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Chapter 15 – Breakout and more mysteries
The cave was darker than usual. Not because of the shadows—it was always shadow—but because Batman was dragging himself across the stone floor, every step a war against his own body.
Blood dotted the limestone. His breath rasped, wet and uneven, ribs stabbing into his lungs with every movement. His cowl was cracked, cape torn, utility belt hanging half-loose. He looked less like the Bat, more like a man who had just walked out of hell.
Alfred was already there. He had been waiting—he always was. The moment Batman stumbled through the hidden entrance, Alfred dropped the tray he'd been carrying and rushed forward.
"Good Lord—Master Bruce!" His voice shook, more than it had in years. He caught him before he collapsed, guiding him toward the medical table.
Batman didn't resist. He couldn't. His body refused him.
"Ribs—four broken, maybe more," Bruce muttered, forcing the words past bloodied lips. "Shoulder—dislocated. Skull—fracture." His voice wasn't calm. It was ragged, like glass scraping against metal. But it carried certainty, the kind only a man who catalogued his own injuries with surgical precision could have.
Alfred gritted his teeth as he tore the cowl off. Bruce's face was pale, streaked with blood and sweat.
"This wasn't random thugs," Alfred whispered as he cut open the shredded suit. "This was something… someone else."
Batman's eyes, bloodshot and wild, locked onto him. "It was Joker."
Alfred froze.
"No," he said quickly, shaking his head. "No, Bruce. That's impossible. The Joker is—" He bit his tongue, but Bruce caught it.
"Where?" Bruce growled, teeth grinding against the pain.
Alfred exhaled slowly, like the weight of the truth itself was crushing his chest. "Arkham. Arkham Asylum. I… just received word."
Bruce's body stiffened, the pain momentarily forgotten. His fists clenched, veins bulging.
"Then who—"
But his voice faltered. The weight of his injuries forced him back into silence. He turned his head, eyes narrowing, mind burning through the fog of pain. If not Joker, then who had the power, the size, the raw presence to do that to him?
But the thought was drowned by the pounding in his skull.
Alfred pressed a needle into his arm. Sedative. Painkiller. Something to stop him from dying on his own table.
"Rest," Alfred whispered. "You cannot fight if you don't breathe."
Bruce's eyes fluttered. But even as consciousness slipped away, his lips moved, the words spilling like a curse.
"It was Joker… it has to be…"
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Arkham Asylum.
The night was quiet inside its walls, but quiet in Arkham was never peace. It was silence waiting to break.
Jack sat in his cell, legs crossed, humming low and off-key. His face was bandaged from the last fight, scars still healing, but the grin—always the grin—was plastered across his lips. His fingers twitched restlessly, tapping rhythm against his knee.
A guard approached. Not the usual one. This one looked nervous. Too nervous.
"Hey… Clown."
Jack tilted his head, smile widening. "That's not my name."
The guard ignored it. He leaned closer to the bars, voice dropping low. "The Bat. He almost died tonight. Some… monster tore him apart."
For the first time in weeks, Jack didn't smile.
He froze. Then, slowly, his lips twisted, not into humor but into something sharp, something ugly.
"…What?" His voice cracked, higher than normal. "The Bat? My Bat?"
The guard stepped back instinctively. Jack was already on his feet, gripping the bars so tightly his knuckles split.
"He doesn't die! He can't die!" Jack's words came fast, jumbled, repeating. "Not yet, not now, not before the joke lands, before the punchline, before I say it's time!"
His laughter burst out, manic and broken, but it was cut short by something rare—anger. He slammed his forehead against the bars, again and again, until blood smeared across his skin.
The guard stumbled away.
Jack leaned back, panting, chest heaving. Then he grinned again, but this grin was sharp enough to bleed.
"No. No, no, no. The Bat doesn't get to die unless I kill him. He's mine. Mine, mine, mine."
And with that, the plan formed.
---
The breakout began at midnight.
Arkham was a fortress of madness, but fortresses always had cracks. And Jack had been studying. Studying the guards, the cameras, the shift changes. Watching. Waiting. Memorizing every detail.
He waited until the power grid switched, the brief five-second blackout when one generator shifted to the next. Most inmates screamed, banged against their doors, begged for chaos. Jack didn't. He counted. One, two, three…
Click.
He'd lifted a paperclip days ago from a careless orderly. Bent it, sharpened it, hidden it under his tongue. When the blackout hit, he jammed it into the lock. Sparks. Sweat. A click.
The cell door swung open.
Jack stepped out, silent, crouched low.
The guard patrol was late. They always were. Sloppy. Predictable. He slid behind them, movements sharp but jerky, almost comical. One twisted neck later, he had a keycard.
He slipped through the halls like a shadow in greasepaint. Past the medical wing. Past the therapy rooms. Past the door that said Harleen Quinzel. He lingered there a moment, grinning, whispering to himself.
"Not now, doctor. Soon. Very soon."
Then he moved on.
Cameras? Blind spots mapped in his mind. Security gates? Overridden with the card, then forced open with stolen wires. Guards? One by one, silent takedowns, bodies left stacked in closets and corners.
It was less brute force, more performance. A one-man show of violence and intellect.
By the time the alarms blared, Jack was already at the outer wall. He'd stolen a maintenance uniform, cap pulled low, face smeared with guard's blood for camouflage. The spotlight swept over him once, twice—never stopping.
And then he was gone. Into the night.
Free.
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Elsewhere.
A man in a black suit stood in a dimly lit office. No nameplate. No records. Just shadows and smoke.
The phone rang.
"Yes?" His voice was smooth, flat, business-like.
The reply came quick. "He's out. The clown. He broke Arkham."
The man's lips curved, faint, like he'd been expecting it all along.
"Add him to the list," he said calmly. "And send Bane after him."
A pause. Then the call ended.
The man set the phone down, turning to the window. Gotham's skyline stretched out, broken and bleeding under the moon.
"Everything," he whispered, "is going just as planned."
And the city breathed, unaware of the war about to rip it apart.
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