Cold-Blooded

Evanescent

Amidst all the chaos, the terror and the disarray, the once snoozing figure moaned as her eyes fluttered, feeling the soft mattress underneath her body in contrast to the metallic chest she fell against before she lost consciousness. She wasn't sure how long she was out for, felt like a couple days at least, but the words of Scarecrow's plan resonated in her mind of creating the reality of fear on Halloween.

The first thing she felt was the change of clothes, her battle suit that the Arkham Knight personally ordered to construct feeling like a warm, third skin on her body. The second was the uncomfortable IV catheter in her hand that she simply pulled out once she swung her legs off the mattress. The third was...loneliness, her room eerily quiet and empty of Breaker and Rex. They probably moved to HQ to avoid being affected by the fear toxin, and Alias flicked her hair back as the chemical agent in the room barely made her fearful. The stormy look in her eyes was a sign that she already faced her fears, and that she had no reason to be afraid. Even of herself.

As she was about to leave her bed, her senses picked up beeping and she looked at the source, a tracking device sitting on her bedside with a little note beside it. On that same bedside rested a digital clock and her earpiece, and she widened her eyes at the time. It was 9:42. She had only been sleeping for more than an hour. Alias fiddled with the earpiece and snatched the tracking device off the bedside, finding herself reading the note rather than using the small electronic. The Meta was slightly confused, as the side she read only said her name in cursive handwriting, but when she turned it over she had finally realised her mistake.

"We promised..." She whispered aloud, frustration and sorrow rising up her throat. "Remember? Knight...what are you..." She was so entranced by him, the Arkham Knight, that his goals became hers but that wasn't it. She was entranced by him because...the note had fallen onto her lush carpet rug, a deep blush spreading against her freckled cheeks; a reason too personal, too intimate for even her to handle. When she brought the misty haze to her eyes, Alias marched to her balcony doors and slammed them open with enough force to smash the glass, her glowing eyes taking in the City of Fear that had now become a reality. The yellow-brown cloud cloaked Gotham City in layers of terror and dread, affecting those with severe psychological trauma the longer they were enveloped in it and blurring their fears with their conscious mind. From here she could hear the screaming, the fighting, the crying. The fear that was happening.

Scarecrow actually did it.

He managed to bring the city to its knees, force it into submission and relay its punishment back. She wanted to smile at the boss' success but her mind was on other things, and her hands let off an icy aura before a glacier launched her high into the air. The Meta landed silently on a rooftop and cover-rolled to cushion the force, already recovering and streaking across to the next rooftop. She traversed across the city with ease, using her ice as boosters to other buildings and when she made it to the bridge connecting to Bleake Island, she created one last ice thruster to rocket her over the raised bridges and grunted when she landed in a squat.

She brought a hand to the earpiece as the connection had restored and overheard a conversation with Scarecrow and...him. "The Cloudburst won't withstand another strike. Retreat."

"No," the Arkham Knight replied and Alias began darting through the streets of Bleake, the tracker she hooked onto her utility thigh belt responding to her nearing proximity. "This is to the end." As deviant and stubborn as he was, he sounded wounded having to face the man that left him behind, confront Batman even after what he did to him, and she furrowed her brows in anguished realisation. Although the mist provided her a limitless boost, the toxin had greatly reduced her capabilities and she had collapsed against the wall when she turned the corner that led to a small flight of stairs. Even with her skin and hair starting to burn as she overworked her muscles, Alias knew she couldn't stop and used the wall as support as she staggered up the steps.