Issue# 11, Nov. Yr. 2

Finale (part 1 of 2)
"Three Coins in a Fountain..."

By Rory O'Sullivan

---

"Yeah, it's me," Three-Face responded, smiling openly. He was obviously enjoying this to the hilt. "Long time, huh, gramps? Let's you an' me go have a chat." He lashed out, catching Bruce at the base of the neck and dragging him forward.

"Not in the cards, dirtbag," came a cry from the shadows, and Terry McGinnis was hurtling forward, one foot thrust out like a battering ram.

Three-Face swatted him aside. "Freakin' Boy Wonders. Annoying as hell. You never learned, did you, Brucie?" With his free hand, he extracted a compact laser-blaster, and fired haphazardly in Terry's general direction. "Get lost, punk, while me an' my old friend have words."

Terry wasn't giving up that easily. He somersaulted forward as lethal energy rocketed past, bounding from point to point, zigzagging toward the villain. "I'll give you three guesses who's about to 'get lost,' you---"

"Cute." Three-Face fired at point blank, taking Terry about the torso. "Who writes your dialogue, that O'Sullivan kid?" As the young vigilante toppled to the floor, the villain returned his attention to Bruce. "Well? You coming or not?"

Bruce sneered. "Where?"

---

Gotham's twin towers had been hastily constructed to follow New York's World Trade Center many decades before. However, things never went quite right in Gotham, and a labor strike had left the towers three stories shorter than their NYC comrades. It was a joke that Gothamites took mildly, another gaff thrown in their faces.

For a sexagenarian, Three-Face was not only resourceful but agile. He'd hastily erected a cobweb-like string of graphite lines between the towers, from which he'd suspended his unwitting captive, while he perched himself on the lip of one of the roofs.

"So whadda ya think, Bruce? You like the view?"

Bruce grimaced, glancing down. Pure, bleak concrete stared back at him. The wind up here was biting, vicious, and it was all he could do to let his rage warm him. "How'd you figure it out, Harvey? How'd you crack the Big Secret? Better men than you have tried."

"Amazing deductive abilities." He chortled. "That, and I took a gander under your mask when you blacked out, way back when I shot you in the chem lab. You remember, doncha? That was a hell of an afternoon, wasn't it? Suffice it to say I sure was surprised when my best friend turned out to be my worst enemy."

His voice was light and hysterical, but there was a bitterness there, a dangerous bitterness just below the surface. Bruce made a mental note to tread lightly.

"Anyway," the criminal continued, "I guess you're prob'ly wonderin' why I dragged you up here, huh?"

"Couldn't get enough of my biting wit?"

Three-Face frowned. "Humor doesn't become you. No, Bruce, you're here because I'm sick of waiting for you to walk into some trap so that I can make you pay for all the things you've done to me. You're here so you can atone for your mistakes on my terms. Get comfortable."

Bruce shook his head. "Harvey, Harvey, Harvey. Now what have I ever done to you?"

The villain stared back blandly. "Countless beatings. Constant meddling. And this---" he gestured at the horrid scar dissecting his face like a skunk's stripe--- "this takes the cake, wouldn't you say? So what have you got to say for yourself?"

Bruce twisted in the rope, and locked eyes with his captor, staring evenly and intently. "How many people did you kill, Harvey? How many innocents did you slaughter and wrong? You didn't give me any choice in the matter. I did what I did out of duty and responsibility, not because of some personal vendetta---"

"I was wrong? I was wrong? After this happened?" He gestured again at his face. "How can I be faulted for doing anything after the world's done so much to me?" He was on the verge of hysterics now, and Bruce decided not to press. "No, you're the one who has to be punished, Brucie, you're the one who's gonna get it." As if to punctuate his statement, he produced a Swiss Army knife, and hacked casually at one of the strands of rope. "Hold tight, old-timer."

"Drop the knife."

The line was delivered coldly, calmly, in a no-nonsense tone Terry McGinnis didn't know he'd possessed. He emerged on the roof behind the villain, decked out in full Batman costume, and Three-Face swung to face him, for a moment looking like he might actually drop the knife.

Instead, he threw it. Batman dodged easily, but in those few seconds Three-Face had somehow produced a larger knife, and sliced each strand of rope. Bruce was suddenly hurtling toward the wall on the other side of the chasm between buildings. As he fell and his momentum built, Three-Face plunged after him, catching one of the severed ropes and crying out in
amusement. They sailed through the air, impacting dully, and Three-Face jimmied open a window, dragging Bruce through it. Batman rocketed after them, but not before the window could be closed.

The vigilante rocketed through the window head-first, tumbling end over end as he struggled to regain control over his flight. He tumbled, cursing, finally coming to rest against a muted pastel wall. Instantly, he was on his feet.

He was the room's only occupant. Both the criminal and the mentor had disappeared.
He sank back against the wall, enraged.

TO BE CONTINUED