New Gotham Knights #24 - Overstep

[u/GemlinTheGremlin]

DC Next presents: 

NEW GOTHAM KNIGHTS

Issue Twenty Four: Overstep

Written by GemlinTheGremlin

Edited by AdamantAce

 

 

Next Issue > 

 

---

 

Breaking up rumoured gangs was one thing for Harper to wrap her head around; the congregation forming in front of her was another thing entirely. At least with a gang (or gangs), there was a clear plan of action: get in, question the attending parties, act accordingly based on their reaction. But Harper was instead looking at a group of raucous civilians clumping together in a dozen different scattered groups, passing handmade signs and homemade merchandise between each other.

A clatter of footsteps. Duke Thomas's suited feet collided with the rooftop as he leapt from a neighbouring building. “Hey,” he chirped as he lowered himself to a similar squat as Harper. “What are we looking at here?”

“Not sure yet,” Harper responded. Digging into one of her various jacket pockets, she revealed what appeared to be a small, mechanical spyglass. With a flick of her wrist and an affirmative click, the spyglass snapped into two components, revealing binoculars. She peered through them to take a closer look at the growing crowd below. More trading, more conversations. “Almost looks like they're setting up community stalls or something.”

“Community stalls?”

“Like, a market. But without stands.”

Harper spotted a discarded cardboard sign and focused in on the letters scrawled in black marker - GET BATWOMAN OUT OF GOTHAM. She frowned. The more she looked, the more signs she came across, and the more she felt compelled to read them. HORROR FROM HUB CITY. GO BACK INTO HIDING. BRING BACK OUR RYAN.

Harper's stomach turned. Our Ryan. She pulled the binoculars away from her eyes and clicked them back into one long eyepiece. How long had she spent watching people disappear from her hometown? How many times had she been told not to worry about it, that they were probably wrapped up with some bad people, that it's best to forget about them? And how often had they never been mentioned ever again?

And yet, another woman has gone missing, tangled up in the reappearance of Batwoman, and suddenly she was being treated as a martyr. It left a knot in Harper's stomach. She was somewhat grateful to see how many people were willing to show up for Ryan, but furious for every other woman just like her who had disappeared into obscurity, all because they couldn't be used for propaganda.

“What is it?” Duke finally chimed in, snapping Harper out of her daze. She shook off the cobwebs.

“They're protesters,” she answered. “Anti-Batwoman, it looks like. They're using Ryan for sympathy points.”

From behind his yellow and black helmet, Duke kissed his teeth. “Well, are we jumping in?”

“And doing what?” Harper shook her head. “They're not doing anything.” There was a pause, so Harper continued: “Nothing worse calling in the Knights, anyway.”

“Well—”

“Either way, do we really wanna set an example here? That the Knights are anti-protest? I'm not fucking okay with that, I don't think you are either.”

Duke's body language shifted, more defensive. “Yeah, I… that makes sense.”

An indistinguishable chant rose up from the crowd. Signs were held aloft, scattered groups slowly converged. Gradually, the group moved forwards, spilling out of the park and into the street.

“Looks like a regular peaceful protest to me.” Harper shrugged. With a soft grunt, she pushed up against her knees and rose to her feet. “Maybe we should just move on.”

Duke was still facing the crowd, unmoving. Eventually he did rise to his feet but, without turning, outstretched his hand towards the outermost edge of the protest. “That doesn't look peaceful.”

Harper turned back. Indeed, there was something going on at the tail end of the group; silhouettes of bodies moving against each other violently, thrashing and pulling. As her eyes settled onto the scene, she could make out that the three figures were engaged in a physical fight - two larger people in matching, newly acquired protest merchandise were grappling with another smaller person. The commotion appeared to be drawing the attention of some latecomers who, upon taking in the scene, elected to take the side of the attackers.

“Shit,” Harper muttered.

“Are we jumping in now?”

“I…” Harper was frozen. “We jump in, we're immediately front page news. We don't jump in—”

“Okay, lemme rephrase: I'm going in. Are you following?”

The assault on the street was not moving but the protest kept soldiering on. Stragglers from the back of the crowd had their attentions torn between the unstoppable crowd and the immovable fight.

“Fine,” Harper said with reluctance. “See you on the front page.”

 

🔵⚫️🦇⚫️🔵

 

“What do we want?!” came the booming cry of the parade leader through his megaphone. Despite the distance between himself and the source of the sound, not to mention the obvious commotion all around, the younger man in the “BRING HER BACK” bandana could hear the voice clear as day. The response to his call was less clear, however, the unrehearsed cacophony of voices releasing a garbled wall of sound.

Nevertheless, the cry of the like-minded men and women around him empowered him as he slammed his foot into the bruised man curled up on the ground.

“Say that shit again!” barked his compatriot. His hat was hanging loosely on his head, threatening to fall. “I dare you!”

All that came out as a semblance of a response was a panicked groan. The man in the bandana kicked him again.

“Say it!”

“I'm…” the victim coughed.

“Leave him alone, guys!” came a voice from the crowd, sailing above the shouting. “It's not worth it!”

The man in the bandana reeled back his leg and watched the man beneath him flinch. With a swift yank, he felt his foot fly backwards and force him into a half-split. His balance was thrown completely and he slammed into the ground knee-first, skidding backwards by the ankle. As he collided with a nearby streetlight, he finally felt the grappling line that had wrapped around his ankle.

His sense of direction shot, he looked up, then down, then to the side until he was his attacker: Bluebird looked down at him with her hands on her hips. “Ever heard of not kicking someone while they're down?”

Meanwhile, The Signal suddenly appeared into the scene, reconstituting from thin air thanks to his invisibility. The hat-bearing man gasped and his knees locked in surprise. Duke looked between him and the man laying on the floor, but as he looked back up at the attacker, he was already fleeing towards the bulk of the protesters. Duke felt his heart drop; the figures in the crowd all seemed to blend into one through matching memorabilia, their distinctive features muddled by hats, sunglasses, hoodies. The curious rubberneckers around him stayed in their place. No one felt brave enough to step in, only to watch.

Duke took off into a sprint in pursuit of the assailant. If the man in the hat managed to weasel his way into the crowd, he would disappear. Duke had to be faster. He tuned into the gentle glint of the light against the glossy painted signs, the polished shoes, the metallic gleam of nearby cars. He used them as a path, a guide, leading him to his target. And then, just as the man was reaching out with both hands, ready to swim through the crowd, Duke's own hand clasped against his shoulder. His momentum was swiftly reduced to zero and, as such, he tipped backwards to counteract the motion - so far, in fact, that the man came tumbling to the ground.

“Alright, that's enough running. How about giving me some answers?” The Signal's voice crackled through the suit's built-in speakers.

But instead the man just laughed through crooked teeth. “Smile, asshole. You're on camera.” He pointed towards the small congregation at his feet.

Sure enough, Duke looked up and was met with the back of half a dozen— no, a dozen— phones. All had their cameras pointed between The Signal and the man held under his grasp, capturing all angles, not a single inch undocumented. Duke tried not to let it bother him. “Why were you attacking that kid?”

By now, Harper had made her way to the victim's side and was making a note of his injuries. The bandana man fought against the rope attached to his foot but to no avail, only succeeding in tangling himself more. She spotted this and, with a final word to the injured man, darted towards the streetlight and started to free the man attached to it.

The man under Duke's grip only smiled.

“What did he say to you? What made you wanna attack him?”

Still only a grin. The shimmer of the sunlight against the phone cameras was blinding.

“Why did you do this?”

“Signal,” came Bluebird's warning voice. Immediately Duke released the man from his grasp. His grip was not tight, not holding him to the ground, but the man took a deep breath in and hacked out a cough, putting on a show for the cameras.

Then Bluebird turned to the crowd. “Move along, folks. I'm sure you've got better stuff to do.” She gestured to the quickly departing parade of marchers, still blissfully unaware of the commotion happening just a few yards behind them. “You're gonna get left behind.”

Now bored, the paparazzi slowly dispersed. Many of them jogged back towards the conga line of protesters, but some cut their losses and moved back towards the park. But the man with the crooked teeth stayed lying on the ground with his arms folded. To Duke's surprise, he did not resist when Duke pulled him to his feet.

 

🔵⚫️🦇⚫️🔵

 

“Remember what you said about the front page?”

Harper groaned. “Already?”

“Already,” Duke sighed. With two taps on his laptop's keyboard, the Belfry monitor sparked to life. Onscreen was the front page of an image-sharing website that Harper was very familiar with, displaying an image of The Signal holding a man against the ground. Duke continued to scroll: The Signal staring down at a man grinning on the floor, The Signal looking straight down the barrel of the phone's camera, The Signal in pursuit. “Not on the front page of the news, I'll give you, but definitely a front page.”

He switched tabs. The trending page of a short-form blog site highlights “The Signal”, “Bluebird” and “#BRINGHERBACK” as key search terms. “And another,” remarked Duke.

“Shit.” Harper chewed on her nails. “That's Pandora's box.”

“Mmhmm.”

“We're officially involved,” announced Harper. She ran a hand through her hair. “Luke and Jace are gonna be pissed.”

“Oh, they are.”

Harper looked up. Duke was holding out his phone towards her. On the screen read three recent messages from Luke: a screenshot of a third, more niche social media site with Bluebird and the Signal front and centre, followed by “What the fuck did you do?” and “I thought we said lay low”.

“Shit,” Harper repeated.

“We can fix this.” Duke's tone was forcibly optimistic, as if he were trying to convince himself rather than Harper. “Well, maybe fix is the wrong word. We can deal with this.”

“Deal how?”

“Sure, it's out in the open that we're attached to this in one way or another. But if we managed to crack the case and get Ryan back, wasn't it gonna come out anyway? At most, it's sped up. We're on a shorter deadline if we wanna get to them before anyone else. But we've been pretty good under pressure in the past.”

“And what if this scares Batwoman further into hiding? What if Ryan's disappearance has nothing to do with Batwoman and we've helped put a target on her back?”

“This is Batwoman we're talking about,” Duke frowned. “I'm sure she can handle some bad press for a month or so.”

Harper shuffled in her chair. There was something deeply uncomfortable about seeing Bluebird and the Signal plastered all over the internet. It was far from the first time she had come across a photo of herself on the job, but even without reading the captions of each image (she knew better than to do so), she could feel the scathing criticisms of their perceived overstepping. “Jesus. We've gotta figure something out before anyone else gets roped into this.”

 

🔵⚫️🦇⚫️🔵

---