"Honestly though," the Clue Master said, spreading his hands, "isn't getting caught by Batman the better outcome here?"
The Tweedle brothers looked at each other and scratched their heads in near-perfect unison.
"He doesn't kill anyone. He'd put us somewhere safe." The Clue Master kept his voice low, eyes moving down the empty street. "If we're trying to stay out of this war, it might be the only real exit. Bruce Wayne already gave the money to the Riddler—the Joker's losing ground every day, territory keeps shrinking, and everyone can feel it." He paused. "Look, I'm the Clue Master. I work these things out. We couldn't say no to the Joker when he recruited us, or we'd have been dead on the spot. But we also can't switch to the Riddler now—we didn't join him from the start, so he'd just kill us for the delay. We're stuck." He looked at both of them. "I don't exactly fit in with that crowd of lunatics. Do you? You're not killers. You're not insane. You're just... here."
"You're right, but—" "—we're just on patrol tonight."
The Clue Master sighed. "Yeah. We do what the Joker says and hope nobody on the Riddler's side decides we're worth the trouble. What else is there?"
"There's always fear."
The voice came from the riverbank—hoarse, climbing out of thick green fog that rolled in off the water like something alive. A figure emerged with it: straw and burlap, empty round eyes that pulsed with sickly green light, a mouth split into something that dripped.
That was what the Clue Master saw, at least.
From his position in the shadows, Jude watched the actual sequence of events: the Scarecrow lobbed a green gas grenade onto the road, let it detonate, then walked into the expanding cloud wearing a mask rated for exactly this purpose. The straw-man horror show was entirely in the Clue Master's head. The Scarecrow just walked through green smoke at a normal pace.
The Clue Master's eyes tracked the approaching figure as it grew. And grew. The thing in his vision expanded past the edges of what the street could contain, until it was less a shape than a pressure—a darkness that held him in something like a hand, compressing his thoughts, eroding the boundary between himself and the terror, until he was part of it rather than something it was happening to.
He went down slowly, like a building with its supports cut. He landed curled on the river-damp pavement, knees to chest, face angled at nothing, hair matted against the stones. His eyes were open and unfocused. His mouth kept producing sounds that hadn't organized themselves into words.
The Scarecrow inhaled.
He took his time with it, drawing the fear-saturated air deep, savoring the texture of it—the Clue Master's screaming was a specific frequency, and Jonathan Crane listened to it with the attention of a connoisseur. Fear was his field. He'd built a life around its study, its cultivation, its precise and deliberate induction. The new formula had performed exactly as designed. He was pleased.
He turned away from the Clue Master without interest—the man had lost the ability to resist and therefore ceased to be engaging—and looked toward the two large shapes retreating rapidly down the street.
The Tweedle brothers could move when motivated. They were surprisingly quick about it.
"Run, friends," the Scarecrow called after them pleasantly. "Run into the endless nightmare."
He followed at a comfortable pace. They'd been standing close enough to the detonation point that some gas had reached them—not enough to drop them on the spot, but enough to seed. The harder they ran, the faster their blood circulated, the faster the toxin distributed. A few dozen steps at their current pace would be more than sufficient.
Twenty-three steps, as it turned out.
"Ah, no, no—"
"Yes! Get away from us!"
They turned back toward the Scarecrow. Then they saw him and went down like two very large trees that had simultaneously decided they were tired.
"Gentlemen." The Scarecrow approached them with his hands clasped behind his back. "Your turn to experience something beautiful." He stood over them as they writhed. "Isn't it wonderful? To finally feel something real?"
"No, no—"
"No, no!"
"Scarecrow." Jude's voice, from somewhere in the dark. "My mask isn't a gas mask. It filters dust, not weaponized psychological compounds. Any chance of an antidote, or—"
The Scarecrow glanced back at him and snickered. "Why? You're useless in a fight regardless. I handled all three of them myself. I don't need you." A pause, considering. "In fact, it'd be interesting to see what happens to you. Why not try some?"
"You're really not big on team solidarity," Jude said. "Fine. Since you've got it handled, I'll observe from over here."
"Yes, it's over. There was nothing to—"
The kick came from directly above.
It connected with the Scarecrow's chest like a dropped engine block, sending him skidding across the pavement with both feet off the ground for a moment before he came to rest against the curb. He lay there making the sounds of a man attempting to locate his ribcage.
"Batman—cough—how—"
Batman landed between him and the street, breathing mask already on, silhouette blocking the moon. He looked down at the Scarecrow with an expression the cowl kept private.
"Scarecrow." His voice was the standard unilateral declaration. "Your journey ends here. You're coming back to GCPD with me."
The Scarecrow trembled.
This was the thing about Jonathan Crane, Jude reflected from his position at a safe distance: the man had dedicated his life to the study of fear, to its nurturing and weaponization and theoretical framework—and then Batman existed. Batman, who was two meters of moving shadow and architectural presence and voice modulated for maximum psychological impact, who showed up at exactly the moments fear was most concentrated, who was, in the Scarecrow's extremely specific professional opinion, the single most complete embodiment of everything he'd spent his career defining.
The Scarecrow found Batman deeply satisfying, in the way you might find the highest possible grade on an exam satisfying. It was just that this particular exam was currently walking toward him.
He scrambled upright and threw a punch.
The familiar percussion of breaking bones. The familiar rhythm. Not surprising.
What came next was surprising.
From the shattered wrist, a spray of smoke—not the dull green of the earlier compound, but bright, vivid, aggressively saturated green. A new formula. Released on impact, whether or not the impact had gone according to plan.
Jude looked at it.
Looked at where the Tweedle brothers were still lying on the ground.
Looked at the spreading gas cloud.
Oh no.
"The brothers are still in the blast radius!" he shouted.