LOOTING DC #17. Road to Arkham
The burner phone buzzed once on the rusted workbench. Sportsmaster didn't rush. He secured the final twist on a chain - links thick as hockey pucks, ends shaped like shot puts filed to a gleam. The reinforced grips were wrapped in worn athletic tape, sweat-stained and battle-tested.
He lifted it, gave it a slow spin. The chain hissed through the air, slammed into a hanging sandbag, and left a crater where a jawbone might've been.
Only then did he check the phone.
One look, and his grin cut sharp across his face. "Finally."
The warehouse door clanged open.
Cheshire strode in, tight-shouldered and pissed. "We've got a problem."
"We've got a mission," Sportsmaster cut in, already moving. "Forget your problem. Go get your sister."
She blinked. "What?"
"Now." He was already at the gear rack, grabbing the second chain - twin to the first. He slung them both over his shoulders like a prizefighter stepping into war.
Cheshire didn't argue. She turned and walked out without another word.
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The armored transport jolted with a violent thunk, its suspension groaning in protest. The driver snorted a laugh and glanced in the rearview mirror, like he could see through an inch of reinforced steel.
"Serves 'em right," he muttered, cranking up the radio. "Might knock some manners into 'em."
Behind him, in a freezing steel box lit by a flickering overhead bulb, sat some of Gotham's worst. Hands cuffed in electromagnetic restraints. Ankles chained to the floor. Necks sore from the road's constant abuse.
Killer Croc growled, his scaled shoulders scraping the walls as he shifted. The ceiling was too low, the van too small, and his patience long gone.
"Do that again," he rumbled - his voice like gravel in a blender - "and I eat the driver."
"Again?" piped a voice that didn't growl, snarl, or threaten. "Pretty sure that was the fifth bump. Sixth, if you count the one near the tunnel. I was upside down when it happened, so my math might be off."
Heads turned.
In the far corner, tangled like a marionette abandoned in a drawer, hung a figure cuffed in a way that suggested the officers gave up halfway through. Ankles shackled. Wrists chained. And somehow, still upside down.
"Hi," said Jake, lifting his head - or maybe rotating his entire body - to look at the others. "Just saying for the record: I definitely do not belong in here."
The transport hit another bump. Jake jerked like a spider on a string.
"I mean, yeah, technically I was found hanging upside down over a dead guy. And okay, sure, he was decapitated. There were blades involved. But I don't have blades. That's more of a... killer accessory. For someone who, you know, uses them."
Harley Quinn giggled from across the van, shackled to the wall with bubblegum-pink cuffs that were, somehow, standard issue for her. "You're funny."
"Shut up, Harley," Ivy muttered, legs crossed. Vines twitched beneath her sleeves like a hidden deck of loaded cards. Her eyes flicked to Jake - then away. Then back. "Why is he looking at me?"
Jake blinked. "I'm not! You're just... very obstructive to my field of view. Not a complaint. Or... maybe? Is the radiance thing a poison effect or-?"
"Stop. Talking," Croc growled.
Jake looked around. "What? You were all gonna bond over getting caught by Batman anyway. I mean, we've all been there, right? Hung upside down by a guy who doesn't blink? Wakes you up with a punch, ends it with a zipline to the spleen? Anyone?"
A gangster - makeup smeared across his face - nodded solemnly. "Batman kicked me into a dumpster last night. Didn't even say a word. Just - bam."
"No kidding! He was nuts last night," another goon said. "I got tasered mid-punch. Dropped like a damn gargoyle."
Harley pouted. "He didn't even let me finish my monologue."
"He interrupted your monologue?" Jake gasped. "That's just - rude."
A grizzled thug among the trio in the back muttered, "Bagged us like trash. Dropped us off like charity cases."
Poison Ivy narrowed her eyes. "He was angrier than usual."
"I liked it."
"…Ookay," Jake said, inching away. "But we're on the same page, right? This is Batman's fault."
The woman beside him snorted. Silver piercings climbed one ear, mascara smudged like smoke. "You're seriously the only one here who thinks this is a misunderstanding?"
Jake perked up. "Okay, technically I was chasing the killer. Technically the cops found me hanging over the body. Classic misunderstanding. Then they tased me. Hard."
He shuddered. "Like, I think I heard Mozart. I became Mozart for a second."
"Then why Arkham?" Ivy asked. Her voice was slow, suspicious.
Jake's smile wobbled. "Apparently yelling at cops while convulsing and refusing to take off your mask makes you look unstable. Who knew? Also, someone started floating. Not me! But I may have webbed a cop's hat. Accident. Still... not the 'let's take him to therapy' vibe."
He craned his neck toward the front. "All I'm saying is - maybe we should commandeer this van before we reach Arkham. Because I am way too pretty for straitjackets and whispered Latin in padded cells. Who's with me?"
A long pause.
"Touch me with one web," Croc growled, "and I'll feed you your own mask."
"Let him talk," Harley chirped. "He's like a little stand-up act with trauma."
Jake slumped slightly, still dangling. "Tough crowd."
"What did you expect? We're villains," Ivy said, eyes narrowing.
"Of course. Villains - as long as the hero tells the story," Jake said, voice dipping. "From my perspective? I see potential."
"So poisoning the planet, smashing heads with bats, or randomly ripping bodies apart isn't wrong?" Ivy challenged, her voice thick with that distinct, gravelly charm - sharp, yet somehow playful, like a gruff voice cracking a joke.
Jake winced. "Okay, maybe it's the execution of your ideas that leads to bad PR. But your hearts? Always in the right place... right?"
"HA!" Harley cackled. "I knew he was funny. Can't wait to introduce you to Mr. J."
"…Wait. You want to take me to the Joker?"
"So there is an escape plan after all?"
Silence.
Jake looked around. Calmly.
"Okay. All I'm saying is - if anyone in this delightful company has an idea on how to take this van, escape in dramatic fashion, and possibly clear my name before I end up cellmates with some guy named Stabby-Steve... I'm all ears."
Stare.
He caught Ivy's cold glare and flinched.
"Lovely cheekbones, by the way. Very... symmetrical."
No one laughed.
The van kept moving, leaving his words to die in the cold metal silence.
Outside, Gotham city blurred past - brick ruins and fire-scorched alleys swallowed by shadow. They were entering Arkham territory now. A place where cops didn't patrol. Where even rats wore scars.
A battered green sign loomed ahead, half-lit by the flicker of a dying streetlamp: "Arkham Asylum - 4 miles."
It had bullet holes. Blood spray. A black crow perched on top like a warning.
Above it all, from the skeletal remains of a bombed-out overpass, a figure stood still as a statue - tall, armored, athletic. A predator in the high branches of Gotham's madness.
He watched the van wind its way up the cracked hillside road, eyes gleaming beneath his mask. He shifted the rocket launcher onto his shoulder - military-grade, stolen, modified. His grip was steady. Breath calm. "Finally," he muttered.
Then he pulled the trigger.
...
A thunderclap cracked the night.
The van lurched sideways as fire bloomed from its undercarriage. Metal screamed. Tires burst. The world tipped violently off-axis.
Inside, restraints snapped. Bodies slammed into walls. Chains tangled. Ivy hit the bars shoulder-first with a hiss of pain. Croc roared - an animalistic sound as his bulk tore loose from the restraints like paper. Jake... just stuck to the ceiling.
The van spiraled, one wheel lifted from the road. Its side scraped along the cliff wall, shrieking sparks into the dark. The vehicle collapsed forward, thudding onto its side in a cloud of smoke, one wheel spinning uselessly in the air.
Up above, the figure was already moving. Vaulting the overpass like gravity didn't apply, he landed with a bone-jarring thud. Two motorcycles followed, engines roaring as they tore toward the wreckage.
The figure - tall, white mask gleaming in the moonlight - moved swiftly, chain trailing behind him.
Inside the wrecked van, one guard staggered out, dazed and clutching his head. His gun was half-drawn, fingers trembling as he turned toward the figure. But before he could fire, the chain lashed out, wrapping around his chest with a sickening crack.
He was yanked off his feet, gasping as the breath was crushed from his lungs. The guard flailed, but the chain kept him pinned, his body slammed against the van with a painful thud. His skull struck the metal, and he went limp.
The masked figure didn't speak. The chain dropped the guard's body with a dull thud, and the man in white turned, his presence suffocating.
Two motorcycles came to a smooth halt beside him. The night swallowed their riders whole as they dismounted - one moved like smoke, every step fluid and precise, a mask hiding her face and twin daggers glinting at her hips. The other stood straighter, younger, a bow slung across her back, hood up, eyes sharp beneath a dark green half-mask.
"Get to work," came the quiet command.
The night air held its breath as the sisters moved toward the wreckage - one silent as a whisper, the other drawing an arrow before the dust had even settled.
10-Day Streak to next tier: Day 1/10. Broke the chain💔, but I got it covered. Look forward to more chapters.
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