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[color=gray]Beep! Beep-beep-BEEP!

Honk, honk, honk!

It was the usual din that accompanied Gotham’s downtown. Vehicles filled the streets to the curb, pedestrians flooded the crosswalk, and if one thought the streets couldn’t get any more crowded, deliverymen on mopeds somehow managed to weave between it all like a sewing needle. The intersections were navigated using common sense as vehicles darted out, slowed, and dodged around each other like a chicken game. The billboards dimly-lit the city in neon greens, blues, and pinks, but the overall yellow cast by the fluorescent bulbs never could drive away the darkness that heavily settled like a blanket upon the city.

The darkness was like a disease. It infected the citizens—subtly. It existed in the color of their clothes and festered in their self-centered psychologies. It manifested in the form of crime, and crime was aplenty here. The old folk believe Gotham to have originally been built on a hellmouth, which was the only logical explanation for the surplus of corruption in the businesses and justice systems that ran the place. The Gothamites were desensitized to the evil; the dark; but not the light.

It started with the traffic lights. The lights began to erratically change, throwing vehicles this way and that. Cars were rear-ended, T-boned, and a pile-up was building. Angry drivers and passengers stepped out of their vehicles, waving their fists in their red-faced anger.

“You rear-ended me, you dick!”

“Why were you on my ass, you prick!”

“Oh no! My boss is gonna kill me!”

“Hey, what’s goin’ on with the lights?”

A pulse rippled outwards in an expanding ring from the intersection. It made the motorists’ ears ring, and in a trail, every electrical source in the city went out. The darkness of Gotham swallowed the downtown. Disturbed citizens screamed, the fearful ran without knowing exactly where to, while several spooked bystanders remained where they stood like rabbits.

“What’s goin’ on?”

“Is this a terrorist attack!?”

The intersection exploded with a blinding and electrical light. The radiant phenomenon sat in the intersection like an octopus, throwing vehicles left and right on violent ropes of electricity. Drivers were thrown in the electrical assault, sent flying into signs, lamp posts, other vehicles, and the sidewalk. More citizens started to run as the concentration of energy similar to a tesla sphere fried the powerlines and popped the bulbs of the street lamps and billboards. Cops on the street found their radios unresponsive. Cell phones were completely dead despite whether they had a full battery or not. Every electrical device in the downtown was either stalled or fried.

The second phase of the apocalypse happened. A gust blasted outwards from the intersection, knocking over towers, dumpsters, and even the weak. First an electrical storm, and then what felt like a hurricane swirling in the middle of the street. Citizens dropped to the ground as objects continued to fall and fly about.

A scared and weeping child clung to his mother as he asked, “Mommy, is Batman coming?”

His mother didn’t even know how to answer. She didn’t want to scare her child further with her doubts. In her opinion, the chaos being unleashed in the city seemed like too much for the caped crusader. What was he going to do? Halt a storm?

“Just pray and don’t let go of Mommy, okay?” It was the only hope she could give him.

The third phase was the noise. Accompanied with the flashing and whipping lightning and the howling gale was a loud noise that sounded like tearing paper. Something was being ripped apart. The noise grew so loud that citizens clapped their hands over their ears, and some even screamed in fear; exasperation; frustration; insanity! Make it stop! Just make it all stop!

Instantly, it was over. The gale dissipated and the lightning shrank, twisting and shrinking into the fabric of space until it disappeared on a thunderous [i]thoom[/i]. Black smoke from a spiral of melted and burning asphalt rose from the street in a black pillar around a prone figure. It was the figure of a man who was lying on his side as though he had just been dumped out of a moving vehicle. He wore a dark-grey suit that clung to his body like a second skin. The expanse of his back was all machine, a deep crater that held a red-glowing eye in its center. The eye frantically looked left and then right before it detached from its perch and floated out from its terminal. The golden sphere gazed left and right at the destruction and the people who were gawking at it.

[color=aba000][b]“Oh bugga’, this is bad,”[/b][/color] the droid muttered in an English dialect. It continued to cautiously survey its surroundings until another [i]thoom[/i] sounded. A transformer somewhere had kicked some life back into the city and the Gotham downtown revived on an enthusiastic whir. The lights revealed the disarray and the lone man who laid unconscious in a black melted spiral in the middle of the intersection.

“Hello, hello, this is Officer Hill, do you copy?” a cop radioed.

[i]Loud and clear Officer Hill, status report.[/i]

“We gotta mess down here and…I don’t exactly know what the hell just happened but I’m gonna need some backup!”

Skeets’s little round wings fluttered to personify a shiver. [color=aba000][b]“Oh my; oh my; this is bad. We need ta' go.”[/b][/color]

The droid floated over to the lying male’s face and shined its red eye in it.

[color=aba000][b]“Adam! Adam, you must wake up!”[/b][/color] the droid warned. It rammed the man’s forehead twice before it swooped out of the way of a swinging hand. The hand slapped flatly down on the warm asphalt and slowly and sluggishly the man rolled himself onto his back. His face scrunched up in temporary dizziness. His skin was smudged and hair disheveled as though he had just escaped a burning building. Upon opening his eyes, he squinted against the bright lights and swirling buildings.

[color=white][b]“Am…am I dead?”[/b][/color] Adam muttered in a daze.

[color=aba000][b]“If you were dead, mate, I wouldn’t be here. We need ta’ go!”[/b][/color]

Adam closed his eyes again and groaned as though his entire body was in absolute pain. [color=white][b]“Shit…this must be the other place if you’re here.”[/b][/color]

[color=aba000][b]“I just saved your ungrateful arse! If it wasn’t fo’ me, you wouldn’t be here. Actually, we both wouldn’t be here! You know, I don’t know how many times I need ta’ say this but we need ta’ go!”[/b][/color]

Adam’s eyes flew open at the sound of several pistols being cocked around him. He stared at the strange black objects the men in uniforms were pointing at him and slowly raised his hands in uncertainty.

“DON’T FUCKING MOVE!”

“STAY ON THE GROUND!”

“GET ON YOUR STOMACH!”

They were all yelling at him. Adam gazed at the men in panic and confusion.

[color=white][b]“Skeets, what do I do, they’re yelling at me to do too many things?!”[/b][/color]

[color=aba000][b]“I-I don’t know. I’ll try talking ta’em.”[/b][/color]

The golden droid flew over to one of the cops and politely started to ask, [color=aba000][b]“Uh-uh, pardon, but we don’t mean you any harm-”[/b][/color]

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A round deflected off Skeets’s red eye and sent the droid whirling back.

[color=white][b]“OH!”[/b][/color] Adam exclaimed in horror. [color=white][b]“It’s a weapon. They shot you!”[/b][/color]

[color=aba000][b]“They shot me! I can’t believe they bloody shot me!”[/b][/color] Skeets angrily exclaimed.

“STOP TALKING!”

“GET ON YOUR STOMACH NOW!”

Growing annoyed by all the screaming, Adam irritably rolled onto his belly. [color=white][b]“Fuck this, Skeets we’re getting out of here.”[/b][/color]

[color=aba000][b]“Right,”[/b][/color] the droid agreed and zipped over to land in the terminal in Adam’s back.

Several officers started dropping their knees on Adam’s back and attempted to muscle his arms behind him so they could cuff him. Adam’s arms curled against the five cops in resistance. Five cops tried to wrestle his arms before he suddenly leapt to his feet, jerking them along and dropping them on their heads. Adam started briskly walking away from the cops amidst more authoritative shouting followed by gunfire. Rounds popped upon contact with his body, and the officers eventually lowered their weapons to gawk at the retreating man.

“What is he an alien?” one cop wondered. “Our guns don’t do shit to him!”

“Did you see that golden robot? Don’t Atlanteans have gold things like that?”

“I think so, but Atlanteans don’t come out of thin air either!”

Adam frowned as he walked down the middle of the street. He marched passed civilians who gawked at him from their vehicles.

[color=white][b]“Skeets, what the hell happened? Where are we?”[/b][/color] Adam asked.

[color=aba000][b]“I believe we’re in a different dimension,”[/b][/color] the droid answered.

Adam frowned further as though the news was making his brain ache. [color=white][b]“What?”[/b][/color]

[color=aba000][b]“Adam, I’m sorry ta’ say this, but our world is no more. It was destroyed. We’re the only survivors left.”[/b][/color]

Adam stopped. The news was hard to believe, but there was no other explanation for why they weren’t where they were supposed to be. His world was…destroyed? Just like that? He was wrenched from his thoughts when an aircraft fluttered overhead. Suddenly, Adam found himself bathed in a white light. He squinted up at the metal bird as a voice bellowed down at him: “STOP! DO NOT RESIST ARREST!”

[color=white][b]“Why are they trying to arrest me?”[/b][/color]

[color=aba000][b]“I don’t know…maybe they think you’re a threat?”[/b][/color]

[color=white][b]“This place pisses me off. Is there any way we can get out of here?”[/b][/color]

[color=aba000][b]“At this time, no. As I said, it’s a miracle we’re both even here. Our entire dimension collapsed and we managed to survive thanks to my shield.”[/b][/color]

[color=white][b]“Oh, go pat yourself on the fucking back. I’m out of here.”[/b][/color]

Adam bent at the knees and sprang into the air. His sudden skyrocket startled the helicopter pilots as they gave chase and reported, “The perpetrator is airborne. Red Wing One in pursuit!”[/color]