As we made our way into the city, things were finally beginning to sink in.
I was on the other side of this mess... going up against the Joker, himself. There was no turning back now. I felt mentally ill-equipped and unprepared for tonight, but I needed to take things one step at a time. Thankfully John had trained me a significant amount over the last few days. Crime fighting required a certain type of intuition and stealth that we both shared. It would hopefully allow us to work well together as a team.
Approaching the Gala from a back alley, we noticed floodlights, cop-cars and police barriers encircling the baroque style exterior. Onlookers stood behind yellow lines of police tape, some of which were news reporters from other local stations. John knew that regardless of the Joker's warnings against police interference, Gordon was infamous for creating perimeters.
"We'll have to enter from above," John said, hiding our bikes behind piles of garbage. I nodded and followed him quickly up an abandoned fire escape lining an adjacent brick building. As we made our way upwards, I wondered if the commissioner would start using the bat signal again.
It didn't take long before we were met with heavy gunfire. Ducking behind an air vent, we regrouped. Both peeking from behind our cover, I thought at first the gunfire may have come from the police.
"Those fucking clowns" John hissed. He unhooked something from his belt, throwing it across the gap from our roof to the Gala's. A smoke bomb.
I touched John's face with a hand to get a better sense of his plan of action. It was an odd moment of unintentional intimacy, but he understood what I was doing. He nodded and we ran forward from behind our cover.
I ran to the edge of the building and jumped across the gap to land and somersault forward onto the roof of the Gala. It was somewhat graceful. Ambushing men on both sides, we took them out one by one under the cover of the quickly lifting fog.
"Nice work" said John, kicking a gun away from an unconscious henchman.
We ran towards the center of the roof where a greenhouse type glass created an impressive skylight over the central gala. During the day it must have illuminated the entire building with a natural, golden glow. But tonight, it was going to be our most convenient entrance. I took out a tool from my belt, suctioning the roof with an apparatus and slowly cutting a moderately sized hole into the glass.
Looking down it sounded like pure chaos. The fog machine was out of control and there was very little to see.
"We have 45 minutes until midnight" John said, "Let's work on taking out as many of the armed clowns as possible before trying to deactivate the doors. Who knows what kind of chemical bath the Joker was talking about..."
"How about utilizing Lucius?"
"Good idea" John said, punching something into his wrist intercom. He picked up after a few rings.
"Already in trouble?" a voice responded dryly from the other end of the line.
"We need to figure out where the Joker's placed chemicals inside the building… and if they can be deactivated "
"On it" said Lucius.
"Appreciate it" John said, turning off the Intercom.
"Gotta love teamwork..." I said aloud.
"Vigilantes never truly work alone," John said, smirking. I'm glad his mask was similar to Batman's. I could see the curling of his lips as he smiled. It was comforting.
I, on the other hand, opted for a full face mask. It was too dangerous to show any skin… for tactical and safety reasons.
We jumped one by one into the fog filled Gala. I was impressed at the compression, as I barely felt the impact of falling about 100 meters to the ballroom floor. We stayed low, running under the fog.
Suddenly the lights went out.
Lucius, I thought.
Guests began screaming as henchmen fired blindly into the darkness.
"Sorry about that…" I heard Lucius say through the intercom, " systems deactivated for now- I suggest you get everyone out".
I ran towards one of the main doors and kicked it open, allowing for a steady stream of hostages to flow out. They ran out and into the cold with their hands up, eventually met by police and EMTs.
Meanwhile, John was busy disarming numerous henchmen, dismantling guns as he went. Minimal casualties had been the goal.
As I continued to open the doors, headlights from cop cars flooded the interior.
Someone grabbed me from behind and threw me back into the center of the ballroom. I grunted and tumbled backwards, standing quickly. I could have sworn among the remaining henchmen, there had been a flash of a familiar purple coat.
Before I could gain my bearings, I was pistol-whipped and kicked back down to the ground by a clown. Thankfully my suit took the force of the blows. I rolled out of the way as a knife came at me.
That's when we heard the hissing sounds. Unable to distinguish the fog from the gas, I began to cough.
"Don't breathe it in!" I heard John yell. Grabbing me, he took his grapple and shot upwards towards the glass ceiling. Pulling us upwards, we reached the top and fled the scene.
As we caught our breath by the bikes, John held me towards him, hands on both my shoulders… I had been coughing.
"Lucy, are you ok?"
When I looked at him, It was neither Nightwing, nor John, that I saw. That's when I realized what chemical had been used in the attack.
"Oh... oh no..."
"What is it? What do you see, Lucy"
His face was terrifying. A dark, gaping empty hole.
"Crane's fear toxin..." I breathed, coughing once more. Looking around at the far off crowds, those dressed in costumes began to take on horrific forms. I shook it off.
"It's not real, Lucy, it's just a hallucination"
"I know, I know" I said… unconvinced that his face wasn't going to suck me into a dark void.
John took out a capsule from his bike.
"Take this, it's an antigen. It'll help fight the effects for a few hours."
I swallowed the pill as John took out a cellphone from his bike.
"Who could you possibly need to call right now?"
"Gordon," he said.
After a few seconds, he picked up.
"This is Gordon."
"Gordon, this is Blake. How is the situation at the Asylum? I'm outside of the Gala, it looks like the hostages have escaped and the police have a handle on it over here."
"We've got coverage on all sides over here and the inmates are packed onto armored vans. So far it's an empty threat, but nothing is ever simple with the Joker."
"Are the driver's trustworthy?"
"They're my think we're going to have a repeat of Gotham General? I don't think so."
"Right. Let me know if you need any extra backup."
"Thanks John." With that, he hung up. John looked at his phone for a few seconds.
"We're heading to Arkham" he decided, tucking the phone back into a compartment in his motorcycle.
Getting on his bike, he glanced at me.
"Are you going to be okay? This is a lot for you... with Cran's fear gas... Arkham... your father-"
"I'll be fine" I said curtly, starting the bike. We sped towards the far end of the city. Towards Arkham Asylum.
It took a dangerous, winding route along the coastline to get there.
Thick stone walls lined the perimeter of the grounds, with only a small entrance way to the outside world. With barbed wire lining the tops, this was undoubtedly comparable to the borders between North and South Korea. Gotham was serious about keeping its prisoners from escaping... making it all the more impressive that only the Joker and a handful of others had managed to escape the grounds during the history of the institution.
As we approached the entrance, the gates were already open in preparation for an evacuation. We slipped through them and up a winding road towards the main buildings. It was an eerie looking place, made even more unnerving by old, skeletal trees illuminated by ancient lamplight.
This plot of land had many past lives: Before Arkham had been an institution, it was a boarding school for the Gotham elite. Before that, a post-colonial mansion. Even before that a lookout for British Naval Ships. Who knew what significance this ground had for the native Americans beforehand. Regardless, the cliff the institution rested upon was treacherous - no way up and no way down. The last stop for many of Gotham's most dangerous villains.
The closer we got the more the police lights illuminated the sky. Red and blue hit the emerging white marble facade like a light show. We moved around the scene in the darkness, surveying the police cars and armored vehicles that surrounded the buildings. I spotted Commissioner Gordon giving orders to a few men in uniform, regularly talking into a walkie-talkie.
We parked our bikes behind a set of hedges on the outskirts of the property and made our way towards the action. The Asylum staff was outside, shivering in the cold, unprepared and underdressed for the quick evacuation. Meanwhile dozens of prisoners were being escorted into holding vans by an armed militia. The commissioner was taking every precaution. It was the first big threat the Joker had made on the city. The police's reputation was at stake. There was a lot that could go wrong.
"10 minutes to go," John said, adjusting his night vision goggles to scan the building for activity.
I felt helpless, wanting in some way to help the situation. Then it came to me...
I knew how the Joker thought. Well, at least I had a better idea than most.
I tried to recollect what he had said to me in the van, on the ride home from the piers.
"All it takes is pulling a few bricks from the foundation. You'll see Luce. In time you'll see. Then things will start to make sense"
Five minutes to go as we crouched there, frustrated and cold.
"John we need to do something"
"This is the Joker we're talking about... we need to wait and watch."
"Why would he blow up a building if there's no one inside?"
"Maybe to displace the prisoners?"
I was fidgeting with a branch from the bush we were hiding behind. Looking at the armored vans, they seemed safe enough...
"One minute... " I breathed.
"Whatever happens, we will deal with it." John said assuringly.
As the digital watch on my suit reached midnight we held our breaths.
I wasn't ready for the explosions that followed. They weren't coming from within the building but underneath the ground.
"Land mines?" I screamed.
Policemen were running left and right to avoid explosions and shrapnel. Land mines were going off all around the grounds, threatening to crumble the foundation of the institution.
Is this what the Joker meant about destroying Gotham's foundation?
We heard some of the vans turn their engines on and evacuate down the hill towards the exit. The police followed, as the grounds around the building were torn apart.
We ran toward our bikes, trying our best to avoid the exploding mines around us. It was a war zone. Looking backwards, I could see the blood of a number of police officers splattered across the pavement. I forced down the urge to vomit after glancing at chunks of body parts.
That's when we heard another explosion off in the distance.
"Fuck" John said.
I could hear the tumbling of bricks ahead of us. As the dust cleared, we realized another set of explosives must have been placed at the entrance shortly after we had entered the facility. Whatever was there had destroyed the only entrance out of the asylum. We were stuck inside the grounds with the police.
"We're screwed" I breathed.
But before I could register what he was doing, John revved his engine and made his way towards the rubble.
Was he fucking crazy?
I watched him speed towards the entrance, and blast a powerful round of ammunition into the debris. As the dust cleared, I saw the blasts had made a path large enough for a motorcycle to drive through.
I was dumbfounded. As I saw him disappear behind the wall, his voice came through my helmet intercom
"What are you waiting for, slowpoke?"
I could hear his smirk over the radio.
"How come my bike doesn't do that?" I grumbled, revving my engine and making my way out of the small, makeshift exit.
Gordon, who had thankfully escaped the blasts, had witnessed our entire escape.
Six vans were headed towards the main roads.
"We need to follow them and make sure they get to the safe house," John said, as we glided along the water's edge.
"How do you know that Arkham has a safe house?"
"Its Gotham... the police have a lot of plan As, Bs and Cs."
"Well, I hope they have a plan B for getting half the police force out of Arkham."
We rode silently behind the vans for a while until we saw oddly shaped trucks entering the highway from a number of different on ramps. Cars swerved left and right to avoid what looked like an army of… ancient looking ice cream trucks.
"You've got to be kidding me" I heard myself say.
"Stay on your guard, protect the vans."
I was starting to feel dizzy again as the effects of the pill John gave me were wearing off. The ice cream trucks were taking on a menacing appearance, the road starting to look like a bottomless pit. I swerved to avoid some invisible gremlin.
"John, I'm feeling the effects of the fear gas again…"
"Try to push through it. I'll take the right hand side, you take the left. We need to disable these damn ice cream trucks!" he said, moving forward. It was 6 on 6 on 2; six vans, six trucks and two of us. I would have thought the odds weren't in our favor until John began taking handfuls of black, spikey balls out from his motorcycle's glove compartment. Throwing them under an ice cream truck, the tires instantly ripped apart, resulting in the truck swerving towards the side of the road and crashing into a few unsuspecting cars.
I opened my compartment. Thankfully I had some as well.
An ice cream truck window opened and masked clowns began firing at vans. I shot towards the left side of the ambush, throwing some of the spikes under a truck's wheels. Popping a back tire, the truck swerved to a stop in the middle of the highway.
I understood now - with half of the police force trapped in Arkham, the Joker wanted to disable the vehicles holding the prisoners so that they could escape back into the city.
The ice cream trucks were persistent, pushing up against the vans and forcing them to exit the highway into the Narrows.
Now that the trucks and vans were single file, they were more vulnerable. Speeding through a four way intersection, one of the trucks collided with oncoming traffic. It came to a halt but was thankfully not badly damaged.
We made our way into the deeper part of the narrows, and were able to disable two vans. Hopefully, the police would be able to reach them before the clowns did.
Driving was getting more and more treacherous as the streets began to narrow - hence the area's name.
Before I knew it an ice cream truck had fired into the driver's seat of a van, successfully executing the driver. The van was swerving right towards me. I had to act fast.
"Lucy watch out!"
Jumping from my bike, I tumbled onto the sidewalk as it collided with the oncoming van.
I grunted, watching the van crash into an apartment building adjacent to me .
"Lucy!" John screamed.
"I'm ok," I said into the helmet intercom, "keep going".
He hesitated.
"Ok...You're out for the count, stay safe. I'll come back to find you as soon as I get these guys."
My head was spinning as I stood. Stumbling forward, I looked at the damage in front of me. The back doors of the van were being kicked open, inmates jumping out and running in every direction. They all looked like demons. Some of their heads were on fire. Others were skeletons, burn victims, waterlogged corpses...
It's not real, I kept telling myself. I shook the images out of my head. I needed to round up as many of these bastards as I could.
I ran towards the van, forcing the doors shut with a baton from my belt. I felt myself being thrown to the ground by an inmate.
"Hey! You're not Batman," he said, gruffly. Another stood next to him, rolling up his sleeves.
"Yeah, but someone has to pay for keeping us locked up in that hell hole…" said the other. Both of their faces were dripping with flash. I could see them melting… It was horrifying.
The two ran at me as I did my best to fight them off. I was on the defense, knowing I barely had the energy to throw effectives punches.
Side stepping them, I pushed one into the other and used a bola from my belt to wrap them quickly together. They grunted and collapsed to the ground.
Catching my breath, I looked around for more inmates. Thankfully with their bright orange uniforms, they were easy to spot at night. I saw an older gentleman breaking into an abandoned building across the street. Running towards that direction, the streets were eerily quiet. Either this part of town was abandoned or people knew better than to venture outside.
Pulling the inmate back out onto the street, my worst fear came true.
It was my father.
