After dealing with the machine gunners positioned on both sides of the ambush, Batman retracted his cape with a practiced motion. The memory cloth returned to its flexible state, and he dropped silently among the crowd below.
As he fought, Batman watched Jude fire accurately into the crowd with dual pistols, systematically eliminating every gunman who tried to shoot back.
The performance was impressive. Batman's mind automatically cataloged the data, building a tactical profile. The marksmanship was excellent. The vigilante possessed non-lethal mushrooms with massive crowd-control capabilities, alien ice-blue peas, and two types of candy that could dissolve toxins or seemingly reverse death. He could command avian networks. Most impossibly, his pistols fired dozens of rounds without a single reload action, violating basic physics.
Batman's conclusion formed quickly: This guy might be trustworthy for now. But he's definitely trouble.
At this exact moment, the street was in a complete uproar. The battle—which should have been a quick massacre favoring the Falcones—had transformed into chaotic survival.
"What's going on with this guy?!" a Falcone soldier shouted, failing to track Jude's movements. "Is he riding a bicycle? Does that thing have a racing engine?!"
"Batman is here too!" an East District thug panicked. "My hands are freezing, I can't even hold my gun!"
Beneath the cacophony of shouts came the wet, specific CRACK of Batman breaking a gangster's leg. Not fatal, but definitely incapacitating.
"Stop aiming at his head, idiot! He's leaving a shadow trail!" someone yelled, right before a Batarang to the shoulder sent him crashing to the pavement.
Jude wove through the mass of bodies seven times. Seven passes to shoot, disable, and reposition. The Samurai Edges and their unlimited ammunition made it trivially easy. No counting rounds. No reloading. Just point, shoot, and adjust.
By this point, something remarkable had happened. The Falcone soldiers and East District thugs had completely united. They all recognized the same truth: the biggest threat on this battlefield wasn't each other. It was the team composed of Batman and The Bike Stripper.
Everyone had seen the news. Everyone knew what happened to criminals caught by the psychopathic cyclist.
"Shoot him! Shoot that cyclist!" a thug screamed in palpable desperation. "Being caught by Batman will only break your bones! That cyclist will make you lose your dignity! Your reputation! Everything!"
Verbal attacks, however, had no power to harm perverts. Jude ignored the shouting, choosing the pragmatism of bullets over his stealthy blowpipe.
The frequency of his trigger pulls became terrifying, sounding less like gunfire and more like the sustained crackle of New Year firecrackers. Two storms of metal swung from the muzzles of both Samurai Edges, knocking down every gunman who resisted.
To put it simply: Jude started to spin.
Riding in circles and firing while moving, the bicycle became a mobile weapons platform, and Jude a gyroscopic turret. It was overwhelming force applied with surgical precision. If the Batman from Jude's original world had seen this, he would have assumed he'd been body-swapped.
Is this really the Jude that aim for an attacker but instead hit a chandelier?
In two minutes, the battle was effectively over.
The gangsters only had time to scream a few times before Batman and The Bike Stripper systematically crippled their hands and legs. All threats were neutralized. The combatants were reduced to groaning, wounded men scattered across the pavement like discarded dolls.
Three minutes later, sirens wailed from the street corner. Red and blue lights painted the scene as the GCPD arrived in force to load the dozens of wailing gangsters into ambulances and police vans. The system grinding slowly forward.
On the rooftop overlooking the scene, Jude watched the cleanup. He felt genuinely disappointed.
"Why did you call the police?" he complained. "I could have just hung them all up. Every single one. It would have been much more satisfying."
"No," Batman's tone was cold and hard. "The medical pressure on the hospital is already stretched beyond capacity. The criminals you hang naked would suffer secondary injuries from exposure overnight. Hypothermia. Dehydration. Some would die."
Practical rather than moral. Jude shrugged. Disappointing, but not wrong.
"One more thing," Jude changed the subject. "What do you think about that debate on TV? Frank telling the city to choose a side?"
Batman looked at Jude quietly, his white lenses reflecting the streetlights. "Choosing a side sounds quite reasonable, doesn't it?" His voice carried no inflection. It was impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic.
"You see it too," Jude continued. "The two of us just down nearly a hundred armed men like chickens. But the Riddler and the Joker don't have a no-kill rule like we do. If they had sent Mr. Freeze or Deathstroke down there, it would just be corpses." Jude looked directly at the Dark Knight. "Even if we combined our efforts, we're just a third party. We can't overwhelm both the Joker and the Riddler simultaneously. If you develop a plan to actually end this conflict, please share it with me. I'd like to help."
Batman interrupted him with jarring abruptness. "How many kinds of candy do you have?"
"What?" Jude blinked behind his mask. "Oh. Two kinds. Milk candy cures illness and dissolves toxins. Fruit candy heals injuries. Why?"
"Your candy saved Chuck's son's life."
Jude was stunned into silence. He had left those candies on Chuck's coffee table, intending to explain their functions later to help Chuck survive the crossfire. He hadn't expected Chuck to give them to his son. Of course he did, Jude thought. He's a father.
"The Riddler poisoned the boy," Batman explained. "The Joker used a fake explosive vest on Chuck to force him to jump."
Jude's mind raced, piecing it together. That night, Jude had placed a Blover to save Chuck from his fall. It was a good thing he did. Jude had previously applied his "I Didn't Kill Anyone" skill to the Joker, but because Chuck jumped of his own volition, the skill's protection wouldn't have activated. Without the Blover, Chuck would have been paste.
"I want you to give me two candies," Batman said flatly. "For emergencies."
Jude reached into his robe, produced two wrapped candies, and tossed them over. Batman pocketed them in his utility belt without a word of thanks.
"Okay, but don't change the subject," Jude returned to his original point. "The question we were discussing just now—"
His voice stopped abruptly.
Batman had vanished. Disappeared like he'd never been there at all. Just an empty rooftop.
"Goddamn Batman," Jude sighed, equal parts annoyed and resigned. "He's already developed this problem after just one year on the job. The dramatic exits. The conversation dodging."
Cursing under his breath, Jude mounted his bicycle and left. Some habits were apparently universal across all versions of the Bat.
The next day, Jude was back to being Officer Sharp.
The GCPD precinct was buzzing with activity as officers processed the arrests from the previous night. Walking past Commissioner Gordon's office, Jude overheard a tense conversation.
"Commissioner Gordon," Officer Joseph Martinez was asking the question weighing on everyone's mind. "What should we do? Should we really take sides like they're saying on TV? Help the Riddler? Or help the Joker?"
Gordon's response was firm, carrying the weight of unbending principle. "Joseph, we are the official protectors of this city. Working with Batman is already at the absolute limit of what I can justify. Siding with super-criminals is out of the question. If the citizens saw police actively helping them, governance would collapse."
"But Commissioner," Joseph sounded desperate. "How can we possibly win this war?"
Gordon fell silent. There was no confident response, just the heavy, uncomfortable contemplation of an impossible situation.
Then, sharp, urgent raps echoed on Gordon's office door.
"Commissioner," another officer called out. "There are two delivery boxes on the front desk with business cards attached. They're clearly addressed to you."