Someone is going to report that explosion, and we will have police here in a few minutes." He sounded bizarrely calm for the situation, and he watched Rorschach, offering his hand to him, feeling a twinge of guilt. "Come on."
Watching the Mask Killer lie still, breathing yet not gone, was strange. Rorschach was trapped in a glass box, unable to hear Corbinian’s words, unable to wonder about their meaning. The golden killer lay beneath him, chest still heaving for breath. There was no face. No expression. No empathy or anger or pity. Walk with love, the priest had said. “He who does not know love does not know God, for God is love.” First John. But what was love in the absence of hate? What was good in a vacuum? Black and white, white and black, they needed each other. An absolute action for an absolute world.
To leave the Mask Killer like this, in limbo with lead in his chest, was no better than killing him outright. There was no gray, no hope at a saving throw. They couldn’t reverse time and stop the Mask Killer, or keep the bullets from filling his body. They had made a commitment. Rorschach was going to honor it.
Corbinian’s voice was met with a low grunt, a vaguely winded wheeze. Rorschach straightened up, sitting on his knees planted on either side of the Mask Killer’s chest. He looked down into the target mask for a moment, not saying a word.
The Mask Killer didn’t have words of his own, but he had those of others, and they patched together in a rising and falling of tones and voices, male female, young old, loud soft, tired and angry. “Don’t! Want? ...I. Can’t be. Found.” He didn’t struggle or move. The bullseye waited.
“Most merciful Jesus, lover of souls, I pray for You.” Holding his left arm against his side, Rorschach reached for the Mask Killer’s gun with his right hand, holding the muzzle out to the side - facing away from Corbinian - as he wrapped his fingers around the L-bend. “By the agony of Your most sacred heart, and by the sorrows of Your Immaculate Mother,” he rattled, bringing the butt of the gun up. “To wash in Your most precious blood,” he whispered as he brought the gun down with a crack on the Mask Killer’s head.
The sound reverberated through the ditch, echoing off the steep walls. Rorschach pulled back, striking again. “The sinners of the world who are now in their agony, and who will die today.” Again he hit, feeling the skull fracture. Setting his jaw beneath his mask, he struck again, full power coursing through his right arm. He felt something soft, he felt resistance, and sighed. “Heart of Jesus, once in agony, have mercy on the dying.” The gold color began to leak from the Mask Killer’s body, leaving behind a dull, dark husk. For good measure, he struck again. “Amen.”
Biting on his lower lip, Rorschach dropped the gun - now smeared with blood - to the ground, fingers starting to tremble. Gaze on the Mask Killer’s target face, he didn’t look up at Corbinian at first. “Now go,” he finally said, standing very slowly and shakily while keeping his left arm tucked against his side.
Jack put an arm around his friend's shoulder. He knew he would need the support, and not just for the climb up the edge of the channel. He said nothing as they started to climb up, then, finally: "The poetry of it was too good an end." He'd get Rorschach to the top of the rise, then come back down for the body. The storm drain would make for a fitting final resting place.
Luke completely ignored Max until the flames were no longer an issue, and even then he looked at her as though he’d just clued into her presence. The gunshots were impossible to miss but they came from somewhere not in his line of vision and thus his interest in them was fleeting. He got to his feet and immediately resumed of dragging Thomas backwards, unsure of an actual direction other than away. The voices in his ear told him that the Mask Killer was down and Rorschach had been shot, but his main concern wasn’t either of them. “He’s still not awake,” he told Max, either unaware or not caring that he was stating the obvious. “He needs help. Now. Where?” By this point he wasn’t even wasting time on full sentences. Max had a truck, didn’t she? That was a decent enough location to focus on getting to, or at least get close to. Transportation was good, since he couldn’t drag Thomas very far as it was, never mind carry him anywhere - and that explosion wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.
Max already knew Thomas wasn’t awake, but she understood Luke’s need to state it again. She tried to focus past the aches and pains, just like she knew Luke was doing, and she tried to not let her gaze linger too long on the blood on Luke’s arm - she was pretty sure it was a gunshot wound, and she as worried about him going into shock as she was about anything else. They had options, but not many of them. They couldn’t wait for help, not with Thomas in the Bat get -up, and a hospital was a problem for the same reason, but they didn’t have the medical knowledge to explain why he wasn’t awake. But they had to move, and that was that. She stood, teetering a little, and then she looked over her shoulder. “I can get the truck close,” she finally decided. “We have to get him out of the suit. Once he’s inside,” the last part was an afterthought, because she was already moving. She didn’t tell Luke to stay, because she wasn’t thinking quite that clearly, her forearms stinging from the flames. “Rorschach, Corbinian, we’re driving out. Meet us by the pit if you’re coming,” she said into the comm, her voice exhaustion-slow, as she approached the truck and climbed in. “Oracle, can you get us some medical help?” And, God, did she hope that answer was yes.
“Yes.” Oracle’s answer was immediate, having kept quiet most of these last minutes. Now that she had their attention, there was just the smallest clearing of her throat. “I’m sending help but you still need to clear out of there. Police are en route. Rorschach, Corbinian, keep going. Cipher, Robin, opposite direction.” She could already see their dots moving across her screen but sometimes it just helped everyone focus to be reminded of what to do.
Leaning on Corbinian for support, Rorschach very slowly made his way up the side of the ditch. Once on level ground, he stood quietly as his golden friend retrieved the now dull body, leaving a pool of blood where it once lay to rest. As Corbinian returned, Rorschach listened to his communicator, letting out a low grunt as he was addressed. “Disposing body. Then leaving.” It took little time for them to decide what to do with the corpse. They had a body, there was a fire still burning - it was a match made in Heaven. Very little was said as the body burned, though they waited to ensure it was properly scorched before departing in the opposite direction of the others, towards a location of Oracle’s command where medical help would await Rorschach and his injured arm.
Getting Thomas into the truck was a challenge in itself, but Luke hadn’t gotten this far to be stopped by a stupid vehicle. Once the door was open he used it for support, maneuvering despite the burning pain in his arm until he managed to get Thomas onto the seat and climbed in after him. He stared at him for a moment, mind blank, trying to figure out how to get the armor off. He decided to start with the cowl, since at least he could try to find a pulse that way.
Everything was moving slowly for Thomas. There was a play of light that made his eyes hurt even through his lids, and when his eyes opened his pupils were large and it made his calm silver gaze black and unrecognizable. His vision was entirely blurred, and he was unable to focus on the hovering figure above him. Scorched kevlar was a familiar scent to the Bat, in his many incarnations of armor, and when his arm pained him through its immobility he only came up with panic. A split-second his eyes opened he threw out an elbow to try to get up and get away.
Considering the fact that Thomas had gotten through an explosion and the subsequent fire without any hint of life, Luke wasn’t expecting him to wake up now. He’d barely registered that his eyes were open before the elbow came up and he couldn’t get back fast enough to avoid being hit. It wasn’t particularly hard, and the surprise was what caused him to fall back against the car door rather than the pain. He let out a huff of breath but was sitting back up in an instant, staggering relief washing over him with the realization that Thomas was alive. “It’s just me. You’re safe now, and the mask killer is gone.” He glanced over his shoulder towards the driver’s seat, grateful that the truck’s engine had already roared to life and he didn’t even need to state the obvious and tell Max to start driving.