The Darkest of Knights

Karmy couldn't more nor did she really want to move, so she just lay limp, still shivering . "Gotta... save you.. back.." she breathed out weakly. "Haven't been able.. t-" her body became ridged again as another seizure racked her body. It had been a very long time since that amount of electricity had coursed through her body and, mixed with the hypothermia, it was taking its toll. "Well, she's not looking too good." The Joker... joked as he walked in.

Alice clung onto Karmy tighter, afraid the Joker might gun the both of them down where he stood. "Karmy, please hang in there." She said forcing her piece of heart into Karmy's trembling hand and resting her aside. "Joker. It's just you and me now." She seethed with hate, wiping off her bloody lip.

(sry...just been away 4 a while and i got no idea whats going on)

(Uhhm......Curvy? You wanna... Rethink that post...? Cause ya know.. Uhm... Yeah..)

(Seeing how you would have been shot up like Jack Skeleton on Christmas Eve if you got anywhere near the warehouse, which you never happened to explain how you managed to find it, or how you're perfectly fine after your run in with Ra's. One rule I had from the beginning is logic.)

[=__=......Corv........]
Slade was too proud to admit Batman had surprised him, but truth was he had. But not for long. As Batman swooped down on Slade, he wound his staff back to parry the incoming attack. Although he lunged to meet batman, his staff's tip flaring with energy, he suddenly stopped short- to his eye, he once more saw Rose's accusing look and charred body where Batman was. Was the gas still in his system somehow? This distracted Slade for an ever so valuable moment......
[Not sure what to do with everyone else @tm]

(Uhm yeah.. Sorry Curvy but if I don't disregard that post I'm gonna have to have Joker kill everyone cause.. Uhm yeah..)

"Tsk tsk tsk.. So ready to move on even though your friend is in horrible shape. Well, I can't blame ya. It's your fault she's like this." he jeered in Alice's face. He pulled out Karmys bag and tossed it onto her shaking body. "And besiiidddess" He leaned against the empty tank with his hands behind his head. "Don't you just want to relax after all those rooms?" he closed his eyes with a grin.

Alice stood up and eyed the Joker maliciously. "I did that to her? I did that to her?! I wasn't the one who strapped her to this f*cking tank and set her up on this and zapped and cut her, I wasn't the one you sick bastard!" Alice yelled at him, "You, me, now. Before the police stop me."

Batman didn't hesitate to take Slade's pause to his advantage. Though the Larry seemed to do nothing it threw off Batman by the slightest, and that's all Slade needed to kill him. He needed to stay to Slade's blind side. That would be the only way he could win. He shot his staff at Slade's side as hard as he could. He didn't want to hit his head not yet. If the hallucinagen was still in Slade's system he didnt want to knock it out. Not just yet.

The Joker hunched over until he was face to face with Alice, so close that he could smell the blood and sweat on her body. "Admit it or not, you and I both know that the reason she's on the floor like.." he pointed over to the twitching form on the ground without breaking eyecontact. "Is because you focused more on your own needs." he started to pace around her " How many times has Batman sacrificed himself just so you and your friends could surivive, in the past few weeks? You couldn't handle a little bit of physical pain to keep your friend from being shocked and frozen to death." he shook his head. Two clowns walked over to the semiconscious Karmy and slipped a hand under each of her arms, hoisting her shaking figure up. "Lets go to you final room, Miss White Knight."

"Reasoning with a madman is about as logical as nailing your hand to a table." Alice muttered to herself. She couldnt feel most of her body, her lungs had to be punctured at least once. She needed medical attention. But she knew what it felt like to have no choice. She followed the Joker.

The only sound that could be heard as they walked down the hall towards the final room was the scraping of Karmys wet, barefeet being dragged behind her as they hauled her along behind Joker and Alice. They entered the room with all the other clowns and heroes and Joker lead Alice to the left while the clowns tied Karmy to the last chair in between Cyrah and Barbara. After the clowns had bound and gagged every one of the heroes, so that no words of encouragement could push Alice on, they each stood behind the captives and watched intently as Alice and Joker stood in the middle of the room.

The room was quiet. Her silicon silent boots did it's job, though she wasnt stalking anyone, her boots found a way to make the silence of the room creepier. There were three levels in the room. One level was where she was on right now, she stood over glass panels that looked like it would light up like a Christmas tree. The other two levels are on the left and right side of the room. They had similar glass panels and began to hum quietly. She figured it out already. If she was on a level that began to light up she would be shocked with extreme volts of electricity, she had to fight the Joker at the same time move from panel to panel to make sure she wouldn't absorb too much damage. Alice looked above her. Everyone she had saved were tied to chairs, goons pointing guns at them.

Great.

If she lost, they would die, if she won, they would die anyway. And at any rate, Alice didn't seem to have mug of a chance anyway. The idea was to wear her out until she could no longer fight, this just seemed like a bloody television game show where the player would always lose. If the police hadn't seen the spectacular explosion that murdered Rose, surely they heard it. If the police didn't, then someone must have at least reported it. Nevertheless, Alice secretively activated some influential back up. A sound wave that was invented by Bruce Wayne that would attract bats. Particularly the bats in the cave that was under Wayne Manor. All of them. It has been tested to be extremely far, and it has worked, even in the day light. It would take a while for themto get there. Five, maybe seven minutes. But then again, five minutes was all The Joker needed to kill her, chop off her head and oven bake it for supper. Alice drew her knife, Jamie. Her first friend. The first one who cared about her. If she was going to join him soon, sh wanted to keep the memory set in. She tightened her grip around the tactical knife, breathed slowly, and lowered her heartbeat. Eight beats a minute. There was a name for it but hat wasn't on her mind. This is it. Her climax, her end.


Damian got tired of waiting around. He wanted to do something. He was already moving around, snow lightly falling and melting on his warm face. He heard Batman and Slade going at it pretty badly. He shrugged it off and peered through several windows. All empty. All the aftermath of Alice's events. He took out his hand camera to take pictures of each room as evidence. Who knew when they might need it? After a while she saw the golden room, everyone was in it. Everyone. He needs to let Batman know. They needed to break everyone out. Now that they were all together. They could grab Alice after they saved everyone else and get out of there. He rationalized that it would be better to face the Joker later, just by the observation of Alice's current condition.

(red give me a hand? i got no idea what im doing.)

(Alrighty, here's the deal, Curvy. Crimson is in the Medbay, after being brutally beaten by Ra's Al Ghul. He is in bad shape because I mean think about it. Ra's is like, really old and powerful. I mean... REALLY OLD! So. I'm sure Crimson is down for the count for a while.
As for the other heroes, all of them except for Alice, Batman, and Damien, have been kidnapped by the Joker. Alice has to go and save them, alone, and if anyone such as Batman, Damian or Crimson try to help, the captive heroes will be killed in an instant. Get it? Got it? Good! So now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go beat Alice to a bloody pulp)

The Joker stood watching Alice, his hands wrapped around his own weapon behind his back, his greasy greens locks draped down the sides of his face. The weapon was hidden behind his legs and long purple jacket, the blade of the shovel rested on the ground. He smiled as Alice looked back to him, his scars framing his grin to sickening proportions. Time to break the silence."

"I'm sure you've figured this out by now." he gestured to the design of the room. "Everyone, everyone you've rescued is here. And everyone you haven't rescued.." he chuckled. "Well, she's in pieces right now. I want you to look at everyone you care about. Promise them that they'll be alright."

"So this is where we fight...?" Alice asked looking around once more to make sure she had it right. Her surroundins were set in her mind, she figured she would have a hard time getting from level to level, she envisioned The Joker making it to the level before her and kicking her off before she safely made it on.

"That's riigghtt." The Joker said impatiently, still managing to keep his calm, psychotic, demeanor. "This is where your final test takes place." his hands twitched slightly behind his back. "You can save... Most of them." he tilted his head up towards the hostages. "But can you save yourself?"

"No one can save themselves." Alice said drawing her MP5k's and aiming it down range, "C'mon clown, dance." She said firing off several burst fire shots.

Wandering through the warehouse compound was much less pleasant when you didn't have a bus to carry you most of the way. The black haired youth meandered about, tugging and itching at her smelly clothes and the page boy cut wig, the dark contrast in her peripherals was very distracting and Mame kept having to blow the fake hair out of her eyes just so she could pay attention to where she was walking.

The psychotic teen wandered far from where she initially drove the bus into the compound, avoiding it was the smartest thing she could think to do, especially because she looked like a damn rapist hobo with her suspicious tot bag, but that was ok, people would avoid her whilst still assuming her bag just had all her possessions in it. The sad thing was they would assume right.

After walking around the same warehouse twice due to a distraction (namely a flock of seagulls that weren't smart enough to fly away). Mame wound up near the edge of the warehouse district, now weaponless she couldn't afford to lose her temper in public again, although there was still blood caked under her fingers nails, so dark and clotted it appeared as dirt, and her eye had swollen shut, but she hadn't noticed, it had buzzed into mundane sensations that she had become immune to, the only thing that told her something was not right was the fact she could not open nor see out of her left eye.

Exasperated after her little sea gull adventure, Mame was pleased once the main city road came into view, she could start walking to City Hall from here, though it would take her all day and she wasn't that interested in wandering around or getting distracted again. As her borrowed shoes clicked sloppily against the side walk a grim smile spread across the pale girls face, perhaps City Hall wouldn't be her only target, after all if she concentrated her efforts there then there would be more evidence the Bat could track her with once he became....Less distracted.

Mame tried not to laugh as she hefted her bag up again to secure it over her shoulder, why not decimate other buildings on her way to City Hall? Plant the bombs in random public buildings like fast food restaurants or grocery stores? Kill as many people as possible on her path of terror. Nodding firmly with her witty (at least she thought it was) decision, Mame's pace quickened as the excitement of actually managing to complete her own crime began to churn inside her gut, making her nauseous despite how delighted she seemed, this was really going to..Oh how did Boss O'feir put it? Make her bones? Yeah this was really going to be a much better start to her career then robbing some stupid bank with a water gun.

The Joker rolled out of the way, he had anticipated that Alice would pull her guns out and was ready for her. "A member of the Bat family doesn't use lethal methods, let alone guns!" he called out snidely to her, already starting to run up the levels. He was on the defense for now, he would go on offense later, when he had her right where he wanted her. "Wouldn't you agree, Malice? Hahah!!" anyone who had been in the underworld workings of the villain world knew her by that name because of Slade. "I'm sure your old master would be pleased to see that you have that killer instinct still in you!"

"Shut up clown." Alice snapped emptying her clips out in Joker's general area, "You don't intimidate me, I intimidate you." Alice seethed, pulling out a magnum. "Isn't that right Heath?" She asked firing a round so close to The Joker that it made even him jump. "By the way, I know how you got those scars. Once a rising actor, faked your own death. How's Elvis doing?" Alice shot again. "You don't scare me, I am the darkness that surrounds you as we speak, I am the night."

Batman was clever to attack fro Slade's blindspot- hell, were their positions reversed, Slade would've done the same thing. Struck by the staff, Slade was hardly phased- Promethium Kevlar suits were hard to phase, not too disimilar from Alice's own suit. Jabbed by the strike, Slade wheeled around to counter the attack.

And there he saw it again- that same, haunting face. Plain as day and as crystal clear as the weapon in his hand. "Your fault." Was all the aparation said. And, yet again, Slade pulled back. This was the second time Slade had a shot and didn't take it.

Because he knew the aparation was right- it WAS his fault. He heard the Joker's words in his head- 'This is all your fault!'

It was his rage against the Heroes that led him to side with the Joker. He could've seen Joker's betrayal coming from a mile away, but he was so clouded by his own hate, drowning in his own lack of control that it caused the destruction of his daughter, his own flesh and blood, one of the few human beings he almost had the audacity to admit caring about.

Over two decades. Constant humiliation. And the death of his own flesh and blood. At long last, Slade began to question himself. He took up another stance to redy himself against Batman, but this was different. This was'nt something solid, ready to take the head off the first thing that moved. This was something unsure, the posture of man questioning himself. Ever so full of questions......

Before Slade knew it, Batman had a dangerously sharp batarang poised above his eye. "The gas is affecting you more than you had anticipated Slade, what are you seeing?" Batman asked curiously. "I'll let you go, just do kill the Joker. We can always finish this later." Batman said taking a huge gamble, but he would do anything right now to keep his friends safe, he needed to make sacrifices, such as letting old grudges go. If Slade would take the bait, they wouldn't have to fight any longer and he could focus on saving the heroes. He was already getting the info from Damian that he found everyone...

"Ahahah!!" The Joker dodged another one of Alice's blast. "You found out about my past, that I can say safely is impressive." he grinned, gripping the shovel tightly in one hand, he pulled out his own pistol. "Your petty attempts to intimidate me are so cute! And especially the whole "I am the night" deal." he fired off a round in Alice's direction. "Only the first Batman could pull that line off. Not you, not Dicky boy or Batbitch!"

The shot had streamed right into Alice's stomach, dragon skin ceramic pads absorbed most of the shot, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt, nor did it mean it would protect her ribs. Alice fell to the floor coughing, wheezing.

The Joker put his gun away and walked over to Alice, the shovel scraping loudly behind him. "Wow, down that fast? I am disappointed in you." he shook his head and kicked her in the ribs. "I was expecting so much more from the so called 'White Knight' of Gotham!" he stomped on her chest and held her down with his foot. "Well no, not really." he leaned down closer to her. "You're just as careless and deplorable as I thought." he jested.