The light that Harvey Dent emitted was seen by every hopeful eye, for once; the sarcasm began to cease. The Batman could only do so much, he could only save them, scrape the city of Gotham off the tar and paste it against the wall. But it was Dent, that could glow, Dent's was the image that could water and care for a brighter Gotham, for enlightenment. The man waving the gun at Gordon's son, his lifeline; was twisted into something different, a invaluable work of art splintered into streams of canvas, Gotham's white Knight. He no longer glowed from an inner light, he burned and writhed in the flames forced inside his every orifice.
Perhaps he would sympathize with the man at a later time, given his ability to do so only previous to this. But turning his wretched features to the dirt, the familiar bile rose in his throat almost afraid it would show in the words that left his lips. For all he could currently feel was regret.
Regret, physical pain, and then…nothing.
He had been strangely glad to run. It felt, in a way, liberation to be crucified. To be given up, to have no one expect anything of you. What hadn't felt good was the sudden wrenching pain in his legs. In his minds eye, he could see his bones moving, grinding, then lifting, and then scraping against each other with ever stride in his escape.
Then came the dogs. Barreling dogs who didn't care what had been a noble deed, and who didn't have the chance for any failure except that of their masters. The master's being the officers currently chasing him on foot, no doubt.
The feel of the motorcycle between his thighs did nothing to ease the world that was already spinning. He avoided pillars too late, the tips of his fingers and his legs numb underneath, his tongue felt like it was stuck to the roof of his mouth. Unable to focus, the dark knights mind whirred beneath his faux face. He guessed, that this was what it would feel like, if he ingested the color gray.
At one point, he could no longer explain if it was him, his bike, or the back streets of Gotham that were wobbling violently to his already offended form. He'd barley had time to still the machine in realization for him to fall bodily to the ground, his vision not following the laws of physics that his head should allow given it seemed to roll all the way up. Further, and further into his skull, and the man beneath the mask found that his irises had disappeared into his head, and all the left was gray.
He drifted into a scenario of his mind's own creation. No longer able to remember how he'd arrived here, his response thoroughly lacked emotion by observing the highway, and the seemingly endless sands that surrounded it. The desert. But he'd never seen a desert when it was cloudy. The shades of neutrals were intensified without the light to merit them real saturation.
But he had nothing to do, so he waited.
Until the roar of a very familiar sound started approaching him at an alarming rate. His own batcar bearing down on him with strangely wild determination, it's headlights having been a gaze locked onto his form. His hand went out to stop the car, but not to dodge, thinking he still had power over it. But the realization of seeing the skin of his forearm and hand bared to him, was the shocking revelation that he was no longer in the bat suit. And the vehicle wasn't going to stop for Bruce Wayne.
The growl of the motor had forced his mind away from the false reality, spilling him into one that tended to hurt a whole lot more. Strangely enough, the rumble of sound seemed to follow him, his shoulders and arms tensed up when he realized there was an immense canine over him. Assuming that it was more than likely keeping watch over him to verify his hunt, the bat also cursed his fate bitterly. Why was it always dogs lately?
"Man, put that fucking thing away, it's pissing it off!"
"Well, what the- what the hell am I supposed to do? Man you know there's two of us and one of him, just keep my fucking back man."
"It's not worth it. This is trouble"
The conversation was seemingly going in the wrong direction. Pissing who off? Everything was in water, he could no longer assume that he was in the dark or whether his vision was two shakes from failing yet again. He was on the ground, he knew because of the awful taste in his mouth that could only be identified as passing out in the filth of Gotham's underbelly. But these were not the words of a trained officer. Finally forced to pry open an eye, he realized that there was no vicious animal baring down on him, but he had a marvelous view of his rear end. This discovery was soon followed by the fact that the dog was standing between him and the men who were talking. The pair were equally diversified in race to the point where batman couldn't tell of any descent save for them both being from the city and no doubt local residences. Eyes drifting down to glance at the body language he found the first one who spoke was the one looking incredulously at the other who was only half through pulling a gun from his pocket. Upon testing the mutt in front of him, he'd then proceeded to attempt to even tighten his hold on the weapon causing the dog to raise his shackles, the sound that came from him produced chills. He could now even hear the fevered breathing of the two men and stretched his mental capacity to the rest of his body.
Uncomfortably sticking to the suit were the battle injuries he acquired over this hell of a day, and he was sure something was broken, or at least a large ripped muscle in his back. The alarm stemmed from elsewhere. He didn't have the clearest memory of what happened before he'd toppled off his bike but he was absolutely positive that he had, in fact; been near his bike when that happened. So where was his bike? Subtly trying to move his head to create a better knowledge of the situation he found he was no longer out in the back streets or even an alley. But what appeared to be an open skeleton of a building. This find was stumped completely by the choking pain flowering beneath his neck. At where his collar bone met the stretch of his shoulder, had instantly flamed. The sound of a gunshot was enough to pull him out of his reverie, and he waited with his nose barley sticking out above the dark water of sleep. The dog, did not fall like he'd expected and within the extent of the crack that resounded off the lonely unused walls he was currently encased in, several things happened.
Before the echo even had time to respond to the vicious sound, the dog had lept up into the air grabbing hold of the offender's leg. Body shutting down in it's stubborn pursuit of health, he numbly observed as the second stranger raised his pistol to fire it into the dog, the sound of shock emitting from a wide opened mouth as it ripped him down, his skull smacking hard against the concrete made to serve as a floor. Falling back into his mind, the bat watched idly and feeling without purpose as another shot rang true, though from a different area. A woman entered the mix, with an forced tone, hoarse as the bark of the canine.
"Don't touch my dog!"