AN: Hello everyone! I bring forth another chapter of this crazy crossover. I just saw the new episode of RWBY V.6 and I absolutely loved it! I have a good feeling about this volume.
Thank you to everyone who has favorited, followed, and reviewed this story. Your feedback gives me life. Please keep doing it!
Before we start, I have two shameless plugs. First, I am writing another RWBY story called RWBYS: Blood is Thicker. It's an OC-centric reimagining of the RWBY series that I'm hoping a few of you might find interesting.
Second, my lovely beta annbe11, without whom I would not be typing these words, is writing a very entertaining Tiger's Curse fanfic called Tiger's Circus. If you're a fan of the series, definitely give that a look.
With that, on with the show!
Chapter 4 – Not According to Plan
Nora had been feeling pretty good about the night so far, such as it was. She had met some police officers who proved themselves to be nice enough to help her out, she got to eat some very tasty donuts, and she had met a man who everyone was sure could help her find Ren. All she had to do was help Batman track down an evil clown and she would be back with her friends in no time.
That optimistic feeling lasted only until she saw the Arkham security guards lying in pools of their own blood.
Nora swallowed down the bile that tried to climb up her throat. She had lived in the wilderness of Remnant for years with Ren. She had seen death before, and in ways much more gruesome than this. Still, death would never be something she would get used too.
"Wherever Joker goes, death is sure to follow," said Batman as he stood next to her. "We have to keep moving." He turned and ran down the corridor, leaving Nora to follow.
For a few moments, the TVs spaced around the hall played some sort of orientation video before alarms started blaring.
"Warning. Security breach in level B3."
"Warning. Security breach in level B2."
Two thugs jumped out of hiding as Batman and Nora turned the corner, but they both went down from a single punch to the face. Nora and her ally barely even slowed down.
"Warning. Security breach in level B8."
"Warning. Security breach in-"
"Okay! We get it! Things are bad!" Nora shouted at the PA speakers. They continued their message anyway, heedless of her opinion.
"Batman, over here!"
The both of them looked down the hall where an Arkham security guard was waving them. His face looked like he'd just tried to go five rounds with Yang Xiao Long, but he seemed to be doing okay, all things considered.
"Are you alright?" Batman asked as they reached the guard.
"I've been worse," the guard said, rubbing at his split lip. "What happened?"
"Joker happened," said Batman. "You're lucky to be alive."
"He must have gone this way. The door's jammed," he said, pointing at the giant metal door over his shoulder. He seemed to finally notice Nora and gave her a look of confusion. "Who's the kid?"
"Someone who's helping," said Batman before Nora could open her mouth to answer. The guard looked like he wanted to ask more questions but his radio suddenly crackled to life.
"We need help in Pacification. I repeat, we need help in Pacification. Zsasz is loose! We need backup!"
"I can read you," said the guard. "I'm with Batman. Help is on the way."
"Where are they?" asked Nora. The guard gave her a look for a moment before answering.
"They're back at the opposite end of the hall. You've gotta hurry if you're going to stop him."
Batman took off running down the hall without another word, with Nora running alongside him. Nora looked at him from the corner of her eye.
"What's the deal with this guy we're getting? His name is really Zsasz?"
"Yes," said Batman. "He's a psychotic serial killer I've had to put away multiple times. As long as he's out, no one on this island is safe." When the two of them reached the end of the hallway, Batman suddenly slowed to a walk and put his fingers to his right ear. "Oracle, can you hear me?"
Nora blinked.
"Um, my name is Nora."
"Not you," Batman said. He paused for a long moment. "Just some help I picked up here at the asylum. … No, not quite yet. … An incredibly complex weapon and some enhanced strength. I may need you to do a scan soon. What's going on here is that Joker has escaped custody. He's running loose on Arkham Island and he's set his crew free. … Don't worry, the commissioner is safe. Joker's not far ahead. Stand by for the sample." Batman lowered his hand and turned to Nora. "Nora, show me your arm."
"Um, okay," Nora said, hesitantly holding her arm out to him. "Who were you talking to?"
"Oracle," he said, taking hold of her wrist. "She's my technical support. She feeds me useful info while I'm in the field. This might sting a bit."
"What might- YOWCH!" cried Nora. She snatched her hand back as Batman raised a small syringe filled with her blood. She rubbed at the tiny wound and glared at Batman. "What was that for?!"
"I'm being thorough," said Batman as he snapped the syringe in a small compartment of his gauntlet. "Come on. Zsasz needs to be stopped."
line
A short time later, they both tried to keep out of sight as they glanced down at Zsasz. The escaped patient stood behind a guard strapped to an electric chair, holding the trigger device in his hand.
"Keep away," he almost purred to the guards before him, "or this little piggy fries." He delicately tapped his thumb against the button in his hand.
Batman and Nora ducked back into their cover as the guards below did their best to convince Zsasz to stand down. Nora tightened her fist as Batman looked at her.
"Okay," he said quietly, "we need to take him down before he has the chance to kill the guard. We'll need a plan."
"Cool," she said with a nod. "I'll go right, you go left. Let's go!" Standing up, she dashed from cover at the railing before her. She hopped up onto the railing before propelling herself at the right-side wall of the room. She planted her feet on the wall and turned to face Zsasz. He had apparently seen her move and was beginning to turn in her direction. She had one shot at this. Gritting her teeth in determination, she shoved herself off the wall. For a moment she rocketed through the air before colliding with Zsasz, knocking him to the ground and sending the trigger device rolling across the floor. She pushed herself off of Zsasz as he finally looked up at her, his face drawn with pain and confusion.
"Hiya," she said with a grin before punching him in the face and knocking him unconscious. She bounced to her feet and looked back at the slack-jawed guards. "Cleanup on aisle five!" she called. Turning her attention to the captive guard, she casually tore his bindings off as a man with a medical kit finally ran up to them. She heard a swooshing sound before turning to find Batman glaring down at her. She met his eyes, jutted her chin out, and put her hands on her hips. "You missed your cue," she told him.
"You ran into a situation without thinking," he shot back. "If you were even an instant slower, he could have killed that guard and possibly you as well."
"Nothing bad happened, Batman. Besides, I could have taken him in a straight fight. I can handle myself."
"Are you sure?" Batman said darkly. He waved his hand in the direction of Zsasz. "What do you see?"
Nora turned to look at the downed patient and her eyes widened. The man was wearing a pair of shorts, torn bindings on his limbs, and a heavy collar around his neck. Every inch of his exposed skin was covered with tally marks carved into his flesh. Nora found herself taking a step back in horror.
"Each of those marks represents a life Zsasz has taken," said Batman. "Men, women, children, even officers of the law are among their number. Zsasz is a remorseless killer who can kill as easily as other people breathe." Batman's eyes narrowed. "I have experience with these individuals. I've been fighting them for years. If we're going to stop the Joker, you'll need to follow my orders."
Nora stared at the prone man, images flashing through her mind of what he must have done. For a moment, she felt like she would vomit. This was not what she had been expecting her night to be like. She was supposed to be in Mistral with Ren and her friends. She wasn't supposed to be locked in this asylum and up to her elbows in crazy people.
She was broken from her thoughts when Batman demanded that the guards put Zsasz back in his cell. A few guards came down to restrain Zsasz and take care of their coworker.
An instant later, an entire wall of TV screens suddenly flickered into life, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. As the image came to life, Nora was surprised to find herself staring at a woman's chest in some sort of corset that left little to the imagination.
"Can you hear me?" the owner of said corset said over the TV as the camera bobbed too and fro. "Is this thing on?"
The picture finally straightened and the speaker backed away from the camera, revealing herself to be a curvy woman wearing clown makeup while dressed in a nurse-inspired corset and skirt. Nora thought she would look right at home at those weird toy shops in Vale that Ren would just drag her away while blushing.
The woman on the TV smiled as she looked out at the two of them.
"Hiya, B-man! Harley Quinn here. How do you like my new uniform?" She turned in place to show off her entire outfit. "Pretty hot, huh?"
"Eh," Nora said with shrug. "It's alright, I guess, but it looks like it would fall off if you tried to fight in it."
Harley blinked for a moment before glaring through the TV at Nora.
"Who's the twerp, B-man? Your new sidekick? Certainly can't get any worse than Bird Brain, that's for sure." After a moment she blinked before her expression became excited."Oh! That's right. I got something to show you. One second, B-man!" She dashed off camera until a moment later they saw Warden Sharpe pushed into view on a chair he was duct taped to. He tried to say something, but the piece of tape over his mouth kept him silent.
"Oh, that's not good," said one of the guards from behind them. Nora found herself nodding in agreement. Harley strutted back into the camera view and threw an arm around the captive Warden.
"I'm now subbing for the old man! Old Sharpey here has never been happier." She grinned and placed a loud kiss on his forehead, which he tried to squirm away from. "In case you didn't notice, B-man" she continued, turning her attention back to the camera, "today is Mistah J's big homecoming, and you're the guest of honor!"
"You have one chance to surrender, Quinn," Batman growled, glaring at the screen.
Harley pretended to give it some thought while she twirled around a cane that Nora recognized as Sharpe's.
"Tempting, Bats," she said with a grin, "but no dice. Now the inmates are running the asylum. Well, technically it's Mistah J's boys shipped in from Blackgate, but you get the idea." She waved to them. "We just need to get a few more things prepped, but we'll let you know when we're ready for you and your plus-one. Bye bye for now!" She lashed out with the cane, striking the camera and causing the screen to turn to static.
"Hmm," said Nora, putting her hands on her hips. "She doesn't seem so tough."
"Harley Quinn is the Joker's girlfriend," said Batman. "Don't let her appearance fool you. She can be just as dangerous as he can."
Nora gave another skeptical glance at the television static.
"If you say so," she responded.
Batman went silent before putting his fingers to his ear and taking a few steps away.
"Oracle, I'm here," he said.
Nora decided to leave him to his own conversation and instead investigate the room. The Arkham staff were all either taking care of the guard who almost got electrocuted, keeping their guns trained on the now-restrained Zsasz, or fussing with something at the entrance of the room. Nora drifted closer to this last group where she heard the system had been locked down, trapping them in this room.
"Guess we'll need another way," she said to herself, looking around the room. An air vent was set into the wall close to the TV screens, looking big enough for someone to crawl through. "Clearly," she said to herself, "the people who built this place have never seen movies before." With a sharp metallic tearing sound, Nora ripped the cover off of the air vent and tossed it aside.
"We need to get moving."
"AHH!" shrieked Nora as Batman seemed to materialize right behind her. "Don't do that!" she snapped, stamping her foot in anger. Batman just brushed past her and entered the air vent. Nora crawled in after him.
After making a few turns through the vents, Nora asked "So Batman, what did your Oracle have to say?"
"Joker has isolated the Asylum from the information grid and he's made threats that he'll detonate bombs all across Gotham if the authorities don't stay away."
"That sounds scary," she said, feeling a shudder go down her back.
"It's a bluff," Batman said. "He's stalling. That means we have to find out what he's doing and put a stop to it. Fast."
The two of them came to the end of the duct, where another vent cover looked out into the hallway where they had found that guard from earlier. Nora could even see him still working to get the door open. Batman slammed his foot into the vent cover, sending it skidding across the room. The guard cried out in shock, but relaxed when Batman dropped to the floor.
"Good to see you, Batman," he said, turning back to the door controls. "I've almost got this thing working."
"I could try breaking it down if you want," Nora said as she hopped down from the vent.
"No," Batman answered, not even looking at her. Before Nora could respond, the door suddenly opened and the guard ran through, leaving Batman and Nora to follow.
They turned a corner and Nora froze in her tracks.
A large window marked Decontamination looked out into a long tiled room with multiple showers. A number of Arkham guards were clustered around the window, banging on the glass, and gasping for breath. The room was filling with a noxious green cloud, and the guards were succumbing even as they held their mouths closed. As Nora watched, they all started laughing, their faces contorted into gruesome grins. Then they fell out of view of the window, with one guard grasping at the glass enough that his hand squeaked chillingly down the glass.
"They're dying in there!" Nora said, pulling out Magnhild and shifting it to a hammer. "We have to get them out."
"If you break that window, we all die!" snapped Batman, glaring at her. "That room if filled with Joker Toxin."
"We can't just do nothing!" yelled Nora, looking around for a way to get inside. An open shaft in the ceiling caught her eye and she jumped straight up into the shaft.
"Nora, slow down! I'm coming!" she heard Batman say, but she had already torn off another vent cover and crawled inside.
After a few turns through the vent, she came out onto a platform high above the floor of the decontamination room. The gas was staying low in the room, so Nora could breathe alright.
"Help!" came a strained voice. "Please help me!" An Arkham guard was desperately hanging from the platform she stood upon.
"It's okay. I got you," said Nora, grabbing the man by the collar and lifting him onto the platform.
"Oh, thank God," the guard gasped. "Steve is up on that platform. You have to help him!"
Nora followed his gaze to where a second guard was hanging from a bank of air ducts. She was about to jump after him before Batman again seemed to appear right next to her and fire a cable into the ceiling above where the man hung. The Dark Knight reeled himself up to the bank of air ducts and helped the man onto stable footing. Batman looked around for a moment before beckoning Nora over to him. She grinned and took a few steps back before getting a running start and jumping to land on the higher platform.
"What's up, Bats?" she asked. "How do we get rid of the gas?"
"There's a fan control console down on the ground floor. If I can hit it, I can turn on the fans and clear this room." He reached into his belt and pulled out some sort of bat-shaped throwing weapon. He pointed to a covered area of the decontamination room, the surface on top just high enough to avoid the Joker Toxin. "There's a man over there. I need you to save him."
"You got it!" Nora said with a salute before running to the end of the surface and leaping to her destination. She landed in a roll and walked to the edge of the platform before looking down at the man she was to save.
To her surprise, instead of a guard, he was an inmate.
"That son of a bitch left me here!" he yelled. "Please help! I'm gonna fall!"
Nora didn't move. Her eyes locked on his before she turned to look at all of the dead guards on the floor of the room.
He helped make this happen, a part of her said. He helped kill those men.
For a few long moments, Nora just stood there, watching him.
What would Ren do?
She sighed and rolled her eyes before bending down and grabbing the collar of his jumpsuit. Without any visible effort, she stood up again and lifted him into the air. He looked at her with a grateful, but still terrified gaze.
"Thank you!" he said. "Thank you so much! I thought I was gonna-"
Nora punched him in the face, knocking him unconscious and shutting him up. Then, with exaggerated care, she laid him out on the platform.
There was a rustling sound from behind before Batman walked up next to her.
"Well done," he said. Nora nodded
"You knew he was an inmate," said Nora. It wasn't really a question.
"Yes," answered Batman. He turned from her and threw the weapon in his hand. It streaked through the air before striking a metal box set into the wall. Instantly, a series of large fans came to life, venting the area of Joker Toxin and disengaging the decontamination locks.
"We need to move," Batman said as the noxious green gas finally cleared. He leapt down from the platform and strode toward the door at the far end, leaving Nora to follow after him. The door opened for them and they walked out into another metal hallway.
"Well hurry it up!" came the Joker's voice over the PA system. "I'm so close, you could almost taste me!"
"Uh… eww," said Nora. The two continued down the corridor, coming closer and closer to a corridor.
"Hey Bats, I've got an idea for a game. Let's reenact the Three Little Pigs. I'll huff and puff…" Nora suddenly heard lots of metallic clicks from down the hall as she and Batman turned the corner. At the end of the next hall, in front of a door emblazoned with a neon green painting of the Joker's face, were a group of four inmates armed with assault rifles.
"And these guys will blow you away!"
"Get back!" snapped Batman, grabbing Nora and yanking her back around the corner just as the inmates opened fire. Bullets impacted the wall as the hallway roared with gunshots.
"When the heck did they get guns?!" asked Nora.
"They must have taken those weapons from the guards," Batman responded, gritting his teeth. "We'll have to try and get around them." He put his fingers to his ear. "Oracle, I need you to send me schematics of the Arkham Intensive Treatment building." A long moment passed as Batman waited whatever his friend was sending him and the bad guys eventually stopped firing to wait for them to show themselves.
Nora's foot started to tap. She was getting anxious.
Finally, a small holographic screen appeared from his glove, featuring a cross section of the buildings. "Okay…" he said, staring at the blueprints as Nora crouched next to him, "we'll have to cut back across Intensive Treatment to the main entrance."
"Seriously?!" whined Nora.
"Yes," said Batman, narrowing his eyes at her before turning back to the hologram. "From there, we can use the duct system there to come back around and end up right behind them and-"
"BORED NOW!" yelled Nora as she leapt to her feet. "I'll deal with this myself!"
Then she turned the corner and sprinted down the hall.
She kept herself bent low to the ground as the inmates yelled upon seeing her and began bringing their weapons to bear. When the gunfire began, she began dashing in a serpentine pattern. Her eyes were focused on the inmates as bullets impacted the floors and walls around her. A few bullets glanced off of her Aura, but she barely felt them.
As she further closed the distance, she ran at one of the walls and took a few strides along it before bunching up her legs and propelling herself at the inmates. One of them only had time to cry out in surprise before her fist slammed into his face and he was sent flying into the opposite wall. She kicked another in the gut as a third tried to bash her in the face with his rifle. She caught the body of the gun and squeezed, crushing the metal under her fingers. She heard the final inmate coming up behind her and she tore the magazine out of the ruined weapon and spun on her heel, smacking the fourth man across the face with it. She twisted back around and punched out the man in her grasp before mule kicking the discombobulated assailant behind her, sending him into the door and then to the ground.
As quickly as it had begun, everything was still.
"We're clear," she said. She turned down the hallway to see Batman was halfway to her. He was glaring at her and slowly shaking his head. He folded his arms and stared down at her.
"What?" asked Nora.
"What were you thinking?" he demanded. "Were you even thinking? You ignored my orders and ran right into a firing line. You could have been killed."
"Well I wasn't!" she snapped. "Look at me. Not a scratch." She turned in place so he could get a full picture. "And newsflash, pal, running into dangerous situations is literally my job! Also, we're supposed to finish this up quickly so you can help me find Ren and we can't do that if we spend all night going in circles! Now can we just grab that clown so we can find Ren and my friends?!" She spun around and walked toward the door, which opened for her.
The other side of the room was dominated by a long drop down a shaft and a large metal box dangling over it from a chain. Standing atop this box was the very clown they were looking for. Nora glared as she pointed at him.
"The jig is up, you jaded, jug-headed, jittery, jack-in-the-box!" she yelled.
There was a pause before the Joker started giggling.
"Oh God, Bats, I love this one so much!" he practically squealed as he danced in place. "Can I have her? Please please please? I'll gladly trade you Harley!" Nora didn't even need to turn around to imagine the glare Batman was giving him. "Oh poo, you're no fun tonight, Bats. If not me, who are you left to play with?" He tapped his chin in thought for a moment before his face brightened. "Oh! I know! How about this guy?!"
He stamped down on the box, causing a door in the front to open. Waiting within was… Nora took a few seconds to even process what she was seeing. It looked vaguely like the result one would get if they tried to combine a human with an Ursa, but then got bored with it and quit halfway through. It was an absolute monster of a human, with grotesquely enlarged muscles and odd bony spikes stabbing outward through its skin. Its left arm and right leg were quite skinny, disproportionate with the rest of its massive frame, and it stared at them with glowing green eyes. It snarled as it climbed out of the box and landed on the floor before them.
"Ooohh, he's a big one," cackled Joker, who seemed content to just watch the show.
"Bring it on," said Nora, unfolding her hammer. "I'll smash you down to size!" With a battle cry, she charged.
"Nora, wait!" she heard Batman say, but she continued anyway.
The creature before her snarled a challenge before clumsily swiping at her. Nora hopped over it's swing before bringing her hammer around, smashing it in the side the head and sending it reeling. It tripped over its own mismatched legs before catching itself on the wall and growling at her.
"Ooooh, you're so scary," Nora taunted, resting her elbow on the guardrail next to her. "I think Jaune's bunny slippers just ran for cover." She looked at Batman, who seemed to be glaring at her before his eyes suddenly widened.
"Nora, get away from the-"
The rest of his warning was lost as Nora suddenly heard a growl and was struck from behind, sending her rolling across the floor and into one of the concrete walls. Her head stopped spinning a few moments after the rest of her did, and she looked for what had attacked her.
There was a second one of those Joker creatures pulling itself over the railing. It was disfigured similarly to the first one, but the second had two incredibly muscular arms with tiny legs that were bent and broken at various angles.
"Well, whaddaya know?!" cheered the Joker. "He actually survived the fall. Got to admire the dedication of that guy. I would give him a raise if that was something I did."
Mismatch and Arm-man, as her mind labeled the two creatures, both roared at them and charged, with Arm-man ambling on his knuckles as his legs trailed uselessly behind him.
"Dibs on Arm-man!" Nora shouted before charging to battle. The creature awkwardly lunged at her and only managed to faceplant into the floor when she jumped over him. She spun in midair, bringing her hammer down on the center of his back with a loud THUD! Nora thought that she might have taken him down before the creature backhanded her away and started crawling in her direction. A quick glance in Batman's direction showed that he was riding on the back of his monster with his arms crossed around the creature's throat.
Before she could refocus her attention, Nora was caught off guard when a meaty hand grabbed a hold of her leg. Before Arm-man could throw her or hit her or do anything else, she bared her teeth at him and raised her hammer over her head.
"Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep!" she shouted, hitting the creature on the head Magnhild to punctuate each command. On the last one, he finally passed out and released his grip on her. "Nighty-night," Nora said victoriously.
There was the sound of an impact and Batman suddenly went flying past her before skidding to a stop on the floor. Nora looked over her shoulder to see Mismatch breathing hard and lumbering toward her. Nora quietly sighed before hefting her hammer into a fighting stance.
"I guess I'll take care of you too," she said.
Mismatch made it only two steps closer to Nora before he suddenly stopped, grabbed at his chest, and collapsed forward. Nora blinked for a moment before shrugging and collapsing her weapon.
"I think we're done, Batman," she said, turning around to where he was pushing himself to his feet. She looked back at the hanging cage to where Joker was still smiling like a loon. "We'll just grab him and call it a-"
"Nora! Move!" Batman shouted.
Nora blinked in surprise. Why did she have to move? They had won, right?
She noticed movement in the corner of her eye and saw Mismatch had risen to his knees. His small left arm was barely supporting him but his beefy right arm stretched out toward her. Time seemed to slow as his fingers inched closer and closer to her face. Her hands went for her hammer, but she wasn't fast enough.
Suddenly, she was roughly shoved to the side as Batman seemed to appear next to her. Just as she was sent flying out of the way, Mismatch's hand clamped around Batman's left arm.
Just before Nora hit the ground, she heard a sharp SNAP as Batman's left arm broke within the monster's grasp.
As Batman groaned in pain and tried to free himself from Mismatch's grip, the creature stiffened before the light faded from its eyes and it finally collapsed for good, pulling Batman to the ground with him.
"Oh no!" Nora gasped in a moment of shock. "Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" She scrambled forward to Batman's side and began to pry the creature's hand open. Batman grunted in pain once more before Nora managed to free him, leaving the Dark Knight holding his left arm close to his chest. His gauntlet had been crushed and his forearm was sitting at a grotesque angle.
"Well, now," giggled Joker, making Nora glare up at him. "That was fun, wasn't it? Even got a little interesting there at the end! Hee hee hee! I'd hate to think about what might happen to poor ole Batsy if that guy didn't have a heart attack." He started massaging his brow. "Note to self," he muttered quietly, "need to find some tougher test subjects." When he looked back at the pair of them, he gave a wide grin. "Okay Batsy, Shortstack, how's about a conciliation prize?" He stepped up to the edge of the cage and held his arms out to the sides. "I'll give you this one for free," he said with a smirk. "Knock me off. Send me to the depths, pull the plug, end this, stop me once and for all! I dare you!"
An instant later, Nora was pulling Magnhild from her belt and leveling it right at Joker.
"No!" shouted Batman, pushing the barrel of Magnhild toward the ceiling just when Nora's finger was beginning to squeeze the trigger. "Not like this," he said.
"Oh, come on, Bats!" groaned the Joker as he lowered his arms. "This kid has to be the most entertaining sidekick who's ever tagged along with our playdates, but you just keep being a buzzkill! I know that Birdboy wouldn't be willing to blow me to smithereens, so could you stop ruining my fun and hers?!" He sighed before pulling a remote out of his jacket and pushing a button. Motors came to life as the cage he stood on was taken away through a sliding steel door. "Well, I have a party to organize. I have guests coming from all over Arkham, and each of them is looking forward to seeing you. The three of us are in for a fun night, mark my words! Ha-hahahaha-ha!" The sound of his laughter died as the doors slammed shut.
The room was silent before Nora dropped her weapon and stared at her hands. Had she almost… she was ready to…
Her body started trembling as she crossed her arms tight across her chest. She felt like she might be sick. She wanted this night to end. She wanted to be with her friends. She wanted to be with Ren. A single tear trailed down her cheek before she felt Batman lay a hand on her shoulder. Feeling scared at what she might see, she glanced over at him only to see that he was looking at her with understanding. He didn't say a word, only squeezing her shoulder and giving her a nod.
Nora sniffled a moment before she nodded back. When she looked again at Batman's broken arm, resting at almost a twenty-degree angle, she stood up and made her way to one of the walls. A pair of thin lead pipes were torn from the wall, releasing a gout of steam that barely phased her, and a length of wire was ripped out from the power line leading to one of the wall lights. Tucking her supplies under her arm, she walked back to where Batman crouched by the dead Mismatch.
"Can you get the gauntlet off?" she asked. Batman started fiddling with his gauntlet, wincing as his movements jostled his arm.
"The hinges are jammed," he answered.
"Alright. I'll be careful, then." She knelt down next to him and, with as much care as she could, peeled his gauntlet apart into two pieces and set them aside. "This might hurt a bit, but I know what I'm doing. Ren and I would do this for each other when we got hurt." She gently took Batman's arm and worked to set the bone back in place. Batman grimaced as she worked, but he didn't flinch even slightly. It took a few tries with her moving Batman's arm around to find the right spot, but eventually the two halves of his forearm were back where they were meant to be. After directing him to hold his arm in place, she crafted a makeshift splint from the pipes and wires. When it was secured tight, she stood up and took a step back. Her eyes dropped to the floor as her hands started fiddling with the hem of her skirt.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I'm sorry for getting the way, I'm sorry for yelling at you, I'm sorry for almost… almost shooting…" Her body trembled again as she fell silent.
"I know you are," Batman said as he stood up. His eyes seemed to be going straight through Nora. "I understand that you're powerful, but this is a very dangerous scenario we're in. You can't let your guard down and you can't rush into danger. This cannot happen again, Nora. You need to follow my orders." He turned to look where Joker had vanished. "Whatever Joker is planning, I need you to actually work with me if we're going to stop it. Is that something you are willing to do?" He turned to face her again. Nora nodded. "Good. Are you ready to go?"
Nora took a long breath before looking up at Batman. A new fire burned in her eyes as she set her jaw and nodded.
"I'm ready. Let's go teach that clown some manners."
AN: I was playing Arkham Asylum with my girlfriend recently and I was suddenly struck by the full realization of how absolutely broken Nora is going to be for this story and how absolutely fun it's going to be to write. However, this gives rise to a question that, from my viewpoint, has not really been addressed in the various Arkham RWBY stories: Why does the RWBY character need to be here? We've played the game, so we know that Batman can handle this by himself. I felt that if I want to toss Nora into this situation, the capabilities of the villains must be greater or the capabilities of the heroes must be lesser. As you can see above, I chose the later option.
I've got a lot of great plans for this story that I hope you all enjoy. As I said in my Puddin chapter, I'll be taking November off to take part in NaNoWriMo. I'll update soon after that, though.
I'll be in touch!
