An explosion rocked downtown Gotham City.
In a disruption that many of the oblivious citizens mistake for a simple blackout that blankets the entire Lower East Side in darkness for a span of seconds, a giant ball of fire rockets forth a wave of pressure, sending fifty six heavily-armed men onto their backs at once. None of them are killed, but many are rendered unconscious in what could only be described as a standard mafia delivery gone horribly wrong. The group, employed by the rackets belonging to La Cosa Nostra - the allied crime families of Falcone, Maroni, and Grissom - had been delivering several different tanks of imported Nitroglycerin to the Maroni owned depot off of the docks. The intent was to use the chemical to fuel a supply of car bombs that Maroni could use to attack his primary rivals in the city directly, while avoiding any self-implication. It was a simple enough job for the experienced smugglers, and left no room for any potential foul ups. The usual patrolmen and the field cops were paid off to stay away for the evening, the dock workers were given a handsome compensation, and any potential onlookers were to be either intimidated off the property, or made to be never seen again. What Cosa Nostra's muscle didn't expect tonight was an enemy they literally couldn't have seen coming, traveling at a speed of 304 MPH down the freeway. A dark shadow that had somehow shot out a projectile that pierced through one of the trucks and hit the tanks, causing a chain reaction that would barely avoid incinerating the smugglers where they stood, instead merely sending a clear message that would become evident as they realized who was speeding towards them like a demon out of hell.
What they didn't expect was The Batman.
"Jesus Christ, it's the Bat!" "Shoot him!"
The conscious thugs complied, each unloading a round of .32 caliber bullets at the impossible target from an array of advanced weaponry.
But watching the bullets merely become sparks off of the titanium steel-reinforced rims of The Bat-Pod, they could only watch in horror as The Dark Knight's roaring vehicle vaulted forth in a similar manner to a dive, flying out from underneath an oncoming tanker truck and tearing straight after the group of half-dazed criminals. Neither the vehicle or the driver even scratched by their blind attack. Even though the hoodlums had plenty of bullets to spare, it soon became apparent to them that their opposition was unstoppable. Instead of fighting on, they were simply going to run for it. Whatever Batman was after them about, it had obviously made him angry, relentless - possibly even crazier than the papers made the vigilante out to be.
"Holy God, he's not stoppin'! The Bat's not stoppin'!" "Screw this, it's every man for himself!"
Scattering as The Bat-Pod circled the area, each of the criminals stopped to scream at the top of their lungs as Batman approached, the vigilante eying them all with a clear malicious intent. The fire from the explosion cast him in similar light to one might expect of the devil himself, creating the effective illusion of hellfire. With each of the smugglers backing into one another, The Dark Knight let out a low growl, effectively keeping them quiet as the front tire of the vehicle came to a screeching stop. The engine continued to roar, but it was nothing over the angry voice that echoed out from an onboard automated loudspeaker.
"BRUCE WAYNE!"
The thugs looked at eachother in confusion, some knowing of the wealthy socialite, others confused as to what was even going on in the intense moment. Batman hit the gas pump and edged the vehicle closer to them, the large machine gun barrels infront of the vehicle's propulsion system becoming noticeably visible.
"WHO'S TRYING TO KILL BRUCE WAYNE?!"
Though none of their faces displayed anything more than a considerable confusion, the internal monitors imbedded into The Batman's cowl told an entirely different story. They were all frightened to the point of an accelerated heart rate, but only one of them seemed to become panicked at the mention of the billionaire playboy's would-be killer. Singling him out from the crowd, Batman stepped hard onto the ignition and propelled The Batpod into a wheelie, knocking down a few of the smugglers and allowing him the fortitude to grab the terrified henchman. Dragging him across the pavement, the vigilante teared through the rest and made his way back onto the Gotham freeway, diving his way into full traffic and using every bit of his strength to dangle the hysterical criminal through the worst of it. Avoiding beeping cars and sudden stops, Batman allowed the color in the degenerate's face to fade before bringing him out of his perilous predicament.
Veering off into a nearby alleyway, Batman tossed the shaken thug onto the pavement and leaped off of The Batpod, his leather boots crunching across the hard street and walking directly towards his prey. Allowing his cape to fold over his armored body, Batman simply stared down at the pathetic sight before him, as the thug cried his eyes out and held his hands over his head. He had evidently dampened his pants between the ride and the fall, adding even further insult to injury to any dignity the criminal may have once had.
"P-P-Please... stop... I-I don't..."
"Tell me exactly what I want to know, or I'm dragging you back."
"No! No, god... just... what is it? What do you want from me?!"
Grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, the vigilante lifted the man off of the ground and stared into his eyes.
"The man. Who tried to kill. Bruce Wayne."
"I-I don't... I don't know what you're talking about! We haven't heard anything from the higher ups!"
"Your pulse seemed to indicate otherwise."
Slamming his fist against the brick wall, Batman pulled him in even closer.
"They didn't know anything, but you definitely did. Talk now!"
"I swear to freakin' god, I don't know a damn thing about Bruce Wayne! I... I..."
The vigilante's teeth grit in further anger. This interrogation was going nowhere.
Then he noticed something off in the cowl's monitor - particularly so, in this case. Despite whatever Batman did to keep him focused, the smuggler's pulse kept elevating. Yet his other vital signs were acting irregular. His heart kept racing, but his bloodflow was almost standing still. The man should have been in critical condition, by all accounts, but he had been acting just fine. It didn't match the profile of a man suffering a heart attack, stroke, or any other known medical anonymity. It definitely wasn't fright - there was something legitimately wrong with him.
"I dun'... I..."
Dropping him to the ground, the thug began to move sluggishly as Batman kneeled down to inspect him. Pulling out a small handheld UV light from his belt, the vigilante forced open the criminal's left eyelid and began to look closely at it's reaction. The eye color was off. A deep crimson, not unlike blood, was beginning to form around the corneas. The Dark Knight grabbed the man's arm and checked his wrist's pulse rate. It was slipping. Soon, the man was barely conscious, simply from sitting there on the cold pavement. Far from concerned about his well being, but knowing he couldn't simply allow this strange condition to worsen, Batman stood straight up and turned, tapping the side of his cowl with urgency.
"Oracle, get me a line to Gotham General. Have them send an ambulance to-..."
Suddenly, the man awoke, sat up and vomited, the contents of which largely consisted of a strange deep purple substance. Batman turned around, alarmed, just as the thug convulsed and began to go into spasms. Grabbing the man by the shoulders to try and keep him still, the vigilante had trouble with the act of doing so, realizing his strength was unusual for his size.
"Sir! Sir, can you hear me?!"
The thug's eyes rolled back, but he was far from dead. Because as soon as Batman spoke, it seemed to have a strange affect on the criminal's biological makeup. Instead of simply becoming pale, the skin began to break apart at the arms and neck, forming strange, star-shaped lesions in the form of irregular blood vessels. The man's pupils were now darkened to the point of blackness, startling even Batman, who had been used to strange and often horrifying sights. This was beyond anything he had ever seen in his life - almost as if it was unnatural, even inhuman.
"Oracle, scan subject and analyze condition."
Stepping back and allowing his trusted source of information do it's work, the automated intelligence system provided very little feedback at all. There was nothing in the man's condition that matched any obscure medical diseases, despite the vast depth to the search that had taken almost a minute to complete. Batman was helpless to do anything, even as the man suffered. He could only watch and wordlessly assess what was happening.
What the hell is happening to him?
Then the man shot up once again, staring straight at him. The lesions forming a tight pattern directly around the face. And in a hoarse voice that seemed to be coming from every direction, the criminal uttered one simple phrase that said it all.
"Star'ro."
That was nearly two hours ago. Setting up a makeshift laboratory and analyzing tissue samples that he had placed into The Batcomputer for a possible match to any known diseases with similar results, Batman kept hearing the phrase repeat itself over and over in his mind. "Star'ro". What could that have possibly meant? The answer of where to find out had been shockingly simple for the vigilante to find, isolating the same substance in the traces of the man's tissue samples from the usual Gotham City pollution clouding the citizens on a nightly basis. There had been something foreign in it for a matter of hours, it just hadn't affected many people to cause a widespread panic yet. But knowing this didn't satisfy the vigilante for even a moment - because the trail was coming directly from an outside source, leaking directly into the city's air like a cancerous plague, and one that was spreading fast. His data confirmed it in seconds - the city had only hours before there would be more considerable results present in all of it's citizens. Even he was subject to it, though his knowledge of the viral infection bought him an advantage to try and solve whatever was affecting Gotham.
But it was Metropolis that caught his attention the most, when comparing the entire country's weather climate with the same sample. The plague had seemed to originate from clouds above what many called "The City of Tomorrow", though the city itself remained largely unaffected by the sample traces of the poison viral. It seemed to be spreading out only to the surrounding areas - beyond Gotham, there was Bludhaven, Star City, Coast, The twin cities of Keystone and Central, Gateway, and others. Not to mention Manhattan, the largest dividimng populace between Gotham and Metropolis. They were already feeling the affects, and many were driven to sheer fright by the idea of a foreign disease that no one was capable of stopping.
That was what brought him here, now, to Metropolis. Batman had managed to discreetly secure a Waynetech Corporate Jet for Bruce Wayne's private use alone, presumably to flee the country after his attempted assassination - unknown to any of his friends, colleagues, or even the woman charged with his protection, Selina Kyle. Batman had kept the craft's rental so secret that he had been required to send several different payments out to the airport's security to vacate the area for the evening. Less than an hour after he had secured the jet, The Dark Knight was now hovering above Metropolis' tallest structures, following a trail of viral inhalant invisible to the naked eye - but perfectly visible to his infared cowl's lenses and computer mapping technology. The trail didn't seem to end, but did seem to lead up into the skies above. Possibly into space itself, which was a voyage that even Bruce Wayne didn't have the resources to follow.
Hopeless, Batman slammed his fist onto the computer terminal of the jet. The Oracle's systems were auto-piloting the craft, leaving the inexperienced pilot vigilante at a loss. He wasn't sure what to do, despite a number of options that seemed utterly hopeless in the end result. Gotham was in critical danger, as was he himself, but the plague only seemed to worsen with each passing moment. Deciding to begin a flightpath back home, Batman began to instruct The Oracle's guided systems to turn around.
Then his systems noticed something peculiar, coming from below. A group of figures that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, sparking serious conversation from all of the major news outlets and police radio feeds. Somewhere below The Dark Knight's jet, a group of costumed vigilantes were amassing together in what seemed like a bizarre meeting. He watched the news feed closely in what appeared to be faraway footage, showcasing various shots of a crimson and yellow blur, a green figure draped in black, a boy, a scantily clad woman in red and blue, and a final man whose back was turned to the cameraman, wearing a red cape over a blue bodysuit. Batman didn't know what any of this meant, but the possibility of it being a lead to the current predicament of Gotham seemed too overwhelming to pass up.
Keeping the auto-pilot on standby, Batman raced to the back of the jet and pressed a button, lowering the back hatch. The force of wind tensed him up enough to stand the fall that would come, as he leaped forth and spread his cape amongst the heavens - free falling straight over downtown Metropolis Square. Realizing that he had never made such a fall, the vigilante prepared himself for a rough landing that came just as soon as he hit the side of a building's roof. Scraping off of scaffolding ridges, he fired a grapnel line and swung his way to safety, falling into the midst of city lights and a vacated area to which only mythic heroes were present.
Little did he know just how fitting this meet would turn out to be.
"--from there, the Flash and anyone else of comparable speed should be able to pull them off in droves."
"It's not as simple as you might think."
All eyes darted upwards to the night's sky, as Batman descended upon the group in a fearsome shadow that encased them. Landing just beside the man in blue and the woman in red, Batman's dark visage seemed to oddly fit in contrast among the two costumed metahumans. He wasn't sure of what to make of these oddly placed superhumans, but nothing seemed to make any logical sense at the moment. He'd simply need to play it by ear.
"There's a viral toxicity that's affecting the surrounding cities at an incredible rate. I came here from Gotham City once I encountered one of the first to suffer through it's effects."
Sneering towards his closer look at the group, The Dark Knight paused, realizing that he didn't even know these strangers. Yet their prescence seemed to indicate one that wasn't an immediate threat to him, despite his persistent skepticism. It was distorting to be among them, to say the least.
"What do any of you know about this? Who are you people?"
