Dark_Knight1954
New Member
PART ONE
"So, he’s still not eating?" asked Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, psychiatric and administrative authority, as well as final beneficiary of the Elizabeth Arkham whose enormous fortune officially funded the gothic-appearing repository of incurably insane individuals, as he and a lowly colleague swiftly strolled through the half-lit hallways of the immense institution.
"No, Dr. Arkham," said the slightly built psychiatric intern, hurriedly remaining at the taller psychiatrist’s side, "he’s just sitting in his padded detention cell…staring at nothing."
"Hm," hummed Dr. Arkham as his aristocratic expression scowled much more deeply and not at all altruistically. "Well, he has pulled this starvation stunt before. Maybe we just need to ease up on his aripiprazole dosing. What’s he been getting, Jonathan?"
"Thirty milligrams," promptly replied the younger, thinner, shorter intern even as both men neared the cell located at the far end of the highest hall. "Four times a day."
"Yes," nodded Dr. Arkham knowingly, never slowing his swift strides. "Cut that back to ten milligrams four times a day. That should do the trick."
"Yes, Dr. Arkham."
Just then, the two stood directly before the quad-locked vault-like door, which Dr. Arkham promptly unlocked in the calm measured movements of a man completely convinced of his consummate control over all his puzzling patients.
Especially, this one.
"Dr. Hugo Strange," said Dr. Arkham with a harmonious smile, as the two stepped closer still to the sitting, seemingly catatonic ex-psychiatrist whose brilliance only managed to match his psychotic obsession over the Batman.
"Can you hear me, Dr. Strange? This is Dr. Jeremiah Arkham speaking. I am accompanied by…"
"I know who you are," said the still-staring-at-nothing ex-psychiatrist, Dr. Strange, in a tone not meant to intimidate. "I have been…expecting you. Especially…you."
For the first time in days, Dr. Hugo Strange, hairless head, black beard with no sign of a mustache, hooked hawkish nose upon which rested old-fashioned frame-free eyeglasses straight out of the Eighteenth or Nineteenth Centuries, gradually turned to point steadily with a forefinger in sore need of a manicure or, at the absolute least, the quick cutting of the ends of such longish nails.
Pointing right at the shorter, slighter-built intern and said…
"Dr. Jonathan Crane," said Dr. Strange in a smilingly lilting tone that quickly caught the younger man’s attention and held it like a magnet attracting iron filings. "You are bound for greater glory than being at the beck and call of Dr. Jeremiah Arkham. You should head up this facility and he should be your listless lackey."
"Wh-what?" stammered the intern named Jonathan Crane, Psy.D., Ph.D., who, like all pre-private practice physicians, had been interning under Dr. Arkham for some time now and did, at least secretly, believe that he could lead the psychiatric staff, made up of the such promising pre-interns as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, who planned upon writing a professional paper based solely on the Joker’s quite unique brand of insanity, as well as a few less-distinguished individuals not worth remembering.
A true master of mental manipulation, practiced so successfully before becoming an inmate of the very venerable old facility to which he’d been once staffed, Dr. Hugo Strange slowly stood and, even more slowly, turned toward the two supposedly important psychiatric practitioners, gradually lowering his pointing hand in the process.
"Come now, Dr. Strange…Hugo," began Dr. Arkham, positive of his own manipulative abilities with a staff-member turned criminal mastermind. At least, for a short time, until caught by the Caped Crimefighter. "You’ve obviously worked yourself into a frenzy once again. Such was why your medication had been initially increased, which, apparently, curtailed your appetite during these past few…"
"This is your chance, Dr. Crane," continued Dr. Strange in a somniferous voice, his bespectacled eyes leveled at the lesser of the two. "Your chance to dare take what is rightfully yours."
Even as a smile spread into a great grin that bespoke of the insanity of the once peerless psychiatrist, an almost mesmerized Jonathan Crane, Doctor of Psychology and Philosophy and, at one time, in the top two percent of his baccalaureate class, grabbed a suddenly struggling Dr. Jeremiah Arkham about the throat.
"Dr. Crane! What are you doing? I’ll have your job for this! I’ll have you committed just as I did Hugo Strange! Crane!"
"You don’t scare me," was all a wild-eyed Dr. Crane said as he choked his former boss just long enough to render him completely unconscious. Then, after allowing Dr. Hugo Strange to switch his stained inmate attire for the combination immaculate suit and starched white smock, Dr. Jonathan Crane and Dr. Strange quad-locked the true administrator of Arkham Asylum inside that dismal, though not at all little, cell.
"Thank you, Dr. Crane…Jonathan," said the decidedly ingenuous innovator of a variety of mind-controlling techniques, which had won Hugo Strange an abundance of accolades prior to his psychological crash during his increasing need to know who Batman truly was. "I leave Arkham Asylum in your highly capable hands. As for me…it is time to drag the Dark Knight…into the harsh light. Heh, heh, hehheheh."
END OF PART ONE
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PART TWO
Batman was, once more, reconnoitering via his obsidian Batmobile, turbo-engine temporarily silenced, meaning no raucous roar and no hellfire flames leaping out the cylindrical thruster at the rear of the bat-like vehicle, utilizing, instead, a special solar-powered hybrid sub-engine.
Sometimes stealth was much more important than speed.
It had taken two whole days and nights for two orderlies to discover that Dr. Hugo Strange had traded places with a choked-into-unconscious, by Dr. Jonathan Crane!, Dr. Jeremiah Arkham with whom Dr. Strange, celebrated addition to the index of inmates at Arkham Asylum, and had switched clothing in order to simply slip out via the main entrance.
One day of which the choked-into-unconsciousness Dr. Arkham had spent lying inside the quad-locked padded detention cell. The second straight night of not-at-all unusual yelling within the highest hall of the gothic institution that, thankfully at long last, ended with the eventual arrival said orderlies.
Since no orders had been given as to either the continuance or alteration in anti-psychotic medications, the sole reason for Dr. Jeremiah Arkham’s late-night visit to a seemingly catatonic Dr. Hugo Strange, none had bothered to look in on one of their more minor inmates. After all, they were currently holding the likes of Penguin, Riddler, Two-Face, and Joker, not to mention murderously insidious, but not super-criminal, individuals such as Victor Zsasz.
"Dr. Arkham?" said a wide-eyed orderly suddenly fearing for his continued vocation. "H-how? Wh-when?"
"Never mind that now, you fool!" snarled Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, his voice hoarse from incessantly shouting for help for the last two whole days. "Just get out word to the Gotham police that Dr. Hugo Strange has escaped! And tell them to arrest…!"
"Arrest who, Dr. Arkham?"
Dr. Jonathan Crane, dressed in a somewhat old-fashioned suit, no smock, stood taller and more egotistically narcissist than Dr. Arkham could scarcely conceive of his formerly modest intern, causing several seconds of shocked hesitation. Then…
"I want Dr. Crane…," loudly growled a greatly set-upon Dr. Arkham even as Dr. Crane swiftly lifted a half-face gas mask to his slender face, even as his eyes held a released-from-subconscious corners insanity-stimulated intellect and intention.
Then, just as swiftly, he tossed a simplistically designed gas-bomb at the feet of Dr. Jeremiah Arkham still flanked by the two orderlies…
Pop-Ssssssssssssss!
After coughing heavily from the inhalation of the yellowish mist, three formerly normal persons were suddenly swept up in unreasoning terror…over nothing.
"Ahhh!" Dr. Arkham shouted shakily as his eyes and face took on the mien of someone facing, quite literally, some imaginary monstrosity that had lain dormant within the darkest depths of his all-too-human mind. "S-stay a-away! D-don’t c-come any c-closer! P-please!"
Such was simultaneously mirrored by the two terrified orderlies as well, who were, in fact, so horrified by what had only existed within the dark depths of their own sub-conscious Selves, that they could do naught but scream uncontrollably.
Dr. Jonathan Crane, having developed this secret chemical concoction many months ago in order to privately experiment with it by exposing various lab animals to it in order to properly, as well as quite scientifically, register reactions of pure fear, now, thanks to Dr. Hugo Strange’s gentle mental manipulative nudge served a significantly higher purpose.
The Batmobile computer captured a little-larger-than-commonplace criminal act in progress the very dark heart of the Batman’s beloved city…
"…unknown masked suspects have broken into Axis Firearms on…"
Even as that ever-viscous smirk, when it came to violently quelling criminals, normal and supernormal, spread across the exposed part of a covered-by-cowl his square-jawed features, Batman commented under baited breath, "About time. I was beginning to think the worst crime tonight was going to involve pickpockets and purse snatchers. Maybe this will give me the rush I seek."
And, at that exact instant, dozens of city blocks from the Batmobile, turbo-engine once again engaged for faster-than-normal nighttime travel…
"That’s it, my mindless minions," Dr. Hugo Strange said in that same somniferous voice from the nocturnally eclipsed edges of the closed-for-the-day distributor, legally, of firearms. "Gather up everything we will need to establish my rightful regime over not only Gotham City citizenry, but, much more importantly, over the…"
"Drop the weapons and ammo," the distinctly husky voice stated from somewhere to the rear of the semi-darkened interior of Axis Firearms. One that was not only familiar, but actually welcomed by Dr. Hugo Strange, still lingering in the night-shadows. "If you thugs give up now, there’ll be no reason for me to have to hurt you. Your decision."
The darkly-clad, black ski-masked, not surprisingly!, burly B-and-E offenders not only ignored the as-yet-unseen Batman’s almost whispered, in a consciously sinister fashion, demand to obey the Dark Knight, but promptly spread out in preparation for a fight not only longed for by the Cowled One, but by the still-hidden Dr. Strange as well.
"Perfect," hissed the sneering Hugo Strange, remaining far removed from the upcoming explosion of vindictive violence.
Meanwhile, back at Arkham Asylum…
"Perfect," insanely said Dr. Jonathan Crane in the obsolescent immensity of the office once occupied, for decades, by Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, currently a fear-racked resident, along with two terrified-over-nothing orderlies, of the gothic institution, as he looked over the full-head mask and matching outfit he’d cobbled together through the bastardization of a highly imaginative mingling of a variety of nefarious articles of clothing in preparation for becoming something far greater than his former Self. "And now…I shall be known as…Scarecrow."
Slipping out of the superannuated suit, Dr. Crane a.k.a. Scarecrow donned not only the purposely shabby costume, but, just before tugging the full-head scarecrow mask over his gaunt countenance, the half-face gas-mask used earlier this evil evening was fitted perfectly over his slender nose and forever-frowning, from this moment on, mouth.
Thus, Scarecrow could completely protect himself while using his fear-gas bombs on the rest of the staffers at Arkham Asylum, with the possible exception of Dr. Harleen Quinzel, prior to throwing wide the detention doors of a large number of criminally-insane inmates. But not the super-criminal inmates. For such as they would invariably attempt to usurp his newly established power-base.
"Ha, ha, ha, hahahahahaha!"
"Don’t say you weren’t warned," maliciously snarled Batman even as he utilized intensely trained-and-executed martial arts moves to not only keep the currently attacking team of darkly clothed/hooded individuals, none of them shorter than 6’6" and none weighing one ounce less than 275 pounds of pumped-up muscle, somewhat off-balance and at bay.
A Bat-gloved fist slammed solidly into the black ski-masked face of one, while a Bat-booted foot planted itself firmly between the spread-legged stance of another, then Batman spun expertly to smash-kick the jaw-line of yet another, during a gray Bat-suited elbow simultaneously impacting with teeth-rattling force against still another…
…all while the blows being landed by black-clothed/masked assailants basically being absorbed by the special Bat-padding within said Bat-suit, and while double-fisted downward blows were also absorbed, a little more easily, by the impenetrable bat-eared cowl covering over half of the head of the billionaire beneath.
Not that the impacts made by black-gloved fists and black-booted feet didn’t take at least some toll on the Cowled One. Even bulletproof padding would, after a prolonged period of punches and kicks, permit some to painfully affect skin and muscle within the Bat-suit. Not to mention ever-so-slightly disorienting the Caped Crusader.
Exactly the situation sought by the hidden-in-shadow Dr. Hugo Strange…
"Now, my Monster Men!" loudly prodded the mind manipulative voice of Dr. Strange even as he stepped into the limited light to expose his latest attempt to become the Bat in an ongoing obsessive desire to discover the true identity of the Dark Knight.
His hairless, black bearded, bespectacled head very visible, along with his devilish sneer, somewhere along the line Hugo Strange had traded his borrowed-from-Jeremiah Arkham’s designer suit for a non-protectively padded replica of the blue-gray costume so famously worn by the cowl-and-caped hero.
Even as Dr. Strange somehow hypnotically intensified the fighting ferocity of the burly combatants currently standing about the Batman.
"Dismember the Batman! Starting with…his head! Heh, heh, heh, heheheheh, hehhhhh!"
"Hugo Strange…"
No sooner had Batman managed that identity-discerning statement than the so-called Monster Men, in truth larger-than-average male individuals who, until this singularly strange night, had never once considered breaking into a business such as Axis Firearms, let alone battling it out with the likes of the Caped Crimefighter whom they had actually idolized to a certain extent.
Something, in point of fact, they would’ve never ever dreamed of doing…until Dr. Hugo Strange’s mystifying methods of mental manipulation.
Something even the Batman had, at least once, experienced years earlier just before apprehending Hugo Strange the very first time.
Seemingly summoning super-human strength, no doubt due to the post-hypnotic self-secreted fight-or-flight rush of adrenaline, the Monster Men, outnumbering the Batman, managed to immobilize muscular arms as well as powerful legs. Thus forcing the Cowled One onto his caped back in the midst of a trashed-by-combative action firearms mart.
Thus was when, at long last, Dr. Hugo Strange approached. One fake Bat-booted foot before the other. Fake Bat-gloved hands held in an almost unmoving manner at fake Bat-suit/Bat-caped sides stretched tightly about a surprising robust body belonging to someone who had, in the years since being sent to the very same institution for the insane where he himself had held a staff-psychiatrist position prior to his intellectual meltdown, done an endless number of push-ups and sit-ups.
Possibly preparing for this once-in-a-lifetime moment.
"Relax, Batman," said the still-sneering Dr. Strange in a tone meant to manipulate the brilliant mind of the billionaire inside the true Bat-suit. "I assure you that, once I learn your well-protected truth, I shall instruct my Monster Men to grant you a quick, even easy, death. Heh, heh, heh."
Stalling for time, as well as mentally chastising himself for not utilizing the antipersonnel accouterments contained within his bright-yellow Bat-belt in favor of hands-on, as well as feet-on, fighting, Batman asked, "Why do you call them ‘Monster Men’, Hugo?"
Still slowly striding toward the struggling-but-supine Dark Knight Detective, and still sneering insanely, Dr. Hugo Strange said almost lecture-like, "Because, Batman, each of us has a ‘monster’ somewhere within our thoughts. Our dreams. Our nightmares. Each of us is a hair’s breadth from being reduced to bloodthirsty savagery. Even you. You must admit, Batman, that your success and survival as the masked marauder of the middle of any night comes from a place so potentially vile…even evil…that only the pretense of performing as a costumed super-hero separates you from the homicidal likes of the Joker…or even sick-beyond-belief Victor Zsasz. Yes?"
As much as the hero behind the cowl hated to admit it, even to himself!, Dr. Strange spoke at least a little truth in such a psychologically-dissecting statement. Ever since Bruce Wayne had achieved adulthood and applied not only a sizeable amount of his fortune, but an equally considerable amount of time in training/learning, his secretively sole goal was to not just to stop above-average criminals and, most especially, super-criminals, but to do so in such a fashion as to inflict as much mortal pain on said perps as possible. Just short of actually killing in cold-blood.
"So," said Batman, still firmly held flat by the kneeling Monster Men surrounding his muscularly athletic bat-costumed form, "you’ve developed your quasi-mesmerizing, mind manipulative techniques to the point where you no longer need to rely only upon the weak-minded criminal types as you’d done when I caught up with you so many years ago. Is that it, Hugo? You can actually control normal law-abiding individuals?"
Now kneeling next to the cowl-covered head of the Dark Knight, the madly smirking, bespectacled, bald, fake Bat-suited ex-psychiatrist extraordinaire reached down to do what he’d dreamed of doing for the entire time he’d spent inside a sizeable, dank, padded detention cell in the highest hall of Arkham Asylum.
"Time for the unmasking," said Dr. Strange in a low, barely audible tone as the smirking smile never wavered, even a little, while clutching at the edges of the indigo cowl. "And I’m betting you are one of the few wealthy, as well as young and healthy, businessmen bent upon protecting personal investments within Gotham’s sprawling city limits."
Just then, with a jerk guaranteed to fully expose the face so long held hidden from not only Gotham City, but, thanks to internet linked searches, the world…
"Ahhhhh," broadly grinning, wide-eyed, with frame-free spectacles still prompted precariously on a hooked hawkish nose, Dr. Hugo Strange said in a slow, self-satisfied exhale. "I should’ve guessed. Batman is…Bruce Wayne. Ha, ha, ha, hahahahaha!"
END OF PART TWO
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PART THREE/CONCLUSION
Clark Kent, his Superman guise unseen because of his glasses, dress shirt, tie, dress pants and shoes, and, lastly, the somewhat nerdish fashion in which he’d wear his jet-black locks when not soaring through the sky to "save the day", was relaxing in his Metropolitan apartment’s snug little living room. Being more than roomy enough for the Man of Steel, the sofa-sitting superhero-in-disguise was watching a sizeable plasma screen television with nearly two hundred channels of digitally-perfect forms of information and entertainment. Using his TV remote, Clark meandered via the more than satisfying selection displayed for his viewing indulgence.
Though his Kryptonian structure…cellular, skeletal, musculature, and much, much more…meant super-speed was as customary for such as he as walking for the average Human man or woman, Clark Kent still utilized his slender remote control at exactly the self-same speed as virtually all channel-surfers.
However, the instant a news special, being broadcast from Gotham City, snapped onto the crystal clear screen, Clark’s bespectacled eyes seized upon such images while he increased the sound system’s volume well past its mid-range…
"…once again, Gotham City has been rocked by a series of criminal assaults involving a group of muscular men dressed all in black, apparently led by former staff psychiatrist-turned-psychotic Dr. Hugo Strange dressed in a cowl-free version of the Batman’s unique blue-gray costume. Worse, the Batman, himself, has apparently disappeared from the city under presumed suspicious circumstances. And, to make matters worse, a new villain has emerged calling himself Scarecrow and…well, this bank footage from this morning’s daring robbery should help explain. Uh, roll that tape, please."
Now having moved to the very edge of the sofa, muscular forearms resting on unbreakable Kryptonian knees while the still-bespectacled reporter, Clark Kent, took in the totality of the news bulletin’s film footage taken from a Gotham City bank’s security camera…
Suddenly, in the midst of the customers slowly lining up before pretty tellers at the start of a new bank business day, someone, dressed as a scarecrow, entered and hurled down bomb-like objects which released a yellowish mist that, in a matter of mere seconds, caused all inside, including the armed-with-revolvers security guards, to quickly cower as if being confronted by some profusely nightmarish vision conceivable.
Allowing the utterly unaffected Scarecrow to steal cash at his leisure before easily escaping.
"…and, once again, Gotham City police have absolutely no leads on this Scarecrow criminal, but it has been learned that some sort of as-yet-unidentifiable chemical gas was responsible for the inducing of such fear that even the armed guards in the bank were incapable of putting a stop to such a daring daylight bank robbery. As to the victims of said fear gas, all are being treated at Gotham City Hospital and should soon recover. And, let us not forget that the Batman is still missing. In regards to normal criminal activity…"
Swwwwoooooooossssssshhhhhh!
Having swiftly, at super-speed, changed from Clark Kent to Kal-El’s secondary identity of Superman to streak off through Metropolis’ daytime sky far too fast to follow, the hero in blue-red headed straight for Gotham City via an airborne trip that would take scant seconds to cover the several hundred miles separating these two massive cosmopolitan centers.
"Tell me, Mr. Wayne, or, if you prefer, Batman," said the insanely sneering Hugo Strange, former Doctor of Psychology and Philosophy, former member of the psychiatric staff of the famous, and some might even say infamous, Arkham Asylum as he sat across from a heavily chained-against-a-metal wall, de-cowled Caped Crimefighter, even as Strange, himself, still wore the replica of the blue-gray costume of the Batman. "How does it feel to have your secret Self exposed at long last?"
Slowly lifting his battered and bruised, thanks to earlier battle with the black garbed bootlickers of Dr. Strange, billionaire’s face to stare intensely at the seated ex-psychiatric expert in mental manipulation, the unmasked Dark Knight snarled, "So far, Strange, I’ve only been exposed to you and your mindless ‘Monster Men’. What’s your ultimate intent? Are you going to expose me to the world?"
"Though I know that such an act would fulfill the greatest dread of your less-than-sane existence," said the smirking madman named Hugo Strange, while still playing the manipulator of mind and emotion to perfection, "such would never completely satisfy my deepest desires.
Especially since it was you who was solely responsible for both ending my, until then, illustrious life’s work…thus causing me to become a member of the drugged dregs of Arkham Asylum. Forever ruined. Forever forgotten. No, Batman…Bruce…my intentions are to break your supposedly indomitable will…just as I have done to those previously law-abiding brutes who are now my mysterious Monster Men still terrorizing the so-called crème-de-la-crème of Gotham City while tying up Gotham’s finest, uniformed and plainclothes, with seemingly senselessly violent criminal acts."
"What makes you think," growled an angry unmasked crimefighter, with laser-like glare, "that anything you do to me…even exposing my true identity!…could ever place me under your ‘spell’, Strange?"
"Oh, I’ll admit that manipulating your remarkable mind," said Dr. Strange as he slowly stood, looking a little ludicrous in his pseudo-Batman, sans pointy-eared cowl, costume, "would pose an extremely perplexing problem. But it is not at all…impossible. As you will now see with your uncovered-by-cowl eyes."
Batman, bared countenance not withstanding, struggled against the unyielding metal of the heavy chains binding him so snuggly against the metal wall and couldn’t help but wish that, somehow, he could make contact with even one compartment of his yellow Bat-belt, which no one but he could unbuckle due to concealed locks the likes of which most men, even an ingenious puzzle-solving villain like the Riddler, could scarcely conceive, let alone unlock.
Unfortunately…
At that exact same moment, slowing slightly while over-flying Gotham City, Superman’s X-ray/telescopic super-vision, along with super-hearing, helped him swiftly swoop down to, first, stop seemingly aimless acts of violence and criminality by those black ski-masked/clothed/booted Monster Men so mesmerized by Hugo Strange.
With naught but snarls of mindlessness and bloodthirstiness, the Monster Men, actually merely Human to the smallest molecule, rabidly attacked the just-landed Man of Steel. Applying black-gloved punches and black-booted kicks against someone who was, quite literally, invulnerable to such measly blows, and who, just then, used a single swift blast of his super-breath to send said Monster Men sailing.
As slamming impacts against solid outer walls instantly stunned the masked men, Superman next used super-speed and super-strength to encircle their burly black-garbed group within uprooted streetlights so that the Gotham City police, arriving in black-and-whites as well as unmarked cars driven by plainclothes detectives, could make good a mass arrest.
Not having the luxury of talking with the likes of Sgt. Renee Montoya, still a highly-decorated police officer, and Detective Harvey Bullock, the seemingly dimwitted, dirty détective extraordinaire, Superman flew from the scene.
As to Commissioner James Gordon, this was one situation which didn’t need his undeviating involvement. He was much more worried about the Batman’s current whereabouts.
As was Superman…
"You can’t resist, Mr. Wayne…Batman," Dr. Hugo Strange said with a dangerous grin even as the chain-held Dark Knight was suddenly assaulted by swirling lights and soporific sound, both designed to twist his fragile judgement and straightforward senses inside-out and, therefore, break the brilliant brain of the billionaire crimefighter.
"Relax your mind, Batman. Look at the lights, Bruce. For so long, you have hidden your base Self not only from Gotham…but from your own very existence. You have played the billionaire socialite, the talking head of a globally-established mega-corporation. But you are now and always have been…the boy who saw his parents brutally gunned down. The boy who blamed himself for such a senseless killing of the only two people in the whole world who mattered to you. Give in to me, Batman…I, Dr. Hugo Strange, shall set you free."
Struggling against Dr. Strange’s mind manipulative techniques, Batman/Bruce Wayne teetered on the edge of a psychological chasm. Until…
"Dr. Strange, we have a problem!" a mysteriously muffled voice said from the doorway of Hugo Strange’s supposed hideaway in the heart of Gotham City’s industrial section, causing a suddenly scowling ex-psychiatric expert to spin on fake Bat-booted feet.
"Crane!" an enraged Hugo Strange growled at the sight of Scarecrow, his special stitched-up head-mask and half-gas mask promptly removed to reveal a look of unquestionable concern born of naturally-produced fear. "How did you know where to find me?"
"That’s not important right now!" said a deeply disturbed, in more ways than one!, Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow, even as a nearly-enchanted Batman, ducking the exposed face of Bruce Wayne so that the exceedingly distressed Crane/Scarecrow did not see. "There’s big trouble on the way! Big blue trouble!"
Even as such registered within a stressed-out/half-hypnotized Caped Crusader, the super-powered subject of Scarecrow’s unscheduled visit smashed through the roof and wall with the destructive force of a small explosive device…or a wrecking ball larger than anyone could conceive.
So startling was that singular super-entrance that Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow dropped one of his fear bombs, which loudly discharged its yellowish mist which swiftly caused both he and Hugo Strange to succumb to unreasoning terror and dropping to their respective knees…
"Gyiiiiii! Don’t hurt us! I-it’s s-some sort of Super-monster!"
"Noooooo! It’s a zombie in blue-red! Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me!"
…even as Superman, using just enough super-strength and super-speed to free the de-cowled fellow crimefighter, streaked straight back through the self-same smashed impact-point made upon the Man of Steel’s entrance mere moments earlier.
"Help us! Somebody! We’re trapped! Trapped!"
"Save us before the zombie in blue comes back! Save us!"
"Are you sure there’s no lasting effects from what Hugo Strange had tried to do to you?" asked Superman solemnly as he stood, muscular arms folded before massive chest, across from Batman, cowl once again hiding his handsome face, as well as the bruises by Hugo Strange’s arrested Monster Men, propped against the side of his obsidian Batmobile.
"I think so, Superman," the Dark Knight sighed heavily, even though his head felt light and his vision was still slightly blurred. "One thing I do know…had you not burst in when you did…"
It wasn’t necessary to finish the statement of truth, as Superman smilingly said, "Don’t mention it, my old friend. You have saved me, too, you know. Not to mention helping me save…Lois."
With a half-smile/half-smirk dominating the exposed portion of his cowl-covered face, Batman merely replied, "Guess we’re pretty much even. For now."
As one superhero streaked away through an urbanite sky as twilight slowly fell…
…the other sped away in the cocoon-like cockpit of a slightly bat-shaped vehicle with a turbo-engine created tongue of seemingly satanic flame leaping out from its cylindrical end.
For Superman, the day of heroics was at an end.
For Batman, it was just beginning.
END
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"So, he’s still not eating?" asked Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, psychiatric and administrative authority, as well as final beneficiary of the Elizabeth Arkham whose enormous fortune officially funded the gothic-appearing repository of incurably insane individuals, as he and a lowly colleague swiftly strolled through the half-lit hallways of the immense institution.
"No, Dr. Arkham," said the slightly built psychiatric intern, hurriedly remaining at the taller psychiatrist’s side, "he’s just sitting in his padded detention cell…staring at nothing."
"Hm," hummed Dr. Arkham as his aristocratic expression scowled much more deeply and not at all altruistically. "Well, he has pulled this starvation stunt before. Maybe we just need to ease up on his aripiprazole dosing. What’s he been getting, Jonathan?"
"Thirty milligrams," promptly replied the younger, thinner, shorter intern even as both men neared the cell located at the far end of the highest hall. "Four times a day."
"Yes," nodded Dr. Arkham knowingly, never slowing his swift strides. "Cut that back to ten milligrams four times a day. That should do the trick."
"Yes, Dr. Arkham."
Just then, the two stood directly before the quad-locked vault-like door, which Dr. Arkham promptly unlocked in the calm measured movements of a man completely convinced of his consummate control over all his puzzling patients.
Especially, this one.
"Dr. Hugo Strange," said Dr. Arkham with a harmonious smile, as the two stepped closer still to the sitting, seemingly catatonic ex-psychiatrist whose brilliance only managed to match his psychotic obsession over the Batman.
"Can you hear me, Dr. Strange? This is Dr. Jeremiah Arkham speaking. I am accompanied by…"
"I know who you are," said the still-staring-at-nothing ex-psychiatrist, Dr. Strange, in a tone not meant to intimidate. "I have been…expecting you. Especially…you."
For the first time in days, Dr. Hugo Strange, hairless head, black beard with no sign of a mustache, hooked hawkish nose upon which rested old-fashioned frame-free eyeglasses straight out of the Eighteenth or Nineteenth Centuries, gradually turned to point steadily with a forefinger in sore need of a manicure or, at the absolute least, the quick cutting of the ends of such longish nails.
Pointing right at the shorter, slighter-built intern and said…
"Dr. Jonathan Crane," said Dr. Strange in a smilingly lilting tone that quickly caught the younger man’s attention and held it like a magnet attracting iron filings. "You are bound for greater glory than being at the beck and call of Dr. Jeremiah Arkham. You should head up this facility and he should be your listless lackey."
"Wh-what?" stammered the intern named Jonathan Crane, Psy.D., Ph.D., who, like all pre-private practice physicians, had been interning under Dr. Arkham for some time now and did, at least secretly, believe that he could lead the psychiatric staff, made up of the such promising pre-interns as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, who planned upon writing a professional paper based solely on the Joker’s quite unique brand of insanity, as well as a few less-distinguished individuals not worth remembering.
A true master of mental manipulation, practiced so successfully before becoming an inmate of the very venerable old facility to which he’d been once staffed, Dr. Hugo Strange slowly stood and, even more slowly, turned toward the two supposedly important psychiatric practitioners, gradually lowering his pointing hand in the process.
"Come now, Dr. Strange…Hugo," began Dr. Arkham, positive of his own manipulative abilities with a staff-member turned criminal mastermind. At least, for a short time, until caught by the Caped Crimefighter. "You’ve obviously worked yourself into a frenzy once again. Such was why your medication had been initially increased, which, apparently, curtailed your appetite during these past few…"
"This is your chance, Dr. Crane," continued Dr. Strange in a somniferous voice, his bespectacled eyes leveled at the lesser of the two. "Your chance to dare take what is rightfully yours."
Even as a smile spread into a great grin that bespoke of the insanity of the once peerless psychiatrist, an almost mesmerized Jonathan Crane, Doctor of Psychology and Philosophy and, at one time, in the top two percent of his baccalaureate class, grabbed a suddenly struggling Dr. Jeremiah Arkham about the throat.
"Dr. Crane! What are you doing? I’ll have your job for this! I’ll have you committed just as I did Hugo Strange! Crane!"
"You don’t scare me," was all a wild-eyed Dr. Crane said as he choked his former boss just long enough to render him completely unconscious. Then, after allowing Dr. Hugo Strange to switch his stained inmate attire for the combination immaculate suit and starched white smock, Dr. Jonathan Crane and Dr. Strange quad-locked the true administrator of Arkham Asylum inside that dismal, though not at all little, cell.
"Thank you, Dr. Crane…Jonathan," said the decidedly ingenuous innovator of a variety of mind-controlling techniques, which had won Hugo Strange an abundance of accolades prior to his psychological crash during his increasing need to know who Batman truly was. "I leave Arkham Asylum in your highly capable hands. As for me…it is time to drag the Dark Knight…into the harsh light. Heh, heh, hehheheh."
END OF PART ONE
______________________________
PART TWO
Batman was, once more, reconnoitering via his obsidian Batmobile, turbo-engine temporarily silenced, meaning no raucous roar and no hellfire flames leaping out the cylindrical thruster at the rear of the bat-like vehicle, utilizing, instead, a special solar-powered hybrid sub-engine.
Sometimes stealth was much more important than speed.
It had taken two whole days and nights for two orderlies to discover that Dr. Hugo Strange had traded places with a choked-into-unconscious, by Dr. Jonathan Crane!, Dr. Jeremiah Arkham with whom Dr. Strange, celebrated addition to the index of inmates at Arkham Asylum, and had switched clothing in order to simply slip out via the main entrance.
One day of which the choked-into-unconsciousness Dr. Arkham had spent lying inside the quad-locked padded detention cell. The second straight night of not-at-all unusual yelling within the highest hall of the gothic institution that, thankfully at long last, ended with the eventual arrival said orderlies.
Since no orders had been given as to either the continuance or alteration in anti-psychotic medications, the sole reason for Dr. Jeremiah Arkham’s late-night visit to a seemingly catatonic Dr. Hugo Strange, none had bothered to look in on one of their more minor inmates. After all, they were currently holding the likes of Penguin, Riddler, Two-Face, and Joker, not to mention murderously insidious, but not super-criminal, individuals such as Victor Zsasz.
"Dr. Arkham?" said a wide-eyed orderly suddenly fearing for his continued vocation. "H-how? Wh-when?"
"Never mind that now, you fool!" snarled Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, his voice hoarse from incessantly shouting for help for the last two whole days. "Just get out word to the Gotham police that Dr. Hugo Strange has escaped! And tell them to arrest…!"
"Arrest who, Dr. Arkham?"
Dr. Jonathan Crane, dressed in a somewhat old-fashioned suit, no smock, stood taller and more egotistically narcissist than Dr. Arkham could scarcely conceive of his formerly modest intern, causing several seconds of shocked hesitation. Then…
"I want Dr. Crane…," loudly growled a greatly set-upon Dr. Arkham even as Dr. Crane swiftly lifted a half-face gas mask to his slender face, even as his eyes held a released-from-subconscious corners insanity-stimulated intellect and intention.
Then, just as swiftly, he tossed a simplistically designed gas-bomb at the feet of Dr. Jeremiah Arkham still flanked by the two orderlies…
Pop-Ssssssssssssss!
After coughing heavily from the inhalation of the yellowish mist, three formerly normal persons were suddenly swept up in unreasoning terror…over nothing.
"Ahhh!" Dr. Arkham shouted shakily as his eyes and face took on the mien of someone facing, quite literally, some imaginary monstrosity that had lain dormant within the darkest depths of his all-too-human mind. "S-stay a-away! D-don’t c-come any c-closer! P-please!"
Such was simultaneously mirrored by the two terrified orderlies as well, who were, in fact, so horrified by what had only existed within the dark depths of their own sub-conscious Selves, that they could do naught but scream uncontrollably.
Dr. Jonathan Crane, having developed this secret chemical concoction many months ago in order to privately experiment with it by exposing various lab animals to it in order to properly, as well as quite scientifically, register reactions of pure fear, now, thanks to Dr. Hugo Strange’s gentle mental manipulative nudge served a significantly higher purpose.
The Batmobile computer captured a little-larger-than-commonplace criminal act in progress the very dark heart of the Batman’s beloved city…
"…unknown masked suspects have broken into Axis Firearms on…"
Even as that ever-viscous smirk, when it came to violently quelling criminals, normal and supernormal, spread across the exposed part of a covered-by-cowl his square-jawed features, Batman commented under baited breath, "About time. I was beginning to think the worst crime tonight was going to involve pickpockets and purse snatchers. Maybe this will give me the rush I seek."
And, at that exact instant, dozens of city blocks from the Batmobile, turbo-engine once again engaged for faster-than-normal nighttime travel…
"That’s it, my mindless minions," Dr. Hugo Strange said in that same somniferous voice from the nocturnally eclipsed edges of the closed-for-the-day distributor, legally, of firearms. "Gather up everything we will need to establish my rightful regime over not only Gotham City citizenry, but, much more importantly, over the…"
"Drop the weapons and ammo," the distinctly husky voice stated from somewhere to the rear of the semi-darkened interior of Axis Firearms. One that was not only familiar, but actually welcomed by Dr. Hugo Strange, still lingering in the night-shadows. "If you thugs give up now, there’ll be no reason for me to have to hurt you. Your decision."
The darkly-clad, black ski-masked, not surprisingly!, burly B-and-E offenders not only ignored the as-yet-unseen Batman’s almost whispered, in a consciously sinister fashion, demand to obey the Dark Knight, but promptly spread out in preparation for a fight not only longed for by the Cowled One, but by the still-hidden Dr. Strange as well.
"Perfect," hissed the sneering Hugo Strange, remaining far removed from the upcoming explosion of vindictive violence.
Meanwhile, back at Arkham Asylum…
"Perfect," insanely said Dr. Jonathan Crane in the obsolescent immensity of the office once occupied, for decades, by Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, currently a fear-racked resident, along with two terrified-over-nothing orderlies, of the gothic institution, as he looked over the full-head mask and matching outfit he’d cobbled together through the bastardization of a highly imaginative mingling of a variety of nefarious articles of clothing in preparation for becoming something far greater than his former Self. "And now…I shall be known as…Scarecrow."
Slipping out of the superannuated suit, Dr. Crane a.k.a. Scarecrow donned not only the purposely shabby costume, but, just before tugging the full-head scarecrow mask over his gaunt countenance, the half-face gas-mask used earlier this evil evening was fitted perfectly over his slender nose and forever-frowning, from this moment on, mouth.
Thus, Scarecrow could completely protect himself while using his fear-gas bombs on the rest of the staffers at Arkham Asylum, with the possible exception of Dr. Harleen Quinzel, prior to throwing wide the detention doors of a large number of criminally-insane inmates. But not the super-criminal inmates. For such as they would invariably attempt to usurp his newly established power-base.
"Ha, ha, ha, hahahahahaha!"
"Don’t say you weren’t warned," maliciously snarled Batman even as he utilized intensely trained-and-executed martial arts moves to not only keep the currently attacking team of darkly clothed/hooded individuals, none of them shorter than 6’6" and none weighing one ounce less than 275 pounds of pumped-up muscle, somewhat off-balance and at bay.
A Bat-gloved fist slammed solidly into the black ski-masked face of one, while a Bat-booted foot planted itself firmly between the spread-legged stance of another, then Batman spun expertly to smash-kick the jaw-line of yet another, during a gray Bat-suited elbow simultaneously impacting with teeth-rattling force against still another…
…all while the blows being landed by black-clothed/masked assailants basically being absorbed by the special Bat-padding within said Bat-suit, and while double-fisted downward blows were also absorbed, a little more easily, by the impenetrable bat-eared cowl covering over half of the head of the billionaire beneath.
Not that the impacts made by black-gloved fists and black-booted feet didn’t take at least some toll on the Cowled One. Even bulletproof padding would, after a prolonged period of punches and kicks, permit some to painfully affect skin and muscle within the Bat-suit. Not to mention ever-so-slightly disorienting the Caped Crusader.
Exactly the situation sought by the hidden-in-shadow Dr. Hugo Strange…
"Now, my Monster Men!" loudly prodded the mind manipulative voice of Dr. Strange even as he stepped into the limited light to expose his latest attempt to become the Bat in an ongoing obsessive desire to discover the true identity of the Dark Knight.
His hairless, black bearded, bespectacled head very visible, along with his devilish sneer, somewhere along the line Hugo Strange had traded his borrowed-from-Jeremiah Arkham’s designer suit for a non-protectively padded replica of the blue-gray costume so famously worn by the cowl-and-caped hero.
Even as Dr. Strange somehow hypnotically intensified the fighting ferocity of the burly combatants currently standing about the Batman.
"Dismember the Batman! Starting with…his head! Heh, heh, heh, heheheheh, hehhhhh!"
"Hugo Strange…"
No sooner had Batman managed that identity-discerning statement than the so-called Monster Men, in truth larger-than-average male individuals who, until this singularly strange night, had never once considered breaking into a business such as Axis Firearms, let alone battling it out with the likes of the Caped Crimefighter whom they had actually idolized to a certain extent.
Something, in point of fact, they would’ve never ever dreamed of doing…until Dr. Hugo Strange’s mystifying methods of mental manipulation.
Something even the Batman had, at least once, experienced years earlier just before apprehending Hugo Strange the very first time.
Seemingly summoning super-human strength, no doubt due to the post-hypnotic self-secreted fight-or-flight rush of adrenaline, the Monster Men, outnumbering the Batman, managed to immobilize muscular arms as well as powerful legs. Thus forcing the Cowled One onto his caped back in the midst of a trashed-by-combative action firearms mart.
Thus was when, at long last, Dr. Hugo Strange approached. One fake Bat-booted foot before the other. Fake Bat-gloved hands held in an almost unmoving manner at fake Bat-suit/Bat-caped sides stretched tightly about a surprising robust body belonging to someone who had, in the years since being sent to the very same institution for the insane where he himself had held a staff-psychiatrist position prior to his intellectual meltdown, done an endless number of push-ups and sit-ups.
Possibly preparing for this once-in-a-lifetime moment.
"Relax, Batman," said the still-sneering Dr. Strange in a tone meant to manipulate the brilliant mind of the billionaire inside the true Bat-suit. "I assure you that, once I learn your well-protected truth, I shall instruct my Monster Men to grant you a quick, even easy, death. Heh, heh, heh."
Stalling for time, as well as mentally chastising himself for not utilizing the antipersonnel accouterments contained within his bright-yellow Bat-belt in favor of hands-on, as well as feet-on, fighting, Batman asked, "Why do you call them ‘Monster Men’, Hugo?"
Still slowly striding toward the struggling-but-supine Dark Knight Detective, and still sneering insanely, Dr. Hugo Strange said almost lecture-like, "Because, Batman, each of us has a ‘monster’ somewhere within our thoughts. Our dreams. Our nightmares. Each of us is a hair’s breadth from being reduced to bloodthirsty savagery. Even you. You must admit, Batman, that your success and survival as the masked marauder of the middle of any night comes from a place so potentially vile…even evil…that only the pretense of performing as a costumed super-hero separates you from the homicidal likes of the Joker…or even sick-beyond-belief Victor Zsasz. Yes?"
As much as the hero behind the cowl hated to admit it, even to himself!, Dr. Strange spoke at least a little truth in such a psychologically-dissecting statement. Ever since Bruce Wayne had achieved adulthood and applied not only a sizeable amount of his fortune, but an equally considerable amount of time in training/learning, his secretively sole goal was to not just to stop above-average criminals and, most especially, super-criminals, but to do so in such a fashion as to inflict as much mortal pain on said perps as possible. Just short of actually killing in cold-blood.
"So," said Batman, still firmly held flat by the kneeling Monster Men surrounding his muscularly athletic bat-costumed form, "you’ve developed your quasi-mesmerizing, mind manipulative techniques to the point where you no longer need to rely only upon the weak-minded criminal types as you’d done when I caught up with you so many years ago. Is that it, Hugo? You can actually control normal law-abiding individuals?"
Now kneeling next to the cowl-covered head of the Dark Knight, the madly smirking, bespectacled, bald, fake Bat-suited ex-psychiatrist extraordinaire reached down to do what he’d dreamed of doing for the entire time he’d spent inside a sizeable, dank, padded detention cell in the highest hall of Arkham Asylum.
"Time for the unmasking," said Dr. Strange in a low, barely audible tone as the smirking smile never wavered, even a little, while clutching at the edges of the indigo cowl. "And I’m betting you are one of the few wealthy, as well as young and healthy, businessmen bent upon protecting personal investments within Gotham’s sprawling city limits."
Just then, with a jerk guaranteed to fully expose the face so long held hidden from not only Gotham City, but, thanks to internet linked searches, the world…
"Ahhhhh," broadly grinning, wide-eyed, with frame-free spectacles still prompted precariously on a hooked hawkish nose, Dr. Hugo Strange said in a slow, self-satisfied exhale. "I should’ve guessed. Batman is…Bruce Wayne. Ha, ha, ha, hahahahaha!"
END OF PART TWO
_________________________________
PART THREE/CONCLUSION
Clark Kent, his Superman guise unseen because of his glasses, dress shirt, tie, dress pants and shoes, and, lastly, the somewhat nerdish fashion in which he’d wear his jet-black locks when not soaring through the sky to "save the day", was relaxing in his Metropolitan apartment’s snug little living room. Being more than roomy enough for the Man of Steel, the sofa-sitting superhero-in-disguise was watching a sizeable plasma screen television with nearly two hundred channels of digitally-perfect forms of information and entertainment. Using his TV remote, Clark meandered via the more than satisfying selection displayed for his viewing indulgence.
Though his Kryptonian structure…cellular, skeletal, musculature, and much, much more…meant super-speed was as customary for such as he as walking for the average Human man or woman, Clark Kent still utilized his slender remote control at exactly the self-same speed as virtually all channel-surfers.
However, the instant a news special, being broadcast from Gotham City, snapped onto the crystal clear screen, Clark’s bespectacled eyes seized upon such images while he increased the sound system’s volume well past its mid-range…
"…once again, Gotham City has been rocked by a series of criminal assaults involving a group of muscular men dressed all in black, apparently led by former staff psychiatrist-turned-psychotic Dr. Hugo Strange dressed in a cowl-free version of the Batman’s unique blue-gray costume. Worse, the Batman, himself, has apparently disappeared from the city under presumed suspicious circumstances. And, to make matters worse, a new villain has emerged calling himself Scarecrow and…well, this bank footage from this morning’s daring robbery should help explain. Uh, roll that tape, please."
Now having moved to the very edge of the sofa, muscular forearms resting on unbreakable Kryptonian knees while the still-bespectacled reporter, Clark Kent, took in the totality of the news bulletin’s film footage taken from a Gotham City bank’s security camera…
Suddenly, in the midst of the customers slowly lining up before pretty tellers at the start of a new bank business day, someone, dressed as a scarecrow, entered and hurled down bomb-like objects which released a yellowish mist that, in a matter of mere seconds, caused all inside, including the armed-with-revolvers security guards, to quickly cower as if being confronted by some profusely nightmarish vision conceivable.
Allowing the utterly unaffected Scarecrow to steal cash at his leisure before easily escaping.
"…and, once again, Gotham City police have absolutely no leads on this Scarecrow criminal, but it has been learned that some sort of as-yet-unidentifiable chemical gas was responsible for the inducing of such fear that even the armed guards in the bank were incapable of putting a stop to such a daring daylight bank robbery. As to the victims of said fear gas, all are being treated at Gotham City Hospital and should soon recover. And, let us not forget that the Batman is still missing. In regards to normal criminal activity…"
Swwwwoooooooossssssshhhhhh!
Having swiftly, at super-speed, changed from Clark Kent to Kal-El’s secondary identity of Superman to streak off through Metropolis’ daytime sky far too fast to follow, the hero in blue-red headed straight for Gotham City via an airborne trip that would take scant seconds to cover the several hundred miles separating these two massive cosmopolitan centers.
"Tell me, Mr. Wayne, or, if you prefer, Batman," said the insanely sneering Hugo Strange, former Doctor of Psychology and Philosophy, former member of the psychiatric staff of the famous, and some might even say infamous, Arkham Asylum as he sat across from a heavily chained-against-a-metal wall, de-cowled Caped Crimefighter, even as Strange, himself, still wore the replica of the blue-gray costume of the Batman. "How does it feel to have your secret Self exposed at long last?"
Slowly lifting his battered and bruised, thanks to earlier battle with the black garbed bootlickers of Dr. Strange, billionaire’s face to stare intensely at the seated ex-psychiatric expert in mental manipulation, the unmasked Dark Knight snarled, "So far, Strange, I’ve only been exposed to you and your mindless ‘Monster Men’. What’s your ultimate intent? Are you going to expose me to the world?"
"Though I know that such an act would fulfill the greatest dread of your less-than-sane existence," said the smirking madman named Hugo Strange, while still playing the manipulator of mind and emotion to perfection, "such would never completely satisfy my deepest desires.
Especially since it was you who was solely responsible for both ending my, until then, illustrious life’s work…thus causing me to become a member of the drugged dregs of Arkham Asylum. Forever ruined. Forever forgotten. No, Batman…Bruce…my intentions are to break your supposedly indomitable will…just as I have done to those previously law-abiding brutes who are now my mysterious Monster Men still terrorizing the so-called crème-de-la-crème of Gotham City while tying up Gotham’s finest, uniformed and plainclothes, with seemingly senselessly violent criminal acts."
"What makes you think," growled an angry unmasked crimefighter, with laser-like glare, "that anything you do to me…even exposing my true identity!…could ever place me under your ‘spell’, Strange?"
"Oh, I’ll admit that manipulating your remarkable mind," said Dr. Strange as he slowly stood, looking a little ludicrous in his pseudo-Batman, sans pointy-eared cowl, costume, "would pose an extremely perplexing problem. But it is not at all…impossible. As you will now see with your uncovered-by-cowl eyes."
Batman, bared countenance not withstanding, struggled against the unyielding metal of the heavy chains binding him so snuggly against the metal wall and couldn’t help but wish that, somehow, he could make contact with even one compartment of his yellow Bat-belt, which no one but he could unbuckle due to concealed locks the likes of which most men, even an ingenious puzzle-solving villain like the Riddler, could scarcely conceive, let alone unlock.
Unfortunately…
At that exact same moment, slowing slightly while over-flying Gotham City, Superman’s X-ray/telescopic super-vision, along with super-hearing, helped him swiftly swoop down to, first, stop seemingly aimless acts of violence and criminality by those black ski-masked/clothed/booted Monster Men so mesmerized by Hugo Strange.
With naught but snarls of mindlessness and bloodthirstiness, the Monster Men, actually merely Human to the smallest molecule, rabidly attacked the just-landed Man of Steel. Applying black-gloved punches and black-booted kicks against someone who was, quite literally, invulnerable to such measly blows, and who, just then, used a single swift blast of his super-breath to send said Monster Men sailing.
As slamming impacts against solid outer walls instantly stunned the masked men, Superman next used super-speed and super-strength to encircle their burly black-garbed group within uprooted streetlights so that the Gotham City police, arriving in black-and-whites as well as unmarked cars driven by plainclothes detectives, could make good a mass arrest.
Not having the luxury of talking with the likes of Sgt. Renee Montoya, still a highly-decorated police officer, and Detective Harvey Bullock, the seemingly dimwitted, dirty détective extraordinaire, Superman flew from the scene.
As to Commissioner James Gordon, this was one situation which didn’t need his undeviating involvement. He was much more worried about the Batman’s current whereabouts.
As was Superman…
"You can’t resist, Mr. Wayne…Batman," Dr. Hugo Strange said with a dangerous grin even as the chain-held Dark Knight was suddenly assaulted by swirling lights and soporific sound, both designed to twist his fragile judgement and straightforward senses inside-out and, therefore, break the brilliant brain of the billionaire crimefighter.
"Relax your mind, Batman. Look at the lights, Bruce. For so long, you have hidden your base Self not only from Gotham…but from your own very existence. You have played the billionaire socialite, the talking head of a globally-established mega-corporation. But you are now and always have been…the boy who saw his parents brutally gunned down. The boy who blamed himself for such a senseless killing of the only two people in the whole world who mattered to you. Give in to me, Batman…I, Dr. Hugo Strange, shall set you free."
Struggling against Dr. Strange’s mind manipulative techniques, Batman/Bruce Wayne teetered on the edge of a psychological chasm. Until…
"Dr. Strange, we have a problem!" a mysteriously muffled voice said from the doorway of Hugo Strange’s supposed hideaway in the heart of Gotham City’s industrial section, causing a suddenly scowling ex-psychiatric expert to spin on fake Bat-booted feet.
"Crane!" an enraged Hugo Strange growled at the sight of Scarecrow, his special stitched-up head-mask and half-gas mask promptly removed to reveal a look of unquestionable concern born of naturally-produced fear. "How did you know where to find me?"
"That’s not important right now!" said a deeply disturbed, in more ways than one!, Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow, even as a nearly-enchanted Batman, ducking the exposed face of Bruce Wayne so that the exceedingly distressed Crane/Scarecrow did not see. "There’s big trouble on the way! Big blue trouble!"
Even as such registered within a stressed-out/half-hypnotized Caped Crusader, the super-powered subject of Scarecrow’s unscheduled visit smashed through the roof and wall with the destructive force of a small explosive device…or a wrecking ball larger than anyone could conceive.
So startling was that singular super-entrance that Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow dropped one of his fear bombs, which loudly discharged its yellowish mist which swiftly caused both he and Hugo Strange to succumb to unreasoning terror and dropping to their respective knees…
"Gyiiiiii! Don’t hurt us! I-it’s s-some sort of Super-monster!"
"Noooooo! It’s a zombie in blue-red! Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me!"
…even as Superman, using just enough super-strength and super-speed to free the de-cowled fellow crimefighter, streaked straight back through the self-same smashed impact-point made upon the Man of Steel’s entrance mere moments earlier.
"Help us! Somebody! We’re trapped! Trapped!"
"Save us before the zombie in blue comes back! Save us!"
"Are you sure there’s no lasting effects from what Hugo Strange had tried to do to you?" asked Superman solemnly as he stood, muscular arms folded before massive chest, across from Batman, cowl once again hiding his handsome face, as well as the bruises by Hugo Strange’s arrested Monster Men, propped against the side of his obsidian Batmobile.
"I think so, Superman," the Dark Knight sighed heavily, even though his head felt light and his vision was still slightly blurred. "One thing I do know…had you not burst in when you did…"
It wasn’t necessary to finish the statement of truth, as Superman smilingly said, "Don’t mention it, my old friend. You have saved me, too, you know. Not to mention helping me save…Lois."
With a half-smile/half-smirk dominating the exposed portion of his cowl-covered face, Batman merely replied, "Guess we’re pretty much even. For now."
As one superhero streaked away through an urbanite sky as twilight slowly fell…
…the other sped away in the cocoon-like cockpit of a slightly bat-shaped vehicle with a turbo-engine created tongue of seemingly satanic flame leaping out from its cylindrical end.
For Superman, the day of heroics was at an end.
For Batman, it was just beginning.
END
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Hope to see more!
