noveltune CHAPTER 138: One Name At A Time.
CHAPTER 138: One Name At A Time.
As everything went dark, Jason felt himself plunging—sinking fast into suffocating, lightless depths, like being dragged beneath an endless ocean. The pressure wrapped around him, intense and inescapable, while a voice echoed through the void, distorted yet audible. “Let me handle the wheel from here on out.” The words reverberated, rippling through the darkness, followed by another fading whisper that drifted through his mind with a hazy, dreamlike weight. “I’ll be starting the new year… with a bang.”
Then the darkness shifted, bleeding into fragments of memory—except it didn’t feel like memory. It felt distant, disconnected. And wrong.
Jason found himself watching the Scarecrow incident unfold again, that night with Damian. He saw himself move efficiently, knocking the hell out of Nightwing without hesitation before descending into the sewers to face Killer Croc. The scene played out like a film he didn’t remember acting in, his body moving with brutal intent as the crowbar rose and fell, each strike echoing through the damp tunnels.
He watched as his other self drew a blade and went to work, carving into Croc’s thick hide with calculated, vicious slashes. The reptile’s unnatural durability—his hardened skin and relentless regenerative ability—kept him standing, absorbing what should have been fatal blows, forcing Jason to adapt mid-fight. And yet, none of this felt like his.
There was no connection, or sense of ownership—just the cold realization that this had happened while he had blacked out that night at the sewers. The memory reached its peak as Red Hood forced a grenade into Croc’s mouth, holding it there with a mocking defiance, the safety pin looped around his finger. Then came the final gesture of a raised middle finger in mockery, before everything teetered on the edge of detonation.
The grenade detonated, the blast ripping through the sewer with a violent roar that left the air ringing in its wake. When the chaos settled, Nightwing lay sprawled across the damp pavement, unconscious and unmoving.
Jason—still moving with that same detached, mechanical intent—hoisted him up without hesitation, carrying his limp body through the labyrinth of tunnels and out into the night. Their destination was an abandoned farm, rotting from neglect, where he dragged Nightwing down into the basement and chained him up like a prisoner.
Then, in a move that felt just as calculated as it was disturbing, Jason stripped himself of every weapon he had and shackled himself as well, binding his own freedom while Scarecrow’s toxin still coursed through his system, warping perception and thought.
But even in that compromised state, there was a layer of foresight beneath the madness. Before all of this, he had already hidden away a sample of Scarecrow’s toxin at a separate location—somewhere tied to where he kept his gear—like a contingency plan waiting to be revisited.
And it was here, in the suffocating dark of that cellar, that things took an awkward turn inward. This was where he encountered that other presence—his alter ego—pressing against his mind, forcing him to claw at fractured memories while everything spiraled further out of control.
This was result of the hallucinogenic nature of Scarecrow’s toxin on his rational mind when he had regained himself.
The situation escalated into something far more dangerous and life threatening as the building was eventually set ablaze, flames consuming the structure from the inside, turning the basement into a slow-burning trap. Jason and Nightwing were left there, chained and helpless, as the fire threatened to reduce everything—including them—to ash.
- - -
In the days that followed, Red Hood ensured that Sophia Falcone and Big Lou kept their distance from Black Mask’s territory—now firmly placed under Li’s control. After they had taken their piece as par the agreement he had with them.
As for the others who would’ve normally circled like vultures, looking to stir chaos and carve out a piece for themselves, they didn’t even attempt it. The hunger for power, for profit, for control over the city’s illicit veins—it was all still there. But fear outweighed it.
What Red Hood had done to Black Mask, and the message he left behind, which had a deliberate calm to it rather than overtly threatening—lingered in their minds like a loaded gun pressed to the back of the skull. It didn’t need to sound like a threat.
Because it was a promise.
And they all understood that it could just as easily be them next.
So they stayed in their lanes. And they stayed quiet.
No matter how much faith they placed in their security, Red Hood had become the exception that shattered that confidence. If anything, Black Mask’s fate proved it. The man was infamous for running one of the tightest, most heavily fortified operations in Gotham—yet that hadn’t saved him.
Just look at how it happened.
Taken straight out of his own hotel room, right from the middle of his armed men. Then tortured, killed, and left on display like a warning carved in flesh. A statement. A lesson. No one in their right mind wanted to share that kind of ending.
As the new year settled over Gotham City, crime didn’t come to a stop—but it did undergo quite a change. The chaos of the city’s underground dulled. The usual boldness, the reckless grabs for power, all of it softened into something discreet, more cautious.
Before, the worst they feared was Batman, his partners, or the police—painful encounters, sure, but survivable. Jail, broken ribs, maybe worse… but you lived.
With Red Hood, survival wasn’t guaranteed.
If anything, he felt like the kind of problem that didn’t leave loose ends.
And right now, that very problem was crouched on a rooftop, watching.
Below him, in the dim stretch of an alley, a truck sat idling by the curb. Men moved in steady rhythm, hauling crates from its back into a warehouse tucked between brick walls.
They belonged to The Penguin—handling a fresh shipment of firearms, stock meant for the black market, all while their boss kept up his polished illusion of legitimacy.
“Wanna hear a joke…?” One of the men, who happens to be Asian, and had his voice already halfway into a punchline—said as he and his partner hauled a crate deeper into the warehouse. It didn’t sound like a question so much as a warning.
“Sure. Not like I’ve got anything better to do than break my back on this shipment,” his partner who was an African American muttered, the boredom was quite audible in his voice as they dropped the crate with a dull thud.
“Alright, why does Batman only cover half his face?”
Up above, unseen, Red Hood slipped into the warehouse like a shadow peeling off the ceiling. No creak of metal, no scuff of boots. He remained just a presence in the dark. He settled into a perch along the rafters, watching the scene unfold beneath him.
“I don’t know, man,” the other replied flatly, not even pretending to think.
“So the cops know he’s white—”
The punchline barely landed before the first guy broke into his own laughter, shoulders shaking. For a second, his partner just stared at him—blank, seeming unimpressed—then cracked, a grin tugging loose as he let out a laugh of his own.
He didn’t care about the racist nature of the joke as he simply just enjoyed a good joke, which of course wasn't clever. But it was something to break the monotony.
“Good one.” The voice didn’t belong to either of them.
It dropped from above—calm, and far too close, as both men froze.
Then their heads tilted up in unison. And there he was.
A red helmet staring down at them. A crimson bat emblazoned across his chest. Perched motionless, and watching.
Red Hood.
Both men went for their guns at the same time—hands snapping to their hips on instinct. One of them hesitated mid-draw, his gaze snagging on something behind Red Hood.
Bodies.
The two guards at the entrance were already down and unconscious, slumped like discarded mannequins. Through the open doorway, he caught a glimpse of the truck driver too, tilted sideways in his seat, out cold and barely kept from collapsing over the wheel by his seat belt.
Gunfire erupted.
They opened up on Red Hood, bullets tearing through the dim warehouse as the others joined in—but he was already moving. Steel flashed as he angled his blade, deflecting shots with efficient and precise movements. Then his hand flicked outward as he tossed a couple of smoke pellets.
They burst midair, and the room choked instantly as their vision was swallowed whole in thick, rolling grey.
And from within it… he dropped.
What followed wasn’t a fight, but could only be described with the words—slaughter.
Shapes moved inside the smoke—fast, brutal. The crack of bone. Cut-off screams. The heavy thud of bodies hitting concrete. Every movement was efficient, merciless… controlled.
A slaughter, contained within shadows.
When the smoke finally began to thin, the outcome was already decided.
Six men lay scattered across the warehouse floor, unconscious and painting a grotesque scene. But one remained.
He was on his knees with his arm twisted at a sickening angle, face swollen and split, breath coming in wet, shallow pulls. Alive—but only just.
Red Hood crouched in front of him, helmet reflecting the man’s fear back at him.
“Take a message.”
- - -
The survivor did exactly that.
Word reached The Penguin quickly—and it didn’t sit well.
Stop dealing arms. Walk away from anything illegal. Or next time… it wouldn’t be a warning. It would be a blade through the gut. And for a man like Penguin—prideful and calculating—that message didn’t just sting alone.
He felt insulted. Like someone had spat on his face.
This was Red Hood’s warning to The Penguin—because, despite everything, he had no intention of killing him at the moment.
Oswald Cobblepot wasn’t like the average crime bosses. He was a cornerstone of Gotham City’s underworld—one of the few figures whose presence actually stabilized the chaotic nature of the city’s underbelly.
Remove him, and the delicate balance Red Hood had been carving out would collapse. The vacuum left behind wouldn’t sit quietly; it would spiral, violent and unpredictably, tearing through the city like a storm with no eye.
And that wasn’t what he wanted.
No matter how far off the rails he might have gone, there was still a measure of calculation behind some of his decisions.
When he chose to send a warning instead of putting a bullet in Penguin's head, one thought had crossed his mind: 'Don't discard a pawn that could still be useful.'
Penguin was more than just another Gotham crime boss. As one of the city's most well-connected information brokers, he had access to a steady flow of secrets, rumors, and intelligence. For someone with Jason's ambitions, that made him far too valuable to eliminate outright.
If Penguin didn’t shut things down entirely but instead scaled back—pulled his operations into something subtler, so discreet that it's almost invisible—Red Hood would accept it. Less noise. Less blood. Less reason to intervene.
That was enough.
But for Cobblepot, it wasn’t so simple.
Pride warred with survival instinct. Beneath his polished exterior, anxiety crept in—thin, but persistent as paranoia followed close behind. He couldn’t decide whether to strike back at Red Hood… or to heed the warning and live with the humiliation of it.
Seated behind his desk, buried in the high back of a leather chair, he turned the dilemma over and over in his mind, searching for an angle, a strategy—something that gave him control.
His eyes drifted to the television.
A news broadcast flickered across the screen.
Footage from earlier that night.
Batman stood beneath the wash of red and blue sirens, a restrained Cheetah in his grasp—her hands cuffed behind her back as he handed her over to the GCPD.
Then—
Something went wrong.
Her head snapped back violently as her body went limp.
For a brief second, Batman held her upright—caught in that unnatural stillness—
Before she slipped from his grip and hit the ground.
The officers on scene immediately dove for cover behind their patrol vehicles as Batman reacted without hesitation, already narrowing down the shot’s origin. In a blur of motion, he fired his grapple and launched himself into pursuit.
The news anchor’s voice carried on over the footage, reporting that Cheetah had been assassinated. The tone shifted quickly into speculation—uncertain and uneasy. They questioned whether Red Hood was responsible, or if another force was at play, noting that the method didn’t fully align with his previous patterns of violence.
Inside his office, The Penguin went still.
His lower jaw parted slightly as he stared at the screen, with his expression blank for a brief, uncharacteristic moment. Then, almost mechanically, he pressed a button on the remote. The television died instantly, plunging the room into a heavier silence.
“Clearly,” he muttered with a low controlled voice, “this green fellow doesn’t mind stepping on the toes of the GCPD… or even crossing Batman. Quite the—” He stopped himself, the thought trailing off unfinished.
For someone like Cobblepot who is driven by insecurity, obsessive control, and an almost compulsive need for respect—yielding to a warning like Red Hood’s felt like humiliation dressed up as strategy. Normally, he wouldn’t tolerate it. He wouldn’t bend. He wouldn’t even consider it.
But that certainty was cracking.
The image of Black Mask’s fate resurfaced uninvited, and impossible to ignore. And layered over it was another unsettling fact: this wasn’t just someone who could evade the police. This was someone who moved without fear of Batman himself.
That changed the equation.
It made hesitation feel less like cowardice… and more like survival.
Following that, Red Hood escalated into a full-scale hunt across Gotham City, systematically targeting some of the most notorious and disruptive figures in the underworld.
To those watching from the shadows, it didn’t feel random anymore as it felt even more deliberate. Like a reshaping of the city’s criminal hierarchy in real time.
With the deaths of The Joker and Black Mask already behind them, whispers spread quickly through Gotham’s streets and back alleys. Some saw it as revenge finally running its course. Others saw something far more unsettling—a calculated purge, with each elimination serving as groundwork for a new order being imposed on the city’s underworld.
This sudden change has turned the city into a nightmare for criminals. The streets have become so hostile to anyone looking to break the law that many are now thinking twice before going out to carry out criminal activities, fearing they might run into the Red Hood.
- - -
Red Hood had recovered the sample of Scarecrow’s toxin he’d previously stashed away at the abandoned ranch. But what he brought back wasn’t left untouched.
He had modified it.
Altered its potency as he refined it into something far less predictable, and far more dangerous.
The result was a compound layered with multiple hallucinogenic agents, each one amplifying the others into one clearly unstable and deeply disorienting.
Datura was the first addition, infamously toxic, known for inducing severe delirium, nightmarish hallucinations, and complete cognitive disconnection from reality. A substance that didn’t just distort perception alone as it often erased the line between thought and environment entirely.
He then introduced a concentrated psilocybin extract, drawn from psychedelic mushrooms, intensifying vivid visual distortions and emotional volatility—hallucinations that felt meaningful, overwhelming, and inescapably real.
Salvia divinorum followed, bringing in abrupt, reality-fracturing episodes which normally would be short-lived, but violently immersive distortions of space, identity, and time.
Peyote added another layer, mescaline-driven hallucinations with spiritual undertones, often deeply symbolic and physically immersive, and totally blurring the boundaries between sensation and vision.
And finally, to complete this masterpiece of a modified toxin, he added Ayahuasca. A traditional psychoactive brew known for its intense introspective journeys and psychological depth—was integrated to push the compound into prolonged, psychologically invasive territory.
Individually, each substance was already volatile.
Combined, they could cause a person to die from an imagined heart attack if their hearts goes wild and erratic from panic.
A version of Scarecrow’s fear toxin that didn't induce terror alone, but was meant to dismantle perception itself. A cocktail designed to fracture the mind so completely that recovery, if possible at all, would never look the same again.
With everything prepared, Red Hood made his way toward Arkham Asylum.
Even with its upgraded systems, reinforced protocols, and tightened security designed specifically to prevent another breach, it still wasn’t enough to stop him. He moved through it the way he always did—quietly and efficiently, while making it look easy.
A stolen key card got him inside the control room. From there, it was systematic. The staff overseeing the surveillance feeds never even saw him coming. One by one, they were neutralized and left unconscious, the entire monitoring system was effectively blinded.
That blind spot was all he needed.
Using the gap in security, he traced the layout of the facility and located the cell he was looking for.
Jonathan Crane, a.k.a Scarecrow—the former psychologist and professor whose fixation on fear had long since twisted into madness. A man who didn’t just study terror… but refined it, shaped it, and turned it into his signature weapon.
Red Hood stopped outside the reinforced glass.
“Hey there, freak,” he called flatly.
The modulated voice cut through Crane’s thoughts. Slowly, the man inside turned his head toward the glass.
A faint smile lingered on his face.
“If it isn’t the Red Hood,” Crane replied calmly, almost conversationally, “come to see how I’m faring in this lovely little shithole?”
Red Hood tilted his head slightly, studying him without reaction.
“That would imply I care.”
Inside the cell, Crane rose from the bed with unhurried ease. He took his time crossing the small space between them—three slow steps—until he stood close enough to the reinforced barrier that separated them.
Close enough to look directly back at him.
“Then why are you here?” Scarecrow asked, calmly. “We both know you’re not reckless enough to kill me in a place like this. Not even Batman would risk it if he wanted to.”
Red Hood didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he moved. Calmly.
A small hatch on the door slid open, and he tossed something inside—a vial that shattered almost instantly on impact. Glass scattered across the floor, releasing its contents into the air in a fine, invisible spread.
“Do I look like fucking Batman to you?” Red Hood said flatly.
The sound of breaking glass made Crane’s eyes narrow. His expression shifted from one of less curiosity, to one with caution.
“What was that?” Crane asked, already bringing a hand up toward his face.
“Too late,” Red Hood replied. “It’s already moving through your vents. That was just for show.”
A pause followed as Crane’s fingers hovered near his nose, hesitation creeping in as he reassessed the situation.
“What was in the vial?” he pressed.
Red Hood tilted his head slightly. “Now where’s the fun in that?”
His tone was almost conversational—sounding calm and detached. “Why tell you when you’re about to experience it anyway? Consider it… your life’s work with a little extra seasoning.”
As he spoke, Crane’s gaze locked onto him.
For a brief moment, something in Red Hood’s helmet shifted in the low light—fractures of reflection warping across the red surface. The visor seemed to split into jagged, uneven shapes, like a distorted grin carved into metal.
Not a face.
What followed was the first crack in Jonathan Crane’s composure.
Scarecrow had spent his entire life dissecting fear, studying it, refining it, reducing it to something measurable. He had been exposed to his own toxins, had tested worse on others, and long ago convinced himself he had outgrown its effects.
But this was different and with no hint of familiarity, as this felt very intrusive.
The sensation that hit him wasn't fear alone, it was a total collapse of control. A presence that didn’t need explanation or logic. Something primal, invasive, and absolute.
For a brief second, even he looked shaken.
As it deepened, his breathing tightened. His heartbeat surged violently, each pulse hammering through his chest like a frantic signal trying to escape. The world around him began to distort at the edges, reality bending in on itself as the compound took hold.
He didn’t even register when Red Hood turned and left.
The door didn’t matter anymore.
Time didn’t matter anymore.
Only the escalating pressure in his mind, the spiraling collapse of perception, and the certainty that something was terribly wrong.
- - -
By morning, the reports confirmed what had been discovered inside Arkham.
Scarecrow was dead.
The scene was described as grotesque, self-inflicted, and deeply disturbing—his body bearing the marks of extreme psychological breakdown. Evidence suggested violent self-mutilation in the final moments before death, the result of a mind pushed far beyond its limits.
He had gouged out his eye balls, clawed at the skin of his distorted face, and bitten off his own tongue—among other things.
The official statement left out speculation.
But no one needed it.
- - -
The night that followed, another headline surfaced.
The Riddler had been found dead as well.
And a pattern began to form in Gotham’s underworld, and it was impossible to ignore.
It looked less like random violence… And more like a deliberate purge in the city.
A systematic clearing of the city’s most infamous figures from Gotham City’s criminal landscape.
As if someone was dismantling Batman’s rogues one name at a time.