THE STRANGE KNIGHT
Chapter 2
Batman was, once more, reconnoitering via his obsidian Batmobile, turbo-engine temporarily silenced, meaning no raucous roar and no hellfire flames leaping out the cylindrical thruster at the rear of the bat-like vehicle, utilizing, instead, a special solar-powered hybrid sub-engine.
Sometimes stealth was much more important than speed.
It had taken two whole days and nights for two orderlies to discover that Dr. Hugo Strange had traded places with a choked-into-unconscious, by Dr. Jonathan Crane!, Dr. Jeremiah Arkham with whom Dr. Strange, celebrated addition to the index of inmates at Arkham Asylum, and had switched clothing in order to simply slip out via the main entrance.
One day of which the choked-into-unconsciousness Dr. Arkham had spent lying inside the quad-locked padded detention cell. The second straight night of not-at-all unusual yelling within the highest hall of the gothic institution that, thankfully at long last, ended with the eventual arrival said orderlies.
Since no orders had been given as to either the continuance or alteration in anti-psychotic medications, the sole reason for Dr. Jeremiah Arkham's late-night visit to a seemingly catatonic Dr. Hugo Strange, none had bothered to look in on one of their more minor inmates. After all, they were currently holding the likes of Penguin, Riddler, Two-Face, and Joker, not to mention murderously insidious, but not super-criminal, individuals such as Victor Zsasz.
"Dr. Arkham?" said a wide-eyed orderly suddenly fearing for his continued vocation. "H-how? Wh-when?"
"Never mind that now, you fool!" snarled Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, his voice hoarse from incessantly shouting for help for the last two whole days. "Just get out word to the Gotham police that Dr. Hugo Strange has escaped! And tell them to arrest…!"
"Arrest who, Dr. Arkham?"
Dr. Jonathan Crane, dressed in a somewhat old-fashioned suit, no smock, stood taller and more egotistically narcissist than Dr. Arkham could scarcely conceive of his formerly modest intern, causing several seconds of shocked hesitation. Then…
"I want Dr. Crane…," loudly growled a greatly set-upon Dr. Arkham even as Dr. Crane swiftly lifted a half-face gas mask to his slender visage, even as his eyes held a released-from-subconscious corners insanity-stimulated intellect and intention.
Then, just as swiftly, he tossed a simplistically designed gas-bomb at the feet of Dr. Jeremiah Arkham still flanked by the two orderlies…
Pop-Ssssssssssssss!
After coughing heavily from the inhalation of the yellowish mist, three formerly normal persons were suddenly swept up in unreasoning terror…over nothing.
"Ahhh!" Dr. Arkham shouted shakily as his eyes and face took on the mien of someone facing, quite literally, some imaginary monstrosity that had lain dormant within the darkest depths of his all-too-human mind. "S-stay a-away! D-don't c-come any c-closer! P-please!"
Such was simultaneously mirrored by the two terrified orderlies as well, who were, in fact, so horrified by what had only existed within the dark depths of their own sub-conscious Selves, that they could do naught but scream uncontrollably.
Dr. Jonathan Crane, having developed this secret chemical concoction many months ago in order to privately experiment with it by exposing various lab animals to it in order to properly, as well as quite scientifically, register reactions of pure fear, now, thanks to Dr. Hugo Strange's gentle mental manipulative nudge served a significantly higher purpose.
The Batmobile computer captured a little-larger-than-commonplace criminal act in progress the very dark heart of the Batman's beloved city…
"…unknown masked suspects have broken into Axis Firearms on…"
Even as that ever-viscous smirk, when it came to violently quelling criminals, normal and supernormal, spread across the exposed part of a covered-by-cowl square-jawed features, Batman commented under baited breath, "About time. I was beginning to think the worst crime tonight was going to involve pickpockets and purse snatchers. Maybe this will give me the rush I seek."
And, at that exact instant, dozens of city blocks from the Batmobile, turbo-engine once again engaged for faster-than-normal nighttime travel…
"That's it, my mindless minions," Dr. Hugo Strange said in that same somniferous voice from the nocturnally eclipsed edges of the closed-for-the-day distributor, legally, of firearms. "Gather up everything we will need to establish my rightful regime over not only Gotham City citizenry, but, much more importantly, over the…"
"Drop the weapons and ammo," the distinctly husky voice stated from somewhere to the rear of the semi-darkened interior of Axis Firearms. One that was not only familiar, but actually welcomed by Dr. Hugo Strange, still lingering in the night-shadows. "If you thugs give up now, there'll be no reason for me to have to hurt you. Your decision."
The darkly-clad, black ski-masked, not surprisingly!, burly B-and-E offenders not only ignored the as-yet-unseen Batman's almost whispered, in a consciously sinister fashion, demand to obey the Dark Knight, but promptly spread out in preparation for a fight not only longed for by the Cowled One, but by the still-hidden Dr. Strange as well.
"Perfect," hissed the sneering Hugo Strange, remaining far removed from the upcoming explosion of vindictive violence.
Meanwhile, back at Arkham Asylum…
"Perfect," insanely said Dr. Jonathan Crane in the obsolescent immensity of the office once occupied, for decades, by Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, currently a fear-racked resident, along with two terrified-over-nothing orderlies, of the gothic institution. He looked over the full-head mask and matching outfit he'd cobbled together through the bastardization of a highly imaginative mingling of a variety of nefarious articles of clothing in preparation for becoming something far greater than his former Self. "And now…I shall be known as…Scarecrow."
Slipping out of the superannuated suit, Dr. Crane a.k.a. Scarecrow donned not only the purposely shabby costume, but, just before tugging the full-head scarecrow mask over his gaunt countenance, the half-face gas-mask used earlier this evil evening was fitted perfectly over his slender nose and forever-frowning, from this moment on, mouth.
Thus, Scarecrow could completely protect himself while using his fear-gas bombs on the rest of the staffers at Arkham Asylum, with the possible exception of Dr. Harleen Quinzel, prior to throwing wide the detention doors of a large number of criminally-insane inmates. But not the super-criminal inmates. For such as they would invariably attempt to usurp his newly established power-base.
"Ha, ha, ha, hahahahahaha!"
"Don't say you weren't warned," maliciously snarled Batman even as he utilized intensely trained-and-executed martial arts moves to not only keep the currently attacking team of darkly clothed/hooded individuals, none of them shorter than 6'6" and none weighing one ounce less than 275 pounds of pumped-up muscle, somewhat off-balance and at bay.
A Bat-gloved fist slammed solidly into the black ski-masked face of one, while a Bat-booted foot planted itself firmly between the spread-legged stance of another, then Batman spun expertly to smash-kick the jaw-line of yet another, during a gray Bat-suited elbow simultaneously impacting with teeth-rattling force against still another…
…all while the blows being landed by black-clothed/masked assailants basically being absorbed by the special Bat-padding within said Bat-suit, and while double-fisted downward blows were also absorbed, a little more easily, by the impenetrable bat-eared cowl covering over half of the head of the billionaire beneath.
Not that the impacts made by black-gloved fists and black-booted feet didn't take at least some toll on the Cowled One. Even bulletproof padding would, after a prolonged period of punches and kicks, permit some to painfully affect skin and muscle within the Bat-suit. Not to mention ever-so-slightly disorienting the Caped Crusader.
Exactly the situation sought by the hidden-in-shadow Dr. Hugo Strange…
"Now, my Monster Men!" loudly prodded the mind manipulative voice of Dr. Strange even as he stepped into the limited light to expose his latest attempt to become the Bat in an ongoing obsessive desire to discover the true identity of the Dark Knight.
His hairless, black bearded, bespectacled head very visible, along with his devilish sneer, somewhere along the line Hugo Strange had traded his borrowed-from-Jeremiah Arkham's designer suit for a non-protectively padded replica of the blue-gray costume so famously worn by the cowl-and-caped hero.
Even as Dr. Strange somehow hypnotically intensified the fighting ferocity of the burly combatants currently standing about the Batman.
"Dismember the Batman! Starting with…his head! Heh, heh, heh, heheheheh, hehhhhh!"
"Hugo Strange…"
No sooner had Batman managed that identity-discerning statement than the so-called Monster Men, in truth larger-than-average male individuals who, until this singularly strange night, had never once considered breaking into a business such as Axis Firearms, let alone battling it out with the likes of the Caped Crimefighter whom they had actually idolized to a certain extent. Something, in point of fact, they would've never ever dreamed of doing…until Dr. Hugo Strange's mystifying methods of mental manipulation.
Something even the Batman had, at least once, experienced years earlier just before apprehending Hugo Strange the very first time.
Seemingly summoning super-human strength, no doubt due to the post-hypnotic self-secreted fight-or-flight rush of adrenaline, the Monster Men, outnumbering the Batman, managed to immobilize muscular arms as well as powerful legs. Thus forcing the Cowled One onto his caped back in the midst of a trashed-by-combative action firearms mart.
Thus was when, at long last, Dr. Hugo Strange approached. One fake Bat-booted foot before the other. Fake Bat-gloved hands held in an almost unmoving manner at fake Bat-suit/Bat-caped sides stretched tightly about a surprising robust body belonging to someone who had, in the years since being sent to the very same institution for the insane where he himself had held a staff-psychiatrist position prior to his intellectual meltdown, done an endless number of push-ups and sit-ups.
Possibly preparing for this once-in-a-lifetime moment.
"Relax, Batman," said the still-sneering Dr. Strange in a tone meant to manipulate the brilliant mind of the billionaire inside the true Bat-suit. "I assure you that, once I learn your well-protected truth, I shall instruct my Monster Men to grant you a quick, even easy, death. Heh, heh, heh."
Stalling for time, as well as mentally chastising himself for not utilizing the antipersonnel accouterments contained within his bright-yellow Bat-belt in favor of hands-on, as well as feet-on, fighting, Batman asked, "Why do you call them 'Monster Men', Hugo?"
Still slowly striding toward the struggling-but-supine Dark Knight Detective, and still sneering insanely, Dr. Hugo Strange said almost lecture-like, "Because, Batman, each of us has a 'monster' somewhere within our thoughts. Our dreams. Our nightmares. Each of us is a hair's breadth from being reduced to bloodthirsty savagery. Even you. You must admit, Batman, that your success and survival as the masked marauder of the middle of any night comes from a place so potentially vile…even evil…that only the pretense of performing as a costumed super-hero separates you from the homicidal likes of the Joker…or even sick-beyond-belief Victor Zsasz. Yes?"
As much as the hero behind the cowl hated to admit it, even to himself!, Dr. Strange spoke at least a little truth in such a psychologically-dissecting statement. Ever since Bruce Wayne had achieved adulthood and applied not only a sizeable amount of his fortune, but an equally considerable amount of time in training/learning, his secretively sole goal was to not just to stop above-average criminals and, most especially, super-criminals, but to do so in such a fashion as to inflict as much mortal pain on said perps as possible. Just short of actually killing in cold-blood.
"So," said Batman, still firmly held flat by the kneeling Monster Men surrounding his muscularly athletic bat-costumed form, "you've developed your quasi-mesmerizing, mind manipulative techniques to the point where you no longer need to rely only upon the weak-minded criminal types as you'd done when I caught up with you so many years ago. Is that it, Hugo? You can actually control normal law-abiding individuals?"
Now kneeling next to the cowl-covered head of the Dark Knight, the madly smirking, bespectacled, bald, fake Bat-suited ex-psychiatrist extraordinaire reached down to do what he'd dreamed of doing for the entire time he'd spent inside a sizeable, dank, padded detention cell in the highest hall of Arkham Asylum.
"Time for the unmasking," said Dr. Strange in a low, barely audible tone as the smirking smile never wavered, even a little, while clutching at the edges of the indigo cowl. "And I'm betting you are one of the few wealthy, as well as young and healthy, businessmen bent upon protecting personal investments within Gotham's sprawling city limits."
Just then, with a jerk guaranteed to fully expose the face so long held hidden from not only Gotham City, but, thanks to internet linked searches, the world…
"Ahhhhh," a broadly grinning, wide-eyed, with frame-free spectacles still propped precariously on a hooked hawkish nose, Dr. Hugo Strange said in a slow, self-satisfied exhale. "I should've guessed. Batman is…Bruce Wayne. Ha, ha, ha, hahahahaha!"
END OF CHAPTER 2