//------------------------------// // Beneath the Hoods // Story: It Runs In The Family // by Onomonopia //------------------------------// Batmare didn't waste any time in going straight to work. She let loose two batarangs that flew across the room aimed directly for the two ponies' heads. The cloaked pony managed to throw himself out of the way of the rang, but the business pony took it right between the eyes and fell without a sound. Batmare turned to face the cloaked pony, who rolled back to his hooves and threw himself at her, wrapping his hooves around her waist as he drove her into the wall. Batmare drove her electric horseshoes into his face to break his grip and shattered his nose with a knee. He staggered back and snarled at her as she calmly lifted her hooves into a fighting stance. "I wondered when I would be meeting you on the battlefield, runt," the pony said in a thick accent as he wiped the blood off his nose. Batmare's eyes were analyzing his build and outfit, quickly confirming that he was an earth pony and a strong one at that, considering that a knee strike like that would have knocked a normal pony out cold. "You know that we should not be fighting, right? We should be allies!" "Heh, allies with you psychos? Don't make me laugh," she said as she kicked him in the side of the head and sent him sprawling across the floor. "We have nothing in common. You're trying to destroy the world, while I'm trying to help it." He groggily got back up, sneering at her from under his hood. Unlike the silver mare's hood, Batmare could still see most of his face despite the hood being up. "Are we really that different? You are a creature of the night who uses her abilities to fight against those who have done a terrible wrong, just like the Batman taught you. We are following his teachings as well; just a little differently than you. The princesses have failed the ponies on so many different occasions. When Chrysalis invaded, when Nightmare Moon overpowered Luna, and most recently when Morgaine invaded and nearly destroyed all of Equestria. All we are doing is removing the weak from positions of power and placing only those who would know what to do with it in charge." "And how many ponies and innocents are you willing to kill before you reach that stage in your plans?" Batmare asked as she fired her grapple at the pony in an attempt to bind him, but he ducked behind the desk to avoid it. "I've already found five dead fillies that were needlessly slaughtered, all because you and that weirdo of a leader believe that demons are the answer." "It was a necessary sacrifice for the greater good!" the pony yelled as he tackled her again, lifting her over his head and throwing her into the window, which cracked as she hit it. "But take comfort in the fact that their lives were not wasted deaths, but were instead vessels that will bring about the salvation of Equestria!" "You're a sick fu-...Wait a minute, vessels?" Batmare asked, as what he said hit her. "What do you mean vessels?" The hooded pony smiled as he reached inside his coat. Yes, vessels. Vessels for the demons that cannot exist without a physical form; that are too powerful to exist without flesh or blood. And these fillies can hold the soul of a demon, but only if they are prepared a certain way." The pony had to throw himself to the floor to avoid a batarang that was aimed for his eye. "Since you are here, I figured that you already know about our plan to resurrect the most powerful of demons, Azarock." "Azarath?" Batmare asked as she threw another batarang at him, smiling when this one slashed the side of his face. "That's the freak you're trying to summon? Well, I hope you and your group enjoyed all those years of planning, because it's all going to go to hell when I get through with all of you." "You cannot stop us," he said with a smile as he threw whatever he had grabbed inside his cloak at her hooves. Batmare looked down to see a red six sided star on a black rock that glowed with an unholy energy. A massive blast of dark magic shot into the air and knocked her back into a wall, while the dark magic began to swirl around the room. Batmare pulled herself back to her hooves as the magic formed into the shape of a filly on the ground, a filly that Batmare recognized as one of the ones that went missing. But unlike her picture in the reports, the filly's coat was a deep black and her eyes were a bright red...red eyes that looked at her with bloodlust in them. "What did you do to her?" Batmare growled in a cold fury. "She has been blessed by the demon that has possessed her," the pony explained as he wrapped a hoof on the tiny demon's shoulder and smiled at her. "And she's just so hungry for...souls!" When he said this, the filly let out a shriek and threw herself at Batmare. Batmare had been ready for this attack though, and drove a hoof into her face with the electric horseshoe, knocking her to the floor. The attack barely stunned the demon and it jumped back up at her with a hiss as it tackled her to the ground, trying to slash at her throat with claws on the end of her hooves. Batmare drove her hind leg into the filly's gut and kicked her off her body, jumping to her hooves as she reached inside her belt and threw a number of smoke pellets at the demon's hooves, blinding her when the smoke burst out. "Smoke will not be able to hide you from the reckoning," the pony said as the demon lifted her head into the air and started to sniff, hissing when she locked onto Batmare's scent and threw herself into the smoke. But what she thought was Batmare turned out to only be her cape, which she jumped onto with a confused look. While she looked around for Batmare, Batmare snuck up behind the cloaked pony and grabbed him by the back of his hood, spinning him around and slamming his head into the window. "What did you do?" Batmare said in a much darker tone, holding her sharpest batarang up to his throat as she said so. "You think I fear death, foal?" he asked her in a calm voice. "I do not fear death, but you should fear the demons." Batmare yelled as she was hit from behind by the demon filly and rolled to recover from the attack as the demon jumped at her again, driving her elbow into her head to knocking her to the floor. The hooded pony slammed into her from behind and drove her into the window, nearly blowing it out. "What about you, pony? Do you fear death?" "No, I fear what I'm going to do to you!" Batmare yelled as she kicked him in the groin and flipped him over her head onto the desk. She heard a snarl and spun around to grab the demon filly out of the air, throwing her against the wall behind Batmare. This time, when she struck the window, it shattered under her weight and she started to fall down the skyscraper. "NO!" Batmare yelled as she pulled out her grappling hook and shot it toward the filly, holding on as tight as she could when the grapple wrapped around the falling filly. Batmare struggled because the filly was trying to claw through the rope to get to her. The hooded figure stood up behind her and grabbed one of the weights on the desk, lifting it over Batmare's head. "Batman showed us that even those without the godly powers of the alicorns can be truly fearful beings," he said as he brought the weight down on the back of her head, nearly knocking her out as her grip began to slip. "That the darkness should rule over the land just as it did all those years ago." "You're all sick," she growled at him as she moved her head out of the way of another strike, trying to kick him with her hind leg, but he managed to dodge. She was about to re-aim her kick at his face when she felt the rope go slack, stopping her heart as the weight left. She looked over the edge just in time to watch the demon filly hit the sidewalk below, averting her gaze from the gruesome sight as fast as she could. "How sad. We only had four more of those." Those words were enough to drive Batmare over the edge with rage, and she spun around to drive her head into his nose, shattering his face with the reinforced cowl. He staggered back as she hopped to her hooves and drove her hind legs into his chest, the legs that could kick all the apples off a tree shattered his ribs. He screamed in pain as she grabbed his head and drove the already broken snout into her knee, breaking anything that she hadn't broken before. He collapsed to the floor, trying to breathe through his broken nose as Batmare walked over to him and grabbed the back of his hood. "Let's see what you twisted freaks look like under those hoods," she growled as she ripped the hood off of him, her eyes widening as she slowly backed away from him. "Your horn...what did you do to it?" "It was a small price to pay for being one without powers, just like the bat," he said with a menacing smile as he threw himself towards her. Purely on reflexes, Batmare rolled back and placed both her hooves under in his gut, and kicked him as hard as she could over her head towards the window behind her. Then she realized what she did and spun around, while she whipped out her grapple gun to fire...only to realize that the cord had been cut. So she raced to the window and started to throw herself out...only to see the pony hit the ground next to the demon. Batmare looked down at the carnage below her with a shake of her head, personally kicking herself for messing up again. What would Batman have said if he had seen this? He would have thought of her as a failure. She shook the thoughts from her mind as she tried to focus on the room and the conversation that had been going on here. 'There should be some evidence or documents that might give me another clue," she thought to herself a she started to go through the papers on the desks. Then her legs got weak and she felt vomit try to come up. She closed her eyes and forced it back down with her will. 'No, can't think about what just happened. Have to focus on the mission.' A certain paper looked like it didn't belong among the others, and she pulled it out to see it was a flier for the Canterlot Ball that was coming up in a few days. Why would they be interested in that? She placed it in her belt and scanned for more evidence, picking up a file that had a list of potential fillies who might be acceptable for sacrifice. She promised herself as soon as she beat these criminals she would burn this file with a smile on her face. The moment she placed the paper in her belt, she heard a siren begin to blare throughout the base. She spun around to see that the pony she had knocked out with her batarang was back up to his hooves, smiling at her as he removed his hoof from a hidden button on the wall. "Don't think that you can get away with breaking into my business and attacking me without there being consequences, young lady," the pony said with a sneer, as Batmare flicked on the detective vision to see at least twenty armed guards racing up the stairs towards the room they were in. "Every guard in this building is rushing to this spot, pegasi and unicorns a like. You have no escape." Batmare snarled and started to throw herself out of the broken window, but a number of pegasi with magic crossbows flew up to stop her, all of them pointing at her heart. She threw down a smoke pellet and tried to race towards the door, but it was blasted open by a powerful spell that sent her reeling. Batmare got back to her hooves as a large number of unicorns came running in, all of their horns pointed at her. "Like I said, no escape," he said with a menacing smile. Batmare slowly reached down into her belt and pulled out the sonic batarang, bracing herself for what this was about to do. Faster than any of the ponies could see, she threw the device at her feet and rolled away and clamped her hooves to her ears. With the protection on her cowl and her hooves covering her ears, she couldn't hear the sound of the sonics that had been set specifically for ponies, or the screams that all the ponies let loose as they too clamped their hooves to their ears as the remaining windows shattered. While the ponies were screaming, she threw herself out of the window and flew down to the sidewalk below, extending her wings to slow herself down. "Not today!" the business pony screamed, as he grabbed one of the magic crossbows and fired down at her, his aim being off because of the ringing still going on in his ears. The stars had aligned for his shot, since it struck Batmare in the wing, sending her crashing to the ground. She watched as the bloodstained sidewalk got closer and closer as she closed her eyes right before impact, bracing herself for the pain. ===---=== Batmare shot up as her senses returned to her and immediately regretted it, feeling a weird sick feeling wash over her. It wasn't like any pain she was used to, it felt like she had been in pain, but only the memory of the pain remained this time. She was really getting tired of waking up this way. She groaned and looked around her as she rubbed the back of her head, realizing with a start that she was back inside the Cave. But how could that be? She certainly never made it to the teleportation station she had hidden in the city, and she couldn't perform magic herself. Had somepony helped her back, and if so, who? 'I am glad to see that you are awake, and even happier to see that your brain didn't leak out the back of your head before I could repair it.' Batmare turned to realize two things: One was that her cowl was gone and her entire head was bandaged up; and the second was that the silver mare was standing across from her, holding some more bloodied bandages in her hoof. 'You have a thick skull and I mean that as a compliment. Only one other has had a thicker skull, and that human is a pain in my flank to deal with.' "What are you going on about? What do you mean before my brains leaked out?" she asked as she got back up to her hooves, taking a few shaky steps forward as she forced herself to focus. 'I thought it was obvious,' the silver mare said as she helped steady Batmare with her magic, a creepy silver magic that seemed to be very different from the normal magic she had seen. 'When you fell out of that building, you shattered your skull against the pavement. I was able to repair it in time, but you lost a decent amount of blood, most of which now covers up your floor.' Scootaloo looked down at the floor to realize she was right, reminding herself to clean up the mess later. 'I also took the liberty of repairing the rest of you. You should be fully healed at the end of the day.' "Well, I suppose I should thank you for getting my beaten flank out of there, but I have work to do," Scootaloo said as she walked over to the computer and pulled out the papers that she had taken from the office. She placed both of them on the keyboard as she started to look them over, not noticing that the silver mare vanished without a sound. She understood the first paper she looked at, since it was simply another sick list of theirs that they made to kill more innocents. She would send it to the princesses later and tell them to protect the ponies who were mentioned on the list. But what truly confused her was the other paper, the flier for the Canterlot Ball that was coming up. Why would they have that? She growled and started to rub her head as the pain returned. She sighed and looked over at the stone that sat humming with power on her desk, knowing what to do. Whenever she got stuck, Batman was always there to help her out. She pressed the button on the platform that the stone was placed on and sat back, watching as the spell started up and smiling at the fact that she'd get to talk to her dad again.