Robin
The bike roars underneath him. Trees blur on the outsides of his vision as he storms up the access road to Arkham Island. His headlight illuminates a swath of the leaf covered road. He spots a gate in the distance. It opens to let him pass, then closes behind him. A few minutes later, he rolls into the employee parking lot. He parks, turns off the engine, then steps off the bike. There in front of him is Arkham Asylum. Once, it had been a vast estate, but then, it was donated to the city to be used as an asylum, taking the name Arkham after its original owner.
The old decrepit building looms in the distance. Pale moonlight illuminates his way across the grounds to the looming structure. He stops in front of the door, and takes a breath. Vines have crawled their way up the up the ancient, crumbling walls, giving off a ghoulish vibe. This is not the kind of place you enter with a smile on your face. No matter how fearless you are, the small hairs on your neck will stand up, your heart will sprint, your breath will hitch, and your chest will heat up.
Robin strides up the steps towards the security entrance, passages of Dante's Inferno running through his mind. Through me you go to the grief wracked city; through me you go to everlasting pain; through me you go a pass among lost souls.
He comes to the entrance.
"Abandon All Hope- - Ye Who Enter Here," he grumbles under his breath.
He pulls the door open and crosses the threshold. The hallway is dank, and dark. Old portraits of old men and women hang on the walls. Robin gets the sense that their eyes follow him as he passes. The hallway is lit by single-bulb hanging lights spaced out too far apart, creating black shadows in between each circle of light.
"Robin?" a female voice calls from in front of him.
A blond woman wearing a white lab coat walks out of the black and under a light.
"That's me," he says.
She's young, maybe twenty at most. Probably an intern.
"My name is Mary," she says. "I'm supposed to show you to the Joker's cell."
Robin raises an eyebrow.
"You are?" he says.
"You have some kind of problem with that?"
"Did they tell what happened to the last blondy they sent the Joker's way?"
"You think I'd fall for the Joker?"
She crosses her arms, and rolls her eyes.
"Didn't say that," he says, "However, Joker has a knack for hurting people. Do you know how many doctors that he's managed to kill in here?"
She shakes her head no.
"Too many. Which way?" Robin says.
She motions for him to follow, then starts down the hall. They come to a security checkpoint. She flashes a badge, and the guard lets them pass.
"If I were your bosses," Robin says. "I'd keep you as far away from Joker as possible."
She goes quiet as she leads him through the labyrinth of corridors. They wind deeper into the heart of the asylum. Wails of pain and of great sorrow, then screams of terror, and sounds indescribable reach their ears.
"So how does a nice young intern such as yourself wind up here?" Robin says.
"Not by choice," she says. "It was the last available position that would look good on a resume."
They pass a corridor with rows of steel doors on both sides. The doors have little slots that can be slid back, so one could see inside the room. More screaming can be heard from each door. They turn down another corridor, and pass another security checkpoint.
"So what are you doing here anyway?" she says. "It's not every night we get visitors from vigilantes."
"I need to question Joker about the shooting of the commissioner's daughter."
"So they send you? Batman, or Superman, I'd understand, but..." she trails off.
"What?" he says.
"Nothing," she says. "Never mind."
He chuckles quietly, and lets her lead him deeper into the asylum. The smell of antiseptic, air freshener, and old blood reaches his nostrils. Ten minutes later, she guides him into a corridor with large windows to see into each cell. You can see inside, but those inside cannot see out.
She takes a long breath, then nods.
"This is the one," she says.
He can see the whole room through the large window: white padded walls and floors, no window to the outside, no bed. The Joker hunches down in the corner, his face pressed into the far corner, looking like some kind of wild animal. To the right of the window is the door to the cell.
Robin points to Mary. "I'm going in. You, stay out of sight, okay?"
She tries to hold a measure of composure, but eventually, she nods furiously and offers Robin the badge-key to open the door.
He walks up to the door and holds the key near the electric reader.
"Abandon All Hope- - Ye Who Enter Here," he says again.
Mary curses under her breath.
"Was that really necessary?" she says.
He turns to his left, shrugs, then opens the door. He tosses the key back to her, and heads inside.
(******)
Raven
Her head swims, and the white light subsides. She blinks a few times, her eyes adjusting to the shiny-white, metallic walls and floors. Machines beep and whistle, and people mill about the circular room.
"Come with me," a gravely voice says.
She resists a strong urge to flinch, and turns towards the voice. She sees a tall, dark, cowled figure standing right next to her. Her eyes go wide.
"Batman," she breathes.
How did he sneak up on her? The whole place is white for goodness sake.
"You need to come with me," he says.
She stares up to his masked face, amazed at his height. Finally, she breaks out of her stupor.
"Are you taking me to Gotham?"
"Not yet."
"Why?"
He turns suddenly, and walks away from her.
She grumbles and follows him out of the circular room, and to the right down a long corridor. The wall to her left is completely transparent. She nearly gasps at the sight of the Earth out the window, so large it nearly takes up half the horizon.
"Robin thinks very highly of you," the Batman says, breaking her out of another stupor.
"Oh, well," she stammers. "I think very highly of him."
Idiot!she curses herself as they head down the mesmerizing corridor.
"So, uh-" she says. "What's this about?"
"There's been a development," Batman says.
Robin wasn't kidding; Batman really doesn't talk much.
He leads her to a room with many highly sophisticated looking computer consoles. A few other costumed crime-fighters stand in the room, typing away at the consoles.
"What have we found," Batman says.
"It's not good," a brown haired man says, reading a holo readout. "It looks like he's on his own."
The man comes away from the console and approaches them. He's wearing a black one-piece with a green torso, white gloves, a green domino mask. He has a white circle with a green lantern emblem in the middle of his chest. On his right hand, he wears a small green ring. That ring is one of the most powerful weapons in the entire galaxy.
"You must be Raven," he says.
She nods.
"And you're Green Lantern," she says.
"You can call me Hal," he says.
Batman storms past, manning a console, and typing furiously. He clenches his jaw, and breathes slow.
A black haired man, wearing strange blue goggles, and a red uniform stands at the console next to Batman.
"What's going on?" Raven says. "Why am I here?"
"Well, it uh- it's uh..." Green Lanterns face contorts, and he scratches at the back of his neck. "Well, you see, it's uh-"
"Bring it up on the main feed, Plastic Man," Batman says. "Let her see it for herself."
The red suited man hammers a few keys, then an image appears on a large holo display in the center of the large room. It looks like a news image from a helicopter, hovering over what looks to be an old estate.
"Give me audio," Batman says.
"On it," Plastic Man says.
"Good evening, Gotham City!" a gleeful voice hisses. "We apologize for interrupting your scheduled programming to bring you this important announcement."
"Is that-" Raven starts, then gets cutoff.
"This is your friendly neighborhood Joker speaking."
The image on the screen shifts to a video of inmates rushing out of their cells, attacking guards, attacking each other, and dragging hostages away kicking and screaming. The image shifts again to the stark white face, and contorted grin of the Joker. He's sitting in some kind of office.
"A prison break?" she says. "I don't understand. Why am I here for this?"
Green Lantern looks to Batman.
Batman looks like he might be rolling his eyes under his cowl.
(******)
Robin
He steps into the cell, closing the door behind him.
"Joker," he says.
No response, not even a shrug.
"You know why I'm here," he says, coming closer.
Still no response.
Robin walks up to him, and takes him by the shoulders, carefully, then turns him around. What the!?
The face staring back at him is pale white with an unnaturally wide grin, its eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets. It is not the Joker, but a man who was killed using Joker's toxin.
Robin's mind kicks in, and he drops the body, then spins around to the mirrored window.
"Open the door!"
He scrambles to the door as quick as he can. He hammers on the door with his fist.
"Open it now!"
(******)
Raven
"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" she says.
She balls her fists in annoyance, and tries to let out a slow breath.
The Joker smiles, showing all his unnaturally yellow teeth.
"I'm coming to you live from the currently under siege Arkham Asylum."
Raven shakes her head.
"So the Joker staged another takeover. Why am I here?"
Still they refuse to answer her.
The image on the screen shifts to that of a young man in a white padded cell. He is wearing a long black cape, appears to be standing over a hunched figure in the corner.
"This video was taken ten minutes ago," Batman says.
The young man turns around, looking like he'd just seen a ghost. Robin!
Her blood runs cold, and her stomach aches with fear.
Robin shouts and bangs on the door, then the image fuzzes out, and is replaced by The Joker.
"What?.. Robin? I was hoping for the big guy, but I guess you'll do."
"We have to help him," Raven says.
Batman shakes his head.
The Joker laughs, and leans forward towards the camera. "If even one more costumed hero even thinks about coming near the island, I'll blow up a children's hospital, or a school, or an orphanage... Or a zoo. Unless you want PETA coming after you, then I'd stay away. The island is mine now. And by the end of tonight, Robin will be no more. Ta ta for now."
"No," Raven says, emotions boiling inside her.
(******)
Robin
The door finally opens, and he rushes out.
"What's wrong?" Mary says.
An alarm starts going off, then all the cell doors open. Oh, crap!
He grabs Mary, and spins her around, putting himself between her and the first inmate, wearing an orange jumpsuit, running straight for them.
The inmate draws his hand back for a knockout punch-
Robin's boot-heel connects with the inmate's throat, sending the inmate sprawling for the floor.
Three more inmates run at them from the same direction.
Robin turns to look behind, seeing four more.
They're blocked in.
He grabs his staff from his belt, and extends it.
"Stay very close to me," he says.
He twirls his staff with his left hand, drawing a few wing-dings with his right. He spins around, and in one fluid motion, he takes out two inmates with one swing, catching each square in the side of the head, keeping the motion going as if they weren't even there, then with a flick of the wrist, sends the wing-dings at the group of enemies on the other side of the corridor.
Three of them fall.
He feigns left, then rams his staff straight into an inmate's midsection, then leaps, twisting around in the air, putting all his momentum into a roundhouse kick. His boot connects with the the inmate's face, knocking him face first to the floor. He checks for Mary, and finds her crouched against the wall not far away.
Only one inmate remains on the other side of the corridor.
Robin takes off, going right past Mary, and heading for the last inmate. He lets out a battle-cry, and plants his staff in the ground in front of him, using it to flip his body around. He goes over the top of the running inmate, landing right behind him. He slams his staff into the legs of the inmate.
The inmate falls down face first.
Robin pounces on him, and slams his staff into his face with a loud thwack!
The inmate's lights go out immediately. Robin gets up, looks at the camera in the corridor, then grabs Mary's arm.
"We've gotta move," he says.
(******)
Raven
"We have to help him."
"We can't," Green Lantern says.
"We have to!" she says.
"Believe me, if there was any way-"
"There must be a way- there must be something we can- We can't just leave him out there to die!"
Green Lantern steps back, breathing deep, relaxing his muscles, preparing for a fight.
"What do you think Robin would want?" Batman steps between them, eyeing Raven. "Do you think he would want us to put innocent children at risk for him?"
She bites back a thousand angry retorts, breathing hard, fists clenched with white knuckles.
Batman takes a cautious step towards Raven, then another.
"What if we transported him away from there?" she says.
Batman shakes his head.
"There are innocent people on that island. People that only Robin can help now. What do you think he would say?" Green Lantern cuts back in.
"It's a moot point, Hal," Batman says. "I already checked, the Joker has somehow blocked our transporters from reaching the island."
"How is that possible," Raven says.
"He must have generators emitting low levels of specialized radiation," Batman says.
"So," Raven says. "What?"
Batman glares at her, then softens just a tad, and puts a hand on her shoulder.
"Until we can confirm that his threats are only bluffs," Batman says. "Robin's on his own."
Author's note
Okay, so that was part five. Leave me a review, and let me know what you think. This will probably be my last update for awhile, so if it is, know that I have not given up on the story.
Thank you TexMurphy for the review. I've been using present tense since the beginning. It probably seemed strange because for probably the first four or five paragraphs, I used past tense to describe past events, while still using the present tense to describe the current moment of action, so it kinda jumped around a bit.
I'm glad part four was clearer, and thanks, I'm glad you like my use of the "extended" DC Universe.
Yes, I've been having trouble trying to "insert" more Raven into the story, so for now, she may seem relegated to love interest, but I do have a plan.
Thank you Red X for the review. Slade's a good guess, but isn't that kinda obvious?
Thank you templetongal for the review. I'm trying to get at least some kind of balance, but it's been pretty tough so far; Robin just keeps wanting to take over the story.
I could never understand why the tv show didn't bring in more of the DC Universe. There's just such a rich library to draw from. I managed to get Green Lantern into this one. I'm trying to find a way to get a few more of my favorites involved before the story is over.
Thanks, I'll try hard to keep up the good work.
Thank you Aliasin, Our Heroes Won't Die, and Edu Torres for following!
And a sincere thank you to everyone who has read the story. You are all totally awesome!
Well that's it.
Hope life finds you all well. Until next time.
mojo