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| - The night sky of Gotham City is even blacker, now, as a swarm of hundreds of Man-Bats, takes wing. From his office, Kirk Langstrom and his wife Francine look on, and he feels responsible for this recent outbreak. Fortunately, the Gotham City Police Department has lit the Bat-Signal, and Kirk hopes that the Batman will be the one bat that can solve this. Less than an hour ago, on a block between 9th and 10th avenue colloquially known as the 900 block, it all began with a Ms. Harris and her son, who initially felt ill before suddenly transforming into Man-Bats. Their illness and transformation were, apparently, highly contagious.
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| abstract
| - The night sky of Gotham City is even blacker, now, as a swarm of hundreds of Man-Bats, takes wing. From his office, Kirk Langstrom and his wife Francine look on, and he feels responsible for this recent outbreak. Fortunately, the Gotham City Police Department has lit the Bat-Signal, and Kirk hopes that the Batman will be the one bat that can solve this. Less than an hour ago, on a block between 9th and 10th avenue colloquially known as the 900 block, it all began with a Ms. Harris and her son, who initially felt ill before suddenly transforming into Man-Bats. Their illness and transformation were, apparently, highly contagious. Now, Batman is forced to contend with hundreds of infected individuals, using a sonic gun to disorient the creatures. He has already deduced that whatever caused it all is an airborne contagion - which activates nearly instantaneously. Though they are not as strong or well trained as those used by Talia al Ghul, there is strength in numbers - and they number in the hundreds. Collecting a blood sample from one victim, Batman sends it back to Alfred Pennyworth for analysis, but his friend warns that if they are trying to find an antidote, they will need more than a mere sample of blood. What they need is to find the agent who triggered the contagion in the first place. Alfred, meanwhile, is busy trying to run an anatomical reconstruction program on the a highly decomposed body which Batman believes may have been a victim of Victor Zsasz. Batman has been trying to find and identify all of Zsasz' victims so that the man can be held accountable for every one of them - but for the moment, analysing the blood sample he collected will have to take precedent over the murderer. Alfred suggests that Batman seek help from his companions in his fight against the Man-Bats, but Batman insists that he will handle the outbreak himself, choosing to omit mention of the fact that he had already contacted Batgirl and Nightwing - and neither had answered. The repercussions of their encounter with the Joker had worn on all of them, irreparably altering their relationship. Using the initial emergency calls to pinpoint the location, Batman is guided by Alfred to the apartment building where the outbreak took place. In apartment 4D, he discovers a body, and is confused when he sees that this is evidence of an entirely different kind of crime. The man was murdered with one of the Talons' knives, but the wound is soaked with what appears to be a variation of the serum that Talia had sed to make her Man-Bat super-soldiers. Batman begins to tell Alfred of how he assumes that Victor Zsasz was somehow responsible for delivering the contagion, Zsasz himself attacks, apparently having also been infected by the contagion over the course of the evening. Wrapping a bola around Zsasz, so that his claws can't rip through his human flesh, Batman tackles the murderer, and they crash through a window onto the street. After recovering from the fall, Batman is surprised to encounter Batwoman, accompanied by the Langstroms. She had found them heading toward the outbreak zone, and so she escorted them to this spot. Kirk explains that all of this is his fault, because it was he who designed the Man-Bat Serum. This surprises Batman, who thought that the stuff had been designed by Talia. Francine explains that their intent had been to help the deaf and blind reproducing the bat's echolocation in humans. Their formula was stolen by someone else. Even so, Kirk accepts responsibility, and asks that Batman give him the sample of serum he collected so that he can make an antidote. To everyone's surprise, though, Kirk immediately injects himself with the serum, and begins his own transformation. As he changes, he explains that he intends to over-write the genetic modification of the original virus with another contagion that will make it so that the transformations only affect people with a specific DNA pattern - his DNA. Within a short time, the new contagion spreads, returning everyone who was affected to normal - everyone except Kirk. Following his having changed back to his human form, Victor Zsasz is captured and taken back to prison, but not before confessing to Batman that the knife and serum were given to him by someone that Batman had not yet heard of - Emperor Penguin. Emperor Penguin, meanwhile, is busy attempting to collect a favour from Poison Ivy.
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)