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Business Owner Todd Treharne published a press release titled: Keep Your Focus Brain Training
"The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office." - Robert Frost
Esme Mayhew >>
Text posts.
@gogreekpoints
Task at Hand - Noah Griffin
OOC: This is another drabble request requested by the mun behind @digital-darwinism. This will be unlike Batlink and be steeped in previously established interactions, roleplay canons and such, which I will attempt to make reader friendly, but be warned. While there may be homages to the comics as they are now, not everything will line up exactly where they are. Secondly, this will be a very Terry McGinnis/Batman Beyond lite series of drabbles, while taking place within the same continuity as Batman Beyond.
~ ~ ~
The Chimera Institute had been closed for a long time. Since the banning of legal splicing operations, several properties owned by Dr. Abel Cuvier were seized by the state. Of course, that didn't stop splicing. It only made the operations have to take darker tactics to keep itself hidden from the prying eyes of the law.
The Baku House was in the mid levels deep within the more Asian part of the city. Here, pachinko machines lined the walls, gambling could be down with slots with a roulette wheel. On the surface, it was a normal establishment. Though if you knew what to do or say, you would get far more than just a couple hundred dollars for winning.
That was what Noah was here for. He massaged his shoulders, resting in the alleyway. His body would have these moments where he felt like he was hit with a bad case of the flu. Nausea, aches, and more. It wasn't Splicer remission by any means. It was because of one mistake he had made in the goal to gain a solid foothold in the city. Now it was time to try and take it back.
Going inside, Noah dabbed his brow with a spare napkin. He bought some chips as the teller thanked him. Going to a pachinko machine in the far corner, he played one game and waited. He didn't like making eye contact with everyone here. Noah needed to keep this quick and start from the ground up. Rushing back to power right after he had gotten back to Gotham was a sure fire way to get caught. He was undoubtedly being scoped by the police in Faraday Gardens. Black cars sometimes stayed outside his window, waiting. Noah had no one to reach out to, but he was sure to keep busy.
He researched the current gang landscape to get a feel for where things were. The Jokerz were still kings of this town, running off the success of Joker Night, though other gangs were starting to get ballsy. They wanted to see if they could overthrow the top dogs. The Ts struggled constantly for relevance in the city and tried to stay afloat. They would likely die out in a few years, he survived. There was a new gang of Splicers, the Crocs, that were trying to make a name for themselves. It was a growing movement, but hardly anything to write home about yet. They were strong, but were recovering now that their leader was out of Arkham following a lawsuit. There was a gang of thieves and finally a small cluster of kids running around attacking the gangs. But the best bet for dominance left in the second largest gang in the city, The Animal Kingdom.
Cuvier had left an empire and his soldiers directionless. Several opted to try and continue fractured. The Alleycats, the Cult of the Bat, and the Crocs were examples of that. The largest was the Animal Kingdom and run by Tigress, one of Cuvier's former employees and main helpers. Yet Tigress seemed to just want to keep gang activity small. It was why splicing wasn't bringing everyone together. It was why other gangs had animals all over the place. He had plans to change that.
"Excuse me sir"
Noah looked up at a waitress, balancing a tray of several drinks from tea to sake. "Is the machine broken?"
"No it's fine. I won some cash. I figured I'd try my luck in 7 minutes."
The waitress nodded. "Perhaps you would like our rest longue. It's down the hall, third door on the right."
"I will. Thank you."
He moved slower than he wanted to. The doctors had made a guess that perhaps there was a tendency to withdrawal from splicing and Noah was an extreme case of this. Normally, splicing wouldn't cause such feelings, but Noah was unique in that regard. Splicing was tied with his powers, something he had discovered when it happened.
Noah’s interest in splicing was purely cosmetic. At first. He had little interest in first, working hard at his job. High marks in chemistry had landed him a job at one of the largest bio-chem labs in Gotham. Yet when he showed everyone his results, jealousy permeated the room. Colleagues who had been at the company for years to decades scoffed him. He was the new blood and despite that, he was pushed further and further away. Progress slowed on projects and Noah was forced to rely on interns and new hires for help than the experiences scientists.
His friend, an intern he was sure was named Rob or Raul or Roy or something, wanted to get a good discount when splicing became prominent. Dragging Noah and his other friends, they were all given cosmetic splicing. Noah still remembered the animal he picked. He had wanted to have a tiger, something strong and proud. He didn’t want the stripes, though perhaps some of the agility and certainly the eyesight. While his friends had explained how splicing had been a rush and to feel the change come along, Noah’s experience was different. He would never forget that first splice.
Sitting down in the room, he noticed the plants that surrounded the room. Bonsai trees, trimmed down. The music in the room was hardly soothing, instead boisterous and full of energy. No doubt it was to try and rev up customers into going back into gambling. But this room, if his sources were right, wasn’t just for gambling.
Seven minutes ticked by. Seven long, grueling and agonizing minutes. Noah found himself tapping his leg up and down. He had picked up the habit in Metropolis. Long waits, chemicals pumping into his system to clean up the last of the gunk in his system. Lost...seemingly.
“Welcome sir. The Doctor will see you now.”
Noah looked up to see the waitress again. It hadn’t been his memories. Instead, he nodded, pulling himself up and feeling the weight collect in his back and legs. He did his best to not seem helpless. He had to seem strong if he didn’t want to be robbed. He could go to any corner dealing, but was basic, water downed animals. If Noah wanted the power he deserved, he couldn’t take small animals with the risk of something wrong in the compound.
The Baku House was his best bet. Following the waitress, he moved past a series of scanners, scrolls and finally down stairs. He held the railing tighter than he should have, easing the weight. Ever since the incident in Gotham, he had been weaker. He worked out as best as he could, but he felt stretched too thin.
When Noah passed the final door, he sound the underground lab. It was hardly as clean as Chimera, but it would have to do. Several animals could be heard behind another door. Screeching, yowling, snarling, crying and all craving to be free from their confines. The table was clean and the instruments and equipment was up to date.
“You’re a new face.” The voice belonged to the face of a one eyed man. His skin appeared to have a reptilian coat to it, though the scars were older. His sharp goatee looked as if it could have stabbed Noah for everything. “I certainly hope you’ll be able to cover more than just the entrance fee. I have an establishment to run after all.”
“I’ll have plenty. But I’ll need to be spliced sooner rather than later. What animals do you have.” Plenty wouldn’t do. Noah needed to know his options. If he wanted to feel better, he would need energy. A bear would give him power. A kimono dragon could help instill strength and put acid in his spit. Or the tiger, his first animal, to give him the confidence. He’d start back up...he’d feel the rush of the genomes forming around his DNA, becoming one. Slowly, becoming whole once again.
The back room opened the door. A thin man that looked to have a skin that was quilted together from lord knows what sort of people stepped out, wiping his hands. Behind him was a large mountain of a man, trimmed with a beard and wearing suspenders. It was almost a scary thought when Noah realized this wall of muscles was taller than him. He almost mistook him to be a grizzly bear splicer, only for him to realize he was just a man.
“Well now, your cargo is in the back there, my Doctor friend” the mountain said with a chuckle. “Believe me, that there cargo was pretty hard to slip ‘round the back without a fuss.”
“Please don’t discuss the cargo in front of the customer.” The doctor said. Glancing at Noah, the young man couldn’t help but be reminded of the look of his mentor from his first job when he presented the findings for his research.
“That’s all well and good, hon” the thin man cooed. “Now, how about our fee.” He held out his hand, rubbing his fingers together. “After all, you got your business to run and we gotta run ours.”
The doctor nodded before handing a thick stack of credits over. Noah could only guess that had come from over twenty splice jobs. The men nodded as they counted. Thumbing the credits, the man counted the stacks. Over time though. Noah saw the man’s expression start to sour like milk.
“Oh now, isn’t that the darndest thing. Barty?”
“Hm?” The mountain moved closer to his partner. “Whatcha need?”
“Well I just got done counting and it looks like we’re short. Mighty short actually. By about two hundred credits.” They both turned to the doctor, scowling. Noah’s heart seized, realizing that he was caught in the middle of a bad deal. He had come for a splice job and now he wouldn’t even get it and get robbed. And without his animal DNA to call on, he was useless.
“That’s a mighty big problem, Bryce.” ‘Barty’ moved this thumb over each finger and began to pop them one by one.
“Oh you betcha, Barty. We have to put food on the table and gas in the car. Now doctor...where’s our money?”
The doctor had remained silent, close to the table on the opposite end of the room. “It’s been a slower month. GCPD has been snooping around--”
“Hmmm...but is that our problem? I don’t think it is. Plus, you got plenty of money flowing in upstairs. So...you’re going to get us five hundred for what you owe and thinking of not telling us...or we’re taking everything.” Noah’s heart seized. Backing up slowly, he glanced around. “Oh shug...you ain’t leaving. Trust me on this one. Now...you’re going to get us our cash or--”
Something upstairs sounded. It was loud and it didn’t sound like a fight. There was a scream and glass shattering. Everyone seized up and looked to the ceiling. There was too much noise and pandemonium for a simple bar fight. This could only mean one thing:
Cops
Like roaches, everyone started to scatter. The doctor went to the main door to bolt it shut so the police had a harder time to break it down. He would try and salvage everything that he could. The animals were screeching as ‘Barty’ and ‘Bryce’ grabbed the cash and were beginning to run out another exit when Barty swore angrily.
“The dirt! Grab the dirt!!!”
“Bryce, You grabbit--”
“YOU’RE CLOSER TO THE DOOR! STOP ARGUING WITH ME!!!”
‘Let me out’
Noah gripped his chest and felt his insides go cold. No one else could hear that voice but him. He had been good for ages. The doctors said they had purged every strand of DNA from his system and that it would be good. But Noah had made the mistake of leaving sooner. He had scored well on his psych eval and made it seem as if he had simply been under the more irrational parts of ‘splicing culture’ as the DNA never left his system. He was told what would happen if he was caught again, but he wanted to feel the rush again. Yet one piece of foreign DNA that Noah had hoped would be gone was still there under the surface.
It wanted out.
Noah had prayed that with some splice jobs, he could hopefully quell the sounds. But now he had to run as his life depended on it. Too bad he couldn’t call upon a cheetah to get out of there. Stumbling through the back door, he began to climb the stairs. By step ten, he was feeling winded. By step twenty, he felt as if he was going to die. No other splicer had to go through what he did.
He had to walk, not run. He had to look like a normal person. Just as no one saw him leave the door, he’d be okay. He opened the door and looked around. No one was in sight. He’d feel better when he was blocks away. As he began to move down the graffiti ridden alleyway, he felt a shove as the two men pushed past him and rushing away, grabbing several bags.
"YOU! STOP!”
Noah spun and saw a cop rushing at him. Panic set in as he raised his arms. He couldn’t even say that he was just passing by when the cop crushed him against a dumpster.
~ ~ ~
“Well look-it here” The cop was grinning. “We got a match. Noah Griffin here is a rather avid splicer. What were you doing out here, Noah?”
“I was just going for a walk” Noah growled. He was sitting in the back of a cop car. He couldn’t run or fight. That would make things worse and even if he felt he could run, his body wasn’t up to it. Everything felt as if it was on fire and his head was still ringing from being thrown against a dumpster.
“Yeah, in this part of town? Pretty far away from Faraday Gardens.”
“I can walk anywhere I want to.”
“And right around entrances of Splice Kitchens? Is that okay?” The other cops were pulling away patrons. Some were scared, others enraged, and most were confused. Likely they weren’t aware of what was in the basement. “You have a pretty strict probation order, Griffin. You know that?”
“I did have to read it.”
“Well apparently, you didn’t read it finely enough. Because we caught you right on the premises and I’m sure we can get a confession out of a few people here that they saw you in that place.” The cop grinned. “So...we’re going to be going somewhere now.”
“Fine. Arkham. I’ll call a lawyer.” There was a few public defenders that were trying to trumpet the pros to splicing after Sam Young had put a stop to that. Yet when he looked over, the man's grin was reminding him of a Jokerz member on Botox.
“Now who said anything about Arkham?”
~ ~ ~
Name: Griffin, Noah
Alias: None
Crimes: Kidnapping, Destruction of Private Property, Illegal Usage of Splicing, Theft of Private Property, Ties to Splicing Gangs
Powers: Able to call upon and utilize foreign DNA, in this case animal DNA, to enhance his speed, strength, durability and much more
Recommended by: Dr. Mara Sable, MD of Gotham City. Warden of the Metropolis Metahuman Rehabilitation Center
APPROVED
Task At Hand: Lorelai Larson
OOC: This is another drabble request requested by the mun behind @digital-darwinism. This will be unlike Batlink and be steeped in previously established interactions, roleplay canons and such, which I will attempt to make reader friendly, but be warned. While there may be homages to the comics as they are now, not everything will line up exactly where they are. Secondly, this will be a very Terry McGinnis/Batman Beyond lite series of drabbles, while taking place within the same continuity as Batman Beyond. Special thanks to @rusalkas-fury for allowing me to use her character and aiding me in writing.
~ ~ ~
Everyone was on the lookout for her. The newest rogue of Batman had practically exploded to priority number one in one single episode of the talk show, Skye’s the Limit. Lorelai Larson, once famed singer and musician turned criminal from Queen City had gone onto TV and slaughtered her parents in a bloody display of power and revenge. Terry had been stopping a gang war in the lower levels and didn't hear about it until it was far too late.
He patrolled everywhere, practically pulling three all nighters straight. No one had found her and Bruce had combed over every available route she could have gone. Barbara was using every patrolman to find something but no one was turning up anything. They were at a loss yet Bruce insisted to keep an eye out for oddities.
“Anything could lead back to her” he had told Terry. “Even if its minor, keep an ear out.”
Luckily, Bruce’s gambit paid off. Gotham's Airport was a busy place and problems rose up all the time. Late flights, bad attendants and more. But Bruce had found an odd complaint about a woman in first class who had her ticket stolen but everyone had said she had given it to "someone" willingly. No one could remember the details and each gave a random answer. Different looks, ages, genders and more. But it was where she was going that was the biggest problem.
"Why go to Santa Prisca?" Terry asked as the batmobile flew over the sea. "There's nothing there?"
"Laying low for starters. There's plenty of criminal contacts in there and according to some of the staff in Arkham, she was trying to use a pen pal system with someone on the island. One of the addresses is familiar. Stay safe and be cautious. You don't know what you're going up against, but take some of the plans we developed."
~ ~ ~
He found out why Bruce was concerned. The place in question was Bane’s old manor. The manor was even more heavily fortified than the last time he had been here. Before, Chappell had been working on his cover. Now it seemed like a small army walked around Bane’s compound. Terry was sure the old man would have died. He was in worse shape than any of the people from Bruce’s generation and yet the former Batman had never told him that the back breaker was gone for good. As Terry tried to find some entrance, he could hear the mutterings of the guards nearby and snuck closer to listen in. One of the guards was talking about their latest guest, who was visiting the boss and they were developing something in the underground lab. If Terry wanted to know what was going on, he had to see for himself. This could concern more than just Lorelai. Sneaking around with the camo feature had become second nature to him at this point. Avoiding the servants, he made his way deeper and deeper. All the while, Terry was repeating the same questions over and over in his head.
Why had Lorelai come to Santa Prisca? There were hundreds of places in the world she could hide. Thousands of people and even more fans who would house her willingly, though they might need a nudge with Lorelai's song. Even if she didn't want to stay in the states, why not somewhere else? Why this prison island? Why Bane's home?
Finally, he found himself outside of the lab. Picking the lock was easy with his experience. It was even faster with the right bad gadgets. Opening the door, Terry was greeted to a large lab set up. Several vats and tubs of chemicals hung from the ceiling. Several different tubes spun their way into beakers and other chemical concoctions. Terry even saw very large centrifuges. Terry's mind immediately went to what one person had said so long ago.
"In the end, he needed Venom just to keep going. It got so bad he couldn't even make it himself. He had to trust someone."
This had to have been where Chappell had whipped up the Venom in the first place for Bane. It was still surprising he had found all of that stuff here and Bane was still alive. Perhaps someone else was making it. But this much?
Terry wandered around, examining the chemicals until he saw something. While not as large as the other vats, this was ground level. Approaching closer, he could see something orange, sticky and occasionally bubbling had filled the item. While it was hard to see exactly what was inside, Terry could see a general outline.
A person?
Terry immediately moved to the computer terminal attached to it and began to try and hack his way in. If this was a prisoner or someone else, he had to get him out of here.
It was a human male, roughly in his 20s or 30s. That much Terry could tell from the documents he could see. Well over six foot, three hundred pounds and whatever was in here was also making sure his heart was at a steady beat. It was almost as if they were keeping this body alive. But for what?
Terry had been too focused for too long as he heard the door open and spun around, batarang instinctively out.
"Don't you TOUCH him, Batman!" The escapee and metal singer, Lorelai Larson, Rusalka shrieked at the Dark Knight. A sheer blind rage that took over when she saw the batarang especially near the vat.
Terry hadn't expected Lorelai to show up. He probably should have been wary and had the camo still on, but now it was too late. Lorelai was looking straight at him and seeing red. He had to act fast. Tapping the side of his cowl over his ears, the first part of Bruce's defenses to Lorelai kicked in as he still had the batarang up in his other hand. "You're not going anywhere Lorelai."
"I don't PLAN on going anywhere. And you certainly aren't dragging me back to Gotham!" She felt her fist growing heavier, wanting to pull the water in from around them, but being very cautious. She wasn't coming for him in a blind rage yet, already a sign something wasn't quite right.
"You killed your parents, you hijacked a family and put countless others in jeopardy because of what you've done." The last time Lorelai had killed, it had also been bloody. Her boyfriend had stabbed himself until he was almost a pile of blood soaked flesh and organs. Yet even that hadn't been as severe as this time.
"You got one chance to give yourself up Lorelai. Take it."
There was a cool sensation behind Terry, almost a tickle at first, but then a heavy water fist crashed down on the back of his head. It wasn't her full force, though.
"Consider that a warning, Batman. Take it."
His body crashed down hard. Water was still a large and powerful substance and Lorelai still was getting better and better at it. Groaning, he stood up as Lorelai gloated.
Okay. The gloves came off for Rusalka. Batman rushed to a nearby vat and lept above. Using the higher ground, he hurled a set of bolas at her.
She reacted quickly, a wall of water springing up between her and the bolas. Training these few weeks had been rigorous, but well worth it. Lorelai didn't back away from Batman, she moved closer, angling herself between him and the body in the tube.
“I’m ending this now” she hissed as she took in a deep breath. Soon a song began to fill the room as Lorelai, protected by her water wall, began to sing higher and higher. A sweet little melody filled with the intent of Batman going to the nearest wall and bashing his head against it until his skull caved in. Yet the Dark Knight wasn’t stopping. In fact, he dodged another attack and remained aware. The singer looked stunned. “How are you--”
“I don’t always need sonic batarangs to stop you.” He had come prepared. All the other times, Terry had gone to face Rusalka with no planning or adequate equipment. Yet time had passed since her first incarceration in Arkham. Bruce had began working on several pieces of equipment to properly combat the newest metahuman. Ways to destabilize the water, ways to contract her voice, and even some new strategies Terry was using in the simulations. The latest device was a special earbud modified from Shreeve Tech and some of Bruce’s old equipment. Most everything he was listening to was being tuned to lower octaves. Everything Lorelai was saying was being auto-tuned.
Not that he was going to tell Lorelai that. By the looks of it, this only seemed to further anger the singer as she sent a new wave of water hurling at the Dark Knight. He dodged again, and again. He waited until he found the right opportunity. Grabbing one of his batarangs, he hurled it at Lorelai. Her water arm caught, the batarang sinking into the arm. However she looked stunned when it began to bubble and part of it caught fire.
The lab was suddenly rocked with a small scale explosion. Water flew around them, the smell of something burnt was in the air as the second wall of water lost its consistency for a brief moment. Lorelai crashed by a nearby table, her hair blown back as the water shielded her. “THE HELL WAS THAT!?”
“Potassium and sodium batarang” Batman called out, now hiding in the ceilings. He’d try and lure Rusalka into unease. The room had good acoustics and he’d try and use it to his advantage. “While you were in Arkham, I’ve been prepping for you if you went rogue.”
“SOME SLAGGING ASSURANCE YOU WERE READY TO TAKE ME DOWN AGAIN!” Her ears were ringing. The explosion had been too close for comfort and her ears were ringing. And now the Bat was hiding. The singer looked this way and that, attacking any shadow that dared to move. “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND BATMAN! THEY HAD TO DIE!”
“No one deserves to die. They were bad parents, Rusalka, but you had no right.”
“AFTER EVERY LITTLE THING THEY PULLED, THEY DESERVED EXACTLY WHAT THEY--GOD DAMN--GET OUT FROM WHERE YOU’RE HIDING AND FACE ME!” Rusalka was gnashing her teeth, glancing around as Batman began to creep slowly down the wall from behind, hiding behind the vat.
The ringing was beginning to end. Now she was hearing something nearby but she couldn’t quite place it. “I’m free now Batman. Free from them, free from my old life. Let me live already! Especially once I’m free from YOU!”
She whirled around and hurled a water construct hurling at the source of the noise. Batman had inched out of his spot and aimed and hurled the Batarang. Rusalka wasn’t slowing down her fist. Batman dove out of the way as the Batarang stuck and the fist crashed...against the vat.
He didn’t even see the look of dread on Lorelai Larson’s face before it happened. But he heard the wailing shriek when the explosion went off. The batarang caused a mini-explosion once again, but the fist had crushed the vat, causing leakage of some of the goop inside. Terry didn’t even see the man before the equipment was caught in the explosion and magnified it.
Feeling the force, Batman toppled over and over until he gained his footing. He saw the fire go off as Lorelai rushed over. She knelt down but the substance was on fire. The room was filled with a burning smell that was more disgusting than the last. Terry recognized the smell from the few times he had smelled it. The sickening smell of burning flesh.
Lorelai knelt down, stunned and silent. Terry did his best to pull himself up to his feet. “What was--”
He didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence. The siren singer’s screech was loud enough to make Terry wince. Pipes began to groan as finally the lab’s safety feature began to kick in. The sprinkler system began to come in and spray down the fires.
Terry had just gotten rid of Rusalka’s troublesome water constructs and instead gave the now enraged metahuman even more ammo. And she was ready to use every drop of water to slay him. He didn’t have much time to rush for cover. Trying to upturn one of the tables, that plan was ruined when a larger construct of water crushed the table. Like a krakken’s tentacle, the thing smacked Batman into the nearby machinery. Again, and again, and again. It was hammering away blindly as another long tentacle was being formed. All the while, horrible shrieking was coming from the room.
Lorelai wasn’t trying to hypnotize Batman. She was screaming and just wishing for one thing. Death. The most painful, horrible death she could manage. While Terry could handle watery environments, being smacked around by living water was not what Bruce had in mind when designing the suits.
The tentacles stopped as it batted Batman across the floor. He could feel every hard object he crashed against before coming to a stop. His body ached and he could feel the water pouring around him. He could see Lorelai advancing towards her. A bloodlust filled her as one tendril of water was following her. It was curling itself into a handle and becoming more solid. Lorelai was forming it into ice.
She’d improved since Arkham. Terry wasn’t going to have much of a chance to think since she was forming a bladed weapon with one purpose in mind. She was stomping closer and closer, the water covering everything in the lab.
“Die” she hissed through grit teeth. “Die and let me live!” She raised the blade and Terry had to act fast with the last trick he had.
He didn’t reach for a batarang. With enough water surrounding him, Terry knew this could work. It’d hurt, but it was better than being stabbed. Slapping his hand on the suit’s saftey feature, the suit sent a dischange. Normally, only anyone touching the suit would be greeted by a sudden, sharp discharge of electricty. The suit was drenched in water. The floor was coated in it and Lorelai was standing in it covered in her drenched travel clothes. Her heavy breathing was suddenly replaced by a harsh yelp of pain.
Doubling over, she fell over, heaving as something rushed at her. “No!” she shrieked as Batman raised a fist. “NO! N--”
~ ~ ~
“One switchblade. Slightly used...”
“Stand up straight.”
She was going to flay Batman for bringing her back to Gotham...for doing what he did to that body.
“One bag of...crystals?”
“Healing crystals.” Lorelai said, doing her best to not tug at her inhibitor collar. Batman had slapped one on her when she was out like a light.
“Did we tell you to say something?”
This new staff member...Walker or whoever, was quickly gaining ground on her shit list.
“Two bags of...sage?”
“Seriously?”
Byrd was still here though clearly not used to getting things like sage. Maybe not as bad as some of the guards but she wouldn’t mind killing his ass.
“One coupon for Beefee Burger, expires at the end of the Month. One tube of black lipstick. One journal filled with...poems? That seems to be everything.”
All hers and now the Arkham Institute had its grubby little hands on it again. She was finally free of this place. And now, Batman had dragged her back here. He had slapped an inhibitor device on her, stuck her in the back seat and had to listen to her scream every curse word and sound she could muster on the flight back to Gotham.
“Right...” Owens sighed. “Well, I’ll get the Bear’s autograph on this. Is the mask on tight, LIly?”
“Double checked it myself” the new guard, Lily Walker, said. “Do we have any standard procedures for metahuman inmates?”
“With Ms. Larson here, we’ll have to call one of the other staff members to prep her for a proper shower. We still have her designed cell in here. We’ll get here in there with some of her clothes and finish the processing.”
“Well, I hope you enjoyed your time out there, because you aren’t going back to the outside for a long time, Larson” Lily said.
“You’re new here...I hope you realize deal with new fish like you like it was nothing” Lorelai hissed. Of course, the mask was built with some annoyingly frustrating tech that modulated her voice. She hated this. She hated every second of this.
“You aren’t leaving for a long time, Rusalka.” Reggie Byrd, the other guard on duty helped Lorelai into a nearby gurney to transfer her to her cell properly. No TV show or good behavior was going to save her like last time. “Some of your fans even started sending stuff here after what you did.”
Lorelai stared up at the lights as she was rolled down the hall. She could hear some familiar inmates. The sobbing hiccups of one of the newer fish at Arkham, pleading that he didn’t belong with the Jokerz. The deep breathing of what could only belong to Patrick Fitz, the Ratboy, and his cell. He was still recovering from the last riot it seemed.
On and on she rolled. So Arkham would be her home away for now. Fine...she’d use the time to work on her case. Her “help” in Santa Prisca would find some way to aid her. Legal aid or maybe a proper way out of this urine soaked, insanity ridden hellhole. There were perks to staying in Arkham. Her mail was managed, a lot of the inmates didn’t mess with her and she had actual friends here.
She could use the time to think...plan...get rid of that murderous, sadistic Bat-
“Reg!”
The gurney stopped as footsteps began echoing from down the hall.
“Obadiah? What the slag are you doing here?”
“Picking her up. Special orders.”
Lorelai was trying desperately to see what was going on. The gurney was limiting her motion and she couldn’t peer down the hall with her mask also obstructing the view.
“Special? But Arkham’s where’s she staying. Hoffman said--”
“You and I both know Hoffman is going to lose this election, Byrd. That Blackout and everything with those pardons didn’t earn him any favors. Fox looks like the real contender. Anyways, ‘nough about politics. It goes higher than that.”
She knew that voice. She was dead certain she knew that voice but...no...no it couldn’t--
The footsteps stopped as Byrd opened a letter and looked through it. His mouth grew taut as he read the letter. “Looks legit.”
“Legit as it can get. Come on, I’ll take her off your hands.”
Finally, the man came into view. He was a rotund man, slightly balding and with dark, hateful eyes. Yet the smile he gave was of joy. It was malevolent joy, but joy all the same. He might have been wearing a Power House uniform, but Obadiah Collins, the meanest, most anti-meta guard that had walked the halls of Arkham grinned down. “You’re coming with me, Larson.”
Lorelai’s eyes bugged. “No! NO! NO!” IF Collins was picking her up than...oh god. She was going to that woman. That evil, vile woman. The Power House wasn’t a holding place for a trial. It was a slagging death sentence. Lorelai began to write and wriggle.
Furiously kicking at her binds. she began to pull at her restraints. “INMATE! STOP!”
“I’M NOT DYING!” Lorelai screeched in that auto-tuned mess of a voice. She wasn’t going to be subjected to Dr. Mara Sable’s torture. “I’M NOT GOING BACK!!!”
The walls of inmates began to laugh and bash their hands against their plastic walls. Lorelai was breaking free as Collins took several steps back as Lily grabbed Lorelai’s arm and began with Reggie’s help, began to force a sedative into the siren’s system.
~ ~ ~
Name: Larson, Lorelai
Alias: Rusalka
Crimes: Two counts of murder in the first degree, manslaughter in the first degree, kidnapping, attempted murder, attempted manslaughter, theft
Powers: Two known metahuman abilities. The ability to preform advanced hydrokinesis. While the extent of her powers is unclear, she has shown to form water constructs and control ice to an extent. Her second ability is a “siren song” where she can control others to do her bidding. Only stopping the song, disrupting the message or knocking out herself or the controlled.
Recommended by: Dr. Mara Sable, MD of Gotham City. Warden of the Mara Sable Institute.
APPROVED
Guys. Remember.
Remember what you must do.
Prank calling Pat at work....
