Part One

Summery: Willard Stiles just wants his home back. After a small break down he's back and ready to go home. Even if it's in the form of the Ratman. The Batman is there to stop him from taking it back the wrong way. But is a trip to Arkham really the best way to make sure he doesn't get any funny ideas?

Note: It's strange that I haven't seen any Batman and Willard crossovers due to the fact that in the book he's stealing stuff and in the movie remake it seems like a solid idea for a good come back. Almost like a start of darkness deal.

Willard Stils walked away from the burning Bellevue Asylum that had held him for no more than a couple of years. This time with a small rat in hand, the "new" Socrates. He saw as the patients and doctors ran away in total panic with rats at their heels biting and scratching as they went along. It was only a matter of time before the fire trucks came and he was shipped back to that small gray room that wasn't even fit for the likes of rotting cat meat. Of course that was only his opinion of the place. He had waited this long and now he felt a bit more wiser and much more capable of handling the rats, now that that blasted Ben was dead and gone.

Now, what is a newly freed man to do? Willard knew what he wants. With miles and miles to walk he had time to think his plan of action over. This time it will be much more organized.

After miles of walking he came across an abandoned convince store. He entered it consciously, eying the floor for unwanted movement. The rat scurried in the pocket of the coat he grabbed on his way out. "Shh..." he soothed the white rat. "Nothing to worry about..." he continued, "nothing at all."

He made his way out of the small closet, he found it amazing that he found a nice black suit that fit him since he lost quite a bit of weight in that so called hospital. He started stacking up on some food for later. Willard really didn't think that he would be needing anything so soon, but it would be a long walk up to the city. What city he wasn't sure of, but he did know that when he did get there he could start his plan. He knew what he was doing. He was sure of it and now he wouldn't be alone because he had Socrates. He will become the Ratman.

Pamela Isley was staring up at the rickety old television for the morning news, hoping that maybe something good happen toady, like a plague breaking out or a bus load of- hold the the growth serum.

"Asylum on fire!"

Well this is just disappointing, they can't even get their facts straighten out anymore. Pamela couldn't help but scoff at the oh so trust worthy news reporters.

"And this time it's not Arkham!"

"Hey, Red what's going on?" Harley said coming out of nowhere, she sat down next to her.

"Sigh, apparently there was a fire at a different asylum..."

"Wow, there's other asylums around here?" she jumped up and down. It was becoming harder and harder for Pam to believe that this used to be a rising doctor in the field of unlocking many of man kinds minds. Even them she would from times to time be able to come up with interesting theories. "I guess we don't get to here about them 'cause they're all well behaved and stuff." For a quick moment Pam thought that the old sofa was going to break. Unfortunately it didn't happen.

"At 9:35 P.M there was an electrical failure that resulted in a mysterious fire. this ultimately left many injured among doctors and patients alike."

"WOOT! Doctors gettn' hurt!" someone yelled, but this was quickly fallowed by many hushes, Pam couldn't help be amused that many of the self proclaimed geniuses master minds were taking the time to listen to some place burning down.

"But, new revelations have lead us to think that this was no mare accident -wait I have just been told that we will air the footage that was saved from the fire." The screen switched to a still of a somewhat tall man. "Fire inspectors found the surveillance camera that may hold a very important key to who may have been behind this mess." it was verycruddy picture, but one could still make out some points like the fact that the man was standing over what appeared to be a group of rats. Then the T.V suddenly turned off. Everyone who had been watching turned to see that it was Dr. Leland who held the remote.

"Sorry " she said so very nonchalantly "you guys can watch the news, but not this particular one."

"Why's that?" Edward Enigma inquired. "I mean, aren't we all old enough to not feel pressured to make a break in light of the situation."

All she did was smile and say, "Shouldn't you know?" and walked way, leaving a room full of insane criminals to form new escape plans in light of the recent events.

What happened in New York did find it's way, as most news, to the screen of the Dark Knight. He was about to head out on the nightly look over when he was side tracked by the headline reading Arkham Asylum: the Fever Spreads. It was about the fire that happened up in Bellevue not that long ago. He had a feeling that this was probably in connection to the recent break ins that had been happening in the area around it. Should he really go off to investigate some case when Gotham still needed him? Things had been quite lately.

He shook his mind of it and went out. Some other time when Two-Face and Scarecrow were back in Arkham.

In the dark was a man that sat watching the window, silence was the game. In actually it was a waiting one. What he was waiting for was to be explained to him at a much later time. Something had been in his little hide away spot, he thought nothing of it since most of the inhabitants where after all rats and they didn't over stay their welcome, but did get hungry from time to time. But what got to him was most was the fact that some of his clothes were missing. Call him old fashion, but it really got to him when people took his things. Jonathan Crane stood and wondered around the hide out again. He liked this place, not just because this was really the last place that Batman could find him, but that it really reminded him of most of the places he would use to hide from that hag of a woman grandmother. I was out of the way in the thoughts of Gotham. He really wanted to know who would even think about being able to fit into that suit of his.

"Sigh... I really should have booby trapped this place." He said with a puff and sat once more. He looks over at the T.V set and wondered what was going on out there in the world. He hadn't really thought about it until he heard of the fire that happened in the nearby asylum. Crane wasn't able to recall the name at the moment.

He hadn't been at it for that long, two weeks tops. Maybe. It was a small area and he was just starting to get used to it when he started hearing terrible rumors. Rumors about a Batman making appearances. Willard had heard the name before he went 'mad' but he dismissed it as a myth to scare the criminals. Like the Boogeyman from children. Nothing more to him. But he was starting to worry about it since he was, well, a criminal now. At times he felt he was being watched, but how could he be? He kept his tracks as covered as they can get. In fact he was going to show that by breaking into this nice little home. It looked empty and that was one of his rules, empty homes only and if there so happens to be occupied then he would make his leave. That was something he took pride in. He wouldn't under your nose if you really were there.