#probably tweak it later i'm feelin' ehhh

[scaryscarecrows]

One minute they’re moving, the next they’ve been set upon by ninjas.

That’s the only way Curt Evans can think of to describe the sudden assault; armed men, terrifyingly agile, falling on them before anybody had any idea they were even there.

It’s over embarrassingly quickly.

No one’s dead, though they’re all bruised. Jesus Christ. He’s on his knees, badly winded and yeah, that’s a cracked rib, and all he can think right now is, what just happened? A quick glance around at his squadmates says they’re thinking the same thing.

The ninjas are wearing black and red, with stark white full-face masks and blood-red goggles. Several of them have swords–swords, what the fuck?--but all of them have guns. One of them, smaller than the others, steps forward. They tilt their head, goggles boring into Evans’ eyes, before their hand snaps out and tears his dog tags from his neck.

“Hey-!”

“Shut up,” somebody else–a man’s voice–snaps. “We didn’t ask you to talk.” Then, “We takin’ ‘em back to base, sir?”

The man holding his dog tags doesn’t answer. He just looks at Evans (or, well, that’s what it looks like he’s doing) for a long moment before his arm flies out, swinging the dog tags like a flail. They hit him in teeth (that’s a chip, ow) before the man flips over him (what the fuck?) and–hurk!

Air-air-air-air–

His vision’s just starting to go when the chain loosens from around his neck. He’s still gasping when a boot between his shoulder blades puts him flat on his face and then he’s kicked over, onto his back. A boot’s planted on his chest and a massive sniper rifle that looks leagues beyond anything he’s ever worked with levels itself at his face.

The expected death doesn’t come. After two minutes of staring into those red goggles, his assailant scoffs and steps off him, snaps his fingers and jerks his head. The man from before nods.

“Yessir. Get up, assholes, we’re goin’ for a ride.”

* * *

The ride is twenty minutes. It’s a quiet twenty minutes, but it ends when they pull up to a massive military compound. High walls ringed with razor wire, security guards, and cameras. Big gates that look like something out of Jurassic Park. And an entire army’s worth of men inside, from the looks of it; trucks, tanks, the whole thing.

What the hell?

The little man from before hops out before the car comes to a stop. Striding across the compound is a giant that looks like he could snap Godzilla in half. He stops, though, when the littler guy whistles, puts his index fingers against the side of his head, and salutes*.

“Think he and Antoine had a TC,” the giant says. “They should be done soon. Why?”

A thumb jerks back towards the jeep.

“Shiiit,” the giant says appreciatively. “He’s not gonna like that.”

Who’s not gonna like that?

The small man laughs. Not totally mute, then, and clearly not deaf. Impediment? Just an asshole?

“I don’t think it was supposed to take–there he is.”

Oh.

Oh, good God.

Evans’ first, crazy thought, is that Gotham’s Bat has gone off the rails and set this up. Then the…thing…gets closer and he can see that it’s not quite the same. No cape, for one. And the full-faced helmet. It looks more like a cyborg than anything, but it’s coming this way.

“Riley brought ya a present,” the giant calls. The cyborg stops, looks at the blond man trotting behind it, and shrugs.

“Something tells me it’s not Reese’s.”

The voice is heavily filtered, sounding more demonic than human. The smaller man–Riley (huh, he knew a Riley once)--nods and erupts in a flurry of gesticulations. The cyborg tilts its head, sun reflecting off that blue visor, and remains quiet until Riley stops moving.

“Good call,” it says, and then it’s stalking towards them. Up close, it’s big. Well-armed. The insignia on the armor is unfamiliar and the armor itself is hard and sharp, almost medieval. “Well, gentlemen. What brings you out this far?”

Nobody answers. Then, quick as a snake, the cyborg lunges and pulls Evans away from the rest of his squadmates.

“Curt Evans,” the demonic voice growls. “You’re in charge of…well, that’s interesting. Operation Pleasure Time? Thought that was a soda.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says immediately. “Who the hell are you?”

The cyborg chuckles.

“The Arkham Knight.” What the hell? Some freak escaped from Gotham? Evans has never set foot there, but one of his old squadmates had been a local. That guy was fucked up. ��Don’t play coy with me–well, well, this is interesting.”

It plucks the small body camera from his vest and kicks Evans’ legs out from under him, lets him fall to the dirt in a heap.

“Drouot.”

“Yessir.”

“Tell Rogers to get into their camera frequency and run a cover-up.” It–he?--pauses. “Not that ridiculous jungle monster cryptid, something practical. Crocodiles.”

“Aw, you’re gonna break his heart, boss,” the blond says. The Arkham Knight scoffs.

“He’ll live.”

“Yeah, but he’ll be annoying about it.” 

The Knight tosses the camera over and the blond disappears. Evans swallows.

“That’s recording already,” he says, willing his voice to be steady. “It doesn’t matter what you do now, it’s been viewed.”

“Nah.” The Knight sounds incredibly entertained. “We have a scrambler. All that’s been viewed is static.”

“We’re not telling you shit.”

“I really don’t care what you’re doing out here. I just care that you keep your mouths shut, and you know what they say about dead men.”

“What the fuck–”

“Get rid of them.”

“What, you won’t even do the job yourself?” Rodreguez shouts. “Fuckin’--”

BLAM!

“There. I killed one of you.” The Knight reholsters his gun. “Happy? Now. Get rid of them. Unless…” He turns to look at Riley, who shakes his head. “Never mind. Just get rid of them. I want to see your squadron in two hours; see what you’ve learned, huh?”

*Riley actually has two ways to refer to Jason: one is the shorthand symbol for crazy (index finger spiraled near your head) followed by ASL for knight. Crazy Knight=Arkham Knight. The other is this one–Evans may not know the Family Politics here, but Riley respects, and thus salutes, very few people. So this is the more affectionate one he uses to Jason or with the Squad.