Chapter 12: Reanimator
8 PM
"Ms. Isley!" A man's voice yelled out from inside the greenhouse located on the rooftop of an old apartment building.
Pamela turned to see who it was, although she was fairly certain that she already knew.
"Oz? What brings you up here?" She inquired, while continuing to add a few droplets to the soil of her test plants.
"You know exactly why I'm here!" Penguin squawked. "You've been borrowing a lot of money for your secret plant projects. You promised me double the return. When am I going to get some results?" he asked, walking closer to her and putting his hand on her shoulder. "Or do we have to take it out in some sort of trade?" he flirtatiously asked, looking her up and down, admiring her beauty.
"We are getting close. We should have results soon." Pamela assured him, brushing his hand off her shoulders, rejecting his advances.
"I'm going to need a bigger cut!" he demanded. "I know you guys are doing something big with the shipment of chemicals you've been receiving. Plus, Hugo Strange is on the run now and it doesn't look like he will be honoring his portion."
"You will get everything you want as soon as all the tests are complete." She assured him once again.
Penguin grew an angry scowl. He then hobbled over to one of her plants. "What are you growing here? This doesn't look like anything that will double my money." he blurted, pulling one of the leaves from off its vine.
"Don't do that!" Pamela exclaimed.
"Calm down, Toots! It's just a leaf." he retorted, crumbling it up in his hand.
"It's not just a leaf! It's much more than that!"
Suddenly- the leaf began growing. Soon- vines began wrapping around Penguin's wrist and arm. Within seconds, his entire body was surrounded with leaves and vines.
"What the hell is this? Leaves are supposed to die after getting plucked!" Penguin bellowed.
"That's exactly the point of my research!" Pamela retorted. "Except... plants won't have to die anymore; they will merely multiply. Mother Earth will be able to continue flourishing… despite mankind's attempts at destroying her." She declared, adding a couple drops to the invasive plant which was surrounding Penguin, causing it to start withering away.
"How is any of this tree hugging crap supposed to make me money?" Penguin sniveled, pulling the now decaying vines from off the sleeves of his designer tuxedo.
"Where do you think your precious drugs come from?... A PLANT!" She answered her own question. "Now, imagine being able to grow your Drop plants at a much higher rate, not to mention, the experimenting you can do with them. Your sales will make you a billionaire." she proclaimed.
"Oooooh!" Penguin joyfully moaned, thrusting his hips in a sexual motion. "That kind of news makes for a much better trade than anything I could imagine doing with you! I can have as many red-heads as I want with that kind of dough!"
Pamela turned her head in disgust. "Whatever floats your boat, Oz."
Penguin began walking towards the exit. "Let me know when this stuff is ready to hit the market! We're gonna take it out a whole new door!"
Meanwhile, at Wayne Manor…
"Bruce!" Alfred called out. "You must come see this!"
Bruce had just woken up, still battered from his fight with Morgan Ducard just a few hours ago. "What is it, Alfred?"
"Take a look in this microscope." Alfred emphatically replied.
Bruce pressed his eyes against the microscope and gazed into the lens. "What am I looking at?"
"This is a sample of Morgan's blood that I got off your previous outfit. The droplets were on the bat-symbol blade that you keep placed upon your chest." Alfred explained. "Now, look closely at what the droplets are doing."
Bruce squinted his eyes a little more. "They're multiplying!" Bruce exclaimed, shocked at what he was looking at. "How?"
"There must be something else going on with this nerve agent that we aren't aware of."
"Cellular regeneration at this rate would allow for an injury to heal up five times faster than normal." Bruce stated.
"You said you saw Morgan Ducard die. Are you entirely sure he is dead?" Alfred fretted. "Plus, you said the Red Hood leader fell into a vat of this stuff."
Bruce remembered the last thing both of them said before their demise; "This is only the beginning!" they yelled out.
"Call down to the hospital and the morgue right away, Alfred! Make sure nothing is going on! I'm going back out!" Bruce declared, heading directly for his outfit.
"As you wish, sir." Alfred sighed, not wanting Bruce to go out so soon after all the injuries he had accumulated over the past few nights.
"Keep your earpiece in. Get a hold of me right away." Bruce instructed. "I will listen to the police scanner while I'm driving. I have a few places I will have to check out. I'll head for the morgue first unless we hear about anything going on at the hospital."
8:45 PM
Batman was about to come to a fork in the road. One way would lead to the hospital, and the other would lead to the morgue.
Alfred called just in time. "I managed to get a hold of the hospital. Nothing out of the ordinary is going on there. I tried calling the morgue, but I didn't get an answer, though, it is about to be nine o'clock at night, so everyone might have already went home for the day."
Batman took the fork in the road which would lead to the morgue. He was hoping his suspicions about Morgan weren't true.
…Moments later, he was about three blocks away from the morgue, when suddenly he noticed something strange up ahead in the distance. Several people were wandering around in the middle of the road. He started to get over onto the side of the road to avoid hitting anyone.
Just then-
Someone else stepped out onto the road about one-hundred and fifty feet directly in front of the Batmobile's path. They were brandishing a large weapon, and then they fired it, causing a layer of ice to form below the tires. Batman tried to slam on the brakes, but that only caused him to go into an uncontrollable slide.
As the Batmobile slid past the individual, Batman tried focusing in as much as possible to get a good look at the man's face, but the face was covered up with some sort of a frosty dome. The only thing Batman could see was the crystallization of ice as the man continued firing the weapon at his car.
The Batmobile finally stopped after sliding into a ditch.
Batman could see the individual walking directly towards him through the layer of ice on his windshield. The man put his ice weapon away and then pulled out something that looked like a bazooka. Batman tried opening his door, but it was frozen shut.
Just before the man could fire the bazooka-
BANG! BANG! BANG! Shots rang out from off in the near distance.
Sparks were lighting up the mechanical suit he was wearing from the ricochet of bullets bouncing off of it.
Suddenly- one of the hoses that was keeping his suit cold sprung a leak after one of the bullets pierced through it. This caused the man to run off before any more damage could be done to it.
Seconds later, Commissioner Gordon approached the frozen Batmobile. He tried to help open the door, but the ice was too thick. He then grabbed a large branch and began swinging it at the ice, trying to break it loose.
Finally, after several attempts, the door was able to open.
"Batman, you need to get out of here! The GCPD thinks you are dead! There was a silent alarm tripped at the morgue. I'm the first one on the scene."
As Batman started to get out of the Batmobile, he noticed a flash from off in the distance.
"Look out!" Batman yelled, pulling Gordon away from the Batmobile, and diving into the ditch with him.
KABOOM! Mr. Freeze had fired his bazooka and blew the Batmobile to pieces.
Batman managed to protect himself and Gordon by covering the two of them up with his cape.
When they were finally able to stand up, Mr. Freeze was nowhere to be found.
However, there was no time to worry about Freeze because the people who were wandering around in the middle of the road were now walking towards Batman and Gordon, and they didn't look like they wanted to have a friendly chat.
Gordon pulled out his gun, but he was hoping he wouldn't have to use it.
Gordon was in shock when the wanderers got closer.
"These are the policemen that died on the night we busted through the doors at Ace Chemical! Or at least I thought they were dead!"
Luckily, Gordon didn't have to fire his gun because the wanderers began losing their footing after trying to walk across the sheet of ice. Their motor functions didn't seem to be working correctly, almost as if they were walking zombies.
Batman instructed Gordon to head for the morgue, hoping they could barricade themselves inside.
After entering the building, Batman blocked the door by pushing a bunch of coffins in front of it.
"What is going on out there? How are these men alive?" Gordon asked.
"It's a nerve agent that also has the ability to regenerate cells at an advanced rate." Batman explained. "I'm not exactly sure what that means for your men."
Gordon reached for his walkie-talkie because he wanted to warn the rest of the police force that might try heading for the morgue to stay back. "Dammit! My walkie-talkie must have fallen off of me when you pulled us into the ditch."
Batman turned away and walked into another room. He then touched a button on the side of his cowl. "I need you to relay a message to the police. Tell them to stay back if they come to the morgue." he quietly instructed Alfred, trying to not let Gordon hear him.
"Right away, sir." Alfred quickly responded.
"After that, bring the prototype car that we've been working on to the morgue, but park it a couple blocks south."
Just then- pounding could be heard on the door from outside. The coffins wouldn't hold them out for too much longer.
Batman quickly tried investigating the scene. He noticed several white sheets lying on the ground along with several empty prep-tables. He then tried looking around for Morgan's body, but he was nowhere to be found.
Suddenly-
"Batman! Help!" Gordon cried out.
