Chapter 178: Unfortunate Accident #178
"Let's go over it one more time..." I said as I got up from Scarecrow's body, having healed some of his wounds to cover up a part of the beatings Harley gave him while he was dying.
"Scarecrow was experimenting with his fear toxin on you before I arrived because of your high tolerance," I said as I took a step back and scanned the room, looking for any flaws that might give away what really happened.
"He wanted to use you as a distraction to ambush me, which is why he gave you the knife..." I added as I turned to Harley, who seemed to be listening to me with wrapt attention, strangely enough, if you could believe it.
"You saw something too traumatic to talk about because of the fear toxin and snapped..." I added, making a stabbing gesture with my hand. "He fell to the ground and drew a gun, so you began kicking, and that's when I showed up..." I went on as I turned to the door, internally simulating the scene as I went over it one last time.
"I subdued you and cleansed the fear toxin out of your body..." I remarked as I retrieved a pair of cuffs from my inventory and threw them towards Hartley, to which she raised an eyebrow.
"On a side note, I left some of the fear toxins in your body in case police wanted to run tests, but you're fairly tolerant. It won't affect you," I explained, giving Harley a blank stare, to which she rolled her eyes and put on the cuffs.
"Anyway, I tried to save Scarecrow, but he was too far gone, and they lived happily ever after," I concluded, nodding in satisfaction as I tried and failed to find any lingering evidence that might suggest otherwise.
"Ya kinda sound like Bats, but in reverse, like if he was actually fun," Harley said, grinning as she twirled her wrists to get comfortable in the tight cuffs.
"Well, I'm glad you're having fun because you'll be attending some long, boring court sessions pretty soon," I probingly replied to see if she was still on board, and I took the silent pout she gave as agreement.
"Come on, let's get your crazy ass back into police custody," I said as I called one of my machines waiting around the warden's office and gestured toward it.
The Sentry Spider approached Harley, spinning its mechanical limb, causing her to frown as she stepped back. "No way I'm getting on that thing," Harley said, firmly shaking her head, and went on before I could even get a word in.
"Besides, my behind is already sore from the piece of crap stool that Scare-Carcas here tied me up to..." the crazy blonde added, turning to scowl at Scarecrow's dead body.
"If you want my crazy ass in police custody, you'll have to carry it there, yourself," Harley concluded with a huff as she tried to cross her arms and failed because of the cuffs binding her arms.
"Ugh... if you insist..."
...
Deborah immediately dropped what she was doing as she noticed Gray levitating out of the asylum's main building, holding a blonde woman in inmate garbs over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, kicking and screaming in protest.
She hurried to the gate, meeting him halfway as he landed on the ground and turned to her. "That's most of the inmates... the ones who survived, at least..." Grayson said as he put Harley on the ground, seemingly filtering the ungodly profanities spewing out of her mouth.
"But there was an accident... it's Scarecrow..." he added before explaining the situation that led to the villain's death, and Deborah took his words at face value.
Deborah sighed as she listened. She wanted to say that the villain's demise was unfortunate, but she didn't find it in her to let out the words, no matter how hard she tried.
Scarecrow had been tormenting Gotham for many years now. His so-called experiments had caused too much death and traumatized more people than anyone cared to count, scarring them for the rest of their lives with his twisted fear gas.
Deborah did not think The villain's death was unfortunate. In fact, she thought Gotham and the entire world would be a much better place now that he was gone, but she couldn't say that either.
"Understood. I'll have the forensic team skim over it," Deborah said after listening to Gray's story, settling with a neutral, meaningful reply, to which Grayson raised an eyebrow but didn't comment on it.
"And it looks like I just found the asylum's staff... safe and sound, well, kind of..." Grayson said, his expression shifting as he let out a weird smile that seemed to confuse the police captain.
"What do you mean...?" Deborah asked, frowning in confusion as she looked at Grayson's strange, amused smile, which instantly gave her a bad feeling.
"Nothing to worry about; just some micro fear gas bombs inside their bodies..." Grayson replied, chuckling as he shook his head, to which Deborah's expression grew even more befuddled.
"My machines already took care of it with a little shock therapy, which is ironic..." Gray continued as he stopped chuckling. "For a guy running a lunatic asylum, Warden Arkham didn't seem to enjoy a taste of his own medicine..." he added, unable to hold back his laughter as he took out his phone.
He fiddled with it and raised it to the police captain's eye level showing footage of the warden trying to escape, sprinting all over a hallway in his underwear as a Sentry Spider chased after him with an extended mechanical limb, crackling in electricity.
Deborah sighed before cracking up a smile and shaking her head. "And people wonder why there are so many damned lunatics running around Gotham..." she muttered, unable to hold it any longer as her smile turned into a light chuckle.
"Either way... my machines will get them out of there once they're good to go..." Gray said as the phone in his hand disappeared. "There's still some satanic shit going on underground, and I haven't found any traces of Clue Master, among others..." he added as he turned away from the police captain.
"Might as well finish the job..."
...
"Reall slick..." I muttered, sighing as I intently tabbed on the wall before me, finally getting the hollow thud I'd been looking for the past hour and a half.
When you hear secret underground chamber, you'd instinctively think the entrance to it would be on the lowest floor, which is why I've wasted so much time looking for the damned thing.
I combed the lowest floor and found nothing that would even remotely indicate the existence of a hidden entrance. It reached the point where I'd seriously contemplated digging my way down, which I didn't have to do, thankfully.
I inspected the asylum's design looking for something I might have missed and noticed a peculiarity in the wall before me as it was thicker than necessary in the blueprint.
I quickly made my way here, gave it a few knocks, and what do you know, the damned thing was hollow.
I shrugged, shaking off stray thoughts as I felt around the wall but found no lever or mechanism that would magically open it. Sighing, I cocked my fist and punched it down, causing it to crumble and reveal the elevator shaft behind it.
"This thing still has to go through the first floor... how the hell did I miss it down there...?" I muttered as I looked down the elevator shaft before jumping inside.
I activated my aero discs before hitting the ground to levitate down gently without making a noise and noticed a steel mesh door before me, which I quietly unlocked with my wires.
With the door out of my way, I stepped forward and found myself in a barely lit, cramped hallway with only one way to advance, leading to a small wooden door at the end.
I approached the door and put my ear on it to listen, causing me to frown as I heard incomprehensible muttering from inside. Retrieving a small camera from my inventory, I attached it to my steel wire and slipped it under the door.
'Some satanic shit indeed...' I mused, barely holding back the urge to sigh as I viewed the footage from the camera with my personal computer power.
The room's interior was just as cramped as the hallway, and the walls had all manner of scribbles and symbols. At the center was a shrine, a man I identified as Maxie Zeus lying on top of it with ropes binding him to the altar.
The icing on top of the cake was Clue Master, who looked more like a starved ghoul than a human, kneeling before the alter with gibberish (of the satanic kind) spewing out of his mouth like he was Eminem or something.
"For fuck's sake... why does everything have to be so complicated..."
...
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