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Chapter 3
Fear Draws Near

After picking up Kogasa from Commissioner Gordon, Batman wasted no time in rushing back to the Bat Cave. Once arriving within the the cave and parking the Batmobile, he jumped out of the cockpit and rushed towards a table not too far away and searched through the contents placed on top of it as fast as he could. Kogasa got out from the car afterwards and had a worried look on her face. Though she did not see what state the other two girls were in, Batman had told her what happened, and all along the way to this place, she could hear terrifying cries coming from somewhere inside the back of the Batmobile. It was enough to tell her that they were in great pain.

"Found it!" said Batman as he picked up a beaker containing blue liquid. He used a syringe to draw out some of the liquid inside, and then he rushed back to the Batmobile and pressed a button on the cockpit. In doing so, the back side of the vehicle opened, revealing Nitori and Nue tightly strapped to seats. A look of shock and terror appeared on Kogasa's face. Such a sight even almost made her throw up.

Both the girls had injuries all over their bodies. Nitori was covered from head to toe in bruises, and Nue had it worse by being covered almost completely in blood, and several cuts were seen on her body. The two girls thrashed and cried in pain as they struggled within their bondage. They were thrashing so wildly that their straps looked like it would come off anytime soon, especially Nitori's.

Batman wasted no time in injecting them both with the syringe. They continued to thrash around and scream for a few seconds afterwards, but eventually, they moved slower and slower until they stopped moving completely and fell silent. Batman let out a sigh of relief, knowing that the antidote for Scarecrow's fear gas still worked despite his claim about it being mixed with nanobots.

"Will... Will they be all right...?" asked Kogasa in worried tone and with tears in her eyes.

"Normally, they would've been dead by now, but I believe not being human saved their lives," said Batman. Indeed, both the girls should've been dead from their injuries, but being demons, they had superior durability and resistance, which was why they were still alive. Batman removed them from the straps and carried them onto metal beds, placing them there to let them rest. He then attached wires onto them in order to determine their health using a computer.

It was at this moment Alfred appeared at the place. "Good to see you back, Master Bruce," he said. When he saw Kogasa, who waved at him, he said, "And it seems that you brought back a guest. I hope I did not spoil your identity just now..."

"It's all right. There's no danger in letting her now who I am," Batman told him.

When Alfred noticed Nue and Nitori, he said in a surprised tone, "Dear lord! Look at the injuries of those two young girls! What happened to them?"

"Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter are working together to create fear gas infused with nanobots that are capable of harming people from the inside based on their fears," Batman explained to him. "These two fell victim to such and suffered from their fears."

"Whatever it is that they fear, it must be very painful and terrible!" said Alfred. "Are they still breathing after this?"

"Yes, and let's hope they will continue to do so," said Batman. "I will also have to do something about the nanobots inside their bodies. Who knows what other harm they might do if they are not removed."

"If there is anything you would like me to help with, sir, I am willing to lend you a hand," Alfred told him.

"For now, please take this girl and make her feel at home," Batman told him. "She will be staying here until we can figure a way to get her and her friends back to their own world."

"Very well, Master Bruce. I will look after her," said Alfred. He then told Kogasa to go along with him and made motions so that she could understand him. Kogasa looked at Batman and then the two girls with a worried face, but the Dark Knight assured her that they would be all right.

"I will see to it that they are fully healed," Batman told her. "Don't worry about them. For now, take some rest. You must be feeling tired."

"Please take good care of them," Kogasa pleaded him, and Batman once again assured her that he would. She then left the Bat Cave with Alfred.

The butler took her throughout the mansion, showing her the various locations in the place she should know. Lastly, he took her to one of the many guest rooms of the mansion. It was a luxurious-looking room with a king-sized bed and some pieces of furniture such as a sofa, a closet, drawers, and even a television. "Please feel free to make yourself at home, young maiden," Alfred said to her in Japanese.

"You can speak Japanese?" asked Kogasa in slight surprise.

"As a matter of fact I do, but Master Bruce speaks it better than me. I know just enough to have a conversation with a Japanese," Alfred told her.

"I was worried for a moment about how to communicate with you, since I know nothing about this language called English," said Kogasa with a smile.

"If there is anything you would like, please press that button on that wall," said Alfred, pointing to a white button located next to the bed. "I will come to you as soon as possible and aid you. By the way, would you like to have something to eat before you turn in for the night? I'm sure all that time out there must have made you hungry."

Kogasa smiled and nodded. "Please! Thank you very much!"

It was the second day the three girls arrived at Gotham City. Nitori and Nue, both of whom were patched up and also cleaned up, were still unconscious in the Bat Cave, though that wouldn't last for long, as they soon came to their senses and began to wake up when it was around afternoon. They felt pain all over their bodies, however, and could no move much because of it. "What happened...?" asked Nue.

"I think I just had the worst nightmare... It felt so real..." said Nitori. She looked at the bandages all over her body and said, "I think it definitely was real..."

"Ah, so you have awaken," said Alfred as he came over to them. "Master Bruce told me to tend to you if you wake up. He will be with you at around evening."

"Who are you?" Nue asked him.

"I am Master Bruce's butler," Alfred told her. "You might know him better as Batman."

Nitori looked around the place and said, "So we're in Batman's hideout? And it's a cave, just like a bat..." She noticed the computers and high-tech equipment around the place and said, "A pretty high-tech cave at that, too!"

Nue rubbed her head and said, "I can't remember well what exactly happened last night... All I know now is that I'm starving... Whatever happened last night took all my energy away..."

"I have prepared a meal for the two of you," Alfred told them. "I will bring it to you if you are not comfortable with walking yet."

"It's all right," said Nitori as she got off the metal bed. "We can walk just fine. Whatever injuries we've been through last night has healed already."

"Are you sure, young lady? It would be better for you to remain still until you've fully recovered," Alfred told her.

"Don't worry; demons like us are fast healers!" Nue told him as she got off her bed. "We can easily get back on foot in a day or even mere hours!"

"If you say so, but I recommend that you rest often," Alfred told them. "Now follow me. I'll take you to the dining room."

Alfred led them through the interior of the mansion as he guided them to the dining room. Along the way, Nitori and Nue got a good look at grand scale and luxury things the mansion had to offer. "Wow! This place is as grand as the Scarlet Devil Mansion!" commented Nitori. "And it's more pleasing to the eye, because pretty much everything in Remilia's mansion is red, which became rather painful for the eyes eventually..."

"Batman sure is a rich guy!" said Nue.

"Master Bruce is the richest man in Gotham and also the most famous," Alfred told them.

"I'm sure he is famous all right, what with wearing a costume to go out and save the day and all," said Nue.

"The public does not know that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person," Alfred reminded her. "You will do well to remember this if you go out so that this secret of the highest degree does not spill out."

"Don't worry; I'll silence anyone who finds out about it... permanently! Heheheh!" said Nue in a sinister tone.

"I'm sure he would prefer a more humane way of dealing with things," said Alfred.

They came across a particular portrait hanging on the wall. It was a picture showing a child standing with a man and a woman that were assumed to be his parents. "Is that Batman as a kid?" asked Nitori.

"Indeed, it was taken when he was ten years old," Alfred told her. "Standing next to him are his parents. Poor lad lost both his parents when he was so young... Their lives were taken from them right in front of his eyes... It is something that haunts him to this day, but it was also what made him the man he is today."

Hearing that Batman lost his parents at a young age made Nitori feel sorry for him, but Nue looked indifferent about it. "Sucks to be him," she said as if not showing any concern.

"Anyway, your meals are this way," said Alfred as he continued leading the way. "Better eat them while they're still hot."

When they entered the dining room, Kogasa was there at the table, already eating. She looked up from her plate at them and was filled with excitement as she ran over to them. Throwing herself at the two girls, she wrapped her arms around their necks and pulled them close to both sides of her head and said, "I'm so glad you're all right! I was really worried that you were going to die! Thanks goodness!"

"Riiiight... As if I would die so easily..." said Nue.

"Thanks for your concern, but can you please let go now? This is embarrassing..." said Nitori as she tried to pull away from the karakasa.

"You have a caring friend," Alfred said to them with a smile.

For the rest of the day, the three girls spent there time having fun at the Wayne Manor.

Alfred showed Nitori the mansion's backyard swimming pool. The kappa wasted no time in stripping off her clothes, an act that surprised Alfred, only to reveal that she had a dark blue one piece swimsuit worn underneath the whole time. She jumped into the water and swam to her heart's content. Nue and Kogasa didn't go in because they didn't have swimsuits with them, and according to Alfred, they didn't have any swimsuit for girls at the manor either. Despite this, the two had get a change of clothes when Nitori splashed them with water, and not just simply through splashing. Using her ability to manipulate water, the kappa created a "tidal wave" that crashed down on top of them.

That evening, Bruce Wayne returned to the manor from his work at his office. Alfred greeted him at the entrance to the manor and said to him, "Welcome home, Master Bruce."

"I hope those girls are all right," he said to his butler.

"They have managed to recover at fast rate and are in top condition now," Alfred told him. "Quite a surprise, I must say."

"Well, they are special!" said Bruce with a smile. He went inside to meet the three girls, who were watching TV. They turned to see him and were glad that he was back.

"Welcome back! How was work?" Nitori asked him.

"Fine as usual," Bruce told her with a smile. "I hope you lot are doing all right!"

"Thanks to you, my friends are much better now!" Kogasa happily told him. "Thank you very much, Mister Batman!"

"You don't have to thank me. I did what was the right thing to do!" Bruce told them.

"So about yesterday... Kogasa told us what exactly happened," Nue said to him. "So what's our next move? When and how are we going to capture those villains? I can't wait to get back at them for messing with us like that! Boy! Thinking about it makes me hopping mad!"

"Supposedly, they're going to go to my company tonight, but I doubt they will go along with that plan anymore," said Bruce. "They found out that I overheard them, and I'm sure they won't be dumb enough to continue heading to a place where they know I will be waiting for them. Still, I'm going to check out my office tonight just to be safe. I will be gathering information on what their next moves are."

"If you need our help, feel free to let us know!" Nitori said to him.

"Thanks, but I think it's better that I do this myself," Bruce told her, much to her surprise. "I don't want to put your lives in danger any longer. You have nothing to do with this in the first place, so it's not right for you to get involved. What happened to you two yesterday is enough to make me realize it was a mistake trying to get you involved. You should focus on getting back to your own world. I will provide you with the equipment for fixing your device. Please take your time trying to fix it, and if it won't help, I will contact the League and see if they can do anything about it."

"But we want to help!" said Nitori. "We are friends, are we not? Friends should be helping each other!"

"And I show concern for you friends by not wanting you to hurt yourself again," Bruce told her. "I've been doing this for a long time, and you have no idea how I do things. Not knowing how things work will only get yourselves into trouble."

"But..." said Nitori, but Bruce interrupted her.

"Please just focus on going back to your own world," Bruce told her. "Your friends and relatives must be worried about you."

Nitori pouted and lowered her head while giving a simple "fine." Nue wanted to protest, but Nitori told her to just deal with it. After Bruce left, the kappa winked at Nue and Kogasa and gave them an okay sign, as if implying that she had things covered. The other two didn't know what she had in mind, but since she was implying that she had things under control, they decided to trust her for now.

"Oh, by the way," Bruce said, showing up. "Come to the Bat Cave for a moment."

Nitori and Nue were now lying on metal beds and had rings strapped around their heads, and said rings were connected to wires. Bruce was at a control panel, inputting commands and telling them, "Relax, it will only be a small jolt. Not strong enough to kill people. Plus, you're demons, so you should be able to survive this."

"Still makes me scared..." said Nitori.

"All right. Here goes!" said Bruce, and then he pressed a button that caused both the girls to get electrocuted. It wasn't a strong jolt, but they still felt quite a bit of pain traveling throughout their bodies. After a few seconds, he turned off the electricity and then performed a scan of their bodies. He was relieved to see that there were no more nanobots inside their bodies. "There! That's better!"

"That was quite fun if you ask me!" said Nue as she sat up and removed the metal ring from her head.

"I'd rather not go through it again..." said Nitori.

Knowing that electricity could be used to destroy the nanobots, Bruce started to come up with ideas on how he might be able to stop Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter.

That night, Batman scouted the office and manufacturing plants of his own company, but it was just as he thought, Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter did show up at all. Those two were smart enough to avoid the place, knowing that he overheard them using Wayne Enterprise's office for manufacturing more of the nanobots. The question now lied in where they were taking their nanobot production to if they were not doing so in Wayne Enterprise.

Wanting to be safe, he made sure to check the closed down manufacturing plants of his company as well. He spent the entire night traveling around the city, going to every known manufacturing plant his company owned to see if there were any suspicious activities going on there. By the time he was done, the night was almost over, so he decided to call it a day and continue his investigation the next night.

The next night, Batman went out into the alleyways and corrupted places to interrogate the criminals there for answers.

After getting into a fight with a bunch of lowlifes, he cornered a frightened gang member against the wall and said to him in an intimidating voice, "Do you know where Scarecrow is? Have you been working for him?!"

"In fact, I did...!" he replied in fear. "We were helping him in... What was that place called again? That's it! S.T.A.R. Labs! We were over at S.T.A.R. Labs helping him keep watch while he and the Mad Hatter work on something!"

Then it came to him. The next best place for mass producing something like the nanobots was Gotham City branch of S.T.A.R. Labs! Batman cursed himself angrily for not figuring out this earlier. It was so unlike him to miss out something big like this. He asked the gang member, "Where are they now? Tell me!"

"I don't know!" cried the gang member.

"TELL ME!" Batman shouted at him.

"I really don't know! I only know that they plan to use their inventions tomorrow at somewhere that has lots of people! A huge gathering or something along those lines!" replied the gang member. "That's all I know! He didn't give the name of the location!"

Batman then flung him to the side before walking away. This was all he had to know. He knew that the next night, there was going to be large football game going on at a particular stadium. That was the only place he could think of there would be a large gathering of people, and it seemed like the perfect place for Scarecrow to spread his fear gas. Whether or not that was the place, he decided to head over there the next night.

The next night, when the time drew close for the villains' plan to be executed, Batman got ready to take off in one of his Batmobiles. He actually had two of them, and the old one was no longer being used, though it was still parked next to the new one.

As he got into his ride, the three girls were standing just outside the vehicle, and Nitori asked him, "You sure you don't need our help?"

"I don't need your help," he told them. "You focus on finishing your device and get back home. Now if you'll excuse me... I'm in a hurry!" He hastily closed the cockpit and then zoomed off at a fast speed.

The trio watched the Batmobile speed out of the place. After it was out of sight, Nue grumbled, "Now we're gonna miss out all the fun..."

"At least we can focus on going back home, right?" asked Kogasa.

"But I want to beat up those bad guys for making a fool out of us first!" said Nue angrily.

A smirk appeared on Nitori's face as she got out a smartphone-like device from her pocket. It showed a map of Gotham City and a blinking spot that was constantly moving. "Who said we were going to miss out the fun?" she said to them.

The other two looked at the device with a confused expression. "What is that?" asked Nue.

"I secretly put a tracker onto his costume, and this is showing us where he is going!" explained Nitori. "Now we'll just have to follow him if we want to join in on the fun!"

"Great move!" said Nue with excitement. "C'mon! Let's go after him!"

"But how are we going to follow him?" asked Kogasa.

Hearing this, Nitori thought for a moment, because she hadn't thought this through. She turned to the side and noticed the old Batmobile parking there, and then a smirk reappeared on her face.

TO BE CONTINUED

The old Batmobile is based off the one used in Tim Burton's movies, and the new one is based off the one in Arkham Knight.