Chapter 4: I am Thunderhead

Doctor Young sat in her apartment recording her notes on her TITAN project about how she found out that it was Joker that gave her the money and helped her get Patient X. but Patient X had another name. One well known to everyone, Bane. As soon as she finished recording her notes her phone on her coffee table started to ring. She flinched when it rang as she slowly reached out for it and picked it up. She slowly placed it next to her ear as her hands shook.

"Hello?" She said in a shaky voice. "Hello? Who is this?" her voice spread with fear and horror

"Please hold for Mr. White. A moment, please." A feminine pitched voice with a city accent said on the other line, along with a short laugh. "Here you go, puddin'." she whispered

Young's eye's widened, fearing who she knew was calling

"Oh god, it can't be!"

"Hello Doc! We need to have a talk." The Joker, the clown prince of crime himself said in a slow, dark angry tone of voice.

"I'm not doing It Joker. Do you hear me!?" She yelled.

"Sorry for not coming over to visit, but a certain bat-brain friend of mine is being a thorn in my side lately."

"Leave me alone!" she pleaded

"Not gonna happen. the point anyways, I want my monsters." He said in a stern voice. "And I want them now."

"I-I sent you back the money! I don't want it." She bargained.

"Do I look like I care about money?" He chuckled. "I just want my monsters Doc. And if you don't give them to me well…it won't be FUNNY!" He snapped. "On second thought, it might be funny." he replied laughing hysterical and downright villainous.

Before she could speak, the door knocked as she quietly dropped the phone on her couch and rushed to the door. She opened the door and sighed in relief to see it was Ethan. She quickly closed and locked

"Hello, sir." She said in a superior tone. "I am sorry. I'm afraid I'm not interested in your offer."

"What's wrong with you?" Ethan asked. "You're acting weird

On the other line the Joker chuckled quietly as he made a 'shh' noise. Ethan looked straight at her face, seeing shivering fear in her eyes

"Give me the phone." He ordered.

Young looked around before she reached for a packet of sticky notes and a pen. She scribbled something down real fast before showing it to Ethan.

'The Joker is on the phone!'

Ethan's eyes suddenly went wide as he looked over at her phone on her desk. He reached over and picked it up as Young started looking at him in shock and absolute fear. He raised his hand silently at her as he talked, inhaling deeply along the way. "Who the hell is this?"

"Congratulations," He said in spokesman's voice. "You are the one hundredth caller and you and your spouse have won a free trip!" On the other line, Ethan heard clapping. "But I'm not afraid that Hawaii isn't on the list. Instead, you get a trip to pain city. Population: two. Hahahaha!"

"And I take it that the brochure's filled with sociopath mimes too?" He asked in sarcasm. "They probably put clowns like you out of business."

"You're really gonna regret this boy. You really think you can beat me?"

"Oh, I'm full of surprises clown shoes." Ethan growled with his voice low. "And if you think I'm afraid of you, you're dead wrong chuckles."

"You know what I think… I think you're afraid to death." He snarled. "It pains you, doesn't it kid? That terrible feeling that aches inside you? Keep this in mind squirt, if I don't get the good Doctor's TITAN formula I will kill you. And I will kill her."

"You won't even lay an eye on her." Ethan snarled

Ethan POV

The line went dead as I looked at Young. She looked scared as tears stained her eyes and her mascara poured down her cheeks, she was definitely terrified. She told me everything. About TITAN, about Bane, about everything else. My mind was taking time processing all of this, I was barely putting all of it in my head. At that moment, I now had one thing on my mind. The only question in my mind that I needed to ask her, and one thing only

"What about Project: Stormwalker?" I demanded, folding my arms. "Was I part of Joker's plan for that, or yours for that matter?"

"No. The commissioners and Warden Sharp were the ones. I was told to hand picked the candidate. I chose you." Young explained, she wasn't even lying through her teeth and I have experience when it comes to liars. Not to mention she was still crying her eyes. "When that accident happened, I was worried about you. I thought... I thought you were going to die. And now Joker expects me to hand him the formula! And if I don't, he'll kill me! I don't know what to do." she sobbed. Then all of a sudden, I felt my whole body going toward her as I wrapping my arms in an embrace

"I won't let him touch you, Pen." I said as she buried her face into my chest. "Trust me on this, alright?" I replied kissing her on the cheek, gently

"But what if Joker makes a move on me?" She said in panic.

"Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on you. And if Joker even thinks about touching you, I'll fry his pale skinned ass …Then again he'll probably get a jolt out of it." I chuckled as I walked away just to sit on the couch, but before I could go Young grabbed my shoulder and held on tight.

"You can't kill him." She said.

"Don't worry, I won't kill him." I implied. "I'll just hurt him and probably kick his ass when I get the chance."

"No, I mean you can't kill him. If you do, you'll only give in to his desire for violence." Young explained

"Why the hell not? This city will be happy when he's gone and everybody will have nothing to-"

"Be afraid of him, right?" Young finished. "That's why I wanted to cure him in the first place, Ethan. Because if he dies, if he's even killed, everyone will be happy for all the wrong reasons."

"So you're telling me that the Joker's plan is to make everyone smile?" I asked sarcastically. "That's a shocker."

"Not like that exactly, but yes. His true desire is to make everyone smile just like him, to death even. He wants everyone to smile and laugh at pain and death just like he does." I raised an eyebrow at her last statement.

"You're saying it's not going end well for everyone to be glad that psychotic killer is dead?" Ethan asked in solid confusion

"I'm saying that you can't just kill people, it's not right." she said

"Penelope, if I were planning to kill him it wouldn't be what you think." I said. "I wouldn't be thinking about killing Penguin, Scarecrow, or Dent. It'll be only him. Just the joker himself if given the chance."

"Just think about what I said." Young whispered. "Please?"

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

Four weeks later

Over the last four weeks, I've been getting the hang of my powers for some time now. So far, I had control over water, ice, and electricity. I could use water to construct weapons like a sword, force field, even a spear and turn it into ice. Turns out the ice can come very handy by having my enemies stuck in ice, whether they're stuck on a wall or on the ground they won't be able to move. I made some ice grenades I only practiced during the morning, but I started off as a vigilante during the day.

We were all in the living room watch T.V. mostly kids shows or morning news. Tonight though was a rather interesting as Vickie Vale stood outside of a burning building.

"I'm here at Black Gate Prison where a fire has broken out and has spread throughout the area. Only about five security guards were killed during the evacuation and the prisoners are now being transported to Arkham asylum."

I raised an eyebrow and sat up straight as I listened to the rest of her report.

"And in other news The Joker has been found and arrested by the Batman and is personally taking him to Arkham Island."

My eyes started to go wide as she finished the rest of her report. Luckily I was at Young's office the whole time while waiting for her. I paced around back and forth waiting for her, until the asylum alarm blared red which could mean one thing: full alert. Without further ado, I unzip my jacket revealing a black sleeve less top with a yellow thunderbolt insignia logo on the middle of my chest. I took off my the rest of my clothes, that showed me in a black bodysuit with blue insets on the legs and chest. I grabbed out a pair of black gloves a small thunderbolt logo on both of them, donning them on my hands once I took them out from my jacket. I also wore a domino mask that covered my eyes and cheekbones. After I donned my costume, I transformed my body into electricity as I left Young's office undetected using the security systems in Arkham. Now I had to do is track where Penny went, I just have to exactly where. All I hope is that Joker hasn't got her yet. Knowing Joker as everyone else would, he whacked some lousy prison guard and got out of his handcuffs. And as for the Batman, he's probably tracking Joker right now. And that's a good thing. I jumped out of the camera with my body shifting back to human, while I noticed two inmates beating a prison guard to death. I zapped one of them from behind while I broke the other one's arms, slamming him into the ground before punching him in the face as he went unconscious.

"Hey man, you alright?" I said the beaten guard while kneeing down on one knee. "Hey, hey." I snapped my fingers twice, checking his pulse along the way. "He's out cold. I can't have him be out here." I carried him up off the floor, taking him to a nearby office as I laid him down on the office chair. 'Now that this guy is taken care of, it's time to find Young.' I thought in my head continuing on finding her, until I saw a seven man group of inmates having me completely surrounded

"Well, well. What do we have here?" said one of the inmates with the rest of them glared at me. "Some costumed freak who thinks he's somethin'?" the same inmate said carrying a lead pipe while the rest of group formed a circle around me. "Just who you think you 'pose to be, anyway pal?"

"You want to known who I am?" I started coolly as I caused a spark to the fire sprinklers, causing the fire sprinklers to spring water around us. My hands started blowing cool air as I narrowed my eyes at the inmate, while my eyes sparked with electricity. An ice staff formed in my left and right hand as one of the tried to get the drop on me, only for yours truly to hit the inmate on his stomach then bashed it on his head in the process which was sparkled electrically. "I am Thunderpiercer!" I finished as I slammed my ice staff down on the ground while it sent everyone flying back, but not before each and every last one of their bodies covered in ice which left the head and arms exposed only. After I saw they were frozen in place, I went on ahead to find Young in this chaos and destruction