The Darkest of Knights

"I know you can't erase it from your memory, I'm not asking you to pull the impossible." Karmy stood up. "Ok well, lets see. Has something ever happened in your life were like, you were degraded and treated like nothing more than dirt? Hell, less than dirt? A time where your body was nothing more than just property to others? Constantly being belittled and told that you would never accomplish anything? Have you had your mind tortured and molded?" she started to raise her voice slightly. "How about, when you were 10 years old, did someone ever preform surgeries on you while you were still conscious? Have you ever been forced to kill someone?! 55 times?!"

"Well I was shot by the Joker, stripped naked, and taken photos of in front of my dad so I vaguely know how it feels to get degraded." Barbara mused leaning back.

The Batmobile came to a screeching halt as it finally arrived at Gotham's Airport, the hood of the batmobile lifted and steam shot out the top as Batman and Robin emerged. "Mame! There are two ways out of this: easy and hard. You choose which one, but either way, you're going down!" Batman called up to her.

Stupid little men!

Mame had predicted correctly when she had assumed people would climb up to where she was once the spot light was turned on. She had also been right in assuming she could and would kick their asses. The blonde girl stood atop one man with a fractured skull, her crowbar had made quick work of him, one foot planted on his chest as she swung her crow bar around and crowed into the megaphone like a strutting rooster.

“ I told you! TOLD YOU! But would anyone listen? I bet you thought I was kidding! Don’t f*ck with the chick in the mask!”

Mame was grinning and laughing hysterically, this was just too perfect, this was the stuff the news papers spieled about, this was the stuff other Gotham villains remembered! She felt so proud, but nothing compared to the instant that sleek sexy Bat mobile shrieked to a halt on the tar mat. The youth felt a bubble of glee careen up her throat and resound out from the megaphone. Crap! She hadn’t meant for that to be heard. Embarrassed, Mame jerked the megaphone away from her head and stared down at the Dark Knight and his ward.

She looked down to the man groaning and bleeding under her foot, then the crow bar, then the spot light. She moved to the light and turned the manual switch to off, then kicked the man off the platform as well as tossing down the crowbar, giving up her hostage for the sake of a real fight, she wanted them, and just them…But that didn’t mean she couldn’t play dirty.

There was another man up there with her that she had beaten into submission, and by submission she meant death. It was an accident, she hadn’t intended on killing anyone thank you very much. But he had punched her in her bruised scratch cheek and the white spots that danced around her vision because of it had invoked some of that famous rage.

“ Well well well! If it isn’t the flying rat and the boy blunder!”

Classic. Villain. Monologue!

“I think you should know from the body count I only like it hard Batman”

11/20/31
7:05pm
Heavy Snow. Must be 12 degrees now.

Batman smirked stepping up to the "There was a sick part of me was really hoping you'd say that." Batman nearly whispered to himself. The justice of a thousand murders was about to be served. Not a life in Arkham, that would be going easy on her. Batman would make sure she would be properly placed. He extended his arm to shoot out his grapple hook to level himself with Mame, "Let's go Robin." He half wanted to call her "chum" as Bruce once called him. He tensed up as he shot the grapple hook, adrenaline, excitement, a conclusion.

As his heavy form crunched on the top of the base of where Mame had been waiting for him. "This ends now."

"You'll never understand.." Karmy slid down the wall and onto her bum, her knees pulled close and hands gripping her head. "Can I at least see what y'all have on me? I already saw Thorne's file, I just need.. to see what you guys have."

Barbara sighed and looked over to Karmy, she flipped open her phone punched in the Oracle code again and handed the phone to her. "Feel free."

Karmy started to hypterventilate as she moved further and further down the record. She may not have been able to read too well, but the pictures and the few words and sentances she did manage to read sent chills down her spine. There was even a few recordings of the experiament records. "Oh god..." she went fetal and tried to stop from crying.

“Yeah, I know”

Mame straightened up, trying to ignore the body that lay a few feet from her; at least the other one was still alive. She really hadn’t meant to kill this one; he had just sorta…Died. The youth did not feel bad about killing the dead tar mat worker, but she felt bad that she hadn’t given Batman a chance to stop her this time. Before it wasn’t a matter of wanting him to stop her, she had succeeded and that was enough for her, but now, well now she felt like a kid with their hand caught in the cookie jar, she had done a big no-no and wasn’t sure she wanted the ‘scolding’ she’d get for it.

“You know, I’ve been trying to get your attention since the break out at Arkham”

She absently took a step back, moving to block the crushed skull from Batman and Robin’s view, her hand reaching up to pull the domino mask from her bruised and swollen features. She hoped to god they wouldn’t show her any mercy, that horrifying sense of crushing apathy was coming back and she was afraid of what it would do to her this time.

“I saw on the news…What happened to Commissioner Gordon…Did you find out who did it?”

She hadn’t expected to be this talkative, nor figured that they would be, surely their veins would flood with the righteous anger that stemmed from her wicked deed, but maybe they would humor her before they broke her down and took her away.

The breakout in Arkham was the beginning of the month. Has this child done more than any of them realized? How much more damage did they have to clean up if she accomplished so much in one night? The bodies of the security guards sickened him, but he daren't let her see his disgust. Though he also assumed she had not had the access to a television since Arkham, so he decided to at least inform her of the events following that lead to this final showdown. Everything from getting chased by the cops, fighting his own friends, going to Jump City, to Metropolis, to destroying the earthquake generator, it all lead down to this. And Dick was tired. The man in him was begging him to sleep, but Batman has no choice.

"It was a superbeing named Metallo. He utilized his powers over electronics to frame me. Gordon was onto S.T.E.A.M. he foresaw the Earthquake Generator. He knew too much and for one reason or another, wanted to show me personally." Batman told Mame, seeing how young she was almost made him hesitant on striking, it would be almost like beating down Robin. He had to. This fight was going to be quite awkward.

Crying yourself to sleep usually results in a bad headache when one wakes up, and that's what Karmy had as she peeled her eye's open with a muffled groan since her face was buried in the blankets of the hospital bed. Besides the pounding headache, she was feeling much better than she did earlier. Not sure how she got in a bed, she rubbed her head and blinked her bloodshot eyes, trying to see who was in the room. "Barbara?"

"You do a lot of crying don't you?" Barbara asked. "On a side note, I'd like to get my phone back." Barbara told her extending her hand out to Karmy.

"Hey, they're legitimate excuses so you hush. I can't help it if I'm an emotional person." Karmy handed Barbara back her phone. "It's not like I cry when I'm in horrible pain, hate to break it to you but not only you guys of the Bat Clan work through pain." she searched around for her bag and snatched it up. "If you had my mind, you'd be the same way." she said, tapping her noggin.

"I'm so glad I don't have your mind." Barbara joked at Karmy. Maybe she wasn't use to her and Dick's whitty sarcasm. Alice still wasn't. She always seemed so damned serious.

"Hey, I don't mind having my mind." Karmy smirked and crossed her legs. "Least I'm happy with my mind except when, ya know, someone else is controlling it or its screwed up in some way. That's seemed to happen a lot this month..." she speculated.

"Know what they're calling this crazy month in Gotham? Red November.. As if this isn't like any other month Gotham has faced before." Barbara smiled. "We've seen everything from Riots to Earthquakes. And when Bruce died... Well we've seen hell too."

"Man, why is it every time all us heroes get together to save Gotham, they name the month of days something like that?" Karmy asked. "Its like... someone's watching us.. controlling us.."

"Well it's not like people, or the media in general, haven't named these events that spiral out of control names before. When a mysterious serial killer using the holidays to mark his handiwork terrorized Gotham for a nearly a year, well the gangsters at least, and Dent got acid thrown in his face, you know what they called that? The Long Halloween." Barbara replied recounting what she had read up on The Long Halloween. That was before Dick was around. That was where it all started. So many years ago. Must have been in the 90's.

"Wow, these sound like cheap book titles or something else created by writers or whatevers." Karmy thought out loud. "I should really learn how to read better... Ah well, I'll stick with maps and charts, much easier to read. So how's Alice doing?" she looked over to her friend. "Oh and that whole thing with Mame?"

Barbara opened her phone, she directed her attention from the glowing blue light to Karmy. "Well you have dyslexia don't you?" Barbara asked. "Alice put that in your report. You don't know how to read or comprehend perfectly? I mean I'm sorta surprises you understood your own profile unless you just looked at the... Pictures." Barbara added. "And I'm getting a satellite feed on the situation now."

"Hey, give me a little credit here, I can read a little bit." Karmy huffed. "Mainly like.. Names, numbers and locations. And the only reason I understand my profile is because it's not the first time I've seen it. It's exactly like the one in the institute, lacking a few.. sections though. And whatever that bottom section is, y'all must have added it cause it's just a jumble of bleh to me." she shrugged. "So yeah, is Dick having any luck?"

"Those are where you've been for the last six years. Just letting you know." Barbara told Karmy looking back to her phone, shaking her head. "Looks like he's either reasoning with her or stirring up pleasant conversation with the maniac." She reported. "Could be both."

"But.. How did y'all know where I was after the Titans split up?" Karmy asked, confused. "I was captured by Foster like, right after I left and after I escaped, a year later, I had gone into hiding for a while. And maybe he's trying to get her to monologue him until she passes our?" she suggested, leaning over to look at the screen.

"Foster recorded your escape, any unknown years about you we assume you're in hiding, its simple deduction. You were in a place you didn't want to be, you've got people looking for you, the most reasonable thing to do is to go into hiding. Then, any written documents about you at any time anywhere: the papers, magazines, any news tid bits gets anything on the television, radio, or online document that has you tagged will appear on my mainframe." Barbara explained, switching angles from her satellite. "Dick could be giving the ol' This Ends Now speech. He's really good at those." Barbara smiled fondly gazing upon Batman.

"Good thing to know that even y'all can't find me when I go into hiding." Karmy smirked, sticking her tongue out playfully with a wink. "Oh yeah, I think everyone has heard that speech from him. It's like, his trademark or something."