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"Let's not waste any more of one another's time. We both know how this ends."
- Professor James Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows)
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<(Omniscient POV)>
"Looks like I'm running a little late," Bruce muttered under his breath, eyes narrowing as he spotted several large, man-sized breaches in Arkham Asylum's outer wall. Currently, no one was slipping through them since the place had already been surrounded by cops, but Bruce knew better. Some of the quicker inmates might have likely made their exit long before law enforcement had even shown up.
"Honestly, I'm surprised," Cortana chimed in, her voice calm and measured. "The police actually managed to hold a defensive line. According to my data, the inmates have completely overrun the asylum. They've taken control of the facility, seized all weapons and gear from the guards. As far as they're concerned, Arkham is their stronghold now with its staff as their hostages."
"I see," Bruce murmured as he finished surveying the area from the roof of the castle-like building. "So they're still in there—just not behind the bars anymore. And now they're armed." He exhaled sharply, eyes scanning the breach before he stepped toward it. There were no alarms, no resistance. Just chaos waiting on the other side.
"Well, on the bright side... they're not expecting you," Cortana offered. "Most of them still think you're just a myth. Some urban legend born from the shadows."
"Let's make sure they don't forget what happens when legends become real," He muttered before silently entering through one of the holes, making sure not to get detected by the moving searchlights that the cops were using to keep watch on the facility.
The section Bruce had entered appeared to be a high-security holding cell. His eyes immediately scanned the room—minimal furnishing, a reinforced standing bed lined with tight leather straps clearly meant for restraining the inmate. Along one wall stood a modest bookshelf, lined with unique titles like Infinite Jest, The Critique of Pure Reason, and Between the Sheets.
"An intellectual," Bruce muttered, analyzing the contents. "Although with some... interesting taste."
"And apparently a lucky one too," Cortana noted. "He was among the first to escape. The blast took out just enough of his wall to give him a clean exit."
Bruce nodded slightly, stepping closer to the cell's fortified door. Oddly enough, it was still locked from the outside. That raised a different question—if the inmates had total control of the asylum now, why leave the door sealed? The only logical conclusion was that they were afraid of whoever had been locked inside.
"Cortana, make a note. I want a full list of inmates from the warden once I am done here—including anyone confirmed missing," he said, pulling out his bat-tool and positioning it near the electronic lock panel just beyond the door. "Good thing they switched to digital access and PIN locks. If this were still the traditional lock and key, I'd have to tear through steel right now." He chuckled.
Outside the holding cell, the corridor was wrapped in silence. To most, it would seem abandoned, but Bruce's enhanced hearing was able to pick up faint footsteps. A few inmates seemed to be patrolling nearby, weapons in hand. Their numbers were thin, but it confirmed his suspicion—this was the high-security wing. The kind of place reserved for the worst of the worst. Not many inmates made it here… and the ones who did were dangerous enough that even other prisoners gave them space.
Gliding through the dark like a wraith, Batman moved in on the source of the approaching footsteps. He silently stuck to the shadows. One inmate catching a glimpse was all it would take to set off a chain reaction that would alert the entire asylum to his presence, something he didn't need. Bruce always made sure to either use the stealth mode in his suit, rendering him a ghostly blur to Arkham's outdated CCTV feeds, or just avoid the cameras altogether. 'Almost feels like I am playing a hyper-realistic Arkham VR game,' He mentally chuckled to himself as he continued exploring the facility.
Soon, as he rounded a corner, he spotted two inmates, both armed and twitchy as if they were having the time of their lives and yet were still afraid that they were going to get caught and then shoved back into their cells. One of them held a stolen standard Arkham-issued guard rifle, the other a fire axe that he had probably stolen from an emergency fire box. Both of them moved with a false sense of confidence, their nerves just beneath the surface.
Bruce moved quickly before they could even notice his presence. The next moment, a small bat-shaped flash grenade silently slid to where they were standing. There was no fancy explosion or even any sound, just a rapid burst of light disorienting their vision. In the same second, he was on them. Two precise strikes from him were all it took for them to drop their weapons: one to the throat of the man with the gun, the other to the arm joint of the person with the axe. His blows were too strong for the ordinary criminals to bear, and so within seconds, both were on their knees.
"Who's running this circus?" Bruce growled without any useless chitchat in a no-nonsense tone, his voice low and jagged, amplified slightly by the modulator in his cowl.
Normally, hardened Arkham scum like them would rather get their skulls cracked open than squeal to a badge. They knew damn well that ratting on their "superiors" would earn them something worse than a beating—something permanent. But this wasn't a cop standing over them. This was him. The Bat. The Dark Knight, Gotham's symbol of bloody vengeance. Rumors followed him like flies—some said he didn't kill, while others said he made sure criminals begged him for death. There were even whispers, crazy ones, that he'd carve your heart out and eat it as part of his demonic ritual. No one knew which stories were true. And none of them were brave—or stupid—enough to find out.
"It's the Ventriloquist! He's the one who took over—him and that damn puppet!" The one who had the axe in his hand quickly spoke up as if to please him, his broken hand still dangling by his side, while his face was full of tears and snot due to the incredible pain he was currently feeling.
"Hhhggghh—! But he ain't working solo. Ghhk—! Gghrkkk…! Brought in some muscle—outsiders, maybe mercs, maybe ex-cons, I don't know. Hhh—hhk—haaagghhh… Armed to the teeth even before the blasts had started. Well-trained. Tight. Hhhrgg—! kffkkhh—Had the whole place locked before anyone even blinked. Gghkk… khhhh—" The other thug, whose windpipe Bruce had nearly crushed with his hit, somehow forced his voice out with ragged gasps, cutting in like he wanted to do his very best not to appear useless to the vigilante before him. His words amid his panicked breaths sounded like air scraping through torn tissue.
Bruce's eyes narrowed. 'The Ventriloquist?' He dug through the fragments of memory he still carried from his old life. The name had popped up once or twice—some lunatic with a dummy he treated like his boss. And not just any boss… but a full-blown caricature of a 1940s Italian mob boss straight out of a black-and-white Hollywood gangster flick. Honestly, not the kind of name he would've pegged as a threat. Hell, he'd barely remembered the guy existed. But if this freak had managed to seize control of Arkham within hours of the breakout… then clearly, he wasn't just background noise... but again, none of the criminals in Gotham were.
'Well, that makes it simple. Break the boss in front of the whole madhouse… send a message loud enough to cut through their insanity. Show 'em what happens when they try to stage a prison riot in Gotham, as long as I am present here, and then send them back to their cells using fear. Yes, that should work... even if they're the most unhinged psychos Gotham's ever churned out, right?... right?' Bruce mused silently.
"Where?" Batman demanded in the same deep voice.
"The Warden's office," the first inmate gasped. "They took it over. Most of us are holed up there now."
That was all he needed.
"Please, we can help..." Two sharp strikes—no more than a pair of soft taps from Bruce's perspective—snapped into the base of their necks. It was instant and non-lethal, but effective nonetheless. The two collapsed like bags of cement, limbs limp and nerves stunned. They were still breathing… but odds were, for the rest of their lives, every time they would try to tilt their heads up, they'd remember this moment with a fresh jolt of pain.
Bruce then continued to move through the corridors while keeping to the shadows. Sure, he could bulldoze through everything like some blunt-force barbarian, smashing heads with raw power and might rather than use his stealth and hard-earned skills—but that wasn't the image he wanted burned into Gotham's underworld. The Dark Knight wasn't feared for his strength. He was feared because he could be anywhere, anytime. Unseen, unheard, unavoidable. He wasn't a man to them—he was a presence, A mythical urban ghost. He needed every lowlife in this city to freeze at the sight of a shadow, to flinch at every dark corner, haunted by the idea that the Dark Knight might be there, watching, waiting for them to slip up and commit a crime.
As he moved forward, every inmate who crossed his path dropped swiftly—some neutralized by electrified batarangs, others by pinpoint nerve strikes or low-frequency sonic bursts. A few, though, didn't get off so easily. When Cortana relayed the vile details of their past crimes—ones so grotesque they barely qualified as human—Bruce didn't hesitate. The energy blade from his Bat Tool hissed to life, and with cold precision, he severed their limbs... and in some cases their cocks. Mercy wasn't an option for monsters.
One of them even charged him with a chainsaw. Bruce caught it mid-swing with his bare hands, yanked the man forward, and shattered his kneecap with a clean side kick. Another tried to run, but unfortunately for him, he didn't make it two steps before he was trapped in an energy net, courtesy of the Bat Tool's net caster mode. Each takedown was as swift as possible, with barely any wasted movement. Even though Bruce wasn't killing, he wasn't exactly holding back either. He didn't feel the need to. After all, Arkham Asylum was one of the few places on the planet where he could afford to be as violent as he wanted to be without his conscience even attempting to stop him.
Of course, most of the criminals he was dealing with would definitely walk again—if they were lucky, that is.
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