The only person you are destined to become is who you decide to be. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

His mind was scattered, and it was hard to make sense of his memories. As he slept voices echoed and haunted his dreams. He saw a young man hanging on for his life but the young man said "I'm more than a man, I'm an idea, a philosophy and I will live on in the shadows within Gotham's discontent. You'll be seeing me soon." then came another voice from dark abyss of his mind it kept repeating the same words over and over "Long live me. Long live me. LONG LIVE ME."

He tossed and turned as these words consistently repeated in his mind and the images of two different, but very similar men flooded his memories. Then finally he woke up gasping and drenched in sweat. It had been only a few months since he woke up in the ruble of an abandoned building, he'd been in a freezing pod of some kind for who knows how long in an abandoned lair. How he ended up there he did not know but he remembered bits and pieces of his past nothing concrete sadly.

After days of mindless wondering through gutters of Gotham he found work at a small time, comedy club. It was there he hooked up with the red hood gang. Well the latest version of the crew anyway. They each took turns wearing the hood and during this latest so-called score it was his turn. Mind you they were so incompetent he might as well have been the boss and in many ways he was. The name the gang called him the name he had gone by was Jack Napier.

After showering and getting some breakfast he turned on the local news he saw some people on the news who should have been strangers, but he felt like he knew them. These people were Bruce Wayne, Oswald Cobblepot, Edward Nygma, and finally Jim Gordon whose face unlike the others aroused something within Jack, anger maybe watching the now much older Jim Gordon live as the commissioner and be hailed as hero a golden boy it filled Jack with an unending seething hate. The moment he saw Jim Gordon words of hate echoed through his mind these words were fraud, thief, fake, and charlatan.

Jack hated all the faces he saw on the news most of all Jim Gordon but the one he felt no malice or hate towards was Bruce Wayne. It was odd but he felt pride when he looked upon Bruce the kind a father might feel. He could not make sense of his past and felt like a ghost more than he felt like a person.

Little did he know there was someone else in Gotham going through something very similar.

Arkham Asylum…

The woman opened her eyes she felt like she'd awakened from a long sleep in some ways she right. She'd been on ice literally for some time and was part of an experiment like those once conducted by Hugo Strange. Only this time the experiments were being conducted by a Professor Milo he'd been gathering and storing bodies since the No Man's Land incident and through a course of trial and error he'd been reenacting Hugo's experiments.

"Your awake? Your alive?" The scrawny man with flat black hair asked her both stunned and shocked he laughed excited by his accomplishment.

"Who are you?" She asked growing frantic looking around to see where she was "Where am I?"

"What is your name?" He asked curious to see if she remembered her identity. He'd read in Hugo's logs that memory loss often occurred in those that came back to life.

She struggled to remember she started to speak "Ta-" for a brief moment her name came back to her it was on the tip of her tongue and then she lost it "I can't remember." She started to cry "Why can't I remember?"

He took her hand to feign sympathy "It's okay my dear. You and I have all the time in the world to uncover your past." He was lying of course he already knew who she was he was a manipulative bastard to say that least. "For now, I'll call you-" he looked around his office looking for inspiration and saw the name of a random author on the side of one of his books on his shelf "Harleen Quinzel. Yes, I think that will do quite nicely." He said secretly congratulating himself, all the while he was completely ignorant of the hell his actions would bring upon the city.

ACE Chemicals (Outside)…

Bruce had been active as Batman for a few years but even after all these years ACE chemicals brought back bad memories. Jeremiah after, a few years finally woke up and caused terror once again but as time passed, he and what remained of the Valeska cult met their end. Still Bruce had this uneasy feeling every time he passed this chemical plant.

Bruce did not know why but he felt like something bad was coming and he had no idea what it was. He just had this feeling the worst was yet to come. Bruce looked out from where he was perched and toward the direction of Crime Alley where it all began, he couldn't believe he was close to the same age Jim was when all this started so much had changed since then.

Jim's words still stuck with him even after all these years in a moment of emotion he repeated them "However dark and scary the world is right now, one day there will be light."

Those words always comforted him and reassured him even in the darkest moment. Bruce waited a bit longer he was investigating the third incarnation of the red hood gang and his sources told him they were planning to hit ACE Chemicals. Bruce often wondered why he stayed in Gotham especially with all the bad memories it held for him.

He shook his head trying to not think about it "I just have to be patient-" Just then the alarm to the chemical plant went off and shots were fired.

Arkham Asylum…

Milo strapped the resurrected Tabitha into a chair she was still disoriented and confused he wanted to make sure his personality implant was successful so he had to work on her nonstop and continuously "Harleen are you feeling strange at all any pains in your chest or trouble breathing?" Milo asked wondering if she suffered any complications from her stab wound that occurred all those years ago.

"No. Why?"

"You suffered a terrible injury. My machine was designed to repair you I based it off, of something I helped Hugo Strange design for storing bodies he used in his experiments. My machine kept your body while my improvements of the cryochamber repaired you." Milo took a deep breath "However I'm not entirely certain of the potential side effects or complications so it's important I check thoroughly."

"I see. What's going to happen to me?"

Milo paused he didn't plan on keeping her around, but he would have to make use of her in the meantime "I suppose I could use an assistant to help me run Arkham Asylum and it's easy enough to pose as a Doctor here most of the real ones are hacks anyway. In the mean time I'll help you adjust to working here."

ACE Chemicals…

Jack typed the security code in to open the door. He'd already put on the red helmet or hood as some might call it. He with the rest of the red hood gang proceeded to creep into the chemical factory. Rumor was that Johnathan Crane aka Scarecrow and Riddler were keeping a stash of money in the office. After using a source to verify the information's authenticity the Red Hood gang decided to make a move.

"What do you think Scarecrow is using this place for?" One of his goons asked him.

"Hell, if I know but word on the street is Scarecrow is trying to recreate something, he made for some guy named Jerome." Jack responded keeping his voice low.

"So, Jack you really don't remember anything about your life from before you woke up in that weird pod underground a few months back?"

"Yeah." Jack answered with a nod "I was in some guys abandoned lair looked like I was buried in some rubble and went unnoticed. From what I could piece together after looking through the wreckage, some guy was trying to redo all of Hugo Strange's old experiments and even made some improvements. I could not find any real solid leads on what happened to me, but I did find a name Milo and that's about it." Jack suddenly heard a noise he then pressed his finger up to his red hood to be more precise where his lips were to silently shush his goon.

He was right to because even though no else could hear it Jack heard the faint sound of someone walking above them walking across pipes and metal railings the sounds could only belong to the mythic Batman. For some reason Jack felt no fear he only felt excitement.

Within seconds he heard screams and gun fire, he turned around to see his goons had gone missing. "Nice magic trick freak." Jack said allowed while climbing some stairs so Batman would hear him "So does this usually work for you hiding in the dark? I know you don't kill so that kind of kills your whole creature of the night theme. Not that I'm ripping on you. I mean considering my get up who am I to talk right?" After checking both side of the railing Jack spoke again "You must be a real buzz kill at parties. Do you even have a social life or do you just dress up in black leather and beat people up all the time? I mean if that's your thing more power to you but there are clubs where you can get that kind of kick and you don't have to screw up other people's fun." Jack turned to his left and finally saw Batman through the hoods red lens he smiled under the hood and said "Nice outfit. Tell me have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

He said this to distract Batman and it worked for a moment Batman was perplexed by the question. Jack fired his shot and Batman dodged it just in time. He ran towards Jack and they fought. Batman or rather Bruce was surprised by how well Red Hood could fight but what surprised him even more was how familiar it felt as they thought.

Bruce couldn't understand why but this man whose face he had never even seen did not feel like a stranger. Oddly enough it was the same for Jack he felt like he knew Batman he felt like he was in the presence of a dearly close friend and Bruce did the same they continued to fight. It lasted for what felt like an eternity neither one giving the other an inch until finally Jack fell and grabbed hold of the side, he felt like he was reliving something from his past as he clung for his life.

Images of Jeremiah falling into the vat of chemicals flooded Bruce's mind he desperately tried to reach Red Hood. Jack tried to reach for Bruce's hand but then Bruce drew away his hand, the Red Hood gang were infamous murderers and monsters and for a brief second Bruce considered letting Red Hood get what he deserved but then he chose to do what was right and reach out but it was too late. Before he fell Red Hood took note of Batman's hesitation to save him and for reasons unknown even to himself he while feeling a strange feeling of abandonment and betrayal at Bruce's hesitation said "You'll see me again soon." Jack lost his grip and he fell into the chemicals.

Many changes had been made to the tanks since Jeremiah had fallen in so long ago. One such change was a automated flush system if the security scanners detected a anything foreign specifically anything foreign of a certain weight the system would kick in and drain the chemicals out. Almost immediately the chemicals were drained out, but it was still to late and even though unlike Jeremiah, Jack had a protective hood still he suffered severe damage.

Fortunately for Jack, Bruce was no killer but still it ate at Bruce that for a moment he considered letting the man fall. If he had acted sooner Bruce could have saved him. Bruce had no idea what hell his actions were about bring about for Gotham.