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betustamorla · 5 days

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Arkham Batman Beta reader/editor/consultant wanted

Genre: Drama, family, romance, hurt/comfort, action, slight canon divergence (in ages of the characters mainly)

Main characters: Jason and Helena

Pairings: Jason Todd/Helena Wayne (past/future), Dick Grayson/Kori'ander, Tim Drake/Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle (past)

Summary: Batman left Gotham to his proteges, no one knows if he is still alive. It's up to them to pick up the pieces, help each other, and sort their lives before big trouble threatens Earth.

Estimated length: 80,000< words.

Progress: 20,000< words.

First scene sample:

This Arkham Knight was very troublesome, he was as dangerous as Batman, no, he was more dangerous than Batman, he was ready to kill, even eager to. Huntress touched her side, and a stinging pain answered her, but nothing to worry about for now. Her breathing was accelerated, her senses wired thin, her gaze fixed on the man in front of her ready to respond at his slightest movement.

"Move aside." His modified voice seemed to hiss.

"Sorry, but I don't feel like it." Of course, she had to goad him more, as if things weren't hard enough already.

"My business is with the Bat."

She felt slightly confused at his seeming reluctance to fight her, but she squashed it to the back of her mind until she could be in a safe environment to ruminate. "You're endangering a lot of people with this... business of yours. So no, I won't be moving any time soon." She said flatly.

"That's too bad." It seemed like she had reached the limit of his patience. He lunged again at her. She dodged and threw a kick to his abdomen, he blocked it with his elbow, by instinct she flipped back, it was the right thing for his fist to fly inches from her face.

Still, she knew she wouldn't win this fight, her strength lay in the careful preparation of traps and sigil of her prey, even if she was a good fighter she wasn't, well, Batman. Now that there was some distance between them she started shooting bolts towards his legs, he dodged those easily and shot his grappling gun toward the nearest building and pulled upwards.

"Oh no, you won't!" She quickly changed her bolt to an explosive one and shot to where the grappling gun had hooked. He fell again into the roof they were on, rolling to minimize the impact.

"Now you really pissed me off," He growled and charged towards her.

Again they danced in a mix of punches, kicks, and dodges before he finally gained the upper hand and slammed her against the floor, stars danced in her vision, and his hand wrapped around her neck, cutting her air supply. Helena struggled, but to no avail, as he was at least fifty pounds heavier than her, but she had tricks up her sleeve, in fact, very literally. When pulling her wrist upwards a high voltage discharge would shoot on whoever was the unfortunate recipient of its full power would end up knocked out, which in this case was the Arkham Knight. She wasn't surprised when after receiving the electrical hit, he backed off but did not faint, the armor probably was designed as hers; to withstand the worst of such dangers.

"You have some tricks don't you?" He laughed, and she didn't like the sound of it. "But I think you won't have one for this." He gripped her by the neck again and pulled out a vial, unluckily, Helena wasn't fast enough to move out of his reach. The glass shattered between his fingers, and the contents immediately volatilized and turned into a gas. She didn't have any other option but to breathe at least a little, but guessing what it was, she knew it was more than enough to make its nasty effect kick into work.

She was shoved back, falling into her back, coughing at the acrid taste the fear gas left, her heartbeat quickened when the faint blurred sound of a familiar melody started to ring in her ears followed by a voice she thought she would never hear again.

“Here again my dear Angel?” The honied voice seemed to whisper against her ear, then a chuckle, and there, looming over her was the white-masked figure with amber eyes.

“You’re dead.” She breathed and gritted her teeth.

“Of course. You killed me. Remember?” Then his hand reached for her chin and turned her face towards one side and her heart stopped and seemed to come to the back of her throat at the same time. There in a chair tied with barber wire was Jason.

“Help me!”

“Stop. Stop. Stop.”

“Just kill me already.”

“Jason!”

She nearly choked. Get a grip, Helena, this is a hallucination! She felt her suit starting to slow down her increasingly accelerating heart, she knew that the fear gas she had inhaled was but a small dose, and yet it was messing this much with her head even with the Bíos pumping through her system already. This new formula was very, very dangerous, the whispers of Jason still lingered in the background, sometimes interrupted by the explosion that was imprinted like a hot iron in her body and mind.

Then she felt the burning sensation of electrical currents run through her body to counter the other poison in her veins, the burning sensation of it made her gasp. But now she was able to take a coherent look at her opponent, he hadn't taken this opening to attack her, to end her, making her believe again that he didn't want to kill her. He was just standing there, looking at her. The knight was tense as if waiting for something, she was completely clueless at what it could be but she would use this to her advantage.

~•~•~•~

Jason watched as the gas kicked into action and she crawled away, then her breath hitched and she shook her head. Whatever it was, she didn't want to hear, she clapped her hands to her ears and closed her eyes, it would be so easy to kill her now… To put the broken body of his daughter in front of him, would break him like nothing else, he was sure. But he couldn't even bring himself to lift his gun and point at her, he didn't want to kill her, she had been- What?

It didn't matter, he had better things to do. He turned and started to walk away when he heard her breath his name.

“Jason!”

He clenched his fists, they had abandoned him to that fucking clown, they had replaced him and she had left, forgotten completely about him. But something was pulling in him to go and shake her, to tell her he was right here, that he wasn't a damned nightmarish apparition. He took in a shaky breath and cocked his head to one side, stretching his neck; an anxious tick he had developed. That was enough to strengthen his resolve to keep going on, she was just a part of his past that would disappear along the Bat. Bringing her to Scarecrow and making Bruce see his only daughter be tortured by her worst fears would be even worse than death for him.

Jason turned to her again, she was silent now but her respiration was agitated, she was very still, which was odd for someone with fear gas in their system. He walked closer, pulling his gun out. Maybe he should just blow her head up and throw her dead body in front of her father. The echoing of laughter surged in the back of his mind and the scar on his face burned like the same day the hot iron had sizzled against his skin.

The illusion broke when Helena launched herself at him, he was so unprepared that he tripped and fell on his back with her on top of him.

“Don't you ever dare to do something like that again asshole!” She hissed and punched his helmet hard enough to make his vision rattle a little. How she had fought off the effects of the gas he had no idea nor was interested to know right now, he curled his arms and then threw her off him. She rolled like a fucking cat and pulled her whip out.

“Oh fuck.” He muttered as he rolled out of the way of the crackling weapon. Maybe she was tougher to get than he had originally believed, at least she was more so than his replacement. Jason knew that whip wasn't just any normal leather thing, it seemed to be made of some metallic alignment, as if on queue the whip came down again, he dodged again though not fast enough as it graced his armor over his shoulder and the fucking plate had been sliced a piece off. Fuck, if that thing could slice off part of his armor it probably could slice his arm off as well, no wonder she hadn't used it until now. The no-killing rule was just as strictly embedded in her as her father. That thought made his anger burst.

Why? Why did they refuse to do what was needed to protect? To save people from fuckers like the Joker? If only Batman had killed the Joker the first chance he got he wouldn't had-!

He snapped and lunged at her quick enough to avoid the arch of the crackling shit and barrelled into her, she flew back at least a couple of meters landing painfully on her back. Disoriented enough to become too slow to react in time to make space between them to gain the advantage of her weapons, which were long-ranged tools, up close Jason was completely in control. He took full advantage of it, he punched her in the gut making her double over even with the armor mitigating some of the power from the hit, he didn’t pause, consumed by the red haze that felt so good to let loose. He pulled her head down to connect with his rising knee, she probably would have passed out if not for the face-guard over her forehead and eyes, Jason hit her back with his elbow making her go down.

She was wheezing for air.

“Is it hard to breathe? Don’t you feel like you’re drowning? Like some cold hand is closing around you and pulling every last bit of life in you?” He remembered how it felt, to be hit over and over again until you couldn’t even seem to make your lungs work.

She coughed and choked- No, she was laughing. She was laughing.

Had she gone mad?

“It’s not so bad, you know.” She gasped and spat at his feet.

All the burning anger seemed to die out, leaving an empty cold feeling. His arm seemed to move on its own, grasping her by the nape of her neck, he started to lift her and she struggled uselessly as she still was too winded to gather her strength or wits. They were at the edge of the ten-story department building, it was at least a 30-meter drop from there to the cold concrete below. Time seemed to freeze, he took in her smaller frame, she seemed so small and frail compared to him, she always had…

Jason! Will you wait for me?

Then he pushed her, the back of her legs hit the small barrier of the edge and then she was gone. He stood there a moment then he heard the sound of crashing metal meters underneath. His heart felt like it stopped for a second.

~•~•~•~

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