Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 18:21:07 -0700 (PDT) From: Author James <authorjames2002@yahoo.com> Subject: Return of a Real Dark Knight 29 Disclaimer: This story is fiction. There are two celebrities who will appear from time-to-time. The other characters are fictitious. Any similarities to persons living or dead are completely coincidental. In this story, I have continued the adventures of Batman, my Batman, which his story first began in "Tales of a Real Dark Knight" in the Boy Band section of this archive. It spanned 250 chapters. You will find many universes merging, as the above copyrights reveal. I hope you all enjoy this. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Angel and all related characters created by Joss Whedon. Copyright 20th Century Fox. Batman, and all related characters created by Bob Kane. Copyright DC Comics and Warner Bros. X-MEN, and all related characters created by Stan Lee. Copyright Marvel Comics and 20th Century Fox. The Vampire Chronicles and all related characters created by Anne Rice. Copyright Anne O'Brien Rice. I don't know for sure if I will use all the above elements, but just in case, I have myself covered. I appreciate any feedback that you may want to give. I do hope that you enjoy it!!! Any emails you send, please tell me what chapter and story you are commenting on. Thanks. authorjames2002@yahoo.com I also have several online messenger services. If you want to chat with me in real time, email me and tell me the services you use and I will tell you my screen name. Chapter 29 Anarky Reigns The headaches subsided and I felt relief. I couldn't pin down what caused the headaches, though. I chalked it up to stress and continued my walk, thinking about what I had witnessed in the club. The sound of electricity caught my attention but I didn't care at first. I had my own stuff to deal with and I didn't want to deal with anyone else's. But the sound of someone in pain as the electricity went again drew me out. I turned and looked to see flashes of light coming from the back of a small store. I walked to the front door and turned the knob. The door opened easily and I entered. It was a small, convenience store for the neighborhood. Post people who would shop here would be those who were impoverished and bought odds and ends things all the time, such as a gallon of milk or loaf of bread. They lived off macaroni and packaged deli meats. I couldn't imagine anything going on here out of the ordinary. And then I saw it... Anarky had a young man chained to the back wall. The masked youth utilized the fishing line sold in aisle seven to tie the other youth to permanent shelving in the back, the refrigerator section. "You think you can waltz into this store and rob the foreign couple blindly? Your ideals are sorely lacking." Anarky took his staff and shocked the youth again. The young thief cried out in pain. His back was against metal which allowed him to conduct electricity. No wonder he was in pain. The voltage was going right through him to the back. It could stop his heart if Anarky wasn't careful, and, odds are, he wasn't being careful at all. "Stop!" I called out. Anarky turned to me, giving the youth a respite. "Who are you? I can't tell because of the shadows. Come closer." "Leave him alone. You're hurting him." "And yet he has no conscience. He doesn't care that robbing these people will keep them from paying their bills. It doesn't bother him that they won't be able to retire or that they won't have food on their table. Why should he be spared when he doesn't spare anyone else?" "Life isn't always about doing the right thing or saying the right thing. Life is sometimes about making hard choices, even if those choices are wrong. I won't deny that what he's doing is wrong or that he shouldn't be punished. But he shouldn't be dealt with without understanding." "You sound soft," Anarky said as he released the youth and turned toward me. "Are you a shrink? Are you one of those religious persons who believe in redemption? Because there is no such thing as redemption. People don't change. If they do something horrible, they will always do horrible things. It's in their blood, in their bones, in their very genetics." "No," I replied, knowing that my response was something that I truly believed deep down. Human beings make mistakes; villains, heroes, everyone. Everyone knows I've made a few. Where would I be today if I hadn't found forgiveness? Where would my relationship with Jessica be if we hadn't forgiven each other? She, Justin, and Randy wouldn't be part of my life now. And they've done so much to enrich my life, as well as the lives of Lance, Sarah, and Preston. "It ends now," I said. "I've been keeping track of your exploits in the newspaper. You haven't been the voice of the people. The one's you attack are just as much the people as those whom you claim to represent. You can't claim to be for the people when you leave some out in the cold...alone." Anarky's cane lanced out at me with the end glowing with electricity. I dodged it and jumped backward. Anarky twirled the staff around and jabbed at me with the not-so-lethal end. I jumped to the side and he spun the staff around hitting me in the face with the electrical end. I toppled into the shelving. He stood over me and held the charged end toward me. It lit up and revealed my face to him. "Dr. Eric McCoy? I had such respect for you, such faith in you. How could you have treated me so horribly? How could you fail me so?" "Fail you?" I managed to say. "You were never mine to fail." Anarky brought the staff up but before he could attack, something flew out of nowhere and tackled him. "Leave him the hell alone!" a voice cried out in sadness and anger. The owner of the voice hit Anarky over and over non-stop. "He hasn't done anything to you! You are the one who is in the wrong! You have no business touching him!" Anarky slumped unconscious as had the young man Anarky was torturing. The person who saved me stopped the assault and turned toward me. "Are you okay?" I realized then who it was. Lance. "Eric, I'm so sorry about everything. I never meant to hurt you." I could tell by his voice that he was crying. He crawled over to me and grabbed me, pulling me close. "God, Eric, I can't believe this happened. I can't believe I did what I did, that it went as far as it did. It was never my intention to do anything to harm you. Never! Never, never, never!" My eyes opened up and the tears poured. "Get away from me," I muttered. "I don't know you." "Eric, please, we need to talk." "I said to get away from me!" and I pushed him back. Without another word, I staggered away into the rain. "Eric!" Lance called. But I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want to see him. Instead, I disappeared into the night. Lance realized at that moment that his husband ran that it was as bad as he could have imagined. But how else can anyone expect to respond when their trust has been broken? "Oh, God, what have I done?" Lance knew there was nothing he could do but return to his home and their children and wait, hoping that Eric would calm himself and then return to their home to discuss what happened. By the time he returned to the house, Justin had already been there waiting for him along with Chris and Joey. The children had been sent to bed after their night of adventure, but Jessica waited up for Lance and Eric. When Lance came in, Jessica walked over to him, slapped him, and then hugged him. "What were you thinking?" she whispered in his ear. "Why did you do it?" Lance sobbed and the tears fell. "It's hard to explain." "I'm here. So are the rest of your friends. We love you and we love Eric. We want you both to be happy. We want to know what happened." Lance went over and sat down on the couch. Jessica sat next to him. Justin stood against the wall. Joey walked over and sat on the other side of Lance and Chris sat down in the chair. "Do you love him?" Chris asked. Lance looked up and crinkled up his eyes as if he heard the most ridiculous thing in the world. "Of course I love him!" "Then why?" Joey asked. "Why did you do it? I mean, this could jeopardize your marriage." "I felt so detached from him. He was so consumed with his work at the Center and as Batman, not to mention all the time we had with the kids that it seemed as if I wasn't important any more. We had no time for us." "When did this start?" Justin asked. "Honestly, it's only been a few months. It wasn't until a few months ago that I entertained the idea of doing something behind his back." "You deliberately planned to sleep with someone behind his back? You planned to cheat?" "No, no, no, not that, it wasn't that at all. I planned on creating a life that he wasn't the central figure in. I mean, he has all these things which are important to him. But I'm not the central theme in all of them. His work at the Center has the focus of troubled teens. His work as Batman has the focus of cleaning up the streets and making the city safe. His work as a father has the focus of two teenagers who need his love and guidance. But where do I fit in? "My life has been consumed with Eric. The work I do now revolves around him. The work I do at home revolves around his decision." "Wait a minute, the children were both your ideas," Jessica stated. "You both thought long and hard about it." "I know, but they are here because of what happened to his mother, someone Eric knew, someone he wasn't able to protect as Batman. It seems my entire life is based on what happens to him. Nothing has ever happened to me. Every dream I have ever reached for has failed. The only success I've had has been based on doing something for his dream, his goal, and his destiny. And for once, I wanted something, some small part of my life to be about me. If that makes me a bad person, then I'm guilty as charged. But my intentions in this were never to do what I did." "How did you meet these guys?" Chris asked. "I met one of them online. I was home late at night while he was doing his masked thing. The children were in bed. I had nothing to do but wait for him to come home and I didn't know when that would be. So I logged into a chat room and started talking to a guy. We chatted a lot. Pretty soon, it was a regular thing for us to meet in the chat room and talk. "As we talked, I noticed how good he made me feel. For once, I had someone's complete attention. Nothing else was on his mind except for what was going on with me. Eric hadn't given me that in such a long time. I felt important, again. I felt special." "And your children don't give you that?" Justin asked. "I know what you mean. It has been rough with Jessica sometimes. That's no secret between us. We've talked about it and worked on it. That's why she's cut way back on slaying. And we both spend lots of time with our children." "I'm afraid that they are going to be part of Eric's world, and I'm going to be left all alone." Lance broke down and cried. Jessica wrapped him in her arms and held him tight. "What have I done? What have I done to him? I should have talked to him. I should have told him what I was going through, what I felt." "Things will be okay," Jessica reassured, although deep down she didn't know what would happen. Her mind went back to when Eric was betrayed by someone that he thought he had feelings for. His mutation made him unstable when he experienced deep, negative emotion. He nearly went evil. And she didn't trust that. The Slayer released Lance and stood up, walking over to her husband. "I've got to find him." "I know. Who knows what he's going through?" "It isn't just that. Remember when he went evil last time?" "Do you honestly think he would do that again?" "The guy who caused him to go evil last time was somebody he didn't really know. He hadn't invested a great deal of emotion into him. This is Lance, the man he married, the man he committed to. There's no telling what Eric will do if he feels betrayed by Lance. And odds are, betrayal is just one of the many emotions he's feeling now." "This is so sad," Justin replied. "The guy who was hurt by this is the one guy we have to fear because he might go evil over it." "I know. But for both their sakes, we need to find Eric. I'll look for him. You guys stay here with Lance and comfort him." "Are you going by yourself?" "Yeah. But if I need help, we've got a few friends who I can call." Justin hugged Jessica. "Be careful." "Hey, it's me. I'm the epitome of careful." Jessica smiled and left the house. My heart hurt. I felt as if I were going to throw up, which wouldn't be much of a change as I did throw up twice while walking down the street. People looked at me as if I were crazy. I didn't care. I felt as if my world were falling apart around me and there was nothing I could to stop it from happening. Nothing. Never have I felt so helpless and hopeless in my life. What did Lance's actions mean for us? What would we do? Would our marriage end? Did he want to be with someone else? I was angry with and hurt by him. As I thought these questions, I was reminded of a song that came out years ago by Avril Lavigne called "Happy Ending". As I thought about it, the words came so clearly to my mind, along with the melody, that I sang it under my breath. Let's talk this over It's not like we're dead Was it something I did? Was it something you said? Don't leave me hanging In a city so dead Held up so high On such a breakable thread You were all the things I thought I knew And I thought we could be You were everything, everything that I wanted We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away All this time you were pretending So much for my happy ending Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh... You've got your dumb friends I know what they say They tell you I'm difficult But so are they But they don't know me Do they even know you? All the things you hide from me All the shit that you do You were all the things I thought I knew And I thought we could be You were everything, everything that I wanted We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away All this time you were pretending So much for my happy ending Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh... It's nice to know that you were there Thanks for acting like you cared And making me feel like I was the only one It's nice to know we had it all Thanks for watching as I fall And letting me know we were done You were everything, everything that I wanted We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away All this time you were pretending So much for my happy ending But what motivated him to do it? Was it something I did or didn't do? Could it be the mask has taken its toll on our relationship? Did this mean I had to choose between him and the mask? Our life or the life of Batman? How can one choose? It isn't that I didn't love him. I love him with every fiber of my being. But when you can do something to help the world, shouldn't you? What am I going to do? To Be Continued...