The Darkest of Knights

As Karmy sulked away, she saw Alice and BG heading into the Batbox. She was about to call out to them but something caught her eye. Was that... A cig in Alice's hand?! "ALICE!" she called out to her, almost in a rage.

Alice nonchalantly looked to the side to look at her friend and then realized what happened the last time she caught her smoking. She spit it out quickly, "Hey Karmy!" Alice waved. "You spit on my leg..." Batgirl complained.

Snapping open a portal, she grabbed the cig and walked up to Alice. "I saw you smoking this!" she said, up to her, holding the cig in her face. "I thought you quit! You know what this means right?!"

"I didn't quit, I just don't smoke in front of you.." Alice said rolling her eyes and placing her hands on her hips.

"Batgirl here, what do you want Robin?" She asked still attentive to what Alice and Karmy were doing.

"OH!" Karmy screamed. "So you've been tricking me! What the hell dude?!" she quickly kicked Alice hard in the shins. After she had down this, she snapped a portal open and tossed the cig in. It landed on some random mans head and he caught on fire. "These damn things are bad for you and random dudes!" she held the portal open so Alice could see. "Why'd you trick me!?' she put the fire out and closed th portal.

"He's back? Didn't they say he died or something?" Batgirl asked, then Karmy kicked Alice, she fell on the floor grabbing her shins in pain. "If you recall that day you said if I smoke then you'd kick my shins and throw it on some guy's head. Ergo, if you caught me smoking then you'd do that... Which happened. So I didn't trick anybody! I skillfully avoided you.." Alice explained. "Alice!!" Batgirl screamed as she ran over to her crumpled body. "Damn that must have been a hell of a kick! Geez Karmy I know its bad for her but you don't need to do that!"

"Keep out of this!" Karmy yelled. "I had pretty much made a promise to her that every time I caught her smoking, that I would do just this!" she had the sudden urge to hit Batgirl. "This is none of your business Bat!" she never had nor will ever like her or Dick

"Hey, hey cowgirl! I was just saying you're acting a bit rash about this.." Batgirl said defensively. "Plus I think she's really hurt. That was totally uncalled for.." She continued to comment as she helped Alice up. "Yeah.. If you catch me." Alice remarked.

"Didn't I JUST catch you?!" Karmy said, completely ignoring Batgirl now. "Man, if that kick downed you, then you're getting soft Al. What, too much time in the rich life making you a pansy?" she sneered in a half playful way, but half meaning it.

"God Karmy, what's gotten into you..? Have you been gassed again?" Alice asked still rubbing her shins. "Everything's fine here. We'll catch up with you in a bit Robin.." Batgirl said one hand to her ear, another supporting Alice. "Make another move like that and you won't be entering the Batcave with warm beds, food, and shelter." Batgirl warned narrowing her eyes at her as she noticed the seriousness in Karmy's tone.

"Fine!" Karmy shouted, throwing her hands up into the air. "The ONLY reason I stayed to help was because of Alice, but since all of you think I'm just a waste of space, I'm getting Casius and Cyrah and leaving Gotham!" and she turned on her heel and began to walk off.

Batgirl scrunched her face, giving Karmy's back a nasty face. "This is over a damn cigarette?" Batgirl asked. "Your friend overreacts too much." She said helping her into the Batcave. Dammit Karmy.. Alice thought her heart sinking at the site of her storming off. Inside, Batgirl checked the wound, it was bruised to the point where there was blood poking out of her skin. "Well you got yourself quite a limp. Expect it to last a day or so. You gonna be alright?" Batgirl inquired. "She'll come back. Possibly when the sh*t hits the fan." Alice replied.

Batman drove down the streets at high speeds then slowing down and coming to a stop in a hidden alley way. "Okay let's wait here for a while..." Batman said quietly looking at the time. Midnight. "We'll wait till the man is asleep. Then we can go in. How are you feeling about this?"

A portal appeared above the two and Karmy plopped down next to Alice. "Psych! told ya I would always be tricking ya!" she laughed out loud

Alice looked at Batgirl, Batgirl at Alice. "Uhh.. What are you talking about?" Batgirl asked confused as to what was going on. Alice--equally confused-- facepalmed and said "I guess she's pulling some strange prank on me..."

"Well Raven should be with Damian looking for clues on The Joker case. We can comm-link her now if you want to." Batman said leaning back.

"Pretty much." Karmy smiled and hugged Alice. "If it isn't strange, well, then it's just not a fully fledged K.A.A prank!"

"But... But she's bruised! And she's limping!" Batgirl kept saying in confusion. "Some prank huh?" Alice asked with an expressionless face to Batgirl as she was hugged by her best friend. God bless her.

"Just goes to show that I can still surprise ya buddy." Karmy said, grinning like an idiot. "Ahaha you can only imagine what I got planned out next! But then, once you imagine it, you'll be wrong. Granted, I don't know what I plan to do next." she smiled wider, still hugging her.

"Terrible." Raven said through the communicator. "For one, The Joker must have dug through the bodies to fish out the bullets cause they're not there. He's left no clues, and another thing is I can't help but think Red X is starring at me the wrong way." Batman looked at Robin, then through his communicator told Raven "No comment." "Figures." Raven responded. "And he's a real ass too."

"This is ridiculous..." Batgirl muttered, "were you trying to get me mad at you?" Batgirl asked, Alice took out another cigarette.

"I am ridiculous, that's just who I am. And yes I was." Karmy said, flicking the cigarette out of Alice's mouth without taking her eye's off of Batgirl. "Wasn't planning on you to be there but meh.. Helped the prank go a lot better, so thank ya BG!"

Batgirl looked at Karmy as if she just saw Harley Quinn give her a big hug. She thought there was either something wrong with her or with Karmy either way this was really messed up. "What kind of prank is that?" Batgirl asked Karmy utterly flabbergasted. "Oh you know... The type of prank where you beat someone over the head with a tire iron..." Alice said trying to break Karmy's grip and get the cigarette.

"I'll do more than that, I'll send him into another dimension." Raven seethed. "Stop looking at my chest!"
"What chest?"

"Now did I actually do that? No. Would I do it? No!" Karmy said, holding Alice tighter. "And I've known Alice for years! If you had seen us when we first met, all this would make sense. I think..."

Batgirl looked at Alice for her approval, she still wore an expressionless face and shook her head. "I lit her on fire." She said blankly. Batgirl wanted to stop everything and sit the two down to straighten everything out. This was on the verge of getting trippy.

The last of the vanilla folders flopped down onto Thorne's desk. Anyone who told you that being a criminal was easy was a liar and you should probably shoot him. Or at least that's what Rupert would do. "Finally." The crime lord tapped his cigar against the edge of its ash tray. A lot had happened in his time away. Never taking another vacation again was starting to look like a good idea. The crime lord took a long drag on his fine smoke-able product, and leaned back in his chair turning slightly to look out the window at the dark city behind him.

So many things needed to be done, and they all needed to get done in rather short order. The question was, what to do first. The criminals of Gotham could wait. They were always up to something or another and these days it seemed you had to gun down a mask or blow something up to get the bat's attention so as long as Thorne kept his men out of the Halloween mask collecting business they could probably rest easy knowing that the Batman had better things to do than make their lives, and his business more difficult, but there was the matter of the late commissioner. Gordon had long ago refused to have anything to do with Rupert Thorne or virtually anyone in his organization. He'd made things difficult in his day that was for certain, probably more difficult than the Batman when all things were considered, between the two of them they really could've had a shot at cleaning up the city.

But now both of them were dead, even if the one in a mask refused to stay that way. Now Thorne was no fool, and he'd actually had the displeasure of meeting with the Batman on more occasions than he'd liked. This new one wasn't the same, something about him was off, even in the news-clippings he looked, lighter than he had. Now sure maybe he'd lost some weight recovering form his near-death in some cave somewhere, but there was just something that told Thorne they were dealing with a new Bat. Not that it really mattered all that much, new or old as long as Thorne had the money and the secrets, and there were people in the right places who wanted something from him he'd never see the inside of a jail cell no matter who tried to put him there. Still if memory served the late commissioner had left a daughter behind, and he really ought to offer his 'condolences' to the orphaned Gordan girl. But first there was the matter of this new Commissioner, he need to know where he stood, the troops were out doing what they could to gather what they could on who they could, but this matter required a little something more, personal.

Rupert Thorne grabbed his hat and his coat, called for his limousine to be brought around to the building's front, and walked out with three armed guards. "Take me to the police boys. It's time I met with the new commis'." A smirk on his face a cigar in his hand and loaded handgun in his coat, the most notorious crime lord in Gotham City, headed off right toward police plaza.

(O_O! OMG Nice post Decy!!!)

"Also another reason why I don't like you smoking." Karmy said, half frowning. "Whenever you have a flame, I still remember the feeling of... Yeah." she let go of her and looked away, a hint of fear in her voice.

"You set her... On ... Fire." Batgirl asked slowly and still confused. She took a seat looking at the two curiously. "So if you set her on fire... How did you become best friends?" Batgirl asked taking off her cowl. "Let's just say she ended up saving my life." Alice sighed wondering when Karmy would loosen up. "So you have pyrophobia now or something? I'm not gonna set you on fire again, maybe Cas, but not you. Gee."

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(Scratch this.. Sorry wasn't think. Its late at night)