Welcome back, everybody. I know it's been a while since I've posted anything. For the past few months, I have been in an aimless pursuit for the plot and something to connect all the scenes I've been planning in my head, so I never really knew which route to take the story in.

Now, however, I think I finally have a central theme that will connect all three stories together. And with this theme, I now know where I want to aim the plot. But what that theme represents is something that will be kept secret for the time being. For now, just know that I have finally found my muse again, and this time it won't be going anywhere for quite awhile.

But for now, pay no attention to the woman behind the curtains.

Hush hummed contently under his breath, twirling Becky's cane in his hand as he walked away calmly from the medical facility. The medical wing trophies he had were set, the tissue samples he needed were collected, and he got to besmirch Nightwing's good name in the process. All in all, it was a good night.

He was just about to head to his car when he heard a massive roaring in the distance. He looked up, checking the sky. Yet despite the gloomy clouds over the city, there was no sign of rain or lightning anywhere. He was just about to check his watch when he saw a panting Crane stumbling towards him, sweat pouring down his face like a waterfall.

"Professor? What are you doing here?"

"Can't talk," he panted, trying to regain his breath, his hands resting against his knees. While he was a good ambusher and sprinter, a long-distance runner, he was not. "No time—Becky's in trouble—distract them."

"But I thought you were the distraction?" he asked, a little bit flustered at the sudden change of plans.

"Well, now it's your turn. So tag," he said quickly, nudging Hush lightly as he took the weapon from his hands, dashing off towards the medical building before Hush could even blink.

He just stood there, bewildered by the sudden rush the Professor seemed to be in. How did he know if Becky was in trouble? He had been all the way at the other side of the building, and neither had any means of communication between them. So what had tipped off Crane to suddenly rush to her aid?

He didn't have long to ponder this, however, as soon the guards had caught up to him. Their leader, Cash, approached him.

"Nightwing, did you see Scarecrow come past here recently?" he asked, his hooked hand underneath the gun's barrel holding it steady as he aimed it downwards towards his feet at the sight of Nightwing.

Hush nodded, "Yeah, he went towards the Penitentiary. Just follow me," he said, racing towards the other building, hoping he could keep the charade long enough to lead them away from his comrades and still make it out of the Asylum before he was captured.

Becky dodged out of the way of the knives, ducking low as one of them swung out to the side, its blade mere inches from her skin as he chased after her, a frustrated frown marring his twisted face. "Hold still!" he snarled, his feet swiping under hers as he tried to trip her.

"If you think for one second I would listen to you, you're crazier than the Joker," Becky retorted, jumping over his attempted swipe at her feet and leaping over his crouching form. With a powerful kick, she landed a blow to his side, only to twist as he counterattacked with his blades.

His laugh sent ice through Becky's veins as she just barely avoided a slash a hair's length away from her wrist. "Do you want to know something, plucky Becky?" he asked, his knife finally landing a blow as she let out a scream of pain, kneeling over as her hands clutched the torn and bloody material of her dress top as he closed in for the kill. "I am not some insane inmate like the rest of them, committing murders because they have little voices in their heads. All those killings. All those murders I committed. All my…tally marks," he said reverently, tracing one of the long cuts on his forehead as his other hand forced her down, its knife against her throat. "…Are because I chose to."

"Is that so, Zsasz?"

The maniac looked up as the long shadow of the Scarecrow darkened the light around the floor of the morgue, his mouth pointed downward in a murderous scowl, his glowing amber eyes burning with fury as he moved slowly and methodically towards the man, his rage barely contained beneath his calm façade. "Because now I know what you truly fear, and it's not just the Batman. Oh no, it's never just him," he said, his voice low and cold as Antarctic wind.

Becky looked over at her savior, her lips crinkling into a small smile before trying to wiggle away from Zsasz's grip while he was distracted. Unfortunately, while the man was not the sharpest pencil in the pocket, he was smart enough to keep a strong hold on her top, the knife starting to dig into the skin around her neck. "Do you mind, Scarecrow? Can't you see that I am one second away from my next glorious creation?" he said irritably, feeling his skin start to itch from the anticipation of his next cut.

"Actually, I do," Crane replied, his eyes briefly meeting hers before focusing back on the killer. "You have something that belongs to me."

Zsasz looked confused for a moment, before starting to laugh. "What? Her? Are you still continuing on with that stupid rivalry of yours?"

"As a matter of fact, I am. And you know as well as I do that I never leave my experiments half-finished," he said, eyes narrowed at the man. "Now, if you would kindly step away from the girl, I'll maybe let you go without having you relive all of your greatest fears one by one."

He let out a short bark of laughter. "In your dreams, Crane. I'm the one who found her first, and so I will be the one to liberate her from this meaningless—Ah!" he shouted, cursing as Becky bit down on the killer's hand, using the small opening she made to pull her legs up to her chest and kick out, causing one of the knives he held in his hands to drop to the floor. In one fluid motion, she grabbed the knife and swung it towards him as he blocked her blow with his other knife, her glowing green eyes filled with determination and anger as he pushed back against her force.

"Shut up!" Becky snarled, gritting her teeth as the metal on metal sound of the two blades clanged against each other in the spacious room, separating only for a moment to clang together again as Becky's parried with her knife, holding it in her hand like a miniature sword. "If I have to hear one more word about 'liberation' or 'cutting' from you again, there won't be anything left for you to cut."

Zsasz seemed a bit taken aback by this answer. He had not expected his victim to fight back with such ferocity or strength, nor did he expect for her to so quickly start to turn the tables on him. He glanced towards the doctor, who was leaning against the railing, a small, sinister smile stretching across his face. "What are you just standing around for, Crane? I doubt you want to have to fight her, too."

This time, Scarecrow started to laugh, causing Zsasz to stare in confusion, allowing Becky to tackle him and pin him to the floor, her knife now to his throat in an ironic reversal. "Now, who said anything about fighting?" Scarecrow said softly, coming to stand right behind his partner.

"W-What?" Zsasz squeaked in shock, his eyes darting between the two of them before he finally connected the dots. "You…You two work together?!"

"Well, look at that, Scarecrow. I think he's finally starting to get it," she said, an impish grin spreading across her face as she looked up at Crane, her shoulder just barely resting against the side of his pants.

Crane returned her grin. "So it seems," he said, smirking as he looked back over at the serial killer. "You see, Zsasz, you like to be in complete control of your situation, which means you probably grew up in a sheltered life in your youth, am I right? Able to control things down to the last detail or better yet, have someone else do it for you." He didn't wait for Zsasz to respond before launching into his diagnosis of the man's fear, his amber eyes continuing to stare him down with amusement. "But at some point, you lost control of it all, didn't you? You lost everything. Your home. Your family. Your life savings, say, on a gambling bet against a cheating Penguin?"

Zsasz's eyes widened, his mouth agape as he watched Scarecrow relate all this to him, suddenly starting to feel even more uncomfortable than he was already. How does he know all this? No one could have possibly known all those details! "Y-You're lying!" Zsasz bluffed, but his words rang hollow even in his own ears.

Scarecrow started to laugh, his chilling, booming laughter seemingly lowering the temperature of the room. "Am I? Well then, stop me when what I'm saying isn't true." He paused for a second, clearing his throat before he continued. "After losing all of your life savings on a misplaced bet, you head out to the bridge connecting Gotham to Metropolis, hoping to end your miserable existence, when out of nowhere, a homeless person decided to mug you for what little pennies you have left in your empty purse. And that's when you saw it, isn't it?" he said, his face inching closer to the man, his grin widening as he saw the terror in the man's eyes.

"You saw in the man's eyes what you wanted to see. That the world which had chewed you up and spat you out was just as worthless as what you thought yourself to be. So, you decided to repay the man his 'kind' favor with one of your own. And after you spilled out that poor man's blood all over the bridge, you felt your calling. And that's what ultimately lead us here, isn't it? You, your victim, and now her guardian. Whether it be of chiropteran origin or of corvid doesn't matter now, does it?" He said, his grin widening into a sneer as his words seemed to strike a chord within Zsasz, as his face seemed to become paler with each word the man spoke.

"Now, I don't normally do this, but you're cowering expression has greatly amused me, so I'm going to let you live. For now," Crane hissed, giving a subtle nod of his head to Becky as she lifted the knife from his neck and handed it to him.

Zsasz looked nervously between the duo, rubbing at the nick on his neck from the sharp blade. "So, what? You're letting me go, just like that?"

"No," Crane said nonchalantly, idly running his hand along the blunt edge of the blade. "It's not quite that simple, Zsasz. You see, I wouldn't think twice about slitting your throat the way you tried to slit hers. But I'm not one to pass up the opportunity of a resource when I see it. So I'm only going to let you go on one condition."

Zsasz's eyes narrowed. "And what might that be?" he snarled, his eyes murderous staring at Becky, who glared right back at him. The next time he caught her, he wouldn't let her escape from his mark again.

Scarecrow only smiled wickedly, before he launched into his plan.

Hush was really beginning to regret helping the professor with this favor. He sighed to himself as the guards continued to search fruitlessly among the cells of the prison, trying to ignore the screaming, slobbering, raving mental patients locked inside the cells.

There was a good reason that the Rogues and other saner (albeit still quite crazy) prisoners were given separate levels from these lunatics. Not only did the howls of the mental patients drive the Rogues to attempt more escapes, but one incident had caused them to escape and start attacking the guards, allowing some of the nastier residents of the maximum security cells to escape.

He gritted his teeth, trying to block out the sound echoing across the walls as one of the slobbering patients screamed directly into his ear, his head banging against the glass window in a ravenous attempt to reach for his head. It was taking all his willpower not to kill everybody in the room and leave this island of madness. But, he thought, continuing to walk towards the stairs, scanning the cells in an illusion to look like he was searching as well, Crane did deliver on his promise of the samples I needed being here, along with a good job opportunity here as a mortician. Not to mention watching those idiot guards stumble around for clues like headless chickens is pretty funny.

He paused for a bit, looking around cautiously, before taking one of the trophies out of his pocket and tossing it into the cell, not caring one bit as it flopped horizontally onto the floor. He didn't bother placing it neatly. If the Riddler wanted the trophies placed correctly, then he could go and do it himself. As he walked towards the center, he could see a large dome-like structure being carried in by some construction workers.

"What's this for?" he asked, looking at the bulky thing with bewildering amusement as the workers set it down squarely in the middle of the room with a loud grunt.

Cash glanced over his way. "Oh, that? That's a new cell we've designed to house Poison Ivy. We've been having a lot of trouble keeping her in her cell recently, especially with some of the guards' coming and going from their homes and accidentally dragging in some of the pollen from their homes for her to use."

"I see. But why a dome?" Hush/Nightwing questioned, trying not to chuckle at the great Poison Ivy reduced to sitting in what by all accounts looked a bit like an upside-down bowl like a captured rodent.

"Well, it was the only air-tight space in the asylum that we could set up on such a short notice. We still have Clayface's cell, but moving him while still keeping him in a solid form is more of a trouble than we can afford right now." He paused for a bit, using the blunt end of his hook to scratch absentmindedly at the growing stubble on his chin. "By the way, you doing okay, Nightwing? Your voice sounds kind of scratchy."

Hush froze for a moment beneath his disguise, before letting out a little cough. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just getting over a cold. You know how it's been this winter."

"Yeah. I can understand," he said, turning to gather the other guards as they made their way to the next room. "For some reason, this winter has been warmer than the past couple of years."

Hush let out a sigh of relief as the door opened, thankful for the unusual Gotham weather for giving him a reasonable excuse for his rough voice. If he wasn't careful, this whole heist they were planting could end up in a trap for them instead.