Chapter 9: ACE Chemicals
As the months went on, Bruce and Alfred were unable to find out any more information about Jack White. The man was, quite literally, a ghost. No amount of research would lead to anything. They did, however, get a suit upgrade from Lucius Fox that included a built-in ultra-sonic wave emitter and detector, which allowed the pair to not only see through smoke and walls, but also to detect any environmental threats, such as firearms or body armour, as well as electrical gadgets.
Dick's training was also coming along well. He had modified his suit and gadgets to his own liking and had been working on figuring out the terrorist attack that killed his family only a few months earlier. Still no leads, however. Much like Bruce and Alfred's work into Jack White, his search was fruitless. The police had not made any advance on the Haly's Circus bombing, dubbed 'Bloody Saturday', either, and had declared it a cold case.
One fateful night, as Bruce and Dick were donning their suits, the police scanner chirped up, "We got an unknown amount of hostages being held at Seapark Amusements, suspect has warned if any police come near, he'll start killing them. Says he wants to speak to The Batman." Bruce and Dick shared a look, and then both looked at Alfred, who was already putting on his earpiece, and nodded. They ran out of the cave and immediately started to grapple up towards the Amusement Park, rather than the Trigate Bridge, as per usual.
Robin spoke to Batman, "You wanna fill me in on what this guy wants? It's the only file you won't let me read." Batman replied, "Not much point in reading the file, anyway. It's only a few pages long. I ran into him into a sort of throne room in the control building of Seapark Amusements, he let me leave and ordered me not to return. He's clearly deranged, and he seems to have an unstable personality, but he keeps it under control well enough to just leave an empty shell on the outside." Robin kept quiet, silently analysing White in his own head, to little avail.
As they grappled up to the main deck of the park and hid behind the, now, renovated carnival tent, they noticed the same, clown-dressed militia Batman had noticed months prior. A barker's voice filled the air, reminding Robin of the barker from the night of his family's murder. The once abandoned theme park had been transformed back into its former glory. A glory that Robin had associated with the death of his family.
The duo scanned the park using their newfound 'Detective Vision', which showed a quick summary of the environment. It showed that the park contained 204 people, most of them armed, 50 of them inside the control building, specifically, 12 of them in the throne room that Batman had encountered White in, which now had steel reinforcements instead of windows. Batman chimed into the comms, "Alfred, can you find us a way into the control centre?" "Certainly, sir. One moment," Alfred replied, "There's an old cooling tower at the top of the main building. It leads down into the boiler room, which is a straight shot into the throne room. It also, conveniently, seems to be turned off, at the minute."
"Thanks, Alfred." Batman and Robin both shot their grapnel guns towards the main building's cooling tower, zipping over the heads of dozens of unaware thugs. They climbed to the last maintenance platform, exchanged a look, and pointed their grapnel guns at the lip of the cooling tower. As they fired, a loud boom was heard from the direction of the entrance. As they turned to look, they saw a large amount of debris falling into the Gotham River. The Miagani Bridge had been demolished.
White's voice came over the park's loudspeakers, "I SAID NO COPS! I see one more, and all these people get their brains splattered over the walls." Robin shivered as he perched on the ledge of the cooling tower. The voice was unsettling. Batman dropped down into the inactive cooling tower, followed by Robin. As they dropped onto the dark pile of coal at the bottom of the shaft, they heard music emenating from within the building. No doubt from the control room. Batman radioed in, "Alfred, how do we get to the throne room from here?" They were just met with static. Their detective vision seemed to be malfunctioning as well. "White must have a jammer set up," Robin said, "Or maybe the police have set up a jammer to stop White communicating with anyone."
They wandered through the damp corridors of the control building, trying to figure out how to get to the throne room. Batman took point, as always, with Robin following close behind. As they entered into the main corridors, they followed the sound of the music, hoping it would lead them to their destination. They finally reached a door which seemed to lead to the throne room. Either side of the door seemed to be crumbling, weakened by decades of being left to rot. Lucius had recently devised a sprayable explosive gel, able to be sprayed on a wall and remotely detonated.
Batman started spraying the gel in a vaguely bat-like outline, to which Robin followed suit on the other side of the door, but instead of a bat, he simply drew an 'R'. They both stood back, readied the detonators, and covered their faces with their gauntlets to prevent debris hitting their exposed mouths or eyes. They gave each other a nod and blew the walls. It worked perfectly. The walls were completely blown away. The debris sprayed everywhere in the throne room. Batman and Robin dived towards the still falling debris, through the smoke billowing from the ceiling, and surveyed the room.
No Jack White.
There were, however, hostages. 12 of them. They were all gagged and were wrapped in and connected by wires. Jack White's voice came over the loudspeaker, "Ah, Batman, you're here. Finally. Sorry I couldn't be there to greet you. I so enjoyed our little chat a few months ago. As you can see, these guys are a little... tied up, at the moment, so you'll have to excuse their broodiness. However, I did notice you brought an uninvited guest along. How's it going, little birdy?" Robin looked at Batman, confused. White continued, "I would suggest both of you exit out of those windows. The button to open them is behind you, on the wall, next to the throne. Go ahead. Push it."
Batman obliged, and pushed the button, which did in fact open the windows. White once again, talked over the loudspeaker, "OOPS! I forgot to mention, that button was also rigged to detonate those poor hostages suicide vests. Also the ones I made all my staff wear, but they're unimportant. You shouldn't have come along, Robin... You should have about 10 seconds left to leave so RUN!" Batman and Robin quickly glanced at each other, then at the hostages, and accepted that they could not save them. They dashed over to the windows and leaped into them, shards of glass flying everywhere. Nearly as soon as they exited the building, the bombs went off.
Carnage. The whole control building went up in flames. They were pushed forward and disorientated by the large explosion they were escaping from. As they fell to the ground, they saw the large amount of smaller explosions coming from the other buildings, and the men patrolling around the grounds. The pair were astonished. This was massacre on a scale neither of them had seen before. It more than doubled the amount of people killed in the Haly's Circus attack.
"Oh my goodness. Sir, in all my years, I have never seen such destruction," Alfred paused, then continued a second later, "Sir, there has been reports of a car that left the Amusement Mile before the police got there speeding through the streets. It could be Jack White. You need to catch him before he does anything else!" Batman got up, and put a hand on Robin's shoulder, "You stay here, help the police with whatever they need. I'm going after White." Robin nodded and ran towards an incoming police helicopter.
Bruce grappled down the Miagani Bridge's remains, and asked Alfred where White's last whereabouts were, "Sir, he was last seen down Hamill Avenue in Otisburg. Sources are saying he's entered the ACE Chemicals building. You need to stop him before he can finish his plan." Bruce reached the end of the bridge, sped past the police, who were to busy attended to wounded officers who tried to cross the bridge to notice him, and quickly made his way to ACE Chemicals.
He reached the building in no time, adrenaline pumping through him at a level he hadn't felt since his parents murder. This was high stakes. The highest. Instead of taking a back entrance or something similar like he usually would, he took the same entrance White likely had minutes earlier. He didn't know why. It just felt right. He needed to end this.
As Batman ran through the winding corridors and large, open rooms filled with chemicals, he was wondering what White's plan was with the chemical plant. A bomb? A weapon? He had no idea. He just knew he couldn't let White do it.
As he entered the main mixing room, suspended on a walkway about 30 feet above massive vats of chemicals, he spotted White, standing and looking over into the colourful, bubbling liquids. Batman walked towards him, stopping about 20 feet away, "It's over, White. You're done." White turned around, "Batman... you're here. Where's the boy wonder?" Batman snarled, "Not here. It's just you and me." White pulled out a large revolver from his waistband, "White's not my name, just in case you got any ideas. I use many different names. But none of them are the real deal. White's just the one you get to call me by."
"Why did you do it?" Batman asked, hoping to peer into the man's psyche. White chuckled, "Revenge. This city takes and takes and doesn't give anything back. It took my wife and son. Goddamn bridge collapse. That was the day. My day. Everyone has one. One single moment in time. One moment where everything around them just crumbles. That was my day. I lost everything I had ever loved. I just want to give people their day. They need to suffer as I have suffered. First, I set off that bomb at Haly's Circus, then I did... what you just saw."
Batman's fists tightened. He had been behind Bloody Saturday. He had killed The Flying Graysons.
"Now I'm gonna blow up this building. This is what it all has come to. You thought back there was bad? 200 people? Try 10 million. You can't stop me. Haha, God, that sounds cliché. Well, I guess this whole plan is cliché, isn't it? You know, everyone is just one slip away from tumbling down the rabbit hole. The only thing that's holding everyone back is a single day. All that they need is a little push. They just need one bad day. One. Bad. Day."
He was getting edgy. Batman needed to take him down before he could do anything extreme. He planted his feet, ready to pounce and subdue White. White had turned his back to Batman, looking over the railing and into the large vats of chemicals again. But as Batman took a few steps forward, White sharply turned around, pointing his handgun at Batman, "Don't step any closer." Batman stopped, but kept his back foot planted, waiting for an opportunity to leap forward and take White down.
"You're not getting away, White. You're a terrorist. You're going to rot in prison." White chuckled, "I'm not going anywhere. You don't think I've planned this? Every eventuality, I have got an exit. There is no way in hell you're winning. This is my time to win." Batman was starting to get nervous. White was becoming more and more erratic by the second. He needed to finish it, and quick.
"GCPD! GET DOWN ON THE GROUND!" Armed police were swarming the room from the back entrance, distracting White, making him turn around. Batman took his chance and charged White, wrestling his revolver to the floor. The pair traded blows, moving back and forth with each punch. Batman obviously had the upper hand, and it showed. But White still put up a hell of a fight. Batman floored White, and held him to the ground with his knee on the small of his back, and ziptied his hands together, "You're done, White."
White started cackling loudly, "Good joke, Bats!" and he rolled off the walkway, as Batman tried to catch him, "NO!". White laughed all the way down, as he fell into a large, green, bubbling vat of acid. Batman inhaled and exhaled incessantly, angry that he let him escape. Even if that escape was death. The GCPD circled around the tank, calling medics over to their location. Batman looked down at him feet, spotting a small square of folded paper. He unfolded it, and it read;
'Good plan, eh?'