Night Terrors
Chapter 2: Day into Night
New York City, Rooftops, Night
The roofs of Manhattan were normally a quiet, calm place in the frenzy of the city's night life, but this was not the case tonight. The roofs were active with the work of the Quarrymen hastily installing portable anti-aircraft guns in anticipation of the gargoyles tonight, and Scarecrow was watching with a morbid curiosity, surprised they would go to such lengths against, what Crane thought, were urban legends at best. Their leader, John Castaway, was certainly a bit heavy-handed in his approach to these legends.
"Have you ever actually caught one of these gargoyles?" Crane asked one of the Quarrymen.
"They're darn difficult to do so, being as smart as people at least."
"So you've observed them then. Interesting…"
Crane mused over the prospect of a new species he could experiment with fear on. He relished the thought, believing experimenting with fear on them would surely validate his work with the other scientists. He'd be a pioneer in the field. But that was if they were actually real, and Crane had to admit, they were sorely lacking in irrefutable evidence of their existence. Mostly hearsay and claims from the Quarrymen, who seemed to be terrified of them. Crane couldn't confirm anything about these gargoyles from their accounts while they seemed superstitious. However, the number of claimed witnesses did lend some credence to those claims. Crane looked up from his thoughts as one of the Quarrymen shouted, firing at something on a nearby roof.
"Was it a gargoyle?" One of the Quarrymen asked.
"I'm sure it was! It had big bat wings!"
"B-bat wings?" Crane asked, hesitantly. He knew of one thing that scared him, and it was Batman.
"Feeling scared, Scarecrow?" A Quarryman taunted.
"Not of gargoyles my friend, but something a trifle more real."
Suddenly a brief yell was heard, and a Quarryman was down, Goliath standing over him, roaring in anger as he charged another Quarryman, intent on stopping this nightly habit of placing anti-aircraft guns to try to kill the gargoyles with. Crane saw Goliath in all his righteous fury, even as three Quarrymen ran at him with their technological hammers to try to strike a blow.
"You're not the Batman." Crane muttered to himself, "Time to go in either case. Now that I know what I'm looking for, it's best to work alone, rather than with goons liable to destroy my test subjects."
Goliath noticed Scarecrow, but was busy fighting the Quarrymen by himself, too much so to pursue the lanky figure, even as he struck out at the one leading this operation. Meanwhile, Scarecrow was scrambling down the fire escape of the building, spotting a car waiting below. He suspected it was for a plainclothes police officer or a detective.
"Damn it!" Scarecrow exclaimed, "I'm trapped…wait, what's this? It's empty. They must be inside the building."
Scarecrow quickly climbed down and confirmed what he had seen to be true. The keys were still in the ignition as well, but then, Crane prided himself as not being some common thief. He ignored this and quickly ran off down into the alleys, as up on the roof, Elisa Maza came out of the stairwell to see Goliath finishing off the last of the Quarrymen, knocking them all out.
"I'm going to need more handcuffs for this one." Elisa joked.
"Yes…there was one more, a man dressed as a scarecrow, but I was preoccupied." Goliath replied.
"A scarecrow, huh? That sounds about right. The precinct had a report about a Quarrymen gathering in Madison Square that a scarecrow was seen at."
"So they are working with the Quarrymen then. Not for long." Goliath stated, prepared to leap off of the building to glide around and see if he could spot the Scarecrow.
"Be careful Goliath. The reports said he terrified the Quarrymen. That's not easy to do to some of them."
"Whatever scared them won't scare me away, Elisa."
"Right."
Goliath then leapt off the side of the building, quickly gliding out to try to spot the Scarecrow, unwittingly going the wrong way to find him.
[Story Divide]
New York City, Quarrymen Rally Hall, Night
The night conceals many things, as it was doing to conceal a lone figure waiting on top of the building, with a listening device attached to the sky light, listening in on the conversations inside. There were several so far, but not many worth the effort yet. Still, he remained vigilant. He had seen the police reports that the Quarrymen had recently been in contact with what he presumed to be Scarecrow. A couple hours on the streets had led him this far. It was up to how things faired here that determined the rest.
"Are you sure it was wise to let that…scarecrow join in on the hunt tonight?"
"He showed interest. And he might be an edge against the gargoyles."
The figure's eyes narrowed. He had heard them refer to gargoyles quite a lot in his listening in. He wasn't sure what it meant, but the term scarecrow was enough proof they'd know where Crane was. He removed the listening device and put it up into his utility belt. Down below, the Quarrymen continued their discussion.
"He's a freak, like the gargoyles! I say we can't trust him anymore than we could trust one of them!"
"You might be right."
Suddenly, the crash of glass and the rush of air were heard, and descending from the ceiling was none other than Batman, in his intimidating glory. He landed deftly on the ground, kneeling, cape drawn around him, before standing up, and staring fiercely at the two Quarrymen he heard talking. He was surrounded by several members, but he felt no fear. They were untrained, superstitious thugs at best. Nothing he couldn't handle.
"What the hell? A Gargoyle?"
"No, it's some guy in a cape! Get him!"
The group rushed the lone hero, hammers and fists swinging through the air. Batman quickly darted to the left to avoid one hammer, grabbing that man by the wrist and elbow, and hurling him over his head, into three other goons, knocking them all down and out. Another Quarryman tried to bring his fist to the back of Batman's head, connecting, Batman grunting out. This told the remaining Quarrymen he was not invincible, and they renewed their efforts, but Batman easily dodged an attack from the front, striking the man in the gut with his knee, then throwing him to the ground. One of the thugs attempted to flee, only for Batman to hurl a batarang at him, colliding with his head and knocking him out. Soon there was only one thug left, and that is how Batman wanted it. The thug backed away slowly, scared, as he should be. Batman then lunged for him, startling the goon, as he grabbed him by the shirt.
"Where is Scarecrow?" Batman demanded in his dark, serious voice.
"A-ahh! That scarecrow's out on a hunt with some of the other Quarrymen! I don't know where they went! Honest!"
"Not good enough!" Batman demanded.
"Okay! Okay! Clarkeson and Main! On the roofs!"
"Better."
Batman then punched the thug in the face, knocking him out, and likely breaking his nose. He then dropped the thug, and reached for his grapple gun to leave by the way he came in. As he did, he thought about Gotham City, worrying about how Nightwing, Robin, and Batgirl were handling affairs in Gotham without him. Even as Batman fired his grapple out through the skylight, towards where he remembered the edge of the roof was, he mused over the wisdom of his decision to come to New York to capture Scarecrow alone. He had reasoned then, that he was best suited for it due to having built up a tolerance to Scarecrow's older fear gas formulas, and the fact that Richard Grayson, Tim Drake, and Barbara Gordon each had something they feared strongly that they hadn't conquered. Batman pulled on the line of the grapple to test and confirm that it had latched onto the edge of the roof before using the device to pull himself out of the hall, quickly making his way towards Clarkeson and Main.
[Story Divide]
Gotham City, Batcave, Night
Richard Grayson sighed in frustration, seated in the chair in front of the infamous Batcomputer. Garbed as Nightwing, he listened to Tim and Barbara bicker a bit, mostly due to Tim's young, girl-hating age. Grayson thought to himself about the task ahead of them, and wondered why exactly Bruce had chosen to go to New York alone. True, he had a cover in going to see Dominique Destine on a business deal, but didn't Bruce trust him to be able to handle Scarecrow? After all, Bludhaven was closer to New York than Gotham. He could've easily tracked down Crane and brought him in. Instead, Nightwing was currently leading this threesome in capturing the remaining lunatics in Gotham.
"Who does Bruce think he is, anyway?" Grayson muttered.
"What do you mean?" Drake asked him.
"He went to New York, alone, to capture Scarecrow. Does he think he doesn't have fears or something?" Grayson asked bitterly.
"So what you're asking is, why didn't he ask you to do it?" Barbara chimed in.
"…yeah, I guess that's what I mean…" Grayson sighed.
"Cheer up, he trusted us to handle Gotham while he was away, didn't he?" Drake asked.
"Yeah, I guess so…"
Grayson didn't have much time to think about it, as the computer displayed the Batsignal emblem on it. That meant that the Batsignal on Gotham Precinct was on.
"Time to go to work." Drake stated, putting on his domino mask.
"Right. Robin, you're sitting in Batgirl's lap in the Batmobile."
"Awww maaan, REALLY?" Drake asked in despair.
"It's a two seater." Grayson replied.
[Story Divide]
New York City, Clarkeson and Main Rooftops, Night
Demona scowled as she watched the police scowering the roofs for evidence. She had used her police scanner in her Nightstone headquarters to learn that the Quarrymen had been found here with heavy weaponry. Demona had come to try to kill some of the Quarrymen with her laser rifle, only to find the police had arrived first to arrest them. The human who had turned Goliath and the clan against her, Elisa Maza, was amongst them. How easy it would be to kill her now with a shot from the shadows of the neighboring roof. Easy, but not tonight, she had other plans for the detective, to let Goliath KNOW who had killed her, as punishment for betraying her feelings. After all those long years waiting for Goliath in his stone sleep, all the effort to break the curse, and he betrayed her. She loathed Goliath now, rather than love him. Her thoughts were clouded by her anger, but came into focus when she saw that man with the black cape and cowl leap from another rooftop down towards the one the police were still examining.
"Hold it!"
"Freeze!"
Batman ignored the warnings from the police, standing up, cloak around him, as he seemed to glide towards them. Demona was puzzled by the strange man, who seemed to disguise himself as a gargoyle, and showed no fear of humans and their firearms.
"Who are you?" Elisa Maza asked of the Caped Crusader.
"I'm Batman." He answered, in his dark voice.
As he spoke, Demona began to wonder where she had heard that voice before…
"The urban legend of Gotham City? In New York?" Elisa asked.
"I'm after Jonathan Crane. Also known as Scarecrow."
"So that weirdo dressed as a scarecrow was one of yours." Elisa replied.
"You've seen him?"
"Not personally, but he's been seen working with the Quarrymen."
"I know. I also happen to know where they've been getting their weapons." Batman stated.
This got the interest of the police officers.
"We've been trying to stop them from obtaining these things for months. They recklessly endanger the public with them. Care to share?"
"Nightstone Unlimited. Their leader, John Castaway, has been using a false identity to buy weapons in bulk from Nightstone Unlimited."
This made Demona growl in anger. Her weapons had been used to attack the gargoyles? She wouldn't stand for this. She had to find Castaway and kill him now. But how did this man find that out before she did with all her databases?
"Then we need to question Dominique Destine about her involvement with the Quarrymen." An officer remarked.
"I don't think she's in the loop. All the sales went directly through the head of military projects, James Heinrich."
"How did you find all of this out?" Elisa asked, "And what proof do you have?"
"I have my ways. As for proof, all you need to do is have Destine check her records for sales to a James Crestmere. Supposedly a Colonel for West Point."
This gave Demona enough information to stop the Quarrymen from obtaining more weapons from her behind her back. She had a name now, and a traitor to deal with. She quickly turned and ran off, moving to climb higher to glide away. This was not entirely unnoticed…
"I'm done here." Batman stated.
"Hold it! You're still a vigilante, and you're under arrest!" Elisa Maza stated, aiming her gun at Batman.
Batman responded by throwing down a gas pellet, quickly engulfing him in a thick smoke. Officers fired into the smoke, but hit nothing, and when it cleared, Batman was gone.
"Damn it!" An officer shouted.
Meanwhile, Demona had gotten to the roof of the building, and was making her way to the edge to leap off, when Batman stepped in front of her from the side, staring her down. He had a batarang ready, and she had her laser rifle ready just as quickly. They faced off, ready to fight each other, each taking the other in. It was a matter of seconds before one of them made the first move…