For once I was glad to see the look of sick satisfaction on Jonathan Crane's face. The expression of glorious victory as he reached out to grab me by the scruff of the neck and drag me into his classroom was strangely amusing.
I held the vacant expression on my face as the doors closed behind us.
"I didn't believe the Parliament at first when they told me who you were, but I must admit it explains a lot," Crane said as he guided me down the stairs, assuming he'd just successfully dosed me with his fear toxin.
"Dick Grayson, slacker by day, hero by night," He chuckled to himself, "You probably can't understand a word I'm saying. Though it's impressive how you've kept so calm, the last person I did this to... Well, you know, you were there."
This wasn't the Crane I knew; this man was full of humour, he relished in what he was doing. Chaos was his true calling, and it made him disgustingly happy.
"What I'd pay to see what you're seeing right now, to experience your fears, to find out what makes someone like you tick! I get plenty of one on one time with criminals, but I've yet to have my way with a vigilante. But alas, the Parliament wants you dead, so dead you shall be."
Crane stopped as we reached his office door and rounded to face me, looking very closely into my eyes. I stayed very still, staring blankly into space.
"Curious, I've never had results like this," Crane said, turning to unlock the office door, "You never cease to amaze me, Mr Grayson."
"You know Professor, I was just thinking the same thing," I just about caught the horrified expression on Crane's face as I hammered a fist into his crooked nose and shattered his glasses.
His body flat to the door, I kicked him hard in the stomach, sending him careering into his office, landing face down on his desk, sending the pieces of his chess set scattering all over the room.
I couldn't give the worm a second to compose himself, so I grabbed him, slid him over the desk and threw him into his chair, punching him in the face again for good measure.
Stunned, he tried to spray another burst of the toxin at me, not that it would have done anything. I ripped the arm of Crane's shirt and jacket, revealing the compact device he'd used to kill Clancy Wolfman and Roland Daggett... And god knows who else.
The professor let out a pathetic yelp as I tore it off and smashed it under my foot. The office had a view out on to the courtyard, so I shut the curtains with one hand on Crane's throat to keep him from escaping, without his precious toxin he was next to useless in a fight.
Using the length of plastic tubing from Crane's device, I tied his wrists to the arms of his chair and moved to the other side of the desk to find something to gag him with.
"They know who you are, they know everything, they'll come after you. Killing me won't solve anything," Crane pleaded, his tone switching drastically. He almost sounded too pitiful; something wasn't right. I heard light footsteps behind me in the classroom, and the distinct cocking of a gun, of course, Crane had on-site security - probably another one of the Talons.
My face didn't betray to Crane that I'd heard a thing, I kept my eyes firmly fixed on him and placed my hand on the glass paperweight sitting on Crane's post-it pile, waiting for the inevitable, "Don't move!"
The words had barely passed the gunman's lips as I spun on the spot and shattered the paperweight in the middle of his forehead. The man, who looked no older than a student, was knocked out instantly without getting off a shot. Good thing too, the last thing I wanted was a shooting on the college campus.
"Member of your after-school club?" I asked, darting around the desk and pinning Crane back to the chair by his throat.
"You could say that," The professor croaked through his tightening windpipe, "The Court aren't the only ones with Talons."
"You should call yours claws, to avoid the lawsuit," I joked, squeezing him more tightly.
I let him go after freaking him out for another second. His own 'Talons', that probably meant he had more goons on campus, which didn't leave me much time to extract him. I sent messages to Barbara and Steph to get to the university and bring their costumes and mine ASAP. A middle of the day extraction was going to be tricky but not impossible.
First I had to drag the unconscious goon inside and bar the office door, which was easy enough to do with Crane's large desk.
"How are you going to explain this if anyone catches you?" Crane asked, sounding more confident.
"I'll say you gave me a bad grade and I snapped," I replied, "Could you shut up a minute I'm trying to think."
"No, I don't think I will, Mr Grayson. You are finished, and you know it," Crane cackled.
"I don't know anything, as you've so often reminded me in class, sir," I said with a patronising smirk.
Crane sneered and looked down to the floor to see if his goon was stirring. I checked him myself, mainly to see if he was mouldy like one of the Talons, which he wasn't. For all intents and purposes, he was a normal human. A normal human with a student's lanyard.
The guy's name was Thomas Holmes, the ID in his wallet told the same story. It took me a minute to realise, but I recognised him, he'd been at the frat party I attended with Nate and Emily all those months ago - Nate introduced me to him. Either this was an elaborate cover, or Scarecrow was recruiting students on campus. I had a strong feeling that it was the latter.
I picked up Tom's gun and started to dismantle it, "Been recruiting from the local frats?" I asked Crane.
Crane smiled, "Their minds are surprisingly malleable, they make useful pawns for my research."
"Pawns huh, you do love your chess don't you," I said, gesturing to the pieces scattered about the floor.
Crane smiled widely, "Do you play?"
"I do, but I prefer chequers, much less complicated."
"I shouldn't have expected any less," He sneered.
"I take it since you're recruiting kids, the Court isn't letting you have at their Talons then? I thought they'd give you anything you wanted; they're big fans of your product."
"I don't rely on them for everything; it's nice to have some independence. And what they don't know can't hurt them," Crane laughed.
"Hmm," I began, "You seen to be contradicting yourself a little, I thought the Court knew everything?"
"I was being hyperbolic," Crane said sharply.
Things started to fall into place in my head; Crane wasn't just serving the Court, something else was going on here. The Court didn't like chaos, the Talons' whole purpose was to keep order, the antithesis of the Scarecrow's brand of evil.
"Daggett wanted to be mayor, correct?" I questioned, stroking my chin thoughtfully and sitting on the desk - staring at Crane.
"Correct," Crane smiled, intrigued by my sudden interest. I was starting to realise how much he liked to brag; I could use it to my advantage.
"So, he got you in with the Owls, to use their distribution network for the pharmaceuticals you were developing together."
Crane's smile widened further, "Very good."
"I have my moments," I nodded, then continued, "The Court was under the impression that you'd be pushing Vertigo, and creating a drug epidemic to sway the people's faith in Mayor Chesterfield which is what Daggett thought too. But the stuff I took from Clancy Wolfman was way more than just Vertigo; you were planning to bring the city to its knees with this stuff."
"Bravo, bravo, I'd clap my hands if they weren't tied," Crane said, licking his lips, "Which is why I had to take the greasy biker out of the equation when he spoke to you."
"Once the Court found out what the drugs could do, they had you making it for them, and you complied so they wouldn't look too closely at your plans. But they found out, and you put on your little sissy act and blamed the whole thing on Daggett, so they got you to kill him to prove your loyalty..." I said, realising that I was missing something, "But why would you want to have the city gripped with fear? You're a lover of chaos, sure, but you're too methodical just to be an anarchist."
"Why indeed, I guess we'll never know," Crane sighed with a comedic shrug, "You know, Mr Grayson, if you'd applied some of this deductive reasoning in my classes, you could have been quite the student."
"Maybe your replacement will be a little nicer, and inspire it out of me."
Someone knocked at the office door, "You in there?" It was Steph.
"Yeah hang on a sec," I said, sliding the desk out of the way and letting her inside, she was in full costume and holding out a bag which I took, "How'd you get in here?"
"Got changed in the bushes and used the roof, why the hell have you got this creep tied up?" Steph asked, looking Crane up and down.
I threw my jacket over Crane's head so he wouldn't watch me getting changed, and started to undress, "He's been involved from the start, he's the Scarecrow."
"No fricking way, I knew he was a douche but holy hell!" She exclaimed, "Got anything useful out of him?"
I pulled the hood up and put on the mask before removing the jacket from Crane's head, "I was actually in the middle of deconstructing the Professor's plan when you arrived actually, wasn't I, sir?"
"Yes, he really is outstanding you know," Crane said sarcastically, "Very good at wasting time, which was exactly what I needed."
"Was?" Steph said before I could.
Crane smiled his sickening smile once more mumbling, "Indeed," as he threw his body weight to the right, toppling the chair and hitting the floor with an incredible thud.
"Get down!" I shouted, pulling Spoiler down to the ground as a hail of gunfire shattered the windows and shredded through the curtains. Pockets of light grew wider and wider as the curtains were torn to pieces by the unending barrage of bullets.
A shooting on campus, precisely what I didn't want - I had to shut this down fast.
A ricochet pinged off my shoulder armour, "Stay low!" I shouted to Steph who was under my arm, "I gotta grab Tom," Realising that the bullets were bouncing all over and Tom wasn't wearing any body armour.
"The goon? Are you crazy? Don't you die for him!" Spoiler screeched.
When I got to Tom, a pool of red had already spread across his chest; he was dead. Almost as soon as I'd turned back, the bullets stopped, and four masked gunmen were pulling Crane through the window and fleeing the scene.
There was no time to lose; we had to get after them. Without having to prompt her, Steph was already on her feet and in pursuit by the time I'd jumped through the window and into the courtyard. Students were running and screaming in all directions, and someone had pulled the fire alarm.
The gunmen turned back to face us as Crane vanished into the frenzied crowd.
"Get after him, I'll take these idiots," I shouted as I readied my escrima sticks. Steph fired her grapple gun at the building on our left and zipped out of sight, bullets trailing close behind her. I sped right at them and hurled a smoke pellet at my feet.
They fired aimlessly into the smoke as I laid flat on the ground, waiting until they needed to reload before I struck. The replacement cartridge hadn't left the first gunman's belt before I roundhouse kicked the SMG straight from his hands and jammed my escrima stick into his throat and tazed him unconscious.
The second gunman hit the ground with a simple sweep of the leg and suffered the force of two taser blasts to the chest.
A campus security officer appeared and wasted no time shooting down gunman three, but instead of going for number four, he aimed his next shots at me, allowing the fourth gunman to escape into the building. I had to get rid of this goddamned red hood.
I rolled carefully to avoid accidentally drawing the security officer's fire into the crowd. Instead of knocking him out, I politely grabbed his gun and ejected the clip.
"I'm here to help, I swear," I explained, dropping his gun on the ground, "I'm going after that other gunman, I'd appreciate it if didn't shoot me in the back."
Whether it was what I said, or just the fact that he couldn't get his gun ready in time, the Security Guard didn't fire another shot as I burst through the doors and into the building. Unfortunately, the gunman was waiting for me, leaping out from a classroom door and opening fire. With a little bit of luck and an enormous dive, I got to one side without being shot.
For my next trick, I tossed three Batarangs roughly in the guy's direction, confusing him enough to dive down the corridor and take cover behind a water cooler which was immediately shot to pieces. It didn't matter though, because as soon as he stopped to reload, he'd be finished. At least I thought so...
The shooting stopped, and there was a huge thud. As I looked out to examine what was going on, I was confused to see that the gunman had disappeared. Assuming he'd taken cover in the nearest classroom, I proceeded toward it with caution.
Taken aback, as I opened the door, I saw the gunman in a heap on the floor, pinned to the ground by Tyreese, one of the guys from my class. He'd pulled off the assassin's balaclava and was looking at me in total confusion.
"Bro, what the hell is going on, did you do this?" He asked, sweating with panic.
"No," I told him, "I'm trying to stop these guys."
"But... They're students, this guy's name is Jamie Leek, he's a buddy of mine," Tyreese explained, "He's not answering me, it's like he's hypnotised!"
"Here," I threw Tyreese a pair of zip ties and picked up Jamie's SMG, tearing it to pieces, "Tie his hands and feet, and hold him til the cops get here, I know who did this and I'm gonna get him."
I met Spoiler on the roof of the main admin building. The GCPD had swarmed the campus, and we'd lost all sight of Crane. Having exchanged what information we had, the two of us ran to the edge where Barbara had told me to be. Sure enough, she'd parked the Batmobile at the foot of the building with the roof open.
In turn, Steph and I grappled the edge of a nearby flagpole and dropped into the back of the tank-like behemoth.
Batgirl turned in her seat and held out her hand and greeted Steph, "Nice to finally meet you, Spoiler," before turning to me and saying, "What the hell did you do this time?"
"You aren't going to believe this, but my professor is the Scarecrow," I explained, pulling a face that's intent was to say 'please believe me'.
"Jonathan Crane, the criminal psychologist from Arkham?" Barbara frowned.
"That's the one," I said, sighing with exhaustion. I wasn't physically tired, but my brain had seriously had enough.
"Makes sense, he probably orchestrated the breakout on behalf of the Court of Owls," She said rationally.
"Yes to the first part," I said, "But I don't think he's beholden to the Owls. I was interrogating him before those goons with guns showed up, he's been recruiting students and trying to spread his fear toxin through the city. I couldn't figure him out at first, but I think he's going to try and take down the Court and seize their power for himself."
"So we're stuck in the middle of a supervillain civil war, great..." Barbara sighed.
"Not yet," I told her, "Far as I can tell, they don't know Crane is going to turn on them just yet."
"That gives us a little time to plan. We'll go back to the cave once I've got confirmation from the GCPD that the situation here is under control," Barbara said.
I explained that the gunmen were brainwashed students, and filled in any gaps I could for Barb who was basically interrogating me with Steph butting in periodically to reaffirm things I was sure she already knew. I'd just finished explaining everything I'd gotten from Crane when the police radio blurted out, "All units, we have the suspects in custody. Perform final sweeps. Over."
We sat for a few more minutes listening in to the radio conversations; the police confirmed that there had only been one casualty, Tom, and that there were only minor injuries to a few other students.
With the knowledge that the police were handling the situation and that we were no longer needed, we sped off to the cave.
"Dick, would you do me a favour?" Barb said, turning her head slightly but keeping her eyes fixed on the road.
"Sure?" I replied.
"Throw out that costume, they're going to blame this whole thing on the Red Hood, and I'm sick of hearing about him."
"As soon as we get to the cave, I'm burning the damned thing."
Steph's eyes were wide, and her jaw had dropped in awe of the sight before her. It wasn't something I thought too much about having grown up around it, but the Batcave really was something spectacular to behold. She'd stepped out of the Batmobile before me and was rooted to the spot, I gave her an encouraging nudge in the back, and we began to stroll forward.
"I knew you guys were kitted out," Steph whispered, "But this is crazy!"
"Come on; we've got a job to do here," I replied, giving her another nudge, "Follow Batgirl."
Steph whacked my hand away, "Is that a plane?"
"Yeah," I sighed.
"How come you don't have one?"
"Because my loft has limited space, might be a little suspect if the roof of the apartment block had a jet parked on top of it..."
"But you can fly it?" She continued.
"Not well," I said, recalling an unfortunate incident where I ended up having to be rescued from the sea after losing control, "Am I gonna have to push you all the way?"
"You should at least get a car."
"And put it where?"
Steph shrugged and started moving a little quicker, "Do I get a car?"
I didn't answer.
Barbara gestured Steph and I forward toward the control centre of the cave, which housed the Batcomputer and various other technologies, and disappeared into the suit vault to change out of her gear.
Bruce lurched over the Batcomputer in full costume, staring down at papers he had spread over the large keyboard. Steph's manner seemed to completely change on seeing him, her walk became much more formal, and her mouth looked like it was sewn shut.
I pulled up a chair for Steph and myself and sat down facing the Batcomputer while Bruce finished reading whatever he was reading.
"Uhm, what are you reading?" I asked, tilting my head to try and see what he was looking at.
"It's a map of the Gotham Sewage System," Bruce explained.
Confused, I said, "Can't you see one of those online?"
"This one is from last year," He said, holding up one of the sheets, but not turning around, "This is from 1962," He said, holding up the other.
"Planning a historical trip?"
Ignoring the joke, Bruce explained, "The Talons seem to be using the sewers to move around, I'm looking for discrepancies in the maps."
"You think they're hiding down there?"
"It's a possibility," Bruce replied.
"So we are planning a trip," I sighed. Steph visibly shuddered at the thought of going into the sewers again.
Finally turning around, Bruce began, "Not necessarily. This Talon, the one that claims to have a connection with you, I think we may be able to use that to our advantage."
The idea of facing him again made my stomach tighten, he didn't scare me, but what he represented was something I wasn't sure I was ready to face up to.
"You want to draw him out?" Steph asked, surprising me.
Bruce turned to look at her, "Yes. If we can track him back to his hideout, and gain a better understanding of the organisation, we're one step closer to taking them down."
"There's another complication, The Scarecrow is aiming to take over the court," I explained.
"Yes, Jonathan Crane, I know," Batman said, of course, he already knew, "I'm going to visit the Commissioner tonight and gather intel on today's incident."
Barbara appeared, now wearing a grey tracksuit, "The news is treating it as a failed act of domestic terrorism. No mention of the Red Hood as yet, but these are just initial reports. Can you get rid of that suit now?"
"Yes, boss, right away," I said, standing up.
My earpiece began ringing; the name 'Melissa' appeared on my heads up display. Hopefully, she was calling with good news, but considering the last time I'd seen her, I doubted it.
"Hey," I greeted softly, making my way toward the suit vault.
Melissa didn't speak, but someone else did. The Talon, Richard, spoke, "Hello, Nightwing, I hear you survived our encounter."
"You," I growled, turning back around to look at Batman and the group, "What have you done? Where's Melissa?"
"She's perfectly safe," Richard said, "I've taken her home, and I'd like you to come and collect her. You have one hour before she meets the same fate as her father."
"Your problem is with me, leave her out of this!"
"Good try. You have an hour. If you bring anyone with you, I promise, she will die." The line went dead.
"Dick, what's wrong?" Barbara asked, approaching me.
"The Talon, he's taken Melissa."
"Oh my god," She gasped, "I'll gear up, we'll get her back, Dick."
"No, I have to go alone, if he sees anyone else, he's going to kill her," I said, and stormed toward my Wingcycle.
"One of us should go with you, at least," Barbara pleaded, giving chase.
I stopped and turned back to face her, "No, Barbara, I can't risk it."
"It's a trap; you know that," Bruce said, striding towards me, "Do what you think is right, but don't go in there without a plan."
Barbara looked at Bruce with astonishment, "Bruce, we can't just let him..."
"Extract Melissa's mother, please," I said, "When I get her out of this, we're going to have to get them out of the city, it isn't safe for them here anymore."
"Metropolis," Batman said with a nod.
I nodded in agreement and mounted the Wingcycle, putting on a fake smile for Barbara which wouldn't have fooled her for a second, "I'll be back before you know it."