Hey everyone! Here's another chapter! I'd like to thank my two fabulous reviewers dglsprincess105, and UltramanNexus for sticking with my through this story and giving their feedback. Without you guys I probably wouldn't have the encouragement to continue this story. Thank you guys so much and I hope you two enjoy this chapter!
Chapter 6: Riddle me this
Arkham was worse than a maze. After crawling through tight areas, grappling to different heights, and coming up to a few dead ends I finally found a decent place to take in where I was. It didn't look familiar to me, so I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It was when I heard voices I figured it was a good thing. I walked back to see a ledge I could grapple to, and heard some masculine voices.
"These guards didn't put up much of a fight." One stated. Would it be too loud if I grappled up there? I wasn't completely sure and thought it wouldn't hurt that much if I tried. So I aimed the grappling hook and zipped up to the ledge where the voices were coming from, but instead of pulling myself up I hung there for a few moments, listening.
"Joker was right, this is easy!" They were Joker's men, that much I knew. I had to time it just right when I would climb up and over, another voice replied to the second guy.
"Bring it on." Perfect, at this I pushed off from the ledge and actually front flipped over, landing surprisingly graceful on my feet.
"If you insist." I spoke up, all the men looked at me at this, shocked I was there, what a bunch of idiots. The all immediately balled their fists and turned to me.
"It's the kid!" One stated loudly and he looked about ready to charge at me and beat me to a pulp. I couldn't help but get this feeling at the fact Joker's goons knew who I was, it made me feel sorta...happy I guess. I counted five, and with that I was quick to throw a batarang, I was getting pretty good with those. It smashed into the head of one of the men and he was immediately on the ground knocked out. No one really took notice to the fallen man as they continued to focus only on me, how fun. I decided to show my more advanced moves on these guys, for the folks at home yes I do indeed have more moves up my sleeves. I charged at the nearest man and jumped up, spinning around having my foot smash into the jaw of him. He exclaimed in pain and fell over, holding his jaw and groaning in pain. I landed on my feet in a crouching position and before I even stood up I swept my foot across the floor, tripping one of the men. He fell over and as soon as he did I kicked him in the head to make sure he'd stay down. Without counting how many men I had left I cartwheeled forward and my feet collided with a man's stomach before I pushed myself off the ground with my hands and landed back on my feet. 3 years of cheer leading also helped a bit here might I add. I turned around to face the supposedly last man only to be hit in the face, right in the eye to precise. I let out a short shout of pain and stumbled back as he also gave me a blow to the stomach with his foot. This made me go off my feet and land on my back. The remaining Blackgate prisoner, with all his glowing stupidity, made no attempt to finish me off after that. He literally stood there laughing, which obviously gave me enough time to push myself back on my feet and make an attack. I threw my whole body at him and pushed him off the edge. Luckily, he didn't fall all the way, he landed on a thin ledge only a few feet down but I'm still pretty sure it managed to knock him out. I winced and rubbed the skin around my eye, it hurt like hell and I had no doubt it was gonna turn in to a nice shining black eye.
"Amber, how's it going? Have you gotten any sign of Gordon?" Batman's questioned through the communicator, I rolled my shoulders and pressed the button to reply.
"Well, excluding the fact I just got my ass kicked by one of Joker's 'pals' and am almost completely lost everything's running smoothly. And no, I haven't found Gordon yet. But who knows, I might be getting close but don't know it. Also, Harley Quinn tried to slow me down by trying to drop an elevator on me." I informed him, I suppose his reply was just for kicks.
"Did it work?" He asked jokingly, and immediatly the sarcastic 'ha ha ha' went off in my head. But I decided to tease him right back.
"Yeah Batman it did. I'm flattened right now and am contacting you by spiritual thoughts." He didn't find this funny. And I mentally kicked myself for even trying to joke around with Batman, Batman for pete sake!
"Sorry...I just know you're giving me a glare. Don't blame me for trying to lighten the mood." I added on, and just so I didn't give him anything to reply on I also added, "I'll get back to you when I reach the end of the trail." At this I cut off the connection as I spotted a vent and did my proccess of pulling off the damn cover. I set it to the side and crawled in, I found myself hurrying to get through it. But I wasn't sure why though.
"Please! I've got a kid! You don't have to-" The voice at the end of the vent was cut off by a gun shot, I didn't need to be a genius to figure out what happened. I finally came to the end and peaked through to see one of the Blackgate prisoners (Big surprise there, right?) standing over the now dead Arkham guard.
"You're right, I don't have." The prisoner replied, and soon he added on to his buddies with a laugh. "Okay, boss says no one gets past. Anything moves, shoot it." Another voice soon added on to that. Shoot it? Did that mean...?
"You got it! Anyone coming this way is dead." The guard reassured, I sighed, I had to open the vent again. But this time, I had to do it quietly. No kicking in this one. I brought my hand up to my earpiece in the cramped vent and managed to contact Batman.
"Hey Batman, Joker's men have taken control of one of the parts of the Asylum." I wished I knew my way around, telling Batman they took over a part didn't seem like it would be much of a help. I added on quickly. "I wish I knew where." Batman's reply shocked me, even though it really shouldn't have.
"Your earpiece is also a tracking device, right now you're in the vent of the Cell block transfer corridor." He informed me, which I just thought was, completely awesome.
"Sweet, then they've taken control of the Cell Block Transfer Corridor." I corrected myself, he didn't take long to reply to this.
"That's not good. I patched into a guard radio feed. It sounds like Joker's crew have got their hands on weapons." I froze. Weapons. These guys had guns...I was screwed. This was getting dangerous and somehow I had lost my seriousness to this whole thing. But that sentence snapped it back into me. How was I supposed to get past them without getting shot?
"Amber? Amber are you there?" Batman's voice asked, I blinked a few times and shook my head quickly to get back to the important matters at hand.
"Uh...yeah...yeah I'm still here." I finally managed to reply to him as I got on my back and pushed against the cover of the vent with all the force I had.
"Good, now you can calibrate the glasses vision mode to isolate armed henchman." I didn't understand what he meant by that as I was finally able to move the cover of the vent aside quickly and slip out back on my feet. I didn't hear the caped crusaders voice after that. What did he mean by calibrating the glasses vision mode? Did that mean turn them on? With a 'here goes nothing' shrug I pressed the button on the glasses and my vision became blue again, I gasped in amazement though as I saw the outlines of bodies as if I was wearing x-ray vision glasses. But the even cooler thing was, was that I could see them through the wall. That's what he meant. I could see all of them were in the position as if they were holding guns and figured that they were. Someone give me a gold star. I crept forward a bit and peeked slightly out from behind the wall then quickly brought it back and got lost in my own thoughts. A direct approach was...well suicide if you thought about it, there had to be another way around those guys. I sighed and brought my head back which caused me to look up, and I couldn't of been more lucky. There I saw a gargoyle, with a smile and not much thought I brought out my grapple and swung up to it, perching myself on it steadily. I scanned the room and found another one to grapple over to, once I was on that one I could hear the henchman speaking.
"So, is the kid really coming this way?" I heard one ask, Joker told his men about me, 'how sweet' I thought sarcastically as I swung to another one.
"Who cares?" Another one replied, then harshly added on. "She sticks her tiny little head into the room and we blow it off!" I cringed in disgust, I really didn't want 'that' image floating around in my head.
"Yeah, she's a dead girl walking." The third one added on, I just rolled my eyes as I grappled to the last gargoyle in the room. They all had their backs turned to me, this was a good opportunity to take them all out one by one. Even though silent take downs weren't really my specialty I thought it would be appropriate to use it. I just prayed it would work on men twice my size. I jumped down silently from the gargoyle which was a longer jump than I thought and crouched down to inch up closer to the nearest henchman. I felt my heartbeat speed up and took in a deep breath when I was close enough. I punched him in the back which caused him to lean back and my arm went around his mouth. I squeezed tightly as the man struggled for a bit, finally he became unconscious and I quietly dropped him to the ground. I silently breathed in relief at the fact it actually worked, now I knew that would come in handy more often. I snuck up close to the next nearest one and wrapped both my arms around his mouth, he also struggled for a bit but soon lost consciousness as well. For the last guy I kicked him in the lower back and wrapped both arms around his neck, he was no different from the other two. After I dropped him to the ground I shut off the glasses and turned to the now free doorway then headed towards it. I kept walking closer to the giant metal doors and was completely unaware there was a doorway to the side I walked past by, that is until a heard a voice speak.
"No problem, boss. The boys are just finishing off. The Arkham chumps never stood a chance." I stopped in mid step and my mind quickly flashed back to the arkham guards getting shot. I quickly turned to the doorway on my heels and slowly walked over to it.
"Oh good! Our friendly neighborhood girl scout is on her way, you need to set a trap. She must not leave this building." The sound of Joker's voice made me want to puke as I silently made my way up the steps, just as Joker shouted in question. "Do you understand me!" The henchman was hesitant to reply, but luckily he was able to.
"Y..yes boss. The girl is as good as dead!" He replied with as much confidence as he could, I peaked around the caged corner to see the man talking to Joker on three screens that were in a row.
"I hope you keep your promises boy. I'd hate to have to go and punish your family just to teach you a lesson. I can promise you they wont be laughing." I was appalled at how he threatened the guy's family like that and figured enough was enough. I snuck behind the guy and quickly gave him a hard enough punch in the head to knock him out. He fell to the ground with a 'thud' as Joker had realized I was there.
"Oh look who it is! Are your tiny ears burning?" He asked I looked to the screen and crossed my arms over my chest.
"Yes, from having to listen to your voice all the time." Was my witty reply, he just smirked, apparently none of my comebacks were really effecting him.
"I suppose I'd better warn my boys you're on the way, I...hey..." He said, almost as if getting an idea. "Maybe I won't! It'll be a nice surprise." He told mainly himself with a dark chuckle at the end, and with that the screen went back to the Arkham logo. I rolled my eyes and spotted a vent to the side of the room, I headed over and quickly pried the cover to it off, my arms were really starting to ache. I crawled inside and made my way through, but about half way I heard Joker's voice over the speakers.
"Hey hey, kids! It's your friendly uncle J! Some idiot child is running around the Asylum, working for a bat! I know, crazy!" I frowned at this as I made it to the end of the vent, so much for making it a surprise, I thought bitterly.
"Stop her before she gets someone hurt. Really, it's for her own good." At the end he let out a wicked, evil low laugh. This one sent a shiver down my spine but I quickly brushed it away and opened the end silently. I quickly scurried out of the vent and stood on my feet, immediately going into a run. Without much time for the guard to react I wrapped my arms around his neck and waited for him to go limp. When he did I carelessly let go and swung up to a gargoyle I spotted shortly after. I turned on my glasses an counted two more guys, it was easy to count because of my height. As I swung to the neighboring gargoyle of the one I was already on I heard Joker's voice yet again.
"That's what I like to see boys. Not scared of the big bad brat." I was slightly insulted by this, but shook it away as I heard one of the henchman reply.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I quietly climbed down from the gargoyle and was hanging on it by my hands, I let go and landed silently on my feet in a crouched posit on right behind the henchman. I rushed to do my silent take down and as soon as I finished I grappled back up to the gargoyle. When I saw the last guard come rushing to his buddy I figured this was the perfect moment to take him down. In one swift movement I brought out a batarang from the belt and tossed it with a fling of my wrist. The batarang soared down and slammed into the guard, right in his head. He fell over instantly and I dropped down again, I felt more like a spider than I did a bat when I jumped down. Anyways, I picked up the batarang and stuffed it back in the belt. Just when I thought everything was fine, that stupid clown came on the speaker again.
"Did you really think it was going to be that easy Ambsy? I've sent a few more of my boys your way. Lets see how you deal with these odds!" Quickly realizing there were more men on the way I fumbled for my grappling hook and zipped up to a gargoyle. As soon as I was perched on one three more men came out.
"Joker wants her found! Spread out!" I heard on order roughly as the other two did what they were told.
"She could be anywhere." Another one replied, it might of just been my imagination, but I could of sworn I could hear a little nervousness in his voice.
"Then keep your eyes open. Now move!" The head henchman ordered, with that they all spread out. I sat there on the gargoyle pondering as to how I could take them out. I saw one of the henchman go into this small tunnel thing and quickly dropped down from the gargoyle to follow him. When I finally caught up to him, I kicked him in the back and took him down silently. I threw him to the side and quickly ran out of the tunnel, pulling out my grappling hook and grappling to a gargoyle as soon as I came out. I watched the other two roam around for a bit before I quickly threw a batarang at one, it once again hit him in the head (not sure how I was getting so lucky with the shots) and he fell over. To avoid having the last guard trace the throw back to where I was I hurried to swing to another gargoyle, and other one after that just to make sure. I saw the last guard standing on a clear platform which made me get an idea as to how to take him out. I aimed my grapple for the ceiling and after it shot up, the end wrapped around a beam. Deja vu with Zsasz is what I thought. I made sure I had a good grip on the grapple and when I did, I jumped off the gargoyle and swung through the air. Before the guard even had time to turn around and respond my feet slammed into his chest and he stumbled over. I quickly let go and landed on my feet, then I ran over to the henchman and punched him in the head while the grappling hook fell to the floor. I breathed deeply with a smile and picked up the grapple, just as Jokers voice (yet again) came through the speakers.
"Oh, boo! You win again Ambsy. Well savor it, I'll get ya next time." I rolled my eyes with a silent 'yeah right' and made my way back down to the bottom floor. I ended up finding a ladder and scurried up it to the top. When I reached the top I stood back on my feet and scanned the small area. There was something at the end of it that caught my attention though. Curious as to what it was I made my way over to it with slow, cautious steps. When I found out what it was I covered my mouth in disgust. It was officer Boles, strapped to a platform, also strapped to him was a sign that said 'Dead end'. But it was his face that creeped my out the most. His mouth was hung open wide with green paint on it to make it look like a smile, also the top of his face was painted white. Not really able to hold it in much longer I ran over to the side, leaned over, and hurled. I wiped my mouth with a groan and clutched my stomach, that didn't feel good at all. I stood back up straight after my stomach decided to settle and glanced around the room, using all my power to keep my gaze away from Boles. Suddenly, I heard my earpiece fuzzing, it let out a high pitch squeal causing my to cringe and press the button. Through the fuzz and pitchyness I heard a voice that...wasn't Batman's.
"Can you hear me Amber? I know you can." The voice spoke, I racked my brain as to who the heck it was. I knew the voice, but for some reason it just wasn't coming to me. After a few seconds it finally hit me.
"Yes, it is I! Edward Nigma! The Riddler! And more importantly your intellectual superior." I stood still, how in the hell could Riddler possibly be talking to me?
"My genius has allowed me to easily hack into your primitive communications." He said almost as if it was way too easy, I scratched the top of my head, he sure did use a lot of big words. I then rolled my eyes and decided to respond.
"Ain't you a smarty pants." I declared bitterly. He took no acknowledgement to this, no bad guy in this game seemed to. "My goal is simple." He continued. "You complete a series of amusingly taxing challenges and well, you'll see." He explained to me, I mentally let out a groan. As if I didn't have enough things on my mind to deal with already.
"Ready for your first one?" He asked, I huffed out a sigh and shrugged my shoulders. "Yeah, whatever." I replied, how hard could his riddles really be?
"Good! But be careful. Don't, 'cut' yourself on this 'Sharply' observed portrait." He told me, I figured that was the riddle. I began walking around at this, not really sure what he was talking about, until I came across a portrait of Quincy Sharp.
"Bingo." I stated to myself, I reached for my earpiece to tell Riddler the answer but somehow my finger pressed down the button to active my glasses and held it down. My vision flashed and soon the words 'riddle solved' came into my view. My eyes widened briefly in shock.
"Whoa...freaky." I whispered under my breath, guess that was the way to solve a riddle, at least it made it...sort of easy.
"So you did it! Well done, but that one was easy, don't expect the rest to be a walk in the park." At this I didn't hear him anymore and was thankful for that. I climbed down the ladder back down to the main bottom floor, just in time for a door to swing open and a voice to call out.
"Hey, Amber!" I froze, someone besides the bad guys and Batman knew my name? I turned to see an Arkham guard standing in a doorway. I guess my name was actually starting to spread around Arkham, 'bout time too. I was still shocked at the fact he knew my name but was able to head over to him anyways.
"It was a massacre, Boles came walking in telling everyone to cover the front entrance. Said something about Joker's army coming through the main gate. Two of my guys moved to the exit and Boles shot 'em dead. They never stood a chance." He finished sadly, I sighed but quickly shook it away and asked him a question.
"Was Boles alone?" I asked, the guard was actually pretty quick to respond.
"Thought he was, but then I saw Harley Quinn. She was surrounded by Blackgate prisoners. They were just killing everyone in the room." I nodded and shivered when I pictured being in the guards shoes. I looked back at him and waited for him to continue.
"I had no choice! I got in here, locked the door. I could see it on the security feed. They had someone with them, it looked like the commissioner." He told me, his voice getting soft at the end as if he wanted me to tell him weather or not it was. I didn't tell him that, instead I told him something else as if trying to change the subject.
"Boles is dead, they carried on without him. Must have outlived his usefulness I guess." I told him with a carefree shrug, soon he replied. "Good, he was scum." And with that he headed into the room, I followed him.
"I'm sorry buddy." I heard the guard say, I glanced to him, mainly out of the corner of my eye to see him over near a dead guard propped up against the wall. I sighed and figured it was best to just continue on with my treck. I headed through the door on the other side of the small room and walked down a short set of stairs and came up to a regular door which I pushed open. I headed through it and made a turn to see another set of stairs, I walked down them and observed the room. I saw an eerie hallway ahead of me and started down it, half expecting something to jump out at me, luckily, nothing did. I stopped in mid step about more than halfway down the hall when I heard...music. Was a radio on or something? Continuing down the hall I ended spotting a radio sitting on a small table, my answer, yes. The music from the radio however stopped and I heard a voice come on.
"We apologize for this interruption to our regular broadcast. Jack Ryder is live from the Gotham bay area with some breaking news." I stopped in front of the radio to listen.
"This is Jack Ryder with breaking news in the Gotham Bay." It took me a few moments to get over my shock that I was actually listening to 'the' Jack Ryder, soon to be known as the Creeper, creepy.
"We're getting reports of an armed siege on Arkham Asylum. Two minutes ago, Joker broadcast to all news channels this chilling message." Before the message came on I thought to myself, where was I two minutes ago? Kicking the asses of Joker's men right? I shrugged the thought off and focused back on the message.
"Greetings Gotham, this is the voice of your new master!...oh, hang on, I skipped a bit." Joker said with a laugh at his mistake, then he cleared his throat and began again. "Ahem. Joker here! 'I'm' in control of Arkham Island! And you can all consider it out of bounds! If I see any lawmen, vigilantes, or do-gooders in tights coming this way, I'll start detonating random bombs around the city!" This made me think he wasn't joking about that when he first said he'd blow up Gotham. I rolled my eyes with a worried expression and continued to listen.
"What'll it be? A kindergarden? A hospital? A billionare mansion? Oh, choices, choices, choices." He finished with a dark chuckle at the end. A billionare mansion, did they just add that in for kicks? I wasn't sure, I snapped out of my thoughts when Ryder came back on.
"All access to the island has been restricted. The air space is closed off and earlier reports suggest that a 16 year old girl is actually trapped on the island." Wow, word got out quick, they all probably thought I was dead by now or something.
"We'll be right here reporting live on any developments. Back to the studio." After that I decided to stop listening and continue on, that is until Riddler came on my earpiece with another riddle.
"You don't know Jack about Gotham, tune in to find out." That made me stop walking and I groaned as I turned around and walked back over to the radio, that was just a little too easy. I did my thing with my glasses then turned back around and continued on as if nothing happened. I pushed open the door at the end of the room I was in and came into this small room with papers scattered, chairs, crates, and stuffed, broken file cabinets. I glanced around briefly before making my way over to the vent on the wall. I dropped down on my knees and worked on pulling off the cover, it came off easier than usual, maybe it was because I was getting used to it. I shrugged and crawled through the vent, I wasn't really sure where I was going but I figured as long as I kept going forward I'd get to the place I need. When I came to the end of the vent I starred out through the cover, it didn't look like another room, it kind of looked like...outside. I hurried to kick open the cover and when I did I immediately slipped through and landed on my feet, I was anxious to see where it led to. It defiantly seemed like outside if not some sort of caveish thing. The air was stale and cold, it nipped at my bare arms and I shivered, but continued on anyways. When I came up to a bunch of rocks blocking my way I looked up to see a ledge that I could grapple to, so I did. I climbed over the edge and steadied myself on my feet. My gaze slipped in front of me and I saw the top of what looked like a clock tower or something. I took slow, cautious steps forward until I came to an opening and found myself standing on a wide ledge/cliff. I stopped and looked out in aw at what was in front of me.
The rest of Arkham Asylum.
So there you have it for the end of this chapter dear readers. Boles met his maker, Riddler came with all his riddle-ness, and Amber's getting pissed off about always having to open the cover to a vent. Hope you all stick around for the next chapter which will be coming shortly.