Chapter 3.

This is when I think best. Not in the cave. Not brainstorming with Alfred, Tim, Dick, even Clark. In the thick of it. On my feet.

These gangbangers are no problem. Back, left, up, across. Perfect steps. I can block, counter, and hit them as easily as a chess move. Against low lives like these, my mind can focus – my body handles the fight.

Something is brewing grab fist, twist, arm broken sometimes, just sometimes – it's instinct that's right. Elbow snaps back – nose broken Arkham is seething like a spit. It's been far too quite over there. They're down. One last. Coming in fast – lead pipe And I can't have Arkham going up now, not while it's a full house grab pipe, pull him down, sweep kick to the head – solar plexus compromised – he's incapacitated. I'm finished here – and head straight to Arkham. In time, I pray.

"Oracle, get Dick on the line."

"Fools! Bullets won't harm my darlings!" Ivy could almost cry with joy. It had been so easy! Two days to ready the seed. Then, it exploded into life. The pitiful cell was a ruin in minutes – now she was outside, and in control of damn near every plant on the island, Twisting vines, great blades of grass – twined together: swinging, smashing, beating, crashing.

Guards filed forwards, feverishly blasting away at Ivy's creations – but to no avail. The inmates were free too – norms preying on the guards, the freaks preying on both. She simply stood, in the rubble of her Arkham room, free of the constrictions of the prison uniform, in the livery of her children. Then, with true sadness, she moved away, leaving behind the emotional carnage – and towards escape.

"Farewell my lovelies."

The figure that stood atop Arkham's roof was an odd one. Spindly limbs – like a spider's, and a thin, gaunt head. But the body was plump and swollen.

The Joker, the clown prince of crime, breathed deeply in the night air. A smile – calm and joyous all at once played on his lips. The screams that emanated from inky blackness were most exquisite.

Then he looked down. His life jackets, yes, he managed two, were fully inflated. A third with his legs tucked through the arm holes. An excellent find – in the supply closet. He regarded the long, long way down to the water, then took one last look back a Arkham island – he surveyed his kingdom a final time.

"Love to stay – and make myself useful – but I've really gotta be going!" he roared to the night "Places to go – bats in the belfry."

Then he skipped to the very edge – and flung himself into the deceptively calm waters below.

Harvey Dent stood, framed by the light of the prison.

A convenient gash in Arkham's walls created his chosen escape route. Two-Face surveyed the island's grounds. Something he hadn't seen in a while – the outside. Gunfire, and screaming made up the night's theme. The ground had suffered greatly – some immense force had beaten and torn at it.

Then he saw the two guards – unnaturally still, they sat at a bench, seemingly engaged in conversation.

"Zsasz has been having fun." Two-Face chuckled.

"That monster." Harvey Dent spoke now, his voice was strong, but had a far-off aspect to it, as though he was locked depp in some prison of his own creation.

"Man up Dent," Two-Face spat the challenge, as one might spit poison, "We go now."

But the burly man stood stock still, in the wreckage of the wall. Then, he reached into a pocket, and drew out the silver dollar.

"Heads we go. Tails...we stay."

He tossed it. Reached out his hand. But the coin never landed. He'd been so absorbed in his confliction, that he'd failed to hear the footsteps that belonged to the man who now stood beside him.

A hand, wrapped in bandages was clenched, shielding Dent's answer.

"Come on Harvey, we can't have any of that."

"You."

"Yes, me. I'm leaving now. Feel like coming with?"

"My coin."

"Hmm? Ah yes. Of course." With the return of his most precious keepsake, Two-Face was more at ease. He stretched, cracked his knuckles.

"Got a plan?"

"Sure."

"Good. Then what are you waiting for ?"

Two-Face stalked forwards into the darkness. Followed by his new companion, who, though his face was masked with bandages – was, unmistakably: Thomas Elliot.