Chapter 20: The Fear Given by Bats
BANG!
A gunshot echoed in the bunker.
Even their team's best sharpshooter had fired, but all they heard was the sound of the bullet slamming into the concrete wall. His target was not even touched.
The shooter himself looked down at his weapon in shock. He was sure nothing was wrong with his gun. His aim had been true. So why had he missed?
All the agents were wondering the same thing, but now was not the time to think. Bruce Wayne was not going to let them stand around and wonder why their guns failed within seven steps.
After dodging the bullet, Bruce vanished from their sight once more. A moment later, the few remaining lights in the underground space winked out, plunging the bunker into complete darkness. The agents were now blind.
When Bruce appeared again, the red-hot bat-shaped knuckles on his fists began to move up and down in the small flashes of light from their muzzle flashes. He grabbed an agent, his hand clamping down on the man's wrist with crushing force to stop any movement. His other hand shot out and broke the agent's elbow with a brutal twist.
"AAAHHH!!!"
The agent screamed in agony, a raw sound of surprise and pain in the unsuspecting quiet.
Without waiting for an order from their commander, the other agents made what they thought was the best choice. No one wanted to end up like their broken comrades. It was an instinct.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
A storm of continuous gunfire lit up the dark space. What flew from their muzzles was not just bullets, but their own rising fear. In that wild shooting, the agent whose arm Bruce had broken was turned into a sieve without any chance. Future forensics would likely only find pieces of human tissue in a pile of spent shells.
The agents got a result, but it was the wrong one. They had killed one of their own. But where was Bruce?
At that moment, the suit on his body did not even have a speck of dust on it. This environment, this darkness, was too perfect for the Bat. In Bruce's eyes, the agents were clearly in a state of deep fear. They could not decide if they were fighting a man or a ghost.
If it was a man, how could he dodge their shots again and again? Only a ghost could do that. And if it was a ghost, their team, trained for normal emergencies, was completely outmatched. They needed an exorcist, not a soldier.
"What are we even fighting?!" one agent finally shouted into the dark, his voice tight. When someone starts talking like that, it means his mental defenses are breaking.
"Quiet!" The only answer was the commander's cold, hard order. The agent had to swallow his fear. But no one knew how long he could last.
Under that fear, their combat effectiveness dropped fast. What was a small challenge for Bruce before became much easier now. Bruce had not expected to find H.Y.D.R.A. behind Kingpin. He had come prepared with a simple bulletproof layer under his suit and his mask, but not for a full assault. He could not just fight them all head-on.
This was a good reminder. This was a real, complicated world. He could not judge things simply by what he knew from movies or other stories. At Spider-Man's funeral, a hero like Captain America had not been present. But in this world, every hero who had ever worked with Spider-Man had shown up to pay their respects. That was not something that could be faked.
"Fall back!" the commander ordered, his own voice strained. He did not plan to keep fighting this unknown entity. The physical and mental stress was becoming too much. As the leader, he felt his own nerves were about to snap.
But what about the agent who had spoken before? For him and others, the fear was now a silent, heavy weight. The commander's job was to get his remaining men out alive.
Unfortunately, Bruce would not give them that chance. He had already picked his next target: the agent who had shouted his fear aloud. That man was on the edge. He just needed one more push. He would be Bruce's way to break the whole team.
The Bat moved. Wearing his dark mask, he appeared in front of the shaken agent at blinding speed, a demonic face filling the man's vision for a single second, before melting back into the dark like a ghost.
Bruce was sure the man had seen him clearly.
"AAAAHHH! DEMON!!"
The fierce bat mask had transformed in the agent's mind into a green-faced monster with fangs. He could not take the pressure anymore. Ignoring all orders, he raised his gun and fired wildly into the space in front of him.
Gunshots rang out chaotically in the dark bunker. In the strobe-light flashes of the gunfire, Bruce's shadow appeared again. The team's neat formation had broken down completely because of the one panicked agent.
This was Bruce's best chance.
To the terrified agent, it looked like he was shooting right at that flickering figure every time. But it did nothing.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound of empty magazines echoed, followed by the cries of his teammates as Bruce struck. His burning fists left permanent marks on their bodies. The Bat was among them.
The mentally broken agent slumped to the ground, unable to stand. He just watched as his teammates were knocked down one by one by the demon in the suit. The last thing he felt was that same searing pain. The bat brand was pressed onto his shoulder blade, leaving its mark.
By the time H.Y.D.R.A. reinforcements arrived, all they found were their unconscious agents. And on the wall, clear for all to see, was a large, stylized bat symbol.
The scene made Brock Rumlow, called Crossbones, look very serious when he arrived. He checked one of the injured men. "All non-lethal. But very precise. Designed to incapacitate fast," he said, making his assessment.
He looked over at the now-empty space where the ledger and files had been. "Our first guess was wrong. This wasn't a super villain. This was a superhero. Only the do-gooders let people live."
Crossbones clapped his hands once, a sharp sound in the quiet bunker. "We don't let agents who fail their missions survive to talk," he stated coldly.
The surrounding reinforcement agents understood. With the cold courtesy unique to H.Y.D.R.A., they raised their guns at their former comrades lying on the ground.
BOOM.
(End of Chapter)
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