As the red-haired master mind sat in his confined space, he rocked back and forth humming to the scratching of the rats in the walls. To the little ticks the roaches made scuttling across the less than pleasant carbon floors. To the drops of water from the leaky sink down the corridor. They were all a cocoction of his own symphony.
Marvelous, he thought, absolutely marvelous.
The Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, or rather, Arkham, forced this splendid man into solitary confinement along with a muzzle, the filthy animals. Speaking of "filthy animals", Gorilla Grod's confinement must not have been cleaned in days. The stench wreaked havoc among the many criminals imprisoned there, but they did not utter a word. They didn't dare to. It would ruin their train of thought on how to escape and destroy the man who put most of them there, the Dark Knight himself, Batman.
The name made him want to break into song, but the muzzle denied him the pleasure. The cage for his mouth was in place so he could not sway the guards to release him.
It'd been 3 years since the muzzle was first put in place, and the Music Meister felt the need that it was time to take it off.
He'd been owning his craft. He tapped his foot along to the tick-tick of the Clock King's face. He listened once again for the rats, and the roaches, and the water. Once he got the rhythm down, he activated his vocal cords and hummed once again, feeling the power surge from his deep in his gut to his upper torso to his throat and out it came from his body in a beautiful melody.
The rats halted.
The roaches halted.
The water halted.
Even Clock King's face stopped, much to his disapproval, "Was ist denn hier los!" Just as expected, he would freak out, but the German was an exquisite touch also. He tapped on his clock face repeatedly, signaling the Music Meister to sing higher, setting his next part of the plan in motion.
The hands on Clock King's helmet turned again. Faster, faster, faster, until smoke smoldered in the air and then fire burst onto the scene, "Guards! Guards!" Clock King cried out, looking for someone to relinquish his burning face. The King of Song had already done the math, the guards would arrive in 3, 2, 1... He heard the pitter patter of feet running past his cell, "Clock King! What did you do!?" He wouldn't offer an answer, " Help! Help me! Get it off!"
"Unlock his door!" Music Meister heard the sweet sound of keys jingling as the guard holding the keys fumbled to find the correct one, then he heard the most beautiful sound: the door unlocking. He hummed his loudest now, and the roaches and rats swarmed the pathway, eating them alive. The inmates were all going crazy now. Somehow, the sound of three grown men screaming for their lives can put a fire under anyones bum. The guards fell silent, but Clock King still shrieked for his life.
Our red-haired genius used the water down the corridor to douse the fire, and Clock King also fell silent. Music Meister's minions, the rats and roaches, took the keys. He heard them traveling through the walls and then eventually they made it into his cell. He didn't have much time before a whole slew of guards rushed in to find the source of the blood curdling screams that were made earlier. There had to have been a button somewhere to release all of the inmates from their hellholes. He shifted through key after key until he reach a key that was a different color than the rest. It seemed so different and on it, he saw the logo of Wayne Enterprises. They didn't make keys, did they?
Unless...
He fiddled around with it until he noticed the very tip of the key folded over to reveal a very miniscule button. He quickly pressed it and his door popped open just as simply as a kernel of popcorn would. The silence that insued was only expected. The "criminally insane" did not rampage through the corridor like the typical stereotype would suggest, these men and women were genuises. Mad geniuses. They didn't need to rampage and mindlessly destroy things.
As they all shuffled out of their cells, Music Meister found a key labeled muzzle and unlocked his mouth's cage. He didn't speak. Not there. But he did walk out of his confinement just in time for the other guards to break the loud silence of the room, "SOUND THE ALARMS! THE INMATES ARE OUT!"
The Music Meister smiled deviously as no sound was made by the manually controlled alarm system. His rats had been at works for weeks. Chewing through the very complex and tedious wires that were encompassing the perimeter of the Asylum.
The very scared, donut eating officers of the law shakily drew their guns.
The chattering of their teeth was music to The Meister of Song''s ears. They didn't want to die. And he was sure the minimal wage of watching these so called criminals day and night only to have them break out under your nose, and have Batman return them in a number of dies-was only enough to pay for their small apartment's rent and his/her child's lunch money as their only parent. Yes, the Music Meister knew these things, and he thought every waking minute about how he could use these things to his advantage, but he would leave these things alone for the larger, and more psychotic monsters that were downgraded to the level of "criminally insane".
For what it was worth, he regretted that he made the plan to escape when he did. He would have relished the battle that ensued. As he traveled through the dank tunnels that his rats had been digging ever since he arrived, he heard the screams of guards, begging for mercy. He heard the battle cries of the inmates, and the giddy laughs of revenge that they were taking on the guards that were so, well, "less than accomodating" for his kin. Although for one, they were hardly kin. And two, how could they not be? As far as he knew, they'd all plotted to rule the world or completely destroy it. And to them, these guards were puny, tiny, insignificant, even. And yet, during their months and years of confinement and clausterphobic-like spaces, they were treated the exact same way, they would treat them.
But did it change their views? No. They sought even more revenge, and returned to the streets and took it out on the world. But the Music Meister? No. Even with the huge goals he set for himself to rule the world. He was foiled once, and he would not be taken in a second time. He would use the education he actually gained in school and pick his battles. Which he would never have another one again.
He crawled for what seemed like hours. The sounds of the skirmish he created had faded away silently, and all he was left with, was the sounds of his own breathing echoing down the tunnel...That is, until, he was met with the beautiful sounds of Sir Henrik IV Opera House. Oh! The pure pleasure it made him feel to hear the thunderous boom of a baritone...the soft, angelic, but overpowering shrill of a soprano.
Reaching his destination, he shed a tear.
No, the asylum was not a traumatizing experience, he simply learned that if he was going to fight, he was going to win. And now that he was out among the public, he had a chance. A chance to start over.
He climbed out of the tunnel under a seat in the auditorium of the opera house. The very plush, blue foldable chairs were just perfect for the occasion; a jail break. Yes...the Music Meister could see the newspaper headline in the morning: "Massive Jail-Break from Arkham! Entire Solitary Confinement Unit Escapes! How Will Our Caped Crusader Respond?!" in big red letters with just a picture of the "bat-signal". Glorious, it would be.
Sitting in silence, he watched the chorus of human vocal excellence. It sent shivers down his spine. He had not heard such beautiful noises in years. Not since his own, or even Black Canary's, since before his incarceration into the same establishment that he had just escaped from. The ever so stunning lioness that had captured his heart with her voice was far out of his reach now. News spead inside the prison that Green Arrow and Ms. Canary were engaged. Oh! How that made his heart sink deeper than any ship Black Manta could muster.
But he would not seek revenge on them. No, he held no ill will of any kind, and as the beautiful Gregorian chant came to a close, the Music Meister promptly stood and exited.
He was free.
