Roughly ten minutes before all hell broke loose, in the bowels of the Asylum, the Blind Bat paced back and forth in the maximum-security wing. Fluorescent lights buzzed rhythmically as the Bat used the soundwaves to echolocate any flaws in the cell locks. If anything were to go wrong down here, he had to be the one to take them down.

Only three cells were filled at this point. These were the men with reputations to be too dangerous to have amongst the people truly trying to better themselves. The Blind Bat's true foe was nary any crook nor costumed fiend, it was crime itself. But these three seemed to come close to the title of "nemesis".

The villains he fought were products of injustice and symptoms to the greater issue. He hated them, but also pitied them, and despite everything, he still felt all life was worth preserving. That's why he didn't kill any of them, even though their crimes warranted as such. As much as he wished he had the strength to end the lives of monsters, his faith forbids him to cross that line.

The first of the three cells held the savage scarred serial slaughterer, Dexter Zsasz. He was an emotionless psychopath with an artistry for death. Zsasz was a mercenary for hire who'd challenge himself to kill his targets with any random projectiles he could find, and then carve an image of such projectile onto his skin. The most prominent farcical tattoo was a large target carved into his forehead. It was earned by the bullet which killed his father, "Battlin' Jack" Wayne. The kill earned Zsasz the name, "Mr. Bullseye." But the contract killing of the famous boxer was what turned a young Matthew Wayne onto his crusade to end crime in Goth's Kitchen.

The auto-mangled mass murderer sat quietly in the center of his padded cell, wrapped in the tough embrace of a straitjacket. Zsasz sat still, lying in wait, until inevitably he would have the opportunity to escape and earn more tattoos. The Bat stood outside the cell door of Zsasz in quiet contempt, dreading the thought of the same thing.

"Why hello there, Mr. Blind Bat. I've been expecting you," an echoey, garbled voice called out from behind the door of another cell. Peering through the window was an older, bald, fragile, mouse of a man, wearing a bulky respirator mask. This was Goth's Kitchen's former King of Pain, and crime emperor, Wilson Bane.

"It's a routine security check, Bane. I have time to do these now that I'm not dealing with you," the Bat answered coolly. "How has the Asylum been treating you? Is the air quality alright?"

Bane seethed at the mocking question but held calm in his response. "I was born within the walls of a cell, Mr. Blind Bat. These pristine, blank, white walls are but an old friend." For years, the Blind Bat had struggled to push his fair city out from under this man's thumb. But now, Bane was a husk of his former self. While once an extremely strong man, his need for more strength was his downfall. After the repeated abuse of designer drug called Venom to best the Bat several times before, it had left him dependent on it for his survival. His body eventually lacked the strength to keep himself alive without it.

The respirating mask gave a controlled dosage gaseously, just enough to keep his heart beating, with his reserves restocked every day. He was now a weak man at the mercy of his holders. Just as the people of Goth's Kitchen were at the mercy of him. The way the mask altered Bane's voice was also humorous, limiting his intimidation factor as well. There wasn't much of anything Bane could do in his current state.

"What has you so worried, Mr. Blind Bat? Do you feel a change in the pressure of the atmosphere surrounding you? Perhaps, maybe in your back?" Bane asked tauntingly, harkening back to one of their most climactic battles, when which he broke the Bat over his knee.

"I wouldn't expect you to know, Bane. But your assistant has begun to make a name for himself," the Bat answered. "Nygma has joined a Legion of other supervillains, under the name the Inquizitor. He's moved on from doing your clerical work." He was hoping to rile the ex-crime boss up.

Bane only chuckled at the notion, "The Inquizitor, you say? The boy always did love his riddles. He always seemed desperate for a gimmick," he commented as he turned away from the Bat to face the white wall behind him. Deep down he was livid. Wesley had been Bane's most trusted lieutenant. He'd loved him like a son, groomed him to take his place as the crime lord of Goth's Kitchen, and he was going to abandon his city for greater delusions of grandeur. He wanted to hold on to the idea that Nygma had plans to rescue him. His heart beat faster, his breathing hastened, and he perspired with rage. And the Bat could sense all of it.

"What's the matter, Bane? Bitter that your errand boy is playing in the big leagues," the Bat asked almost vindictively. Matt would be lying if he said he didn't somewhat enjoy taunting his enemies behind bars. But there was more to this than simple braggadocio. "Don't you want to drag him down to your level? How'd you like to see him in the cell across from you?" The Bat was goading Bane into saying something that he could use to try and get a lead on what Nygma's next move would be after this. So, he intended on using Bane's rage to his favor.

Bane had easily seen through the Bat's manipulation, "You wound me, Mr. Blind Bat. To think I would fall for your tricks," he gave a raspy laugh through his mask. "Wesley is a very competent strategist. I can easily see why others would gravitate to his services." Wilson had tried hard to keep his composure about the situation.

"But to do that, he's left Goth's Kitchen behind. Zsasz and Crane are locked up here, and Cobblepot cut a deal and went straight. Nygma was the last pillar of your empire, and he's left it behind," the Blind Bat asserted. He would attempt to play on Bane's pride. "How could someone you gave everything to just throw it away just like that? Everything you have built, just cast aside like that by a man who likes asking questions. Can't feel good, can it?"

"Wesley would not leave behind Goth's Kitchen. Whatever he has planned will be the best for maintaining the order and peace this city needs. He must have!" Bane shouted out, desperate to believe that his faithful assistant would carry on his vision.

"Well, he's in the wind now, Bane. How do you think Nygma is going to do any of that from so far away from the action? How can he maintain control without his presence?" the Bat continuously goaded into getting Bane to overplay his hand. If anyone could get a criminal to say something they didn't want to originally, it'd be a lawyer.

"Wesley has connections to psychics," Bane blurted out, "He was always fascinated with expanding the human mind." This was more of a guess than anything else, but it started to put the Bat in a strange direction.

"Wilson, that is the most insane thing I've ever heard you say. You were crazy before I put you here, but that's delusional even for here. Admit it, your "head boy" abandoned you. He used your strength to strongarm himself into a position of power, and threw you to the wolves," the Bat asserted.

"HE DID NOT!" Bane yelled as he threw a punch at the door between them, but the man's rather scrawny current physique only led to the punch hurting himself. "I could not have built my empire if it weren't for the meticulous planning of Wesley Nygma. His loyalty I have never questioned. I made him as much as he made me. He would never betray me." Bane was firm in his claims, but a hint of doubt lay in the back of mind.

The Bat had put him in a vulnerable position. "Fine, I believe you, but humor me if you would. Who would Nygma have even known with that kind of power?" He briefly looked back at a cell at the end of the hall, "Barring him of course."

"Monkeys, if you could believe it," Bane answered with a smirk beneath his mask. His emotions seemed to be all over the place. Too much energy put into his rage made his resolve weak. "Before things went south of the border for me, Wesley had been in contact with some big tech company. A group who called themselves SIMIAN."

While the Bat would never be unnecessarily violent with an inmate, he knew that he could defeat Bane mentally and psychologically with ease, and the triumph invoked great rage within the former behemoth. Meanwhile, with Bane defeated, being in the presence of him only gave the Bat a sense of peace.

The Bat was satisfied with Bane's answers, "Thank you, that wasn't so hard, wasn't it?" he said with a hint of sass. "I promise you, that Nygma will be put in a cell close by, so the both of you can hash out all of your bizarre baggage."

After the Bat's last remark, the hall seemed to remain silent. But the Blind Bat heard otherwise. Within a soundproof cell, raucous laughter roared from within. It sounded like a raspy hyena mixed with the squeaking of a rusty bathroom stall door. The sound filled the Blind Bat's head with feelings of great annoyance.

The caped crusader approached the cell at the end of the corridor was a wide glass, fish tank-like prison built into the wall. It was hermetically sealed so that none of the pheromones the one inside produced could spread, and soundproof so no commands could be heard. On both sides of the wall were telephones so limited communication could occur. The cell itself was in total disarray; furniture and toiletries were scattered randomly. Writings in dried, indigo blood were scribbled across every surface.

Ominous yet poorly constructed phrases like "wHy SO sERiOUs?!", "oBeY W/o ?", and just the word "damaged" painted the front glass wall of the cell. The man behind the laughter was Jack Kilgrave, the Clown Puppeteer of Crime, the Purple Joker.

He was right behind where the third phrase was written, lining up so that the word was plastered across the prisoner's forehead. His skin was an eerie lavender hue, and his lips curled up into the most uncanny grin. But aside from that, he was an extremely handsome man. He had a face like a doctor: sharp jawline, well-groomed hair, and chiseled features. He could probably attract his concubines without his powers, but he never cared to find out. The Blind Bat faced the Purple Joker at the opposing side of the glass.

He grabbed the receiver on the outside as the psychopath on the other grabbed his own. The latter was the first to speak. "Batsy, it's such a pleasure to see you again! I've been tapped out on that for a while." Joker's voice was raspy, but full of life and hardly tempered glee. He sounded like a man who walked the skies without a care in the world. "How's Specks doing?" He asked, referring to Tim.

The Blind Bat remained stoic despite the Purple Joker's prattling, "What was the last thing you forced into Quinzel's head before I put you away?"

The Clown scoffed, "You're no fun. I've been here three months, wasting away in this cell, with no real company. This is the first time you visit, and only thing you care about is my toy?" He sounded almost disappointed.

The Bat scowled, "That's a human being, you're talking about! She dedicated her life to helping people like you, and you corrupted her into your twisted plaything!" He slammed his fist against the glass.

The man called Kilgrave rolled his eyes, "You and human beings, Bats. It's been the one punchline I've never gotten with you. There's nothing too great about them. Just background extras for our grand old show." He let out a dry chuckle as he stretched out his arms. "What's so wrong with having a little fun with the props?!"

That was the biggest difference between the Blind Bat and the Purple Joker. One saw the inherent good of humanity, and believed it was worth fostering. He felt there was hope for people to find the light within themselves if they worked hard enough. The other did not, and only saw darkness; a darkness that should be kept suppressed beneath the surface, and replaced with a laugh and a big, dopey grin. Both brought smiles, but only one brought happiness.

"Answer the question, Joker. What is Joan doing right now?" The Bat demanded.

"How should I know? She's got free will, doesn't she? Oh wait, she doesn't!" Joker responded with another cackle. "I told her to prepare the world for my return, and once the strings were ready for me to take, to bust me out. I didn't want to come out with nothing set up for me. That'd be foolish, and I am no fool." He answered, maintaining his plastered grin of uncannily white teeth.

"Did this plan involve teaming up with other criminals?" The Bat asked, wondering how much the Joker really knew about what was happening beyond his cell.

Joker shrugged, "Can't say. Not really a planning man. I'd rather create opportunities for myself by force. I let her be creative in how she carried out my whims. Rather generous of me, in my opinion. Why? What has your outside panties in a bunch?" He turned the conversation back to the Bat. But despite his steely demeanor, Purple Joker could see just a twinge of worry beneath the cowl.

That worry, however, was not from anything the Purple Joker was saying. He could hear the arrival of someone on the roof. Quinzel was here. As prepared as he felt he was for a potential breakout, the Blind Bat knew that somehow, someway, the man standing across from him was going to escape. He always did.

This was the same song and dance for almost twenty years. A man less virtuous than him would have killed the Purple Joker by now. This was a man who had no hope of redemption. Hundreds of lives would have been saved. Surely the Bat's value of human life had one exception. Surely, he could let someone else do it, assuming he could get around the Joker controlling them. Surely, he could convince the courts to sentence him to death and end his reign within the confines of the law, but insanity as grand as his was one hell of a defense. So, no matter what he did, the Purple Joker was the Blind Bat's burden to bear, until the end.

The Bat always had to bear responsibility for everything, he always had. He blamed himself for not being able to save his father. He blamed himself for the death of Jason Castle. He blamed himself for how far Goth's Kitchen had once fallen. He blamed himself for not being able to save the Fatal Compass during the Infinity Crisis. He always felt that he could have done something more. But no matter what was beyond his control, the Blind Bat felt responsible for everything.

While the Caped Crusader silently blooded, the Clown Puppeteer repeatedly tapped his finger against the glass, trying to snap him back to reality. "Hello? Dork Knight? Anybody home? Nemesis speaking!" He grumbled as his attempts were fruitless. "Pay attention to me, you sorry excuse for a flying rodent!"

His shouting was enough to bring the Bat back. "What do you hope to gain from all of this? Why still bother after all these years?"

That question was enough to send the Joker roaring, "Really?! You still feel the need to ask?!" He busted out laughing so loud, it was barely enough to hear through the soundproof glass withoutn the phone. "Batsy, I do it because it's fun! Humans are always going to kill, rob and rape each other, might as well be me who does it! Because who does it all better than me? Who doesn't deserve the things I do?!"

"You're a depraved lunatic, Kilgrave. I hope you get used to spending your every moment alone in that cell. That's what you truly deserve," the Bat growled. Matt seethed with rage as he listened to every word the Joker said, and the Bat knew that he believed every word. He started to put his phone back on the wall.

"Love you too, Batsy~! When you see the redhead in the wheelchair, tell her I can't wait t-" the Joker called out before the sound cut out from hanging up the phone. But he could still be seen making a bevy of lewd hand gestures. The Blind Bat only kept a face of silent contempt.

"Everyone stay alert, Quinzel is here, and Cage is down! Security is compromised," Sybil announced over the comms. The Bat's eyes widened, before narrowing again with focus. He readied his batons for an oncoming attack.

The Bat then heard his ward's panicked voice next, "Should we go get him? We can't just leave him up there." He knew Pupil had every right to be apprehensive. With their heaviest hitter incapacitated, the chance of containing a breakout went down significantly.

Regardless, the mission had to come first, "No, stand your grounds. He'll be okay. Sybil, any idea where she's going next," Blind Bat asked, trying to maintain calm in the for his sidekick's sake.

"She's going to-," however inconveniently, or conveniently depending on your perspective, Karen was cut off before she could answer. All the communicators then started playing "Spanish Flea", a song typically associated with technical difficulties in broadcast. Communications were down. This was a time where the Blind Bat actually considered calling the League to Goth's Kitchen, but he couldn't even if he wanted to, now.

Just then, an earsplitting overload of static flooded into the Blind Bat's ear. His heightened senses sent the Bat cringing on the ground. The Toymandarin's jammer had more than one function. The Inquizitor made sure the boy genius included an additional frequency to his contraption that only the Blind Bat could hear.

It was like a dog whistle, but the irritation increased tenfold. It pierced the crusader's cochlea like a thousand needles to the brain. He was in incredible pain at that moment. Worse yet, with his hearing disrupted, the Bat lacked his echolocation, truly rendering him blind. And worst of all, he couldn't even hear the sound of two cell doors sliding open, releasing the Kingpain and Mr. Bullseye into the greater confines of the Maximum-Security floor.

The one upside to all of this was that despite the Jeweled Jester triggering every single cell to open, the Purple Joker's cell was still sealed shut. The universal release was in the event of a fire emergency, but the Joker's cell door was manually sealed. Even in the event the Asylum were to burn to the ground, the mauve malefactor would burn with it. Whether in a moment of weakness or strength, the Bat was okay with this "oversight". The Purple Joker grimaced at the two freed criminals, upset that he wouldn't get to join in on the fun.


On the floor above Maximum-Security, things seemed relatively calm. Nurses and orderlies around the facility were confused, but they began peaceful containment right as it all began. The general population inmates aimlessly wandered the main hall as their cells opened. None of them seemed to understand what was going on. Amidst the mentally ill masses was some senseless chatter, a little incessant rambling, and perhaps slight twitching, but none of them were violent at the moment.

The Dragon Fist breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't want to fight these people if he didn't have to. But for their own safety, Rand knew he had to get everyone back to their rooms in case whatever was going to happen elsewhere was going to spread. He jumped up onto a table and tried to speak up to get everyone's attention. Barely audible "Excuse me-"s and "Hello-"s fell on uninterested ears. A man in pajamas with a dragon tattoo on his chest didn't seem to stand out much in a place like this.

Eventually, Richard Rand had an idea. He took a deep breath, held his hands together, and by focusing his chi, his fist glowed. Rand then pumped his hand into the air to reveal his fist engulfed in golden flames shaped like the head of a dragon. The Dragon Fist was enough to call proper attention to himself by the cluster of inmates. People were so in awe of seeing something so beautiful, so powerful emerging from his arm, that the clamoring was quickly replaced with silence.

Now that he commanded some reverence, the Dragon Fist spoke. "Hello everyone, I want you all to remain calm. None of you are in trouble. I am but your humble protector for today. I'll honestly admit to you that some bad people are here. They might do bad things, but as long as everyone here cooperates, it's all going to be okay." He spoke in a calm, controlled tone of voice. Rand knew these people weren't the most stable, and he needed to handle them delicately.

The patients responded well so far. Richard saw the nurses begin to guide inmates back to their rooms with minimal difficulty. "Thank you all. I just want everyone to take a deep breath and ground yourselves to reality. That's going to make everything go a lot smoother," he advised with a tentative smirk creeping across his face. Perhaps hell wasn't going to break loose for him.

Unfortunately, this would not be the case. Right as the masked martial artists told everyone to take a deep breath, Mr. Scary's fear-inducing gas finished creeping its way through the air vents, into the general population wing, and into the lungs of the hundred or so already mentally fragile patients.

Everyone in the wing began wildly hallucinating their worst nightmares. Trauma from all sources was unearthed as people were forced to relive their most horrendous memories. Those with claustrophobia mentally crushed under imaginary weight. Arachnophobes are swarmed by giant spiders crafted by their psyche. Even the nurses were terrified by the greatest monster of all: student loan debt.

Dragon Fist saw everything delve into chaos with horrified eyes. His mastery of chi helped him resist the effects of the gas, but he pulled up a lower portion of his mask over his mouth and nose just in case. He leapt off the table into the fray to try and calm everyone down, but anyone he interacted with was far too panicked and scared to see reason.

Rand knelt down to try and comfort a quivering nurse, only to be cracked across the face by a frantic inmate's fist. Dragon Fist recovered from the blow only to look around to see many other inmates staring him down. The fear toxin had made many patients to view the masked man with a glowing dragon for a hand as, who would have guessed, something to be afraid of. The figure they saw was that of a freakish, draconian form with sulfuric, flaming eyes, and hands like the heads of a hydra.

"Okay, easy gentlemen. I truly do not want to hurt any of you," Rand pleaded to his soon to be attackers, but all they heard were warped, monstrous roars. When he realized that was ineffective, he ignited both fists with mystical draconic energy.

Five burly patients charged at Rand to bum-rush him. Fear doesn't make people particularly skilled at fighting, but adrenaline does make them stronger. The mob barraged Rand with erratic punches, flails, and kicks. The Dragon Fist was much nimbler than his assailants, and he managed to dodge about half of them, while tanking the rest.

Throughout the brawl, the Dragon Fist hardly landed a full-force punch against the intoxicated patients. This wasn't for a lack of skill, but rather in abundance. Rand was holding back in an effort not to injure them. Any blows landed on him were calculated blocks against his engulfed hands. The power of the dragon was being used on defense instead of offense. The Fist was a master of all martial arts, including judo. By redirecting the force of the attackers, he threw them at each other without serious injury. Rand would repeat this process until the attackers were knocked unconscious, able to safely sleep off the fear toxin.

Dragon Fist's breath sharpened as he looked around for more fear-ridden foes to face off against. He let out a brief cough as he felt the air get thicker. The concentration of fear toxin was getting higher as Rand noticed the cloaked figure of Mr. Scary emerge from the vault.

Mr. Scary marveled at Dragon Fist, "How interesting, even after extreme dosage of my fear toxin, you still stand so boldly," he rasped as he crept forward, brandishing his scythe. "How about I slice you open and see why?"

Dragon Fist's fists flared up, "Unfortunately, I will have to deny you such information." He then ran towards the ghastly reaper to initiate his next clash.


On the other side of the Asylum, things were going to get much more chaotic. This was where the other, powerful inmates were held. Pupil was initially panicked as his comm went down. Anything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. But then, a switch clicked in the ward's mind, and Tim sprung into action.

While Tim dreaded the anticipation of pressure, he thrived when he was finally beneath it. Right as shit hit the fan, his confidence and competence kicked in to clean that fan's blades. Pupil began directing all Asylum staff out of the wing, they were going to handle all of this themselves so that no civilians would get hurt.

He scanned the area to determine the next plan of action. He noticed the spewing clouds of noxious fumes of fear toxin pour into their area and reached into his utility belt. From one of the pockets, he retrieved a rebreather to keep him from breathing in contaminated air. "Mr. Scary's out, things are about to get a lot worse. Lorna, seal the vents. We have to limit the gas getting to these guys! They're dangerous enough as it is."

Right after his commands, rather than pop the device into his own mouth, he tossed ` over to Lorna. "You're gonna need this more than I do. I've fought against that sadistic scarecrow before, I have some tolerance." How effective the tolerance would be was unknown, but Tim was prepared to sacrifice himself.

The rapid shift in character was a bit of a shock to Lorna, but she nodded and popped the rebreather into her mouth. She then stretched out her arms and closed her fists. That forced the steel of the air vents to stretch and fill in the gaps to prevent any more fear gas from getting through.

Thanks to Pupil's quick thinking, only a fraction of the potential gas was able to get through to infect the released inmates. But that unfortunately doesn't mean that their problems were over. A few powered patients were still dosed with the toxin, while the ones that weren't, would use this opportunity to escape. They were surrounded by a myriad of criminals with minimal to middling degrees of power. Surely not all the Blind Bat's villains were extreme threats. Some were just rather nuisances.

Lazlo Taurens, a man with a bovine-like head and a penchant for mutilation as the frightening Professor Ferdinand hallucinated everything as red, causing the mini-minotaur to go berserk. He smashed one of the flowerpots against the grand, grabbed a ceramic shard, and charged towards Tim. He screamed something to the Pupil about needing to be "pacified", before being launched back into his cell by one of his optic blasts. Given their concussive nature, it felt like a carpeted punch, but the force of landing back into his cell was enough to take him down for the count. "Oops, gotta be more careful."

Lorna saw his impressive shot, and she flicked her wrist forward to force the cell door to close to prevent them from just getting back out. The two looked at each other, and with a knowing exchange of nods, they began their corral.

As other patients swarmed around Tim and Lorna, the Pupil was doing hundreds of trigonometric calculations in his head to properly control, aim, and ricochet his optic blasts to push people back to their cells without seriously hurting them. Failing the blasts to send them flying, he'd finish the sendoff with a whack of his staff. He probably didn't have to get them to their exact original cell, but Tim was a perfectionist.

After every shot, Lorna would use her magnesis to seal the door shut. They managed to neutralize the Lightning Beetle, a pyromaniac with insectoid features, Death Moth, another insectoid with a decaying touch.

Then there was Herman Dekker, the Quilt Shocker. He was a man wrapped entirely in quilts, and he fired concussive blasts of air from his arms. And then he was also blind. It was the most random assortment of attributes one could imagine. The Amalgam simply had to throw together two villains of minuscule importance so that nobody else would be plagued with being a part of either Crazy Quilt or the Shocker. He is only getting as much attention as he is now because of how pathetically easily he was dispatched.

Once the criminally insane cannon fodder was returned to their holdings, it was time for the real villains to take the stage. For a brief moment, things were quiet, too quiet. Tim looked around to see what appeared to be a guard, darting it toward the door. But something seemed off. Something about the way he was moving seemed just a bit too…fluid. Then he noticed gray residue on the ground trailing behind the fleeing guard.

"Stop, right there!" Tim called out, firing an optic blast. "Thought you could blend in, eh Karlo?" The concussive blast of force pulsed through the guard, creating a massive hole in his torso, revealing the insides to be of a gray, viscous consistency.

The guard stopped in his tracks and turned around. The hole seemed to fill itself out as he turned. His face seemed blank, with no features but his eyes and mouth, and a very thin divot separating the left and right halves of his face. He sighed and smiled despite himself after being caught, "Ah, but alas, my clever deception has been foiled. But like Polyphemus, you, dear cyclops, shall be fallen by a nobody!" he boasted theatrically.

He started to wind up his body and rapidly spin around, fragments of pale gray clay flying everywhere until the guard revealed his true form; Dmitri Karlo, the Claymeleon. He was a solid mound of clay, formed into the shape of a man. His yellow eyes bulged like his reptilian namesake. Karlo was once a famous actor, the perfect leading man who could blend into any role, a chameleon of theater. But when his face was left disfigured from an accident, he turned to an experimental cosmetic clay to reshape his face. Over time, it eventually consumed him, turning him into the grotesque blob he was today. One would question what his derangement was to land him in Ryker's, but the answer was simple: he was a method actor.

Lorna turned around to assist Pupil in taking down the sediment-forged thespian, but before she could advance, her leg was ensnared by an errant vine coming from across the floor. The source came from the plant in the shattered flowerpot that Taurens broke. The plant was operating under another power, and that power was from a woman by the name of Typhoid Ivy.

The woman in question stood atop a table at the other side of the hall. She was surrounded by other flowerpots full of unnaturally overgrown flora, and something else sticking out of them that Lorna couldn't quite make out. The vines then ensnared the Polar Blade, forcing her to drop her sword, and dragged her away from Pupil and towards their master.

Their wielder was in tattered asylum garb, frazzled red hair, and pale green makeup covering the right half of her face. Maria Isley was a woman who served as another one of Bane's assassins. Her metamutant abilities gave her chlorokinesis, the ability to control plantlife, and an immunity to toxins. Her current actions weren't under the influence of Mr. Scary's fear gas, but of her own illness, dissociative identity disorder.

Ivy was brought out to protect Maria from whatever was going on. During the riot, she was attacked by erratic, terrified inmates, so the deadly Typhoid had to neutralize them. This other half was especially brutal, and those who attacked the shy and timid Maria were now unfortunately nothing but fertilizer.

Once she was brought closer, the swordswoman figured out the potted plant's extra appendages were the remains of Ivy's former attackers. She started breathing faster into her rebreather.

Typhoid tilted her head in amusement of Lorna's appearance. She had her fully wrapped up in the flora, utilizing similar levels of control over petals to which Lorna had over metals. "You're new to Goth's Kitchen, aren't you? Full cloaks aren't the most practical when you're fighting in the city. Too many little snags to trip you up," she said in a hushed, but cocky voice.

Lorna responded to her taunts by calling her sword to her hand, releasing it from its scabbard, and effortlessly slicing away at the vines like she was mowing a lawn.

Ivy let out a pained screech as if inflicting pain upon the plants transferred to herself, "You won't lay another shred of steel on my babies!" She then grabbed two leaves of a snake plant and grew them out to form dual katana-like blades. The assassin named after a plague then leapt off the table and flipped in the air to get the jump on the Polar Blade.

Lorna readied both her sword and her scabbard as a parrying tool to defend against the bloody rose's assault. Given the rebreather in her mouth, she never said a word during the exchange. She assumed that her sword would be able to cut through the leaf blades, but she was surprisingly mistaken.

They didn't function as swords per say, but more like mini whips, constricting and holding onto her weapons while Ivy would follow up with a flurry of kicks and headbutts. And any time that Lorna would manage to cut through the weapons, they would just grow back and make her assailant even more furious. If she was going to defeat her floral foe, she'd have to get creative.

Meanwhile, Pupil was not faring much better against the Claymeleon. "Who would have considered the amorphous blob with great resistance to physical attacks to be a good matchup for the boy with a long stick, and laser eyes that feel like a carpeted punch," were the thoughts going through Tim's head as he maneuvered past the Claymeleon shooting a long, lizard like tongue out at him.

Dmitri bellowed with laughter as he formed a skull with his hand and swung it at Tim, "To be, or not to be, that is the question you shall ask yourself when you face death's door!" He then formed a bow and arrow with his body and unleashed another onslaught of projectiles. "Whether 'tis it nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…"

As the formless thespian boasted Hamlet, Tim had an idea, "Or take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them," he responded with the light of a eureka in his eyes hiding behind his visor. He then started running west, towards the Asylum's fitness center.

"To die, to sleep; perchance to dream- ay there's the r-where are you going in the middle of soliloquy?!" Karlo yelled outraged as he gave chase to Pupil. Escape from the Asylum had left his mind, now replaced by his desire for attention from his adversary. As he followed the wily sidekick, he continued his monologue.

Once Tim got inside the room, he grabbed a mirror and a few barbell weights at one side of the room and began setting up a trap. He looked out upon on the other side to see a large swimming pool. This was to be Dmitri Karlo's sea of troubles.

Before Karlo could invoke Ophelia, Tim had gotten him right where he wanted. As the man of clay burst through the door, he saw Pupil standing on the diving board of the Asylum's swimming pool.

"Oh Claymeleon, Claymeleon, wherefor art thou, Claymeleon? Sorry, that's the only other Shakespeare I know," Tim said with a shrug.

"That's Romeo and Juliet you cretin," Karlo snapped as he shot out his chameleon tongue towards the diving board, only for it to shatter the mirror Tim positioned on the diving board.

In fact, Pupil was standing behind the Claymeleon, but positioned the mirror in a way to show his reflection when Dmitri came in. He then fired an optic blast to push the clay-faced crook into the pool.

"Down I come, like a glistering phaeton," he shouted as he plunged into the water. He started to flail and struggle as he dissolved in the watery depths. This wouldn't kill him of course; the Blind Bat would be rather ticked if Tim intentionally did something to do that. But the contents of Karlo's character would sink to the bottom of the pool, easily able to be skimmed out and reconstructed later. Anything else could be cleaned out of the filter.

That's not to say this isn't a painful process for Mr. Karlo. But the two of them had some checkered history. Dmitri had once created artificial life from his clay, a young girl named Maddy to spy on Blind Bat and Pupil. That led only for the construct to gain sentience and also feelings for Tim. The sidekick intended on saving her from her creator, but this was followed by Karlo then reabsorbing that portion of himself, ending her life. He had to face the growing pains of the realization he couldn't save everyone. The trauma left behind by that failure was enough for which Tim was okay sinking to a villain's level this one time. The level in question being the five feet deep the pool was.

But this brief reprieve of catharsis was over, he had to get back to handling the rest of the inmates. Who knows how well Lorna was holding up, alongside wherever the Jester was going to strike next?