Batman Villain Origins Rewritten:
Scarecrow:
Sirens wail as two men, one a professor of psychology, the other president of Gotham University, face off against each other in an empty science classroom.
The president shouts, "Professor Crane, this is the last time! Up until this point you have proven a valuable asset, and so I have overlooked your experiments on the student population. But this is the last straw! As we speak, there are police crawling all over the campus, looking for the man responsible for Higgins' death! No more! I am done protecting you! You are hereby stripped of your position as Dean of Psychology and I am turning you into the police!"
"Now let's not be hasty!" replies Mr. Crane, "I can fix this, I can! Just give me a little more time!"
"No! Your time is up! Come quietly, or my men will drag you screaming!" from behind the college president step two tall, muscular, men, bodyguards.
The professor reaches for a vial of strangely colored liquid on the lab table behind him, "Funny you should say… screaming."
With a jerk of his wrist he douses the two men in the chemical. Almost immediately the men begin shrieking. One stomps his feet on the floor, screaming about imaginary spiders. The other curls up into a ball, whimpering that there are lizards crawling all over him.
The president gapes in shock, taking a step back, "Wh-what have you done to them?! What is that stuff?!"
Crane smirks, "Fear toxin. Here, try some," he splashes the remaining liquid onto the president.
The president drops to the floor screeching.
"Ahahaha! Not so high and mighty now, are you? No, you bullies never are as tough as you make yourselves out to be! All it takes is a little fear and you run screaming! Well, enjoy it, this is merely a taste of what is to come," with that the professor leaps out the window, escaping.
As he does, a bat-like shadow descends upon the shrieking men, what they see only causing them to shriek more. A man dressed like a bat kneels down, attempting to calm them. But they cannot be calmed, for they are in a state of pure panic, reinforced repeatedly by the chemical now racing through their veins.
Safe in the basement of his own home, Crane lets out a sigh of relief before flicking on the light. What the light reveals is a nightmarish-looking cellar, one filled to the brim with strange chemicals and tomes of psychology, particularly focusing on the aspect of fear. Crane opens one, flipping to a page depicting a diagram of the human brain. Circled on the page is the Amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for the flight-or-fight response. As the former professor studies the picture, a crow flies through the small open window and lands on his shoulder.
"Ah, Nightmare, there you are," he says, stroking the bird under its chin, "I did it, I finally did it. I've completed the chemical that will induce in people visions of their worst fear! And better than that, not only will they see their worst fear but they will also feel it, hear it, smell it! It's perfect! A concoction of pure unadulterated fear! And I even got to test it out on three human subjects!"
The bird caws happily, as though congratulating its master.
"Thank you, my dear, thank you. Oh Nightmare, truly you are the only one who understands me. Unfortunately, my mistake still haunts me. I am now out of a job, and the police are looking for me. What will I do? I never meant for that blasted brat Higgins to die! All I wanted was to demonstrate to my students the mechanics of fear! It's not my fault that idiot decided to bolt in front of the gun at that moment!"
Crane places his hands on the lab table, sighing. He lifts his head and looks sadly at the framed photo of him and his high school classmates, a picture taken when he was in his senior year. In the photo he is barely visible, a skinny, pale, teenager shrinking from the camera on the edge of the class. He walks over and slams the photo down, unable to bear looking at it any longer.
"How pathetic I look!" he moans, "that was back when I was still but a cowardly youth, unenlightened to the magnificence of fear. Those bullies, how they harassed me every day! Called me cruel nicknames like 'Scarecrow' and beat me up! …But… it wasn't all bad. After all, thanks to them I met you, and I realized how powerful fear could be. I'll never forget it, the day they locked me in that cathedral with all those crows. Back then, I greatly feared crows, and the experience was nothing short of torture… but… that night, when I felt like my heart would give out and the terror that I felt would never end… it eventually did. And you, my pretty bird, came to me, comforted me. It was that night that I finally stopped being afraid of black birds, and that night that I learned the power of fear. Never again would I be terrorized into submission. It was my turn to terrorize others, I realized. And thus, I was sent down this path of panic and fear that I now walk."
Nightmare nuzzled Crane's cheek.
Crane smiled at his bird briefly, then frowned, "But look where it's lead me. Here I am, like a cornered rat, hiding out from the police… but, perhaps, I don't have to be. Maybe… maybe this is my second rebirth, maybe this is my chance to show the world that nobody messes with Jonathan Crane!"
Crane stood tall, laughing maniacally, "Hahaha! Yes! This is it! Combined with my fear toxin and my knowledge of psychology, first Gotham, then the world, shall tremble in fear before me! Bow! Bow to your new master! The king of panic! For I am… the Scarecrow!"