Hello, all.

Man, I've been snapping these off like clockwork. It seems my muse is finally back on track and is running on full power, which is a good thing for you, dear readers, as it means that these chapters are coming out twice as fast. We've just reached the quarter-way mark in my story, and things are going to heat up quickly!

Now, if you've skipped this note and have already read this chapter, then you're probably wondering what was with the sudden change in tone. The truth is: I was going to have it be kinda depressing and whatnot, on par with some of the normal emotions of people getting superpowers from lab accidents, you know, the 'what does this mean' and 'it's unstable, so I have to do something about it' or 'Great power comes with great responsibility' and blah blah blah for trying to go a dark and angsty route.

But then I thought, "Wait a minute, Paige, this is plucky Becky we're talking about. It would kinda seem out of character for her to get depressed about this sort of thing when it doesn't really have a chance of causing her to die, especially since it allows her to keep up from slowing her partner down and allows her to better defend herself against an attack from a supervillain. I mean, heck, if I had superpowers, would I be depressed? I don't think so."

So I fixed it up, added a bit of connection so the tone doesn't come out of left field, and wrote from there. That, and I wanted a few chapters of calm and happiness before the storm that is to come.

BTW, if you're wondering about the little SCAREBEAST between the symbols, FF has a weird editing bug that prevents the symbols from appearing, which could be confusing when switching to different perspectives. So, I integrate the word in to keep it from disappearing.

But I've blabbed enough. Enjoy!

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Tapping his fingers against the sides of the table, Crane watched tensely as the whirring wheels in the machine slowed to a stop, the cylindrical lids opening as the computer displayed the results, listing each of the different chemicals found in Becky's DNA and bloodstream.

Glancing at the display, he frowned at the results, taking his glasses off to see if he was reading the results right. But, despite the blurriness, the results were still the same. He could see the normal chemicals produced by hormones of her body, but some were at levels that were off the charts.

For one, the hormones controlling her adrenaline was producing the chemical at a rate that rivaled his own right before he went Scarebeast, but it lacked the enzyme that signaled the DNA to start changing flesh to bark. He could detect traces of Venom in the blood as well, but he was expecting that. Of all the chemicals he could trace, Venom was the least he was concerned about now. Venom, he could combat. The other chemicals, however, he had no idea where to even start.

But he wasn't focusing on that now. What had diverted his attention was the DNA he had pulled up from the epithelial cells. There were the normal strands he came across, with its coded sequences of RNA bound into the familiar double-helix of DNA; slightly altered and a bit fuzzy around the edges, but still looked like normal DNA. But there was one that didn't seem quite right. It looked uneven, its molecules spread out and jagged, like the crags of mountains, its strand constantly coiling and uncoiling, like a popping toy weasel around a ball.

Shifting the lens of his molecular microscope to its highest setting, he zoomed in on the unstable strand, his eyebrows rising to his forehead as he compared the image of the squirming strands with an old photograph of DNA strands he had taken seven years ago.

To his disappointment, it was an exact match.

He let out a harsh curse, his fist slamming into the wall as he let out a roar of frustration. He should have known. He should've seen the signs, the warnings. The mood swings, the fatigue, the constant stress, the amnesia to the events of that night: it all pointed to one cause.

The serum.

All signs pointed to the serum.

But not just mine, oh no, he thought, angry tears starting to fill his eyes before he wiped them away roughly with the cuff of his jacket. It just had to include that little tramp stamp's serum along with it.

It made sense now why he couldn't quite identify the signs. The two serums had mixed together well enough to mask some of the symptoms of each other, creating a hybrid mixture that had much of the positive sides of the serums mixed with few of the negatives. And while he would have rejoiced at the result it produced, the fact that Becky was the one exposed to it filled his heart with pain.

There was no telling what the side effects would be, if any. He knew how his body had reacted to half of the mixture, but Becky had gotten both sides. There was no telling what could happen to her or how her body would react, and he didn't have Friitawa to compare notes with, not that he wanted her even a mile away from him. If she even tried to come after them, he would kill her. Slowly. Painfully.

He felt a tingling, numbing sensation in his chest, and he calmed himself, inhaling slowly in and out. Going Scarebeast would do nothing to solve the situation, and it would only serve to make the situation worse. Despite the visceral growling in his mind to unleash his rage, to give in to the beast, he refused to listen. He would not give into that voice.

Never again.

"Never say never ever," Scarecrow whispered in his ear, but he ignored it, shooing the apparition away with a wave of his hand.

Feeling himself start to relax, he let out a tired sigh, glancing at the uneaten chicken and rice at the edge of his desk. By the time he had even noticed that food had been sitting on the table, it had gone cold. Boxing it up, he trudged up the stairs to the kitchen, rubbing his eyes with his free hand as he saw Becky waiting for him on the couch.

"What did you find?" she asked him quietly, her expression softening as she saw the somber expression on his face.

Putting his leftovers in the fridge, he walked slowly towards her, before flopping onto the other side of the couch, exhausted both physically and emotionally.

"It's bad, isn't it?" she replied, her shoulders slumping as she watched him massaging his temples. She looked up at the clock.

5:51 AM.

"Look, you don't have to tell me right now if you don't want to. I know you're tired," she replied, her hand coming to rest on Crane's shoulder as he let out a huff.

"No," he said after a few minutes, taking off his glasses as he rubbed them on his shirt. "You- You deserve to know. You deserve to know now, before…" he couldn't even bring himself to say it. His Adam's apple bobbed as he gulped, wetting his lips.

"Jon, what is it? What's gotten you so upset?" she asked, her eyes starting to fill with tears as one drifted down her cheek.

He paused for a bit, trying to keep a hold of his emotions. He couldn't back out now. He had to be strong. For her, as well as for himself. "I have the results, and it's not good." With a deep breath, he began to explain what he had found.

As he concluded his findings, Becky tried to grasp what he was saying, blinking away her tears as she steadied herself. "So, that's it? You think that I might have come into contact with your serum and Friitawa's and developed powers related to the two? And that's why I had the power to neutralize Croc, dodge Zsasz's blows, and fall from a ten-story building with hardly a scratch?"

He nodded.

"And there's no chance of me suddenly dying from this?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Not a high chance of one, anyway."

"Well, then what's so bad about that?" she exclaimed, starting to let out a relieved chuckle.

Crane was taken aback by those words. "Wha- "

"I mean, for a second there, I thought you were talking about something that would kill me," she said, letting out a small giggle, patting him on the back.

Shock turned to anger as he grabbed her hand. "Did…Did you hear anything I just said? This is serious, Becky! That serum is unstable. We have no idea what could happen if something goes wrong," he growled, one of his eyes glowing amber under the light.

"Of course I do, Jon," she replied snappily, yanking her hand back and crossing her arms. "But this is different. Its unstable. So, what? Just because something is unstable doesn't mean it must be deadly. I mean, look at this." She stood up, gesturing to her left leg as she stomped it on the ground. "Because of this, I can finally walk without having to use my cane. Because of this, you don't have to stay behind and risk getting captured, just because I couldn't keep up." She went silent as she looked away. "Because of this, I don't have to be a burden to you anymore," she whispered softly, Crane just barely catching it as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Becky…"

"No, listen to me, Jonathan! This is going to work out," she said firmly, pulling him up from the couch as she practically hopped with glee. "So what if it has a few side effects? We'll just work a way around them as we go. I mean, with this, we won't have to worry about being separated by Batman or anybody else. Sure, there's the weird Fear gas breath and what not, but we can work that out." She laughed with child-like glee, letting go of his hands as she spun around, her dress swishing about her legs.

"But…"

"I mean, isn't this what you wanted to accomplish all those years ago? What you worked so hard for, and had almost succeeded with, before Friitawa threw a wrench in things? This is it! This is all the proof you need! Take a few sample or so, synthesize and patent it, iron out the bugs, and sell it, we wouldn't even need to go back to crime. Think of what we could do for science! For medicine! We'd win a Nobel Prize for this discovery!"

Despite his protests, he found himself starting to agree with her. The serum did provide a cure for her cerebral palsy, and even before it was mixed, he had seen it alter Friitawa's chromosomes to cure her albinism, so it had shown that it could not only alter chromosomes, but also alter brain chemistry at a molecular level as well. Imagine what it could do for other people, especially those with disabilities like Becky. When he had been interning at the Gotham Medical Center for his doctorate in Psychiatry, he had seen innumerable people come into the hospital with symptoms and conditions far worse than what Becky had suffered, and yet nothing could be done to alleviate their illnesses, or provide them effective treatment beyond the primitive treatments at Arkham or similar places.

She was right. If he synthesized the serum, limiting it to just curing the disease and not providing superpowers, then he could make billions selling this stuff to every hospital on the planet. He'd win a Nobel Prize for sure, probably several, if he was lucky, and for once in his life, he would have the respect and love and admiration that he had longed for all these years. And he could do it all without having to resort to crime and get Batman on his tail.

"You know what? I believe you're right!" he exclaimed, his eyes dancing with excitement as he grinned.

"Really? You mean it!" she asked, excitement sparking in her eyes.

"I do, indeed. If we play our cards right, and false identities, of course, then we wouldn't have to worry about anything. We'd be admired and loved and respected all at once! We'd be famous! We'd be gods!" He let out a large laugh of joy, before taking Becky's hands in his and pulling her into a small, happy dance. "And it was all thanks to you, my dear! And here I thought I was giving you a death sentence."

Becky beamed, letting out a jubilant squeal as he hugged her tightly, lifting her slightly off the floor as they both continued to laugh. This was it! This was their chance! No more watching the skies, afraid someone will swoop in at any moment and nab them. No more sleepless nights of worry about the future, or if something would happen to them. They'd be rich! They'd be famous!

And most of all, they would be free!

"Still," Jonathan said, almost as an afterthought. "We should probably test it out first. Make sure it won't cause any undo reactions against certain stimulus."

"Of course, of course," Becky said, waving it off. They could handle that later. Right now, she wanted to celebrate!

Obsessed with their excitement, they didn't pay attention to the small camera taping them from its perch on the top of the highest cabinet nor did they notice the caped figure looking down on them from the window above them, its glowing white eyes narrowing in suspicion.

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Friitawa grinned savagely as she watched the conversation going on in that little room miles above her head, the ear piece attached to her ear allowing her to hear everything clearly. And from what she could hear, the information she was gleaning was certainly very juicy, and she licked her lips in anticipation. While it disappointed her to know that the little pest was still alive and hadn't started to mutate like her other test subjects, she could see the beginnings of an opportunity in her midst.

She bet that scream she had heard was from her. And if she was right, then that would mean that the serum had worked as intended, linking her mind, as well as Jonathan's, together, creating a stable loop from one to the other, like a network of roots linking together different plants of the same species.

Perhaps with enough mental power, I can come to influence her actions, and in the process, Jonathan's as well, she thought, taking her eyes briefly from her monitor to glance at the spare master controller she had nicked off that cowardly little Hatter, rubbing it between her fingers. The band was useless, she knew, without the cards, but it was still a symbol; a symbol of her control over those dumb, blind sheep aboveground, and a promise of things to come. But how will I get close enough to them to influence Rebecca's actions, I wonder?

Plus, the fusion's effects held the key to her stabilization, leaving Ra's Lazarus Pit unneeded and provide her the opening she needed to get rid of the middleman and take over, ruling not just with an underground base that was almost impregnable, but an entire army of trained assassins at her command. Not only that, but with her manipulation of both Strange and Sharp, as well as playing her cards right in regards to the politics in Gotham, she would be on the fast track in not only controlling the city, but several districts around it as well. Not to mention if that annoying flying rodent and his little birds tried to stop her, she had her new and improved fear toxin to keep them well-behaved.

The beeping of her monitor interrupted her thoughts, signaling that she was to meet Ra's at the outer gates of the Pit. "Now what could our Lord and Master want this time, I wonder?" she mocked sarcastically, pulling herself up from her chair, tucking the band into the pocket of her jacket as she exited the room.

With a final glance at the monitor, she clicked the remote in her other pocket, covering the opening with a façade of the shop wall it connected to.

As she walked, a mad light shone in her eyes, her teeth gleaming from within her beastly grin.

Let the games begin.

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Batman looked down at the couple from her perch on their rooftop, his usual scowl of broodiness and depression lightening somewhat as he saw the two laughing and smiling together While normally he would have crashed through the window, punched out Crane and hauled him back to Arkham, something about the duo's joy-filled expressions caused him to pause.

In all his time of fighting and apprehending Scarecrow, he had never once seen the man ever genuinely smile or experience joy in something other than fear. In fact, describing the Scarecrow experiencing joy without the possibility of fear was like describing the possibility of Joker becoming sane and giving up his criminal ways: an uncalculatable chance of impossibility that the multiverse refused to consider.

But still, the sight of the two, laughing and enjoying themselves together, lit a spark in the Caped Crusader that had lain smoldering since the loss of Harvey Dent. In his younger days, before the death of Jason Todd caused him to question whether anyone could truly be redeemed, he always had a small, flickering hope that, perhaps, people like Harvey Dent or Mr. Freeze could change for the better, to be more than what society or their cruel past life made them.

But as he saw more villains rise, and even more heroes fall, his heart began to harden, hope drowning in pain and slim optimism falling to cynicism. And despite that small flicker reigniting in his heart, he harbored little hope of seeing the two reform.

He shook his head, placing a small bat-symbol button on the ground before turning away as he angled his grappling hook towards a nearby building, zipping away into the air as it pulled him along. It was just another vicious cycle, another cycle of downward spiraling into madness that he had seen far too often; one that would repeat ad infinitum for years to come in the dark city of Gotham, until the day either he died or the universe did.

Yet despite his pessimism, in his heart of hearts, he hoped, dreamed, that he could be proven wrong. That someone would break the cycle of destruction, capture, return, and escape.

That evil could become good once more.