Gotham Arc #20
The darkness wasn't complete.
It flickered. Pulsed. Broke apart into fragments that didn't make sense.
Jake's consciousness drifted in and out like a radio signal struggling through static. He was aware of movement -- his body being dragged through spaces his mind couldn't map. Concrete scraped his back. Then metal. Then something wet that smelled like rot and waste.
Voices echoed, distorted. Laughter that bounced off tunnel walls until it became inhuman.
"--got him--"
"--five grand--"
"--Harley's gonna--"
His head cracked against something. Stone? Steel? The impact sent white light exploding across his vision. He tried to fight, tried to move, but his limbs wouldn't respond. His body had become a passenger.
Time fractured.
He was being lifted. No -- carried. No -- dragged. Multiple hands gripped him, pulling him through spaces that shifted and changed. The tunnel walls pressed close, then opened into vast darkness, then pressed close again.
Water rushed somewhere nearby. Or was that his pulse in his ears?
His legs felt heavy. Concrete blocks tied to his ankles, pulling him down even as the hands pulled him forward. His shoulder wept fresh blood. He could feel it -- warm and slick -- but couldn't move his arm to check.
Then suddenly: weightlessness.
His stomach lurched as gravity released him. He was falling -- no, rising? The world inverted. Blood rushed to his head in a nauseating wave.
His eyes cracked open.
Everything was upside-down.
The ceiling -- no, the floor -- was green. Not painted green. Glowing green. Moving green. The surface bubbled and steamed like soup left too long on the stove, viscous liquid that caught light from somewhere and threw it back in sickly phosphorescent waves.
Jake's brain struggled to process the image. Why was the floor above him? Why was it--
Oh.
He was hanging. Upside-down. The realization came slow, struggling through the fog of concussion and blood loss.
Chains. He felt them now -- cold metal wrapped around his ankles, biting into flesh. They creaked as his body swayed gently, suspended over that glowing green horror.
The Chemical Pool.
The vat that had created the Joker. That had driven him permanently, irrevocably insane. That had warped his body and mind until he became Gotham's greatest monster.
And Jake was hanging directly over it.
His heart, already hammering, kicked into overdrive. Adrenaline flooded his system, cutting through some of the fog. His eyes focused, taking in his prison.
The Chemical Factory. He was inside the Chemical Factory.
Corroded catwalks crisscrossed overhead -- below him? Perspective was impossible upside-down. Massive vats lined the walls, most empty and rusted. But this one, directly beneath him, bubbled with that nightmare green. Steam rose from it in lazy coils, carrying a smell that made his eyes water and his throat burn.
"Well, well, well."
The voice cut through his awareness like a blade.
Footsteps. Light. Bouncing. Coming closer.
"Look who's finally wakin' up!"
Harley Quinn stepped into view, face appearing in Jake's inverted vision like something from a fever dream. Her makeup was smeared now, running slightly in the factory's humid heat. Her ponytails hung limp. But her eyes -- those were sharp. Focused. Burning with an intensity that made Jake's spider-sense hum weakly.
She was carrying something. Baseball bat. Old. Worn. The words "LIL' SLUGGER" were carved into the wood in crude letters.
Not her mallet. A substitute. A poor one.
"Hey, hey." Harley snapped her fingers inches from Jake's nose. "I said wake up, bug boy. We got business to discuss."
Jake tried to speak. His mouth was dry as sand. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He managed a groan.
"That's better!" Harley's grin stretched impossibly wide. She walked around him slowly, bat dragging across the metal grating. The scraping sound set Jake's teeth on edge.
She stopped behind him -- in front of him, from his perspective. Her face filled his vision, upside-down and manic.
"You know what this place is?" she asked, voice dropping to something almost conversational. "This is where Mister J was born. Where he became... perfect." Her eyes went distant, dreamy. "I used to come here sometimes. Just to feel close to him. To remember."
She blinked. The dreaminess vanished, replaced by cold fury.
"But you wouldn't understand that, would you? Having something you love. Something that's part of you. Something you'd do ANYTHING to get back."
The bat came up. Jake's spider-sense flared a split-second warning.
CRACK.
The wood connected with his ribs. The impact drove every molecule of air from Jake's lungs. His body convulsed, swinging on the chains. Pain exploded through his chest -- ribs cracking, maybe breaking, definitely bruising deep into the tissue.
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream. Could only hang there, mouth open in a silent gasp, while his diaphragm spasmed uselessly.
"WHERE IS IT?" Harley shrieked, face contorting. She hit him again. Same spot. Same ribs. "WHERE'S MY MALLET?"
This time Jake did scream. The sound tore from his throat, raw and animal. His vision whited out. When it cleared, Harley was in front of him again, breathing hard, bat raised.
"Tell me," she hissed. "Tell me where my 'Good Night' is, and maybe -- MAYBE -- I don't drop you in the soup."
Jake's consciousness sharpened through the pain. The mallet. She wanted the mallet. The totem he'd consumed days ago, turned into time, absorbed into the system's incomprehensible mechanics.
He couldn't give it back. Even if he wanted to.
"Gone," Jake wheezed. Blood filled his mouth -- bit his tongue during the beating, or internal bleeding, didn't matter. He spat, watched the red droplets fall up toward the green chemicals. "I don't... have it."
"LIAR!"
The bat came down again. Jake's vision fragmented. Pain became everything -- his existence reduced to hurt and fear and the desperate animal need to make it stop.
His shoulder wept. His ribs screamed. His head throbbed in time with his pulse, each beat a fresh knife through his skull.
But somewhere, beneath the agony, something else pulsed.
The interface.
It flickered in his vision, struggling to manifest through the concussion and blood loss. Transparent. Wavering. But there.
The Navigator blazed brighter than he'd ever seen it. The spider-web field was pure gold-white, almost blinding. And the red thread -- the totem locator -- wasn't pointing anymore.
It was drumming.
Vibrating. Pulsing like a heartbeat. Like it was right on top of him.
No. Not on top of him.
Nearby. Very nearby.
Jake's mind struggled to process through the pain. The rose. Poison Ivy's totem. The Navigator had pointed north. And north was--
"The Chemical Factory," Jake breathed.
"What was that?" Harley leaned closer, eyes narrowed. "You got something to say?"
Jake's eyes tracked past her, scanning the factory floor through his inverted perspective. Catwalks. Vats. Rusted equipment. A makeshift living space in the corner -- mattress, stolen furniture, empty takeout containers.
And there. On a shelf made from a warped metal sheet.
A potted plant.
Small. Unremarkable from this distance. But something about it made Jake's chest tighten. The leaves were too green. Too perfect. And sitting in the center, impossibly vibrant against the factory's decay--
A rose. Green as poison. Wrapped in thorns.
"You've got it," Jake whispered. But why here? Why with Harley? Where was Poison Ivy?
Harley's face twisted with confusion. "Had what? Your brain? 'Cause you're sure as hell losin' it now."
She pulled back, bat raised for another strike.
Jake's mind raced. The pain receded slightly -- not gone, just overwhelmed by desperate calculation. He had to get to that rose. Had to claim it before--
Before what? Before Harley killed him? Before she dropped him in the chemicals?
Before he ran out of time?
His eyes darted to the interface. The Progress Tab flickered, barely readable through the concussion:
🕷️
Time Bank: 02:23:34
🕸️
Two hours. Twenty three minutes. Thirty-four seconds.
No. The number sounded wrong in his mind. Instead:
A hundred and forty three hours. Barely six days.
He had lost seven hours, trying to survive.
Focus. The rose. He needed the rose.
But he was hanging upside-down over a vat of insanity-inducing chemicals, chains around his ankles, beaten half to death, with Harley Quinn about to crack his skull open.
His hands moved, testing the chains. They were old, rusted, but still strong. Too strong for his injured state to break. His webs -- could he web something? Pull himself up?
He tried. His left wrist flexed. Nothing happened.
He tried again. A weak strand emerged, fell pathetically toward the chemicals. The webbing hit the green surface and dissolved, eaten away in seconds by whatever toxic nightmare bubbled below.
Useless.
Jake's breath came faster. Panic clawed at his chest. He was trapped. Helpless. About to either die from Harley's beating or go insane from the chemicals, and there was nothing -- absolutely nothing -- he could do.
The interface pulsed again. The red thread flickered, brightening until it burned his vision even through closed eyelids.
"Help me," Jake whispered to the system. "Please. Anything. Give me anything."
The interface hummed. Static and light and incomprehensible code.
Then: nothing.
No new reward. No mysterious solution. Just the Navigator, pointing uselessly at a rose he couldn't reach, and a Time Bank counting down to zero.
It had never been meant to save him. Only to guide him. The survival -- that was his job.
And he was failing.
"Last chance, Spider." Harley's voice was cold now. The manic energy had burned away, leaving something worse. Something broken and desperate and willing to do anything. "My 'Good Night.' My mallet. Where. Is. It?"
Jake met her eyes. Saw the madness there. The loss. The grief twisted into rage.
She'd loved that mallet. It had been her companion through chaos and imprisonment and every betrayal Gotham had thrown at her. And he'd taken it. Consumed it. Turned it into hours on a clock that now meant nothing.
"I'm sorry," Jake said. And meant it.
Harley's face went blank. Not surprised. Not angry. Just... empty.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "Me too."
Her hands moved to the chain release. The mechanism was simple -- a lever that would drop the chains, drop Jake, drop him into the green nightmare below.
"You'll give me my 'Good Night' back," Harley said, voice hollow. "One way or another. Either you tell me where it is..." Her hand tightened on the lever. "Or you fetch it for me like a good doggy."
Jake's heart stopped.
His spider-sense exploded with certainty. Death. Insanity. The end of everything he was.
"Wait--" he gasped. "Harley, wait--"
She pulled the lever.
The chains released.
Jake fell.
Time stretched. Slowed. Each millisecond became an eternity.
His body rotated as he dropped. The world spun -- ceiling, walls, Harley's face above him, shrinking. The green surface rushed up to meet him, bubbling and steaming and hungry.
Jake's mind fractured. Pure animal terror overwhelmed everything else. This was it. This was how he died. Not fighting Batman. Not facing villains. Just dropped into chemicals like garbage, his identity erased, his mind shattered, everything he was about to be burned away by Gotham's most infamous poison.
The interface blazed in his vision. The Time Bank flickered:
🕷️
Time Bank: 02:23:32
🕸️
Still counting. Still running. Right up to the moment he ceased being Jake Cross and became something else entirely.
His mouth opened to scream.
The chemicals rose up to swallow him.
Green filled his vision. His world. His existence.
And then--
Impact.
The surface tension broke.
The liquid was hot. Burning. It filled his nose, his mouth, his eyes. Invaded every orifice with chemical fire. His skin blistered. His lungs screamed for air and found only poison.
Jake sank.
Down.
Down.
Into the green.
Into madness.
Into nothing.
His last coherent thought, before the chemicals rewrote his brain:
'I should have left Gotham when I had the chance. Left with her.'
The green invaded his thoughts like mold spreading through bread.
Harley's laughter wasn't just sound anymore - it had texture, taste, color.
The factory walls breathed. The chains sang opera.
And somewhere in the kaleidoscope fracture of his breaking mind, Jake found his laugh.
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TL;DR
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The End of Gotham Arc.
Special thanks to all who have supported me this far. This is the level of structure and quality I was hoping to achieve in a fanfic.
Were you as thrilled as I was with every single chapter? Are you looking forward for more?
You should. Because, boy-oh-boy, what I've got in store will have your brain renting extra dopamine just to keep up.
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~MimicLord
"I should have left Gotham when I had the chance."
Up Next: The Laughing Spider Arc.
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Summary: Gotham Arc
- Word Count -- 35, 206
- Chapters -- 20
- T. Finder Progress -- 5%
- Totems Collected -- 4
- Time Bank -- 02:23:30 / 143h, 30 minutes / 5 days, 23 hours, 30 minutes
- Days in Gotham -- 7 / 1 week