Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-09-01 13:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, damian wayne, door: dc comics, scarecrow |
Who: Talon, Catwoman, Scarecrow, and a bunch of unfortunate NPCs
What: Dealing with Crane's assault on a summer camp during Villain Night
Where: The woods outside Gotham
When: Fuzzy timelines = Today
Warnings/Rating: Violence
Damian was in desperate need of his own motorcycle. The one his father had was powerful, sure, but it was too clunky for his tastes, especially when the sole purpose of riding one was to get somewhere fast. Though, anyone actually trusting him with a high powered vehicle was questionable. Just the idea of legally getting his driver’s license at this point was laughable.
Still, Damian managed to get to the edge of the forest that the children and Scarecrow were at in decent enough time, but it was still energy wasted in his opinion. Standing under one of those old fashioned log signs that were probably handcrafted sometime in the 50’s, he looked for the kitty cat. His costume hadn’t changed from the Talon name he had taken from himself, but some of the resemblances to the monsters were purposely removed. The over the shoulder utility belts were a little to Tim Drake anyway. If anything, he looked more like a Robin that had painted himself black and gold in defiance of being a moving target like everyone claimed the little birds were.
Damian had brought breathalyzers for the two of them. Predictably high tech and custom made, as were all the gadgets that came from his utility belt. Selina had a way of improvising her way into things that Batman would need a couple toys to follow her through, but gas was one thing a caltrop couldn’t stop.
Selina found her own wheels. Sure, the kitty cat preferred sticking to the skyline wherever possible, but this summer camp was outside the fog-covered limits of Gotham, and the skyline ended well before the trees began. Goggles atop her head and cowl innocently pushed back, she stood on the side of the road in her basic black, and she held out one thumb (claw retracted, of course) and waited. She turned down the first two cars that stopped (too slow), but when a college-aged twenty-something pulled up in a shiny red motorcycle, she hopped right on. It wasn't her color, and she really did apologize when she put the twenty-something off the bike far enough down the road that alerting Gotham's finest would take awhile.
Tugging the cowl up and pulling the goggles into place, Selina approached the quaint little sign about the summer camp with an unimpressed little laugh. Her life had never been the summer camp type, even before Gotham added it to her list of casualties. No matter, that didn't mean those kids deserved whatever Scarecrow had in mind for them. Assuming he had anything in mind at all, and they weren't just being diverted out here as a way to lessen the able bodies fighting the real battle. Either way, she counted on the little bird to handle the gas mask situation. For her part, she had her whip around her waist, multiple lengths of black cording slung over one shoulder and to her opposite hip, and that was all. She wouldn't trust a gun around fear gas, even if she was the one carrying it, and the same went for a knife. It was claws and the whip or nothing with the underage crowd, which worried Selina just slightly. She would have loved to lodge a good bullet in Crane's knee; she still owed him for his little stunt at Arkham.
Selina cut off the engine on the bike as soon as she heard the first indication of fear in the distance, figuring that was far enough, and she looked around for a safe waiting spot after hiding the bike behind a thick patch of green. Waiting out in the open made the kitty cat antsy, and she didn't see any sign of the baby bird yet. A tree it was, and she perched on a branch and waited for her backup, which came into view within seconds. She dropped down beside him and landed in a silent crouch, before straightening. "Look. It's the absentee roommate." It had been awhile. "That way," she indicated, even as she held out a gloved paw for the mask she assumed he had on him.
He tossed her the facemask. “Missed me?” Damian smirked, putting his own mask on and then checked his GPS to confirm her sense of direction. “Top priority is making sure no children go missing. Catching Scarecrow is secondary.” He wasn’t sure if it needed to be said, but the Cat’s priorities could be a mystery in this kind of situation. The crow had gotten far under her skin and clawing him up might have been the only reason why she was here. To be fair, he mostly volunteered to help because of her, but partnering up with the cat was second nature at this point.
Damian shot his grappling hook into the trees and started to fly from branch to branch. midswing he checked the communicator for his father, for Stephanie, for the Hood. Still no news. Tonight really felt like they were all scrambling in the dark.
Selina shot him a look that said really? Even through the goggles. "You sound like the kitty cat coaching Jaybird not to go after Joker," she said. "Do we know how many?" she asked, slipping the mask on. She knew what a full dose of that gas felt like now, and she knew these kids were going to see her (and Damian) as the bogeyman under the bed, the monster in the closet, the father that didn't love them, their dead grandmother, and everything in between. This wasn't going to be easy. "If he's still out there, gassing them, taking him down matters," she added, but no, it wasn't the main priority, and she figured he didn't need her telling him that it wasn't going to be easy. They'd need to tie them up or contain them, neither of which was going to be easy in these woods.
Unlike him, she didn't take for the trees. kitty cats were good at prowling on foot without making even a twig snap, and there was plenty of cover. She ran. She slowed as the screaming got louder, and she stopped when the forest ahead of them came alive with the kinds of terror that were usually saved for a movie screen. She couldn't tell if Scarecrow had the scared kids loose or contained from the sounds, and they were going to have to step into the clearing to know for sure. Contained would be much, much easier, but nothing was ever easy in Gotham. It was a thing.
“We really need Oracle.” Damian had been the one who did most of the prep work before missions, but it was easier to have Gordon on the comm with them giving information. “I checked before I left. There’s about fifty, give or take. Plus the camp leaders. I don’t have anything that could calm them down that’s safe for children, which means we need paramedics in there as soon as possible.” It was impossible to tell what mix of toxin Scarecrow used. The strongest kind could kill an asthmatic; something the doctor should have factored into all of this.
“Selina.” Damian said after a couple moments. “Do you think he’d kill those kids? Even as collateral damage?”
Selina didn't do prep work. Even for her own heists, the big ones, she had Gwen handle that. Gwen was the one who told her when things were too dangerous, and half of the time she did them anyway. But there was no Gwen here, and in her world Barbara Gordon was on her feet being Batgirl. so she expected the baby bird to play detective, like his daddy. If it was up to the Cat, they'd be flying in blind. "Fifty," she repeated, because she hadn't expected that many. If they didn't get clawed half to death, they'd be lucky. "They're probably attacking each other. It's better if we look like a scarier target. It'll get them in one place." She tipped her head, feline and bright thoughts behind her eyes through the goggles. "No, one of us should look like the scarier target. The other one gets them immobilized." She shook the ropes. "Preference, baby bird?"
His question about Scarecrow didn't even get a beat's worth of hesitation. "Not himself. It's not his kink. But if they kill each other, or kill themselves because they're so afraid, he isn't going to stop them. That might even be the plan." She sounded grim. Fifty was a big number of gassed kids, and she didn't ask the ages intentionally. For all they knew, "kids" could be teenagers. Yeah, not good.
“Great.” Damian said flatly and landed next to her just outside of the main campsite. “You play cat monster. You’re better at prowling. I’ll see if I can get them into the cabins.” He lifted his hand up for her to throw him the rope and then vanished into the forest. Circling around the kids, separating them and then restraining the violent ones seemed like a good plan as long as Scarecrow wasn’t there with thugs and guns. That would make this whole venture a lot bloodier much faster.
The camp was home to the progeny of Gotham’s upper crust, fifty children ranging from only eight to sixteen, providing a variety of reactions for Gotham’s ‘heroes’ to cope with. Some children cowered beneath picnic tables and in trees, but others fought with everything their little hearts could manage. The place was a picture of chaos, overturned tables, cabins that were torn apart, and more than a little blood staining the grass and paved surfaces. The orchestrator of the day had made himself at home in the camp offices, watching from the windows as chaos reigned. The dose of fear toxin that had been unleashed in the camp was a new formula, not quite as strong as his last, but much longer lasting. This was not meant to be a short stroll in the park, after all. Scarecrow intended for Gotham to have a lasting taste of what could happen to their dear children when they thought them safe, to show them exactly how vulnerable their lives really were.
“The heroes ought to be making themselves known any moment,” Scarecrow said to one of his associates that occupied the office with him. His voice was muffled behind the burlap of his mask and the rebreather that kept him from taking in any of his own poison, and his associate was equipped with a similar device to keep him safe, though it was not nearly as menacing as Scarecrow’s mask. “Go on and patrol the perimeter of the camp and report back to me what you see. I want to know the moment anyone shows their mask near here. I’ve got a present for them, and I’ll need time to ready it.” A grunt of understanding and the man disappeared through the door, leaving Scarecrow to lean against the window sill that looked out over the camp.
Selina had thrown the ropes at Damian when he lifted his hand for them, and she had wasted just one second to touch his upper arm with her gloved hand as she swayed past him, brush of black against black, claws retracted. For the kitty cat, that was as close to be careful as she came, and she trusted the baby bird to be able to take care of himself here. As long as they weren't hit by the gas somehow, then this should be well within normal for them. Thugs and a cowardly Scarecrow somewhere in the middle? Really, it was the kids that worried her. Their unpredictability, but there wasn't time for second guessing; the kitty cat had never been very fond of it anyway.
The Cat spread out, found the furthest edge of the chaos, and she started doing something she didn't get a chance to do very often; she screamed. It wasn't particularly audible over the screaming of the children, and the scent of blood in the air made the Cat falter at the outset, but she found her stride within seconds. She prowled, jumped, screamed, and she sent scared children running toward the center of camp, and hopefully right into the baby bird's waiting ropes. The few who fought her (a handful), got just enough retribution to scare them, a good sound kick, a sweep of their legs, and pounce on their chests from a demon cat in black. It did the trick, and she was starting to feel pretty good about this plan - which was probably a mistake.
As Damian closed in on the camp, the reality that some of these kids could have died weighed on him quite suddenly. There was always a lot at stake in Gotham, but rarely were little children brought into the fold of it all. From the bushes he caught glimpses of anything from seven to twelve year olds rolling on the ground, attacking each other like wild cats and screaming. Screaming so loudly that you’d think someone was tearing them apart. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a stern looking boy around ten with black hair who seemed more angry than afraid crouched alone under a picnic table. That youthfulness, something he knew just months before, felt so far away.
Then the Cat yowled from the other side of the camp and the children screamed, running towards him, blindly. Damian grabbed the ones that seemed most violent or likely to run deep into the woods and restrained them. The little hellions kicked, screamed and pleaded for their parents. And, while Damian wasn’t responsible for this, while he was actually trying to save them, he felt like they were blaming him.
When reports came back that they had visitors, Scarecrow couldn’t help but grin behind the burlap of his mask. Of course the kitty would come to pay him a visit, because it seemed that she just couldn’t stay away from the good doctor. He could hardly blame her though. People gravitated towards what they needed, and it was clear that the kitty was in need of some treatment from the doctor. That would come in time, he thought to himself, waving off his associate with one hand as he got to his feet once again. It was time to unleash his gift upon their guests, a little ‘thank you for attending this party’ present that he was sure they would enjoy. A press of a small, red, plastic button was all that it took to open the doors to hell itself.
It was a cabin near the center of the camp, ‘Arts and Crafts’ the sign above the door proclaimed, but as the door opened, it was clear there was nothing sweet going on within. Teenagers poured out, the camp counselors in their polo shirts and khaki shirts, and with the wild looks in their eyes and the multitude of guns, knives, and other weapons in their hands, it was clear that these children were not like the ones that Catwoman and Talon had been dealing with previously. There was violence in their eyes, unsteady and shining in the pits of their existences, but it wasn’t turned on one another. No, this violence, this fear, was all on the people around them, saviours and campers alike. Bullets sang and knives plunged, and the teenagers spread out in a wave of fear-fueled death.
Selina had just managed a second clean sweep around the perimeter of the camp. All of the scared children, the ones she knew about at the time, had been herded safely toward the center. Unlike Damian, she didn't mind that the kids saw her as the bad guy. It was necessary, and that was all that mattered to the kitty cat. And after that second pass, she felt pretty good, like they might get out of this with only a few bruised up kids.
The kitty cat should have known better.
Selina was about to find Damian when the cabin door opened, and she slid along to the side of the cabin's wood slats and pressed herself back against them. She'd thought the Scarecrow would be far, far away from here, but there was always the possibility the kitty cat was wrong; she never was good at planning, and she missed Gwen - planning was her job. Still, it might be Damian opening the door, so the kitty cat didn't panic - yet.
The sound of multiple feet took away any hope Selina had of it being Damian in the cabin at her back, and she edged to the end and looked around the corner into the clearing, where all the scared children were contained by the perimeter. The first bullet came as a shock, and she darted without thinking. "Fuck. No," and she was never good at planning before running into a fight. She grabbed the first teen she approached by the elbow, sending that elbow backwards with a sickening snap as she took his gun. On, this was so not good. A quick glance told her they were outgunned, outmanned, and that that kitty cat should run for the trees. She wished, just for once, that she had one of those communicators that Damian wore in his ear. But she didn't. So, with nothing else to do, she jumped into the fight, smashing the gun beneath her boot and reaching for her whip to disarm the next teen.
Damian knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Granted, trying to wrangle up a bunch of wild kids wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but psychopaths like Scarecrow tended to have a backup plan just to make things interesting. After securing as many of the little kids as he could and dragging them into an empty cabin, Damian swung towards the gunshots, opting to attack from the air instead of running headfirst into battle. Perching on a tree above the Cat and armed teens, Damian dropped his entire stash of smoke bombs into the clearing below. They hissed alive, emitting smoke laced with a chemical close to something Freeze would use. It was hard to fire a gun or wield a knife when your fingers were numb from coldness.
He waited for the smoke to seep across the camp before jumping down into the fray. “Catwoman!” Damian called, wanting to make sure that he wouldn’t accidentally take down the kitty along with whatever teenager he could get his hands on.
Selina had managed to avoid the smoke and freeze by seconds, realizing it was some gadget, one of those things the Bat was so fond of. For once, she didn't mind them. They needed something to make this resemble a fair fight, and she was elbowing teenagers in the chin and grabbing dropped weapons and breaking them over her knee when she heard Damian yell for her. "Here!" she managed, just as something caught her along the side, a hiss and burn and fuck. She really hated Scarecrow. Her suit, tight like it was, would keep her fighting, and a little scratch wasn't going to make her retract her claws, not in this fight. "Five disarmed!" she called out, counting as she went, because it was an easier thing to concentrate on than the odds or the burn in her side. "Seen him?" Scarecrow, of course.
Damian didn’t bother taking out his knives and instead just got to work doing takedown after takedown. They were outnumbered, but the teens didn’t know how to fight and when they couldn’t use their weapons, it was pretty easy picking. “I doubt he’d be in the fight. Check the perimeter!” He smashed another teenager into the dirt ground and then rolled out of the smoke fog, scanning the open area for the cat and crow.
As the fight continued, chaos reigning, Scarecrow took leave of the safety of the cabin he had claimed as his own, instead skirting towards the center of the camp where all hell had broken loose. Children were bleeding, screaming, fighting everyone and everything that got within feet of them, though his view was partially obscured by the smoke grenade that burst, cloaking all in a fine mist that made visibility nearly impossible. It wasn’t enough to have Scarecrow scurrying back for cover, though he did keep further to the perimeter, giving him ample space to watch and decide his next move. His eyes were on the cat, that hiss of something like pain reaching his ears and curling his lips beneath the burlap of his mask. Raising one wrist to his mouth, he gave a quiet order for some of his more capable ‘associates’ to join him in the center of the camp. He wanted the boy taken care of, out of the way, or at least distracted.
As disorienting as the smoke was, it worked both ways, giving him some measure of privacy as he skirted around the edge, from one tree to the next, his steps light though the crunch of leaves beneath his feet would be largely undetectable against the sound of the fray. At the same time as he moved in one direction, three of his associates circled the other way, coming up to ambush Talon as he was distracted by the putting the bad children in their place.
“Here, kitty, kitty,” Scarecrow murmured as he closed the distance, his eyes gleaming unsteadily behind the burlap. He hadn’t come empty handed to their little date, though, one gloved hand held carefully, concealing the present he had brought with him. “Scarecrow’s got a treat for you.”
The Cat was trying to keep an eye out for Crane, but disarming the kids was more immediately important, and as long as she didn't get caught by anything nearby, well, that was a success as far as the kitty cat was concerned. And Damian was right; Crane wouldn't be in the middle of the fray. She took down two more kids, crushed two more guns, and then she did as Damian recommended and headed for the perimeter. She stayed low, and she stayed quiet, and she ignored the searing burn in her side.
Unfortunately, all that stealth meant she missed what was happening with the baby bird in the middle of the fray, and she didn't hear Scarecrow's whisper, the one that indicated she was crawling right into trouble. She had her whip at her side, and a movement in the trees sent it singing, the end closing around the neck of one of Scarecrow's thugs, pulling him down to the ground, where Selina silenced him with a boot to the head. "Big guns this way," she called to Damian, knowing the yell over the din was dangerous, but not wanting to lose his position, or for him to lose hers.
The word "treat" filtered through the screams and cries, and she snapped her whip back and sent it singing in the direction of the disembodied voice. "Come into the light, Crane, if you want to play," she purred, attention entirely focused on that space where the sound had emanated from.
The goings on around him, the state of his associates, even the children, did not bother Scarecrow in the slightest. They were expendable, the entire lot of them, and if things got too tight, he would simply find a way out. There was always a way out, a path to escape if one cared to look close enough. “Scared of the shadows, Cat?” Crane called out to her in response, just narrowly dodging the flick of her whip as it whistled near his ear, likely only missing because she only had an ear to his position instead of a visual. Stepping out into the light, just off to her side, Crane tilted his head to the side, those eyes of his more than a little intent behind the burlap of the mask. “I’ll make a note in your file. Honestly, you should see someone about all of these problems you have.”
Selina boggled for just a moment, just one, surprised that he would put himself in her sights like that, and that he would stand there and just wait. Part of her knew it had to be a trap, but an equal part of her knew that she and Damian were better than whatever trap he could come up with. She smiled, all kitty teeth and that sense of having caught the canary. "Haven't you gotten brave?" she asked. "Come to kitty, Crane," she purred, and she sent the whip singing again, anticipating a feint on his part and going for his neck. Even as it unfurled, she called. "Got him!" to the Damian. And maybe the kitty cat got too cocky sometimes - maybe.
Crane didn’t give her the pleasure of an answer, the smile behind the mask a dangerous thing, and it was lucky that the Cat couldn’t see it, he thought. It was too telling, too obvious, and it was yet another reason Crane found himself grateful for his mask. Whatever it was that she had been expecting did not come, as Crane did not allow himself to be snared so easily. Instead, he ducked, moved forward, all narrow build and long limbs, the song of the whip audible overhead, missing him by more than a little. He was quicker than might have been anticipated, the gleam of an old-fashioned glass syringe visible in his brown gloved hand. It was this that led his lunge, thumb on the plunger, fingers curled securely through the grips, searching not for a particular place for the needle to call home, instead just looking for flesh, an opening, something for the steel needle to bite through and deliver its present.
The Cat wasn't so easy to snare. She saw the glint of the needle and the swish of the vial, and she didn't know exactly how he managed to evade the whip, but she didn't stop to worry about it, even though logic told her it was that spreading damp spot against the side of her suit. She moved back, turned, ran, and called out a warning. "Careful! He has injectables!" There was a wall blocking her way. Men, and where had they come from, anyway? She checked her mask, made sure it was secure, and she ran at them, claws out, whip primed. She wasn't going down without a fight, and suddenly this had become about that, and she wondered if this was a headgame all along.
“I thought you said you got him!” Damian yelled back, actually preferring the cloak of smoke and darkness. He had always been able to fight without sight since even before Gotham. But, more than that, he was fast. As the Scarecrow thugs approached, Damian finally pulled out his half moon knives, drawing blood on the first moron who got too close. Men who were had only moments before considered themselves tough guys screamed like little girls at the cuts and marks Talon made across their bodies. Some of them got mad and charged him, which to a bird that could move faster than water, was a big mistake. In seconds, red dotted and splattered the clearing as the smoke seeped into the forest.
But, it wasn’t enough. Damian needed another game changer, something that could throw Crane long enough for Catwoman to wrap her claws around him. “DEPLOYING FLASH BANGS.” The little bird yelled and threw down three canisters that exploded in a blinding scream of white light and high pitched static that he could almost taste. He closed his eyes and roundhouse kicked the first sucker to stagger towards him.
The problem with shouting your orders out, your intentions, was that everyone in the vicinity could hear them. He didn’t have time to think about the state of his associates, but it gave Crane enough warning to guard his own gaze, the sound harder to deal with with how it filled the air, absorbing other noises, making it hard to pick everything out around him. Grinning behind the burlap, Crane launched himself in the direction where he had last seen the cat, feeling the bustle of people around him, his thugs who had joined the fray. Four of them were on Talon, fighting through the blindness and deafness the flash bang had brought, and another four were with Crane, rapidly closing in on the kitty.
“You can only run so far, kitten,” Crane hissed out before he ducked, pressed forward, and stabbed out blindly with the syringe, going by sense alone that a target, any target, was in front of him. If luck was on his side (and often, it was), it would be the cat’s flesh that needle sunk into. It wasn’t any run of the mill drug contained within that glass syringe, but a potent version of Scarecrow’s already near debilitating fear toxin, coupled with a hallucinogen to up the fun of his medicine. Was it tested on anyone as of yet? No, but wasn’t that what this outing was all about? Having some fun? Testing out the new toys?
Contents deployed, the spent syringe was pocketed, not daring to leave it laying about for some ‘friend’ of his to take, and he raised his wrist to his mouth once more, speaking into the communicator that linked him and his associates together. “Present given. Feel free to back off if any of you are still alive.” But Crane, no, he didn’t back off. Testing involved several steps, and the most important of those was the observation that followed deployment.
"I did," was Selina's yelled response to Damian's chastisement about her saying she had Scarecrow. She was more than a little pissed at herself for that miss, even with her whip arm at less than full strength. Throwing that whip was like reaching for something with her fingers, and the kitty cat shouldn't have missed. "He ducked somehow!" she added, which probably indicated some level of injury, if someone as scrawny as Crane could miss her throw, but it didn't do a lot of good to pretend everything was fine now, did it? The damage was done.
The Cat, like Damian, closed her eyes for the flash bang's kick, and that was her downfall. She couldn't see, and that meant she couldn't tell who was getting near, and she didn't stop to think that the burlap might give the Crow an advantage. She was in the middle of a knee to the kidneys, taking down someone too big to be a kid or counselor, when she felt the sting of the needle at her back. She didn't yowl, and she didn't scream; that would be pointless. She did worry about what was in the syringe. A sedative? Best bet. Damian could still finish this and catch Scarecrow if it was only a sedative. Something else? If it made her violent, it might be a big problem, and that was as far as she made it, before she started feeling strange.
She bit her tongue before slipping up and saying Damian's name, but it was still a mournful cry that escaped her lips. "He got me," she managed. "Running. Get him. I need to get away from-" And that's all she managed before she started taking down everything within her reach with a kind of frenzied violence that went way too far. Kids, counselors, thugs; it didn't matter, because she couldn't tell one from the other. They were all Bone, every last one, and she could hear screams that belonged to people she had wronged, whose deaths she had caused, like they were bearing down on her with homicidal intent. No thinking, none at all, she wasn't even herself, and within seconds she was surrounded by a circle of fallen, groaning bodies, some broken to the extent that they would never stand again. No one was dead, no, but they might as well be, and her suit was sticky slick from the blood at her side, spread wide from the movement of the fight. Then, she did precisely what she'd said she was going to do; she ran for the woods.
Damian’s first instinct was to keep her from running off. Being alone out there in the forest with a fresh dose of Scarecrow poison was enough to get her accidentally killed a hundred different ways. Without thinking, he started to chase after her, getting a couple yards away from the camp when Jade screamed for him to STOP STOP STOP like he was about to drive a car over a cliff. The children, you can’t leave that monster alone with the children. She huffed, maybe a little dramatic for Damian’s taste, but completely right. Scarecrow might have been defeated and his goons weren’t going to get up and fight anytime soon, but men who wanted others to hurt would keep fighting until someone made them stay down. Stopping suddenly, Talon watched the dark space where Catwoman ran off and then as if suddenly shifting gears, turned to fly back to the camp.
“This is my camp until the police come here.” Damian yelled at the top of his little feathered lungs. “Scarecrow!” his voice was a little different from the nineteen year old that dropped down and mopped up the crow’s goons only minutes before. It was dark and angry and very much like a bat from a different universe. He turned to see the thin outline of the man who caused all this chaos and in one simple motion, sent three throwing knives at him with full force. If the crow wanted a fight, Damian was happy to make him suffer first.
Crane looked in the direction where the Cat had run off to, a smile curving up the corner of his lips, hidden by the mask, but the expression lasted only until he heard the cry of a bird rustling through the trees. Turning in the direction of its source, he had no time to react before the knives came whistling towards him. One missed entirely, the other grazed his arm, and the other found its home buried in his shoulder, a stumble back from the force of the throw, a hand coming up to cover the place where blood welled and soaked through his suit coat. “Be careful with your claws, bird,” Crane shot back. “Someone’ll clip your wings if you’re not careful!” He glanced in the direction of where the kitty had run, head canted to the side before he looked back in the direction of Talon. “Be careful of the kitty. I hear animals with rabies have to be put down. She’ll be foaming at the mouth by sundown.” And then Crane moved to make his exit, grateful that his legs were working just fine, even if the knife buried in his shoulder was causing significant issues up top.
Damian landed in the middle of the camp, boots thudding against the bloodstained dirt as he watched Scarecrow run off. He couldn’t chase him for the same reason he couldn’t chase Catwoman. Someone needed to stay here and play sheriff until the police arrived. Maybe he’ll bleed out. Jade mentioned gently, to which Damian actually laughed. Gotham didn’t work that way. Men like Scarecrow could survive anything and the only way they couldn’t be a threat for a couple months was dragging them into Arkham.
He turned, surveying the camp before tapping into the police chatter with his communicator. “This is Talon. The camp is secure. Scarecrow has escaped, but there’s plenty of unconscious men asking for a ticket to Blackgate.” The police line buzzed with questions, but Talon turned it off, opting for the now rumbling quiet across the camp punctuated only by the occasional sobbing from a small child.