Jonathan Crane—the Scarecrow—had excellent talents in psychology and chemistry.
This was the polite way of saying it. The more accurate description would be that he possessed a brilliant, twisted mind that had been warped by childhood trauma into something that could only find expression through inducing terror in others.
Like most of Gotham's super-villains, Crane's origin story featured an unfortunate childhood. Abuse. Social isolation. Bullying so severe it would have broken most people. But Crane hadn't broken—he'd just bent in a very specific direction.
As a psychiatrist and the creator of fear gas, he knew exactly how to cause mental trauma in others. Knew which fears were universal, which were personal, which would break someone immediately and which would eat away at them slowly over years.
He was an expert in suffering.
Which made him uniquely qualified to recognize a fellow traveler in madness.
The man standing before him now—the short figure in the absurdly oversized hat, holding a tea service like they were at a garden party instead of an abandoned factory—was definitely mad.
But what kind of mad?
Jervis Tetch. The Mad Hatter.
Born a dwarf, Tetch had once taken an experimental drug trying to restore his height to normal standards. The drug hadn't worked. Instead, it had pathologically transformed him into something far worse—a madman who lived permanently inside the world of Alice in Wonderland, convinced he was the Mad Hatter, using his tall hat to cover the baldness the drug had caused.
In a sane world, Jervis Tetch would be institutionalized. Medicated. Helped.
This was Gotham.
In Gotham, if you were crazy enough and smart enough, you became a super-villain.
And Tetch was very smart.
Every villain who made a name for themselves in this city had unique skills. The Scarecrow had his fear gas—airborne psychological warfare that could reduce grown men to sobbing children. The Joker had madness and chaos incarnate, reality-warping insanity that made him functionally unpredictable. Poison Ivy was the spokesperson for all things green, plants themselves bending to her will.
And the Mad Hatter? He was a brainwave controller.
Even driven insane by experimental drugs, Tetch's intelligence remained intact. Enough to create an evil instrument that could control minds and behaviors—sophisticated neural manipulation disguised as a hat that would look perfectly at home in Carroll's fictional Wonderland.
The device had limitations, of course. It had to be worn directly on the subject's head to be effective. But within those parameters, its control was absolute. Dozens of superheroes and super-criminals had fallen victim to it over the years.
Worth mentioning: people with strong enough willpower could break free on their own.
Jonathan Crane's willpower was considerable.
And his own hat contained only burlap and bad intentions—no brainwave controller.
So he had no fear of the Mad Hatter.
What he did have was annoyance that this ridiculous little man had interrupted his perfectly good nursery rhyme.
"Would you like some tea?" Tetch asked again, smile widening.
Crane's burlap mask tilted slightly—the closest he came to showing irritation.
"I was singing," he said flatly.
"Yes, you were!" Tetch agreed cheerfully. "But you stopped at 'Put it in the oven, for the Bats and—' and I'm terribly curious how that sentence ends. 'For the Bats and' what? For the Bats and me? For the Bats and thee? The rhythm really demands resolution, you see."
"I wasn't singing for you—"
"Gentlemen."
The voice cut through their bickering like a knife through butter. Both super-villains turned to see Carmine Falcone stepping out of the shadows, expression carved from stone.
"I spent considerable time and energy," Falcone said quietly, "helping you both leave Arkham early. I did not do this so you could argue about cake and tea."
His eyes were cold. Sharp. The eyes of a man who'd built an empire on knowing exactly when to be patient and when to be ruthless.
This was not a patient moment.
"We have business," Falcone continued. "It concerns the vault of Gotham Bank."
Crane and Tetch both went still.
"The vault," Falcone repeated, "contains something I need. You're going to help me get it. And in exchange, you'll each walk away with enough money to fund your... projects... for the next five years."
He let that hang in the air.
"Are we clear?"
Tetch's smile never wavered. "Crystal clear, Mr. Falcone. Clear as glass. Clear as the looking-glass Alice stepped through. Clear as—"
"Yes," Crane interrupted. "We're clear."
Falcone nodded once. "Good. Let's discuss the plan."
The stove crackled.
Outside, Gotham celebrated, oblivious.
[You have a new part-time job available. Please check it out.]
Jude was sitting in the shelter's office, headphones on, listening to the monitoring feed from Maroni's cell, when the system notification popped up.
He blinked at it.
"Is it reasonable to trigger another mission during an existing mission?" he asked the empty room.
The system, as usual, didn't answer.
Jude considered this. On one hand, he was currently in the middle of monitoring Maroni and Vernon—a mission that required attention and care. On the other hand, the monitoring was mostly automated. Audio recording ran continuously, video cycled through timestamps, everything backed up in real-time.
He could listen during downtime. Multitasking was a skill he'd developed by necessity.
"Fine," he muttered, pulling up the mission description.
[MISSION: Independence Day's Crazy Duo]
Mission Introduction: For a madman, the joy of planning a robbery far outweighs the final gains from the robbery. The money they take away is just a settlement prize after completing the game—but then again, except for madmen, no one actually dislikes colorful banknotes.
Note: Although the enemy is a crazy duo, you don't need anyone else for this mission. You can handle it yourself—it's time to show off your PVZ skills!
(This mission is timed. Please complete it before Batman arrives.)
Status: Incomplete (0/1)
Reward: Primary Mental Resistance
Jude stared at the mission details, parsing them carefully.
"Primary Mental Resistance?" He opened the system shop, checking the value.
The reward was worth 100,000 asset points—the same tier as Intermediate Physical Fitness Enhancement. Not trivial, then. Significant protection against something the system considered a genuine threat.
"Increase resistance to mental attacks," Jude read aloud. "Special defense against the old man in the wheelchair?"
He meant Professor X from X-Men, of course. But the joke felt hollow. This was Gotham. Mental attacks here came from fear gas, mind control hats, Joker toxin, Scarecrow's nightmares...
After a moment's thought, he pieced it together.
The GCPD had launched a citywide search for both Scarecrow and Riddler after the Holiday Killer situation. Gordon had mentioned it during his last conversation with Batman—no leads, no sightings, like they'd vanished into thin air.
But they hadn't vanished.
They'd been recruited.
"Independence Day, a bank vault," Jude mused. "Well, this is a Gotham staple. But why choose this specific moment to rob? Are they trying to make it easy for Gordon to catch them?"
His thoughts received no answers.
While he contemplated, across town, Scarecrow and Mad Hatter and Falcone's plans proceeded at full speed.
Independence Day came quickly.
It wasn't far from Father's Day—just a week and change—and suddenly Gotham was drowning in red, white, and blue.
The city transformed overnight. Bunting appeared on every lamppost. Flags hung from windows. Storefronts decorated themselves in patriotic themes that ranged from tasteful to absolutely deranged.
Gotham took its holidays seriously, even if most of them ended in explosions.
The Independence Day festival was grand even by American standards, and Gotham threw itself into it with manic enthusiasm. Parades of various vehicles—motorcades, floats, horse-drawn carriages, even massive toy cars that looked like they belonged in a theme park—rolled through the streets. Entire families participated, generations together, waving flags and throwing candy and generally acting like they lived in a normal city.
Jude walked through it all, trying to ignore the sensory overload.
The noise was incredible.
Music from a dozen different sound systems, all playing different patriotic songs. Car horns honking. People cheering. Children screaming with excitement. Fireworks being set off early by impatient teenagers.
And underneath it all, transmitted through his Nature Language Proficiency (Intermediate), the constant chatter of every bird, squirrel, rat, and stray cat in a six-block radius, all commenting on the chaos.
Loud. Too loud. Humans crazy. Shiny things falling from sky. Is it food? Not food. Why make noise if not food?
Jude felt like the Nian monster from Chinese New Year legends—about to be driven out of the city by citizens with firecrackers and noise.
He'd trained himself to function in this kind of environment. Could filter the noise, compartmentalize the information, keep walking without screaming.
But it was still deeply unpleasant.
Today, he'd decided not to use his wheelchair on the street. Too conspicuous. Even in a colorful parade full of floats and costumes and marching bands, a glowing LED wheelchair would stand out. And standing out meant being recognized by Falcone's people, Maroni's people, or any of the dozen other groups that had reasons to either love or hate the "Wheelchair Stripper."
Better to blend in.
So he just walked. Wore ordinary clothes—short-sleeved T-shirt, shorts. The summer heat hadn't passed yet, and Gotham was sweltering under humid air that felt like breathing through a wet towel.
Jude kept his head slightly lowered, face hidden by the angle and the crowd. At this moment, he really did look like an ordinary passerby wandering the street—not attracting any attention at all.
It was, in a way, acting in his true character. Before the system, before the wheelchair, before everything, this was who he'd been. Just another person trying to survive Gotham.
Sometimes it was nice to remember what that felt like.
Chichi—BANG! BANG! BANG!
The sound from the sky interrupted his thoughts.
Fireworks.
They flew into Gotham's night sky, then exploded with enormous reports, turning into colorful sparks that bloomed and faded against the darkness. Brilliant reds, blues, greens, whites—the kind of expensive professional fireworks that the city saved for major celebrations.
The crowd immediately looked up, drawn by the spectacle. Faces illuminated by the falling light, mouths open in wonder.
Fireworks were the same every year. People had watched them for decades. And somehow, they never got tired of it.
Even Jude, irritated and overstimulated and trying to focus on potential super-villain activity, couldn't help but look up.
This was a scene he hadn't experienced since arriving in Gotham. Once upon a time, back in his old life, he'd watched fireworks every New Year. Stood in the yard with relatives and friends, holding long firework tubes, adding colors to the dazzling display overhead.
That had been in a different world. A different life.
For a moment, watching the fireworks bloom and fade over Gotham, Jude felt the distance between who he'd been and who he'd become.
Then he noticed Gordon.
The Commissioner was a few blocks away, but Jude could see him clearly—standing with his family, little James on his shoulders, Barbara beside him. Gordon was looking at his watch. Then at the clock tower in the distance. Then back at the fireworks.
A puzzled expression crossed his face.
Gordon's lips moved. Jude was too far away to hear, but he could read the confusion in the Commissioner's body language.
Something was wrong.
The fireworks were starting early.
All of them. Across the entire city. Synchronized.
"Could it be playful kids causing trouble?" Gordon said to Barbara, voice barely audible over the crowd noise.