First off, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to check this story out. As mentioned, this story will mostly take place during the plot line of Batman: Arkham Knight. Also mentioned is that THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. If you haven't completed the game, buckle down and do it!
I know that B:AK altered Jason Todd's story. I'm sticking with that altered version. And then I'm altering it even more! Yo dawg!
As always, don't hesitate to review! Enjoy the story!
When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a dim room. A small gasp escaped her mouth as the pain from the injection festered in her neck. Her ears were plugged with a rushing sound as though she was underwater. However, she managed to hear the deadened voice as it commanded, "Another dose."
Barbara Gordon's hands tightened on the armrests of her wheelchair as she struggled to lift her head. Her aching neck strained in protest. "I'm awake, you bastard," she managed to grumble through gritted teeth.
Her vision was starting to come back into focus. One of the soldiers was standing next to her, a syringe held idly in his hand. Before her, his horribly bloodshot eyes staring down at her, was Scarecrow.
"Good," he said, placing his hands behind his back. "Who is Batman?"
Like hell she was telling. "Ask him when he gets here," she spat back. Scarecrow didn't seem to be bothered by her resistance. He leaned towards her. Barbara kept her fierce gaze on him, using all of her being to not cringe away from his tattered face.
"Thank you, Ms. Gordon." She could see glimpses of his lipless mouth moving behind the rags. "I was afraid that my preferred interrogation method would not be necessary." He drew his hands out from behind and held his right hand up to her face. With his other hand, he stroked the needles. "Do you know why I wear these syringes on my hand?"
The pointed ends were so close to her eyes. Barbara's heart raced. She managed to tear her stare away from them and glower at Scarecrow. "Because you're insane?"
Scarecrow straightened up. He turned away and began to pace in a slow circle as he spoke about his toxin, how an airborne dose was nothing compared to a direct injection. Barbara kept a straight face as he spoke, but knew that he was foreshadowing her fate. Still, she would resist. She would resist even if he filled her entire body with his stupid toxin.
Finally, Barbara had enough. He could talk and talk, but she refused to let him get to her. "You're still talking," she said irately. Scarecrow stopped and turned his head to her.
"Very well." He stormed over her with a wrathful fervor and seized her neck, raising his needle-clad hand.
Her lungs tightened to the point where she couldn't breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the stabbing sensation.
Suddenly a voice flared up. "Get the hell away from her!" it demanded. Barbara's eyes snapped open as a figure emerged from the corner of the room. Scarecrow immediately released his grip and drew back. He reached over and pressed a button on the voice recorder that sat on a nearby table. Then, he turned to the one who had spoke. It was the Arkham Knight.
"Your interference was not needed," Scarecrow said hotly.
"If you turn her into an incoherent mess, then this whole operation goes to shit," the Knight said back. "We need her well and conscious."
"That will take too long," Scarecrow argued.
"I'll get her to talk," the Knight assured. Scarecrow fell quiet and he thought for a spell.
"Then get to it," he ordered. He raised a hand and indicated the soldier by Barbara to leave the room. "You have five minutes." He exited.
All was quiet. The Arkham Knight stepped over to the recorder and pressed the button. A red light appeared. "He's gone. Did he hurt you?" he asked as he kept his stare lowered to the recorder.
It was one villain to another. Just great. "Spare me the good-cop-bad-cop routine."
"No, no, no, no," the Arkham Knight said, shaking his head. He turned around and sat on the edge of the table, his face pointed directly at Barbara. "You're supposed to keep me talking. Play for time. Wait for Batman. That's what he taught you, right?"
Barbara rolled her eyes. This lunatic was crazier than she thought. "I've got nothing to say to you," she insisted.
The Knight placed a hand on his chest "Me, I talked for hours," he continued. "'Cause I knew, right?" He kept on going. Barbara had no clue what he was going on about. But for some reason, it didn't sound like delusional rambling. It sounded like something the Arkham Knight had wanted to get off of his chest for a long time. And then she heard him say it.
"You can't count on Bruce to save you."
How did he know? "Bruce?"
The Arkham Knight tilted his head and gave a sort of half-shrug. "Mmm, yeah. Scarecrow doesn't know. It's our little secret. Now here's another." He stood from the table and crouched in front of Barbara. "Batman likes to play the hero, Barbara. And he's pretty good at it. But it's an act. Batman's not about saving the innocent; he's about punishing the guilty."
Barbara stared angrily as the Knight further drilled on Batman. For some reason, his words bothered her more than Scarecrow's. "You're wrong," she insisted.
The Arkham Knight hung his head. He raised himself to his feet. As he lifted his hand, Barbara braced herself. But he continued to reach up to his helmet and pressed something. The Arkham Knight's mask raised. "Look me in the eye and say that."
Barbara's hands flew up to her mouth. She quickly dropped them. "Jason?!"
He whirled around and jammed his finger down on the recording button. The red light died. Barbara tried moving forward in her wheelchair, but something had locked the wheels. "Christ, Jason! I-I can't believe this! I… We all thought you died!"
"Did you, Barbara?" he replied, his voice rattling with bottled-up agony. "Did everyone believe that? Well, you have Bruce to thank for that."
"Don't say that."
"Why not?" he snapped. "You wouldn't know! It was day after day, month after month, of pure hell! And Bruce? He just let. It. Happen." He slammed a fist down on the table, causing the voice recorder to jolt. "And it's not only that. You remember, don't you, Barbara? Her. H-he…" His voice grew faded into a weak whisper. "He let her die too."
"Her?" Barbara repeated. Then realization lit up her eyes. "No… Jason, she's not—."
"That's enough!" he shouted. He brought a hand up to his face as he let out a shaky sigh. After a moment, he lowered it. "Scarecrow wants you to talk," he said with a hardened voice. "So talk. And after this, I'm going to go kill Batman." He pressed the voice recorder.
"Jason, this is wrong!"
Earlier that night…
A sound like the guttural roar of a beast bellowed from behind the vault door. The tremors rumbled through the entire room. Then, as quickly as it had started up, the explosion dissipated.
That was one of Cobblepot's caches down. He had a feeling that he had barely made a dent in that criminal's entire supply. His shoulders dropped a bit as he began to feel the weight of the past few hours. Battling the toxin at ACE Chemicals seemed like lifetimes ago.
"And it was the first time we really got to get a good look at each other!" a familiar voice piped up, cutting through his own thoughts. "Oh, Brucey! What a trip down memory lane!" He turned his head to look at the speaker, who stared gleefully back at him. That pale face… damn that face. It looked too real.
"Oh, I'm real alright," the Joker replied. "Just as real as you are."
Batman's face remained stoic, but deep in his chest, his heart jumped with fear at those words.
"Come on, Bats! Don't give me that look! We've got so much left to do!" The Joker waved a hand towards the vault door. "Sure, we rid of some of Penguin's toys, blah blah bl—BORING! Let's go after Scarecrow! Get another pump of that wonderful, magical toxin, eh? Whattaya say, Bruce ol'boy?"
It was just then that another voice spoke up. "Damn, I felt that all the way to my skull," Nightwing called over his shoulder. He was examining the contents of a parked van. "Just how much gel did you put in there?"
Finally relieved at a chance to ignore his delusion, Batman turned away from the Joker and walked over to Nightwing. "I've got a new lead on Barbara," he said. "I'm going after her now."
"That's good," Nightwing replied. He slammed a weapon crate shut and looked at Batman. "Bruce… you sure you don't want a hand with all of this? Scarecrow, this Knight guy, the state of this city… It seems like a lot."
"I know. I'm fine," Batman insisted. "I need you keeping tabs on these weapon trucks. It'd really help if you kept these guns out of criminal hands."
"That I'll do," Nightwing assured. With a nod, Batman turned away. He pulled the grapple gun from his belt as his eyes searched for a ledge to hook onto.
"Oh, you should know," Nightwing called after him. Batman turned his head to listen. "An old friend is coming back to town."
"An old friend?" Batman repeated. "Who…? No." He looked fully back at Nightwing. "Dick, the city's too dangerous! And you know she left Gotham for a reason."
Nightwing put his hands up defensively. "Hey, it wasn't like that. Look, the media hasn't been exactly quiet about this. Everyone, including her, knows exactly what's going on here. I just got a heads up a while ago, but I haven't heard anything since."
Batman was silent for a moment, contemplating. He brought up his arm and established a comms link. The flickering image of Alfred popped up in front of him. "Alfred," Batman said. "There—."
"Yes, Master Grayson has already informed me," Alfred acknowledged. Batman shot Nightwing a stern look. The young man gave an apologetic shrug.
"Monitor the city boundary," Batman instructed. "You know what to do."
With his arms crossed, he watched as Crane stepped slowly over to the cowering, bruised man. Scarecrow placed his hands behind his back and flexed his spindly fingers. On his right hand, the needles shifted. "You have gotten in over your head, Stagg." The man's voice was soft, no trace of menace. That's what made it terrifying.
"I-I… Crane, I—."
"Did you think that your senseless mewling could assuage me? You're wrong." Scarecrow had stopped before Stagg, looking down at him. Flanking the frightened man were two soldiers.
Simon Stagg raised a trembling arm in front of him, as though he expected to be lashed out at. "P-p-please, Crane. It w-was a mistake!"
"Indeed it was," Scarecrow agreed lightly. He lowered himself leisurely onto one knee, resting his hand on it. The syringes glinted under the blimp's fluorescent lights. "A mistake that, I promise you, you will very sincerely regret." He tilted his head. "Have you been curious about the final result of my toxin? My beyond-perfect work? Perhaps I should give you a first-hand experience."
Stagg's eyes widened. His body shook even more. "No, please! Stop, I beg you!"
Observing the scene from a short distance, the Arkham Knight uncrossed his arms. He'd enough of watching this mundane little scene; the old coward's pathetic pleading was beginning to irk him. The Knight marched away. There was still much that he had to do. He was sure that Batman was already heading towards the blimps. And when that cur took his first step onto one of the airships, he wanted to be there.
The Knight stopped by a gun rack and quickly examined its contents. Then he took a few clips of armor-piercing rounds and hooked them onto his belt. As he worked, he overheard a few militiamen conversing.
"Said he spotted it near the southern border, close to Hilcroft Street. Man swears it was a ghost."
"Why? What did it look like?"
"A person wearing some kind of suit. Kind of like a lighter, paler version of that shit Batman wears. And so he thought it was one of Batman's allies. That, and why would some crazy moron wander into the city like that? Hey, but listen here: that's not what spooked Sander. What happened was that he shot at them with the drone's cannon. It, and I quote Sander directly, went through them."
"Bullshit. I bet he just missed."
"That's what I figured too. The icing on the cake is that Sander went on to say that he saw a glimpse of the person again after the explosion died down, and then they just vanished right then and there. Not like the 'and then they booked it' kind of vanish, but the vanishing into thin air kind."
"I'm pretty sure Sander pulled that story out of his ass, but that's actually kinda creepy. Looks like Gotham's got itself a specter."
Upon hearing that word, the Arkham Knight's head snapped up. He placed the firearm he was prepping back in its holster and paced quickly to the militiamen.
"What did you just say?" he demanded. The men all looked at him and straightened their postures.
"Sir," one of them responded. "We were just talking. It… we didn't mean anything by it."
The Arkham Knight stepped forward. "I'm not going to ask you again."
"One of the Diamondbacks spotted someone on Hilcroft. It could have just been one of the stragglers left behind, but he raised the possibility that it could be one of Batman's allies. Don't worry, sir. We'll take care of it."
"No," the Arkham Knight ordered. "Keep the drones on their normal patrols. Top priority is alpha target; do not forget that."
"Sir?"
"It was nothing," he snapped. "I don't want any further of mention of this 'someone,' got it? It was nothing!"
"Yes, Sir."
"Of course, Sir."
As he walked away, he lifted a hand to the side of his helmet. A channel to one of his ground units was opened. "Sergeant, what's your status?"
"All quiet, sir. We haven't had a sighting of alpha target in a while. I think he's headed up to your location."
"Good." It was time to focus on the task at hand. If Batman was coming, he would need everything he had. But as stepped over a glass pane and looked down on the city below, he couldn't help but wonder.
Addendum: The first part of the chapter is indeed the Arkham Knight's audio files. That poor voice recorder took a beating.
Thank you for reading!
