BatJay Binds Again

I leap down from the rooftop, all shadow and no silence. The bones of the muggers break like rotten wood under the impact of mere fingers. I know seven ways to kill them without trying to, nine to make it an accident.

Begging sounds emit: I laugh at them as they did their own victims. One has a gun. I flex my cape like a blade. Two fingers are terminated. Their victim stands frozen against the wall. Afraid of them.

Afraid of me.

Good.

“Run,” I snap. The word a bullet. My disgust a blow.

The victim run-bolt-stumbles. Weak. But fear can lead to strength if one learns that fear is a luxury they cannot afford. The muggers have both fainted. No joy there then.

I break their legs, because reminders are important.

Movement. I spin. A magician is standing behind me. He does not look like a magician, which is one of his strengths I think. There is nothing of a mugger or victim in his eyes.

“BatJay.”

Indulged myself. Careless. I move. Nothing happens. The world about us too solid. His will has imposed itself. No way around it. Only through.

I fire my grappling gun at his face, arm twitches. I miss, leap. I could break his neck before he could work a single act of magic, but some ward hurls me backwards onto the alleyway floor. I taste blood in the back of my mouth. Hurt. I was hurt. I thrust out a hand. Half a block away, windows shatter at the force of the blow.

The magician hasn’t moved.

“You are strong, but not near as tough.” I go to move, but his gaze is unbreakable. “Why do you exist?” he snarls, and the power under the words drives me to my knees.

His magic is a bludgeon on the air, and I let out a scream of shock as his will tears into mine. He rips memories out of me with a savage cruelty that flares and dies so fast only the aches inside me are proof it happened.

I manage to stand. My breath is wounded pants.

“I cannot unmake you,” the magician says, and the power remains though his voice is softer. “I am sorry, but it would be... noticed, and not understood. Even you do not know the moment that made you. And I cannot do a binding you would not break in time.” He is tired, and I think scared, but not of anything like me.

“I am darkness. I am the night,” I snarl.

“No, you are not.” He holds out a hand.

I move. I can’t break away from him, but even so. I move, and my strength shatters the ground under him. It does not break; he does not fall into the sewers underneath us.

“You cannot hurt me,” the magician says. “Because Jay never would.”

And there is a truth in his eyes. I make a sound. Like the victim almost. I emit. I don’t want to. I don’t mean to.

There is a hardness to him that nothing can break.

His hand closes. Fists. Opens.

The world tears itself apart. The universe does, behind me. There is nothing solid Outside. But hungers. Shapes. Movements. Things older and more dangerous than even BatJay.

“I banish you,” the magician says, and he is not strong enough to look. I fight it, but his is the will and magic both.

There are things Outside. Waiting. Not for me. I am a small fragment of something else. A shard of loss innocence. I know what I am, in that moment. I scream my name, expecting the rest of me to hear to know to come

but the magician stops it and

i am

i have no way back

i fight

i cannot win

Outside is the asylum

there are too many enemies

i fight. batjay will not lose.

will not

will not!

not

...

NO

...

no

...

...

no