They rose without a word.
A moment earlier, the alley had looked the same as it always did—people wrapped in blankets, bodies pressed against brick, tents stitched together from tarps and scavenged plastic. The kind of place most of Gotham never really noticed, where eyes slid past without lingering.
Now, movement rippled through it.
They took their time rolling their blankets, folding them in on themselves instead of tossing them aside. Tents came down carefully, poles eased free and stacked instead of clattering to the ground. What had looked like chaos only moments before revealed itself as something else entirely—order disguised as neglect.
Beneath layered jackets and frayed coats were padded vests, improvised but deliberate. Kevlar plates stitched into denim. Reinforced seams hidden under grime and wear. Protection built to survive, not to be seen.
Gas masks followed. Matte black, compact, sealed into place with motions that had been practiced until they were second nature. No one rushed. No one fumbled.
At the mouth of the alley, a man checked his watch and gave a short nod.
"Go."
They moved.
Not all at once, and not in a straight line. Individuals peeled off in different directions, crossing streets between traffic lights, slipping into doorways, vanishing into the gaps the city never bothered to close. To anyone watching from a distance, it would have looked like nothing more than Gotham breathing—people coming and going, nothing worth remembering.
Two blocks away, the building waited.
Location One.
It was unremarkable by design. Concrete façade, narrow windows, wedged between a defunct accounting firm and a long-shuttered electronics store. The kind of place you rented when you didn't want attention, and the kind most people assumed no one would ever bother to look too closely at.
They gathered at the rear entrance.
One of them—a thin man with a scar running along his jaw—reached into his pocket and pulled out a device no bigger than a cigarette box. He thumbed it on and pressed it against the wall.
A faint vibration passed through the metal.
Inside, every camera went dark at once. No sparks, no alarms. Just a clean absence where eyes had been moments before.
"Eyes down," he murmured into his earpiece.
The lock followed. Not forced—worked. The door eased open with barely a sound.
They slipped inside.
Hallways were taken one at a time. Two to a corridor, one watching high, the other low. Doors were checked, cleared, and quietly marked. Every movement was accompanied by low confirmations through their earpieces.
"Office clear."
"Storage clear."
"Stairwell secure."
There was no urgency in their pace. No adrenaline-fueled rush. This was procedure, learned through repetition and reinforced by consequence.
They reached the lab.
Or what the lab was supposed to be.
White walls. Stainless tables. Empty racks where equipment should have been. No residue on the counters, no discarded tools—everything scrubbed down so thoroughly it felt intentional, almost defensive.
One of them paused, tilting his head.
"This place was used," he said quietly. "Not long ago."
Another knelt, running gloved fingers along the seams in the floor. "Too clean. Someone didn't want to leave anything behind."
A third voice chimed in through the comms. "Pulling up the blueprints."
They already knew the building's layout. Every wall thickness, every void, every space that didn't quite line up had been studied in advance.
"Hidden room's on the east side," the voice continued. "Behind the utility wall."
They moved together. A false panel came away with practiced ease, revealing the space behind it.
The hidden room was empty.
Shelving stripped bare. Mounts unbolted. Even the dust patterns had been wiped away, the concrete beneath looking almost new.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then someone broke the silence. "He was here."
Another voice followed, tighter now. "But he's gone. No leftovers. No mistakes."
A brief pause.
Then the call went out, calm but edged with something sharper beneath it.
"Location One is a bust. Confirmed vacated. No materials, no personnel."
They withdrew the same way they had entered. Panels replaced. Doors resealed. The device came out again, cameras flickering back to life as if nothing had ever happened.
By the time the alley filled once more—with blankets spread, tents reassembled, bodies settling back into place—there was no sign a strike team had passed through at all.
Just another forgotten corner of Gotham.
****
"It's a bust boss sorry."
Quentin frowned, "It's fine and expected. Get some rest." He seamlessly switched to channel two
"Move."
****
The call came in quiet.
No buildup. No warning. Just a single word in the earpieces.
"Move."
This time, no one rose from alleys or tents.
The team was already inside the building across the street—three floors up, lights off, windows cracked just enough to watch the target without being seen. They had been there since before sunset, blending in as maintenance workers, tools left where anyone passing would expect them.
When the signal came, they didn't rush.
They crossed the street in pairs, timing their steps with the passing traffic, slipping through the service entrance before the door could swing shut on its own hydraulics. No camera feed to worry about this time—the building's system was older, isolated. Easier to spoof. Easier to miss.
The first guard never heard them.
He was seated at a folding desk near the freight elevator, boots kicked up, half-focused on his phone. One hand came down on his mouth, the other on his wrist. A quick twist. A soft thud as he was lowered to the floor. Zip cuffs. Breathing steady. Alive.
"Lobby secure," someone murmured.
They moved deeper.
The second guard tried to raise a radio.
He didn't finish the motion.
A baton caught him behind the knee, another strike to the shoulder. He hit the wall hard enough to knock the air out of him but not enough to break bone. He slumped, dazed, staring at nothing.
"Two down. No alarms."
Rooms were cleared methodically.
Doors opened just far enough to see inside. Lights flicked on only when needed, then off again. Whiteboards filled with chemical formulas. Refrigerated cabinets humming quietly. Racks of equipment that looked expensive, well-maintained, and—more importantly—clean.
Too clean.
"No residue," one of them said, gloved finger running along a stainless steel surface. "No contamination. No scorched seals."
They found centrifuges. Spectrometers. Storage lockers labeled and logged. A real lab, not a rush job. Not something someone sets up overnight to cook terror gas.
"Check the vents anyway," another voice said.
They did.
Filters were intact. No chemical burn. No improvised exhaust lines punched through walls or ceilings. No hidden rooms behind false panels. No reinforced doors where there shouldn't be any.
They even checked the floors—tapping for hollow spaces, scanning for density differences.
Nothing.
In the main workspace, they paused.
The place felt… calm.
Not abandoned. Not staged. Just empty, like people had locked up properly and gone home.
"This isn't a front," someone said quietly. "If it is, they're patient. And careful."
"Or it's exactly what it looks like," another replied. "A legitimate lab."
A beat passed.
Then: "Document everything. Photos, serials, inventory. We'll let him decide."
They worked fast but not hurried, cataloging equipment, pulling data from terminals, leaving no trace of their presence behind.
When they left, the guards were positioned the way they'd been found—out cold, breathing evenly, no obvious signs of a break-in unless someone knew where to look.
The door closed softly behind them.
Outside, the street went on like nothing had happened.
In the earpiece, the final report came through.
"Location Two clear. Functional lab. No evidence of fear gas production."
A pause.
Then, quietly, "Which means he's somewhere else sorry boss."
****
Quentin sighed pinching his brow, "Okay team three and four move in at the same time. Be careful there's a high chance he's in one of the two."
The only grace was the last two locations weren't far off from each other.
Vey stepped in and his new mask was put on, "Okay let's move team four."
****
The van rolled to a stop without ceremony.
No screech of brakes. No sudden movements. Just a quiet deceleration as it eased into a shadowed stretch of curb two blocks from Location Four.
The rear doors opened.
Vey stepped out first.
He didn't rush. He never did. His new mask caught the ambient light and swallowed it, matte and angular, designed to give nothing back. Behind him, his team followed in disciplined silence—four figures, layered coats hiding armor, weapons already in hand but kept low.
"All teams, comms check," Vey said calmly.
One by one, confirmations clicked in.
"Team Three green."
"Team Four green."
"Overwatch green."
Every word traveled the same closed loop. No delay. No interference.
Vey raised two fingers.
They moved.
***
Location Four was older than it looked.
Brick exterior, renovated just enough to pass inspection. The kind of building that had survived Gotham's worst decades by being useful and forgettable in equal measure.
Entry was clean.
Locks yielded. Cameras looped. Hallways opened up to reveal offices, storage rooms, half-finished renovations. Nothing out of place. Nothing alarming.
Too quiet.
"First floor clear," one of Vey's people murmured.
"Second floor clear," another followed.
They worked upward, methodical, professional. Every room was checked, every corner seen. No guards. No equipment. No chemical smell lingering in the air.
Vey felt the tension coil tighter in his chest.
This place was wrong—not because it hid something, but because it didn't.
They reached the floor marked on the blueprints.
The lab should have been there.
It wasn't.
Just an open space. Bare walls. A few abandoned desks. Dust that had settled naturally, not disturbed recently.
Vey exhaled slowly.
"…Nothing here," he said into the comms. "No lab. No hidden access points. Either this place was never active, or we're late by weeks."
A half second of silence followed.
Then—
****
Naima didn't hesitate to enter
Location Three was louder from the start.
No outward alarms but voices. Footsteps, the building was active.
Her team came in through the service entrance, already moving when the first guard rounded the corner.
He barely had time to register surprise before Naima's elbow caught him in the throat.
Another guard went down hard, clipped behind the knee and slammed into the tile. Zip cuffs snapped tight. Efficient. Controlled.
"Contact," Naima said evenly. "Non-lethal. Keep moving."
They advanced faster now.
This building had resistance, which meant it mattered.
They took a stairwell two at a time, boots silent despite the pace. The smell hit them halfway up—sharp, chemical, unmistakable even through filters.
Fear gas.
"Masks sealed," Naima ordered.
They reached the lab floor and everything changed.
Men in gas masks stood between them and the glass-walled lab beyond—six at least, maybe more moving behind partitions. Weapons came up on both sides at the same time.
For a split second, no one fired.
Then one of the masked men twitched.
Gunfire erupted.
Naima dropped behind a workstation as rounds chewed into metal and glass. Her team returned fire in controlled bursts, driving the masked men back, forcing them to scatter for cover.
Through the chaos, she saw him.
Jonathan Crane.
Behind the reinforced glass, coat immaculate, mask off—eyes wide, alive with recognition and something close to delight. He stared straight at her.
Naima's rifle snapped up instinctively.
"Crane!" she shouted.
He smiled.
And turned.
"Target confirmed," Naima barked into the comms. "Scarecrow is on-site. Repeat—he's here."
***
The word gunfire cracked through Vey's earpiece a heartbeat later.
Then Naima's voice—sharp, focused, alive.
They found him.
Vey didn't hesitate.
"Abort sweep," he said, already turning. "All units, move to Team Three's location. Now."
His team pivoted in unison, retracing their path at a controlled sprint. Doors opened and shut. Stairwells blurred past.
Outside, they broke into the street.
The van was already moving before they reached it.
***
Inside Location Three, the air changed.
A hiss rolled through the vents.
Fear gas poured down in thick, roiling clouds, swallowing the upper corners of the lab floor. Lights dimmed as the haze spread, turning shapes into silhouettes and men into shadows.
Naima's mask filtered it out—but her vision still swam at the edges as the gas thickened.
"Ventilation compromised!" someone called.
"We're good," Naima snapped. "Keep pressure on them."
Another masked man dropped. Then another.
But Crane was already gone.
Naima caught sight of him at the far end of the lab—slipping through a narrow opening in the wall that hadn't existed a moment earlier. A hidden corridor revealed by some unseen mechanism.
"Crane's moving!" she shouted. "Hidden passage east side—he's running!"
She pushed up from cover and surged forward, firing through the glass as it shattered outward.
Crane disappeared into the corridor, the door sliding shut behind him as the fear gas thickened again.
Naima slammed a fresh magazine home.
"Don't let him disappear," she growled.
Somewhere below, tires screamed as a van took a corner too fast.
Vey was coming.
And the hunt had finally begun.
****
The van came out of the turn hard.
Too hard for a normal driver.
Vey braced a hand against the frame as the city lurched sideways, streetlights streaking past the windshield. Then he saw it—headlights flaring ahead, a dark sedan nosing out from a service drive, tires already screaming as it tried to bolt into traffic.
"Visual," Vey said flatly. "That's him."
Crane's driver didn't hesitate. The sedan surged forward, clipping a curb, accelerating like it already knew it was being hunted.
"Ram it," Vey ordered.
No one questioned it.
The van surged, engine roaring as the distance collapsed in seconds. Crane's car swerved, trying to cut across lanes, but Gotham traffic boxed him in—cars braking, horns blaring, chaos blooming exactly where Vey needed it.
Impact came with a bone-rattling crunch.
Metal screamed as the van slammed into the sedan's rear quarter panel. Both vehicles spun, tires shrieking as momentum tore them apart in opposite directions. The sedan fishtailed, smashed into a parked car, and skidded sideways until it came to rest in a cloud of smoke and steam.
The van ground to a halt half a block away.
Before it fully stopped, the door was already coming open.
Nolan stepped out.
The mask was gone. The suit jacket flared in the cold air as he raised the pistol with calm, practiced precision. He didn't aim wildly. He never did.
Two shots.
The first took out the rear tire. Rubber exploded, the rim biting into asphalt.
The second punched into the engine block. A dull, heavy sound—final, decisive. Steam geysered up, hissing violently.
The sedan died.
A door flew open.
One of Crane's men stumbled out, gas mask crooked, gun coming up in a panic. He didn't get a chance to steady it.
Vey fired once.
The man dropped back against the car and slid down, weapon clattering uselessly to the street.
Silence rushed in around them—broken only by the ticking of hot metal and distant sirens that hadn't yet decided where to go.
Vey crossed the distance quickly.
He grabbed the sedan's rear door and wrenched it open.
Jonathan Crane was still inside.
No mask now. Glass glittered in his hair, eyes wide but sharp, chest rising too fast. The confidence he wore in his labs hadn't vanished—but it had cracked, just enough to let something real show through.
Vey leaned in, pistol steady, shadow falling across Crane's face.
"Found you."
—-
A/n: Vey will invest in better ways to keep the mask on his face. Both this and next chapter 2.5k words!