JMJ

Chapter Six

Face It

"Yo, Batman!" called Lunabat.

She leapt right into the position she had last seen him hovering when the police arrived. Of course, now on the rooftops herself, Batman was nowhere in sight. "Mph!" she puffed up her cheeks with annoyance.

Circling around she looked down at the police and the circulating lights on the now quiet vehicles. They had discovered Bullock before they had stopped, and they had to be calling an ambulance. Lunabat could not help a small smirk as she saw how Montoya stayed with him once she had stooped down next to him.

And what a power couple they'd make if they got over some of their differences, Lunabat could not help but tease, but even in friendship and coworker partnership it was very touching.

Something did not always have to be romantic to be touching, after all, even if picturing Bullock and Montoya in wedding dress and groom-suit instead of their police gear was pleasantly amusing.

She was sure Bullock would be alright, of course. He was a tough cookie. Well, more like a tough slab of mutton steak. All the more reason to believe he would be up and kicking butt like he always did before the snow finished melting, but he would have to sit out the rest of the Arkham breakout battle.

Maybe for the best… thought Lunabat with a shrug.

It did not take the police long to find where she had stowed away Wesker and the boys.

Here, Lunabat did have to drop her head.

It was the first time she had ever had to face someone from Arkham. She had always let Batman take care of them until now, while she kept the rest of the small-time crooks at bay. But Batman could not take on all of them at once, even if he had managed to slip by and help her with Bullock. Had he been watching her long?

Lunabat rolled her eyes.

I guess he has a right to be suspicious still, thought Lunabat even though she still felt sore by the idea.

Either way if it had not been for the hostage, Lunabat was not sure she would have had it in her to stop Wesker so severely. Maybe she would have helped the police find him indirectly, but whatever might have happened had circumstances been different, what did happen could not be changed. She still had chills from it.

Sure, Wesker was crazy. Sure, he needed to be stopped, but she had not even been able to show herself very clearly to the gang. She had used up all her smoke pellets for fear of being recognized. Batman had recognized her. Wesker, through Scarface, was no idiot when it came to observing things. She had not even been able to speak aside from a few grunts and "hyah!" sounds, and she felt that to be very unlike herself even in her Lunabat persona. She had managed to kick Scarface out of Wesker's hands but even as she had, she had recalled at least one of the times she had encouraged Wesker in his madness when she had been committed to the asylum herself. All this was just too deep.

"Oi!" she growled as she leaned against a rooftop doorway box on the top of the building she stood on. "Harl! What have you got yourself into this time?"

There was no backing out now. Besides, she felt something move near her.

She spun her head in time to see Batman himself half-hidden in the shadows and the ocean fog. She jumped with a cringe, but she was not all too surprised.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," muttered Lunabat not withholding her annoyance, but she shook her head.

"You don't have to do this," said Batman.

"Neither do you," Lunabat pointed out.

"It's not just yourself you're putting in danger, Harleen."

"Says the guy who puts a kid in danger whenever he feels like it."

Batman leered. She sensed the wound she had nearly opened.

"Look," sighed Lunabat then. "I'm not against what you do, okay!? I'm one hundred percent for it, and if you're talkin' about who I think you're talkin' about—"

"Veronica Vreeland," said Batman.

"Hmph!" said Lunabat. "Ronnie's a big girl. If you must know, it was her idea. She knows what she's doing, Batman. There's no talkin' her out of it."

"She's not careful enough."

"I look after her," Harley insisted. "I'm teachin' her how to not be tracked. Honest, Batman. She just wants to help too. She got tired of being a damsel in distress."

Batman only glared through those white pupil-less slits in his mask.

Lunabat stood up with a glare of her own.

"Hey, if this was Catwoman we were talking about trying to join you, you wouldn't be so uptight!"

It was only for a few seconds that it revealed itself on his face, but that one really cut Batman to the quick. Lunabat felt as though she had just stabbed him and stabbed him good, and she winced at the way his eyes turned so sad even if it had been very briefly before he covered it in a third menacing glare worse than the other two combined. It did not hide his wound entirely, which was probably why it was the worst.

Her frown deepened in return.

Then Batman made to leave with a sweeping swing on his batline.

"Wait! Batman, wait!" cried Lunabat wrenching his arm suddenly. "Please, I'm sorry!"

Batman paused, but only in the sort of way that posed him ready for the quickest sort of slip when he got the chance. Lunabat just had to make sure she did not blink for more than a second to allow him that until she had her say, but she did release his arm.

It was the first time she had been this close to his face since she became Lunabat, and how very grim and uptight it really was!

"I'm doing this partly for you," Lunabat insisted. "You can't do this by yourself. You told me back at Arkham that you had a bad day once, and that was why you do what you do. Stop other people from having a bad day, whether it's because some psychopath is destroying someone's wedding and you gotta help that poor couple before it's too late, or someone just minding their own business down the street thinking of going to buy that toaster they need so bad before they get mugged. And even a bad day for a psychopath that finally realized what a beast she'd become and just when she was about to lose that chance to break her curse, you came to the rescue, cuz you saw the trapped person underneath the white powder and the pompoms."

Batman let out the minutest sort of sigh. His face had softened a little.

"This is my way of repaying you," Lunabat said. "Gotham needs you. We can't let you wear out. I think you need more people who tell you how much you changed their lives. I'm a psychiatrist after all!"

Batman smiled. It was a tiny one, and it was brief, but it was there, genuine and with pleasant humor. Lunabat grinned from ear to ear in return. Then his smile turned grim. Not angry but sad.

Lunabat was not sure whether or not he was more worried about her or Veronica, but that just strengthened Lunabat's resolve.

"I'll talk to her if it makes you feel better. I mean, hey! Spiderman gets by without the all the fancy stuff. Meh, even if he does have that web thing going for him. I got my pure luck going for me, at least!"

"I don't know if talking to her will do any good at this point," said Batman with a confidence that proved he had had to deal with Miss Vreeland before with firsthand experience.

"Then I'll take care of her. Or you talk to her." Lunabat shook her head. "Nah, don't do that. That'll just make her more stubborn. She's a lot like you, y'know? Well, in that way. You can count on me! Promise. We won't be a burden to you. She feels the same way I do."

"Except that if what happened to Bullock, happens to her, she wouldn't be as likely to handle it."

"I kidnapped her and—"

"I meant the injuries."

Lunabat tapped her chin. She was sure Robin had not been instantly good at what he did.

"Hey, I know, I can train her in self-defense! That'll be something, right?"

But she had made the mistake of looking down. When she lifted her head, Batman was nowhere to be found.

As Lunabat rolled her eyes, she knew she had a crush on that moody protector of the night. She smiled despite herself. Partly because she had to face the fact that she did have that crush, but also because she had thought of the perfect way of dealing with Miss Vreeland.

#

"Wow, Harley! We can't have any conversation til you take a shower. You look awful, and you smell like smoke! Was there a fire!"

"It's the smoke pellets," said Harley still standing in the open window and cricking her back. "This is serious, Ronnie. It has to be now."

Veronica was wearing her fur coat to stand there without inviting her in so covered in mud and mucky snow-slush. She came out onto the balcony and closed the door behind her.

"What is it?"

"First, I think that if you're gunna continue to be my tech support, you need to learn your own self-defense. Y'know, just in case."

Veronica pouted. "You think I've been going on all this time without doing that?"

Harley blinked stupidly.

"I've been taking self-defense classes since I almost threw my own jewels over the side of a boat right into some mind-controlled ruffians' sack. I told you I was not going to be a diamond in a glass case anymore."

"Really?"

"Of course!" sniffed Ronnie V.

"Oh, okay," said Harley a little blankly.

Ronnie crossed her arms.

"Was that it?" she demanded.

"Well…" Harley said. "Not exactly. I did run into Batman tonight."

"And he's worried about us? That's sweet," smiled Ronnie.

"Yeah, well, y'know. He's tall, dark, and broody, and he makes his point heard, and he does have some legit concerns."

"Come on and take a shower, Harley."

"Here?" asked Harley with uncertainty.

"Of course, here."

"Well, see, that was one thing, that I still think might be a good idea," said Harley. "I think that we should limit seeing each other for a little while. Y'know, at least until most the crazy war is down. Please don't take it the wrong way…"

"You're not ditching me, are you?" Ronnie asked.

"No, no, of course not! It's just…"

"We agreed to do this together, Harley, and I intend to keep my part. Please, Harley, trust me, okay?"

Harley sighed. "Oh…"

"I trust you perfectly in this," Ronnie insisted. "Besides, one of the kooks are just as likely to show up at my place as they would with or without me helping Lunabat."

Harley raised a brow.

"Okay, just a little less meeting up, how's that sound? But you still have to allow me to know what's going on," said Ronnie.

This lightened Harley up in an instant and she gave Veronica a friendly slap on the shoulder.

"Atta girl, I knew you'd understand. That's all I ask. Well, I think I will hit the shower now, but it'll be at my place. I gotta shower that works just fine."

"Well, okay, if you're sure," shrugged Ronnie. "but you look like you need more than just a shower."

"I'll be good, okay, Ronnie? I already got Batman worrying about me, you don't need to." Harley grinned.

Thus they parted ways. Harley slipped her mask back on and disappeared into the night. Veronica headed back indoors and gently closed up the balcony with lock and key. When she turned around she nearly let out a cry as she jumped at someone being so close behind her. At first, she feared it was one of the crazies, but she instantly switched it to Batman, which somehow unnerved her more, but it was not any rooftop jumper.

"Pierce!" she breathed and held her hand to her chest as she took another gasp.

He was standing there and quite staunchly with arms crossed. What had nearly looked like a cape before was only the extra blanket over the top of his robe against from the balcony's chill.

"You shouldn't've fought it! Why didn't you just agree?"

"Oh, c'mon, Pierce, this is why I didn't want you to spend the night here," retorted Ronnie.

"That war of the lunatics is exactly why I am here!" he snapped back.

"So you're protecting me now?" asked Ronnie.

Pierce threw up a finger. "Well!"

He had felt and sounded brave at first, but as he truly pictured trying to defend Ronnie from the Joker or Two Face or Poison Ivy he suddenly felt a lot more afraid than he might have felt in the clear light of day. He tried to hide his sudden feeling of cowardice in clasping his hands together thoughtfully and looking away with a nonchalant blink.

"It's okay, Pierce," said Ronnie, smiling gently now as she put a hand on his arm; though her eyes shone with humor. "You really have changed a lot, and you're surprising even me. You're so much more mature and so much more a gentleman than I ever thought you could be."

Pierce blinked in disbelief. Before he could decide whether or not she was making fun of him, she went on teasing, "And if you keep up that sneaking behind people like you do, you might even be able to make a good Batman."

"Oh, goodnight, dear!" Pierce flustered and turned away to return to bed. "One of these days," he continued to mutter almost more to himself than to her, "you're going to have to start growing up too."

#

"Ah, lupophobia, the ever-classic fear of wolves," muttered the Scarecrow as though having just sipped a famous wine. "Despite how that howl is one of the deepest natural sounds of this earth that has ever shaken man to the depths of his soul, it is not overly common in such an urban jungle as Gotham. Is it the fairy tales of old that triggered it? An unpleasant camping trip in early childhood? A wolfish family-member who beat you since infancy? Or simply a symbol to you of the fear of the unknown—the root of all terror…"

The man before him was the last of the guards. There had been three in all, and his two hired goons had taken care of the other two easily enough by knocking them cold with a simple knockout gas, but this would-be hero: buffed in shoulders, blond, blue eyed, strong-jawed? Despite how the Scarecrow had promised himself that this was to be a quiet mission as it was so critical to his current work, he had been unable to resist. If the victim got too loud, the Scarecrow would simply knock him out as well.

So far the victim was only whimpering in a corner pulling a leg or arm away as though from a snapping, drooling set of jaws. He pictured himself surrounded by hordes and hordes of nightmarish dire-wolves, no doubt, with white gleaming teeth, blood-red glowing eyes, and naked gruesome skin shaking with anger beneath scraggly tufts of bristling fur.

But it was so shallow in the end, despite the Scarecrow's obsession.

This fear, it was nothing.

It could have even been simply triggered by seeing some Wargs in the Hobbit trilogy on the weekend for all the Scarecrow knew even if he had had an unpleasant childhood memory with wolves. The mind was so fickle, so easily influenced by so many factors, especially when a person had no actual clinical phobia. What had begun as a sweet vintage had turned rather into cheap soda. He was tired of such candy that still left him so ravenous for something meatier and with more substance than this.

The city of fear he dreamed of… each person reacting on another person's fear, causing reaction off of reaction with infinite possibilities. It was life, this was true— the essence of life and what made it ran, but to see it magnified tenfold and to see how quickly humanity devoured itself at such a concentrated level of fear as exposed to his fear gas, it would be something no less than the feasts of Valhalla for the Scarecrow.

But in the meantime…

Such pangs of hunger was why his mind always returned to examining the complicated swirling misery of Jonathan Crane… it was so much more satisfying to the Scarecrow than a sane man briefly being incited with falsely-charged terror. Not like at the beginning of his criminal career. Crane's fears had no need to be stimulated by artificial means. They were fear incarnate. From the screams of his birth he had lived in a torrent of fears, and how he fought against himself about it, created new paranoia and new phobias with each passing conflict with himself, but the stronger and hungrier the Scarecrow became. The more he fought his fears, the more he fought the Scarecrow, the demon of his own creation, and the more satisfying it was.

The Scarecrow shook his head back to where he stood. It had only been a brief pause, staring as though straight through the soul of the guard in front of him, but he had been only staring at himself for that moment. Realizing where he had been, with a growl of annoyance to himself, he kicked the man who let out a shriek as though a wolf had just leapt over him to rip off his head.

Before he could start wailing, the Scarecrow had him completely knocked out with the knockout gas. Hopefully, when he woke up, he would only remember the occurrence as a dream caused by the knockout gas, and no one could track the theft to the Scarecrow speedily.

He clutched the vial in his hands— the one he had come for.

Despite himself, he shivered inwardly as he knew beyond a doubt that Batman could figure it out if he was not too distracted with bigger foes.

Hopefully, the Joker would keep him occupied, or Poison Ivy, or the Penguin. He had heard rumors in the underworld that the Penguin was taking full advantage of the situation of the Arkham release and that he may have even had something to do with its cause. Though, it was still a rumor yet. The Scarecrow had only proven so far that the rumors of Two-face's capture by Batman was as true as the beginner's luck of Lunabat that had helped her catch the Ventriloquist about a week ago.

Tonight was Christmas Eve, and although he had never cared much for Christmas, he was in hope for a gift for himself without interruption.

Police sirens echoed in the distance, and for a moment the Scarecrow stopped. Every muscle tensed as his ears stretched to listen, but the sirens passed. They were not coming this way.

Nevertheless, it may not be too long before they do, thought the Scarecrow.

He turned to his goons. Good ones were becoming difficult to come by, and it was not as if his first goons had been all too wonderful to begin with. The best ones he had ever gotten were for the plan to get rid of Batman and drive him completely insane while he attacked Gotham's water supply, but this time had been on such short notice. One of the two men before him was very little more than a punk juvenile. The other was almost too obese for a good flight if the need came. Of course, neither one was well educated, but that was the way with goons. Most were hardly known for finishing high school.

"Broker. William."

Broker was the boy and William the overweight one.

"I'd rather be called 'Bill', Boss," protested William.

"Well, if you'd rather be less and under our occupational titled friend," retorted the Scarecrow eyeing Broker only briefly before returning to William, "instead of being next in the line of such great movers of the world as those privileged with the name 'William', but then living up to such men is likely beyond you." To himself he muttered, "Not to mention such anthroponymy."

"I thought the guy was afraid of wolves, not werewolves," said Broker.

The Scarecrow blinked in disgusted confusion for a few seconds until he put "anthro" and the wolves of lupophobia together. He could have told him that lupophobia covered wolves as well as any monstrous fantasy derived from them, but he didn't.

"It's time to go our separate ways," the Scarecrow hissed as though he had not heard him; though he decided to speak just a bit more simply in order to move things along quicker. "The chemical stores are destroyed as I wished, and you will take the money you've earned quickly away if you don't wish to be discovered. I need this to look like it was a common theft for quick cash and not something of a more severe nature. Two days from now we will meet at the appointed spot for your further instructions, understood?"

"Yes, boss," said William looking sore, because, at least, he was smart enough to know that he had been insulted.

Broker nodded sharply.

Without another word, the Scarecrow slipped one way and the goons the other way, but just as he was satisfied that he was rid of the sight of those idiots, he heard the siren again. Quickly, he ran for the stairs. At this point, he almost did not care if the goons were caught. After all, their next meeting place was not his secret laboratory hideout. But then, if caught, they would quickly babble out who they had been working for as they had very little loyalty to him, and this was supposed to be a secret.

He could not worry about it. William and Broker would have to fend for themselves. They had to be at least competent enough to handle that. That was why he had hired them.

Now, he would meanwhile climb onto the roof and use the cable he had set there when he had scouted out the place earlier, so that he could move swiftly to the next building and the alley beyond. He would reach his own escape car before the police arrived.

It was possible the sirens were headed somewhere else again, but they were coming too close for comfort.

Out onto the roof, the wind seemed to desire to hold him back inside as if the very elements were against him. His heart started to pound and despite the chill, he felt a sweat as he flung open the door again with full force. His teeth were tightly clenched together behind the hanging false teeth glued to the mouth-opening of his mask.

He managed not to slip on the slippery rooftop, and he made it to the next roof with more ease than he had hoped. Hidden almost completely in shadow now, he watched his goons run off around a corner in the streets below.

Good, they should be off in their own getaway promptly now, he thought as the Scarecrow part of his mind watched his fears like a vulture.

He shook his head, his heart still pounding loudly and beating faster now too.

In his heightened state of haste and anxiousness, he thought for sure he had heard a swoop. Before he even looked, he ducked lower behind the pipe he was near, ventilating warm air from inside and hissing out plumes of steamy fog. He could see no one, but he seemed to be able to feel someone still, and it was not just paranoia.

He glowered angrily as a silhouette started taking shape in the steam.

No one was going to play games with him. Not Batman. Not anyone!

He jumped out. The fear gas readied at his gloved fingertips.

"Pr—Scarecrow!" cried a voice.

Young. Feminine. Clear. Sincerely surprised. Even a little scared. Not Batman.

He hardly looked at the young woman before he sprayed her, but he guessed who it was correctly before he beheld her coughing and gagging and already much afraid even before the gas took full effect.

"Ah! Lunabat! So I disturb you, do I? Did you fear meeting with me more than some!?" Scarecrow demanded.

"No! No! No!" cried Lunabat already on her knees and sinking into the snow fast.

The siren had drifted by. The police had yet again not been after the chemical lab.

The Scarecrow snickered.

"You must have much to hide, my dear!" he hissed with unbridled glee rubbing his hands together with wolfish appetite. "What is it you fear? What chases you in the shadows of your mind night after night on this futile crusade behind an emotional train wreck like Batman!? And yet he is not here to save you? You're not even Batgirl. You're all alone!"

"No, no, no, no!" sobbed Lunabat again now so low she was like a wounded animal. "It's all a mistake!"

"Yes, yes, yes, yes!"

"Please, don't! Please! Please, Mr. J! Please!"

A howl of the ancient past seemed to echo through the Scarecrow then. Instantly, his demonic sneer turned into nothing less than a bug-eyed "ulp!" that made him look more like a confused puppy than a wolf of any kind even behind his mask. His whole body gave a violent leap from within like a jolt of electricity had pulsed suddenly through him, making his heart nearly skip a beat. As the realization sunk in within a second after that last phrase and Lunabat continued to writhe and sob and to cry crying out "Mr. J," again and again, the Scarecrow slowly knelt down beside her and pulled the mask away.

He nearly fell backwards to see who was beneath it even though he knew already who it was before he took the mask. The face of the walking dead would have scared him far less.

"Harley," he squeaked.