I interrupt your (un)scheduled fanfiction to give you something that I wrote in a frenzy after having a dream that followed the same plot. The only differences between this and my dream were that it was Daleks instead of the Joker and Class 1-A Instead of the Batfam, but everything else went almost exactly the same way.
Warning: Swearing, Death, Gore
It happened during a fight against the Joker, because it was always him. The psycho clown had had a stroke of genius and decided that instead of poisoning the water supply or kidnapping a few random people to use his Laughing Gas on; he would just hire a few helicopters and pour the gas over the entire city. And through the pipes in every building he could get into. Which was most of them. Fuck Gotham architecture.
Bruce hadn't figured out what was happening until it was too late. Joker hadn't done anything to mock Batman like he normally would. Or even to give him clues as to what was going on. Hadn't painted his face on the helicopters. Hadn't broken into the news station to make a 'weather report'. What he had done was steal and break as many gas masks as he could, which was a lot.
It was too planned and sanely –for mass murder- worked out to be the Joker. It wasn't until half the city was infected that they realised that the gas he was using was mixed with Scarecrow's Fear Gas. Meaning Crane was the mastermind behind it.
That also meant that other than people laughing to death, the Bat-Clan had to also worry about civilians ripping each other to shreds. Literally.
By the time they had formulated a plan, the entire city was infected and dying. The last thing the mayor had been able to do was close down the city so that no one could enter or escape. Including the Bats. All of the other heroes that could fly and were immune to the gas were currently on the other side of the galaxy helping the Green Lanterns. Bruce would have gone with them if he hadn't broken his arm the week before.
The plan was as follows:
1. Find out where Joker and Scarecrow are operating from
2. Send one group to break in and capture them
3. Send another to destroy as munch of the unused/stored gas as possible
4. Have a third group stay at the Batcave to find a cure
5. Mass-produce the cure and send everyone out to administer it
They had already completed step one. They were stationed in the old Drake mansion. Tim nearly choked when Bruce told them and Jason would have laughed if they weren't facing the apocalypse.
Group One consisted of Cass, Damian, Dick and Jason. They would travel together with Group Two –Duke, Kate, Selina and Steph- until they reached the woods behind the Drake Estate, where they would separate to perform their tasks.
Thankfully, the woods were unpopulated and therefore, there wasn't any gas dropped there. Just in case though, the groups wore their re-breathers.
Dick and Selina lead the groups, with Tim on the coms for directions. It was eerily silent. Either the animals weren't affected, they were so afraid of what was happening that they had retreated to their nests and hollows, or, they had all killed each other in a fear-fuelled frenzy. Damian would probably kill Joker and Scarecrow if it turned out to be the third.
While they snuck into the house through a back window, Tim informed everyone through the coms that a fifth of Gotham's population was dead, and the numbers were rising. Not great. Worse than most of Joker's other attacks combined. They needed to finish this fast.
The four separated in the hallway, reporting their locations through the coms. About three minutes in, when Jason was checking the fifth lounge room he had found –by the way, fuck rich people-, his com cut out.
He raised his hand to his helmet and took it off -quickly putting a re-breather in its place- to see what was wrong. The whole thing was offline. There was no insane laughter so joker hadn't hacked them, not that he'd be able to hack them in the first place. it was most likely an EMF.
Bat-Protocol stated that he needed to head to his team leader's last known location. The last thing Dick had said was that he was in the master bedroom on the opposite side of the North dining room from the second floor's kitchen. Double fuck rich people. Don't they ever get tired of having so much of everything?
Carefully, checking every corner, he made his way to the bedroom. On the way, he saw Steph heading the opposite way. To avoid being found, he used sign language to talk to her.
"Your com working?" Steph signed back a 'no'. So it was everyone then. It was odd that he hadn't run into anyone else considering that Damian was in the next hallway over. Though, it was entirely possible that the Demon Brat decided to, 1. Disobey Bat-Protocol and continue his mission, or 2. Go on ahead without even attempting to look for strength in numbers, or to check in with anyone. Both were equally likely, Jason himself was subtly doing possibility two. He didn't need to buddy up with anyone.
The two vigilantes bid good luck to each other and parted ways.
Jason continued to sneak through the house, becoming more and more suspicious the closer he got. Why hadn't he seen anyone else this whole time?
He stopped right in front of the door. Something was stopping him from entering. A Feeling –capitalised to differentiate it from regular feelings- that was the reason the had survived as long as he had –both times around- was telling him that if he wanted to continue living, then he wouldn't enter. If Dick really was in there, then he was in danger. Big danger. Joker-level danger. Jason would never leave his big brother alone with the Joker.
Cautiously, he opened the door. It didn't even creak ominously. Which, in a thriller movie, meant that it was safe to enter. Except that this was not a thriller movie and the Feeling had not abated.
The first thing Jason noticed was that there was a lot of red.
The second thing he noticed was that the red was not part of the regular décor and, in fact, was actually blood.
The third thing he noticed was the organs strewn haphazardly around the room. There were kidneys and lungs on the table, intestines hanging from the chandelier and three brains lined up on window. The only reason he hadn't puked yet was because of his training. It was the most disgusting thing he had ever seen.
The fourth thing he noticed was the bodies –he only knew they were bodies because of the size and vague shape of them- lying on the bed behind the thin canopy.
He walked over, the blood on the floor splashing over his shoes with every step. When he reached the bed, he slowly pulled back the canopy, gun in hand, in case it was the Joker.
The canopy revealed three people in the bed. Their stomachs were cut open, their organs removed. All three had massive holes cut out of their skulls, obviously the brains on the windowsill belonged to them. What horrified Jason most was who the bodies belonged to.
Dick, Cass and Damian.
This time, Jason did throw up. The bile mixed with the blood on the floor and created a bright red mush.
Here he was, com offline, whole team dead, in a massive house with the Joker and Scarecrow lurking somewhere and no idea where the others are.
Something creaked behind him and he whirled around.
All he saw was a blur of green, white and purple before the world went black.
My dreams are messed up aren't they.
Immediately following this dream I had another one about the 11th, 12th and 13th Doctors accidentally running into each other while playing at a Timezone with their companions, so I'm probably going to write that too.
