Chapter 12: Feat of Clay
It the middle of the night in Gotham City, a car was going down the road to a certain part of town. It soon came to a stop in front of the abandoned Tramway of Gotham Island, which has been closed for nearly a decade. When the driver's door opened, a dark skinned man stepped out into the cold night air with a briefcase in hand before closing the door and locking it. Soon the man started looking around as he walked to the boarded up entrance of the building.
"Bruce?" The man called out in a distinctive voice. "Mr. Wayne?"
Soon a man stepped out of the shadows wearing a large, blue trench coat and a hat to cover his features before calling out. "Over here Lucius."
Lucius Fox, an african american appearing to be in his late forties/early fifties is the acting CEO who helps run the day-to-day business in Bruce Wayne's stead. He had short, pepper colored hair with a moustache to match with dark freckles on his cheeks. Lucius was currently wearing a dark suit with a blue bowtie underneath a dark, cream trench coat with a scarf and gloves.
"Bruce, it's three in the morning." The businessman said to his employer as he held up the briefcase. "I could've given this to you in the office."
All Lucius got in response was Bruce shushing him with him shaking his head. He then gestured the dark skinned man to follow him as the billionaire had moved some of the wooden panels out of the way so the two would enter the building.
As they were walking further into the abandoned area, Bruce decided it was time to speak. "I called you out here since my phones are bugged. My house, the office, everywhere Lucius. He knows we are onto him."
Thinking for a moment, the board member soon realized who his employer was talking about. "Daggett?"
"Who else?" The billionaire rhetorically replied. "You said that he was trying to take over the company."
*Sigh* "Of course….Insider trading." Mr. Fox replied as he looked at his briefcase before remembering what has been happening as of late.
Ever since what happened with Daggett's medical scheme to make a profit from infecting Gotham with a virus his company made, the man had been trying to buy stock from Wayne's company. But of course with how things have been going since then, the company had been refusing to sell anything to the company owner. As a result, Roland Daggett had started to scheme and plot to get Wayne Enterprises at any cost.
Both Bruce and Lucius noticed this, so they had been building up and acquiring evidence against Roland. One such evidence was connecting Roland to the incident last year at Park Row, aka Crime Alley, when he tried to blow up several city blocks for a redevelopment project of his. He was able to evade the charges and cover his tracks but the two Wayne executives were able to gather all of the sources. When the time was right, they would turn in their evidence to Harvey Dent and possibly take down Daggett for good.
"Once you give these papers to the DA, Daggett will be under indictment before he can even tie his own shoelaces." The board member said with a small smile.
"If I turn in the evidence." Bruce said with a smile that seemed to unsettle Lucius as he reached for the briefcase. "But I won't."
Soon several people started coming out from the shadows with guns pointed towards the two….or rather Mr. Fox.
"You see Lucius, I plan on destroying these papers and since you have brought them, we won't be needing you anymore." Mr. Wayne had said getting Lucius to get very nervous on what is going on while trying to get the briefcase out of Bruce's grasps.
"Bruce!" Lucius yelled out while hiding his anxiety of the weapons aimed towards him. "W-What the hell is going on?!"
"All that I can tell you…. is that I'm accepting your resignation Mr. Fox."
With that said, Bruce tried to pull the briefcase away from the man's grasp, but Lucius was able to pull it away when the handles broke off leaving the billionaire to fall onto the ground. The opportunity was knocking making the dark skinned man to make a run for it as several bullets were fired at his position. Of course one thug decided to fire upon several signs hanging above to make them fall onto the ground. As a result, one of them landed on Mr. Fox and made him groan in pain.
"Two Baker Six, Two Baker Six." A woman's voice called out from one of the thugs. The man was wearing a headset with it connected to a pocket radio set to the police frequency. He had set it to the 'speaker' setting so every other thug got the message. "Two O' Four at Gotham Island Tramway, Southside terminal. Please respond Code Two."
"Come on guy's. Let's get this over with before the fuzz show up." The headset man said as he made his way down the stairs.
"Too late dirtbags." A voice called out from practically everywhere.
"Who said that?!" One of the thugs called out as he searched for the source.
Of course one of the thugs then realized it was coming from above as some light was shown up on top and a silhouette was seen. When seeing the person, he aimed his finger up on high and called out. "It's the Batman!"
"Shit! Not him!" One thug said as some of the men started to get closer to each other and aimed their guns at random spots just in case if one of them spotted the Dark Knight.
It wasn't long until Batman glided down and drop kicked two of the thugs to immediately knock them out before making his way through several opponents. The Caped Crusader then dashed towards several thugs at a time as he quickly kicked and punched them in vital areas to immobilize them before picking up one of them and threw the person at a group of them. Some of the thugs then opened fired with their assault rifles and shotguns but were not making their mark as the hero of Gotham was evading the stray bullets. Batman then got close as he slid on the ground to kick one thug on their mid-section and used that momentum as a slight springboard to jump towards another thug.
As this was going on, 'Bruce' saw that this was going nowhere now and he had to leave or else he'll get in trouble. So taking his cue, he slowly crept into the shadows and had to make a break for it.
As all of the thugs were down for the count, Batman was looking around for any clues to what is going on when he heard a shotgun get 'clocked' behind him. He used his quick reflexes to turn around and pushed the weapon out of the way as it fired off before knocking the man out. When everything settled down, Batman peered off to the side and saw someone down on the ground that was probably injured.
The masked hero would've gone down there to help the man out but the police broke through the makeshift barriers surrounding the building. Taking that as his cue, Batman pulled out his grappling gun and fired towards the rafters before being pulled up. Once he was on one of the beams, he ran towards one of the broken windows and left the building.
As the many officers were entering the building to round up the many thugs and send them to jail, they didn't see two thugs get up from their ground and bolted in the confusion to report to their boss.
"Sir, are you alright?" One of the police officers said as he got to the injured Mr. Fox.
"Wayne…."
"What was that?"
"Wayne….Bruce Wayne….He set me up." Lucius weakly said to the officer before he passed out from the pain.
-Morning-
*Clang* '75.' *Clang* '76.' *Clang* '77.' *Clang* '78.' *Clang*
The usual sounds of a morning workout in the Uzumaki residence were present as the former shinobi was doing his 'runs' on his salmon ladder. With his usual workout routine; he rarely did weight training as he mostly focused on running, body resistant stuff, chin-ups, abdominal work, various types of pull ups (salmon ladder stuff included), pushups, handstand push ups, tri-stand push ups, balancing work, planking, etc. Mostly stuff to help him manipulate his body weight to really show his test of strength. He is currently wearing a pair of gym shorts and a pair of Nike shoes. As he was doing his sets, he was focusing on recent events.
When he was at the Ace O' Clubs with Lois, he had told her as much as he could about Pam with what limitations he had placed on himself so things won't go overboard. No mentioning of her troubled past, no mentioning of her being a meta-human, and definitely not mentioning her being at Arkham Asylum. If he had slipped any of that information to Lois then things will be hard pressed on him and things will get complicated. Naruto did well on telling Lois about a lot about her with what limitations he had and Lois seemed pretty happy that he found someone really special.
When that was done, Naruto decided to ask if she was seeing anyone as of late. The reporter replied back with her recently getting out of a bad relationship, making Naruto realize on what Bibbo meant with her not being in the best of moods. He wanted to ask who it was but had a feeling she didn't want to get into that whole mess again so he had let that be. It was her thing to talk about and her's alone.
Asides from all that, the two talked more on various topics while they were drinking their beers and eating their food. Even with Lois at one point in their bar dinner bringing out her books that she wanted her old friend to sign with a slight, stuttery look when pulling out the Icha Icha works. It made him laugh at the sight but he still signed them none the less with it saying that she means a lot to him of being one of his closest of friends. This made her happy when reading it but didn't want to go all sappy and whatnot.
It did make him happy on having that same old feeling again when he worked for the Daily Planet, but he knew it wasn't fully there without Cat with them.
When the morning came, Naruto had headed straight back to Gotham so that he can get back to the office to not only work on his usual workload but to inform his New York branch on the recent events. They were less than thrilled when hearing on what went on with the previous building candidates but were glad on the opportunity to get a good location from the old printing plant the Daily Planet owned. From what he could tell after he ended the call with the branch was that they were possibly calling Perry White and getting things settled on the deal. It'll take time for things to be finalized but at least everyone will get what they want in the end.
He was too focused into this thoughts and workout process that he didn't hear the door to his loft opening up. If he wasn't, then he would've seen Selina walk through the door. She was currently wearing a pair of skinny jeans, black boots, and a white long-sleeve shirt underneath a brown jacket.
"Hey Naruto!" She called out as she didn't pay attention to what her friend was doing. "Sorry on barging in, but I was wondering if….you….Oh…"
Her thought process started to shut down as her eyes were glued on the spectacle before her as her friend was doing his exercises on the salmon ladder with his upper body on display. With each movement he was doing in the chin up exercises and bringing the bar up to the higher level before doing several pull ups made his body glistened with more sweat. Selina's eyes were drawn to his lean, compacted muscles that seemed to ripple with each sudden movement making her unconsciously bite her lower lip.
*Clang*
'Dear god.' The environmentalist thought as her eyes were locked onto his form. 'It's like chiseled stone…..and those abs.'
*Clang*
With the final 'clang', Naruto dropped down as he stretched his arms before seeing Selina near the entryway.
"...Hello~" He said in a little chipper tone with a wave getting her to snap out of her thoughts.
"Oh...Ah….*Cough* Hi." She said as she gained a small blush on her features. "Didn't know you had this here."
"Had this for quite a while actually." The hazel eyed male said as he grabbed his water bottle and and took a swig out of it. "I don't like going to gyms with their stupid membership traps."
"Yeah….same here."
Seeing her blank gaze, he guessed what she was looking at as he shook his head with a smirk.
"So Selina," Naruto started getting her to put his focus on his face again, "why are you here?"
There was no immediate response as she scratched her head while not looking at him straight in the face. "W-Well I came on by since I….well...I'm bored."
"You're bored?"
"Yeah…"
"But what about work?" Naruto asked her as he put on a grey shirt. "Wouldn't there be something from that to occupy your time?"
"There would, but things have been rather quiet as of late." Selina replied with a shrug. "Nothing in the surrounding areas are doing anything noteworthy. Asides from that, there aren't any major events coming up for a while for me to seek out any 'handouts'."
"What about spending time with Isis or even Shizune?"
"Isis is taking a nap and likes being on her own at times. As for Shizune, she is currently at her other job." Seeing his confused look, she explained. "She doesn't work for me all the time as she mostly works as an aide at the local college."
"So with that, you wondered if you could go do something with me for the day."
"Pretty much."
"Though I do wonder though why you didn't just knock. Instead you used the spare key I have outside to get in." He said with a raised brow. "You don't plan on stealing anything off of me are you?"
"What? No~...Unless the only thing I'm stealing is just some of your free time then you might as well arrest me." She jokingly said as she held up her wrists together.
"Nah it's fine Selina. Besides….I think I might as well kill some time with you anyways before I run a few errands."
Hearing this, she frowned slightly on what he's talking about. "Planning to go see Pam again?"
"Yup." He said to her before trying to say something else to her.
As this was going on, a stray thought went past through her mind. 'Why can't he spend more time with me?...Wait why am I thinking on that? He's seeing Pam…. but….'
"Selina? Hello?" Naruto asked as he waved his hand over her face.
"Hmm."
"I asked if you would like to spar with me?"
"What?" She asked in confusion at the sudden request. "Why?"
"Well~ I remember you telling me that you trained under a boxer named Ted…. and I bet that you had worked on your technique ever since he stopped teaching you. So with you being Catwoman, you must've had to fight your way out of some tight spots. I'm even guessing you haven't had a good spar in quite a while."
When hearing all that, she had to admit that he was roughly on the money and had to admit that she hadn't spared with anyone for god knows how long.
"It sounds tempting Naruto, but I don't know if I want to fight you being all sweaty and I'm not even dressed for the occasion." Selina said as she gestured their current appearances before thinking to herself. 'Though I wouldn't mind feeling those sweaty, tight muscles of- No! Bad Selena! Down girl!'
"That's fine," he said with a shrug before continuing, "though you should realize that some fights and scuffles might come out of nowhere and you might have to be prepared for the unexpected. So it doesn't really matter of your state of dress, or lack of one, that you would need to fight in any scenario."
"Point." She said before a thought came through her head. 'He must've had a lot of experience in this sort of thing.'
Oh Selina…..You have no idea.
"Well if you don't want to spar now, then maybe on a later day?"
When hearing his suggested offer, she immediately wanted to jump to the chance but she had to play it off cool to not sound all that desperate.
"Eh~ Sure, why not?" She said with a smile.
"Great." Naruto responded back with a smile of his own, "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to shower. You can hang out and do whatever you want. If you want you could even come with me later when I'm doing my errands."
"I'll think it over before you get back."
"Cool."
As he left for his bedroom, where as to one of the bathrooms is located, Selina got an eyeful of his backside.
'Mmmmm….I hate to see him go now, but I think I'll love to see him leave….What the hell is wrong with me?!' She yelled inside of her head as she felt like pulling her hair in frustration.
It's been like this ever since he saved her life with that fever incident. After what happened, she couldn't help but feel emotionally attracted to him with him being there for her practically every step of the way. From helping her on the animal reserve, her time in prison and being at her bed side when she was practically dying for crying out loud.
Hell, she's starting to feel jealous of Naruto being with Pamela. She fantasies of what it would be like of him being with her instead of the botanist. The two of them had a lot in common in their childhoods and times growing up but the environmentalist knew there was more underneath the surface and she should know since she still didn't tell him everything about her.
Now it's going to feel much harder to reel herself in after seeing his half, naked body exercising that she is starting to be physically attracted to him as well. Even right now, she is thinking of the many details on his body that she took note of and started to guess what else is hidden underneath the clothes that was going to be washed while in the shower.
*Groans* "I blame his Icha Icha works on this now." She said to herself as she rubbed her eyes in slight frustration.
*Ding Dong*
'Huh...Wonder who that is?' Was her thought as she went towards the door. When it was opened, she was greeted with a postal worker with a wheeler and a package on it.
"This is the Uzumaki residence right?"
"Yes it is."
"Great." The man said as he pulled out a clipboard and gestured for Selina to sign it. Once she did, the man went into the loft and dropped off the package before leaving. "Have a nice day."
With the man gone, the environmentalist was looking at the package with intrigue. Wondering what was inside of it, she hunched down and made the motion to cut it open with a pair of keys she had pulled out of her pants pocket before hesitating.
"I probably shouldn't be doing this." She muttered as her hand kept going back and forth on getting closer and away. "This is Naruto's package and it's considered illegal for me to open it without his consent."
She then started going around the loft to get her mind off of the package as it was actually a first for her being in his residence. Sure she had seen glances of it in the past when coming back from some night jobs as Catwoman and when picking up Isis from Naruto when she was out for work, but she had never stepped foot inside of the place until today. So with that, she decided to do a bit of exploring.
The living room was obviously in the center of the residence with a few couches, a TV set and the patio door on the far end to show most of the city to be the same design as her loft. On the left hand side showed the kitchen area with the island located onto the further right while there are some stairs to the upper level near the wall on the left hand side. On the right area showed the salmon ladder that Naruto was using earlier and it was near a few training equipment that was tucked away into the corner. Behind all that, showed Naruto's office with his desk in the middle with varying books in the bookshelves wrapped around the room. With the walls of said room that were for the entrance showed that they were 'backless' shelves so that the movies he owns would be facing the living room while the books were facing the office.
From there, Selina checked the upstairs area to see it mostly consisting of guest bedrooms and restrooms given the detail of the simplicity. She would've gone into the last bedroom but that one was indicated as Naruto's given the little plaque hanging off of the door with a chibi Naruto on it along with the door being closed. With nothing else to do after checking the loft's layout, with closets in varying places, she sat on one of the couches while staring at the package from earlier.
"What the hell is taking Naruto so damn long while in the shower?" Selina muttered to herself. "He's a guy. So he can't spend so much time in there unless he's doing something in there."
With the slight frustration going on for her, the previous question went over her head as she got closer to the box with her keys in hand to cut it open.
"Screw it. I'm opening this thing." She said as she dug the key into the duct taped part of the package. "He did say that I can do whatever I want while I'm here and I want to open this up."
Once opening up the flaps of the package; she didn't expect seeing, of what she guessed, were several dozen books. Taking one of them out of the box, she took a better inspection of the thick reading material. It was mostly a white cover with metallic decorations along the borders, the spine and on the covers. The word 'Loveless' was written on the front cover and the spine with...Naruto's name on it?
"Did he write a new book?"
"Why yes I did."
When hearing his sudden voice behind her, she let out a quick 'eep' and dropped the book onto the floor. At the sudden action, the publisher couldn't help but chuckle a little before speaking to her.
"And before you think or say anything; yes, I've been writing for quite some time and I've only told a few people about this." Naruto said as Selena got a look at his appearance.
He was currently wearing an orange long-sleeved, plaid button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up along with a pair of jeans and tennis shoes. His hair seemed to have an extra shine to it to indicate that his hair was still drying off after combing it a bit to give off the usual spiky look.
"So why are there so many copies of your book here Naruto?" Selina asked as she gestured the contents of the opened package.
"Early rights and sending selected people early copies of the book, asides from critics."
"But what's up with the decorations? Regular copies shouldn't have these on them."
"You're right….Regular copies shouldn't have these decorations on them." He said as he grabbed ahold of one of the copies and opened it up to point out a certain spot. "Unless they are first editions."
Opening up the copy in her hands, she looked for the same placement and there it was: 'First Edition'.
"You see Selina, these specific copies are very limited. Similarly to my 'Orange Editions' of my Icha Icha works, these will probably make a pretty penny once the books hit the shelves very soon. I decided to have all of the first editions brought here so I can send most of them out to those I wanted to actually give them to before I send the rest back to marketing and be sold to the public at a certain point." He explained as he headed into his office and grabbed a few pens with a piece of paper becoming coming back out to sit on the couch.
"I'm guessing you wanted to write something in them before being shipped out."
He nodded at this before replying. "The ones being sold will just have my signature but the ones I'm sending to will have a message or whatever."
Naruto started to write in the first book before ripping off a piece of paper and wrote on that as well. From Selina's position, she was able to make out the first name being 'Pamela' as he slipped that slip of paper into the book with the name sticking out. The environmentalist then guessed that Naruto didn't want to mess up on which books are sent to their soon-to-be owners. After that, she saw her friend do this for several others from Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Harvey and Grace Dent (an early wedding present for the couple), the Curry family, Perry White, Lois Lane, and Cat Grant.
Eventually Selina realized that each of the books are being sent to Naruto's closest friends and influential people in his life. She was going to wonder who else was on the list until she felt a weight placed on her lap. Realizing it was a copy of his book, she looked up at him with a questioning look.
"Wanted to give you one as well Selina." He said with a small smile on his face.
"But why?"
"Hmm?"
"Why would you give me one?" She asked as she demanded to know the answer.
"Open it up, read my note and you'll see." Was all he said before he pulled out another book and wrote another message for someone.
With her curiosity rising, she opened up the cover and flipped over a few blank pages till she found the message.
Selina,
Things have been interesting for a while now hasn't it. With the odd ups and downs that both of us had experienced since we first met back at that celebrity auction. Have to admit that things would've been boring if nothing really happened since then.
Our pasts have similar factors that shaped us on who we are today, despite how some factors lead us in certain directions.
We have had our moments in our lives that we can feel vulnerable. That we need to stay strong for those who care for us. Whether it is big or small, every bit matters.
I wish things can go well for you in the coming future since things can go sideway at a moment's notice. With me being worried in past events why wouldn't I be concerned for your wellbeing. So I hope this can help you out in those dark moments in your life if possible.
Your friend,
Naruto
She had a small smile on her face after reading his note to her. She then turned toward Naruto, who was writing another message in another book, and tapped him on the shoulder. At this, he stopped writing and looked towards her to see what she has to say.
"Thank you. It means a lot."
"You're welcome."
"So how many more books do you need to leave messages for?"
Scratching at the top of his head on the question, all he gave her was a shrug. "Don't know for sure. All I've done so far were people I had at the top of my head and I'm just about finished writing the message for the last person on that 'list'. All I need to do now is writing my signatures on the remainder of these books and then I'll do my errands for the day."
"Maybe hold onto a 'hand full' just in case if you remember some people later." She suggested to him. "Wouldn't want to kick yourself over and regretting not doing it later."
"Yeah…. I see your point." Was his response as he continued writing. "So have you thought of coming with me on my errands today…..or are you going to read your new 'gift'?"
*Chuckle* "Oh I'm definitely going to be reading this." She said as she got up from her seat to stretched out her legs a little. "Gonna sit in my comfy chair with a bottle of wine and some food on the side with Isis on my lap as I read this."
"Well I hope you have fun on that Selina."
"Oh I will." The environmentalist said as she made her way to the door. "Have fun with those errands of yours and when you're at Arkham, tell Harley and Pam I said hi."
"Will do."
All he got in return was a wave from behind as she opened the door and then closed it on the way out.
"Well….time to get back at this." He said to himself as he rotated his wrist and flexed his fingers a little. "Gonna be a while till this is done."
-Daggett Industries-
"You sure Bell?" A man said as he walked down a hallway with two other men. "Are you sure our man that we hired doesn't know our operation?"
Not getting a response from Bell, the man turned around to see him with his headphones on and pulled them off before speaking again. "Did you even hear what I said?"
"No Mr. Daggett sir. Sorry but what was it you were asking?" Bell asked his identified boss.
"I said: Are you sure our man that we hired doesn't know our operation?" Daggett said with slight disdain from one of his employees.
"Oh yeah….well don't worry about him boss. The guy was just a 'hired gun' that he pretty much doesn't know our names." Bell said as the other man opened the door at the end of the hallway.
"Thank heaven for small favors." Roland said as he went through the entryway to his maintenance line. "But Mr. Hagen has disappointed me once too often. Hell, he botched this assignment completely.
"Obviously." The other man of the group said out loud. "The actor didn't even gather the documents from Mr. Fox."
"I know Germs and if Lucius Fox talks, he might as well incriminate us if the police can't figure out what's in those papers." Roland said as they kept on walking seeing some cream of sorts going into jars. "But I'm afraid it's time to let go of Mr. Hagen and be dealt with."
"But Mr. Daggett, the man is a master of disguise. He was one even before you gave him this stuff." The one man said as he gestured to the assembly line of product.
"I agree with Germs here. It's not easy to just change their looks with needing to actually act the part well." Bell said to back up his partner's statement.
The group soon got closer to their destination as Germs opened up a door with the word 'laboratory' labeled on the front. From there, the three men passed by several scientists as they were working on their own thing before Daggett stopped in front of a beaker containing a brown liquid.
"Oh don't worry you two. You don't need to bother searching for him." Daggett said as he pointed to the liquid container. "After all, this is the only place in the world where he can get what he needs."
-Arkham Asylum-
*Knock Knock*
"It's opened!"
"Excuse me Dr. Quinzel." A voice called out as the door opened.
"Yes Dr. LeLand?" Harley asked as she looked up from her desk with various papers all around.
"I'm just here to remind you that your evaluations with Pamela Isley are due by the end of the work day." The Arkham doctor said getting the blonde intern to nodd.
"Yes I know Joan. As you can see, I've been compiling everything in our sessions and interactions into this report and I wanted to make it as best as possible."
"I can definitely see that." The woman doctor said as she looked around the room to see the obvious evidence of condensed work. "Well I'll leave it to you to do whatever is needed to finish this up."
"Okay then."
As the door to her office closed, Harleen went back to work on her evaluation. It was a excruciating process for her with her wanting to make it as best as possible. She could've done it in smaller parts with how sessions progressed, but she had the odd idea to just mash it up into one large report. She's paying for it now and it's a complete pain in her ass.
*Sigh* "I would give anything to take my mind off of this right now." She muttered as she rubbed her eyes.
*Knock Knock*
"Did you forget something Joan?" The intern said without looking up from her work.
"Eh~ I don't think so Harley." The person said getting the blonde woman to jolt a little in surprise when seeing her friend in the doorway in a leather jacket with a 'visitor' pass and a messenger bag slung over his shoulder.
"Mr.- Naruto?! What are you doing here?!" She said in a small yell while trying to compose herself.
"Well I came on by to check up on Pam and while I was at it, I wanted to check up on you."
When hearing his response, she couldn't help but feel a little happy to help ease some of her stress.
"Then thank you Naruto. It's good to know that you wanted to see little ol' me." She said with a smile on her face.
"Don't mind me asking but what are you doing exactly?" He asked as he closed the door to her office and scanned the room of the various papers scattered about.
*Sigh* "I'm trying to finish up Pamela's psychological evaluation by the end of the work day."
"….That must not be fun at all I take it."
"Not really."
"But from what you've told me before with most evaluations, they would usually be small reports instead of-"
"Large ones? Yes I know." She said as she finished his trail of thought. "I wanted to make one report with all of the interactions to make the evaluation more condensed and more intriguing instead of usual snippets."
"And how is that going for you?"
"It's…..slow to say the least. I think it's about halfway or 3/4ths done." Harley said as she rubbed her eyes.
"You should take a break Harley…or at least take a nap." He said in concern as he got closer to her. "It'll be harder if you work on it for too long without any 'rest periods' and your head won't be able to work properly."
*Sigh* "I know you're worried about me Naruto but I'm not a little girl." She said with some frustration. "I can rest when I think so."
"So is there anything I can do that can change your mind at least?"
When hearing him say it, she narrowed her eyes a little before voicing her thoughts."What are you getting at?"
"If you can take a break and nap for a few hours, a few simple hours, then I'll give you something really special."
"Like what exactly?" She asked with her head tilted slightly.
After hearing this, he chuckled a little as he pulled out a book from his messenger bag.
"What is that?"
"This…." he said as he waved it a little with a smile, "is a first edition copy of my new book."
"...I didn't know you were writing a new book."
Naruto couldn't help but chuckle when he saw her widened eyes move in every direction where the new piece of literature was at. He even moved the book all over for a little humor and her head kept on moving with it locked onto the object in his hand. From what he remembered in some past discussions, she enjoys reading a new book if it seemed to intrigue her. Even more so when she has copies of the Gutsy Ninja and Ninja Storm that tends to help her relax at times. So with him having his new book in front of him, she would want to get her hands on it.
"Now Harley, you can have this if you take a break and a nap for a few hours." He said to her till he started to put the book back into the messenger bag. "But I guess you being too stubborn to keep working on your evaluation is too important to you then I can just give this to someone else."
"NO!" She yelled out with a hand stretched out towards the book.
"Oh~"
"I-I...uh."
Laughing to himself, he pulled the book back out and handed it to the intern. Once it was within her range, she grabbed ahold of it and then looked at in wonder on the nice covers. Even gliding her fingers across the intricate details before opening to see a message on the inside.
Harley,
Thank you so much for what you've done for both Pam and I. It puts me at ease that we were able to move forward from our problems and I owe you so much because of it.
I know what it's like to be alone and not have others to actually rely on. I have to admit that it's scary and frustrating on those experiences that many times in the past I sought it out and I hardly got any in return.
What I'm saying is that you're not alone. I have your back and so does Selina and Pam. We are your friends and I wish you do well on your coming trials as an intern.
Sincerely your friend,
Naruto
After reading this, she closed the cover and brought it to her chest with a look of indifference on her face. This worried the former shinobi and he got closer to her to see if something was wrong. That was until she brought him into a tight hug and muttered a 'thank you' to him before breaking the hold.
"You're welcome Harley." Naruto said to her before ushering her to the couch in her office. "Now I believe you have to pay me back for wanting your new book."
When hearing this, she shook her head with a small chuckle and got up from her seat as she reached for the alarm clock in her office. She had set it to go off in a few hours before ushering Naruto out of her office.
"I hope I don't regret doing this or else I'll be in trouble."
"Don't worry Harley, it'll do you some good. By the time you wake up, your head will be cleared up and it'll be easier to wrap up your report." He said with a reassuring smile. Once Naruto left the room, Harley closed the door and locked it before going to her couch to catch up on some well deserved shut eye.
He made his way through the hallways without making eye contact to any of the inmates that were behind the see-through glass. Making it to the women's wing, he saw the usually small amount of inmates in this section before coming the usual sight of Pam's cell with a chair in front of it.
It was a standard, rectangular sized cell with the bed hooked onto the corner with a sink and toilet on the other side. The difference with her cell from others was the fact that it looked like a miniature greenhouse. When he got closer, he saw that she humming a little tune while watering the various plants around her.
"Hello Pam." The publisher said, making her snap out of her thoughts. "It's good to see you."
"Naruto….It's good to see you two." The Green's champion said in 'their' dual voice. 'They' placed the watering can down before coming closer to the barrier that separated the two. Pam then placed her hand onto the glass getting Naruto to do the same thing to make it seem they were trying to interlock their fingers. The two people then leaned closer and placed their lips onto the glass for a brief moment before separating.
"You look quite radiant today." The former shinobi stated to her as he sat down on the chair.
"Always the charmer." 'They' said with a pleasant smile. "So how was the trip?"
"It actually turned out well…" He started out as he then explained to her on what occurred to his recent trip to Metropolis. From running into the Curry's at Bibbo's diner, searching for the new location for his business, visiting the Daily Planet, and the interactions with both Perry and Lois. He did leave out the ones with Luthor and Olethros since he thought they weren't all that important from the earlier one being not that pleasant while the later seemed to be more of a personal topic.
"It's good to know that things are going to be moving forward with your company now." Pam said to 'their' boyfriend.
"Indeed….Even catching up with your old friend must've been satisfying." Ivy added in getting Naruto to wave his hand in a 'so-so' manner.
"Somewhat. To be honest, it would've been better if Cat was there to make it feel like old times. It would've been similar to how things were like with you and the Hollands."
*Sigh* "Yeah….I still miss them at times but I know they are in a better place now." She said with a downcast look as her eyes seemed distant now with memories of those old times coming back in. Ivy stayed quiet on that since 'she' felt the same way.
Naruto would've wanted to say something about that bit with him knowing that Alec Holland is another champion of the Green from his interaction with Yggdrasil but that would've raised some questions from his girlfriend. So he chose to change the subject onto a lighter subject by opening up his messenger bag to pull out the other copy of his book he had on him.
"Loveless is now done."
When 'they' heard this, 'their' head came up to see 'their' beloved hold the book up and wave it slightly.
"Is that for 'us'?"
"Yes it is." Naruto said with a smile as he went over to the one document/meal slot to her cell and opened it up. "First edition actually. I hope you enjoy it."
"'We' believe 'we' will." 'They' said once getting the book in 'their' hands. Tracing it over before giving him a glance. "Seems a bit gaudy, don't you think?"
"True, but~ I wanted to make it special. The appearances just came to me honestly."
'They' snorted at this before opening up the book from the back in an old habit to skim through various pages before reaching the front. 'They' soon came towards the end of her light skim till it reached a particular page with 'their' name on it that caught 'their' interest.
Pamela,
I am so lucky to have you in my life and I can't imagine it without you being apart of it. Not a day goes by when I don't think of you, both of you.
To be honest with you 'both', I was truly scared of what happened and I didn't know what was wrong with you as a whole. Your kiss….Your kiss almost caused me to die, but now I can't live without feeling your lips upon mine. It's just so damn intoxicating that each time we kiss, I just want to feel it more and never let go.
Over time, I've come to terms and accepted both sides of the woman I truly love. Both of you are the same person and if I didn't accept both of you, along with your 'gift', then I don't have the right to freely say 'I love you Pam'. I have more of an excuse that I need to dwell and learn more about you than before….to love you more than before.
I can't wait for the day for when we can be together again so I can show you how much I love you. It'll be excruciating but it'll be worth it in the end. Until then, I hope this book can show you how deep my affection can go.
Your love,
Naruto
*Sniffle* "If this barrier wasn't in the way, *Sniffle* I would give you all the kisses you want."
"And then pull you onto this bed and rock your world."
"I know you 'two' would." He said to 'them'. "So until then I hope you 'both' enjoy reading it."
"Will do Naruto." Pam said as she flipped through the pages till hitting the first page to start the reading.
"There's another reason why I wanted to come here today."
"Which is?"
"I want to know where your mother is buried."
Hearing this blunt statement coming from him made 'them' look at him in slight shock.
"W-Why would you want to 'see' her?"
"I….I wanted to pay my respects to her and even have some nice 'chats'." He said while scratching the back of his head. "I wanted to tell her several things, to let her know that I'm actually in a relationship with you and hope she can approve of me being with you."
Pam's questioning look soon changed to one of understanding as 'they' smiled. 'They' soon told Naruto of 'their' mother's resting place. It would mean the world to 'them' of having 'their' beloved finally meet 'their' mother, even if 'they' aren't with him on the first encounter.
Soon after, Naruto said his goodbyes and left 'them' to their own musings to read 'their' new book that will surely entertain them until 'they' can properly leave and be with 'their' beloved.
-Evening, Outside Daggett Industries-
A car pulled up some distance away from the facility nearby before it came to a stop. From there, a shadowy figure got out of his car before he crept on the walls to sneak past the entrance of the premises. Luckily for him, the one security guard up front was taking a nap. Taking the chance, the man slipped through the gate and started to run towards one of the closest buildings before ducking into the shadows as a patrol car came past him. Soon after, the man had to lean out into the light to see if there were any other security coming by soon. By this action, he revealed his disfigured face with various scars before running to another building.
One might ask who this man is and why he is sneaking around. His name is Matthew 'Matt' Hagen; a successful, versatile actor whose career was put on hold for some time due to a car accident he suffered from a few years prior. Most of his body was only suffering from some degrees of burns but the most damaging part was his face. It would've taken years worth of plastic surgery to get his face back on what it used to be, something that Matt didn't have that would've ruined his acting career.
Fortunately for him, he was approached by Roland Daggett while the actor was still in the burn clinic with the offer to become the first 'test subject' of the Renuyu cream formula. From what he was told, the cream would've been soaked up into the damaged skin and he can rearrange his face to make it appear what it used to be before the accident. How could he say 'no' to such an offer and he willingly complied once he got out of the hospital.
Matt felt as if he was at the top of the world once he got the Renuyu cream, with him accomplishing so much in his acting career with his best roles ever. Of course, his limited supply that he got from Roland ran out and the actor had to have more. The price to pay was for him doing various 'jobs' for the industrialist and with the threat of his career going down the drain if he didn't get more of the creme that he had no choice.
What he wasn't told though were the side effects to using the formula. When he started using it way too often, it caused the formula to not fully work out from the original 48 hours down to 24 hours. From there, the face would start to feel like putty along with the pain that starts coming up after the formula wore off.
It was excruciating and agonizing on what has been happening as of late. He would've gotten another good batch of the cream from the 'job' he did last night to pose as Bruce Wayne, but it backfired. Now he was out of the stuff and he had no choice but to go to the source and retrieve more on his own.
Matt soon found the building he was searching for as he opened the doors with it labeled 'Research and Development, Authorized Personnel Only' before entering.
'Now where is it?' Hagen thought as he navigated through the hallways. It took him a while but he soon found what he was looking for.
'The laboratory.' The actor thought with a smile on his face as he quickly opened the door and ran into the room. He quickly looked around for any hint of the formula in question until his eyes landed upon a large beaker with some bubbling substance along with some smaller ones filled with the same stuff. When Matt got closer, he saw that it was the same color and hue as the Renuyu formula he has taken all this time making him realize that this was probably it's raw form.
Not wanting to waste another moment, the damaged actor dug his hands into the beaker and grabbed a large amount of the raw cream and applied it onto his face. The result made him moan in ecstasy as his pain went away and he kept on rubbing his face with the stuff. Now all he needed to do was take the beaker and get out of there, along with some other jars of the formula if it was possible.
"Hold it right there." A voice called out making Hagen pause in his actions. "Turn around real slowly and step into the light so we can see you."
Quickly thinking of an idea to get out of this, Matt quickly rearranged his face into the only face he had in mind at the moment.
"I'm sorry about that," Hagen said as he changed his voice, "I was looking for Mr. Daggett."
The actor turned around to the person, or persons, at the doorway to reveal his changed face to them before speaking again. "I'm afraid we haven't met. Name's Wayne, Bruce Wayne."
Taking in a few moments, the two people looked at Hagen before the man with the headphones spoke up, Bell if he remembered. "Wayne huh. Sure….like we would believe that Hagen."
In a brief moment, Bell grabbed the actor's arm and brought it behind him before slamming him onto the table where the smaller beakers fell into the sink resulting in them going down the drain.
"NO!" Matt cried out as he tried to break free of his hold.
"Oh it's Hagen alright." Germs said as he walked around with a shotgun aimed at the damaged actor. "You've literally became quite the addict, haven't you."
"Yeah," Bell said in a taunting tone, "once they've hooked on this, they stay hooked."
"Come on Hagen, let's go out for a little ride." Germs said getting Matt to realize what they were going to do and headbutted the man holding him.
"Like hell I will!" Matt yelled out as he fought his way out. "I know what that means."
As the actor ran, Germs threw his weapon at the man's feet causing him to fall over before he and Bell ran to him and held him down. With all the fusing going on, they knew they needed to end this quick as their boss' orders. In the struggle, Bell's soon landed on the large beaker of the raw cream and got an idea.
"Germs….Hold him steady. I got an idea." The headphone wearing man said getting his accomplice to nod as he put more weight onto the downed man. It didn't take long for his partner to come back with the beaker in his hands.
"You know Hagen. If you wanted more of this stuff, you could've just asked." Bell said with a sadistic tone as he tilted the beaker to have it's contents start coming all over the actor's face.
"N-No!" Matt said as he struggled to speak. "Not that way! It's too much."
"Let's give him all he ever needs." Bell said as the cream soon went down Hagen's throat and nostrils causing him to choke and suffocate as he screamed at the top of his lungs before passing out or dying.
"Come on Germs. Help me get rid of the body."
"Do I have to?" The man said as he was a little squeamish.
"Yes."
*Sigh* "Fine."
It took a bit for the two men to carry Hagen's body outside of the facility. Luck seemed to be on their side as they found the actor's car outside of the grounds and they fished for his keys in his pockets before opening up the door and dumping his body in there. If they would've stayed a little longer, they would've seen some of his body parts start to slowly deform and 'melt' into puddles.
-Later, GCPD-
"What the hell were you thinking Bruce?!" Naruto asked his friend, who was currently in a holding cell.
The publisher found out about what happened this early morning when he was walking past a newspaper stand when he got out of the post office to ship out the other books. His eye caught a glimpse of the following headline: 'Bruce Wayne Sought for Questioning in Executive's Life. Lucius Fox of Wayne Enterprises Hospitalized.' After seeing the headline, he had to read the rest of the article to see what occurred but Naruto knew it wasn't all that happened.
The former shinobi went straight to Wayne Manor to seek answers from Bruce himself. But when he was there, the police were there as well wanting to speak with the billionaire. Alfred told both him and the police that he wasn't at home and try to come back later. The silver haired male knew Alfred was lying but he couldn't do a thing about it. He could've snuck into the residence to find where his friend was hiding but he had the feeling he needed to trust Bruce at this time.
Once all of his errands were done for the day, Naruto headed straight for the hospital to check up on Lucius and see how he was doing. Though when he went to see the executive, there were police guarding the room and wouldn't let anyone go in or out unless they were certified hospital staff. Since he couldn't do a thing about it, Naruto had to leave and wished things can go well for the man.
After leaving the hospital, Naruto decided to do one more thing before retiring back to his loft for the rest of the day. He called up Harley in her office if she did indeed take her nap and finish up her report….or at least be almost done with it. Sure enough, the blonde intern was almost done when he came on by and she thanked him on making her take that nap. It really did help clear out her head to get the process rolling better. She was just too stubborn to not do that sooner, but needed a friend to talk her into it.
So once he made it back to his loft, the former shinobi turned on his TV and switched it to the news while he would start preparing for his meal for the evening when he heard the latest bulletin that Bruce was arrested for breaking into Lucius Fox's hospital room. He stopped on what he was doing and headed back out to head over to the GCPD to figure out what was going on. It took a bit of convincing on his part when talking to the officers but he was able to get into the holding cells and confront Bruce on what the hell was going on.
"I wanted to check on Lucius and see what he knew on what happened."
"By breaking into his hospital room and scaring him half to death?!" The publisher yelled out with a twitch to his eye. "Do you realize how stupid that was?!"
*Sigh* "Yes I know that now and I wasn't thinking rationally about it." The dark haired man stated as he rubbed his head in frustration.
"No shit Bruce." The hazel eyed male exclaimed. "You could've just come forward and turned yourself in peacefully to save face, but now you literally made yourself look bad in the process. Hell you probably made Lucius more nervous about you than before."
"You don't have to keep telling me about it Naruto and it was a big mistake on what I did. But you have to believe me, I would never harm a friend at all."
"And he's been with you for like, what, close to a decade now?" Seeing his friend nod at the answer, the publisher continued. "Then a lot of trust that've been built up for all that time, but because of what happened could've toppled that down badly."
When that was said, Bruce gained a downcast look and Naruto could tell that he was berating himself on his foolish mistake. It must really be hurting the billionaire more than he realized by this.
"Look Bruce, you can tell me what's going on and what could possibly be related to all of this. I can even inform Harvey about it and things could maybe be worked out in the end."
Eventually Bruce relented a little and told Naruto that he and Lucius were complying detailed evidence against Daggett and were going to hand it over to Harvey soon. With the information being processed through his mind, Naruto soon voiced his thoughts.
"This is too much of a coincidence if you ask me Bruce. The timing with you two coming forward and this...impersonator trying to nab the evidence, I'm guessing Daggett could've been behind this."
"I'm thinking the same thing as well, but I can't prove anything at the moment. Even if I could, it would be harder to do so with the public's scepticism about me."
"True."
Soon the door to the holding area was opened up to show Officer Montoya and Uchiha in the entryway.
"Mr. Wayne, you're free to go." Sasuke stated as he walked towards the cell while fishing out the keys.
"You're butler made bail." Renee said as she held the door out and ushered the man out. "So off you go. And you should leave as well Mr. Uzumaki."
"I know I know. I'm going." Naruto said as he walked out of the door with Bruce not far behind.
After gathering his belongings, Bruce made his way out of the building's entrance where a horde of reporters and cameramen came rushing towards the billionaire. Asking various questions that were hard to hear with them asking all at once. Of course they stopped once Bruce got inside of his car, where Alfred was waiting for him, and drove off.
When the reporters started to disperse, Naruto headed towards his parked car nearby and had a destination in mind.
Seems he won't be heading back home anytime soon.
-Gotham General Hospital-
A car pulled over to the side of the road revealing two passengers, an ordinary man while the other was…..some creature of sorts.
"The hospital? Why are we here Matt?"
"Sooner or later, Daggett will send someone to finish off Fox." The creature who is now identified as Matt said before he continued. "Once I know who it is, then I'll….I'll take his place."
Matt soon shifted his form into his old appearance when a doctor was walking past the vehicle so he wouldn't draw too much attention to himself. The changed actor then took note of the various details of the passing doctor before shifting into the previous man.
"And if Daggett thinks I'm his henchman then bam….So long Mr. Daggett." The changed actor said with a chuckle before exiting the vehicle.
"You should head back home Ted since I don't know how long this will take." The man said before he walked towards the hospital. When the actor left Ted's pervisual view, he had thought back on what happened as of late before driving off.
Teddy Lupus is an actor and an occasional stand-in for his best friend, Matt Hagen. The two had worked in various projects together in the past and was the only person Matt confined to about his accident and his subsequent addiction to the Renuyu cream. Ted didn't like the idea at all of his friend having to keep crawling back to Roland Daggett for more, and having to do anything he wanted. So with what rational friend would do for an 'addict' was trying to hide all of the Renuyu jars at times and would only bring them out for limited use when necessary.
After the breakdown in Matt's trailer earlier that day, Ted had to keep an eye on his friend but lost track after shooting was done for the day. He kept on trying to find the damaged actor for several hours until a dreaded thought passed through his mind. Once arriving outside of Daggett Industries, Teddy found his friend in his car and in horribly mutated state.
After some struggle of getting the deformed man into his car, Ted got him back to Matt's trailer to offer support and compassion on the recent events since Matt needed them more than ever. That was when the two found out that Matt somehow became a metahuman because of the Renuyu formula saturating every cell of his body, giving him the ability to change his form into anything he thought like a muscle reflex or something. This happened when Matt was walking past various pictures hanging on his trailer walls of past roles he performed and his body started to change into said roles.
When this revelation came out, Ted tried to talk him that this was a blessing, that his acting career wouldn't end at all and could end up being better than before. Of course, things didn't go all that well that Matt's body reverted to its deformed state and caused the changed man to break down again and eventually swore vengeance on Daggett on what he had done to him.
"I just hope things turn out alright soon." Ted thought when driving off into the night.
As this was going on, Lucius Fox was currently asleep in his hospital room without any worry whatsoever. The door to the room slowly opened up to reveal an ominous figure before closing the door back up. The person in question then looked around for anything to use for his current job before finding a stray pillow off to the side. Once grabbing ahold of it, the person made his way to the sleeping executive with the intent to kill the man by suffocation. Things would've been done accordingly well...if a batarang didn't intervene by hitting the pillow and lodging it to the wall.
Seeing the sudden event, the man looked around to the source until he saw Batman right outside of the windowsill.
"Oh no!" The man yelled as he quickly ran towards the door and opened it before running through the hallway to reveal Germs, one of Daggett's men.
In his haste and confusion when trying to get away from Batman, he ended up in one room that would've been his worst nightmare to be in.
"Why did I run in here?" He nervously said as he tried to back away from all of these infection and disease samples the hospital kept. "I should've kept running."
Germs would've gotten out of the room safely but the Caped Crusader was blocking his way.
"P-Please, you gotta let me out of here." The man pleaded as he was backing away from Gotham's dark hero. "A-All of these virus' and bacteria, I could be infected."
"Oh...I know." Batman said as he walked closer to the thug. "Now I'll ask nicely: Who impersonated Bruce Wayne?"
"I-I do-don't know."
Knowing he wasn't going to be able to use the 'easy' approach on this one, Batman looked around until finding something useful for this situation. He grabbed ahold of the jar and read it outloud to the thug. "Crimson Fever….One lousy way to go."
To get his message across, the hero placed the container on the shelf above Germs with it edging to possibly fall off. "No possible cure so far. Now I want that name. Your friend Bell couldn't tell me, so what about you?"
"Okay, okay. It was Hagen, the movie actor."
Unsatisfied with the answer, Batman punched the wall causing the container to shake a bit and edge closer off of its shelf.
"It's the truth I swear!"
"Then how did he fool Fox?" Batman asked with his arm at the ready to strike the wall again. "He's good but no actor, no make-up, is that good."
"I-I don't know."
*Wham*
"Y-You're crazy!" Germs said as he ducked his head as the container kept on shaking closer off of the edge.
"Last chance! Now talk!"
"Alright! He-He has something...Something that nobody has that he could-"
The man would've said more but the lights of the room lit up and someone called on out. "Nice work Batman, but I'll handle it from here."
The two looked towards the entrance of the room to see one of the hospital security guards coming their way. Feeling a slight frustration on not getting his answers, he hit his wall against the wall again, causing the container to fall off of it's placement. The thug ducked down so he wouldn't get splashed by it's contents before Batman caught it.
"Relax...It's just dirty seawater." The hero muttered as the guard got closer. "Will you please give me a moment with him. I need some answers."
There was no indefinite answer that came from the security officer...until he turned around and stretched out his arm...really stretched it out and slammed Batman to the ceiling before letting go.
"W-What in the name of heaven?"
"Oh shut up." The 'guard' said before pulling onto his cheek and it stretched out before it detached from the rest of the body to form a small glob.
"G-Get that away fro-MMMPH!"
"Now let's have a nice chat." The 'guard said to Germs before exiting the room.
When Batman got his wits together, he ran out to find any trace of Germs and the supposed guard before he saw the stairway door slam shut. He opened the door quickly and ran inside to see where the person went before finding an ominous figure several floors above him. The hero kept on running up the stairs to catch up to the figure and ended up on the roof to see the person holding Germs up in the air, ready to throw him to the ground below. The misshapen being would've thrown him off if it wasn't for a scarf of all things, wrapping the thug up and pulling him off of the being's grasps.
"I'm not too late in missing the party, am I?" A voice called out getting the two other individuals to look towards the source with the knocked out thug not too far from his position.
"Who the hell are you?"
"The name's Vanitas." The now identified Vanitas said in his black and white, muscle suit attire before bringing his hand out and wrote it in the air. "V-A-N, I-T-A-S. Got it memorized?"
'When did Nobody decide to go by that now?' Batman thought before remembering their last encounter at the abandoned Grande Greenhouse last month that Robin suggested the masked individual to change his name. 'Nevermind.'
The deformed being kept focus onto Vanitas' form before it started to shift into a brown colored version of the new arrival.
"What in the world?" Batman said in shock as he gazed at the man and Naruto was having similar thoughts on what's going on.
'He can shape shift?'
The current form didn't last long as it shifted back into the large monstrosity the person was before he yelled out. "Back off!"
Batman dashed towards Vanitas and the downed Germs to get the captive to safety but the deformed man stretched out his arm, which turned into a 'brick wall', and slammed the caped crusader away. Vanitas grabbed ahold of the captive and moved out of the way as one of the deformed man's arms came down on their position in the shape of a giant hammer, causing large damage onto the roof. It wasn't long before the other hand formed into metallic spikes and shot out towards both individuals as they tried to get away.
"Hey! Over here!" Vanitas yelled out as he threw several cards at the deformed man before they exploded on contact.
"Why you little?!" The being growled out as his body was misshapen even more before it reverted back to normal.
With the being's focus now towards the muscle suited man, Batman ran towards the misshapen being and did a jump kick. It did land well but the hero couldn't get free from the being's body, even as the man grabbed ahold of the hero and threw him over the ledge. Vanitas then came up from the rear with his Lunar Rose and slashed at him, leaving deep cuts into his form before they 'healed' back up.
"Stop that!" The being yelled out as his arms soon shifted into blades and started swinging at his new opponent. Naruto kept on dodging and evading the swings while occasionally parrying them. As this was going on, Batman climbed up and saw the current fight.
"Surely you can do better than that." Naruto taunted before swinging his scythe upward to cut off one of the arms. The appendage landed in a loud thud before it started to move on it's own and launched towards the helmeted hero.
"That's new." He said before kicking the appendage towards the misshapen being before it absorbed into his very being and reformed his arm.
The being then shifted his arms into giant crab claws of sorts before they reverted back to normal when the person started groaning in pain.
"GRAHHH!" The man yelled out as he held onto his sides. He then brought his hands onto the rooftop and started breathing in and out in rapid successions, like he was starting to run out of breath.
"All that shape changing must've taken a lot out of you, hasn't it?" Batman rhetorically asked as he quickly realized what is going on. He would've said more before police sirens started to fill the air. Vanitas and Batman looked onto the side of the roof to see several police cars heading towards the hospital, no doubt on what is going on.
In their distracted state, the deformed being ran past the two and jumped off of the ledge.
"Stop!" Naruto yelled out as he tried to grab ahold of the culprit. Batman soon fired his grappling gun onto the being in hopes of catching him when it wrapped around him but the being was 'cut' in half due to the weight, speed and height of the fall before landing onto the ground like deformed clay.
"What in the name of…?" Naruto said in shock as the two heroes looked at the current display as the being rose up from his fall before it quickly moved to a sewer duct and slipped away.
"Well that was interesting." The masked publisher said as he rubbed his helmet to figure out what is going on.
"What are you doing here...Vanitas?" Batman asked as he wanted to interrogate the individual.
"Well I wanted to check up on good old, Illustrious Mr. Fox." Vanitas said in a cheerful tone while swinging his arm a little to emphasize his slight jokeful tone before shifting to a serious one. "After what happened with Mr. Wayne causing a scene here, I wanted to be sure the poor man was safer and to see who was after him."
The bat themed hero couldn't help but find the action similar to his own. When he gotten out of the GCPD earlier, he had the same idea and came over here as quickly as possible so he can watch over his friend better. Apparently Vanitas had the same idea of his own.
"I appreciate the gesture but I have things handled."
"You sure? Especially with what happened?"
"I'm sure."
"If you say so."
With that said, Vanitas ran towards the edge of the rooftop and jumped off causing the hero to look down to spot where the individual went….only to find nothing.
"Huh...So that's what it's like." Batman muttered as he went to the unconscious form of Germs and grabbed a sample of what was covering the thug's mouth and some of his body before leaving in his own fashion. If he stayed a little longer, he would've seen Vanitas climb up to the rooftop and chuckled a little.
"Nice trick. But don't know if mine is better." He said as he climbed on down the fire escape and summoned his motorcycle and rode back to his home for the evening.
-Next Day, Batcave-
"Tonight on Gotham Insider: I'll be interviewing pharmaceutical king, Roland Daggett, who's new product can perform what plastic surgery can't. If you want to view the interview, you can tune in at our regular channel or come on in at the Balaxy Broadcasting studio. This is Summer Gleeson and I'll see you then."
The news report was sounded out throughout the infamous Batcave as the caped crusader was currently working at his lab table with the sample he gotten from last night.
"I've acquired the Matt Hagen films you asked for Master Bruce." Alfred said as he walked down the stairs to where the now unmasked Bruce was at.
"Good...Because I'm sure that thing Vanitas and I fought at the hospital was indeed Hagen. His condition is a result of an experiment gone wrong by the hands of Roland Daggett." Bruce said as he gestured to the empty container of Renuyu cream on the side.
After the confrontation at Gotham General, he decided to follow up on the lead where Germs said on who the impersonator was. When arriving at the movie studio outside of the city, he came across Matt Hagen's trailer and found it wrecked with various containers of the pharmaceutical product lying about. He searched each one of them until he gathered enough of the cream to bring back to the Batcave to have it tested out.
"Hagen apparently transforms unconsciously sometimes, like a reflex action of sorts."
"Vanitas sir?"
"...Nobody goes by a different name now….You can thank Dick for that."
"I'll be sure to let him know when the time comes." Alfred said with a small smirk on his face. He had heard of this 'Nobody' fellow when Bruce encountered him during the 'Red Claw' incident and he too agreed with Master Richard that the man's name was odd.
"Don't mind me asking but what are you going to do with those films anyways?"
"Well…."
-Evening, Balaxy Broadcasting-
"...It sure is crowded here." Naruto said as he was in the line to get into the building as he wanted to see what was going on with the interview this evening. But of course so many women of various ages were in attendance along with various pharmaceutical business workers to see the latest product, so it was going to be hard to get into. Getting tired on the line not moving, he decided to leave and went to the side of the building to fazed his way in.
The reason why he was coming on by to see the event was because of Daggett making another scene. After hearing all of the details that were involved with the man from Bruce, asides from what he knew about the incident last month, he decided see the man on his next public appearance. From what happened at the hospital rooftop, Naruto had guessed the one misshapen being was going to strike again and maybe do it on live television.
Once no one was looking, Naruto focused on his energy and summoned his 'Vanitas' attire so no one would recognize who he really was. From there, he started to make his way up to the rafters to get a good angle on tonight's proceedings.
After what happened with the incident last month at the greenhouse, Naruto had wanted to keep his promise to himself and try and merge his two outfits together to make it become a techno-organic body suit. It took him weeks to get it to work with it being very difficult on the merge but it wouldn't work all that well. He summoned his bio-organic suit while wearing his stealth suit and it did indeed work but when he called off the organic suit, his stealth suit was still there. So after various trial and error attempts, Naruto decided to merge the pieces one at a time to make things less stressful for him on most of his free time at the loft. Eventually it became a success with both suits were finally one and would be good to possibly try things out this evening.
"3, 2, 1, Go!" The camera man yelled out to signal that the show was starting.
"Welcome to Gotham Insider everyone. I'm your host, Summer Gleeson and tonight we are discussing with Roland Daggett with his new product, Renuyu. Thank you for coming in this evening Mr. Daggett."
"Thank you Summer and it's a pleasure on being here." The man said to the hostess.
"So you have stated that your latest product is practically a face lift in a jar?" Summer Gleeson asked the pharmaceutical 'king' with skepticism.
"If you watch on the monitors, you can see Renuyu work out the wrinkles, work out the imperfections. Literally remake your face however you choose."
When the audience looked at the footage, the majority were very impressed on the applications while others wondered about some of the downsides. But it brought up a lot of clamor that made Daggett smile gleefully that he might do well in this product.
"This seems quite amazing isn't it." Summer said as she got up from her seat with a mike in hand. "Now are there any questions in the audience?"
There was one person that stood out as she got up from her seat and waved her hand out for Summer to come towards.
"Okay madam, what would you like to ask Mr. Daggett?"
"Thank you Ms. Gleeson." The woman said as she then addressed the pharmaceuticals. "I'd like to ask Mr. Daggett about the rumors I've been hearing about."
"Like what exactly?"
"I've heard that he's been selling Renuyu through direct marketing since stores won't carry it due to the harmful side-effects."
When hearing this, Daggett started to sweat a bit and tug on his collar to get some air. "W-Well that's a-absolutely not true madam."
"But what about the addictive properties of Renuyu Mr. Daggett," the woman said as she snatched the microphone from the reporter and made her way to the stage, "how once you're hooked on it that you can't stop using it without feeling the horrible pain."
"That seems like a very specific information for her to know." Naruto muttered as he watched the event unfold.
"What?! No...I don't know what-" Daggett said as he tried to save face.
When the woman came closer to the stage, some of Daggett's men came to get her to stop but she just shrugged her off and pushed them….far away from her, thus knocking them out.
"Ok...Think I know where the shape shifter is at." Naruto said as he got himself ready.
"Why don't you show them what an overdose looks like?!" 'She' said as 'she' got closer to Roland. "Why don't you tell them about ME?!"
As the 'woman' said that bit, 'she' shifted into a monstrous form for all to see, both in the audience and in their living rooms. This caused mass panic and everyone started to run out of the studio and possibly out of the building in fright as the misshapen being got closer to Daggett.
"This is what you have done to me Daggett and I hope you suffer for what's coming to you." The being growled out as the business owner soon realized who the being was.
"Hagen? Is that you?" Daggett questioned as he was sweating badly under the pressure.
'That's Matt Hagen?!' Naruto yelled out in his head. 'What the fuck happened to him?!'
"Yes it is me...You've ruined me Daggett... My career and my life." Hagen said as he shifted his arms into a mace and sharpened claws with a sadistic smile. "Now I'm going to ruin yours."
"That's enough Hagen!" Naruto yelled out as he dropped to the ground not too far from the two remaining people in the room.
"You!" Hagen growled at the sight of the black and white themed man. "You should leave this alone Vanitas! He's got to pay!"
"I know he does Hagen, but not like this." Naruto said as he tried to reason with him. "Let the justice system work this out."
As this went on, Daggett decided to make a break for it and run off. But Hagen saw this and whipped his arm out and formed claws to catch the man responsible for his fate. Once Daggett was in his grasps, he felt someone kick him onto the side and saw it was Batman who had done the deed. This caused Roland to be free from his grasps and tried to run….keyword being 'tried'.
"Oh no you don't." Vanitas said as he shot his arm forward and his grappling scarf took ahold of the retreating man from across the room. Of course the moment his head hit the ground, he was rendered unconscious.
"Oops….my bad." Naruto sheepishly said as Hagen got up from the floor and stared at the two heroes.
"You again!" Hagen yelled at the newcomer.
"Hagen. Listen to us…" Batman tried to say but the changed actor won't listen.
"There is no Hagen anymore! There is only me now….Clayface!" The meta yelled out as his fists turned into giant blocks of stone and slammed them down onto the stage.
Both heroes moved out of the way and had to think of something on how to subdue the man. Naruto had pulled out his cards while Batman pulled out his batarangs and started throwing them. The batarangs didn't do much but the cards exploded on impact and made the man tumble a little.
"I think you should get some exploding ones Bats."
"Don't remind me."
The two soon evaded giant axes in their direction before Clayface brought them up from the ground and started to twist and turn himself to form a 'merry go round' of death. Both heroes had to roll and jump out of the way in quick successions as the blades started to go in various directions and neither one of them wanted to deal with the fatal blows. During this time, Naruto had thrown many cards at Hagen's direction to try and wound him or distract him to get some chance on getting closer. Things soon changed as the meta brought his arms back to shift them into giant maces and slammed them down in rapid successions, thus causing the masked men to repeat their same process.
Soon Vanitas summoned his scythe and shot towards the misshapen man and swung his scythe in a pinwheel motion to cut the man up greatly. This helped wound the man greatly as various 'clay' puddles were formed onto the ground before Naruto jumped into the air and slashed at the changed man. All that was left in the end were the various puddles scattered about in the studio room.
"You didn't have to do that Vanitas." The caped crusader said as he approached the masked publisher.
"I know but you saw it as well last time that this guy can take it." Vanitas said as he rested his scythe on his shoulder.
To prove his point, the puddles started to move upwards and started to form human sized individuals with no distinguishable features.
"See! I told you!" Naruto said as he accusingly pointed towards each of them.
"I can see that." Batman responded as he shifted his batarangs into daggers/knives of sorts to deal with the new problem.
Without any response, the various clay bodies rushed at the two with the intent of ending them.
"Duck!"
Batman responded at this as Vanitas put a lot of strength into his swing to slice through a good amount of them before the scythe spun around quickly. Once the blade stopped moving, Batman dashed forward and started cutting up the various copies with his batarangs on hand. Vanitas did various pinwheel spins on several copies at a time while Batman kept hacking in rapid successions as he kept on moving through each of them. Both heroes were making good work out of the copies and before they knew it, all of them started to mush back together to form a large ball of 'clay'.
"Move!" Both of them yelled out as they got out of the way when the ball rolled in their direction and crashed through the one wall.
The two soon left the studio looking for any sign of Clayface but it was hard to tell where he disappeared to. Being precautious, both of them walked back to back without saying a thing to each other with their weapons on hand while keeping a lookout for the assailant. What they didn't know was that Hagen was hiding in the air ducts above them and when the two passed on by, he made his move. He 'slithered' out of his hiding place and caught them off guard by shooting his hands towards them and sticking them towards the wall before detaching his hands.
*Laughing* "See! I can finally manage on how to do this thing pretty good!" Clayface said to them with sadistic glee as he got closer. "Hell… When you had cut me up real good, it gave me so many ideas on how to work this now! So I got to thank you for that Vanitas!"
"You're welcome." Naruto sarcastically said to the changed man.
Clayface soon got closer as he brought his hands together to form a drill and aimed it towards the two. Before he knew it, Vanitas phazed out of his bindings while Batman pushed his out of the wall and onto the metahuman. Using his momentum, he slammed Hagen through a door and onto the floor before making his way further into the room with Vanitas not far behind.
"What now Batman?" Naruto asked the caped crusader as he soon realized that they were in the recording booth of the studio.
Nothing was said as the two were soon slammed onto the large monitor by more of Clayface's 'clay' and couldn't move all that well. In his struggle, Batman reached out to some switches nearby and flipped them to get the various screens to switch from static to….Hagen's face?
'What do you have planned Bats?' Naruto thought as he saw Hagen's reaction when seeing one of his roles on the screen. When seeing this, Hagen was brought into shock as his mind was focusing on the current visual thus making all of the clay pooled onto them to recede. Once he was free from his clay prison, Batman started typing various commands in the room to make the monitors change to other images of Hagen's past roles.
"What are you doing?! Stop it!" Clayface yelled out.
"Look at them Hagen." Batman said as he gestured to the various images. "Look at what you used to be."
"No! NO!" The meta yelled in worry. "Please! Turn them off!"
Getting the idea on what Batman was trying to do, Vanitas decided to continue. "Listen Matt, you can play those roles again. Just let us help you."
"NO! HaGeN's gOnE! Stop mAKing hIM haunt me!" Clayface yelled out as he shifted into a past musketeer/pirate role.
This made the two reel back in surprise as Hagen started to shift through various forms in rapid succession from a cowboy, a spaceman, a detective, a soldier, and then a vampire. Soon things started to get worse as parts of his limbs started to shift into other parts of his past roles from a boxer's arm to a robot's leg, a warrior's chest to a knight's head.
"StOp it! StOp it! I-I cAn't CoNtrol it! I CAn't haNDlE itaLl at once!" Clayface yelled out as his body was changing rapidly to the point that it seemed he was truly in pain.
The meta kept on yelling as his body kept twisting and turning, causing Batman to rush to the computers and try to fulfill Hagen's request. But it was unsuccessful as he was knocked out of the way and was pushed onto the floor with Vanitas. Clayface soon became impatient and tried to turn it off himself by slamming his fists down onto the control panels, thus causing them to spark and the monitors starting to explode.
When this occurred, the security guards that came into the room and saw the ghastly sight before them.
"What the hell is that thing?" One of the officers said in shock as the meta soon shifted into a doctor's attire with his being one of a particular celebrity.
"Mother of Mercy. That looks like Bruce Wayne." Another officer said before seeing the being shift yet again into his regular form.
With the confusion going on, Hagen lunged forward and slammed his hands into a pair of monitors, resulting in him being shocked with untold volts of electricity running through his system.
"AaAAAAaaAAARGHAHAhHAHGgHAaHAHAHGGHAH!" His yell was inhuman that would have frightened any other person present. It wasn't long until Clayface got out of his electrical shock and fell onto his back with smoke coming off of him.
Hesitantly coming closer, Batman and Vanitas went up to the man to see if he was alright before he spoke to them.
"You know...what I wouldn't give to have...a death scene like this." Hagen said as he shifted his head to the one he had gotten after his accident. "Too bad….I won't be able to….read the notices."
He left out a few haggard chuckles before gasping for air and dying right before them after his face shifted to that of Clayface. When this was done, the others held their heads down and gave their respective prayers for the men's departing.
-Next Day, Batcave-
"...I'm just glad that it wasn't Bruce Wayne who didn't do the attacking." Lucius Fox said as he talked to Summer Glee in front of the hospital.
"Thank you Mr. Fox." She said before focusing her attention to the camera. "All charges that have been placed upon Bruce Wayne have been dropped. As for related news, a warrant for Roland Daggett has been issued for his crimes presented to DA Harvey Dent. From the arson work at 'Crime Alley' last year, the virus scare last month, inhumane experimentation, and various other crimes. This is Summer Gleeson, signing out.
"I'm glad that issue has been taken care of." Alfred stated as he turned off the monitor. "Though I do worry on what is going to be happening now with those cameras at the studio actually recording the whole fight on live television."
Last night was an interesting one as various people throughout the city kept watching the television event in their living rooms and in safer areas as they saw what happened. Seeing on what Daggett had done to a beloved actor was just small in comparison on what truly caught their eyes as Batman and the newly revealed Vanitas fought side by side and fought the metahuman. With what happened, many people are talking about the black and white themed hero now especially with how grand of a display he had pulled in the fight that was shown of course.
But hey….some heroes need to be introduced to the public one way or another.
"You know sir, if you wanted to play with some puddy, you could've boughten something else asides from….that." Alfred said as he saw his charge use an electrical device to shock the piece of clay. "What are you doing anyways?"
"Testing a hunch Alfred." Bruce said as he shocked the piece of clay again, making it shift into various forms in rapid succession before taking a dormant state.
"Electricity doesn't really have much of an effect on it?" The butler curiously asked.
"Exactly…..I wouldn't be surprised if the body that was taken to the morgue was only a shell." The billionaire said to his old friend.
Meanwhile at Gotham General, the morgue-tician was checking on Matt Hagen's 'corpse' as it soon broken down and turned into dust.
"Don't forget that first and foremost, Matthew Hagen was an actor. He said it himself Alfred, he called it a scene. Probably the best scene he ever performed in his career."
Cutting back to the outside of the hospital, Teddy Lupus looked at the building in sorrow at the loss of his best friend and co-worker.
"I'm sorry Matt….I wish things could've worked out better for you." The man said as he walked away from the site.
As he did, a woman passed by him for several feet before coming to a stop and looked back at the retreating man.
"A death scene so real...it might as well fooled us all."
"Hehehehehe." The woman let out a few chuckles before holding onto her sides as the laughing started to get more intense.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
-End Chapter-
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