City of Chaos: Spider-Man/Batman

The masked man crouched upon an elaborate cornice, silent and motionless, gazing down at the carnage occurring below. The black tide was truly relentless. Inescapable. It swallowed people as surely as it did buildings and cars, and from this vantage point there was no telling if those it spat out again were the same individuals it had originally devoured. If the marked difference in the expelled architecture was anything to go by then chances were that they weren’t… so what was happening to all the Gothamites? He could have attempted to rescue a handful of these poor souls, of course, but it would be a futile gesture; the darkness was too quick, too ferocious, and would snap him out of the air like a cherry from the stalk. Better to analyse from a distance before resorting to desperate measures, however guilty and helpless that made him feel…

The man scowled beneath the hook of his half-mask, his eyes narrowed behind carved slits. His cape rippled in a sudden gust of wind, flickering upon his broad back and muscled shoulders like black feathers. When he rose he became, momentarily, not just a man but something spectral, something stygian, a living embodiment of fear and reprisal and superstition.

The Batman breathed deeply. “I hate magic,” he snarled.

And then he leapt from the rooftop, the skeletal framework of metal laced throughout his cloak extended to full span - an avenging angel born aloft on the blackest wings, lit dark against the pale fullness of the low moon like a beacon.

The man in the ill-fitting overcoat looked on from the shadowed alleyway where he stood, a cigarette smouldering between his lips. His eyes were pale blue, sharp as ice crust. They darted back and forth, scrutinizing everything. The tide of oily darkness had passed, expelling a drift of altered landscape in its wake, and this was no insignificant thing - but, more importantly, the chaos that now ensued and which was rapidly consuming New York City seemed almost to be the hand of destiny at work.

The man gazed across the street at the Natural History Museum and smiled thinly.

Cigarette dangling from his lower lip, he reached into the folds of his coat and executed a quick yet clinical check of his arsenal. The belt around his waist was fully stocked with wire-bombs. The cross-girdle he wore upon his chest was similarly loaded, with paste grenades, flares and splinter shells. This was why the overcoat was such a poor fit: the man needed to disguise the fact that he was a walking munitions cache.

Satisfied, the man took a final puff then dropped his cigarette and ground it beneath the heel of his boot.

His name was Pete Petruski, alias The Trapster. He was a scoundrel, a certified genius in the field of mechanical engineering, and career criminal of creditable longevity. And, after weeks of planning this particular venture… it was time to go to work.

A tapered blonde in a Red Sox cap who was admiring herself in the window of a department store was the first one to scream. An older Chinese man in a black coat attempting to flag down a cab some twenty feet away was next. Then three kids in hoods and Air Nikes hanging around on the corner, one of them bouncing a basketball with another snapped pictures on his cell phone. And then… in domino effect along the entire length of the city street from one busy intersection to another, there came a dozen more cries, and then a score, as all eyes turned in horror towards the tide of darkness that was suddenly surging towards them. Everyone yielded to hysteria en masse, flocking and flapping in all directions at once like terrified starlings menaced by a hungry predator.

And wasn’t that what the black flood was? A predator, intent on feeding upon flesh and bone as surely as it consumed cars and buildings. The darkness gobbled up shrieking innocents by the mouthful, and then - in a heartbeat - it was upon the blonde and the Chinese man and the three hooded youths, none of them quick or agile enough to escape. Their fate was sealed…

…if not for the unexpected shnapp! shnapp! shnapp! of a flurry of silvery cords that snagged each and every one of them at the last, desperate moment, adhering to shoulders or hips or ankles - whatever was most convenient - and snatching them backwards, off their feet, through the air. The blonde squealed, grabbing ludicrously at her head as her Red Sox cap spiralled away and vanished instantly into the liquid darkness below. At her ear, there came a definite Tsk - and when she looked she was astonished to see a red facemask dominated by two opaque, faceted lenses, not unlike those of a man-sized insect, looming in close.

“Seriously, people… when I say ‘Hang onto your hats!’ it’s supposed to be more than just a nifty expression, y’ know? It’s educational! And, besides… Red Sox? Yankees all the way, misguided lady-dude. Yankees all the - ”

The tide of darkness suddenly spiked and billowed, ballooning out in all directions at an impossible rate. The man behind the red mask - a fellow whose entire body was clad in a distinctive red and blue costume, and who was currently hurtling at an uncanny angle through the air whilst attempting to gather those whose lives he had just saved into a manageable bunch - gasped in shock. “Wait!” he barked. “Oh come on, that is so not fair! This was a daring rescue… the kind no amount of special effects budget could hope to accomplish! Honestly, Sam Raimi would kill for - ”

But it was too late. In truth, the fellow in the red and blue - most commonly known as the ever-amazing Spider-Man - had realized, the moment he’d witnessed the onrushing darkness, that there was no way he’d be able to make a difference. He’d understood it would have been fruitless to try and rescue those currently snagged on the end of his web-threads, they were as doomed as all the other innocents consumed by the sinister shadow flood… but, hey, he’d gone ahead and got involved anyway, without a second’s hesitation. That was just the kind of man he was. A hero. And, to be honest - and in the words of Bugs Bunny - a complete and certifiable maroon…

Spider-Man coiled desperately as he swung, endeavouring to shield those under his protection right until the last, but in an instant it was all over.

The darkness ate them up like a crocodile.

Snap, snap, s-

-nap!

The Trapster grimaced and glanced around, wondering if anyone had overheard him unclip the paste grenade from his belt. But he need not have worried. The voluminous dimensions of the museum auditorium amplified the hubbub of voices and laughter that the air, and he hadn’t attracted any undue attention. Satisfied, he moved on towards a particular exhibit at the far end of the hall, a sculpture of plaited copper and bronze ornamented with an array of gems, fashioned in a style that was somewhere between a shield and an African tribal mask. The Gershwin Diamond Crest, named in the foremost after the man who had unearthed it from a ruined shrine in Tanzania and latterly after its most striking feature, a circle of seven large diamonds embedded into the heart of the piece.

The Crest was beautiful, and immensely valuable. Flawed with regard to an open market, of course, as not even The Trapster with his underworld connections could blindly sell on something so unique; however, there was a private collector who operated out of the Seychelles who had already let it be known via certain channels that he would be interested in a confidential acquisition. That was all The Trapster needed to know.

His heart was skipping as he approached the plinth where the Crest sat, flanked by two armed security guards. Pete Petruski was no amateur, however; even as the adrenaline flooded him he remained outwardly calm. Unlike many of his peers, whose colourful costumes were all too indicative of their extroverted natures and who invariably revelled in the chaos of a botched heist as much as a successful one provided they got to show themselves off, The Trapster had learned the arts of discretion over the years. He had also realised that he didn’t much enjoy getting his ticket punched by do-gooder vigilantes. Therefore he planned to incapacitate the guards as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible, snatch the Crest, and make his getaway via the Museum’s rear exit. He didn’t even care if the subsequent fallout identified him, meaning that his audacity passed unpublicised. All he cared about was the money that would be transferred to his bank account upon delivery of the merchandise to its new owner. Those other villains who thrived on notoriety could just -

Boom.

Crash.

Scream.

Halfway through the act of removing his paste grenade from beneath his coat, The Trapster whirled… and saw a dozen individuals clad in luminous green emerging from a cavernous hole that had been punched through the far wall of the auditorium. Those citizens who had gathered in the hall for that evening’s unveiling of the Gershwin Crest - but who were since more interested in free champagne and shmoozing, presenting The Trapster with his opportunity for larceny - were now shrieking and scattering in panic as the interlopers danced among them like epileptic leprechauns. And then, one final person materialized from the hole: a fellow in a green velvet suit and bowler hat branded with a query mark motif. That same motif was replicated in a copper carving on the cap of the man’s walking cane, which he now twirled as he simpered with lunatic glee.

“Question!” barked The Riddler, gazing across the breadth of the auditorium and fixing his bird-like gaze upon the sparkling Diamond Crest. “He who makes it has no need of it; he who buys it does not use it; and he who does use it does not know it. What am I? Hm? Hm? Anyone? Answer: A coffin! And that’s exactly what lies in store for anyone who hasn’t made their exit from this room inside the next sixty seconds…”

Each of the dozen fluorescent flunkies raised their right hands in the air at that moment, as if choreographed. Each was carrying a weapon that, considering the way the extreme ends crackled with blue-white sparks, were obviously based upon the model of a taser gun, built to discharge a vicious electrical pulse on contact. The crowd screamed as one and immediately began charging towards the pair of double doors that formed the main entrance and exit to the hall.

Beyond the melee, The Trapster pursed his lips, shoulders slumped. Wonderful. Why, just for once, could things not have gone smoothly? Now there was going to have to be… squabbling.

Clinging to a wall opposite the Museum, a disoriented Spider-Man glanced about in all directions, scrutinizing his surroundings. The receding darkness had left in its wake a landscape that was familiar in some aspects but stunningly altered in others; not just the architecture but the very ambience of -

Boom. Crash. Scream.

Spider-Man’s head shot up, the sudden, angry tingling of his uncanny spider-sense altering him to an unseen but very real danger occurring close by. The Museum.

The wall-crawler sighed. “Something tells me I’m going to regret this,” he said, preparing to shoot a web-thread, “but, hey. With great power, yadda yadda…”

The Batman was moving stealthily across an unfamiliar rooftop when he heard a muffled commotion from somewhere below.

Boom. Crash. Scream.

The vigilante’s expression remained impassive. He glanced out at the transformed vista that was once his city, eyes sharp as glass. He should continue on, try and track down the source of this alien malaise. Whatever was happening beneath him sounded undoubtedly tragic but it would surely only serve to distract him from the bigger picture. There was an ultimate foe somewhere out there, a… a…

“Dammit.”

Berating himself for his intrinsic inability to ignore any cry for help, regardless of consequence, Batman sprinted to the edge of the rooftop and hurled himself out into the night without another thought…

The Riddler checked an imaginary watch on his wrist, then whooped. “Twenty seconds!” he chuckled. “Ah… close enough.” He then skipped forward, clapping his hands. His flunkies disseminated among the panicked flock, jabbing out with their tasers indiscriminately. The screaming intensified and bodies began to fall. Grimacing, The Trapster tore away his overcoat and drew a medium-sized firearm of anomalous design from a hip-sheath, while absently juggling the grenade and his other hand. And then -

Along the west wall of the auditorium there were three plate glass windows, tall and narrow, looking out upon a city shrouded in darkness where night had fallen. At the exact same moment the two extreme windows exploded inward with sudden impact, filling the air with a shower of glittering glass… and two distinct forms swept above the collective heads of the remaining crowd, one a man clad in black and midnight blue swinging upon a length of interwoven steel filament and nylon cord, the other a fellow in a far brasher red and navy blue, suspended upon a silvery thread of some substance altogether more indefinable. The first man landed upon a square of unoccupied floor with an echoing clump of heavy, reinforced boots, his black cloak curling possessively about him like fingers of shadow. The second fellow twisted in mid-air with an eerie elegance and speed of reflex that appeared to defy the laws of physics before coming to rest on the opposite wall of the hall, adhering to a marble support.

Two men from two disparate cities, cities from different worlds, cities that had no right to co-exist in the same location in space and time. Batman, protector of Gotham… and Spider-Man, misunderstood hero of New York.

A preternatural hush settled over what was left of the milling throng in that instant, as frightened eyes swept one way and then another. The crowd were quite literally cornered, an interloper in bizarre costume positioned one at each of the four points of the compass. Batman’s eyes narrowed behind the slits of his mask. Spider-Man’s eyes widened behind the lenses of his. The Riddler giggled - he couldn’t help himself. And The Trapster?

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” snarled the villain standing in the shadow of the Gershwin Crest. “Seriously, what’s a guy have to do to get a little privacy these days…?”

A pallid investment banker who resembled little more than a needle in a suit scuttled forward at that moment, and The Trapster whipped his paste gun towards him, jabbing the nozzle into the unfortunate man’s face. He clenched his finger on the weapon’s release trigger and his victim was smothered in a cloud of pearly liquid foam that began to solidify almost instantaneously, suffocating the man like a mayfly in amber. Abandoning this casualty with nary a flicker of mercy The Trapster spun again, seeking out his next target - only for the gun to be snatched out of his grasp on the end of a thread of silvery webbing.

“Come on, Reet-Petite,” Spider-Man crowed as he drifted overhead, keeping the gun out of its owner’s reach. “D’you really want to get involved in a throwdown about who’s got the stickiest fluids? Because you know that would just end in all manner of nasty pontificating, right?”

Once upon a time Pete Petruski might have been intimidated by Spider-Man’s mocking as much as his inexplicable skills, but he was more experienced these days; anticipating the wall-crawler’s actions he didn’t waste a single second in lamenting the loss of his firearm but instead instinctively let fly with the grenade in his other hand… and allowed himself a grin of satisfaction when it exploded and showered the skittering hero with paste! Unable to wriggle free of the deluge, Spider-Man suddenly found himself entangled in - irony of ironies - a veritable web of what amounted to crystallised cement. And, off-balance and unable to readjust to his abrupt extra weight, he plummeted to the floor of the auditorium with a resounding crunch.

The wall-crawler pouted beneath his mask. He’d just been tagged by The Trapster. The Trapster. “God, I am so embarrassed…”

Close by, The Riddler twirled his cane imperiously as he gave first the helpless Spider-Man and then The Trapster an enquiring squint. “What curious fellows,” he mused. “But not our primary concern. Queries… kill The Batman!”

The fluorescent flunkies surged towards their cloaked enemy, who had thus far been observing proceedings from a purely analytical position. Now, threatened with an array of outstretched tasers, it was time for an active response - and when it came to such things The Batman really had no equal. Shifting his weight onto on hip, the protector of Gotham snapped out a gloved fist and clubbed the nearest of The Riddler’s men square in the face, splintering his nose. He then swept up a knee into the same man’s midriff, grabbed him by the shoulder, and flipped him sideways all in one fluid movement. Snorting blood, the man flailed with both arms - and the hand that held his weapon smacked across the face of one of his fellow henchmen, just as Batman had intended. The second flunky lost his balance, then slammed backwards into a wall as a heavy boot flashed up and caught him beneath the chin, dislocating his jaw.

Blue electricity sparked as a pair of tasers jabbed towards Batman from opposite directions, but without even drawing breath the vigilante ducked the first and then deflected the other with the briefest flick of his elbow. The two thugs came together with a crunch of bone, then both were scattered by a single punch that connected with each of their foreheads simultaneously. A taser flew through the air and was collected by a gloved hand. The Batman whirled as he caught the weapon, sweeping his black cloak about him like a matador with a cape of brightest scarlet. One after another four of the green bandits tried their luck, but whenever each of them stabbed forward with increasing desperation their strikes were lost in their target’s cloak, their discharge fizzing and scorching but otherwise negated by a sophisticated insulation of anti-pulse microcircuitry woven into the fabric. Then, again one after another, each of the flunkies was felled either by the club of a fist or a short, sharp shock from the taser Batman himself was now wielding.

Not that he needed to employ such a weapon, of course. Truth be told, he could probably have taken out these hoods one-handed and with one eye closed. It’s just that sometimes he felt an irrepressible need to be… creative. Unfortunately for him, concentrating as he was on The Riddler and his blackguards, he wasn’t paying as much attention to The Trapster as this hitherto unknown adversary merited…

The four remaining fluorescent thugs all lunged forward and The Batman whirled to meet them - just as The Trapster hurled another grenade. Glimpsing this act from the corner of his eye and instinctively believing it to be an explosive similar in composition to that which had been used to incapacitate the weird fellow in the red and blue costume, Batman reacted accordingly, ducking down behind his cloak as a barrier. His supposition was that he could stand to lose the cloak and remain free to fight… but it wasn’t a paste grenade that The Trapster had thrown. It was a wire-bomb.

The projectile detonated with a single, stark crack! - and released an astonishing tangle of steel wire that expanded, inside a fraction of a second, with an unholy hiss, the explosion fuelled by compressed air. Each individual length of wire in the cluster - numbering over a hundred in total - was threaded with microscopic magnetic pores that then suddenly caused the mass to contract once more… ensnaring Batman within a wire net that shrivelled and tightened about his body before he was aware quite what had happened.

“Ha! Ha!” The Riddler leapt forward, hurtling over the back of one of his cronies and landed just a foot away from where his enemy was laid low on the floor of the auditorium. “Could it be? The Batman hogtied? Question: Just how does a bat survive once his wings have been clipped…?”

Watching these events helplessly from close by, Spider-Man glanced from Batman to The Riddler and then back again. At this angle - a strange, skewed forty-five degrees that was so quintessentially sixties - The Batman’s masked visage was facing him directly. A loop of wire was snagged about his mouth, twisting his scowl into a nightmarish leer. In the slits of his mask his dark eyes blazed with rage and indignity. Breathing deeply, Spider-Man knew that there was one question that desperately needed to be asked.

“So,” he murmured. “This guy in the goofy hat… tell me, did I really hear him call his gang Queries? Because you just know that’s going to come back to haunt him whenever there’s one of those bad guy get-togethers or Supervillain wars or whatever else they - ”

“Quiet you!” The Riddler barked, extending his cane in the direction of Spider-Man’s head. He flicked a hidden switch beneath his thumb and the copper cap suddenly sparked with an electrical current all of its own. The Riddler sneered, allowing the cane to waver between his two incapacitated foes. “Question,” he breathed. “Which of these bothersome buffoons should I fry first? Hm? Answer: I think I’ll opt for - ”

Screee! Screee! Screee!

“What in the world…?” The Riddler’s head snapped up as the shrill blare of an alarm alerted him to a significant fact. In his delight at seeing Batman helpless before him, he had forgotten the fourth and final ingredient in the mix: The Trapster, who had detached the Gershwin Crest from its mount - causing that alarm to sound - and who was now scurrying with his prize not towards the double doors at the far end of the hall through which the last of the crowd had now escaped but rather towards a smaller, far more innocuous staff exit. The Riddler cursed and immediately gave chase, signalling for those few flunkies who remained in any fit state to accompany him, but before the first of those henchman had travelled more than ten feet there was another twist.

Shnapp!

The lead flunky grunted as his feet flew out from under him, the result of his heels being tagged with a thread of webbing. As he crashed to the ground he knocked one of his fellows sideways. There was then another shnapp! and a second web cord attached itself to the back of a third thug’s skull; a brisk yank then caused the flunky to fly backwards into the last of the group with a crunch. Three of the four blackguards remained felled. The last staggered back to his feet only to be smacked square in the face at high velocity by a web ball. He crumpled.

Batman watched The Riddler disappear through the staff door with cold eyes then stared across at Spider-Man, who was still encased in a paste cocoon - save for one arm, which had managed to wriggle free. “You did that?”

Spider-Man preened. “I surely did. Handy dandy web-shooters on the wrists, see? Pretty spiffy even if I do say so myself. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you were good enough there for a second with your punching and crunching and ka-powing and whatever, but sometime you just need something that little bit - ”

“Can you see that cache of batarangs clipped to the inner lining of my cloak?”

Spider-Man looked. “The whatyouspeak?”

“Batarangs.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. What are they, boomerangs that only come back to you if you throw them at night?”

“Shut up. Can you snag one with your web?”

Spider-Man whistled. “Well… that depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you start being nicer to me.”

Batman glared at his fellow captive, his lips furrowed like a wolf. “Snag one with your web,” he said, slowly. “Please.”

“There you go. Didn’t hurt, did it?”

“Not yet.”

Spider-Man tsked. “My, my. Has anyone ever told you that you’re atrociously grim…?”

He flexed his wrist and released a singular strand of webbing, hitting his target first time with an accuracy honed over many years of experience. The batarang - a sliver of black iron carved in the shape of a bat - was magnetically attached to the lining of Batman’s cloak but came loose with a tug. Spider-Man gathered it in. “Now what?”

“Now you do nothing. Just hold it steady and don’t move, understand?”

“What happened to you being nice?”

“It didn’t take.”

Still trussed but now with a plan of action, Batman shuffled his body across to where Spider-Man lay and began to rub the lengths of steel cord that had snapped fast about his hands and arms along the edge of the batarang. The cord was tough but the iron had been honed to the sharpest edge; with a few vigorous movements it began to slice through the woven filament as if cutting through simple cotton twine. After barely a minute Batman’s arms were free, allowing him no snatch the batarang and set to work on the rest of his bonds. Still encased in paste, Spider-Man merely watched on.

“Is this the part where your hitherto forbidding demeanour suddenly softens and you thank me for my help?” he asked, casually. Batman simply grunted, not even glancing back over his shoulder. When he was completely free of the wire trap he turned, ready to give chase after The Riddler and The Trapster.

“Wait! Wait a minute! What about me?”

Batman flicked a glare of disdain back at his fellow hero. His eyes moved over the surface of the paste cocoon, noticing a lattice of cracks that had presumably been caused by the impact of Spider-Man crashing to the floor earlier. “Right,” he snarled. “Breathe in.”

“What? Why?”

Without pause Batman aimed a hefty kick with the steel toecap of his boot directly at the spot where the cocoon seemed weakest. The paste splintered. Spider-Man shrieked, his entire body vibrating under impact. Batman kicked him a second time, then a third, with much the same result, then stood back. “That’ll do it.”

“Do what? Knock out every tooth in my ever-lovin’ mouth?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re atrociously whiny?”

Spider-Man growled then flexed his muscles, straining against the inside of the solidified paste shell, which he now understood had been loosened by Batman’s assault. For a second or two nothing happened: then, with a sudden crack and a crunch, the cocoon exploded under the internal pressure, and the man inside was free.

“Now we’re even,” said Batman. Spider-Man snorted.

“Are you smirking? I’m thinking that’s a smirk. What, you like kicking helpless people? Helpless people who are on your side? Am I right? You’re one of those sadists, aren’t you? Sure, of course you are. I mean, seriously, look at all the heavy-duty leather and rubber - ”

But Batman wasn’t listening. He was already sprinting across the auditorium towards the exit, in pursuit of his enemies. Spider-Man rolled his eyes beneath his mask.

“For heaven’s sake. I hate you, and I don’t even know who you are…”

“Dammit! This isn’t fair!”

The Trapster was enraged. He’d been planning this job for weeks, ever since he’d heard that the Gershwin Crest was going to be on display at the Museum for one night only, and he’d committed the building schematics to memory. Or at least he’d thought he had. Now, frustratingly - impossibly - the layout was proving entirely different to what he’d expected. In fact, as he wheeled about yet another corner in search of the main rear exit he was vainly hunting, he couldn’t help but notice how the architecture itself was proving oddly disparate. It was like the Museum had been spliced with another building entirely. And now here he was, staring forlornly down a corridor that seemed to end in nothing more than a solid brick wall…

Zzzap!

The Trapster’s mouth snapped open in silent shriek as he felt a sudden agony centred between his shoulder blades, causing his whole body to spasm and his limbs to dance out of his control. He dropped the Gershwin Crest that he’d been clutching, then staggered forward and fell, still twitching. Behind him he heard a wicked cackle.

“Question!” The Riddler crooned. “How many volts can the human body stand before death is an inevitability? Answer: I have no idea! But I’m always open to the accrual of knowledge…”

It was a common misconception that Edward Nigma was nothing more than an eccentric fop, almost a parody of other master criminals who had come to make the streets of Gotham their home, such as The Joker or The Scarecrow. In truth he was just as deadly as any of his peers. Cunningly and ruthlessly insane, he had no more qualms about taking a life than he did about making one a living misery. Now, as he raised his walking cane and advanced forward, he was fully prepared to give the dazed Trapster another electric shock - this one likely fatal…

“Riddler!”

The villain in the green suit whirled as he heard his name roared, lashing out with his cane - but Batman had already purposefully shunted sideways from his initial trajectory, fooling his familiar enemy into striking out towards one wall of the corridor whilst sliding past him on the opposite flank. The Riddler cursed, attempting to adjust his balance, but it was too late. A gloved fist slammed into his midriff while a second forearm simultaneously swatted at his elbow, causing him to release his grip on his cane. Another punch, this time to the jaw, knocked him cold: he was unconscious even before his body hit the floor and skidded away, arms and legs akimbo.

A hand reached out and closed around the fallen cane - a hand that belonged to The Trapster. He was having difficulty moving but his survival instinct was spurring him on. Batman had turned his back on him, checking that The Riddler was truly insentient and not faking. If he could just -

“Naughty, naughty!”

A web thread attached itself to the cane and plucked it free, away from The Trapster’s grasp. He slapped his palm against the floor in pure frustration. “Oh for… will you stop doing that, you - ”

Spider-Man skipped forward along the ceiling overhead then kicked out a foot into The Trapster’s face as he lurched to his feet, snatching desperately at a wire-bomb from his belt clip. Stunned, the villain dropped the grenade… and it detonated, releasing a wire net just the like the one that had ensnared Batman earlier. Springing into violent action, this one wrapped about The Trapster like a shroud, obscuring him utterly in coils of woven steel. He collapsed, defeated.

Batman glanced back over his shoulder, his expression beneath his half-mask imperious. Spider-Man cocked his head.

“Let me guess: you knew he was there, you didn’t need me to intervene, you had everything under control, et cetera, et cetera…”

“He took me by surprise the first time. No one ever does that twice.”

Spider-Man sighed. “Holy graciousness! Lighten up, would you? We did just win, right?”

Batman glanced down at the bodies of The Riddler and The Trapster, then looked back at his fellow hero. “Win?” he murmured. “You really think either of these two idiots is responsible for what’s happening to my city - or yours? There’s something deeper at work here. Something darker is accountable for this chaos.”

“Well… yeah, okay, I getchya. But while it’s all very well worrying about the big picture, you can’t just overlook the small stuff. Right? We stopped a couple of bad guys here, saved some lives maybe, stopped Paste-Pot-Pete here getting away with this big diamond whoosit…”

Batman stared. His mouth twitched.

“What?” Spider-Man asked. “What’s wrong?”

The Batman’s mouth twitched a second time.

“Are you smirking again?”

“No.”

“You are. You’re definitely smirking.”

“No, I’m…” Batman ducked his head. “I… Paste-Pot-Pete? Is that seriously what he calls himself?”

From inside the wire cocoon, The Trapster let out a muffled growl. One mistake. One mistake and no one would ever let him forget…

There were other battles to be fought this night, and not only for Batman and Spider-Man. Many of Gotham’s self-appointed protectors were destined to meet their New York counterparts. And there were many opportunists like The Riddler and The Trapster out to take advantage. But Batman was right: there was something deeper, something darker, that was accountable for the chaos…

…and it was worsening with every second.