A Nobody

by Jebest4781

Living a new life in another reality, Naruto now must handle a lot of complications of him interacting with various heroes, villains and anti-heroes. How will things go with them interacting with a Nobody. NarutoXHarem Rated M for language, violence and lemons. NarutoXDC ComicsXKingdom Hearts Please leave reviews. On Hiatus.

47. A Terrifying Night

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Naruto, Disney, Square Enix or Detective Comics. They rightfully belong to their respective owners.

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

Radio/TV

"Headset/Flashback"

-Scene Shift-

Chapter 47: A Terrifying Night

It was a dark night in Gotham as people and children were out and about on the streets. Most were having a jolly good time while others weren't all that into it. With many residents dressed for the big night while others stayed in their usual attire.

You may wonder why it's like this. Well to simply put it, it's Halloween!

...Well it's technically the day before, but it's still Halloween!

Children were out going door to door in order to acquire sweets and treats while some guardians stay with them to keep them safe, especially in this city. Other Gothamites were going to parties to live up the night and possibly have some extra fun afterwards. And everything else is just making the city much more interesting as time passes by.

In one particular area of Gotham, a pair of children were walking up towards a mansion. One was dressed up as an alien while his friend was a pirate.

"Man, this place gives me the creeps." Spoke the 'alien'.

"Let's just knock on the door and see if they got candy." Said the 'pirate'. "If they do or don't have any, we'll bolt on outta here."

The alien child nodded before reaching forward and banging on the door as he couldn't see a doorbell all that well. There was no response for several moments. The pair thought no one was home and was about to leave when the entrance quickly opened up to reveal a pair of old women that were apparently twins.

"Uh… Trick or treat?" Said the boys.

One of the old twins smirked as she and her sister looked down upon them. "My, what wonderful costumes, eh Virginia."

"Yes, they certainly are, Georgia." Said the second twin. Looking at the boys, a mocked question came to mind as she spoke to them. "But what are you doing trick-or-treating?"

The alien boy rose a brow. "Uh, hello. It's Halloween."

"You know, 'go door to door for treats'." Spoke the pirate child.

It was Virginia who spoke next. "Ah, but it's not just any Halloween."

"It isn't?" Said the alien.

"Tonight is Ghoul's night." Georgia said as she slowly rose her hand towards the distance. "Do you two see the swampland over yonder?"

The boys turned around and off into the distance, they indeed saw the swamp in question and some distance away lied what remains were left of the oil tanker destroyed months ago in the whole Pyg and Toad fiasco.

"There, the swampland. Otherwise known as Slaughter Swamp is the birthplace to the Gotham Ghoul." Spoke Virginia. "It was 150 years ago on this very night, in that very same swamp that a monster rose from the muck and slouched toward Gotham. All in order to wreak havoc against the very architects of our fair city."

Georgia picked up where her sister left off. "But the lives of the Gotham Ghoul ruined that fateful night weren't enough to satisfy him. The creature vowed to haunt the descendants of his victims by returning on the darkest of All Hallows Eves. And it's on this very night, during a total lunar eclipse, that the Gotham Ghoul will rise again."

The two children were really creeped out when hearing this as they visibly shook. "How do you two know so much about this?" Said the pirate.

"Yeah, I never really heard of this before."

The sisters smirked a creepy smile as they looked down upon the two boys. "It's because we are the granddaughters of Emmett Bolton, one of the Ghoul's victims." Said Virginia.

"And it could come for us at any moment." Spoke the other twin. She suddenly gasped and looked away. "OH MY GOD, IT'S ALREADY HERE!"

The two boys widened their eyes, screamed and bolted out of the grounds as they didn't look back to see the two elderly twins cackling like stereotypical witches.

Seeing them leave their property, the sisters closed their mansion's entrance and walked further deep into their home. They enjoyed their joke towards the younglings as it would surely give them quite the fright tonight.

The elderly twins eventually came in front of a portrait of their grandfather, Emmett Bolton. They picked up their cups of tea and hoisted them up towards the portrait for a little celebratory toast.

"To grandfather Emmett, who left us so much money and wonderful stories to scare children with." Spoke Virginia as both she and Georgia took sips of their prepared drinks. Once done, they soon crackle once more for their small humor.

Though this all came to a sudden stop when they heard a loud, inhuman groan in their very home. The elderly twins widened their eyes and looked over their residence. They heard the groan again and eventually found the source of it all, causing them to drop their teacups onto the floor.

The being walked towards them as the mansion shook with each heavy step. Coming closer to what light there was in the home, it's large and intimidating figure was shown as it glared at them. With it's rotting pale white skin and black clothing, it snarled as the Bolton sisters screamed.

"Destroy!" Spoke the creature as he slowly came towards them. "Grundy must destroy!"

-Earlier this Evening, Gordon Residence-

Stepping out of the shower, Barbara Gordon started drying her wet body before wrapping a bathrobe around it.

'God, I needed that.' She thought as she pulled a towel from the rack to start drying her hair. 'Harley's training today was brutal.'

It's been at least a week since Barbara started taking the gymnastic regimen from the bubbly blonde. It was really good and enjoyable to truly know her strengths and weaknesses. Yet Harley's lessons kicked her ass hard.

For her lessons, they've all taken place in her very home as one of the rooms was large enough for training and exercise. She mostly took possession of the area as it held all of her gymnastic equipment. Sure there's also a lot of weights that her father uses for his exercises, but Barbara had to start using them a whole lot more as to Harley's sessions.

Her father was confused on the first day as to why Harley suddenly came on by, but he understood his daughter's reasonings. Of course there was the tidbit pertaining to payment. Both James and Barbara thought they had to fork over cash, but Harley asked to just get paid by dinners…

Something she apparently got used to when it pertained to her neighbor and the Gordons were fine with that option. They honestly admit things got rather boring at times when it was just them, so another person joining was fine enough.

Getting back into things, Harley was indeed a taskmaster when pushing Barbara to the limit. This involved by breaking and rebuilding her back up on some past sessions. Even on one session, her own father seemingly laughed on her own misery.

If it wasn't for him having to heal back up from his injuries on the Jazzman incident then Barbara would have hit him for that.

Stepping out of the bathroom, once getting her contact lenses on, she saw her father getting dressed in his usual attire. "Are you going to work, dad?"

"Yes, Barbara." He simply said as he started tying his tie. "I've rested long enough and I need to go into the precinct today."

"Do you have to? Can't you just stay at home for another day at least."

"Nope." James said with a small smirk. "Being cooped up here for so long, asides from the small walks outside, was driving me nuts. And doing what paperwork I could here can only go so far."

Barbara sighed as she continued to dry her hair. "Yeah, figured as much."

"Not only that, but it's Halloween. And you know how some of the past ones were like, right?"

The redhead nodded as Halloween in this city oddly makes the crazies go a bit more rampant. So it's all hands on deck on this day for the GCPD, despite tomorrow actually being the actual holiday as it's sometimes not celebrated on Sundays.

Barbara never really argued about it, but its something she had to deal with.

"So are you going to be getting help from Vanitas and the Dynamic Duo tonight?"

"Somewhat." He vaguely answered. He looked from the nearby mirror and saw her confused expression. "It's just going to be Vanitas and Robin helping out Gotham tonight."

"Why not Batman?"

"He came by and visited to check up on me about four days ago. On the visit, he told me he was leaving town to track down the man behind the Rockridge heist." Gordon saw his daughter nod from the reflection in understanding. "And as far as I know, he hasn't gotten back yet." Turning around, he gave her a questioned look. "Why'd you ask?"

"Oh, no reason." Was her response.

Seeing his daughter once more, he gave her a raised look on her lack of clothing asides from her bathrobe. "That's not what your wearing to Cindy's party, is it?"

Barbara blinked before looking down and quickly looking back at her father. "First off, dad, her name's Sandy. Second it's a costume party. I haven't put mine on yet since I just got out of the shower from Harley's workout session earlier."

James chuckled in slight embarrassment. He finished getting dressed while double checking what he needed to bring tonight. Taser, his issued glock, spare magazines, spare handcuffs, and his prescription from the hospital.

As he went to grab his trenchcoat, Gordon heard his daughter speak up. "Dad?"

"Yes, sweety?" He asked as he saw her sitting on the couch.

"Do… Do you ever wonder what it's like… to be Batman? Or even Vanitas?"

The police commissioner took the bait by asking his own in hopes of explaining her thoughts. "What do you mean?"

In a dream-like state, Barbara sighed. "You know, leaping from rooftops… chasing criminals… dodging gunfire…" He looked at her and oddly saw odd stars in her amethyst eyes. "It just sounds so… exciting."

Gordon he scratched his head. Sitting down onto the couch, he looked straight into her eyes. "There's something you have to understand, Barbara. Every night a lot of men, with a lot of guns, try to kill them. Every night. And all it takes is one mistake… one lucky shot… and it's over." Her father sighed. "Look, I admire them for what they do. But I don't envy them. Nobody should."

Barbara nodded when hearing this, which got him to smile a little. "Well, enough lecturing for one night for you. "Standing up from the couch, he walked towards the door. "Have fun at the party tonight and don't do anything too crazy."

The redhead gave him a wave before seeing her father exit their home. Once he was gone, Barbara went over to her bedroom and pulled out a box from underneath her bed. Placing it on her covers, she opened it up right next to her stuffed teddy bear.

"Good thing I didn't show him the costume. Right, Freddy?" She said with a smile.

-Moulton Towers-

Walking up to the front entrance, Barbara double checked her attire for the upteenth time before heading inside. 'I wonder if anyone will recognize me in this.' She thought. 'They probably won't unless I introduce myself.'

What the commissioner's daughter was currently wearing is a Batman costume… Or rather a Batwoman costume for women wanting to dress up as the Caped Crusader.

The only thing similar to the Batman's regular attire on her costume was the primary grey color on the body. It was in a dark blue color for the cowl, cape, knee high boots and elbow length gloves. The eye holes for the mask were plain white which were fully functional. The only other color of the costume was yellow as it was towards the utility belt and the Bat symbol on the chest.

(It's the first rendition of Barbara's Batgirl outfit from the Batman: The Animated Series. Though the white eyehole addition felt necessary.)

It was rather odd for Barbara wearing this as it was practically the last thing she expected to wear. She had originally thought on wearing either an officer outfit inspired from Star Trek or Princess Leia's outfit from A New Hope. There was even an idea of her dressing up as a police officer, but she felt it would be rather insulting into wearing that without being inducted into the police department.

But her ideas changed when Batman saved her father from getting killed by the Jazzman. She felt rather weak and wanted to feel strong and confident. And the closest she could maybe feel that way was dressing up as the infamous Gothamite hero, even it was for one night.

It was rather last minute on the change, but Barbara didn't mind at all. Though she did wish she got the costume sooner so it would've been closer to the actual Batman color-scheme of it being black and grey. Instead she got this more 'colorful' one as the other ones were sold out. Not only that, but it felt odd to keep her hair confined underneath the cowl.

'Now what was that floor again.' Barbara thought as she went towards the elevator in order to get to the party.

From the outside of the hotel, a pair of figures walked closer and closer to the Towers.

"Well ain't this convenient." Came a female chuckle. "A costume party at here of all places."

"I agree, Selina. It's too perfect to pass up."

Selina Kyle smirked as they sneaked their way into the building. "We'll blend in, sneak into the Vanocouver residence and nab the information before hightailing outta there." The thief then clicked her teeth. "Though I wish we could nab the Surh Diamond, which is supposed to be displayed in this building for another few days."

"We're not here for the diamond. We're just here to ruin Vanocouver Corp on what destruction they've done to the old-growth forests which made them rich." The woman snarled as the plants around her stated to shake.

"Easy there, Red, easy." Said the costumed ravenette as she tried to calm her girlfriend down. "We don't want to give ourselves away and get in trouble now, don't we? Wouldn't want to be separated from Naruto, right?" The results slowly showed as Selina saw the plants settle down. "Better?"

"Let's just go."

Selina rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Pam."

-With Barbara-

'Man… I didn't think it would be this packed.' Thought the costumed redhead. 'Sandy really went a bit too far, I think.' Passing by a girl wearing an astronaut outfit and a few people in clown attires, the Commissioner's daughter suddenly felt claustrophobic all of a sudden. 'I wouldn't be surprised if she invited half of the college campus was invited here.'

Barbara tried to pick up some conversations with some random party goers, but it was rather hard with how loud the floor was. People tried to talk over others while some people started to get a little too extreme. If she knew it was going to be like this, then the redhead wouldn't have bothered to come here.

Yet here she is and she'll just stay for a little while to at least say she at least attended the party for a time.

'Question is now, where the hell is Sandy?' She thought before coming across a girl dressed up as a cowgirl as she was chatting with someone dressed as a ninja. "Excuse me!"

"Yeah?!"

"Have you seen Sandy?"

"Sandy?" Questioned the cowgirl. She scratched her head before turning to the 'ninja'. "Have you seen Sandy, Dave?"

"Yeah, I think I did." He pointed to the far side of the room. "I think I saw her go down that hallway!"

Barbara said her 'thanks' before carefully navigating her way through the party room. It was a little difficult with how cramped it was getting. But the costumed redhead eventually made it before she looked at the varied doors in the vacant corridor.

"Now where'd you go, Sandy?" She muttered before a door opened up and she saw a security guard step on out. "Uh, excuse me?"

The guard turned his attention towards her and quickly got angry at her. "Hey! You ain't supposed to be back here!"

"Sorry, but I'm looking for my friend…"

"I don't care, missy! Nobody is allowed back here for the party's duration!"

Barbara held up her hands and stepped back with a nervous chuckle. "Sorry, sir. I'll head back now." She turned back and scratched her clothed head. 'Sheesh, he didn't have to try and bite my head off. So if Sandy's not there, then whe-'

"Hey! You girls ain't supposed to be here!" Cried out the guard.

"Well crap." Said a woman's voice. "Seems we have one that was more attentive."

"And we can't have that." Said a second one.

"Hey! What are you-"

Barbara looked back and saw a series of vines wrap around the one guard and quickly dragged him inside of the one room. The costumed redhead widened her eyes and quickly reacted. Heading towards the one door, she saw Catwoman and another woman described as that plant woman that was in the news last month.

But looking off to the far side of the room, the college student saw her friend Sandy Vanocouver tied up in the corner of the room. The captive was a bushy blonde haired woman as she wore a princess attire.

Something inside of the costumed headhead snapped as she yelled. "What have you done to her?!"

"What? Her?" Said the plant woman. "We found her like this."

"Liar!" Acting rash, Barbara leapt forward and tried to strike the Catwoman with an overhead kick. The costumed thief ducked from the attack before having to block a following kick.

"Hey! Watch it!" Catwoman growled as she pulled the costumed college student's leg. "We didn't-"

She was interrupted when Barbara suddenly slammed her head against hers and the impact caused her to fall and slam her head against the door frame.

"NO!" Cried out the masked plant lady as she shoved Barbara away. "Out of the way!" She then checked on her friend once she crouched down. "Selina, are you alright?"

The dark haired thief had a dazed look on her face. "Yeeeaah, Ivy… I'm juuust gonna liiie here for a bit… Didn't know… she had a thick… noggin."

Barbara heard the now identified 'Ivy' let out a sigh of relief before quickly looking towards her. "You." She growled. "You'll pay for that."

Quickly looking around for a weapon, the college student quickly grabbed the nearest blunt object she could find. "Back away. I've got a…" Barbara then noticed what she exactly grabbed. "A potted plant… And I'm not afraid to use it!"

Ivy widened her eyes before growling once more. "You would harm me by taking the life of an innocent plant? What kind of monster are you?!"

Barbara was at a loss on what the plant woman was talking about. Acting quickly, she tossed the plant out of the room. "Here! Catch!"

The college student saw Ivy yell out 'NO!' as she dashed past her with a following crash in the hallway. Barbara soon closed the door behind her and quickly locked it. The entrance was started to bang several times as the costumed redhead rushed over to Sandy's side.

"Hey, are you okay?" She asked as she started undoing the gag placed on her.

Free of the gag, Sandy spoke as the costumed Barbara got her out of rope. "Yeah, I think so."

"That's good."

"But who are you?"

Barbara hesitated as she wondered how her friend didn't recognize her voice. But then remembered her current attire as it covered all but her lower face in terms of physical description. "I'm… Uhh… I'm Batgirl." She said before mentally facepalming herself on the 'girl' portion. 'Why'd I say that? I'm a woman, not girl.'

"Batgirl?"

"I'm… Uhh… new." The now named 'Batgirl' lied. "Batman couldn't make it." She saw Sandy nod before the door started to give way with loud growls coming from the outside. "Come on. We need to get out of here."

The costumed princess nodded as they ran out of the room through a connecting doorway. "I can't believe we made it!"

"Not yet, we aint."

"True, but you were amazing back there!"

'Batgirl' looked back with a hidden, raised brow. "You think so?"

Sandy gave her a beaming smile. "Are you kidding? You just beat up Catwoman and that Ivy woman who made her debut last month."

This got Barbara to smile. "I guess I did, didn't I? Well we'll be sure to get you away from them as they captured you, ma'am." She said before a thought came to mind. 'You know, this isn't as tough as I thought it'd be!'

"But… they weren't the ones who did that."

This got Barbara to skid to a stop as they were about to round a corner in the corridor. "Excuse me?"

Sandy was about to answer when a security guard showed up in front of them. Barbara approached the man and was going to talk to him when something unexpected happen.

*BAM*

Sandy shreked when seeing her impromptu savior getting punched into a nearby wall, fell down onto the ground and went unconscious. She tried to help 'Batgirl' but she was grabbed from behind by yet another security guard. Wasn't long before the pair were dragged away with Sandy fighting to get free with 'Batgirl' placed in a fireman carry by one of the guards.

-Later-

Barbara felt extremely groggy as she felt her head was throbbing as her ears picked up the loud sounds of drilling to make her headache worse. She tried to nurse it, but felt her arm was restrained. Shaking her head, the costumed college student then saw she was tied down onto a table. And it wasn't just her as Sandy, Catwoman and Ivy was in a similar position.

"Well… Well… Well…" Came a gravelly voice from a dark area of the room. "Seems the party is now in full attendance."

'Who said that?' Barbara thought as her eyes roamed around the room. She saw the security guards were keeping watch around the room while one of them was drilling into the ceiling. It wasn't long before she saw a man who clearly stood out from the rest.

Sure the man wore the garb of a security guard, but it was the headwear he had on. It was comprised of a raggedy cloth with bad stitchings at every other part. Towards the jaw lied a stitched-in air respirator and around the man's neck lied a noose.

This was Jonathan Crane, the infamous Scarecrow.

The revealed Scarecrow walked towards the captive Catwoman as he stared down at her. "It's quite interesting seeing you here." He traced his fingers onto the table as his didgests were all too close to her head. "Are you here trying to butt into my operation, Miss Kyle?" He then looked towards the bound plant woman. "And I'm wondering who you are, my dear, while helping out our illustrious cat burglar."

"What the hell are you talking about?" 'Batgirl' said from her part of the room.

Crane looked towards the bound woman and spoke. "Why I'm talking about a double job, if you will." The fear doctor then looked at the ceiling. "Above us is the Surh Diamond, a rare and precious gem that is worth millions. And in the first time since it's discovery, it has been let out of its native country." He then looked back down as he smirked underneath his raggedy mask. "The security on that floor is top-notch, yet the security on this floor isn't." Crane walked around his captives as he continued. "So I had the security replaced with my own to make things much more easier."

"But Commissioner Gordon personally guaranteed the safety of that diamond!" Barbara yelled out.

The Scarecrow chuckled darkly. "Yes, I know. A little sure of himself, don't you think?"

From her place in the room, Catwoman clicked her tongue in thought. 'Great~ Seems I'm not the only one that eyed that precious hunk of rock.' The thief then realized something from what Crane said earlier. "Wait. You said a double job. What else are you doing exactly?"

"Why miss Vanocouver over there." Was all he said as he walked towards the now shaking blonde. "Her father is worth millions and taking her is too good to pass up." Aiming his arm towards her, a burst of green mist went straight into Sandy's face. She coughed several times before the costumed princess started screaming in fright. "With the safety of his daughter, his heir, he'll fork over as much money as I desire. Not only to make a good amount on the side, but to help fund my research."

Soon a loud bang was heard from up above. Scarecrow looked up and saw his hired goon was able to penetrate the upper floor. The fear doctor smirked under his mask as he saw another of his 'guards' climbing up the ladder. After a minute, the same man climbed back down with the diamond in his grasp.

"Excellent." Crane said with sadistic glee. Turning his attention to Sandy, he spoke. "Now I fear it's time for us to depart with both prizes." He then pulled out a smoke bomb from his pocket and slammed it onto the ground as a green gas slowly filled the room. "Now some insurance for you lot to not follow us that easily."

Scarecrow and his goons then departed from the room with the screaming Vanocouver heiress in tow as the room was slowly filling up with the infamous Fear Toxin.

'Damnit, I need to save Sandy.' Barbara thought. Turning her attention to Ivy, an idea came to mind. "Do you really control plants, Ivy?"

The champion of the Green looked at the 'Batgirl' with a raised brow. "Yes, why?"

"Can you get us out of these ropes?" Barbara asked before seeing Ivy glare at her. "Look, I'm sorry I jumped into conclusions earlier. I shouldn't have done that. But if we don't get out of here in time, then we'll get affected by Scarecrow's gas and he'll get away."

Ivy didn't say anything as she focused her powers around her in order to connect with any nearby plants. Luckily for them, there was some outside of the nearby window. The vines broke through and quickly went towards their bindings in order to free them. Barbara was the first one that was able to get freed as she quickly picked up a left behind tool on the ground.

"What are you doing?" Asked the cat burglar.

"Sounding the alarm." Was all Barbara said as she tossed the tool through the hole above.

Her aim held true as the item broke the glass which held the diamond earlier, thus setting off the alarms.

In the hallway, Scarecrow and his goons heard the alarms blare to life as many of its occupants were now going into a little frenzy. "DAMMIT! THE ALARM!" He growled as he pointed towards the elevator. "Quickly! In there!"

The hired goons piled in and awaited for their boss to join them. Yet things changed when he snatched both the diamond and the Vanocouver heiress from their grasps. Before they could properly respond, Crane tossed in several Fear Toxin smoke bombs as the doors closed and them screaming their heads off.

'Good. Now they'll distract the real guards with the expanding Fear Toxin while I get away.' Thought the fear doctor as he carried the heiress upstairs. He rushed as fast as he could with the added weight, but once making it to the roof he saw his sight of escape via helicopter.

Just when he was about to reach it, Crane was kicked to the side as he dropped both Sandy and the diamond from his grasp. Looking towards the side, he growled when seeing the 'Batgirl' landing on the ground as she soon picked up the diamond.

"You'll pay for that, girl." He said before pulling out a small metal canister from his pants pocket. Slamming it on the ground, Crane quickly twisted the nob before kicking away as the Fear Gas quickly went into the air.

-Insert Ride or Die by TheUnder-

Barbara coughed several times before her vision seemed to change around her. The sky seemed to go into a fiery orange color as the buildings around her started to warp into a truly dark tone. It was as if Halloween truly took over the city.

"It's time to expLoRe your FEARS!" Said the Scarecrow as his voice started to change. "Be hoNoRed TO bE the FIrST to tESt my new FORmula."

When the smoke cleared, Barbara shivered in a building fright when seeing Crane truly look like his namesake. The man seemed to grow taller as he appeared more of a gaunty man with his skin literally showing his bones. With what openings there were in his flesh were glowing orange light with feathers sticking out every other place. His mask had a more sinister feel to it as the same orange light pierced through the openings. An in his hand was a giant hook with a chain connected at its end.

Trying to overcome her fear, Barbara tried to taunt the criminal. "Yo-You are a bad doctor, Crane. You don't wait for people's consent."

Crane merely chuckled. "EvEryONE Must fACe tHeir feARs sOONer or LATer."

The masked Gordon growled. "You're disgusting."

"I've HEARD woRSe."

Barbara was the first to move first as she rushed forward. Seeing this happen, Crane moved to the side before swiping his chained hook weapon at her. She tried to evade, but the weapon was too quick for her as she got knocked back.

Barbara tried to recover quickly, but Scarecrow started laying it on her as his flurry of kicks and punches delt serious damage on her. The college student did as much evading as she could, but she could only do so much before taking more damage. Though she was successful in a few kicks and punches here and there, but Barbara was still overwhelmed.

As 'Batgirl' fell down, Scarecrow stalked forward with a menacing chuckle. "My TOXin aFFeCTs you." He taunted. "You're QUITE the frAUd, aren't yOu little BAT?" He suddenly kicked her, causing Barbara to skid across the rooftop before slamming against the short wall. "You're nOt rEALly a Bat at all. MeRelY a PREtender." Crane reached down and plucked the Surh Diamond from her before walking towards the unconscious heiress. "If you were trained BY the real deal, ThEn you would have HELD your own. But I FEAR you hAVe failed."

Barbara tried to get back up and say something, but someone spoke up. "Oh~ I wouldn't say that."

Before the fear doctor could properly react, a series of vines smacked him away as the diamond fell from his grasp. "WHO DARES?!" He yelled out.

"I dare."

Crane looked off to the side of the building as Ivy came into view as vines helped elevate her. Once at the roof, the masked plant woman stepped off her plant platform as she glared at the gaunty looking man.

Seeing the returned captive, the fear doctor pulled out smoke bombs and tossed them at Ivy's feet. The gas surrounded her, which caused her to fan it away from her once she coughed several times. As the Fear Gas blended with the air, Ivy merely rose a brow. "Am I supposed to be scared from seeing you like that?"

"Hmm~ INterestING~ My tOXin doESn't fully aFFect you." Mused the fear doctor. "I can't wait to PEak inSIDe your head TO find out why."

"Tempting, but no."

Scarecrow spun his chain hook at the new arrival in which she quickly used several vines to block the attack. Ivy dashed forward and ducked from a punch he threw at her. When she got close, the Green champion delivered a series of punches towards his chest before pushing him back across the roof. Crane tried to recover, but a broken fan crashed into him.

The Scarecrow then saw his opponent rushing towards him, which caused him to spin his chain hook around as a form of defense. The act was successful as Ivy was knocked back a bit, yet she recovered by somersaulting on the rooftop. The masked plant woman then bounced back with compacted vines striking his front.

Crane gasped for air as he was sent flying into the neighboring tower and stumbled across it's rooftop. Ivy then used her plants as a strong springboard to get onto the other rooftop before performing a recovery roll.

When he tried to get back up, the Scarecrow hotly glared at her. "WHY iSN't my GAS WOrKing like IT'S inTENded?!"

"It seems your gas doesn't work well with plants, Crane." Came her taunt.

The fear doctor growled as he grasped a large amount of fear gas bombs from his person. Sending his opponent a devilish grin, he slammed them onto the floor. With the amount of Fear Gas now forming in the area, the smoke covered not only the one rooftop, but the neighboring ones.

Barbara and Ivy coughed from their respective spots before they seemed to hallucinate by seeing Crane growing into monstrous heights. The costumed redhead shivered at the sight while Ivy seemed to hold her ground with a narrowed glance. Before she could react, the weapon of the enlarged Scarecrow quickly struck her before he seemed to swing her all over the place. The plant woman's body slammed against the current rooftop several times before being sent flying back to the neighboring one.

The 'Batgirl' saw Ivy skid across the rooftop before coming to a stop at her position. Barbara then rushed towards her side. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Ivy groaned out.

They then saw Scarecrow appear near them as he chuckled darkly at his opponent's position on the rooftop. "Had eNOuGh?"

The plant woman got up before forming several vines around her arms. "Not even close."

Crane's reaction time was rather slow at this point as Ivy lashed her vines at him as he was struck several times across his body. The fear doctor flailed on the onslaught and tried to recover. Yet her onslaught wasn't done as Ivy leaped into the air and wrapped her legs around his neck before punching his noggin a good number of times. Once done, she whipped her hips around in order to toss Crane away as he slammed against the bricked rooftop entrance.

As the Scarecrow tried to get back up, his legs were harshly tugged before he was dragged across the rooftop's pavement. He was then slammed against its surface several times before he was lifted up into the air. When his glowing eyes focused once more, he didn't know if his Fear Toxin was leaking into his mask…

"Time for a late night snack, deary~"

Because Crane saw a giant venus fly trap open as he was soon tossed inside its mouth.

"GAAAAAHHHH!"

The fear doctor was chomped several times before he was spat onto the ground as he was now unconscious and defeated.

"Good girl~" Ivy cooed as she patted the enlarge plant's mouth. "Now run home and rest. I'll be sure to get you you're flies later."

From her place, Barbara widened her eyes in amazement on how Ivy handled the situation and laid the beatdown on Crane. She then saw the giant venus fly trap disappear from the rooftop as she looked off it's edge to see receding into the ground from the street below. Looking back onto the rooftop, the 'Batgirl' saw her vision to go back to normal as Crane went back into his humanistic appearance with the surroundings soon following after.

"Are you okay?" Barbara blinked a few times before she nodded at Ivy's question. She tried to stand up, but held her side as it felt a bit in pain. "Let me take care of that." Ivy soon dropped several seeds onto the ground before she waved her hand. The costumed redhead soon saw flowers burst from the ground before they puffed spores into her face. Barbara coughed several times before she suddenly felt her injuries were slowly fading away.

"Better?"

"...Yeah, I think. Thank you."

Ivy nodded as she used her vines to wrap up the former college professor's prone body. Once done, she walked over to the diamond and picked it up. This was all before she walked towards the roof's edge as a plant platform rose up.

"What are you doing?" Barbara asked.

"Taking these to the ground floor so the police can take care of them." Was all Ivy's response was before she eventually disappeared from view and from Barbara's slight protest on leaving.

The 'Batgirl' soon sighed before hearing a groan from one part of the rooftop. Barbara soon realized Sandy was waking up, causing her to rush to her side. "Ma'am, are you alright?"

The costumed heiress groaned. "What happened?"

"You were taken, but you're safe now." Sandy briefly nodded before drifting off. The costumed redhead lowered her head with a sigh. 'I should probably get her back to her room.' She thought before carefully picking Sandy up and getting to her floor as fast as possible.

It took several minutes for Barbara to get back and do just that. She dropped Sandy onto her bed before noticing some rips and tears onto her costume from the earlier fight. 'I need to get changed.' Barbara thought as she went towards the fire escape. 'I don't want to get questioned when the police arrive.'

When Barbara returned to the scene ten or so minutes later, she was greeted with the sight of several GCPD personnel questioning the party guests. Her eyes wandered as she then saw her father talking to one of the patrons. "DAD!"

Hearing his daughter's voice got Gordon to snap his neck around to see her coming towards her. "Barbara?!" He said before taking her into a firm hug. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, dad. I wasn't anywhere near the action." She lied. "Practically spent the whole time eating munchies and I was about to leave when the alarms went off."

He nodded before seeing her casual attire. "What happened to your costume?"

"Oh, that? Someone spilled punch over it earlier." Barbara said for her little excuse. "Had to head back to my car and change before coming back."

"Well I'm glad you did so before the ruckus earlier?"

"Why's that?" She said in order to play along.

"Jonathan Crane attempted both a robbery on the Surh Diamond and a kidnapping on your friend Sandy." Gordon said, getting a 'surprised gasp from his daughter. "Luckily some woman going by Poison Ivy was able to stop both attempts."

What Gordon didn't tell his daughter was that he already knew who Poison Ivy really was. He remembered having to arrest and escorting Pamela Isley to Arkham Asylum earlier this year when she went mental. When the events of 'The Laughing April Fools' went down and the giant zombie looking fellow attacked months ago, Gordon had guessed that it was the same woman that participated to help restore order.

'I'll need to have a chat with Pamela when I get the chance.' Was James' thoughts. 'Both to thank her and to warn her on what it is to be a vigilante.'

And as for Barbara, she had thought about telling her father on what happened earlier, but she didn't want to make him really worried. From briefly fighting Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Scarecrow respectively; all that would make him have an early heart attack. Especially with him still healing from his prior injuries.

So for the time being, this will just be her secret and she'll laugh about it later on in life. And the same went with her father on his part.

When the father/daughter pair exited the building, they saw Crane getting shoved into the police van with Summer Gleeson trying to have an interview with the masked plant woman. Yet the Gothamite reporter's action failed as the ground underneath Ivy crumbled and plants covered her form to escape from the attempted interrogation.

Both Gordon and his daughter briefly laughed when seeing their reactions before going off to their separate directions for the rest of the evening.

-Meanwhile, Wayne Manor-

At the home of the Wayne family for a good number of generations, varied places were decorated in the holiday spirit. From the carved out pumpkins, hanging cutouts of Halloween imagery, and the dish bowl full of candy placed by the front door. They weren't much in heavily decorating the home, but it was only shown in several places until the start of November.

Coming towards the lobby, Alfred Pennyworth was dressed up as the illustrious and famous detective: Sherlock Holmes.

In his eyes, this was a fun costume he occasionally wore for a good number of years on this holiday. When both he and Bruce were younger, the Wayne butler had dressed up as a clown a few times in order to humor the aging boy. But after that tragic night, Alfred had stopped dressing as that character and went with more mature costumes from novels the Pennyworth enjoyed on reading. From the Time Machine and the Invisible Man, the Wizard of Oz, Moby Dick, the Count of Monte Cristo and of course Sherlock Holmes as fine examples in passing years. Though once the young Dick Grayson came into the household, he went back to dressing as a clown in order to help raise the young lad's spirits on some reminder of his years in the circus.

But that time has long since past as Alfred went back into his costume he enjoyed quite well.

Once checking himself in the lobby mirror, the Wayne butler heard the doorbell ring. It will be quite the occurrence for the evening of answering the door in order to hand out sweets to the Gothamite children.

Coming up to the door, with the the bowl of candy, Alfred opened the door… only to jump back when he saw a grotesk mask right in front of his face.

"GAH!" He cried out in brief fright. The butler did hear a series of laughs soon after as he looked down to see three individuals in costumes.

One was a blonde haired girl dressed as a vampire as she powder her face to make her skin paler than normal. One was hard to describe as the person wore a tattered black cloak with the hood drawn up and underneath said hood was a black nylon mask with red eyes shown through to make the appearance disturbing. And the last as a familiar ashen child as she wore a purple attire with an attached pony's tail on her back while wearing a headpiece with pony ears and a horn on the center.

"Trick or treat!" Cried out the three youngsters as two of the three still chuckled at his small expense. And he saw they carried large bags filled with goodies as proof of their long night of going door to door for treats.

A feminine chuckle came soon after as Alfred looked back up to see the woman who wore the ghoulish mask. Pulling it off her head and placing it into her purse, the butler saw she wore a domino mask underneath to fit with the rest of her current attire.

It was a black and red colored rendition of a harlequin outfit with a white collar and matching cuffs on her wrists. And on the ends of the pig tailed headpiece lied small white puffs. This, of course, oddly complimented her bleached white skin.

"Sorry if I scared you, Alfey Holmes." Said an all too familiar voice. "It's Ghoul's Night, y'know?"

Alfred gave out a sigh before giving her a dry look. "I am well aware, Miss Quinzell."

The now identified Harley gave a cute pout. "Mou~ You found out who I was already? Pfft. Spoilsport."

The butler rolled his eyes as the group of four came through the entrance and got themselves comfortable. "It was quite easy to deduct who you were shortly after you rid yourself of that ghastly mask you wore." Alfred then looked at said item in the costumed Harley's hand. "Though why you decided to wear, I would not know."

"Oh, y'know, getting some laughs when scaring the daylights out of some homeowners." She said, which was backed up by the dark hooded person to nod with a feminine chuckle.

It was then that Naruto rounded the corner into the lobby and saw the group. "Don't tell me you did that all night long, Harley?" He said, getting an enthusiastic nod from her. The Uzumaki groaned a little before looking at the attires of Rachel, Artemis and- "Why are you dressed up like the world's most evil Jawa, Jade?"

"Because I felt like it, Naruto." Was the teenage Crock's answer.

"She at that age that she's doesn't want to go trick or treating, Naruto." Said the costumed psychologist. "But she still wanted candy."

Naruto chuckled as he saw Jade fume a little.

It was then that Dick Grayson arrived in the area as he overheard the conversation. "Oh I remembered when I was like that." He said as he smirked when seeing the 'evil Jawa' costume. "Nice costume, kid."

"Thanks." Jade said before she pulled the hood back and took off the nylon mask to reveal her slightly reddened face. "Man, it was getting hot under there."

"Yeah, I imagine."

Harley chuckled a little as she pulled off her head piece to let her hair run free. "You really should've seen of what happened at this one house we went to." Said the blonde.

"What happened?"

The woman smirked. "We went to this one house and on the front porch was this three or four-year old dressed up as Batsy." She then looked over to Jade as she chuckled on the memory. "Jade was walking up the sidewalk to go up to that door and when that kid turned around to leave, he freaks out and runs across the entire length of the porch -which was the whole length of the house- and jumps off into a bush."

It was this point that both Naruto and Dick bursted out laughing when hearing this. They knew they shouldn't, as it was a horrible thing to have happened, but they couldn't help themselves.

"You two shouldn't be laughing." Said the younger Crock girl. "He's probably traumatized by what Jade unintentionally did."

"We know!" Dick said as he tried to calm himself down. "Bu-But-hehehaha!" Just the odd imagination of 'Batman' being scared of an 'evil Jawa' just made his night. 'If Bruce were to hear this, he'll obviously be pissed.' Was the Grayson's thought and unknowingly Naruto's as well.

The doorbell rang again as Alfred went back to the lobby to answer the door. As he left Naruto and the others behind, they chatted.

"So do you guys have the things ready for the girls' sleepover before you two head out?" Harley asked as the girls went to find the entertainment area of the manor.

The idea came up a few days ago when Bruce left town to track the man behind the Rockridge heist. Since Alfred would've been alone in the manor, Dick decided to stay over to keep the butler occupied.

And it wasn't just Bruce that was gone, but also Paula and Lawrence as they had to leave rather suddenly. They said they were called in by their respective jobs for some out of town meetings and wouldn't be back until a few days into November. Until they return home, Harley was incharge of looking over them.

And that included entertaining them.

So when she learned that Bruce was gone as well, Harley got the fun idea to do a sleepover at Wayne manor. It took some time convincing Alfred to let this happen as it would at least get him something to do on Halloween night.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, I got the girls a few games they could play in the entertainment center."

"Like what, puddin?"

"Well there's this one game one of my writers actually made and wanted some of us at work to test it out."

"What's it called?"

"Monty called it Remnant." He answered.

It was Dick who picked up from there. "I was looking over the rules earlier and it's a lot like Risk, but it's more of a fantasy variety. Not only that, but it includes card-based actions like 'traps' and 'monsters'."

"Well ain't that interesting." Came Harley's response.

Naruto nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Monty wanted to make something connected to a book series he was writing and he wanted people to get an early idea on what it might be in his series' world."

"Anything else asides from that Risk parody?"

"There's a few video games like Doom and Secret of Monkey Island. And in terms of other things they could do are carving and painting pumpkins while possibly seeing a movie or two before they hit the sack."

"Ah~ gotcha."

"I've been meaning to ask this, Harley, but where are Selina and Pam?" Asked the Grayson. "I thought they were going to be with you guys."

The pale woman sighed as she scratched her head. "That was the original plan, but they said they wanted to run a few errands before meeting up with us at some point."

"Yet they haven't." Said the publisher.

"Yeah~"

"Have you tried contacting them?"

Harley nodded. "Was able to get ahold of them on the way over here. They said they would've met up with us sooner, but some things held them up. Don't know what's going on, but they'll show up here soon."

Naruto and Dick nodded before they saw Alfred come back from the front door.

"Any good costumes this round?"

"If you consider Joker, the Mad Hatter and Magpie good on the last group, then yes." Dick asked.

"Eh~ Nevermind then."

Naruto then saw the startled look on the butler's face. "You sure you didn't see a ghost, Alfred?"

The Pennyworth merely sighed. "I was a bit spooked by the chaperone's Solomon Grundy mask."

The three other adults shared a worried look.

Weeks after Naruto, Pam, Bruce and Dick fought against the Champion of the Black, the media kept talking about what the four fought against. They kept discussing on how the being came to be and wondered where it resided. The media eventually picked up on the name as they did connections with the poem the zombie spoke in the confrontation.

And because of this, the four plus Selina and Harley started seeing items being sold pertaining to Grundy. Hell there were even several people they saw today dressed up as the Black's champion.

"Well… it is Ghoul's night." Spoke the Grayson. "So people thought they could make Grundy the image of Gotham's old legend… in their odd way."

Alfred sighed. "Not all legends are legend, Master Dick."

"Well we've faced a lot of things that go bump in the night, Alfred. So legends have stayed as legends."

"True, but do keep an open mind at least."

The young acrobat nodded before turning to Naruto. "Should we head out now? We did promise Gordon we'd help him out tonight."

"Yeah we should." Said the publisher as the two made their way to the Batcave. "Besides, what would Halloween be if we didn't get to wear our costumes?"

-Bolton Estate-

Things seemed quite well when the pair went to the GCPD. They checked in on Gordon before heading out to do what they did best. And to help out out with the patrols were Vanitas' void clones as they were spread out far and wide to take care of both robberies and the crazies.

Though it was shortly after they started their patrol when Vanitas' helmet radio picked up on a call that someone wrecked up an estate. With nothing to do, both Vanitas and Robin went to investigate.

Yet they didn't realize of how severe it was once they arrived as the estate as in complete shambles.

"Damn," Robin said with widened eyes, "what happened here?"

"I don't know, Robin." Said the helmeted Uzumaki. His eyes did land on a pair of elderly twins, no doubt the ones who made the call earlier. "But I'm sure they know."

The two heroes came up to the Bolton twins, who were hunched over on the ground. Wanting to see if they could hear them, Robin asked them the obvious question. "What happened here?"

Hearing the sudden call caused the elderly twins to whirl around before they shreked once their eyes landed on Vanitas' form.

"A demon!" Said Victoria.

"The-The-The police will be here any moment!" Spoke Georgia.

Vanitas held up his hands as a response. "I'm here to help, not harm you ladies."

"Trust us, ma'ams. We do mean well." Robin said as he tried to calm down the twins. "So onto the matter at hand: Who or what did this?"

It was Victoria who spoke first. "It was him. He came for us."

"Who?"

"Solomon Grundy." Georgia said with fear in her voice.

Once hearing this, both Vanitas and Robin widened their eyes and looked at each other before looking back at the twins. "Are you sure about this?" Asked the helmeted hero.

The twins motioned their arms all over the place in order to emphasise their statement. "Look how strong he is." Said Victoria.

"He did this with his have hands." Spoke the second twin. "And it was all part of his revenge."

"...What revenge are you talking about?" Robin questioned.

Georgia was the one to speak of it as she held her arms in order to calm herself. "Just as the legend told: The Gotham Ghoul would return on darkest night to deprive the descendants of all in their sight." Both she and her sister then looked all over the place as tears streamed down their eyes. "Our home, our assets. We're fortunate we still have our lives."

It was feeling like it was complete nonsense at this point, causing Vanitas to speak up. "Ladies, I know you're frightened, but-"

"If you don't believe us, look." Victoria interrupted before pointing to where the two heroes stood. Looking down, they saw large muddy footprints that outsized their own. "He came for us. And he'll indeed come for the others too."

This caused the two vigilantes to pause.

And it was Robin who asked the obvious questions. "Who are these others?"

-Winslow Estate-

When they arrived at the large estate, both Vanitas and Robin saw the destroyed entrance with muddy footprints leading inside. And when they ventured in, they saw the lobby was absolutely trashed. From the walls, the pillars and the railings; nothing was spared.

And it wasn't long before the vigilantes heard screams and commotion going on from another room.

Rushing towards the source, they widened their eyes that it was indeed Solomon Grundy as he towered over the estate owner. The man tried to get away, but he tripped and fell onto the ground. Turning around, he saw Solomon Grundy was about to crush him with his foot.

Not wanting to see the man die, they rushed in as Robin called out to the man. "Winslow, run!"

Grundy's attention was transferred onto the two heroes as a result while Winslow was able to run away to safety. The walking corpse growled and charged right at them with his fists held high. "Grundy must destroy!"

The pair leaped out of the way from Solomon's strike as the attack destroyed a good portion of the floor. As he was a good distance away, Robin quickly pulled out his grappling gun and fired in order to entrap the zombie for as long as possible. This helped by Vanitas some time as he brought out Lunar Rose and swung at the reanimated corpse.

Yet he wasn't quick enough as Grundy quickly grasped the incoming blade and pulled the helmeted hero closer to him.

"Destroy!" Said the Black champion as he quickly punched Vanitas through a wall.

Wanting to assist his friend, the 'Boy' Wonder tossed several smoke bombs at Grundy's general direction to obscure his vision. As the walking corpse waved the smoke away, Robin leaped towards his head and kicked it towards its side. Grundy looked back at the younger hero before quickly grabbing his cape and tossing him around the room before letting go as he came into contact into a bookshelf.

'I think Naruto's right about capes.' Robin thought as he groaned on the ground. 'Someone might take advantage of that in a fight and it'll cost me one day when they'll use it against me.'

It was then that Vanitas reappeared as he brought out his Kazekage lance and tried to strike his side. Yet his attack was quickly avoided by the enlarged man before the attack pierced him. Grundy was able to pull the weapon out of Vanitas' grasp and struck the hero with it several times. Tossing the wind lance to the side, the Black champion picked up the black/white themed hero from the ground and tossed him into the lobby.

From his place on the ground, Robin tried to get back up as he saw his friend getting pummeled while several more pillars were getting destroyed in the process.

'Dammit!' He thought. 'If this keeps up, then the place will tumble right on top of us!' Robin had to bite back his pain as he rushed out of the destroyed study and went to secure his friend.

Yet this attempt was halted as Grundy saw this coming and grabbed a broken pillar and batted the incoming Robin away. The young hero yelped in pain as he crashed into a crumbling wall. And it wasn't long before the rest of the building started to collapse into itself.

It was several minutes later when Robin groaned awake. His body was throbbing and he was indeed sure he wasn't going to be getting out of bed tomorrow. When Robin opened up his eyes and regained focus, he saw several trick or treaters standing above him. One was dressed up as a bedsheet ghost, one was a fairy princess and the other was dressed up as him.

"Woah." One of them said in amazement.

It was rather hard to tell which one who said that, but Robin didn't care. Both he and Vanitas got their asses handed to them.

Pulling off debris off of him, Robin got up as he dusted himself off. Once done, he saw the kids were still looking at him. "Uh… No candy here, kids." He then looked around for any sign of his friend, yet he didn't. Soon, a thought came to mind once Robin looked back at the trick or treaters. "Hey, have you three seen Vanitas around here? You know: black and white themed, taller than me and has this annoying voice-"

"I HEARD THAT!"

The others looked some feet away as debris was lifted off of the ground. When Vanitas stood up, they saw his glass domed helmet was cracked in several places while a hole was shone right through as his eyes glowed from the darkness.

Pulling on his limbs to get some kinks out, the helmeted Uzumaki spoke towards his companion. "You just had to say that last one, didn't you Robin."

Said hero laughed a little, yet had to hold his side due to the pain. "Hey. It was the only way I could find you quicker."

All other communication stopped as both the vigilantes and newly arrived trick or treaters heard newly made sobs and wails. Looking at the source, they saw Winslow grovel on the ground. "My home." He said in misery. "Everything I own, gone…"

The two heroes looked on with saddened expressions on their faces as another victim was made this night and they were powerless to stop it.

Looking at the central child in the group, the 'Boy' Wonder nodded with a smirk on his face. "Spiffy costume."

Vanitas rolled his eyes underneath his helm. "Of course you would say that, Robin."

-Wayne Manor-

Inside the entertainment room of Wayne Manor; Harley, Jade, Artemis and Rachel were playing an enthusiastic game of Remnant…

With interesting results.

On each side of the board, each of the players controlled the following territories: Rachel with Vale, Jade with Vacuo, Artemis with Atlas and Harley with Mistral. Each player had a selective amount of 'soldier/warrior/hunter' pieces while Grimm pieces littered every other area of the 'world'. These consisted of Beowolves, Ursa, King Taijitu, Nevermores and much other from what one Monty Orm was creating in his book series.

Looking back up and down from both her cards and placements on the board, Artemis formed a smirk on her face. "Aunty Harley, prepare your kingdom for battle!" She announced, as she pointed at her neighbor.

Harley balled her fist and gave out a determined grin. "Bring it on!"

The blonde Crock quickly stood on her chair and spoke with a raised voice. "I deploy the Atleasian Air Fleet!"

The Arkham employee gave out a surprised gasp.

Feeling triumphant, Artemis gave out a haughty chuckle. "Looks like I get to fly right over your Ursai and attack your walls directly!" The young child then motioned her hands -like an airplane- and gave out a crashing noise soon after.

"Y-Y-You fiend!" Said the blonde woman. "You would do that to your own aunty?!"

Artemis was so distracted with her play that she slipped and fell from her chair. She quickly recovered by playing off the little injury once poking part of her head out. Her grey eyes held a mischievous glee with hints of pain showing in her gaze. "And since Atlas is a part of Mantle, my repair time is only one turn!"

This bit of triumph seemed to end once she heard Harley give out an evil chuckle. . "That's some grade-A sneaking skills right there, Arty. But…" the pale woman pulled out a card from her hand, "you activated my Trap Card!" She announced, causing the young Crock to recoil in surprise and shock. "Giant Nevermore! So if I roll a seven or higher, fatal feathers will slice your fleet in two!"

The young girl recomposed herself and pointed towards her surrogate aunt. "But, if you roll a six or a lower, the Nevermore will turn on your own forces!"

A dark glint seemed to shine from the older woman's blue eyes. "That's a chance I'm willing to take!" Harley informed, as the two blondes stared down at each other with determination.

As this went on, the other two occupants at the table were mixed when being interested in the game. Rachel was occasionally looking back into the rule book to see if things might work in her favor. As for Jade, she seemed rather confused and wondered how she got roped into the game in the first place.

Though the older Crock child's eyes went off to the side to see what the others were doing.

By the corner of the room, Alfred was too engrossed by reading some dusty old book as everything else around him seemed to fade away. Pam was sorting through each of the piles of candy to see which ones were good for the girls while others were bad… like what a concerned mother reacts like on Halloween candy. And Selina was typing away into her laptop as she was researching something on a flashdrive she brought earlier.

Something involving Vanocouver.

While the girls were painting and carving their pumpkins earlier, Pam and Selina showed up to join in on the festivities. Both women seemed rather tired, but they played things off well as they did their own thing on their respective pumpkins. While Selina carved away into the orange vegetable… fruit(?), Pam was merely painting as doing any harm to the pumpkin was considered a waste of good food.

...for some reason.

After all that was done, Harley was going over the Remnant rule book with Rachel and Artemis while Jade seemed bored out of her mind before she was roped into playing.

In all honesty the dark-haired Crock girl didn't want to do anything else after trick or treating except for watching a good horror movie before going to bed. Yet she was brought here for an odd sleepover at the infamous Wayne manor with her sister and friend, due to Harley's connection with the Wayne household.

Jade was rather fine on going, at first, when learning Naruto was going to be over here as a supervising guardian. Yet he had to suddenly leave, for some reason, which made it feel like he wasn't really doing his intended promise.

The early teenager liked the Uzumaki a lot and enjoyed the time when he spent time helping her and Artemis on homework. Even his knowledge on weapons and fighting seemingly helped win her over.

To her, Naruto was perfect. And with her developing hormones going underway, Jade was starting to develop a crush on the whiskered man.

There have been times she dreamed and fantasized of her being with the successful publisher. Whether it was him training her on how to fight -instead of her father- to taking her out on dates… for quite some time.

And her fantasies went beyond that once she got her hands on a copy of the Icha Icha books as she started to-

*Bonk*

'Huh?' Jade thought as she felt something bounce against her head and clutter onto the table. Looking down, she saw one of the Nevermore game pieces. The Crock teen then glanced her eyes over to see her sister lying on the table with a defeated face as she whined out a 'Noo!'.

"Well, Jade, it's your turn." Harley said with a grin.

Blinking a little, Jade looked back at her cards before speaking in confused admittance. "...I have absolutely no idea what's going on."

"Well~" Harley drawled out, as she slid right up next to her older 'niece' and wrapped her arm around the ravenette teen's shoulder. "...Look, it's easy! You're playing Vacuo which means that all the Vacuo-based cards come with a bonus." She explained.

Jade looked at her 'aunt' with a raised brow. "That… sounds dumb." She said, only for Harley to rip the cards out of her hand and look through them. "Hey!"

The older blonde looked over the cards as she nodded in the process. "...Hmm, yep-yep. You've got Sandstorm, Desert Scavenge... Oh! OH! Resourceful Raider!" Placing the cards back into Jade's grasp. "Now you can take Artemis' Discarded Air Fleet…"

"Nooooooo!" Arty cried out with comical tears streaming down her cheeks.

"...And put it in your hand!" Harley finished off.

The Crock teen looked entirely out of place. "O-kay..."

"And since Vacuo Warriors have an endurance against Natural-based Hazards, you can use sandstorms to disable my ground forces and simultaneously infiltrate my Kingdom!" Informed the psychologist with a cheeky grin. Though she suddenly scrunched her face as she glared at her older 'niece'. "Just so know that I will not forget this declaration of war."

Jade blinked in confusion. "...And that means..." She trailed off.

"You're just three moves away from conquering the world." Rachel said once she placed the rule book onto the table.

"RACHEL! DON'T TELL HER THAT!" Artemis yelled out.

A switch seemed to flip inside of Jade's mind as she formed a psychotic smile. She then clasped her hands together and rubbed them like a stereotypical villain. "Mu-ahaha! HAHAHAHAHA! YES! FEAR THE ALMIGHTY POWER OF MY FORCES!" Jade started to cackle and rave like a loon. "COWER AS THEY PILLAGE YOUR HOMES AND WEEP AS THEY TAKE YOUR MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN FROM YOUR VERY ARMS! SLAVING AWAY INTO THE MINES-"

"Trap card."

"...What?" Jade voiced as she heard Harley suddenly say that. She then saw the older blonde quickly moving the pieces on the board, clearing the older Crock's side.

"Your armies have been destroyed!" Harley announced with a shit-eating grin.

Jade sat down and looked at the board with a twitching eye. Her supposed and incoming global victory was now gone! "...I hate this game of emotions we play!" She whined with comical tears falling down her cheeks.

Jade suddenly felt her little sister glomp her into a hug to join in on the comical crying. "Stay strong, Jade. We'll make it through this together~"

"SHUT UP! DON'T TOUCH ME!" Jade said, despite she hugged her sister close as their cries went into sink.

From their spots in the room, Pam and Selina looked towards the one table and rose a brow on how suddenly Jade got into the game.

And from her spot on the table, Rachel couldn't help but roll her eyes on how weird her two friends reacted to this. "Seriously. This is just a game." She said in a bland tone.

Before Jade could oddly refute, the doors to the entertainment room opened as both Naruto and Dick entered. Jade brightened upon seeing the Uzumaki, but dimmed a little when seeing that both he and Dick seemed worse for wear. Yet they kept a facade that nothing really bad happened.

"Hey, sorry it took a while for us to get back." Dick said. "Certain issues kept us from getting back."

"And where did you two go exactly?" Artemis asked as her teen sister thought the same thing.

"Around." Was Naruto's vague answer. He wouldn't outright say what the two heroes did as Jade and Artemis doesn't know who they really were. Coming up to the one table, Naruto saw what they were playing. "You four having fun?"

Harley enthusiastically nodded, Rachel gave a brief nod while the Crock sisters had their respective answers. "Yeah, I was really enjoying it Naruto." Said the younger Crock.

"Well that's good."

"And Jade here seemed way into it all of a sudden."

"Oh~ How so?"

The ravenette teen glared at her sister. It practically read 'don't tell him or you'll regret it'.

Luckily for Artemis, Rachel was the one to answer. "She was about to win the game."

"Really?" Naruto said as he beamed a smile at the teen's way, causing her to blush a little. "That must've been something for your first time playing this game."

Jade smirked as she seemed acted a little arrogant. "It requires a good level of tactical cunning. And I'm quite sure you possess a lot of it if you were to play."

Before Naruto could speak, Rachel butted in. "Right~ Like when you attacked your own naval fleets two turns ago." She said towards the teenager. Jade quickly glared at the ashen child, which she didn't seemed fazed by that at all. "And you were about to win until Harley suddenly defeated your forces when she looked at your hand."

As this conversation took place, Alfred was checking on Dick as he saw his current state. "Sir, what happened to you?" Said the butler.

"Grundy happened." Dick replied in a hush tone so those at the one table wouldn't hear them. IE: Jade and Artemis.

Pam, who overheard the conversation, turned her attention towards the college student with a worried look. "Solomon Grundy? Are you sure?"

"There was a resemblance. Scarily spot on, I'm afraid. And he beat us real good as neither of us were prepared."

"How so?"

"For one, we thought it was someone dressed up as the zombie when we first investigated." Said the Wayne ward. "That costed us when we fought him on the second estate he struck."

"Figured as much since his appearance is everywhere right now." Pam muttered. "But why didn't you contact us, or at least me, earlier to help out?"

"Naruto and I thought we would have handled the guy until we saw it was actually him." Dick said as he nursed his shoulder. "And on the way back here, Naruto said that something was odd about him that didn't make sense. Something about Yggdrasil would've contacted either you or him if Grundy was back."

Pam nodded at this. The last time the Black Champion rose, Yggdrasil did contact her to help out her lover. Regardless on how long the delay was on doing the act. To make up for it, the ancient being promised he'll contact them if Grundy were to come on out.

"Was there anything else about him that might shed some light?" She asked.

"Not that we know of, Pam. And when we went to the Bolton estate, the owners there told us that Grundy was going to target two others: Winslow and Parish." Dick informed. "Though we don't know exactly why."

"I believe I might shed some light on the matter, Master Dick." Alfred said as he presented a book to Pamela and Dick.

"Really? A storybook, Alfred?" Said the college student. "I just don't know if something from that would help us."

"You would be wise to listen closely, sir. For the legend may provide a clue to lifting this Ghoulish curse." Said the butler as he ignored the eye roll from the others. Turning the pages, Alfred came to a stop when he spoke. "Ah. Here we go."

Coughing into his hand, the Pennyworth spoke. "It says here that Gotham Swamp wasn't always a swamp. Once, it was a lake home to the mostly Eastern European laborers who built Gotham City. But three businessmen, Bolton, Winslow and Parish conspired to make the area a dumping ground. For the industrial waste created by Gotham's construction turned the lake into Gotham Swamp -later known as Slaughter Swamp- rendering the area unsuitable for habitation."

Hearing this particular detail got Pam tightening her fists on what those businessmen did all those years ago. She remembered hearing about this during one of her lessons from the Green as they were very displeased as to what happened to the perfect ecosystem not far from here.

Not knowing of Pamela's train of thought, Alfred continued. "Several laborers, who lost their homes, were versed in magic from their native countries. On All Hallows Eve, during a lunar eclipse they used that magic to form the Gotham Ghoul from the very waste of Gotham's swamp. And since the laborers and their families lost everything they owned, so too would the Ghoul haunt Gotham's founding fathers and their families through the years, leaving them destitute."

"Oh, poetic justice at its most spine-tingling." Said the Uzumaki with a small smirk.

"When did you hear all that?" Pam asked as she and the others turned to the publisher.

"Just now." He replied. "Was going to ask what you guys were talking about until hearing the story."

"Yeah, and despite it being good and all, it does give us clues as to what Grundy's motives are." Theorized the Grayson as he exited the entertainment room.

"And where will you be going, Master Dick?" Alfred asked.

"Heading back out." Dick answered. "If Grundy's allowed to strike his last victim, he could disappear for another 150 years. Or possibly sooner since he's a champion of the Black." Before he could make it far, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking over, he saw the whiskered man behind him. "Naruto?"

"I think it might be good if you sit this one out, Dick." The Grayson blinked and was going to say something when Naruto explained his reason. "I know you want to go back out and stop him, but you're not well enough equipped to handle that zombie. It took four of us last time to take him down."

"But you said that Grundy seems different this time." Dick argued. "I can help."

"I know you can, but I don't want to see you get really hurt because of it." Naruto then sighed as he saw the hurt look in the college student's face. "Please trust me on this, Dick."

Dick wanted to say something, but he saw the look on Naruto's face. It was like what Bruce had every now and then when he wanted to think of Dick's safety over the mission. It was honestly rare seeing this.

'Naruto is really hanging out with Bruce way too much.' Dick thought with a sigh. 'He unknowingly got that face rubbed off onto Naruto.' After thinking it over a little more, Dick reluctantly accepted the suggestion. Seeing this, Naruto started to walk away as the college student chimed in. "Do hurry back. We wouldn't want you turning into a pumpkin."

"And if it is indeed Grundy, let me know so I'll be there quickly." Pam added in

Naruto nodded before he remembered one last thing. Turning to Dick, he spoke. "Hey, let me know when the results from the batcomputer come up."

Dick nodded as Naruto left. Turning around, he saw Pam's curious expression. "Why does he need you to check on it?"

"Before we came up here, I wanted to do some analysis on the mud Grundy left on my cape." He answered. "Bruce's analytical training kicking in and I wanted to get more clues."

Both the botanist and butler nodded before turning their attention back to the entertainment room as Harley yelled out 'Yahtzee!' as she won the game while Selina was still on her laptop on the Vanocouver thing from earlier.

-Parish Wax Museum-

The tolling of the hour was at hand as Vanitas was perched on a rooftop, overlooking one of the only known establishments of the Parish family.

Sure, the family was quite wealthy years ago. But after gambling and stock drops, the Parish's had to sell their home and move in order to settle down. And after a while, the family was able to still run a few small businesses. From bars, diners and of course Gotham's oldest attraction: the wax museum which they've had for generations.

And with it being Halloween, the wax museum is their biggest moneymaker. But just to be on the safe side, the masked Uzumaki had several clones stationed at each of the other Parish owned establishments.

The helmeted hero saw the lights for the wax museum turn off before seeing the owner exit the building and close it up for the night. As the man made it down the street, the vigilante heard a recognizable groan not far away. His eyes scanned the area and was able to spot him a block or so away. Leaping down and rushing towards Grundy's last known location, Vanitas stopped and was left in a state of confusion.

'Okay~' He drawled out, in thought. 'He's really fast for a swamp zombie, but where'd he go?'

Suddenly, the hero heard a series of bangs coming down from the other side of the alley. Moving fast, Vanitas soon stopped when he saw something move. As it came closer, the hero saw… a black cat crossing their way.

"Meow~" It sounded out as it went it's merry way.

The vigilante sighed. When he turned around, Vanitas saw someone jump right at him as the man wore a demon mask. This caused Vanitas to quickly go on guard..

"Whoa, there, buddy. I'm just messing with you." Said the demon mask wearing man. He pulled off the piece of costume to reveal his face to the heroe. "Hey~ didn't see you at old man Parish's shindig." The man inspected the hero's outfit and whistled a pleasant sound. "Damn~ That's quite the Vanitas costume you's got there."

An idea formed in Vanitas' as he eventually spoke. "Hey, listen. I'm looking… for a friend of mine. He's quite big and he's dressed like Solomon Grundy."

The man scratched his cheek as he tried to think if he saw the man Vanitas described or not. All he did was shake his head 'no.' "Sorry man. Haven't seen any swamp zombies." He then walked away as he still spoke to them with a series of chuckles escaping his throat. "But if I do, I'll let him know Vanitas is looking for him."

As the man was out of sight, the vigilante was about to move on until he heard his coms go off. "Hey, Naruto."

Pressing the side of his helmet, Vanitas answered the call. "I'm here, Dick. Go ahead."

"I'd like to let you know that we're about to start the movie back at the manor." Said the college student. "And the others are quite anxious for your return."

Vanitas sighed. "I'll come back soon."

"Good to know. But I somewhat wonder why you didn't just leave a clone behind before you left. Been trying to come up with good excuses to cover your butt when Jade and Artemis kept asking."

The hero groaned as he facepalmed. "I'm an idiot."

Vanitas heard Dick chuckle over the end. "Now I know telling you that bit of information isn't really important, but this one is." This got the hero to really focus in on what Dick was about to say. "The batcomputer was able to trace something in the mud. It is actually human DNA… of the mutated variety." Vanitas perked his head at the mention of this. "The odd thing is it wasn't of any follicles or skin."

"But in the mud itself." Finished of the masked Uzumaki.

"...How on earth could you possibly have known that?"

"Grundy may be supernatural, but this threat isn't."

Vanitas soon heard a series of loud steps as he saw the hulking figure of Grundy coming right towards him. "GRUNDY SMASH!" Slamming his fists onto the ground, a series of cracks formed in the pavement.

The force of the impact caused the hero to quickly move out of the way as Grundy pulled a large chunk of earth from the ground and tossed it at Vanitas. Thinking fast, the helmeted Uzumaki formed Lunar Rose and sliced through the earthy chunk. He then threw several smoke bombs to obscure the zombie's vision. Yet it wasn't enough as it rushed forward, grasped and then tossed Vanitas across the road and into the museum's outer wall.

As the black/white themed hero tried to recover, he literally felt the ground shake as Solomon charged right at him. Vanitas rolled out of the way just in time when the animated corpse crashed into the wall.

"Grundy will crush you!" Yelled out the zombie as he charged right towards his opponent.

Quickly standing on his feet, Vanitas held his ground and raised his scythe into the air.

"Halloween's nearly over, Grundy."

The moment Grundy came close-

"Time to lose mask of yours."

Vanitas quickly sliced the zombie's head right off his shoulders as the head bounced and rolled on the ground. The body moved past the hero by several steps before coming to a stop.

Looking at his bladed weapon, Vanitas spun it to get rid of the 'mud' as he spoke. "Trick or treat, Hagen."

He then heard a dark chuckle coming from the head on the ground. Looking towards it, the body part turned into mud and slithered right back to its body. "Can't blame me for having some Halloween fun, can you, Vanitas?"

Turning around, Vanitas then saw 'Grundy's' body start to reform into a brown clay-like substance. It's limbs and clothes started to blend together as the one color became more prominent. And it wasn't long before the head regrew into something else as it's jagged teeth was present with yellow eyes staring right back at them.

This is Matthew Hagen, former movie star and now present meta-human: Clayface.

"Terrorizing the descendants and destroying their homes was your cover." Spoke the masked Uzumaki. "But it was their money you were after."

"Right you are." Soon the former actor's hands started to reform into large, spiked balls. "Leave them destitute, just like the old legend says." Clayface then launched the formed weapons at Vanitas' general directions as the hero had to quickly move out of the way.

Once landing a good distance away, Vanitas pointed his scythe at the meta-actor. "No one would think of chasing after Grundy for the money." Said the helmeted hero. "They'd have to dredge Slaughter Swamp in hopes of finding anything."

Clayface hotly smirked. "And I'd be long gone with my loot taking any face I wanted." His head started to form into that of the demon mask the vigilante saw from earlier. "Alive, dead or nonexistent."

'I knew we couldn't lose a 500-pound zombie that easily.' Vanitas thought as he sliced through another strike with his scythe. 'Hagen quickly went into his mud form and easily escaped by blending into the environment until the coast was clear.'

Receding back his arms, Hagen soon growled at the hero. "I may not have tricked you and the Boy Wonder, but I'm still gonna collect my treats."

Without any warning, Clayface quickly formed a muddy pillar and rushed right through Vanitas. The meta soon crashed right through the wax museum outer wall as he made his way inside. Not wanting to lose him, Vanitas went right after him.

"Well ain't this perfect." Drawled the masked Uzumaki. "A shape-shifter in a wax museum. Thrilling…"

Making it at a certain point in the establishment, the hero slowed down his pace. In the current environment, Vanitas didn't want to be jumped by his opponent so the went on guard.

His eyes roamed at every other display he passed on by. Werewolves, vampires, mummies, samurai, knights, ghosts… you name it. It was really hard to tell which one was the former actor as Hagen is literally acting by keeping himself still.

Rounding the corner, the hero came face to face with Solomon Grundy. They stepped back a bit, yet they calmed down a little.

'Can't be this guy." Vanitas thought. 'It's too obvious.' Looking around, the vigilante spoke something that was on his mind. "Mind telling me something, Hagen? Why hasn't there been any sign of you for months after your 'deathly' performance?"

Vanitas soon heard Clayface chuckle a little and it was really hard to pinpoint his hiding place with how it eerily echoed around the large room. "You think I'm that stupid into staying in Gotham. You must've been out of your mind." The helmeted vigilante continued to move as the meta continued talking. "I've been traveling and doing small robberies for quite some time to live by. Honing both my skills and crafts so the next time I come across you costumed freaks, I'll be ready."

"So why come back to Gotham after all this time?" Vanitas asked as he moved towards an alien display. "You said you traveled a lot. You could've stayed away and no one would think twice into looking for you. Especially when you faked your death."

"You can say 'it's to test my metal' against you, Vanitas!"

The hero was then knocked onto the ground. Looking back, he saw a moving T-850 -from the Terminator film- as it's hands morphed into buzzsaws. The Clay-Terminator launched his arms forward as the buzzsaws destroyed several wax displays.

"And why the Grundy getup?" Vanitas asked as he threw several formed cards. "Isn't it creepier with what you currently look like?"

Cutting through the projectiles, the Clay-Terminator answered. "Taking advantage of the old holiday legend here." He rushed forward as Vanitas quickly used his scythe to block the grinding attack from one of the moving blades. "And since Solomon Grundy got so popular, I thought 'why not' and acted the newly minted 'celebrity'."

Quickly pushing the attack away, Vanitas lept back as he replaced Lunar Rose with Haku. As he came down, the masked Uzumaki slammed his ice shield onto the ground. The frost built up rather quickly as it went towards the Clay-Terminator and captured his one leg as he tried to escape.

"DAMMIT!"

"Sorry. But I'm the one providing the chills tonight." Vanitas quipped.

Clayface growled before he enlarged one of his arms and swiped it across the room. The vigilante was then knocked away from the attack. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, Hagen used his buzzsaw hand to slice himself free from his icy confinement. He then reformed into his normal appearance before fleeing the scene.

Vanitas was going to give chase before his eyes landed on Clayface's entrapped leg as it was trying to free itself. Getting an idea, the hero brought his boot down hard to break the ice.

With the Clay-leg freed, it went into mush and quickly moved across the floor with the hero following. He rushed through several corridors and quickly maneuvered through some fallen displays so the hero wouldn't lose his pace. And it seemed Vanitas' search ended as he saw the clay moving up the stairs and into an office with the lights turned on.

Rushing into the room, the hero saw the vault door was opened.

'How in the world did that get opened so fast?' Vanitas thought as he walked towards it. When the masked Uzumaki came into contact with the vault door, he looked inside and saw… another door?

"What?" Suddenly his arm was ensnared by the 'vault door' as he was started to get consumed. "HEY!" As his body was being covered, Vanitas felt pressure building around his helmet as it was starting to get crushed.

"The problem with this mask, Vanitas: No air holes!" Cackled the meta-actor as he applied more pressure onto his head. Hagen then felt something stab into his clay-like arm and saw a pair of daggers. Before he could respond to them, the weapons sparked to life as they traveled all over his body and started to electrocute him. "GAAAAAAAAHHH!"

This caused Clayface to receed his limbs, thus freeing the hero from hs confinement. As Vanitas' helmet was fixing itself back up, he was quickly shoved through the glass wall and into the wax factory outside.

The helmeted vigilante fell and tumbled across the floor before slamming right into the large waxing pot. Getting up, Vanitas saw Clayface wasn't in the office room above. And it was then that he heard Hagen laugh in a dark tone.

"Try and fi nd me~" Clayface taunted as his voice echoed around the room. Vanitas whirled his heads around and saw there were mannequins all over the place. "I'm just another face in the crowd!"

"Sure you are." Vanitas said as his brought out his wind lance. "Now let's thin out the herd."

Quickly spinning his weapon around, the masked Uzumaki brought forth a large gust of wind as many of the mannequins were easily tossed left and right. Needing to apply more power, the wind picked up at a faster rate.

As this happened, the vigilante kept a close eye for anything astray. And he was rewarded by seeing one of the mannequins move its arms in order to block the wind from it's face.

"Found him." Vanitas muttered out as he suddenly stopped spinning his lance before throwing several exploding playing cards at Clayface's position. Once they came into contact with the 'mannequin', it exploded as Hagen's yells were quickly heard.

Reforming back together, Clayface growled at the hero. "Lucky shot!" He said. "Now here's your door prize! The waxworks hot wax special!"

Clayface lunged forward as his arms knocked the vigilante into the large waxing pot. Vanitas struggled to free himself, yet Hagen kept applying more pressure. And before the hero knew it, he was lifted up into the air and right above the central waxing pot.

"Face it!" Spoke the meta-actor. "You'll be the most realistic dummy in the place."

The moment Hagen threw the hero into the pot, Vanitas quickly formed a floating card platform underneath them. And before Clayface could react fast enough, the masked Uzumaki threw his lance at the chains above. The bladed weapon cut right through, causing the links to give way.

And this caused the large container of hot wax to tip over and pour it's contents onto the meta-actor.

"NOOOOOOO!" Hagen cried out in pain and horror as he was consumed by the boiling mixture.

Steam quickly filled the room once the hot wax came into contact with the cold floor and Clayface's screams were slowly lowering in volume. Recalling his wind lance, Vanitas quickly spun his weapon around to move the steam away to reveal the large wax statue of Clayface as he tried to move, yet fail.

"Man. I'd hate to own that piece of 'art'." Vanitas chuckled as he heard Hagen groan in defeat.

-Wayne Manor-

Naruto was in the kitchen as he was helping Alfred wash the dishes alongside Dick. Asides from the typical plates the manor guests used for dinner, there were the popcorn bowls used for the movie earlier.

After quickly dropping off Clayface at Arkham, the Uzumaki had made it back to Wayne Manor. Just in time too as the movie started in the entertainment room. Naruto said his excuses to the Crock sisters so nothing would raise their suspicion all that well…

To some degree.

The party watched The Lost Boys and something called Wicked Scary. The later was supposedly a 'cursed' movie that haunted it's viewers once the film ended. But this was all just a marketing ploy to get people to rent the movie more and more to see if the 'curse' was real or not.

Though it seemed the film rating should have been set higher, due to how scared the three younglings got by the movie's end.

Anyways, these were quite fun in hopes to wrap up the rest of the early holiday. The adults would have watched something way scarier like Suspiria, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or Evil dead; but with the three youngsters present, they had to restrict themselves to the two films they recently watched.

"Oh, another All Hallows Eve come and gone." Spoke the Wayne butler as he placed the last dish into the dishwasher.

"Well, at least the Gotham Ghoul's curse is lifted." Dick said as he dried his hands. "Now future Gothamites might not deal with that problem anymore."

Alfred merely rose a brow. "What makes you so certain, Master Dick?"

"You're kidding, right?" The Wayne ward asked in disbelief.

"Just because an archvillain masqueraded as Grundy tonight doesn't mean the zombie doesn't exist." Naruto said as he leaned back against the kitchen counter. "Solomon might still be out there and the Black will spring him out when we least suspect it."

Dick looked over to Alfred as he nodded with the publisher's argument. The college student sighed as he rubbed his temples. "I guess you make a compelling argument, Naruto." Dick then yawned. "Welp, seems I need to finally hit the sack and get some well deserved shut eye."

Naruto nodded in agreement as the two left the kitchen, but not before saying goodnight to the faithful butler.

The two walked through the halls as they went to their respective rooms for the night. Once waving goodbye to Dick as he entered his old bedroom, Naruto traveled further along to check on Jade, Artemis and Rachel. Coming across their assigned room, Naruto opened the door to see Harley tucking Rachel into bed.

"...Do you have to do this, Harley?" Rachel asked as she laid in the guest bed. "I am old enough to tuck myself in."

"Well you were rather creeped out when we saw 'Wicked Scary'." Jade chimed in as she tried to fall asleep in her respective bed. "Which, by the way, was a great choice."

"Yet I didn't realize how bad it was for little Ray-Ray and Arty~" Harley wined. "If I had known, then I wouldn't have rented the movie!"

Throughout the film's run, Artemis and Rachel screamed a few times and shook in terror. Some of the adults had asked if the pair would be fine on going to bed right away. Yet the two children responded 'no' as they wanted to brave themselves through.

Quite the cute little troopers.

Though they did try to laugh off the jump scares as it was all for the aspects of fun.

"And this is the reason why you should watch the movie beforehand, in case of anything Harley." Spoke the Uzumaki.

"Says the man who watch the scariest ghost movie ever made because he thought it was a love story." She smirked turning her head to see a blushing Naruto.

"Who in the right mind puts in 'Love Never Dies' as their title?" He said with a pout. "I didn't know it was a crazy guy haunting his last victim that killed him and kills everyone. And ghosts are reasonable to be scared off, you can't touch them and kill them… because they're already dead!" Naruto gained a paled look on his face. "But they can kill you!" He said turning tiny and shivering in the doorway. "Unfair… man… unfair…" But he recovered to smile at Rachel's and Artemis' smiling faces.

He would be the butt of the joke if it meant her smiling.

Hearing the publisher's voice got Jade to move in the guest bed to see him by the doorway. The Crock teen was glad the covers hid most of her face as she blushed when seeing him.

During most of the scary moments of the last movie they watched, she jumped in her seat and landed in Naruto's lap. It felt rather embarrassing for her to happen. And while trying to get off him, the ravenette teen ended up feeling his muscles and a certain pendage in Naruto's pants.

Walking over to Jade's guest bed, Naruto smiled as he leaned forward. "What? Need a goodnight kiss?" He joked, missing Jade's more cherry red face underneath the covers, before she manage to calm down. "Nah~ You're too old for that." He said as he walked over to Artemis and Rachel. "Do you-"

"I'd rather not, Naruto." Artemis said as she scrunched her face as she hugged her Chica plushie. "It's creepy if you did since you're not family."

"Ah~ That's understandable." He muttered before turning to the ashen child "Rachel~?" He whined hoping that his ward would-

"I'm already asleep…" To make the sentence more true, she laid down with her eyes closed trying to pass off as sleeping as her bunny plushie was wrapped in her arm.

"WAAAHH~" The blonde male cried waterfall tears as Harley pat on his back. "No one loves me~"

"Oh don't worry, puddin." Harley said as she wrapped her arms around him. "I love ya." She then leaned forward and captured his lips with hers.

Artemis gave out a brief 'gross' on what she was seeing before turning herself around so she wouldn't see her surrogate aunt kiss her favorite author. And as for Jade, she briefly narrowed her eyes when seeing the action before her.

'Wish I could get that.' Jade thought before turning in the bed to try and enter the realm of sleep sooner.

Once the kiss ended, Naruto went over to Rachel's prone form. Leaning down, he patted her head and leaned forward to whisper something in her ear. "Sweet dreams, Rachel. We'll be sure to celebrate your birthday tomorrow with just you, me, and your 'aunts'; just like you wanted."

"I will…" The girl open her eyes to smile at Naruto before he walked out of the room with Harley not far behind once they turned off the lights.

When it was coming closer to her birthday, Harley had thought on making a fun party to celebrate the occasion. Yet the ashen ward requested not to and wanted it to just be the five of them. Rachel didn't feel comfortable yet in having others know her birthday quite yet and the four adults respected her wishes.

Not even Artemis and Perdita, whom are her closest and bestest friends.

As the couple went towards their guest room, Naruto suddenly felt Harley pull his arm and motioned for them to move faster. "What's the rush, Harley?"

"Oh I just wanted to hurry up and get to bed, puddin." She said with a mischievous smile.

The Uzumaki rose a brow when seeing her expression. He was going to question about it before they got to their assigned from for the night. Harley quickly opened the door and shoved him inside before locking the entrance.

When Naruto regained his balance, the whiskered man saw Pam and Selina… in nurse costumes… on the bed… in provocative poses.

"Wha-" He briefly voiced before seeing Harley in her usual work attire when she's working at Arkham. "Wait. How'd you change from your Harlequin costume and into that so quickly?"

Harley giggled as she pushed Naruto back onto the bed. "That's my secret to tell, puddin." She then looked up and motioned her fellow lovers to crawl towards their boyfriend. "But now, I believe it's time for a well… deserved… check up~" Harley said in a seductive tone as she started rubbing his whiskered cheeks in order for primal growls to emanate from his throat.

Naruto chuckled as he quickly formed a silencing barrier around the room. The Uzumaki figured his three lovers wanted to get onto this turn of the 'rollplay wheel'. All other thoughts were gone as the four enraptured themselves to their pleasure of 'hospital play', amongst several others. And after several rounds of love making, they group fell into a pleasant sleep.

-Unknown Location-

The birds were chirping as they flew across the skies above the tranquil lands below. The flower beds were blossoming and the trees can never be any greener. The rivers were crystal clear as the waters flowed and the fish swam to and fro. And the land was peaceful and everyone was mary without a care in the world.

For this was Azarath: a realm of beauty, peace, and tranquility.

The land was practically paradise and one would literally want to sacrifice an arm and a leg in order to enter its borders and live here for the rest of their days.

Everyone was happy and enjoyed themselves…

All except one.

In a certain part of Azarath, a young child wearing white robes was putting the last finishing touches on the chalk drawing on the ground. Dusting her hands free of the residue, she carefully stepped through the empty gaps in order to not disturb the line work. Once in the center, the child carefully sat down…

In the center of a demonic pentagram.

You would wonder what she was doing exactly. To clear things up, the child in question was getting sick and tired of people looking down on her. Practically avoiding her like a plague while not telling her a thing as to their reasons.

Closing her eyes, the child channeled the magic inside of her and drew it out. The power slowly came into contact with the pentagram as the white chalk markings started turning red. And it wasn't long before purple flames appeared along the lines.

She was bracing for the power to come, but she knew that the others could stop it. She needed to know more about her origins, despite what limited information she got on her father…

"Raven! Where are you?!" Cried out a feminine voice. "Where are you my little- Raven! What are you doing?!"

The child snapped open her eyes and looked over to see her mother -who wore a similar white cloak- with a shocked expression on her face.

"Oh dear God, what have you done?" Spoke the child's mother.

Before the child -now identified as Raven- could answer, the wind suddenly started to pick up at a quickened pace. Whirling around, both mother and daughter saw the clouds darkening the sky as the sounds of thunder filled the realm. The earth started to quake and crack all over the place.

And before long, a pillar of red hellfire bursted from the very center of Azarath.

People started to scream at what has come forth upon their peaceful lands and fled in terror. Though their attempts on fleeing was all for naught as demonic beings shot out of the fiery pillar and started slaughtering the innocent left and right. No one was spared.

And before long, four sulfuric yellow eyes peered through as a dark bellowed cackle filed the air.

"Raven," spoke her mother, "you need to run."

"B-But Arella-"

"RUN!"

Raven did as her mother commanded as the two fled for their lives. The pair had to block out the varied screams of the citizens of Azarath as it consumed the very air. It was rather dephening once it was mixed with the earthquakes and storms from up above.

Looking over to her mother, she saw her hands glow as she was chanting a spell. The ravenette woman did all she can to keep her concentration with what was happening all around them.

"What are you doing?" Raven asked.

"Opening a door to Earth." Arella answered. "This place is no longer safe." Raven's mother then blasted the spell several dozen feet away from their position as a white door was formed.

The moment the pair were about to enter, a large quake caused them to fall. Briefly looking back, both mother and daughter saw the fiery pillar explode as flames consumed the land.

Just when the pair were about to reach the portal, the ground gave way and Arella fell on through.

"MOMMY!" She cried out as she saw her mother trying to climb herself out.

"RUN, RAVEN!" She demanded as her grip was starting to slip.

"NOT WITHOUT YOU!" Yelled out the child as grasped her mother's hands.

They were so close into escaping as their door was just a foot away.

Looking back, Arella saw the fire was coming closer and closer. Turning around, she saw her only child struggle to pull her free. Gritting her teeth, the ravenette pushed her daughter away as she looked back with widened eyes once she came into contact with the white portal.

"RUN! AND LIVE!" Arella cried out as white light consumed Raven's vision.

And all she last saw of her precious mother was the hellfire consuming her entire form before everything disappeared.

"MOMMY!"

-Waking World-

Rachel lept up in her bed as she gasped for air with the sounds of a storm brewing from outside. While the ashen ward tried to calm down her beating heart, she felt her skin was rather clammy. No doubt from her sweating a cold sweat. Rachel then brought a hand onto her face as she felt the continuous stream of tears flowing down her cheeks.

'It… It was only a dream.' She told herself as she tightened her grip around her arms. 'It's only a distant… memory.' Her hands then went towards the side and reached for an object she had beside her…

Only to realize her bunny plushie wasn't there.

'Must've fallen out of bed.' Rachel thought before looking over to the side of the room and rose a brow. 'I'm… surprised they didn't hear me.'

In the past, when she had suffered nightmares, Rachel was always heard. When she lived on the Gotham streets once coming to this world, she was heard and fled for safety. When she was taken in by the Sewer King and lived underground, she was heard and was punished because of it.

Yet once living under Naruto's care, Rachel was comforted by her guardian and his three girlfriends when she woke up from her nightmares…

The ones which she always cried and apparently screamed every now and again.

...So it was odd for her that neither her current roommates and her newly loved ones didn't rush to her side and comfort her.

Hopping out of the guest bed, Rachel went onto the floor to find Bonnie. Though much to her confusion, the ashen child couldn't find her plushie. Even going to the other side of the bed, just in case.

Yet the same results happened.

'Where could Bonnie have gone?' She thought as she scratched her violet locks. 'Maybe fell underneath the bed. Wouldn't be the first time.' Rachel then walked over to the nearby lamp and flipped the switch- 'Okay… power's out.' She looked through the nearby window to see rain pouring and a flash of lightning. 'No doubt from that.'

The ashen child then wandered the room and slowly opened some nightstand drawers in hopes of finding a flashlight or something close. As she did so, she also checked on Jade and Artemis to see if they were awake from their cries, yet they were still asleep.

'Strange. They're usually light sleepers.' Rachel soon checked the nightstands next to their beds and was able to find a flashlight. Lowering the device, she flipped the switch and saw some light illuminating part of the floor. 'Okay, so this works at least.'

Rachel moved the flashlight around the floor in hopes of finding Bonnie underneath her bed. But the bunny plushie wasn't there at all. This made the ashen child really confused on how it seemingly disappeared. And when she turned around to make her way out of the room and to her guardian's guest room, Rachel saw something else that was rather strange…

Artemis' plushie, Chica, was also missing.

'...I swear I saw it moments ago.'

Shaking her head, Rachel rubbed her temples and made her way towards the bedroom door. Opening it up, she aimed her flashlight into the hallway in order to help find her way. Though when she lifted it up, Rachel paused when she saw something rather large at the end of the hallway just before it rounded the corner.

'What the-'

Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard faint scratchings coming from the room's window. Turning around, she saw a shadowy figure trying get in. Coming closer and aiming her flashlight at the window for a better look, the figure disappeared and was replaced by tree branches.

'...I really need to get some sleep. I think I'm starting to see things.' She thought before turning around and almost jumped out of her skin.

Reason being: her bunny plushie seemingly appeared on her guest bed and oddly staring right at her.

'Something is really wrong here.' Coming up to her plushie, Rachel poked it a little and wondered how it seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Not feeling comfortable anymore in being in this guest room, the ashen child made her way to the door. When she was about to exit, Rachel paused her movements and widened her eyes. It was faint, but she swore she heard breathing…

And felt it on her.

Quickly closing the door, Rachel then felt the entrance shaking a little as something was trying to get in. It then started to escalate as banging was heard and felt. She held on as hard as she could to keep the door closed, yet she felt the gateway being roughly pulled open.

With tears now forming in her eyes, Rachel looked back and cried out as loud as she could. "JADE! ARTEMIS! WAKE UP!" The ashen child then saw them shift in their beds and turn over to look at her. The violet haired child felt small hope building that they can help her in this endeavor.

But this went on the decline when she saw their glowing orange-red eyes.

"No…" Rachel whispered in dread.

This bit of distraction caused the child to lose her slack in keeping the door closed. The entrance was roughly pulled open as Rachel came tumbling into the hallway. Shaking her head a little, Rachel looked up and saw red eyes looking down on her.

On a brief bit of instinct, the child aimed her flashlight at the figure and saw a nightmare version of Chica the Chicken. With its several row of razor sharp teeth, metallic claws, rotting exterior and glowing orange-red light coming from it's openings. And on the bib, instead of the words 'Let's Eat', lied an all too familiar of a Nightmare spirit.

"▄▅▄▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅!"

Reacting to the sudden roar, Rachel bolted down the hallway as Nightmare Chica was chasing right after her. Time when she lived on the streets started to kick in as she slid on the floor several times to get some good distance away while knocking several large objects from the hallway sides in order to stop her pursuer. Yet these weren't enough as the Nightmare Spirit kept on coming.

'If that thing is here, then I must still be sleeping.' Rachel quickly concluded. 'There isn't any other way around it.' Focusing mana into her hand, the ashen child brought it to her mouth and gave a loud whistle.

*FWEET*

Suddenly, two puffs of smoke appeared beside her as she kept running. One was a Komory Bat with it's pink body, yellow fur, green ears and purple feet. The other was a Majik Lapin with it's purple body, orange face and ears and blue clothing.

"I need help guys!" She spoke out.

Without any further instructions, the Komory Bat quickly latched onto it's summoner's back and took off at a faster speed. Seeing the child take off, the Majik Lapin quickly bounced off the walls and kicked the Chica Nightmare away. As the pursuer stumbled back, it was then blasted further away by the Dream bunny's Sparkga spell -which consisted of three rings of light crystals- before the Dream Spirit ran away to catch up to Rachel and it's comrad.

As Rachel kept flying through the halls -courtesy of the Dream bat- she wondered how to escape this dream. The young ward wasn't all that knowledgeable on the subject, but it didn't mean she can't keep trying and trying.

Even if that meant navigating through the manor's ever changing hallways.

-With Naruto-

"...This is a bunch of fucking BULLSHIT!" Naruto growled out as he held the door closed. He then heard something from the other side of the room. "What the fuck is up with the steppy steps?!" He rushed over to the other side of the room and quickly kicked a Nightmare Bonnie out into the hallway. "QUIT STIP STEPPIN' ALL OVER THE PLACE!" Yelled the Uzumaki before rushing to the closet as he saw the door move.

...This was not a great way for Naruto to wake up to at whatever time it was. The power was out so he had an awkward time finding the bathroom to relieve himself. And his cellphone battery ended up dying on him all of a sudden so he couldn't figure that out.

"▄▅▄▅▂▂-!"

"Fuck! YOU!" Naruto said as he quickly closed the closet doors. "Just stay! Stay! Stay!" The Uzumaki then heard the bedroom doors shake a little. He was about to leave his spot before he yelled at the closet. "YOU STAY THE FUCK IN THERE FOXY!"

...And when he tried to get back into bed, that was when he started noticing several things were awry.

For one, his girlfriends somehow disappeared all of a sudden. Two, these nightmare versions of Freddy Fazbear animatronics started to show up out of nowhere. Third, said animatronics started to go all fucking nuts on him and almost gave him several heart attacks all of a sudden.

So having to figure things out rather quickly on holding these things back was not fun -AT ALL!- in this fear induced nightmare.

Insert sarcastic hooray here…

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" Naruto cried out as he tossed a lamp at the Nightmare Freddy. Though this act seemed to piss off the fucking scary bear from Hell. "You know what? FUCK THIS!" The reverted Uzumaki lept into the air, quickly formed a Rasengan and slammed it into the nightmare monstrocity.

The results were quite noticeable as N. Freddy was blasted through a wall and fell onto the ground with a large hole in its chest. And without needing to see the further results, Naruto bolted and ran like Hell through the hallways in order to escape these things.

"I don't care if Bruce will get pissed if I destroyed parts of his home." He muttered as he neared a corner. "Dream or reality, I don't want to- OOMPH!"

Naruto fell onto the ground with some weight colliding onto him. Shaking his head, the Uzumaki regained his vision before looking down his chest to see Rachel lying on his chest. And he knew it was her, instead of some figment of his imagination, as he saw two Dream spirits near her.

"Rachel! Are you okay?!" The ashen child lifted her head up and saw her guardian. She instantly hugged him tightly as he patted her head in a comforting manner. "Hey, it's okay. I'm here."

"Bu-But how are you here?" She asked before being brought onto her feet. "I-I thought I was the only one."

"I thought the same thing." He said as he narrowed his eyes. "We'll need to leave this place." Closing his eyes, Naruto focused on trying to get him and his ward to the waking world… but something was wrong.

It's as if someone or something was blocking their attempts to leave.

He was going to voice this concern right away when he saw one of those Nightmare Animatronics stampeding right towards them. Quickly pushing Rachel behind him, Naruto brought out his ice shield before slamming it into the ground. Chilled spikes bursted out of the floor, struck the Nightmare and ensnared it.

"▄▅▄▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅!"

Getting a good look of the Nightmare, Naruto yelled at it. "Yeah keep yelling and fighting, you overgrown chicken! You won't-" He then saw the ice breaking. "Okay~ We should get going now."

Seeing what her guardian was referring to, Rachel nodded as the pair ran with her Dream Spirits right behind them. "Do you have any idea how to get out of here?" She asked.

"Normally it would either be naturally waking up or forcing ourselves to do so." Naruto answered as they rounded the corner and came across several imp-like Nightmare Freddies. Quickly switching his shield for his Void Shots, he fired upon them as they disintegrated away. "Though something is keeping us here."

"So if we take care of the problem, then we wake up?"

"Pretty much."

When the pair was rushing through another ever changing corridor, something bursted out from one of the nearby doorways. It briefly looked like the Nightmare Foxy Naruto encountered in his 'guest room' earlier. Yet there were several differences: it's white fur, pinkish face and it's mangled robotic body with seemingly a second smaller head.

"▄▅▄▅▂▂-!"

The Mangled Nightmare was quickly silenced by Naruto quickly leaping in the air and kicking the animatronics face away. The Uzumaki then grasped it's second head and with a hard yank, the disfigured skull was ripped out of the body. The Mangled Nightmare reared back and roared at the whiskered man, but was silenced by him shoving the detached head into its mouth.

"Doggy woggy woggy ain't gonna bark no more!"

When it tried to remove it's severed second head from it's mouth, with it's extra limbs, Naruto quickly brought out his scythe and sliced the Nightmare in half. It's pieces fell onto the floor and disbursed into darkened smoke with hints of burnt ash on the ground.

"Doggy woggy woggy, shut the hell up!" Naruto said as he, his ward and the two Dream Spirits moved forward.

"That could've been said better." Said the ashen child.

"Huh?"

"That… thing wasn't really a dog, it was a fox."

"...Foxes are related to dogs, Rachel."

"Regardless, the rhyme could've been better or something."

Naruto rolled his eyes at this.

They kept their guard while occasionally looking back as they ran in case of any of the Nightmare's tried to ambush them from behind. As the little group progressed forward, the two humans picked up on a faint sound in the air. They paused in the hallway in order to focus more on the sound.

"Naruto."

"Yeah?"

"Do you hear… an ice cream truck?"

The Uzumaki rose a brow at this. It did indeed sound like an ice cream truck tune, but that didn't make any sense. "I think it's more of a music box, Rachel. Same kind of music, but not in the right kind of field. Honest mistake."

Rachel nodded on the slight bit of error. "But why are we hearing this now?"

Naruto was about to answer when some things bursted from the darkness and tried to attack the pair. The Dream Spirits were the first to react as they rushed ahead and collided with the attackers. The Komory Bat and Majik Lapin writhed in pain as the small Nightmares tried to get rid of them.

Not wanting her Dream Spirits to be harmed any further, Rachel thrusted her arms forward and cried out a spell. "Thunder!" Sparks of lightning shot from her palms and collided against the Nightmares. Instead of the Dream Spirits, it was now the attackers that writhed in pain before letting go and falling onto the ground.

"Nice spell, Rachel. No doubt from Jason." Her guardian complimented as they bent down to inspect the Nightmares. They appeared to be little plain ballerina dolls with the Nightmare symbol pasted onto their chests. Sparks still surrounded their figures, but disbursed into darkened vapors once the spell fully destroyed them. "Glad that I didn't get you dolls for your birthday."

"Glad that you did." Rachel muttered as they stood back up. "Would've donated them right away after this. Either that or used them for target practice."

Her guardian nodded, but made a mental note to tell Harley to do a gift exchange in the morning. 'And such a shame too.' Naruto thought. 'She really wanted to get Rachel that American Girl doll and those Barbie dolls.'

The pair could still hear the faint music in the air and it seemed to get louder as they went through certain hallways and rooms. It was as if whoever was behind this was leading them somewhere.

During this time, the pair still kept their guards up as they were still assaulted by several Nightmare versions of Freddy Fazbear animatronics. Some were recognizable while others seemed different in their animal themed style. There were handfuls of 'toy' looking Nightmares like a balloon boy and other dolls, spectral/phantom ones (which Naruto cried like a girl when encountering them), some coming from a zoo like elephants and pigs, and there were even ones that seemed to be scraped rejects.

The human pair and Dream Spirits fought against each and every one that they came across. Whether it be by Rachel's spells, the Dreams' attacks or Naruto's weapons; none stood in their way with various forms of difficulty.

By the time they found the source, it was coming from inside of the Wayne Manor ballroom.

As they approached the doors, Naruto turned to his ward. "Be sure to get ready for whatever's inside, Rachel." He said, getting her to nod. The Uzumaki then looked over at the Komory Bat and Majik Lapin before clicking his tongue. 'Might have so summon more of those once inside.'

With things now set for them, Naruto opened the doors as they entered the ballroom. Once passing through, the doors suddenly shut themselves behind the group in a loud *BANG*. The ashen child was briefly startled but tried to compose herself.

It was then that the music suddenly stopped to fill the darkened room with an eerie ambiance. And if that wasn't enough to boost the creep factor, a soft hushed female voice was spoken what seemed to be everywhere. "Have you had fun with the birthday game?"

The voice sent a chill down the spines of the guardian/ward pair. Wanting to be brave, Rachel called out into the darkness. "Show yourself!"

"...As you wish."

Suddenly a spotlight appeared from out of nowhere as an animatronic lied within it. The guardian/ward pair saw the robot was reminiscent of a female clown. It had auburn hair in high pigtails on either side of her head. The eyes were bright neon green with long, blue eyelashes, short blue eyebrows and matching eyeshadow. It's thin red mouth was opened in a wide smile revealing small, flat endoskeleton teeth. The cheeks were large, round, and red that matched the squarish nose.

Part of the midsection was exposed, revealing a metal fan surrounded by an orange triangle with rounded points. The limbs have silver segments in rectangular shapes and its hands have red palms. The fingertips appear to be ball-jointed and aren't sealed, revealing shiny silver underneath. It's knees have round, shiny, silver caps, and parts of the limbs have what appear to be blue pins sticking out of them.

For the robot's clothing, it wore a red crop top with frills on the shoulders and a matching, frilly, red skirt. Its footwear were jester shoes with golden bells placed at it's tips. And lastly, the robot is holding a microphone in it's left hand.

"Hello." Spoke the clown-themed animatronic. "My name is Baby."

Naruto kept his eye on this 'Baby' and felt something was really off about this entity. His eyes looked for anything that was amiss until he saw something shimmer from her limbs. The Uzumaki thought it was just it's metallic surface.

That was until he saw it traveled upwards and into the darkness like a very small thread.

'Something is up there.' He thought before traveling back at the animatronic in front of them. "Hello." Naruto said as he motioned for Rachel to slowly get behind him. "I believe your the one keeping us here?"

"You can say that." Came the vague answer.

"And why are you doing this?"

"To get some entertainment before proceeding to my objective."

"You've got a sick way of doing thinking what we went through was fun." Rachel spoke up from behind her guardian.

"We all have our forms of entertainment." Was Baby's response. "Mine just so happens to see others struggle through fright and nightmares."

Neither Naruto or Rachel liked hearing this comment as they seemed to be more at the edge.

"Now then. I believe you both don't want to be beaten around the bush any longer, correct?"

"Yeah, like why trap us here in the first place." Naruto demanded.

Baby moved her head over slightly to put more focus on the guardian. "It really wasn't going to be this way, if little Rachel was all by herself." The ashen child stiffen at this. "If you didn't come in contact with her, then this would've been so much easier. But you… complicated things more than you realize."

'What the hell does she mean by that?' Thought the Uzumaki as he briefly looked back to see Rachel's confused face.

"I'll make things short and simple. Fully surrender the child -of everything- and you may leave." Demanded the circus themed animatronic.

"I will not." Naruto instantly said as he stared down at Baby.

The circus themed animatronic then lurched forward as a dark miasma came from up above and latched onto it before surrounding its form. Loud sounds of metal groaning was heard as the body started to change. The guardian/ward pair then heard the animatronic shriek a ghastly wail before the miasma disappeared to reveal the Nightmare's new appearance.

Baby took on more of a scraped form as it was more terrifying. Her hair was more human-like and her pigtails are slightly shorter. On her chest, she seems to have been mish-mashed with some electric panels. Her right hand was replaced with a giant metal claw. Her jester shoes were replaced by roller skates. And to finish her appearance, her face gained a cracked demonic look as her eyes glowed with a hellfire red fire in her sockets.

"Then we shall take her by FORCE AND KILL YOU!" Came a demonic voice that truly matched the Scrapped animatronic Nightmare's form.

-Insert Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance: The Dread of Night-

As if a signal was given, the lights around the ballroom started lighting up to reveal the room was covered with a variety of Nightmares with the animatronic style the pair seen so far in this dream. With more light's present, Naruto saw the shimmers from their bodies as they were leading towards the darkened ceiling.

The publisher would have time to figure out what's exactly up there, but for now he and Rachel had work to do.

With a wave of his free hand, Naruto summoned a pair of Dream Spirits to stand by his side. One was an Electricorn while the second was a Flowbermeow. The later had an appearance of a cross between a cat and a dog with a horn on top of it's head. As for it's tail, it had a flower on its end.

Without any further notice, the animatronic Nightmares ran towards their targets with their respective yells and screeches.

The Dream spirits were the first to react in order to help their summoners. The Komory Bat latched onto Rachel's back and flew her into the air. This gave the rabbit spirit to hop around and started firing elemental spells like Blizzard, Fire and Thunder at every other direction. The Electricorn followed suit by leaping over every other Nightmare and striking them in varied manners, whether it be through Thunder spells or piercing them with it's jagged horn. As for the Flowbermeow, it merely bounced around and struck down several animatronic Nightmares with it's massive weight once it grew in size.

While flying around via Komory Bat express, Rachel was firing magic attacks while dodging the Nightmares' attacks by either trying to grab her or firing dark energy blasts. She was knocked out of the air a few times, due to the Nightmares' sonic screech attacks, but Rachel recovered as she focused mana throughout her body in order to heal herself.

Bringing her limbs together, she built up much of her mana as she chanted her signature spell. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" And with glowing white eyes, Rachel unleashed a large, dark energy attack that incinerated a good number of animatronic Nightmares.

Panting from the attack, the ashen child was about to move once more before her Komory Bat was struck from behind. This caused her Dream Spirit to let her go. Rachel quickly moved upright and reinforced her body with mana to handle the landing on the ground. Shaking her head from the fall, the purplette saw Scrap Baby landing not far away from her.

With a demented smile, the clown-themed Nightmare spoke. "Would the birthday girl like a balloon?" It's chest compartment then opened up and shot a claw out in hopes of ensnaring the ashen child.

"Not from you!" Rachel growled out as she fired several mana blasts from her hands to knock the chest claw away. "And I already have balloons, you clown reject!" Quickly focusing mana, she called out a spell. "Balloonra!"

A cluster of multi-colored energy balloons quickly formed in front of the child. She quickly struck them as they shot all over the place before Rachel was picked up by her Bat spirit and flew off. In the Nightmares' wakes, they were stunned once the energy balloons came into contact with them, leaving them wide open to the Dream Spirits and Naruto's attacks.

Speaking of, the Uzumaki was zooming all over the place as he threw his Foundre daggers all over the room. Everywhere he teleported to, Naruto quickly struck the Nightmares with his Kazekage lances. He did summersault and roll out of the way every so often before kicking and stabbing at every other Nightmare in order to kill multiple ones.

Yet they seemed to be endless in their endeavor.

He was going to move again when he quickly grabbed a demonic looking cupcake as it tried to bite his head off. Moving his head over to a Nightmare Chica, Naruto dashed forward and yelled. "Take your nightmarish cupcake from Hell and shove it up your ass!"

The Uzumaki then shoved both the Cupcake Nightmare and an exploding Fair Play card into the robotic chicken's gullet before kicking it away. It tried to pry both out, but it's head exploded before disbursing into dark vapors.

Landing back onto the ground, the whiskered guardian heard a growl from behind. Turning around, he saw Scrap Baby seemingly glaring at him. "You're making this harder than it should be."

"Good." He said with mirth in his voice. "Shows that it'll take much more to take us down."

"Indeed."

The Scrap Baby leaped forward with it's claw aimed at the Uzumaki. Naruto wasn't fast enough as it's scrapped claw latched onto the human's head. It squeezed and squeezed as it cackled a dark laugh while Naruto screamed in pain.

But before the Scrapped animatronic Nightmare could savor the victory, Naruto disbursed into smoke.

"WHA-"

"SURPRISE BITCH!" Came Naruto's sudden call as he struck down the Nightmare with his Kazekage lance. The animatronic Nightmare screamed in pain before disbursing into dark vapors. "Heh~ Gotta love clone replacements."

Looking up, Naruto glared at the darkened ceiling and could start seeing an outline of a large Nightmare. It was hard to make out on its body, but it's face was oddly simple. Asides from the Nightmare symbol on its forehead; it's face was lightish grey, had purple tear streaks, red lips covering sharpened teeth and beady white eyes in the blackened eye sockets.

And with the strings of light coming from the Nightmares up towards the ceiling made the publisher think it was a demented marionette puppeteer.

'That must be the Nightmare controlling all of these things and behind all of this.' He thought before turning his head around to see Rachel was struggling against some Nightmares. Rushing over to her position, Naruto kicked several opponents away.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome, Rachel." He said before he made a clone and had it quickly formed a barrier around them.

"What are you doing?" She asked. "They'll over power and surround us."

"I know." He responded before he quickly called the Dream Spirits to enter the safety barrier. "But answer me this: Do you see something above us?"

Looking up, she shivered when seeing the creepy looking face staring down at them. "Yeah..."

"Good." He held out his hand and formed a Rasengan in his palm. "I'm gonna take that out."

"Why?"

"Asides from being a large target. I believe that's the puppetmaster of our current situation."

Rachel nodded before she felt an odd shift in the confined space as her hair seemed to stand on their ends. Looking over to her guardian, she saw his Rasengan started to change from it's purple color into bluish white with sparks forming around the sphere. It started expanding and formed itself into giant arrow with the sphere placed in the center of the arrowhead.

She looked on with bewilderment and asked the obvious question that came to mind. "What… is that?"

Naruto merely smirked as he grasped the arrow shaft. "Something I really wanted to try out for a long time now after training my butt off." Sparks started to heat up the confined space as his smirk grew wider, despite on how weak he was starting to feel by draining much of his power. "I'd like to introduce to you my lightning style Rasengan: Rasen-Yajirushi! (Spiral Arrow)!"

Without any warning, the clone quickly opened a hole in the barrier. With the opening, the original used a lot of his strength to throw his new attack up into the darkened ceiling. The barrier quickly sealed itself up as the clone reinforced it greatly while the animatronic Nightmares kept trying to get on through.

Yet they should've stopped the arrow of lightning as it impacted the hidden Nightmare in the ceiling and a large explosion formed right after.

"▄▅▄▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅!"

It was really hard to hear the screams coming from the Marionette Nightmare as the lightning storm consumed the room. Lightning struck down many Nightmares as they were vaporized on the spot.

It was so loud that Rachel had to cover her ears so she wouldn't become deaf. Though it helped as her Majik Lapin covered her ears with its cushiony and floppy ears.

Looking around the area, Rachel looked on at amazement. 'Holy… He infused that Rasengan with Lightning and actually shaped into something other than a shuriken.' She thought on the past times she trained in the Dreaming and saw Naruto use his Rasenshuriken attack. 'I didn't think that was possible.'

As the storm subsided, all of the Nightmares on the ballroom floor were gone while the darkness on the ceiling disbursed. Wasn't much longer as the Marionette Nightmare fell and collided onto the ground rather hard as sparks radiated off it's form.

Dropping the barrier, Naruto stalked towards the fallen Nightmare and kicked it down as it tried to get back up. Before it could try to get back up once more, the Uzumaki stomped on it's chest. "Now… I'm gonna ask this once: Why do you want Rachel?!" Naruto demanded.

It didn't respond right away but was rewarded by being kicked across it's face, resulting in forming a massive crack across it's masked surface.

"TELL US!"

"Fo-oor," it started out in a shaky tone, "th-thee maast-t-t-terrrr-rrr."

And without any warning, the Nightmare seemed to combust in flames as the Marionette was consumed by it. Naruto had to quickly move away so the fire won't latch onto him. Even having to jump back a good distance as the flames seemed to grow and formed something on the ground before dying out. Being curious on what the scorch marks formed, Naruto formed a card platform beneath him and Rachel and lifted themselves up into the air.

What they saw was an oddly stylized 'S' with several other marks surrounding it.

'No…' Rachel thought out with widened eyes. 'Not him…'

Her reaction was noticed by her guardian as he saw her shake with fear. "Rachel?" He slowly came up to her while lowering the card platform to the ground. "Rachel, what's wrong?" She didn't answer him at all, yet her expression alone made him realize she knew something he didn't. Slowly holding onto her, his ward quickly finished it by latching onto him like a lifeline. "Please. Tell me what's wrong."

"I-It's him." She muttered in the hug. "It's him."

"Who?"

"...My father."

Naruto blinked in confusion as many questions formed in his mind: Who exactly is her father? Why did those Nightmares go to such lengths in trying to get her? Why was he trapped here as well if they just wanted his ward?

He was going to ask this until the pair saw a blinding white light in realizing that they were finally waking up.

"Rachel." He said in getting her attention. "You can tell me what's going on in the real world." She shook her head 'no' as a response. "I told you I won't judge on who you are as I deeply care for you. You're my family and I'll do everything I can to keep you safe and happy. If it makes you feel any better, this can just stay between us. And if it helps, I'll tell you of my real past as I feel we have much in common."

Rachel briefly nodded as tears were streaming down her cheeks. "O-Okay."

Naruto smiled as the light consumed them and returned to the waking world in order to celebrate Rachel's birthday.

-End Chapter-

AN:

Now you readers might be a little confused on what I was doing on this chapter. Had a little inspiration on the 'Holiday Knights' episode from the DCAU when doing this Halloween-eske chapter. And the final part of the chapter was honestly challenging for me with what I decided to use and I hope ya'll like it.

Not only that, but I needed to focus on some characters that haven't really been looked at all that often like Jade, Artemis and Rachel with some build up on Barbara. Hell I even needed to do more action with Dick/Robin as he hasn't done all that much in my story if you ask me. Even if it's not much on each, I did my best on them.

With the combat from earlier in the chapter, I do want to remind you readers that Barbara is a complete novice as she doesn't have proper fighting training. Do note she does have police training via her father and surrogate family with the GCPD. But in terms of actual fighting skill as Batgirl is hardly existent at this point. She will get more as time moves on. I just needed to point this out as her ass will be handed to her until she can handle on her own. Though all she will somewhat have to rely on at the current time is her current skills and luck.

…..

I've also gone back to 'Smoke and Mirrors' and did some changes towards the end. Had finally come up with a better way on getting Talia to find Naruto's secret identity. When I was originally writing the ending, my mind wasn't fully functioning as I was doing it late at night. The portion I added did come across my mind at the time and I thought it wouldn't work. Yet surprise, surprise it actually did.

…..

On some light news on my end, I got a job.

Mind you readers it's just a Summer/temporary job, but a job nonetheless. It's going to be starting next week till the end of June. This will give me plenty of time to find a more permanent job by the end of it's run.

So at the time, I'm still not really out of the woods just yet.

Also… INFINITY WAR WAS AWESOME! Words cannot describe how I feel about it and I can't wait to see how the next films that lead up to Infinity War Pt. 2 will affect said movie.

Anyways, be sure to review this story guys! Would like the criticisms. Please and thank you!

R&R