SECRETS PART 2
-Evening-
Perched on a ledge outside of the building Bethanie Ravencroft currently performs her practice at, Batman was looking through a pair of goggles to view the office of his target for the evening. He was waiting for any clue whatsoever on what her connection with Magpie was and nothing has turned up so far. All that he has seen for quite a while was Dr. Ravencroft sitting by her desk and going over various documents before calling it a night.
Batman's concentration was suddenly broken when he heard some yelling from the street below and saw two kids tagging graffiti in an alley. Wanting to get the simple thing done, he pulled out a batarang and with precise aim, he threw it and it knocked the spray can out of the one punk's hand to end up scaring them off. When he returned his gaze back to the window, he saw Ravencroft heading out of her office.
In his slight distraction, he didn't notice someone right behind him until it was too late. As a pair of his batcuffs came into his field of vision to make him turn around to see Magpie right behind him with a grin on her face.
"Shiny~ Shiny~."
Once she said this, she punched Batman across the face with the batcuffs and made him fall onto the ground with a loud thud. The hero had to get back up from his place on the ground as he berated himself on not noticing the bird themed criminal behind him.
"You know, after we last met, I couldn't help but wonder: What makes a man wear a bat costume?" Magpie started to say as she gave him a curious smile. "Got something to hide?"
"Who says this is a costume?"
This made her hum pleasantly towards the response. "Oh~ I like that."
She jumped down from her placement above and started to walk towards the Dark Knight with a sway to her hips. "You and I should be friends. We have so much in common."
Once Magpie got close enough, she started to lean closer to the hero of Gotham with the intent of kissing his lips. All that she got in return was a shove away from him that made her glare at him a little.
"Not gonna happen."
"What's the matter Batman?" The white haired woman asked. "Too much bird for you to handle?"
"I believe he already has too much to handle from other matters in his life to deal with women." A voice called out from nearby to reveal Vanitas landing onto the rooftop with his grappling scarf going up in smoke.
"Oh~ And how would you know?"
"Lucky guess I think." Vanitas replied with a shrug.
"Hmm. Too bad. I wouldn't have minded to get my talons on your shiny shiny belt of yours." Magpie said to the Bat before directing her attention to the other man on the rooftop. "Or that shiny shiny helmet of yours. I would've settled a bit with those daggers I kept, but they went up in smoke."
On the last bit, she sent him a glare that made him chuckle a little. "Yeah….they tend to do that if they stay away from me too long. So no shiny shiny daggers for you birdy."
Without any warning, she kicked the Bat away as she tried to focus her attention on the black and white themed man to swipe her claws on him. Vanitas had to dodge her clawed swipes as she kept onto the assault before Batman came to land a strike on her. She was too agile for either men to land a blow on her as she kept maneuvering away from either of them.
'Don't tell me that she's becoming too unpredictable for me!' Naruto thought as he tried to evade and get a decent hit on her. 'That title is supposed to me dattebayo!'
Naruto kept on his dodging until he realized what he just thought. 'Wait. Did I just think dattebayo? I thought I got rid of that verbal tick unless its now a mental one.'
His thoughts ended up betraying him as he got himself distracted enough for Magpie to kick him off of the ledge of the building after she did the same towards the Bat.
"Goodbye my little bat and shiny man." The bird themed woman said as she skipped across the rooftop. If she would've looked down from the ledge, she would've seen the two heroes grabbing ahold of the building.
"So….how's it hangin?" asked the helmeted hero. All that he got in return was a blank stare before Batman pulled himself up. "What. I'm just trying to be punny here."
The two got back up to the rooftop through their means of travel, from grappling gun and scarf respectively, and dashed towards Magpie's current placement. Once they got close, both men had her surrounded from standing on either side of her.
"Why did you wipe away Joe Braxton's mind?" Batman asked as he walked towards her with Vanitas doing the same.
"The bastard stole something from me and he had it."
"Which would be what exactly?"
She looked back at Vanitas and gave him a smirk. "Catch me and maybe I'll tell you."
She ran and slipped underneath Vanitas' legs before taking a leap off of the building. This made the two men go after her as they raced across the rooftops to hopefully capture her. As this was going on, she kept on laughing the entire time like it was one big game for her to play.
"I wonder if either of you can fly!" Magpie yelled out as she started to get closer to a building without another one nearby.
"Don't tell me what I think she's doing." Vanitas growled out as he threw his arm out to get his scarf to latch onto her as she leapt off of the building. With the sudden pull from her legs, she ended up pulled back to leave her dangling hundreds of feet above the ground.
"A little help here." Naruto said as he used his other arm to keep the cloth in his grasp. Batman complied with the other's request and tried to pull Magpie up.
"No one, and I mean no one, will cage this bird EVER AGAIN!" She growled out as she swiped her clawed hands at the cloth a few times till the fabric finally ripped and plummeted her to the ground below.
"NO!" Vanitas yelled out in shock till he ended up hearing her body impact onto a car with a loud crash. "She killed herself instead of being captured."
The dark hero narrowed his eyes on the site before saying something to the other man with him. "I don't think so."
"What do you mean?"
"Keep looking."
The disguised Uzumaki did just that to see Magpie's body start to twitch fanatically before she lifted herself off from the wrecked vehicle. Once on stable ground, she moved her body a bit to pop several joints back into place before looking up and waved at them. After that, she ran to get the two men to lose track of her.
"...What the fuck." Naruto spoke out on the sight.
"Caged again?"
"Now why does that sound familiar?" The disguised Uzumaki asked outloud onto which the disguised Wayne picked up on.
"You know something, don't you?"
"And what if I did."
"Then tell me or I'll get it out of you one way or another."
"Sheesh~ You don't have to sound too angst all the time you know." Naruto said as he waved the guy off a bit.
"Then mind telling me what you know."
"Fine~" The disguised publisher said before getting into a serious posture. "From what I had gathered, Magpie used to be an inmate at Blackgate."
"There's more to that, isn't there?"
"Quite. Magpie's real name is Margaret Sorrow and it's all I know about this situation so far."
"Good to know." Batman said as he pulled out his grappling gun and fired at some random direction. "Thanks for the tip."
"Anytime batsy." Vanitas said as he got back into his joyful tone before jumping off of the ledge and summoned his grappling scarf to swing away.
"Then I'll need to figure out who this Margaret Sorrow is then." Batman said as he pressed the button on his gun to get zoomed towards the end of the line before gliding into the night's sky. "Saved me the trouble of searching for a name."
-Next Day-
From what Bruce was able to gather from the Bat Computer and the GCPD databanks, Margaret Sorrow was a kleptomaniac that was sentenced to ten years for her repeat offences. The odd thing that Bruce was able to find out was that Miss Sorrow only served two of those years before she disappeared. And that was roughly five years ago.
With him hitting a road block, he decided that he needed to possibly gather enough intel from the source: Dr. Ravencroft herself. He could possibly be able to find any clues to Magpie's whereabouts and the reason why she targeted Joe Braxton. He did know that the doctor took something from her, but what exactly it was he didn't know. For now, he had to improvise and be sure this all plays out well in the end of this meeting he had scheduled yesterday.
"Mr. Wayne, I just want to tell you how big of an honor it is to meet you. I admire all of the good your company does." The receptionist happily said as she lead Bruce to Dr. Ravencroft's office.
She was a shorter woman that appeared to be in her 20's with short cropped, dark brown hair. She had innocent grey eyes that seemed to fit with her sharply features. She wore a black sleeveless shirt and a beige, knee-length skirt to maintain her appearance as Ravencroft's receptionist.
"Thank you very much….uh…"
"Cassie. The name's Cassie."
"She's been fluttering about it all day." A voice said when the door opened up to reveal the good doctor. "After all, we hardly get any celebrities over here."
Dr. Bethanie Ravencroft appeared to be a woman in her mid-thirties with her shoulder length pale, blonde hair that framed her face with her supple lips. She had dark grey eyes hidden behind a pair of thin rimmed glasses. She also wore a light blue button up shirt with a light grey knee-length skirt that showed off her long legs.
Once entering the room, his eyes scanned every detail that he could gather to figure out more about the good doctor than she appeared to be. From her diploma hanging on the wall, a photo of her colleagues with Joe Braxton in it and several other items to pick up small forms of information.
"So tell me….Out of all of the therapists available in Gotham, why me?"
"Wanted to find someone out of the public eye is all." Bruce said with a slight chuckle. "With all of the tabloids out there, don't want to ruin the company image with going to well known ones."
"Fair enough." She responded as she took no offence to that bit of detail. It was quite common with some well known therapists these days to not really hold onto their doctor/patient confidentiality and just sell the information from sessions to newspapers to get some entertainment out of it.
As Bruce kept scanning the room until getting to some 'paintings' on the wall. "Huh...didn't realize you would have these."
The therapist looked towards the billionaire's direction to see what he was referring. "You mean my inkblot/rorschach tests? More of a curiosity really. Everyone would have their own interpretation on what they see."
He nodded at this before his eyes drifted to a particular inkblot that made his mind flash to his parent's dying on Crime Alley in front of him. He had to take a subtle breathe to hold down that particular memory until he looked towards the next one that looked like a bat.
"See anything interesting?"
"Nope, not really." He said to defuse his trains of thought. His eyes then caught onto something on the nearby table and couldn't help but comment on it. "Still playing with dolls doctor?"
She came up to him to see what he commented on to see what he had in his hand. It was a black and white doll with a circular head dress with feathers coming off from the bottom. "That's a Molatian dream warden. Some cultures believe that she can protect you from bad dreams."
He didn't say anything as he kept staring onto the object as he looked at the various details.
"Would you like to have one Mr. Wayne? To help ease your dreams?"
"No... not at all." Was his response as he placed the doll back into it's placement.
She then ushered him to the patient's chair to get the session started. As he made his way there, he pressed a certain button on his watch to get his plan further into motion.
-Meanwhile-
'Wonder if she's in right now.' Naruto thought as he exited out of the elevator of the building to the designated floor.
After what Lunkhead told him yesterday, Naruto had to go back to his loft and do some research online to find out what the former inmate told him. He had a guess that he wasn't going to find out who Margaret Sorrow is with a lot of details possibly locked up somewhere so no use trying to go through that route. So the publisher decided to look up people with the name 'Raven' in their names, to see if there were any connections at all.
There was a surprising large amount of people with 'raven' in the name. But after filtering everything down to the best of his knowledge, he was able to find the 'raven' he was looking for: Dr. Bethanie Ravencroft. It even helped out that the woman resided here in Gotham and used to work for Blackgate before opening up her private practice.
He had looked up her contact information, along with the address and office number, so that he can show up there, unannounced, and play off as a man that came on by to 'window shop'. Looking to see if he would be 'comfortable' into having Ravencroft as his doctor or not. Though in reality, he wanted to see if there were any available sessions opened any time soon so he can inspect her office when she was there. If not then he'll need to break in during the after hours.
'Well here it is.' He thought as he found the door to her practice. Once opening up, he was greeted with the sound of a door chime indicated with the bell attached to the top of the door along with the sight of a brown haired receptionist taking care of a few documents.
"Oh hello there." The woman said in a chipper tone as she looked up to see him at the doorway.
"Hello to you too." Greeted the silver haired publisher as he came towards the desk. "I was wondering if Dr. Ravencroft is in today."
"She's actually having a session right now in the other room."
"Good to know….er…"
"Cassie." She said while holding out her hand towards him.
"Naruto." He responded in kind. "Pretty name for a pretty girl."
*Giggle* "Thanks." Cassie said as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"You're welcome."
"Don't mind me asking, but why have you come here personally instead of calling to set up an appointment?"
"For one: I was in the 'neighborhood' while running errands and I wanted to see what is so great about this doctor out of the various other ones in the city. Been wanting to get myself checked out with me having some problems as of late."
"I see. Well Miss Ravencroft takes her profession seriously and does her best to dwell into her clients to help understand them better." The receptionist said to the publisher.
"I can understand that, given the reputation she currently has."
"So are you wanting to set up an appointment with her?"
"Possibly. When's the next available one?"
When hearing this, she pulled out the planner and flipped through several pages until coming to an empty slot. "About a few weeks from now."
"I see." Naruto said while mentally sighing. Seems he might as well break in tonight to find some clues. "Then I'll call sometime later if I want to properly set one up instead of on the fly."
She would've said something of a response, but her desk phone started to go off. "Sorry."
"No worries, you got a job to do."
Picking up the phone, she answered. "Hello, Dr. Bethanie Ravencroft's office."
…..
"I'm sorry but mind repeating that to me again."
In the next few moments, Naruto saw Cassie's face seem to adopted an alarmed look as she tried to compose herself and put the caller on hold and dashed towards the office while in session.
"Cassie! What have I told-" A woman said in the other room with a raised voice before composing herself. "You know I'm with Mr. Wayne right now."
'Bruce is here?' Naruto thought with mild interest. 'Didn't know he would want to see a shrink.'
"I know but….." Cassie said before she lowered the tone of her voice that made Naruto guess the receptionist was whispering something into the doctor's ear.
'I think I should get going. Whatever came up in that call seemed urgent or something and I don't want to interrupt.' The publisher thought as he exited the office.
With the thoughts of therapists on the mind, Harley ended up at the forefront of his thoughts. Naruto hasn't seen her since he dropped off her copy of the first edition copy of Loveless and even with that last phone call with her. He tried to see her when he was at the asylum on his last visit, but she was out sick that day.
"Might as well check if she's better."
-Arkham Asylum-
*Groan* "Getting out of that stomach flu was a total pain in my butt." Harley said as she was drinking another water bottle in her office. This was the fifth one since she's gotten to work today. "Last time I ever eat sushi from that place."
It's been a little over a week since she had finished up Pam's evaluation report along with gaining her copy of Loveless directly from Naruto. To her, it was a successful day of completing a strenuous assignment and having a nice reward in the end with a new book. To celebrate on accomplishing her task, the intern decided to treat herself to sushi from this one restaurant she usually went to while reading some of her new book there. It did go well that night of finishing up several chapters, but the morning after was not that great to waking up feeling like she was going to die.
She already knew what she had because of a previous experience several years back and it was not fun at all. Luckily for her, it was her day off so she had to call work and let them know that she might not be able to come in for the next few days with what she got. They told her to come back in when she was in better condition, but they'll have some assignments for her when she gets back. So during the whole time she was stuck in her apartment; she did nothing but rest, eat, drink plenty of liquids, watch tv and movies along with reading the rest of her new book. It was odd for her to admit but she was glad to be sick for those days.
Being able to read the entire book from start, had to start over due to losing her placement on one...uneventful moment, to finish and it was a very excitable read. She hardly let the novel out her grasps, asides from having to empty her stomach a few times, since she felt like a little kid watching an epic saga unfold in front of her eyes and didn't want to stop the excitement. It felt so great that it made her read it again and again.
During one of the run throughs, she thought she heard Naruto tell this story to her while reading it's contents. Might've been the sickness hitting affecting her head, but she was hearing his voice while reading its pages. But for some reason, she didn't mind it at all and it made her feel happier. Even to the point that she started to imagine herself being one of the characters that was being romanced with another, that took on Naruto's appearance.
"Ugh...why would I even try to think of that now?" She mumbled as she uncapped a bottle of aspirin to get a few pills before washing it down for her headache.
*Knock Knock*
"It's opened." Harley said getting the person to open up the door to reveal one of Harley's supervisors: Dr. Serrano.
She is a woman of hispanic descent in her early forties with her shoulder length dark hair with them curling up on the ends. Even has signs of stress on her features as she constantly works on a day to day basis and hardly has any time off for herself. The doctor was currently wearing a cream colored sweater underneath her labcoat with a pair of women's business pants and shoes.
"Hello Ms. Quinzel." The arkham doctor in a blank tone. "Feeling better I hope."
"Yes I am ma'am. Just getting out of it at the moment."
"Good." She stated before going out for a quick moment before coming back in to drop a stack of files onto the intern's desk. "Then I hope you do well to take care of these."
"I-I'll do what I can doctor." The intern said as the doctor left the room. *Sigh* "This is going to fun."
*Knock Knock*
"Did you forget to give me something else Dr. Serrano?" Harley asked out loud before taking another swig out of her water bottle.
"Who's Dr. Serrano?"
Hearing the familiar voice from the door made Harley choke a bit with the water before she coughed to expel the liquid trying to enter the wrong pipe.
*Cough* *Cough* "Naruto! Don't do that!"
"Sorry Harley." He apologetically said as he entered the office. "Didn't know what you were currently doing."
"It's alright." The intern said as she grabbed a handkerchief to wipe away the water from her mouth and anywhere else the water landed.
"Are you feeling better Harley? I tried to call you several times, but you didn't answer."
"I am. Just getting out of my flu now." Harley said before waving him off a bit. "Also sorry on not responding. I've drifted in and out while in bed and on my couch, so I couldn't have answered at those times."
"Don't mind me asking, but who was Dr. Serrano?" He asked in mild curiosity. "Was it that woman that was walking away from your office like she had a stick up her butt?"
When hearing that, the blonde intern couldn't help but snort at this and gave out a laugh that made Naruto think it was cute.
"Yeah that was her."
"So what was her problem? Shouldn't she try to act better towards you?"
*Sigh* "She should but not entirely I think. It's probably because of me snagging Pam off of her hands on my first day that made the ending evaluations turned out really great."
"That doesn't really explain why she has so much beef on you."
"She's pretty much like that towards most of the staff on being hard on them. Some of the higher ups just ignore it with the train of thought being: 'Oh she'll just push them to be better doctors.' Or something." She replied with a mocking tone in the end. "It's more so with her reputation."
"How so?"
"She tends to target 'hard' cases so she can feel satisfied in the end. Especially with it looking good on her record." Harley said before taking a swig of her drink. "From what I have learned with some of the other workers here is that Serrano wants to have a better position here, like in the board or something, so she can have a lesser workload."
After her little explanation, Naruto was scratching his head to process what Harley "I think I get it. So asides from that doctor, how'd the evaluation report go in the results?"
Feeling better on the change of subject, she answered with a smile on her face. "It turned out better than I expected. The board were very pleased with it and have given me permission to take on a few other patients now."
When hearing that, Naruto gave her one of his infectious bright smiles as he spoke. "That's great Harley. We should go out to celebrate this. My treat."
"Thanks for the offer Naruto, but I don't know when I'll be available." She responded with an apologetic tone. "With getting new patients to take sessions with, it'll start to fill up the majority of my coming weeks."
"It's completely fine Harley and this is good for you to be on the next step of your internship. We can celebrate when you have the next day off if you want to."
"I'd like that."
"So until then, I wish you the best of luck on your coming trials." The publisher told her as he gave out a sigh in remembrance of his times as an intern. "I sure as hell needed it when I worked for the Planet."
"I'd bet." The intern responded back with a small smirk on her face before looking at the stack of files that made it droop into a frown. "Now if you'll excuse me, but I got some work to do here."
"That's fine. I'll leave it to you then." He said as he headed towards the door to her office while she opened up the first file.
"I hope your chat with Pam goes well like the other times."
This made him stop for a moment and look back towards her. "Actually…. I didn't come to visit her today."
Harley then looked up from the file with mild curiosity on his statement. "Then who? There's no one else on file that I'm aware of you visiting anyone else."
Naruto chuckled a little as he scratched the back of his head before responding. "Actually… I came on by to see you... Just you."
She felt happy on just hearing this. Even to the point of her blushing a little and had to try to hide her features from behind the file. He thought it was rather cute on her reaction to him saying that to her.
"Well got to get going now. Have a good one Harley."
Once the publisher left the room, Harley placed the file back onto the desk and looked back towards the door where her friend was last at. "Really? He came on by just to see...me?"
Her question was left unanswered as she tried to get her mind back onto her workload for the day. Keyword being 'tried'. For the rest of the work day, her mind would keep drifting off as her silver haired friend would keep plaguing her thoughts.
-Evening, Miskatonic Psychiatric Hospital-
The sounds of the Batmobile roared as it sped towards an abandoned part of the city before it slowly came to a stop.
'This is the place.' Batman thought as he got out of the vehicle and made his way into the abandoned building.
The hospital used to be a joint operation with Blackgate penitentiary for several years so the prison would go up against Arkham in the mental medical field. It didn't last that long apparently with Arkham being the more well known and popular institution in Gotham and the surrounding areas. So it has just been sitting there, collecting dust, and having the occasional thug or punk come across the place and spray paint various areas.
Bruce was able to find out the place when he was searching through Ravencroft's desk after he had gotten Alfred to call the office to distract the good doctor. He was able to find a few items of interest in one of the drawers: a key with an "A" inscribed on it, a wristwatch, and a stapler with the hospital's name on it. When he had placed his eyes on the watch, he remembered seeing Braxton have a pale spot on his wrist that matched the outline of the watch from the drawer. This gave the detective the guess that Ravencroft is indeed associated with Magpie or, at the very least, being framed by the bird themed woman.
As he ventured further into the building, the Dark Knight missed the the darkened form watching his every move.
It took some time to explore some sections of the building until he came to a dead end. He was going to go back and search again for anything he might've missed when he heard something from up above. Batman was glad that he caught onto the sound as he had to move out of the way from Magpie's downward assault.
When she got back up from her fall, the criminal threw several punches at the hero before he caught both of her wrists. She twisted herself around to free herself while using that momentum to kick the man across the head. It missed it's target as the man ducked before kicking the woman to the far side of the room, where some medical equipment were stored.
Seeing the objects beside her, Magpie threw each of them at her opponent in hopes of distracting him. It was more of a nuisance as Batman blocked and dodged each of them with ease before punching her to the ground. She recovered quickly by placing her hands onto the floor to steady herself as she kicked the dark knight from below before wrapping her legs around his neck to toss him to the side. That was her mistake when he used that momentum to bounce off of the wall and knock Magpie onto the other side of the room.
"I have no interests in hurting you Magpie."
"Have you even figured it out?" She asked as she got up from some of the equipment that she landed on, even with a scalpel deep within her chest. "I can't feel pain." To emphasise the point, she pulled it out without even flinching to show that the blade was coated with her blood before tossing it to the side. "It is yet another thing they have stolen from me."
"Then let me help you get it back." Batman said to her as he started to walk towards her. "I know what it's like at times to fight against your nature and you're going to lose it if you don't get help."
When hearing this, she wrapped her arms around herself like she was cold before turning her back towards him. "But I'm afraid."
"Of what?"
"That I've already lost."
Without warning, she brought her hand out and stabbed her nails into his neck before quickly pulling them out. Batman grunted with pain as he stumbled back to hold onto his neck and cursed himself for letting his guard down on that moment. He soon started to feel drowsy and everything around him started to look foggy.
"What….did you….do?"
"Hush little bat. Let the curare do the work and go to sleep~."
And just like that, he was out like a light. She chuckled at the sight before her as she moved towards his body to unstrap his belt and placed it onto herself with joyful glee. She then started to move things around the room to her liking, while getting the Batman onto the operating bed. Though it wasn't long as the Dark Knight started to stir, it made her feel more excited for what's to come.
"Wakey Wakey, eggs and bakey." Magpie said as she saw the man slowly start to wake up with an audible groan. He started to fidget around as he tried to get himself free, but it was useless with him strapped down tight with the metallic locks in place. "Don't worry Batman, I didn't peak behind the mask. After all, a person's secrets are sacred."
"I meant what I said Magpie. I can help you." He said to hopefully convince her to possibly let him go. Though given the reaction she's about to give out….
"QUIET!" She yelled out as she kicked him across the face.
….wasn't all that great.
"Oh, sorry. That was rude." Magpie said as she quickly composed herself. "I do appreciate the offer, but I've already got it covered."
As she got closer to him, Magpie pulled out a device from a bag and waved it in front of the hero's face. "See this little gizmo? Braxton made it to remove memories, reformat the brain, and wipe it clean in the process." She then placed it onto Batman's head before settling her hands onto the sides of his face. "It took some time, but I figured out how to reverse the process. To put all of those back."
As she drew her face closer to claim his lips, a scream rang out in the building to halter the bird themed woman's action. "It seems that my other guest has finally awoken. It's time to reclaim what is mine. But before I go…" Magpie placed her lips onto his and moaned in the process before pulling away with his bottom lip in between her teeth. She then let go and let out a chuckle at his narrowed gaze. "I would say that it's been a pleasure, but you won't remember a thing."
When she walked towards the nearby panel, Batman moved his hand a little to get a little tool out of his glove and placed it at the ready to free himself.
"Tata for now Batman." Magpie then flipped the switch with a sadistic smile which then sent the thousands volts of electricity to surge through the table and the device. This caused the Batman to yell out in pain and let go of the tool in his hand onto the floor. Seeing this, Magpie gained a bigger smile as she ran out of the room towards her other captive.
'Need...to….focus!' Batman thought as he tried to get himself free, but it was hopeless.
….That was until the switch was flipped again to shut off the power.
"So….How was your brian's shiatsu massage?" A joyful said getting Batman to realize who saved him. "I would assume you enjoyed it, but then I would be lying."
"Mind getting me out of this Vanitas?"
"Yeah yeah. Don't get your bat panties in a twist." The black and white themed man said as he gripped Batman's shoulder and phased him out of his bindings. "You're welcome by the way."
Batman soon felt a burning sensation around his head and pulled off the device off in response. It started to spark off like crazy before smoke started to come off of it.
"Huh, must've been faulty." The disguised publisher said as he crouched down to inspect it without touching. "Wonder if Braxton had a warranty on this thing."
He then heard something drop onto the floor. In response, he looked towards the source and saw Batman run out of the room with a file by the room's entry way. With mild curiosity, Vanitas went towards the file and picked it up to inspect it before his eyes widened underneath the helmet.
Back with Batman, he was running through the hallways to hopefully get to the other kidnapped person in time. He was getting closer and closer as the screams grew louder. Before he knew it, he came to the targeted room and ram his way through. This sudden occurrence caused Magpie to pause her advancements towards a bounded Ravencroft before a batarang flew past her head and imbedded itself towards the nearby mirror.
It was then that Magpie saw Ravencroft's shocked face, making the bird themed woman tilt her head in confusion before looking at the mirror to see….
"What the hell is going on?!" She growled out as got off of Ravencroft and walked towards the mirror. "Who is that?! Who's face is that?!"
"You don't know? Did you?" Batman said as he walked towards her.
"Know what?! Tell me!"
"Two different personalities in one body. Totally unaware of the other's presence."
"What the hell are you going on about?!"
"Margaret Sorrow was in an experiment conducted by Ravencroft and Braxton. For your cooperation and participation, you were given early release." He said to Margaret as she looked back towards the mirror to see Cassie staring back at her. Apparently the white hair she had before was actually a wig.
"Lies! It can't be true! They took my memories! They stole them from me!" She yelled out as she kept staring back at her reflection.
"I'm sorry but you did this to yourself Margaret. You volunteered for the experiment." Batman said to her as she kept glaring furiously at the reflection. "The experiment was supposed to strip the 'bad' out of criminals and in your case it worked….for a while anyways"
When hearing this, her features softened before tilting her head downwards to not let anyone see her features. "They gave you a new identity, a new face, a new life; but it seemed that the bad was too strong to really let go. It came back different, something else….or rather someone else."
"LIES!" She yelled out as she slammed her hands onto the mirror, cracking it to end up making her hands bleed. "I want to know who I am and only she can give it back to me!"
Magpie then punched Batman out of the way, onto the ground, before running towards the bound Ravencroft and prepared to skewer the woman with her elongated nails. That was until a few playing cards came in contact with the sharp appendages and sliced through the nails in a clean cut.
"Sorry that I'm late." Vanitas said as he summoned a few daggers into his hand. "This place can be hard to navigate without you guys talking."
The bird themed woman looked down onto the ground and saw her 'clipped' nails to see them glisten from the mixture of their previous shine along with her blood coated on them. She then started to pick them up one by one with perverted wonder dancing through her eyes.
"Shiny~ Shiny~" Margaret said as she started to laugh a little before throwing her broken claws towards Vanitas. In this sudden move, he blocked the projectiles with his daggers. But this was all a ploy as she ran towards the masked publisher and kicked him out of the way to run through the hallway.
"Now that was rude." Vanitas said as he got up from the floor before he got pushed out of the way to end up back onto the floor. "Seriously!"
"Help the doctor! I'll stop Magpie!" Batman yelled out as he ran to catch up onto Magpie without getting a response.
He ran and ran as fast as his legs can go to catch up, but she was too far ahead of him. He then realized where she was going and what she was going to do. Briefly remembering what Vanitas said about the device being faulty made him push himself to the limits to reach to crazed woman in time.
"Come on! Come on!" She growled out as she tried to get the device to work. "What the hell is wrong with this thing?!"
"Stop!" Batman yelled out as he got closer to the room.
"You will not stop me from becoming whole again!" She yelled out as she stopped what she was doing and jumped kicked the Batman.
He blocked this and pushed her towards the other side of the room to get several oxygen tanks to get loose from their placements. She came towards him again and he dodged in response. Batman then threw several batarangs towards her, in which several were blocked but one strayed off of it's course and hit the nozzle of an oxygen tank. With the sudden release of oxygen, it propelled forward and slammed against Magpie and sent her towards the electrified operating bed before the container slammed against the control panel to activate it.
Soon thousands of volts of electricity soon sprang to life and traveled through the entire bed and reached the device on Magpie's head to activate it, despite it being damaged. With how damage things were for the control panel and the device, the power intensified to the point that it engulfed Margaret's entire being.
"AaAAAAaaAAARAHAHAhHAHHAaHAHAHHAH!" Her screeching started to intensify as the device overloaded and exploded, sending her off of the operating table and onto the floor to render her unconscious.
Batman got closer and crouched towards her downed form and checked for a pulse to see if she was alive. He then sighed in relief to feel one before eyeing his belt around her waist.
"No more shiny, shiny for you." He said as he unbuckled it and placed it back onto himself to feel the familiar weight of it around his waist.
"Is Magpie alright?" Vanitas called out as he came into the room. "I heard the loud screech."
"She's unconscious, but with the device overloading I don't know if she'll be mentally fine." Batman answered before speaking again. "What about the doctor?"
"She's pretty shaken up, but she's alright." The disguised publisher stated. "Ravencroft had no idea that her receptionist was Margaret Sorrow."
"Makes sense." The Dark Knight said as he adopted a thinking pose. "Different face, different memories. I'm guessing that Margaret subconsciously drove her into doing those acts for revenge against Braxton and Ravencroft."
"Now Margaret, Cassie, Magpie or whoever she now calls herself could go back to jail…"
"But it would only bring her back into her cage that created her." Batman said in a stern voice making Vanitas to hold up his hands up to calm things down.
"Hey I said could, could….go back to jail. But with her mental sickness, I'm suggesting she should be put into Arkham. It's the only place that could help remedy her of whatever she has now." The masked Uzumaki explained getting the masked billionaire to nod in agreement. "So while you go call GCPD to do whatever they need to do, I'll go take the little bird here to Arkham."
"No you're not." Batman growled out before black and white smoke appeared to reveal Vanitas' motorcycle with the owner on it with Magpie leaning towards his chest. Multiple scarfs then sprung around the two to tie Magpie closer to the black and white themed man. Soon the engine of the vehicle came to life as the rider revved its engines.
"I wasn't asking!" He said over the loud noise before moving his motorcycle and drove through the wall without breaking it to make the man head towards his destination. This made the Batman sigh in defeat on not having things done his way again from the masked individual as he ended up calling the GCPD for the heads up.
-Next Day, Arkham Asylum-
"...I still can't believe Vanitas was here and I didn't get the chance to meet him." Harley groaned out as she was sitting next to Naruto in her office. Both of them were eating something Naruto cooked for the two of them since Harley couldn't properly go out and eat something healthy with her new schedule. He already dropped off something for Pam to eat in her cell before coming into Harley's office so the two could at least bond a little.
It was sometime after Harley got off from work when Vanitas showed up to the asylum. Causing an uproar with him riding his motorcycle through the main doors of the building made security be on high alert and surround the black and white themed hero with their weapons towards him. He stated that he was only here to drop off a mentally ill criminal and be on his merry way. Of course Dr. LeLand came in to help defuse the situation and ask what was going on. From there, the new hero explained the situation of what occurred earlier making the good doctor to get security to get Margaret Sorrow into her new cell. It wasn't long until Vanitas kept onto his promise and left the building to god knows where.
"Don't feel too bad Harley. *Gulp* You might get another chance if you're lucky." Naruto told her in between bites from his home cooked meal.
"Yeah I guess you're right Naruto." The intern replied before taking another bite out of the delicious food in front of her. "Given the chances with him being a new hero and sometimes how frequent some inmates escape, I wouldn't be surprised he'll show up quite often."
"So what's this I hear about you having this Margaret/Magpie as your new patient?" He asked getting Harley to send him a curiously surprised look. "When I was coming back from Pam's cell, I heard some doctors say that the new inmate is now your patient."
"Dammit..." She cutely pouted as one of her feet kicked across the ground. "And here I wanted to tell you and now the surprise is ruined."
"Sorry on that."
"It's no problem really. I wanted to tell you on me having a new patient so soon." She happily said as slight joy came across her bright blue eyes. "I know it sounds odd to most people, but for me it's a big accomplishment in a way."
"That's great to hear Harley." Naruto said as he hugged her from the side, missing the blush that soon came across her features. "Don't mind me asking but who assigned her to you and when do you start?"
"In order: Dr. Bartholomew did since he was very impressed with my evaluation on Pam's split personality. That he wanted me to try and work through Margaret's case which could be similar. As for when I start, I'm guessing it might be later today." Harley explained as she kept digging into her food to savor each bite.
"I have an odd guess that Dr. Serrano was rather pissed when you snagged that case."
"Oh you have no idea."
"Then I wish you the best of luck with your new patient."
"Thanks. I'll need every bit of luck I can muster for this one since this will not be as easy like with Pam." The blonde intern stated as the two continued on with their meals and onto other topics before Naruto had to leave.
As this was going on in the women's wing, the newest inmate was staring into nothing behind the glass covered cell with metal bars added in. The addition to her cell was put in just in case if she had any bright ideas if she tried to cut her way out of the glass barrier with her extremely sharp nails that seemed to chip off and regrow at every other attempt.
"Shiny~ Shiny~"
Even with the straight jacket she had on wouldn't last long as it was torn to shreds because of her nails. So with every attempt she's done to try and escape, she would keep gathering her broken nails and place them onto a pile in her cell. The glistening of the sharp objects gave her eyes a nice spectacle to admire in placement of her broken mind.
"Shiny~ Shiny~"
Of course if one would to look from up above, the broken nails were rearranged to look like the shiny helm of a certain hero. With what she saw last night of the moon reflecting off of it's surface made her desire it even further before drifting back to unconsciousness with its image in her mind.
"Shiny~ Shiny~"
So look out Vanitas. Margaret Sorrow is gone. There's only Magpie now.
"Shiny~ Shiny~"
-End Chapter-
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone