The Cloudburst was being strapped onto the tank. The moment was fast approaching. Gotham was going to drown, and its "savior" would drown with it.
Suddenly, the ground began to tremble. The Arkham Knight looked down at his feet. The rumbling was growing in intensity. Then, a loud boom ripped through the air.
"Sir, a giant tree… monster… thing just ripped through the ground!" the Arkham Knight heard through his intercom. It was from one of the units on Grand Avenue. So Batman was pairing up with Poison Ivy. It seemed the Dark Knight's definition of a "friend" was very loose… how fitting.
Still, it didn't matter. Batman and Ivy could unearth as many weeds as they wanted. The Cloudburst would choke them all. "Cut it down," the Knight ordered.
"Right away, sir." In the background, he heard one of the men call out, "Bring it down! Use the RPG!"
Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Scarecrow stride up to the tank. He stood there with his hands held behind his back, staring at the Cloudburst as though he were admiring a trophy. The Arkham Knight walked over.
"I assume the Batman was the cause of those tremors," Scarecrow said, not taking his eyes off of the Cloudburst.
"He's teamed up with Poison Ivy. They're trying to counter your toxin with her spores," the Knight confirmed. "My men are taking it down as we speak."
"Dr. Isley will not be able to stop me," Scarecrow said matter-of-factly. "But they can certainly try. They can hope. It will make their suffering all the more sweet." Crane was always so obsessed with suffering. He was more focused on the means than the end. There was only one end that the Arkham Knight wanted: putting Batman down like the dog he was. Scarecrow was not getting in the way of that.
The Knight's communicator blipped. He turned and walked away as he reached up to his earpiece. "Speak."
"The prisoner's awake, sir."
The Arkham Knight tensed up, but relaxed. "Keep that door shut until I get there," he ordered. He marched back into the building—a hotel that had been transformed into one of their main bases of operation.
He passed a room that was full of consoles and machinery. A drone operator unhooked his earpiece and stood up. "Sir, Batman just—," he began.
"Send another unit after him," the Arkham Knight barked with a brisk, dismissive wave of his hand. He hurried away before the operator could reply. He didn't slow down until he reached the prisoner's room. The guard was standing in front of it, holding his rifle.
Reaching forward, the Knight undid the electronic lock on the door. He opened the door and entered the room. Behind him, the guard followed and shut the door.
She was sitting on the other end of the couch, gripping the seat on either side of her. Her head was lowered and turned away. Upon seeing her, the guard raised his rifle and pointed the barrel at her.
"Lower your weapon," the Arkham Knight said through gritted teeth. The guard obeyed. Then, the Knight turned his attention back onto the girl.
"Who are you? Why are you here?" he asked. She didn't move or speak. "You didn't have a very good experience with the fear gas. I'm sure you don't want another dose. Talk." Still nothing. The Arkham Knight turned to the guard. "Leave," he demanded. He looked back at the girl as he heard the sound of the door closing behind him.
When they were alone, he took a step forward. His austere, cold posture was dropped.
"Just say something, Jo. Please." Silence.
Suddenly, something crackled. The Arkham Knight looked down at his belt. It was the short-distance radio on his belt. The radio was weak and unreliable, but was the only form of wireless communication the Batman couldn't hack. Thus, it was only used for emergencies.
The Knight quickly pulled the radio up to his face as he listened to the static-filled message.
"—reach! I repeat, we have a security breach! The vault has been compromised!"
"What's going on?" the Arkham Knight demanded.
"Someone's taken the chips!"
"Impossible! I've got an armed unit and four inches of steel guarding them!"
"Th-they're dead, sir. And something cut right through the vault."
"What?" The Knight looked back at the girl. She still hadn't moved. Something didn't seem right. He reached out and touched her shoulder. His hand went right through her. That couldn't be. He had removed the charging disk; she wouldn't be able to phase. The Knight continued to reach through until his hand touched the couch. There was a small object there.
As he wrapped his fingers around it, the image of the girl flickered. When he pulled it out and looked at his hand, the hologram vanished entirely. He held the tiny projector in his palm.
"That's a new one," he muttered irately as he crushed the device in his hand. He had probably been looking at a hologram the entire time. She had been hidden in a corner, cloaked, and slipped out of the room when they entered. But if that was the case, then why didn't his motion tracker pick her up? Then he realized.
"Verlix," he growled under his breath. "He always knew how to ruin my day." He whirled around and stormed out of the room. The guard was started by his sudden appearance.
"The prisoner's gone," the Arkham Knight informed him, throwing the crumpled projector aside. "Tell Scarecrow that the chips have been stolen."
Losing the information chips was not detrimental to their plans. But it provided an inconvenience. Those chips contained backup files of nearly all their schematics—blueprints of the Cloudburst, drones, unit formations, and more. That information was now in enemy hands. No doubt they would be shown to Batman, too. By the time he reached the vault, he knew that it was no use going after her. She was probably long gone. And Verlix probably disabled the tunnel entrance. He had never really asked about the other hidden entrances.
The Arkham Knight walked past the bodies on the ground. One man had been stabbed through the chest. Another had a crushed larynx. The Knight stepped over an arm. 'She's changed,' he thought to himself. 'But then again, so have I.'
He stopped in front of the vault and examined it. A hole had been sliced into the steel door. The edges of the cut were completely smooth. A narrow, high-intensity laser had made them.
"Was it the Batman?" an accompanying soldier asked. "I thought he couldn't get anywhere near Founder's Island."
"No," the Arkham Knight said. "It was her. It was the Specter."
"The… the Specter, sir?"
The Arkham Knight remained silent as he reached out and traced the edges of the cut.
Many years ago…
It was incredible, quite unbelievable. His finger ran along the edge. It was hard to believe that someone had actually snuck into the Batcave and cut through one of Lucius' crates. Hell, these things could survive free falling into concrete! Not to mention these cuts were so precise!
"It was a laser," he heard Bruce say behind him. "High-intensity, but concentrated to a point. Nothing in the crate was damaged."
"So I'm guessing we can cross Catwoman off of the list of suspects," Jason noted as he lifted the damaged lid off of the crate to inspect the contents. "But you can't really call it a list if no one's on it."
"I don't think there's anything in the Batcave Selina would be interested in," Bruce said. "Besides, she doesn't know about this place. That's what worries me: how did they find us?" He was slowly circling the crate, an arm raised. The device on his arm displayed a few moving gauges and a rapidly changing number. "What did they take?"
Jason peered into the crate. He lifted out a rack of Batarangs and placed it on the ground beside him. Then he ran his hand over the remaining gadgets in the box, quickly making a head count. "Just a few Batarangs… the remote control ones, too. Dang, those are the good ones. Everything else is fine. Oh wait, there's a concussion detonator missing too. What do you think they're—What are you doing?" He watched as Bruce took a step back. One of the gauge's markers flew up, and the number rose.
"I'm picking something up around the crate," Bruce answered. "It's incredibly faint, and…" He pressed a few more buttons, but the screen flashed red. "… Unidentifiable. For the time being." He pulled up a new screen. "Barbara."
"Can't a girl go on a Breaking Bad marathon in peace?" a voice answered. After a second, the screen flickered to the image of Barbara Gordon. "I'm just kidding. What's up?"
"We just had a break in," Bruce replied. "The Batcave's alarms went off half an hour ago."
"What? Someone got into the Batcave?" Barbara gawked. "That's… well, did you catch them? Do you want me to come over?"
"They're gone. The scanners haven't picked up anyone else besides us. And there's no need. I've detected some strange remnant in the air left by the thief. I need you to analyze it."
On the screen, Barbara looked off-camera to something. "I just got the data. Let's see… Whoa. Uh… I might need a second with this." She reached forward and began typing away at the keyboard. Then she leaned back and pressed the tips of her fingers against her lower lip as she frowned at her screen. "What is that?" she mumbled under her breath. Then, louder, "Yeah, Bruce, this might take a while. I'll get back with you once I get some results."
"Thanks, Barbara."
"Don't mention it." The screen disappeared.
"Hey, check this out," Jason called out. He had moved away from the crate and was crouched by something on the ground. He picked the thing up and held it up to the light.
"What is it?"
"Our missing concussion detonator," Jason responded. "And it looks like it already exploded." He stood up. "I guess our thief wasn't very careful with it… Or they just didn't know what it was. They probably accidentally detonated it." He shook his head and scoffed. "What a moron."
"That's what set off the alarm," Bruce surmised. "Not their entrance. The thief managed to bypass the Batcave's thermal and motion scanners. Tracking them isn't going to be easy."
"No need," Jason said.
"What do you mean?"
"Take it from me," he said. "When a thief finds a jackpot—which this place most definitely is—they'll come back. We just need to place something bigger and shinier than what they already have in a place we can monitor." He took a quick look around. "It would help if it was somewhere that doesn't scream, 'hey, this is a trap!'"
"We'll have to keep a close eye," Bruce warned. "If the Batcave's security couldn't spot the thief, then there's a good chance we won't either. Once Barbara gets back with answers, we can start taking countermeasures."
Jason reached his arms up and stretched. "Wow, this is actually kinda fun. I can't wait to nab 'em."
"Don't let your guard down, Jason. This intruder could be dangerous."
"How dangerous could they be if they set off a concussion detonator in their own face?"
"That detonator is designed to knock out a fully-grown man. They had one go off and still managed to escape."
"Yeah… well, I could probably do that too."
"There's more in the crate. Do you want to put that to the test?"
"Actually, it's getting pretty late. I think I'm gonna turn in."
Addendum: To clear things up for those who may be confused: we are now jumping many, MANY years back when Jason Todd was still Robin.
Also, no Jason. The remote control Batarangs are not the "good" ones. They are rage-inducing, inverted-controlling little bitches. Clearly, you have not used one. Otherwise you would be tossing them at the thief, shouting, "Take them! Just take them all!"
It's also very disconcerting when I realized that Barbara, at this point, was not yet wheelchair-bound. And Heisenberg can wait. There is justice to be done.