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((You’ve been most patient with me, my precious readers. At last you are rewarded, for this shall be my last installment of chapters. That’s right, I’ve completed this work, and you’re reading this means I have it up for you. Rejoice, for at last you can finish your journey! And while we’re at it, don’t forget to review. In fact, feel free to review for each chapter you read before continuing to the next, it would help me see how I’m doing with the way I end my chapters. After all, the more the merrier!))


Chapter Eight: Batman

The city’s been quiet the last week or so. That’s never a good thing. Something’s about to happen, something big, and I have to be able to stop it when it comes. Luckily for me, the number of my enemies who are out of Arkham is low. Unlucky for me, no one knows where half of them are. The number of missing people has increased in the last few weeks a great deal as well. Still, I keep both eyes open, waiting to catch sight of any other obscurities in my city. At last I have a hit, I know what’s coming, and I don’t like it.
“An entire neighborhood, every last person affected, they just…tore themselves apart.” Robin reports,
“What would make so many people do something like that?” he asks turning to me.
I take one good look at the police reports and know the answer.
“Fear, Fear would make them do something like this.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Scarecrow: Master of Fear. He was a psychology professor by the name of Jonathan Crane. Then he went mad with his obsession of fear, and became determined to get revenge on all the people who he considered to be responsible for his unhappiness. His specialty is in chemistry and psychology, and he uses these tools to literally scare people to death. Physically speaking he’s no challenge, he knows this, but he makes up for that with his other skills. My detective skills will be tested, no doubt about that.

The Bat-computer is still running the data, still searching for the source of the toxins. Robin is out searching for any more clues, anything that will tell us the Crane’s whereabouts. He’s already been given a dose of cure-all, just in case he comes across any more toxins. We’ll be well prepared.
“Batman, come in!” That’s Robin on the communicator, he’s found something.
“What is it, Robin? Did you find anything?”
“You could say that…” Not the answer I was looking for.
“Did you find anything, or not?” There’s some kind of disturbance in the background of the communicator, something I can’t quite make out.
“Has the computer come up with anything yet?” I don’t like the tone of his voice, something’s wrong.

“Robin, what’s happening, what have you discovered?”
“It’s hard to tell from up here, I thought it was a riot at first, but then I saw the fog. Batman, we need to hurry and find where that stuff’s coming from, because it’s spreading…” Now I know what the disturbance in the background is.
“I’m calling Commissioner Gordon. Robin, try to keep things under control as best you can, I’m getting these answers one way or another!” I have to find out where he is, and soon, otherwise it seems the entire city will destroy itself.
“Come one computer, work!” The data is still compiling on the screen, I can’t wait much longer, and at last the location is shown.
“Robin, I know where Crane is. I’m sending you the location, but don’t go in until I get there, do you understand?”
“I’ll have to travel over the roof tops, the scene down here is worse then you’d know. Let’s just hope this works, see you there.”

Scarecrow:

The streets are littered with chaos, everywhere you look the people despair. They kill their friends, their siblings, their neighbors, all from the fear which has consumed them. People writhe from invisible insects crawling all over there skin, they fight real and invisible assailants for their very lives, some even convert to cannibalism. A symphony of screams arises from the city, and I am its conductor. No one escapes from my toxin’s affects, and I’m almost satisfied for the moment. Almost. But I don’t allow myself to get caught up in this, for all these screams are nothing when compared to the screams of my enemy, the one bully who’s refused to fall, the Batman. Even if he does manage to beat me somehow, his precious city will fall. Oh, yes, the Batman will lose. I will beat him. Me, the C-list rogue; me, the nerd who everyone made fun of and laughed at. I will defeat the great Batman.

Ragady is doing well so fare, but it’s only just begun. She seems just a bit too excited about this entire event, a bit too caught up in it. Let’s hope she can regain her composure when the time comes. As if on cue, the small alarm I set up to tell me when Batman gets close goes off.
“It’s time, do you have everything prepared?” I ask, pulling her focus back to the present. With a simple turn of her head she smiles and responds with her child voice,
“Of course I do, you know that. I hope you don’t think I’ve forgotten just because of a little distraction like this? There are bigger prizes be had.” She responds standing up.
“Don’t forget,”
“Not to kill the Bat Creature, his life is yours to take, only stall him. But I can have the bird, can’t I?” She asks with pleading eyes.
“Of course, if you want it.” I chuckle, leading the way inside the old factory, the base of operations where everything will take place. Perhaps I’ll make it the city’s new capital when all the people have destroyed themselves.
“Good luck,” Ragady says, “As if you really need it, but good luck all the same.”
And it begins…
Chapter Nine: Robin

I get to the place where all of the toxins are coming from, the place sending the toxins through out the city. An old factory, it hasn’t been in production for years. Now all I have to do is wait for Batman. I haven’t let the scene below get to me, and I’m not planning on letting it get the better of me any time soon. You see a lot in this city, a lot that could drive you beyond your limits. In a city this corrupt, this filled with crime and injustice; it makes people wonder why anyone would stay. But I have hope for it; I have hope for the good people here. No matter how horrible as the scenes I see get, no matter how gruesome, I will fight along side Batman to protect this city. Still there are some scenes that never leave your head, things you see which will haunt your nightmares for the rest of your life. Luckily for me, I haven’t seen that much so fare, though this scene came pretty close to making it among those.

“Are you ready?” The familiar voice behind me tells me it’s time. It’s time to defend the city, defend the good and the innocent within it.
“As ready as I’ll ever be, let’s do it.” I answer taking a step towards the only way into the building, the front doors.
“Be on your toes, Crane likes to set traps. You better let me go first.” Batman knows what he’s doing, he’s been doing this much longer, and he’s faced all these people before enough times to know what he’s doing.
“Yah, you’re right.” I agree, letting him go first.
Slowly we enter the factory, and what we find makes its way to the top of my list of things that will haunt my nightmares.

The very first thing to great us was the smell, the smell of fabric and corpses. I didn’t even know fabric had a smell. But the smell was nothing compared to what we saw. The lights were dim, flickering with a blue tint to them, but they were just bright enough to blind me. Strung up everywhere, crowding the entire floor as fare as the eye could see were the bodies of so many people. Someone had sewn into their flesh, and then sewn into them to string them up like twisted marionettes. I’ll never forget their faces, twisted in a look of terror for all of time, everything in their faces screaming for eternity. There was only the smallest path we would have to move through, as if there wasn’t even meant to be one at all. The bodies where crowded so that we wouldn’t be able to reach the rafters in the ceiling, we’d have to go through the bodies.

Something in my expression must have tipped Batman off on my emotional state, because he put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a look as if to say, ‘keep it together.’ With a nod, I focus on what I’m fighting for, for what I’m fighting to protect, and we start through the people.
“At least we know what happened to all the missing people,” Batman says. He tries to sound calm, but I can tell he’s no happier about this than I am. We slowly, gradually make our way through the bodies, the only sounds we hear to accompany us in this room of death are a steady dripping and machines grinding somewhere in the background. The indefinite path grows wider and then thinner, and then wider and then almost disappears so we have to brush up against the bodies. Some of the bodies look to be no more then my age, while others look old enough to be my parents. Each one has that look of despair in their faces and that look of horror in their eyes. This is wrong, it’s just…wrong. It shouldn’t be like this, all these people; it just shouldn’t be like this. We get to a slight clearing, we must be about a third of the way through the floor, but it feels as if we’ve been walking forever. Then I spot something and freeze.

One of the bodies lies apart, though not far from the rest, its strings seem to be cut. A pair of scissors rests next to their shoulder, stabbed to rest in their skin. The scissors would be right next to the shoulder, but the shoulder’s been disconnected so it rests almost at the stomach. I take a step to move around it and then notice something.
“I know her!” I gasp in surprise, “I saw her in the city, and she looked lost. I talked to her for a short time before she ran off. She had such pain in her eyes, yet she seemed so hopeful about life. If only I had stopped her, I should have stopped her; I could tell something was wrong!” I can’t help but feel that I could have saved her from this!
“There’s nothing you can do now, but there are more people who need to be protected from Crane. We have to stop him!” Batman reminds.
With a solemn nod, I move to follow him, not quite sure I have myself all together, but convincing myself I do.

A sudden sharp breath, the slightest moan from the masses around us. Where is it coming from? Someone in here’s alive? Where are they? Can they be saved? As if to answer my questions, the cracking sound of joints (it seems deafening in this silence) echoes all around us from behind. Turning my head, I see the girl from before moving, she’s alive. I don’t know why, but somehow this very thought disturbs me. How is that I was just grieving the fact that I didn’t help her to live, and yet now I somehow find myself concerned because she’s alive?
The air has grown heavy and cold. It feels as if something is pressing down against me, making it hard for me to move or breathe. The cracking continues as she pops her shoulder back into place, first making it jut forward unnaturally, then sliding it back into place. Slowly, rigidly, she picks herself up from the ground, her hair sweeping around her as she rises. I want to move, move anywhere, and I go to take a step back when her eyes lock onto me from the veil of hair. Whatever movement I could manage before is gone; I can only stand there as she moves towards me with that ghastly smile.

“Robin, move,” I hear Batman tell me, but I can’t move a muscle. She’s standing right in front of me now, the veil of hair only covering the edges of her face with a few stray strands now, I’ll never forget that look.
She rigidly moves a hand to the pair of scissors still resting in her breast bone, and I know what’s coming next. I want to be anywhere else, I want to run for a thousand miles, but I still can’t move; as if her eyes have cast a web around me, holding me in place.
“Robin, get away from her!” Batman almost yells. She slides the scissors from her flesh, the blood dripping from them as if it too wished to be away from her.
“I…can’t…” I manage to say, all self control breaking away to tears. She raises the scissors, and I can’t do anything to stop it.

“ROBIN!” At the last moment, Batman sweeps in and knocks her back, breaking the spell she seemed to have over me. Pushing me along until I begin to run again on my own, we hurry through the crowd of bodies to get out of here. I look back for only a moment to see her slowly rising again, her head bent, and I can tell she must be furious. But there’s no time for that, we have to get to Crane and stop this.
“I knew this couldn’t be Crane’s work here, it’s not his style at all.” Batman sighs as we pause for only a moment to catch her breathe.
“She seemed so kind, sad but hopeful when I first met her, what would make her change like this?” I ask. I can’t understand it!
“No doubt Crane had something to do with it; he’s no amateur when it comes to warping people’s minds. Now, we’ve got to move, are you sure you’re okay?” Batman asks with the slightest hint of concern in his voice.
“Yah, whatever affect she had on me, it’s gone now. Let’s go.” Batman pauses for a moment to look at me, making sure I can really continue, and then nods.

We run the rest of the way through the factory of bodies, the factory of marionettes. Every so often, I swear I see her, standing in the bodies and staring at me coldly. Although there’s no way she’s over here, not from how slowly she moves; I know my eyes are just playing tricks on me. Just then, something grabs me by the wrist, and I can’t help but let out a small scream. I look down to see a stitched up hand around my wrist, but it’s not a woman’s. Looking up, I see one of the people is still alive, their eyes pleading to be released. Then another hand grabs me, and a desperate gasp comes from the strung up woman behind me. I turn to Batman, only to see that he too was swarmed with the strung up people, the people desperate for help and desperate for peace.
More of them now, it seems all the ones here are alive still, and they grope and grasp for us, begging for help however they can manage through their pained and deformed faces and bodies.

“Don’t you love…my dolls?” The voice of a little girl speaks, but it has something dark to it.
“Aren’t they beautiful, my puppets? They never thought twice about transforming others into their own personal toys and dolls, into things which can’t feel because they don’t have the right. Now they are the toys and dolls!” She giggles with childish glee, appearing from the masses, which move away from her as she approaches in terror.
“You have no idea how hard it was for me to sit by and hear you slander Scarecrow, but I held my position just like I learned. Now you’ll pay!”
“Robin, fight them, we have to get to Crane, this is only a distraction, and we have to focus!” But I’m already ahead of him; I’m not making the same mistake twice.
“Don’t look into her eyes, I don’t know what it is she does, but don’t look into her eyes!” I inform fighting my way through the people. We’re almost there, that laughter ringing in our minds, but we’re almost there!

“There it is! There’s the door! We’re going to make it, we’re going to get out and stop Crane!” I can’t help but shout, overjoyed that at last we’ll be away from these bodies, out of this nightmare. A haunting wail goes up from the living, sounds that can make almost anything feel the tug of despair, but we have to focus, we’re at the door already, we’re going to make it, we’re going to stop Crane and save the innocent and good in the city! Then something grabs me tightly, and pulls me back into the crowd. Batman’s already in the doorway out.
“No! Batman!” I call to him, and he turns to see I’m captured, he runs back to get me, and a steal door slides down on the exit, separating us indefinitely. At last despair falls on my face, as she giggles delightfully at her success.
“I think you’re going to be my favorite doll…” She smiles, and I know I’m going to die.

Batman:

“Robin, Robin!” I pound on the steal door, but I know it’s no use. We’re separated, now it’s up to me. I pray to God he’ll be okay in there, I pray that…creature in there will have enough sense not to hurt him. I know it probably doesn’t. I know he could very well be dead by the time I get back to help him. Turning, I look at the flight of stares leading up, leading to the one who started all of this, leading to Crane. I can barley control the rage, and I know I’ll probably do more damage then necessary this time around to stop him. I don’t care. Crane will pay for all the lives he’s taken, all the lives he’s destroyed, even if I have to kill him.


Chapter Ten: Scarecrow

It’s been quite some time, and still no sign of Batman or Robin. It’s taking them much longer then it usually does to get to me, much longer then it ever has before. Makes me wonder why I ever bothered with lackeys, they never really do any good against the Batman anyway. And you can’t forget how annoying they are, with their lack of understanding and constant questioning. No, I rather think I prefer things this way. It’s so much simpler to only have to deal with one henchman (henchwomen, actually), and it seems to work out much more affectively in the end. If only I’d tried this sooner…but then again, the second part of that ideal is that the one person has to be able to see things entirely from your perspective; otherwise it just won’t work out. I suppose that’s why it took me so long to try things this way.

Then again, the Batman should at least be here by now, and I can’t help but second guess Ragady’s capabilities for a moment when it comes to following instructions. I make a move toward the staircase for a moment when I hear a yell that can only belong to one person, Batman. Ragady must have succeded. Grinning to myself, I grab my scythe and head for the shadows, eager to get a jump on Batman. I also prepare the newest formula of my fearomones, the formula I made especially for him. I’ll hit him with the fearomones first, and then go at him with my scythe. It’s a simple enough plan; throw him off balance first, just in case my actual attack fails.

He’s on the stairs, making his way up, you have no idea how exciting this is. At last I’ll defeat the great Batman; at last I’ll destroy the biggest bully of them all! He’s almost up here; I tighten the grip on my scythe and aim my fearomones where he’ll appear. With my physical abilities being lacking at best, I’m only going to get one shot at this. At last he appears, and before he can even so much as prepare for anything I’d have set up for him he gets a good lung full of my toxins. I’m more then pleased to see how well my formula works, already he starts flailing his arms to get off non-existent assailants, most likely some flying creature by the looks of it. He stumbles blindly, and I move in for the kill.

“Aw, don’t tell me the great Batman’s running scared?” I can’t help but taunt, “Don’t worry, I’ll end your disgrace soon enough!” I laugh swinging my scythe. He somehow manages to dodge it, no surprise there, this is Batman after all. No matter, I take another swing and can see he won’t be able to dodge it this time. I’ve won. The scythe closes in on him, bearing down to bring the end of the great Batman, it makes contact, and then the tables turn faster then I could even follow.
Suddenly he has me in his grasp, my scythe barely slicing into his arm where he blocked it. That’s not even the worst part. Not only has my attack done nothing to him, but there in those hollow eyes I can’t even see a shimmer of fear. All I see is rage, rage and the look all those bullies ever gave me when tormenting me through the years.

“Crane!” He growls punching me down hard. I’ve never heard him sound like that before, I’ve never seen such unrelenting rage in those eyes before, and I know that now there’s only one thing I can do. I have to keep away from him, he could easily kill me in the state he’s in now, never mind that I won’t even be able to do any damage with all the adrenaline running through his system! I’ve got to stay as fare away from him as possible, stay away from him in this state! I turn to do just that, but he grabs my leg and pulls me back with ease.

“What’s the matter? Don’t tell me the Great Scarecrow is running scared!” He uses my own words against me. I hate him, it’s not fair! I had everything set up so perfectly, things were going so well, why he can’t just die like all the other bullies! He throws me back with ease, and even the straw in my costume can’t dampen the pain of the impact. Again, I try to back away from him, but he’s already lifting me up into the air again, and in one motion he’s torn off my mask and has me pressed against the wall.
“Don’t worry, I’ll end your disgrace soon enough!” He growls raising a batarang in his hand with the sharp edges of the wings ready to slice into my throat. He can’t be serious, Batman doesn’t kill! He even saves his enemies from death, he doesn’t kill them! I look for any sign of bluffing, but can see he’s not, he means it, and he’s really going to kill me!
“This ends now!” He yells bringing the sharp edges down on me, I close my eyes and struggle against his grasp, but it’s too strong. I’m going to die!

“Don’t you dare touch him.” A dark voice commands from the shadows, grabbing the attention in the room. I force my eyes open to see Ragady standing a short distance away, Robin held in her grasp. Her eyes are narrowed and locked onto Batman. She seems just as furious as he is, but controls herself much better. She has some form of string wrapped all the way around Robin so he can’t move, and upon further examination I see the string is attached to her right hand so she can tighten it with ease.
“You will not harm him, do you understand?” She continues as if she were talking to any other person,
“You will not harm him, if you want your pet bird to live.” She adds, narrowing her eyes further.

Batman seems to contemplate this situation. As if to test her, he brings the Batarang a little closer to me, and with a simple twist of her wrist the strings tighten around Robin, a few beginning to draw a small line of blood.
“This creature is nothing to me; I can kill it without a single thought. However, I’ve decided to be most generous with this and allow for you to decide whether he’ll live or die. It’s your choice.” She informs calmly. Batman thinks on this, trying to find a way where he can save robin and still manage to keep me in his grasp. At last he sees there is no way to do that, and the circulation in Robin’s body is dangerously low. He hates this, I can tell, and if I weren’t where I was at the moment I’d revel in the fact. Finally he throws me towards Ragady, and in return she throws him an unconscious Robin to wrap her arms around me instead.

“You shouldn’t have done that…” I manage to say, though in all actuality I’m rather happy to be alive right now. Again, everything’s ruined! All my plans! The Bat-bully cuts Robin free, finds him to still be alive, then goes over to the machinery distributing my toxins to the city and turns it off.
“That’s it; I’ve lost all over again!” I hate him; he’s the worst bully of them all! The absolute worst!
“That’s not true…” Ragady says, the darkness gone from her voice, “You’re still alive, and you can still fight him another day. You can still beat him another day. If anything you’ve gained something.” She says.
“Gained something? What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, not quite understanding. Suddenly her lips are pressed to mine, if only for a moment.

“No matter what, you’re not alone anymore. I’ll be where I belong always, by your side. Even if taken away, in the end nothing can hold me from your side.” She clarifies, her eyes turning to follow the Bat-bully’s movements. She really did mean what she had said! As hard as it is to believe, she actually…cares about me.
“Wait, what do you mean taken away?” It only just dawns on me what she’s planning to do.
“One of us has to answer for this, and their cages can’t hold me. I’ll be back within the week.” She clarifies with a smile and shoves me down a shoot leading to the ground, closing it behind me.
“Wait!” I try to call out, but to no avail. She’s made her choice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s been two weeks, which is far too long. I never would have thought things would ever lead to this, never would have thought they even could have. Yet here I stand; ready to try something entirely new, new to me at least. It’s taken some time, but I have enough connections to have everything squared away and ready. Now all I have to do is wait. I can’t say I’ve ever really felt this way before, but it’s a pleasant feeling I don’t necessarily want to go away any time soon. At last I can feel eyes focused on me, and turn around to see Ragady standing in Arkham pants and her usual dress/top I delivered.

“Are you ready to go, my dear?” I ask with a grin.
“Of course, I told you I’d be back. Though it appears their cages do a bit better of a job holding me then I expected. All the same, I’m back, and more than ready for the next plan.” She answers with her usual child’s voice, smiling happily up at me.
“Well then, what are we waiting for?” I ask offering an arm, which she more then happily takes. And so it is that we make our way towards the city, new horrors already forming in our minds to bestow upon the people. Returning to our city; the Master, and the Mistress of Fear!


((Yay, I’m finally done! Originally I rewrote this story around twenty times over the course of a good year, and it turned out to be much shorter than I thought it would be, but still it’s complete! See, happy ending! He didn’t get to defeat Batman (I can’t technically let him do that) but he still won something! You can tell by the ending (and part of the beginning) one of the main comics I based this off of, because that comic made me go ‘what…the hell?!’ So, I had to fix it, and I did! After all, what better partner for a Scarecrow then a Ragdoll? I hope you all enjoyed it, and don’t forget to tell me what you think a.k.a. review! Because the more reviews I get the more I’m going to want to do a sequel to this! Hoozah!))