When last we left our heroine, Batgirl had been captured by Egghead and forced to perform a Cossack Sabre Dance with frosted swords in his mechanical dancing death trap. Now, however, the ice has all but melted from the blades and we return to our heroine just after she has received her first painful cut to find…..!
“OWWW!” Batgirl cried out again as another blade sliced her ankle, just above her boot top, to bring her out of her stunned shock. Immediately, Batgirl began dancing, spinning, and dodging furiously about the center of the cage as the blades whipped and sliced the air around her. Outside the cage, Egghead laughed at Batgirl’s renewed energy. “Ultimately quite futile,” he thought, “there’s no way for her to eggstract herself from her deadly predicament.”
With that, Egghead moved to one of the monitors. Grinning evilly, he toggled a switch, and grabbed a joystick to assume manual control of one of the arms. “This is going to be eggceptionally fun,” he laughed as he spun the arm experimentally in the air and then thrust it at Batgirl’s legs.
Batgirl cried out again as a sword poked hard across her left calf from behind. Spinning away from the prod, disaster struck as the high-heel of Batgirl’s boot came down on a sliver of melting ice. Instantly, Batgirl’s foot shot out from under her to bring her crashing down hard onto her back.
Once again, Batgirl found herself gasping raggedly for breath with swords wavering at her throat and heart, waiting to discover if her life would be over in the next few seconds or if she would live a while longer. Egghead debated for a moment whether to finish off Batgirl now, then decided against it. Activating the control that brought the grasping arms to life, Egghead sat back and watched as Batgirl was jerked to her feet and shoved roughly across the cage. “She’s eggstremely eggzhausted and probably won’t last two more minutes. The next time she falls, I’ll eggstinguish her life.”
Inside the cage, Batgirl stumbled backward across the cage to slump against the squared off tracked ring. “Can’t (gasp) believe it’s all going to end like this,” she thought numbly. Immediately, another set of mechanical arms shoved her back toward the center of the cage to continue dancing. “Mechanical! Mechanical? Mechanical??!?” Batgirl’s weary mind thought as the swords prodded her into dancing once more.
Suddenly, a glimmer of hope appeared in the staggering heroine’s eyes. “There might (gasp) be an escape from this trap after all,” she thought. “It all centers around the fact (gasp) that this is a mechanical trap simulating human actions, (gasp) and not real Cossacks doing this to me. Have to get this right the first time (gasp). Otherwise, he’ll figure out what I’m up to (gasp) and finish me off.”
With that resolved in her mind, Batgirl suddenly spun away from the center of the deadly flashing blades toward the tracked ring once more. Batgirl stopped suddenly, squatted low, then leaped as high into the air as she could toward the ring as a sword swished through the space she had just been in.
“Perfect!” she thought as she landed on the ring between two robotic sword arms. Batgirl wobbled dangerously for a moment, the heels of her boots hanging in the air as she fought for balance that would have been easy if her hands had not been tied behind her back; if she fell backwards she knew it would be curtains for her. At last Batgirl gained her balance, turned, and leaned back against the chain-link to look at the scene below her…safe for the moment. Before her, the swords on their robotic arms were flailing away at empty air as the computer tried to puzzle out her sudden disappearance from its sensors.
“I can’t get out of the cage,” she thought as she gasped in huge gulps of air to recharge her exhausted body, “but at least I’m safe for right now. The sensors controlling the swords don’t appear to be able to see me up here and Egghead will have to come up with something else to try.”
An instant later, however, Batgirl’s heart sank. The two robotic sword arms on either side of her reared up, suddenly, swinging their blades toward her as the sensors reacquired her position. “Yipes!” Batgirl cried out as she realized her refuge wasn’t safe at all. A moment later Batgirl found herself helplessly leaping high toward a small platform behind the nearer arm as its blade swished by beneath her to strike the chain-link fence.
Batgirl landed on the twelve by fifteen-inch platform, gasping for breath. She knew she was too exhausted to move another step and waited helplessly for the sword to swing back and finish her off. After several seconds of nothing happening, however, Batgirl glanced back over her shoulder, puzzled as to why the blade was not already attacking her. To her surprise, she saw almost a third of the blade wedged outside the cage between the links of the fence. She could also see, to her horror, that the computer had already puzzled out how to extract the blade from its entanglement and was already drawing its robotic arm back. In a moment, the sword would be fully inside the cage again and swinging at her.
Batgirl quickly weighed her options. She could remain where she was and try to dodge the next attack, try to remain on the ring and move toward the next swinging sword arm, or jump back down into the center of the trap to resume dancing. All of these choices would most certainly be fatal. As she thought all this through, Batgirl glanced down and a big grin suddenly broke across her weary face as she realized she also had a fourth option.
Behind the platform was the robotic arm’s control mechanism, all thoroughly encased in a steel box outside the cage. Running from it through the chain-link, however, was a long thin control cable that attached to the base of the robotic arm…long enough for it to reach the arm as it moved left and right in its track on the ring. Evidently, the small platform she was standing on was meant to protect the cable against just what she was about to attempt. It wasn’t big enough to do the job properly, however. Batgirl reasoned this was probably because a larger guard platform would have looked like a tempting refuge from the swinging sword blades and Egghead most certainly wanted her trapped in the center of his deadly dancing death device.
Balancing against the cage, Batgirl suddenly drove her left foot down between the platform and the cage directly at the cable junction, using the heel of her boot as a spear to rip it free from the control box. Her first kick only loosened the cable but her second kick brought a spray of sparks showering across her foot as a moment later, the freed sword arm, swinging toward her, suddenly drooped to the floor…motionless!
Unfortunately, immobilizing this arm wasn’t going to be enough. Batgirl realized as the sword arms to either side suddenly swung in her direction, having just enough length to reach her. Batgirl leaped high as both swords flashed at her legs and landed back on the ring to her left. Turning sharply, Batgirl found herself wobbling down the length of the ring toward the next arm, glad for her years of ballet and gymnastic balance beam training as she dodging and leaping over sword strokes from the arm she was approaching. Keeping her balance with her hands bound behind her back was extremely difficult but at least now Batgirl had an advantage she hadn’t had before. Only the arm she was moving toward was close enough to swing its blade at her and she was able to dodge its sword thrusts with relative ease.
Arriving at the next arm’s platform, Batgirl realized that she didn’t have time to disable it. Already, the sword was stabbing straight at her, much like a man driving a sword backwards over his head toward the ground. Batgirl leaped frantically to the side, landing back on the ring past the arm. To her surprise, Batgirl heard loud electrical crackling from behind her. Looking over her shoulder, Batgirl smiled in relief at her lucky break. The sword had neatly severed its own control cable and was now slumping motionless to the floor.
With renewed hope that she might yet escape this death trap, Batgirl danced and dodged down the tracked ring toward the next sword arm. If she could disable just one more arm, she would have enough space to stand in without the swords being able to reach her. Half way to the next arm, however, disaster struck as the manipulating arm that was normally tucked out of sight beneath each sword arm, reached up, grasped her ankle, and jerked the startled crimefightress off the ring.
Batgirl cried out as she tumbled wildly through the air to come crashing down to the floor flat on her back. While her foot had slipped free from the grasping arm in the tumble, Batgirl realized to her horror that she was now lying directly beneath the sword arm. Even now, it was slashing downward directly at her face. Batgirl jerked her head frantically to the side, rolling hard as she felt the blade swish just past her head and neatly clip the tip of the left bat ear from her cowl. Continuing to roll, Batgirl found herself on her back under the ring against the cage bottom. To her surprise, Batgirl saw the control cable dangling in the air above her.
Immediately, Batgirl kicked upward at the cable with all her strength to rip it free. A moment later, Batgirl was rolling back toward the second of the three arms she had disabled as the next sword arm down the line futily stabbed at the area she had just been in. The heroine shakily regained her feet and leaned back against the disabled arm, breathing a huge sigh of relief…safe!
Outside the cage, Egghead couldn’t believe what was happening as Batgirl disabled the second arm. Less than a minute ago, Batgirl had been all but finished. Now she was destroying his trap. “Stop…Batgirl…STOP! You’re ruining the eggscrutiating ending I have planned for you!” he shouted as he repeatedly pressed the Delete key to bring the trap into its immediate kill mode. Helplessly, Egghead watched as Batgirl disabled the third arm and rolled to safety.
Inside the cage, Batgirl gasped in huge gulps of air as she took stock of her situation. She had over a dozen cuts and gashes distributed evenly across both legs…none life threatening. Batgirl swallowed hard as she realized just how close to death she had come. If this ghastly death dance had gone on even a minute longer, she was sure she would have been sliced to bits. Ignoring Egghead’s ranting from outside the cage, Batgirl backed up to the disabled sword arm and began sawing her bound hands free on its razor-sharp blade.
Seeing Batgirl’s attempt to free her hands, Egghead immediately pressed the Esc button on his keyboard to shut down the rest of the trap and raise the cage. Snatching up an extra Cossack sword, Egghead moved to the edge of the cage behind Batgirl and rolled under it as soon as there was enough room to do so. “I’ll finish you off myself,” he fumed.
Only Egghead’s noisy clatter as he rolled under the edge of the cage alerted Batgirl to her new peril. Looking over her right shoulder, Batgirl suddenly saw Egghead rising from the floor and swinging a sword at her.
“Yike!” Batgirl cried out in surprised alarm as she nimbly jumped out of the way of the sword swipe and spun to confront Egghead, the ropes holding her arms behind her back less than halfway cut through. She began backing away from him across the cage as Egghead followed her, pointing the sword at her belly.
“You’ve destroyed my bat trap Batgirl but I’m still going to eggzterminate you!” Egghead said as he continued to advance on the retreating heroine. With that, Egghead savagely swung his sword downward at her again.
KLUNK! Batgirl’s high ballet kick caught Egghead’s sword hand perfectly, sending his sword flying and bringing an outcry of pain from Egghead as she broke two of his fingers.
By now the cage had risen high enough to duck under. Batgirl spun and fled into the darkened outer area of the chamber as Egghead stood howling, clutching his injured hand to his chest. After several moments, Egghead spied his fallen sword, snatched it up in his left hand, and pursued Batgirl into the darkness.
Now began a deadly game of hide-and-seek as Batgirl quietly made her way through a maze of crates and machinery. Her goal was to either find something with which to finish cutting her hands free or to reach the entrance on the opposite side of the cage and escape to the outside. There she could cut herself free at her Batgirl-cycle.
Once while peeking around the corner of some machinery, Batgirl nearly had her head taken off with a sword swipe where Egghead waited in ambush. She had turned and run blindly through the maze of machinery, finally losing her pursuer in the darkness as Egghead had charged past her hiding place. Twice Batgirl had to backtrack because she could hear Egghead moving and searching for her nearby.
She had nearly made it to the entrance when disaster struck as all the overhead lights clicked on. In the full light, Batgirl could also see the entrance to the chamber was closed and locked and as she spun looking for escape, she found Egghead standing right behind her brandishing his sword.
“Time to end your eggsistance, Batgirl,” Egghead laughed. “You’ve put up an eggseptional effort but now you’re finished.” Batgirl began to back away from Egghead toward the entrance; the stacked crates on either side channelized her and made it impossible to escape in either direction.
Wary now of Batgirl’s kicks, Egghead instead, merely flicked his blade at her abdomen and legs to slowly drive the crimefightress backward toward the locked door. Suddenly, Egghead thrust the sword hard at Batgirl’s belly to run her through. Waiting for just this movement, Batgirl instantly sidestepped the thrust to Egghead’s left, pivoted fast in a ballet spin to his side, and kicked him in the rear as hard as she could to add momentum to his forward movement. “HA!”
Surprised, Egghead stumbled forward, too late remembering he had reset the tripwire for his knockout gas egg booby trap, just as Batgirl had noticed when she approached the entrance. Knockout gas-eggs fell and exploded in clouds of thick green gas all around him.
Standing back away from the clouds of gas, Batgirl watched as Egghead collapsed to the floor, rolling onto his back. “Batgirl! You…you cheated!” he accused in a slurred voice.
“That’s right Egghead. What did you eggggzpect?” Batgirl giggled with a big grin on her face as she watched the villain slump unconscious. With that, Batgirl turned to go find her utility belt for the Swiss Army knife inside and some bandages for her wounds.
As she cut herself free, Batgirl looked back at the mechanical sabre dance trap and shuddered involuntarily at the memory of her near-fatal experience. “I’ll never ever take any of Batman’s warnings so lightly again,” she thought. “Still, I think even Batman and Robin will have to be impressed with my eggggceptional eggggscape.” She laughed, unable to resist one final bad pun as she picked up the phone on Egghead's workbench to call the police.