It Runs In The Family

by Onomonopia


The Streets

"Are you certain that you want to do this?" Twilight asked Batmare again as she finished armoring-up, taking her most powerful suit with her instead of the regular one. "With the coordinates you gave me, I think I can drop you off in Gotham, but I'm not sure where in the city you'll land. Plus, Batman said that his home was a very dangerous place, one that he never wanted you to visit."

"If I don't go, he may die," Batmare said matter of factly as she walked over to Twilight, giving her the stone. "And I've already lost my family once, I won't lose my father again. Open it." Twilight sighed, but knew that she wouldn't be able to dissuade Scootaloo, especially since she now knew that Batman was still alive. She was somewhat mad at Scootaloo because she kept him being alive a secret, but right now she needed to concentrate.

"Alright, step back. This is going to take a lot of power and I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it open," Twilight warned as Batmare stepped back from her. Twilight started to concentrate her magical power into the stone, feeling her magic span across galaxies until she finally found an area close to where the other stone rested. That was were she hooked the anchor for the magical portal as she looked to Batmare. "Okay, I'm going to open the portal. Are you certain that you have everything that you need?"

"Certain."

Twilight screamed as she let her full power into the stone, her eyes blazing while she forced the dimensions between their two worlds open. Batmare watched as a purple portal appeared in front of her, allowing her to see to the other side: Batman's home. "Alright, I'm going in. I'll contact you when I find him, but if you don't hear from me in three days odds are I'm dead. So hope that you hear from me." Before Twilight could wish her luck, Batmare leapt through the portal without any hesitation. She had no idea what to expect from her first leap across space and time, but she expected it to hurt or be weird.

It was far beyond either of those.

She screamed into the void as she felt like her body was being ripped apart, molecule by molecule, and that she was slowly losing her very identity in the endless spiral of colors and galaxies that she flew by. But just as the pain had started, it was suddenly gone and replaced by another sensation: awe. As Batmare looked around through the gaps in the spirals, she could see a multitude of other worlds...worlds where robots ruled over all or where massive machines battled each other in the vacuum of space. She had no idea how long she had spent staring into the void, but the next thing she remembered was landing face first on something hard and blacking out. When she finally came to, she felt like hell.

"Okay, that sucked," she grumbled as she got to her hooves, holding her head as she started to look around. "So, did I-?" She didn't need to finish her question since the area where she found herself looking answered it for her. She was standing on a building that would have put all those in Canterlot to shame, surrounded by similar buildings that were almost as tall as the one on which she stood. Her eyes widened in amazement as she saw what looked like hundreds of lights blinding her, the stars in the sky invisible due to the multitude of lights. Then the noise reached her, the noise of millions that all lived in a city together. She looked down over the edge of the skyscraper to see thousands of streets with thousands of beings moving down below her. The zoom feature on her cowl allowed her to get a better look at the beings, and a thin smile spread on her face when she saw that they all looked similar to Batman.

"Well, at least I know now that I made it to the right world," she said as she continued to scan, seeing the flashing lights of something called 'police' drive below her. "But where am I in terms of where Batman is? Hell, where am I in general?" She looked down at a massive sign that was attached to the building where she was standing, reading the name "WAYNE" on the side of it. She smirked at the name, knowing that she was in safe territory. And that's where she didn't want to be. As cool as the buildings were, she needed to find Batman. Batmare leapt off the side of the building and spread her dark wings, catching a current, and soared into the sky over the city, avoiding spotlights and skyscrapers.

'If I remember correctly, Alfred said that Batman vanished in one of the scarier parts of the city,' she thought to herself as she continued to fly across the night sky. 'But I have no idea where any of this is.' Then she heard a cry for help and looked down to see what looked like a robbery. 'I suppose I'll just have to ask the locals for help,' she thought to herself with a smirk as she dove straight down towards the call for distress. The robber never saw her coming as she slammed her hooves into the back of his head and sent him skidding across the ground.

"Oh, thank you so much," the victim said.

"Get out of here. This place isn't safe," Batmare responded in the darkest tone she could muster. The person nodded and ran off, leaving Batmare alone with the unconscious criminal. "Why is he out, I barely touched him?" she grumbled to herself as she realized she wasn't getting any answers out of him. "Argh, I guess Batman is one of the few tough humans. This one went down without a fight." She dragged the person to the side of the road, where she expected the authorities to come grab him at some point, before shooting off into the sky, looking around for any more "helpful" citizens.

'I can't believe how big this city is,' she thought as she flew, going from the massive buildings to smaller ones that she was more used to, but they were still gigantic in their own right. 'Canterlot would be put to shame. I can see why Batman fights so hard to protect it--it's really a beautiful place.' Batmare wished that Batman had told her the location of his cave so that she could go there to try and meet up with Alfred, and maybe find out some more about where Batman was. She hated going into a situation like this blind, as it often ended badly for either her or others. Maybe she should have brought-

BANG!

The loud sound startled Batmare and forced her to come to a stop in the air, looking around for the source of the noise. She had only just started to look around when she heard somepony begin to scream, before the loud noise rang out again in an alleyway close to her. She spotted a group of muggers with two bodies in front of them, the bodies of those they had been robbing. Batmare started to see red as she dove down at super speeds and drove her hind hoof into the front mugger's back, smiling to herself as she heard the sounds of bones breaking. The other three spun around as the first collapsed to the ground, all of them gasping when they saw her land.

"What the hell is that thing?" one of them asked as she landed in front of them, her cape covering her body so all they could see was the white of her covered eyes.

"It's got to be one of the bats," another whispered in a panicked voice to the others. "But this one looks really weird."

"Maybe it's a mutated freak."

"You're all wrong," she said in a whisper as she pulled two batarangs out of her belt. "I'm your nightmare." She let the batarangs fly and smacked two of the muggers in their faces, throwing herself into the air as she dove at the third one, who rolled out of the way and reached inside his coat to pull out a black object. "I don't know what you have there, but you must know that it can't hurt me. Nothing can-"

BANG!

Batmare roared in pain as she fell back, her right side burning with pain. She had no idea what had just happened, only that she was hurt. The bullet from the gun had gone through most of her armor and scraped her side, drawing blood along her right flank. Before the criminal could fire again, she threw another batarang into his face. It slashed him across the eyes and brought him screaming to the ground, where she finished him off with a kick to the head.

"The hell was that thing?" she asked herself once she had leaned up against the alley wall and given herself a moment to breath. 'It tore through my armor like I was wearing the cheap stuff the guards at the palace have. What kind of weapon was that?' Once the pain had died down a little, she walked over to the person and picked the gun off the ground, her eyes narrowing as she looked it over. 'Well it's dangerous, that's for certain. I need to watch out for this in the future.' She took to the skies once again, ignoring the burning pain in her side as best she could as she scanned the streets for any more signs of crime, this time planning on getting answers. Another robbery was in progress and she dove down to intercede. The criminals this time never saw her until it was too late and she brought them down with ease, leaving one conscious so that he could talk.

"W-what do you want from me?" he asked her as he slowly backed away, backing into a wall as she got closer and closer to him. She narrowed her eyes as she pulled out a batarang and threw it right next to his head, smiling to herself as she saw his eyes widen in terror.

"I will give you only one chance to answer this before I find myself somepony else to interrogate," she said in a whisper, taking the batarang and holding it at his throat. "Where is Batman?" He started to stammer about how he didn't know, but his whimpers died down as she moved the edge closer to his throat, drawing blood. "Where?"

"He's in the old part of Gotham, by the steel mill! That's all I know!" he screamed as tears started to fall from his eyes. She figured that was going to be the best answer she could get out of him and she knocked him out with a shot to the nose, walking away as he fell over silently. She spread her wings again, looking through the city for areas that looked more run down than others. Ten minutes flew by as she scanned the city, eventually reaching an area that looked similar to what she thought a steel mill looked like. It was in a part of town called Amusement Mile and seemed to be completely abandoned, besides the number of humans carrying the devices that had managed to hurt her.

'Now why would a number of armed guards patrol an area where nopony lives, unless they had something they wanted to hide?' she thought to herself as she landed on a smokestack, using the height as well as her detective vision to scan the area. There were six of them in all, each holding a larger variation of the weapon she had been hit with. And the burning pain in her side told her that a frontal assault would be a very bad idea. 'Stealth it is.' She spread her wings and sailed over to a catwalk and dropped down behind a person, stealthily walking along behind him until she was within striking distance. She drove her hoof into the back of his knee, dropping him down to one knee. He had just enough time to cry out in surprise before she dropped him with a chop to the neck.

'Alright, one down, five to go-' Batmare screamed aloud as the sound of multiple shots raced by her head, forcing her to dive off the catwalk to a destroyed section of road where she hid behind a sign. She looked around the sign to see the other five race over to where the unconscious person was.

"Holy crap, somebody's down over here!" one of them yelled out.

"Did any of you see who it was?"

"It looked like the bat!"

"Impossible. Scarecrow's got the bat locked up in the steel mill; there's no way he could be out here."

"What if Batman escaped though, and he's just mad enough that he'll bring down any person that crosses his path? I don't want to fight him again!"

"Shut it, now. The bat's trapped and we know that there's a dead fool who's trying to mess with us. All we have to do is stick together and we'll be alright. Isn't that right Joey? Joey?" While the gunmen began to panic, Batmare thought about what the people had been saying as she finished off the guy called Joey, letting go of his neck when she felt him slip into unconsciousness. So she had been right in figuring that they kept Batman here, but who was this Scarecrow? As she grappled up to another vantage point, she watched as the gunmen split into two groups of two, each covering the other's back.

'And they think that they're safe like that,' she thought with a chuckle as she pulled out a smoke pellet. A well aimed throw caused the pellet to land between two of the gunmen, who began to panic and fire around wildly in the smoke. While those two were distracted, she flew over to the other group, both of whom were running to the ones trapped in the smoke. But while they ran, the one in the front never noticed as a dark figure jumped onto his buddy's back and silently choked him out on the ground. Before the other one could reach the other two, she threw a batarang and hit him in the head, dropping him to the ground and allowing her to finish him off with a ground pound. She vanished out of sight just as the smoke cleared for the other two, which allowed them to see what had happened.

"Oh God, not you two as well," one of them said as he raced to the two, kneeling down to check on them. "Hey! What are you doing over there? Help me!" The other gunman looked at him for a second before he ran off in the other direction as fast as he could.

"Screw you! It's every man for himself!" he yelled. The kneeling gunman watched him go with a shake of his head as he started to try and wake the two up. Then he heard a scream followed by gunfire for a second, until all went quiet.

"Matt?" he asked as he got back up, looking around nervously as he raised his gun. "What happened to you man? Don't do this to me."

"He is in a better place now," a dark voice said as it echoed throughout the area. The gunman swallowed his fears and started to look around, pointing his gun at every shadow. "But don't worry. I haven't forgotten about you." The gunman never had time to ask what she meant as another batarang knocked him to the ground. He clutched his head with a groan as a black hoof slammed into the ground next to his head.

"Where is Batman being held?" she growled as she grabbed him by the jacket and slammed is head into the ground, glaring into his fear filled eyes.

"Bottom floor. But you'll never get there," he said with a small chuckle. "Scarecrow will kill you first." Batmare slammed her elbow into his face and headed towards the door that would let her inside. She placed a hoof on it and stopped for a quick moment. She had no idea what was on the other side, but she had heard enough stories from Batman to know that he went up against some very dangerous foes, maybe out of her league. But she knew that Batman needed her and needed her now, so she took a deep breath and headed inside, never noticing the hooded figure in red watching her from the rooftops.