Halt, citizens! Pay a fee for your trespass or face prison time! Oh, how much? 2 Power Stones at the minimum!!!
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Contrary to what one'd expect from a person who passed out from blood loss, Rowan's first thought wasn't 'Where am I?' or 'What the hell happened?'
It was 'What is with that god-awful cackling?'
Followed immediately by 'Why do I taste blood?'
In none of his lives had Rowan expected to savor blood so readily, yet here he was. The thick ichor on his tongue was neither metallic nor fishy but carried a rich texture and an even richer flavor.
Similar to the waitress he had fed from, yet somehow better, fuller, enriched with Magic that even through his delirium Rowan knew was dark as his own. Black and Demonic Magic was like that. Those unaccustomed with such power might assume it was painful, but it was all but.
The sensation felt more like the sweetest drugs one had ever taken, magnified hundredfold, lasting up until the practitioner began vomiting black bile and speaking in Tongue.
The blood coating his mouth reeked of that same foulness, of Vampirism.
Rowan awoke addled and confused.
He absently wiped at the dried clots clinging to the corner of his lips as he stumbled off the table he'd been left upon, then blanched when he realized his helmet had been removed. Of course it had. How else would Heller have fed him his blood otherwise?
Thanking his Infernal heritage for the Dark Vision it afforded him, his eyes swept the dark room in search of the holy garments Azrael had lent him. He spotted the suit and plates neatly folded on a chair in the far corner and breathed in relief, his weary mind dragging even wearier feet toward them.
Yet the moment he moved, his skin stretched taut, causing him to grimace.
"Fuck."
The blood had healed him, but it hadn't healed him correctly.
Scar tissue covered everything from his bicep to his forearm, the skin too burnt and damaged to smooth out properly, and he could only assume his torso looked much the same under his bloodstained shirt… It was a real shame too. He loved the shirt.
His suspicion proved true the moment he wandered in front of the mirror and found a boy who hardly resembled a boy anymore.
Yet Rowan did not welcome his disfigurements with sadness or madness.
What he felt instead was relief.
Relief that when he woke and looked at his own reflection the day after, and all the days after that, he would not find a face wrecked by guilt and shame, one that had always been all too unfamiliar despite the years he had worn it. And honestly, it wasn't that bad. He did not look like a burnt scrotum, which was just what one could be thankful for in Gotham.
If he was to be a freak, if this was to be his penance for the evils he'd committed in the name of survival, then so be it.
Now that he had paid his due, the burden on his shoulders and Soul had lightened enough that he no longer felt obligated to don the suit, though Rowan still dif if only to keep his now not-so-secret identity intact.
Slowly, he secured each piece of the suit onto himself, before hiding the new scars under his warped helmet and stealthily creeping toward the door.
Instincts screamed at him to yell out 'Hello,' but the suspicion that was natural for all Gothamites was stronger, and he instead peeked through the small opening to find a hallway submerged in darkness.
'That's not good…'
The lingering scent of fresh blood hit him first, followed by the sight of brain matter splattered across the far wall.
'That's not good at all.'
Rowan waited until he was certain no one lurked outside before daring to emerge. Twelve steps, that was all he managed before his eyes caught on a window, or rather the apocalyptic nightmare beyond it. Morning had come and sunlight filtered down, but both were stained a noxious green tinted yellow by the drifting smog that had swallowed Gotham whole.
"Oh God."
The words escaped before he could stop them, his fingers reaching for the dusty panel even as fog crept through every crack and crevice.
"Oh fuck."
Below, the source of all the cackling revealed itself to be men and women who'd clearly been driven utterly mad.
Men and women who wandered the streets still.
He had always prided himself on being one tough sonuvabitch, courtesy of his upbringing and past life memories, but even Rowan had to hold in the vomit when he saw what they were doing to each other.
What made it worse was how enthusiastic they all looked while killing and torturing their fellow men. It wasn't just the men either, but the women and children too, all of whom wore wretched smiles stretched across pale, ghastly skin.
Every instinct screamed at him to look away, but it was like watching a train wreck or horror movie.
Horrific and disturbing, yet hypnotic for all the wrong reasons.
"Mom, mom! Do you need a hand?"
The words sent Rowan stumbling back, gagging as the boy cheerfully offered his mother a severed hand. He might have mistaken it for a pig's trotter fresh from the butcher if not for the stiff fingers still clenching what looked like a gun, though the firearm clearly hadn't helped whoever the boy had disarmed.
"I... I don't understand."
This was supposed to have ended.
He was supposed to retire when morning came.
The night should have been over by now, yet there was no light anywhere in sight!
"How the fuc—"
The words died as he backed away, eyes welded to the scene until he sensed movement behind him. Rowan ducked just in time to avoid the electric baton that would've surely snapped against his skull.
On instinct, he blocked the follow-up strike with the back of his gauntlet and came in for a punch he was forced to abort when he realized he faced none other than an officer.
A manically grinning officer, granted, but an officer nonetheless.
His hesitation cost him dearly, leaving him open to getting tackled through the window.
They plummeted off the building's edge, and only his split-second decision to fire the suit's grappling hook and snag the ledge saved them both from a fatal drop, though the landing still knocked the wind from his lungs.
To make it worse, they had hit the ground not far from the mob.
Every head swiveled toward the vigilante scrambling upright and the officer who kept giggling even with bone protruding from his ankle.
Rowan stifled a curse as he took in the growing crowd of crazies.
Some crawled from dark alleys wearing bloodstained clothes and bloodier faces while others spilled from buildings on either side like sharks circling bloody water. Every single one wore a grin so wretched and wide they looked almost inhuman. And coming from a Demon who had seen humanity at its ugliest, that was something.
"Stay back."
The growled warning usually sufficed. In all his time in Gotham, even the most hardened criminals had heeded that tone, but these people advanced anyway as if compelled by a force beyond rationality.
They dragged their feet like reanimated corpses, and even when the Wisp crackled to life around his wrist, their eyes showed no fear; only amusement and a ravenous, violent hunger.
"Mom, I want his hand!" The boy shrieked, and a discordant chorus erupted.
"I want the skull!"
"No! It's mine, the skull's mine!"
"I'll get the legs!"
"I'm warning you."
He held his ground for a second before deciding it wasn't worth the hassle upon meeting their crazed eyes which had just a tad too much green and too little white. His feet had barely left the pavement when one of the infected jumped on his back.
Of course, the extra weight wasn't a problem for Rowan personally, but it was for the downgraded Batclaw he had gotten off Azrael. The wall which he and the officer with a choke hold on him both slammed into could attest to that.
The gadget, thankfully, hadn't completely failed, managing to drag him up a few feet even, until a second person joined in on the fun… And then another… And another… And another.
While he didn't have outsider's view, Rowan imagined they looked much like honeybees swarming a hornet through sheer numbers… Except these people weren't defending anyone or anything.
In fact, he doubted any real thought went into their actions beyond whatever twisted entertainment their chemical-soaked brains derived from dogpiling onto him.
Rowan thrashed and twisted, desperately trying to slip free from the mass of writhing bodies, and to his surprise, succeeded. The blood and sweat coating everyone felt and smelled as revolting as expected, but it made him slippery enough to free himself of their grasping hands.
Once loose, he immediately sprinted for the nearest wall and hurled himself over it, silently mourning the grappling hook he'd left behind, still attached to that faraway ledge.
His blood ran cold as he ducked and slid beneath a section of emergency ladder that had been torn from the brick wall beside it. A corpse sprawled across the debris, one he'd assumed was truly dead until it jerked upright and jumped for his helmet.
He drove his fist into its face but pulled the blow at the last instant lest he snap the man's neck clean through.
He showed the same restraint with all the maniacal people who got in his way before finally losing them in the series of twists and turns of Gotham, all while slowly choking on the noxious gas that was sapping the strength from his limbs.
At last, he stumbled into a spot that offered enough concealment to hide from the crazed Gothamites, even if the laughter suggested it was neither safe nor truly secure.
Not that such a place ever existed in Gotham to begin with.
The thought brought a grin to his face, even though strictly speaking, there was nothing remotely funny about it. He must be losing his mind. Yes. 'That has to be it.' Thought Rowan as he lifted the helmet, gagging on the gasous chemicals building up.
He knew removing it was stupid, knew the unfiltered gas outside would only accelerate the infection, but he was hyperventilating and suffocating and the chemicals were making it too difficult to fight the panic.
"Fresh air."
Never in a million years had he thought he would consider the piss-soaked air of a random alley fresh, but such were the sacrifices one made in this godforsaken city. Such was what he'd gladly leave behind once this was over…
With a sigh, Rowan peeked out from his cover to find a group of the crazies bashing each other with anything they could grab. He pulled back, waited for his moment, then wordlessly snuck toward the manhole in the middle of the street, all while stiffling back wet coughs that caused his lungs to burn.
.
.
.
Standing atop ACE Chemicals, Bruce couldn't help feeling like he had failed his city, which he no doubt had given the state Gotham and her people were in.
Logically, he knew there was very little he could have done. Joker and Scarecrow had been quietly plotting this cataclysm for weeks on end and enacted it while his attention was wholly diverted to, well, literally everywhere else in Gotham. Bruce knew, yet he blamed himself anyway… But there'd be time to reflect on his shortcomings later. For now, he had an antidote to cook up.
Carefully inserting the vial of antidote he had retrieved from the building, the Dark Knight leaped off the roof and landed on the collapsed bridge where his Batmobile sat waiting.
Bruce threw himself into the car and tore through the streets, weaving between the crazed Gothamites who seemed all too gleeful to repaint his vehicle with their blood and viscera. Not one came close to succeeding, all of them lost in his dust as his knuckles tightly whitening on the steering wheel. He'd barely made it through three turns and already the carnage he'd witnessed rivaled every previous catastrophe he'd stopped combined.
Not for the first time since Jack Napier made his debut as a supervillain, Bruce felt a murderous urge grip his mind. He'd always felt it to a degree, but this was the first time he felt relieved he hadn't found the Clown yet. In his emotionally-charged state, there'd absolutely be hell to pay.
With a grunt that managed to disperse some of the heat burning in his chest, Bruce accelerated past the Gothamites and barrelled into the gaping mouth of an abandoned warehouse. Fortunately, Wayne Enterprises had recently signed a contract with the mayor to renovate Gotham's sewage system, which had given Bruce the perfect cover to install hidden tunnels leading straight to the Batcave. Cruising down one such tunnel, he tapped into the control panel hoping Alfred would pick up the call.
His father in all but blood and name always answered, usually only seconds after the line connected.
This time, though, the rings extended far longer than he wanted.
For a moment, Bruce feared his home had been compromised by the Joker's gas, but that couldn't be right.
Although Alfred appeared to be the average butler, the man had been a special agent once. Even Dick, the boy he'd taken under his wing, had been trained extensively by both him and Rowan. There were also gas masks and oxygen tanks hidden in every corridor of Wayne Manor for exactly this situation, and a lot more under the Batcave.
They would have known to put them on, and to hide in his lair should they run out. 'C'mon.'
Fraught with worry drove Bruce to punch the call button again while simultaneously slamming down on both the gas and the nitro he'd recently installed in the vehicle. Even though he was blitzing through the tunnel at a speed that would snap his neck if he hit the brakes, it still felt agonizingly slow. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity and then some, the entry to the Batcave finally came to view, disguised under a rocky surface.
He pressed the button and watched it slowly open, but instead of the white lights he'd expected, there was only darkness so complete it swallowed even his headlights.
The Batmobile skidded to a halt as Bruce launched himself through the top hatch and hooked onto a ledge, while the platform rose beneath the vehicle.
The Batcave looked as it was supposed to be, dark. Damp. Perhaps a bit too damp.
And eerily quiet, filled only with the whirring of machinery, his own breathing, and the pounding of his heart, which plummeted straight into his stomach the moment he saw Alfred collapsed on the ground with Grayson sprawled just a few feet away.
Looming above their fallen forms was his other ward with a bloody crowbar, the same boy Alfred had brought into the family and sworn to leave everything to when he passed... The old man had gone so far as to have the will formally drafted. For a moment, it was as if all his fears about the boy's demonic nature and all the contingencies he'd prepared had been vindicated.
"ROWAN!!!"
Bruce screamed and came face-to-face with Rowan, whose eyes glowed a sickly mix of orange and toxic green. The boy's expression twisted in surprise just before Bruce lashed out with the Symbiote, the tendrils striking with such force he felt the boy's breastbones gave way and crumpled like tin foil. Guilt washed over him as Rowan's body rocketed into the cave ceiling and plummeted down with a rain of debris.
"Bru-Bruce, wait, sto—!"
But Bruce had seen this before…
He knew what people dosed with Joker Toxin were capable of and the depths they'd sink to in order to hurt someone.
More importantly, he knew what Rowan himself was capable of, and a single hit wouldn't keep the boy down for long. And so, he pressed the offense, the Symbiote splitting into countless writhing tendrils that shot at the boy like a swarm of vipers.
Hopefully, the boy wouldn't get back up this time.
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