Collapsing Patisserie: A Batman Fanfic

Collapsing Patisserie

The patisserie was falling apart on Bruce's plate. It was a delicate tower of crystalline caramel, soft, smooth chocolate mousse, and light, cloudy clotted cream. Unfortunately, the layers were beginning to disassemble. Bruce sighed. He looked around him—perfectly pure white walls, a perfectly pure stainless steel white table, and a lone, looming window. Bruce stood up, carefully, looking to the window, when her heard a knock from the door.

"Um, hello? Mr. Wayne?" The voice asked from the outside. A man. Bruce opened an app on his phone and pushed a button to open the door.

The confused man stepped in the door. He had a rounded face, unremarkable hair, and bags under his eyes. "I'm, um, Coleman. Coleman—Reese. I meant Reese. Yeah."

"Coleman Reese?"

"Sir, I—I have some privileged information, and I—"

"You know."

"That you are Batman. Yes," Reese said, "I do."

Suddenly, the window shattered into five million pieces. By instinct Reese and Bruce ran to the other side of the room.

It was a young woman, with high cheekbones, a stroke of a maniacal smile, and an eye patch covering one of her dark, moonless eyes. Her hair shimmered down her neck, a neon shade of starry blue. She wore a white silk gown and gloves that hugged her hands, smooth and shining.

"Well. did you hear that?" she flipped her hair. "Looks like Batman's secret is out of the bag."

"Who are you?" Reese shivered.

"My name is confidential, but you may call me Tremora," Tremora said, taking off one of her gloves to reveal a mechanical right arm, made of a thousand different wires and rods, with a blue, pulsing diamond in the center, while carefully holding her glove in the other hand.

"See this?" she asked, mainly to herself, as Bruce was silent and Coleman biting his fingernails, "This is my mechanical arm. Usually I don't talk about it to strangers, but I thought I could bring it out to play. Would you like that? It's nice. Batman seems easy to root for," she chuckled, returning the glove to her arm, "and hard to destroy. But I like challenges, and this just got a lot easier."

She took off her left glove, revealing a perfectly human arm, and through the glove out the window. She turned back to Bruce and Reese.

"So, who wants to go first?" She asked. Reese began to inch to the door. "Body language," Tremora said, holding her arm up to the level of Reese's neck, "I take it as an invitation."

A fiery ball of blue light formed with a fwoom on her palm, She released it, and Reese instantly froze, his eyes glassy and his mouth gaping.

"Isn't it nice? Now we can go one on one, Batman. Or Bruce. Can I call you Bruce?"

"Shut up. Is he dead?" Bruce asked.

"That depends on what you mean by dead."

"What you're about to be," Bruce said, punching her as hard as he could in the ribs. Surprisingly, hitting her dress was like hitting titanium. His wrist throbbed slowly, blood flowing like a scarlet river out of his knuckles.

"Tsk, tsk. You forget your manners," Tremora teased. "Not much without your costume, now, are you?"

Bruce felt the steam rise inside his chest.

"Damn right I am!"

He pounced on to her, knocking her over, and seized her neck, knocking it to her left, snapping with all his force. She smiled.

"You win," she said, still smiling until she closed her eyes. Bruce sighed, dialing 911, and turning around to where Reese had been a moment before.

"Reese! Reese, where are you?"

"Reese is dead," Tremora's voice said. But it was coming out of Reese's mouth, who had removed Tremora's glove. He carefully placed it on his right arm.

"I think that's enough playing for tonight," Tremora—Reese smiled, removing the glove again to reveal a newly formed mechanical arm. Bruce, confused, stepped back.

"Maybe tomorrow, we can play again." Tremora—Reese then stepped out the window, promptly disappearing, and when Bruce looked back at where Tremora's body had been, there was nothing there.

Bruce sighed, and went back to the table to finish his collapsing patisserie.