Ace Chemicals was a blight on the Gotham skyline. Even from a mile away, the smell was offensive—a mixture of burning sulfur, ammonia, and something sickly sweet that coated the back of the throat.
We parked the limo three blocks away in a shadowed alley. I remained in the driver's seat, monitoring the thermal scans.
"Young Master," I spoke into the comms. "I am detecting twelve heat signatures inside the main processing plant. They are clustered around the central vats on the upper catwalks."
"Copy," Bruce whispered. He was already on the roof of the facility. "I'm going in."
I tapped the dashboard. "Do try not to inhale the fumes, sir. They will wreak havoc on your sinuses. And if you fall into a vat of green sludge, I am absolutely not washing that suit."
"Sebastian. Focus."
"I am always focused."
I wasn't just sitting in the car. I was projecting my consciousness, my demonic senses extending like invisible tendrils into the factory. I could hear their heartbeats. I could smell their fear... and the cheap polyester of their costumes.
They called themselves the Red Hood Gang. A pathetic lot, really. Small-time crooks wearing red buckets on their heads to preserve anonymity. But the chemicals they were stealing for Cobblepot were dangerous.
I closed my eyes. I could see through Bruce's cowl camera.
He dropped from the skylight.
The fight was brutal and fast. Bruce landed in the middle of four men loading barrels. Before they even registered his presence, two were on the ground with shattered kneecaps.
CRACK. THUD.
Bruce moved like smoke in the industrial haze. He was a terrifying silhouette, a creature of vengeance. The thugs panicked. They fired their guns wildly, the bullets sparking off metal vats filled with bubbling, neon-green acid.
"Careful, gentlemen!" I murmured to myself in the car. "OSHA violations abound."
Bruce dismantled them efficiently. But the leader—the one wearing a slightly shinier red helmet and a purple suit—scrambled up a ladder toward the highest catwalk, directly over the main mixing vat.
Bruce pursued.
I decided it was time to get a closer look.
I stepped out of the limo. In one beat of a hummingbird's wing, I was standing on a support beam inside the factory, fifty feet above the floor, invisible in the shadows.
The smell was even worse up here.
Below me on the catwalk, Bruce had cornered the leader. The man was backed against the railing, shaking. Below him, the vast vat of chemicals churned angrily.
"Stay back!" the Red Hood yelled, his voice distorted by the helmet. "Don't come any closer, you freak!"
Bruce didn't speak. He just took a slow, menacing step forward, his cape (which I finally agreed to let him wear for theatricality) billowing in the updraft from the vats.
"I said stay back!"
The leader was terrified. Not just scared, but truly broken by fear. He looked at the Bat-creature in front of him, then down at the bubbling acid.
He made a choice. A stupid, desperate human choice.
He tried to jump the railing to the next platform.
He missed.
His foot slipped on the chemical-slicked metal grating. He flailed, grabbing for the railing, but his sweaty gloves found no purchase.
He fell backwards.
Time seemed to stop.
Bruce lunged forward. "NO!"
Bruce threw his hand out, his fingertips grazing the sleeve of the man's purple suit. He missed by an inch.
I watched it happen. I was standing right there, hovering just above them in the dark.
I could have saved him.
It would have been effortless. A twitch of my finger, a burst of speed, and I could have grabbed his collar and deposited him safely on the floor.
But I didn't move.
Why?
Perhaps it was the look in the man's eyes just as he fell past Bruce. Through the eyeholes of that ridiculous red helmet, I didn't just see fear anymore. I saw something else break. I saw sanity snap.
I saw potential.
Humans are so boring when they are sane. But when they break... they become fascinating art projects.
I watched as the Red Hood leader hit the surface of the chemicals.
SPLASH.
He didn't scream. The helmet must have muffled it, or the shock silenced him instantly. He was sucked under the churning green liquid. A few bubbles rose to the surface, tinged red with blood and dye from his suit.
Then, nothing. He was gone. Washed away into the outflow pipes that dumped into the Gotham River.
Bruce stood gripping the railing, staring down into the abyss. His shoulders were shaking.
"I... I couldn't reach him," Bruce whispered into the comms. He sounded like the eight-year-old boy again. "He fell. Sebastian, he fell."
I materialized on the catwalk next to him, placing a hand on his armored shoulder.
"It was not your fault, Young Master," I said softly. "He chose his path. You cannot save everyone from their own foolishness."
Bruce looked at me, his eyes haunted behind the cowl lenses. "I didn't want him to die."
"We do not know if he is dead," I looked down at the toxic sludge. "Though if he survived, I doubt he will ever be the same. That chemical cocktail would rewrite a human's biology entirely."
"We have to find the body. Call Gordon."
"The police are already on their way. We must leave. The mission is complete; Cobblepot did not get his stabilizer."
I gently steered Bruce away from the edge.
As we grappled out of the skylight, leaving the carnage and the bubbling vat behind, I felt a strange sensation. A premonition.
The air in Gotham felt different. Heavier. Manic.
Down in the pipes beneath the city, something was swimming. Something was changing. Something was laughing.
I smiled into the night wind.
The game had just gotten significantly more interesting.
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