Alias was ready.
It only took her less than four minutes to recover and restore herself to optimum health via her cryogenic drip, her blistered skin weaving together to create a fresh new layer whilst the fractures across her face melted away, her cloudy, lilac eyes seemingly seductive under her gaze. She had changed into her alternate battle suit that was designed after the Arkham Knight's own attire, the Arkham symbol curved around her left breast and shoulder and both sleeves copying the texture. But in the space of all that time, everything happened; Poison Ivy, with the help of Batman, had saved Gotham City from inevitable chaos but had been her last act she would perform, and the man in black brought almost every villain into custody. And with Scarecrow now taking complete control because of the Knight's stunt with the Cloudburst, Alias wouldn't be close to impressed if the fear-o-philiac somehow turned the tables with that condescending cunning of his.
The excavator battle must've been over because the Dark Knight exploded out of the floor crates and took out six militia in seconds; she crossed her arms tight under her bust, his suit has improved the last time they met which was a couple of hours ago. Already the walking shadow has learnt new tricks, but so had the frozen maiden thanks to the physical and mental stress she put herself through. Her padlock to her mind had finally cracked open and revealed more secrets than many. Ice wasn't the only thing she could manipulate, no, she was given the ability to heal wounds, whether it was organic or not. Her first piece of evidence was Rex, who had broken down into tears when she restored his voice. If only she could heal her shattered past; she wasn't a success, she was a mistake. Her becoming a Meta was an accident, she was supposed to be dead. But they failed, Syndicate failed.
It didn't take long until the henchmen that were supposed to be guarding the Commissioner were out cold on the floor, even the combat specialists were unconscious, and Alias sighed in tiring disappointment as she swayed up from behind Gordan. "The Dark Knight proves himself once again. How very barbaric of you, using brutal strategy and finding an opponent's weakness through fear."
"You're working for the wrong side, Alias," he replied back, his deep, stoic tone ringing through the air and she shrugged.
"And how would you know? Any side you're on is the right side to you but might not be for anybody else; doesn't mean that you're on the wrong side. What would you call that? A chaotic good? How I work is more of a first come, first paid basis; I didn't actually think I'd meet you in person."
"It's not too late."
"Maybe not, but I still want to fight the Bat. So, if you don't mind, I'll handicap for you." Militia in white, red and black flooded out of the elevator and surrounded Batman, with the most versatile brute offered and two combat specialists, and her smile widened when he watched him click his knuckles; a taunt. "Hope you don't mind."
"I'm touched." One specialist made the first move by hopping onto the shoulders of a medic before leaping towards the Dark Knight, directing their sword in a downwards strike, but he saw through their attack and blocked it with his own bladed gauntlets. He wasn't finished disarming the specialist and knocking them out when two guys rushed in on him, but were consequently punched in the face with the force of bricks when they thought trying to hit him at the same time would slow him down. Then Alias jumped onto his back and used him as a springboard, pushing him onto the floor while she executed a backwards flip; they both recovered at the same time but Batman was on his feet and she was just getting off one knee.
"Surprised? I might be cold, but I can move just as fast as you." She lifted her hand to slap away two batarangs that he threw and the misty haze accumulated from her eyes, allowing her more precision as she effortlessly caught the last one. "Or faster." The brute brought out their swords from the gauntlets they were wearing and swung at the caped crusader four times, each missing Batman completely. After he disoriented the brute and leapt over them, he fired his batclaw at the medic who was pretty close to resuscitating the combat specialist and was pulled into a clothesline. Batman blocked a jab from his right, headbutted his attacker and landed a big boot to his midsection. Alias joined in again, demonstrating her adept skill in her fighting style with mid and high kicks that shot out at lightning speed, hopping around on the spot for a moment before executing the 540 kick with the first twist catching Batman and the other just missing him. When she realised her mistake, she kept her momentum up by going for a low sweep and finishing with an upwards spinning kick that forced the Dark Knight back a couple steps.
The brute came at him once more, his gloved hands coursing with electricity, but his slow movement triumphed over his might as it took a leg sweep, an elbow to the back of the head and the single power of ten men to knock him out, his bulky frame emotionless on the floor. The remaining specialist leapt onto a militia in black and came down like a flip saw, Batman simply evading out of the way to floor one of his opponents and snap their arm in two different places. He had flipped once, discreetly placing something onto one of the floor crates, but when Alias warned them it was too late, two of them instantly incapacitated before their bodies hit the ground. There was only the specialist and two militia remaining to take out, and Alias yawned quietly before sauntering up to where the Commissioner was sitting, and felt the tight grasp of metal claw on her wrist. "Fool me once―"
"Alias."
"What―" That voice. The Arkham Knight. He was here?
The pulling force from the Batclaw made her lose her balance as she staggered towards him and buckled over one of the militia's legs, unable to prevent uncertainty as he put her in a chokehold and slammed her onto the floor. All she felt was numbing pain that exploded from the back of her head, a thick mist impairing her vision and hearing and clogging up her muscles. She tried to sit herself up by pressing her palms on the floor but her limbs were replaced by jelly and Alias collapsed onto her back again, struggling to grasp onto that fleeting speck of clarity. The fog began to consume her, subdued her mind to a calm slumber and resistance felt futile; the haze by her eyes faded into nothing and a weak smile stretched her glossy lips, time slowly disintegrating around her into realities of nothingness. She stopped fighting it, stopped pushing against the tide and let her eyes fall shut.
And before she fell into the darkness, she felt his signature.
The distorted hum of technology, fractures spanning across its tinted surface with pixels dancing wildly against the cracks. The corrupted blur of an identity. An identity, lost.
Alias woke up focusing her vision on it, every other sense delicate to the world around her. A second felt like she was being bombarded with sensory information that she wasn't ready to collect and she hissed, the strength she needed before evident as she easily pushed herself into an awkward sitting position. But then she moved to all fours to crawl to the visor and sat with a demure posture when she carefully picked it up, frightened that a single sudden movement would fragment the visor.
"No..." Alias spoke, her voice reduced to sorrowful whispers rather than that light-hearted tone; her body trembled as a familiar feeling took over the harder she gazed at it, and tears welled up in her eyes. "No, no...Jason...don't leave me..." Biting her lower lip to force herself not to break down, she got up from the floor and trudged towards the elevator with the doors opening before she got there. She pressed the top button and forced herself to endure what felt like the longest ride up glaring at the cracked visor, more memories threatening to spill the water sitting by her eyes. Even after all this trouble letting him live and running away was all he could do in response. She wasn't even certain if Breaker and Rex were still by her side, and secretly hoped they were.
Alias let out a shuddering breath as she walked out of the elevator, her glassy eyes spotting a tall man in black and came to a halt a couple feet from him. She wasn't sure what was happening in Gotham, since Batman stood before her seemingly unhurried by anything. "Where..." She stopped for a moment, swallowing the swollen marble in her throat before restarting. "Where is he?"
The Dark Knight himself kept quiet, his body language alone telling her that he, the world's greatest detective, didn't know where the Arkham Knight...no, she couldn't call him that anymore, not when that identity was in her hand. Where Jason was. Her head fell for a moment, the tears given the opportunity to cascade down her cheeks and leave behind glittery trails. "...I'm sorry."
"No...it's okay. But, why are you here?"
"It's not too late, Blakelyn." Alias didn't react when she heard her name, her real name, being said by Gotham's saviour and instead smiled at it. Blakelyn, hm?
"Batman...I was never taught what was right and wrong, simply what I felt was right. Being used against your will, it, it changes you."
"You didn't have control of your actions, you can't blame yourself."
"But I let my lack of control take over me. The only person that understood me...was him..." She slapped her hand across her mouth to quieten her sobbing and squeezed her eyes shut, another wave of sorrow washing over her. "He didn't just understand me, he...he protected me. He was...he was my purpose...so I wanted to be his. You would never believe that I was paid to kill him...and I'm guilty of that fact alone." The visor in her possession started to repair itself, Batman glancing at Alias who had generated the misty haze to her eyes, the cracks sealing over and revealing no signs of damage and wearing. She ran her thumb across the screen, along the angular cheekbones and stared into its robotic eyes before pulling it to her face and laying a timid kiss where the lips would be.
"He left this," Batman informed her, taking out something from his utility belt and resting it in her open palm; a tiny memory card that could fit into her comm device that was slung around her own belt. "I thought you would have more use of it than me."
"Thank you, Dark Knight..." She had given him the Arkham Knight's visor just as she passed him, stopping before the edge to admire the corpse of a once beautiful city. "And, please...call me Blake."
"I see you haven't lost your sense of humour."
She chuckled, "What's even more hilarious is Batman consoling me after what I did. Why don't you throw me in a cell?"
"I see a woman who hasn't found herself yet, confused by the darkness that's consuming her." The Meta Mercenary tilted her head in guilty agreement just when she finished slotting the card into her device. "She knows what she has to do. She just has to find it." The second sentence was commencing when a wind brushed past her, a speck of snow on her shin when another wind danced around her. Her right foot stepped past the edge, ice and snow her walkway as the winds grew stronger the more she focused; her built-up vigour of determination reflected by the blizzard she was creating. It decorated her cherry blossom hair and legs in snowflakes and the mist to her face vanished; she didn't need it anymore. Her other foot had left the roof but she didn't fall to her death, instead she stood in the air with the element she was capable of controlling swirling wildly about her legs. If Batman were to concentrate harder at her feet, he would see her footprints had become her steps and he watched her walk through the air.
"I see a future in your eyes, Blake," he muttered as she glared off her shoulder, the distance between them getting wider every step she took. "Don't let me down."
Alias grinned to herself as she looked towards her path, knowing that if she looked back the Dark Knight wouldn't have been standing there anymore. Combing her hair back with a hand, she froze her tears over before letting them shatter against the winds, "I'll try my best."
