Gotham's Unknown 3 Predator and Prey

Chapter 22: Free Hands

It's late at night and Detective Harvey Bullock is driving home after a long night of paperwork. As he drives down the street he feels himself nodding off but he shakes himself awake. "Come on Harv, just one more block and you get to climb in bed! Let's listen to the radio to keep us awake." Said Harvey as he spoke to himself and clicked on the radio. Soft music played and as he listened his eye lids grew heavy but just as they were about to close a figure appeared in the night right in front of his car and he hit it. Whatever he hit had hit his windshield and rolled over his car but left a sizable blood trail behind. Harvey slammed on the brakes and sat there horrified for a moment. As his hands shook he stepped out of the car and looked behind the car seeing a sizable man curled up on the road behind him but Harvey quickly realized why there was such a heavy blood trail across the car, the man's hands had been freshly chopped off. Harvey quickly called it into the GCPD and tried his best to keep the guy alive but as he checked if the man was responsive he noticed that it was Daniel Van Dahl who had been M.I.A for the last 3 months.

They got Daniel to the hospital and the doctors patched him up but said that he suffered a pretty bad head wound when he hit the pavement so he was going to be sedated for a while so his head could heal. Jim Gordon had responded to the call personally so that he could talk to Harvey about what happened but he had also called Sarah to tell her that they had found Daniel. Sarah got there as soon as she could and refused to leave Daniel's side. Jim came in a little while later to ask her a few questions. "Do you know of anyone who had a grudge against your husband? Anyone who would want to make him suffer?" Asked Jim as Sarah sniffed.
"Everyone wanted to hurt Daniel, he was a fucking criminal king pin but this... This was specific, these people knew exactly what they were doing." Said Sarah as Jim looked at Daniel's injury.
"What exactly were they doing?" Asked Jim as Sarah finally looked at him.
"Taking his powers from him. See Daniel still doesn't know what exact experiments they did to him but I do, I know every experiment they performed especially on Daniel because they made me watch. The center of his palms just under the first few layers of muscle have cells from electric eel organs and then they performed shock therapy on him but a thousand times fold what a human could normally handle. They were charging him but when they tested the electric current in his body it was still normal to that of a human so they killed him but when I brought him back and he had these powers. I suspect he just needed a hard reset like a computer." Said Sarah as she chuckled a little. "But whoever did this they knew about those cells in his hands and there are only a few people that know that: Dr. Anita Halestrum though she died from cancer a few years back, me, and Abigail Dupont but Abigail has been locked up in Blackgate for 3 years." Said Sarah as Jim nodded.
"Well we haven't had any alerts that anyone has broken out of Blackgate but I'll check with the security officers to see if Dupont has had any visitors." Said Jim as he turned away but turned back. "Thanks for your help, I'll be in touch." Said Jim as he walked off. Sarah stood by the window watching Daniel.

Jim's next stop was at the Iceberg Lounge because at this point he had no leads but he did have a hunch that Oswald must've had something to do with it. He walked in the door and saw Oswald sitting at the bar with Ophelia and Edward. Jim stepped up to the bar and Edward rolled his eyes at the sight of him. "Jim, what can I do for you?" Asked Oswald with a fake kindness that showed he just wanted Jim to leave as quickly as possible.
"We found Daniel, doctors say he's stable but he lost a lot of blood due to a very specific injury that you both have inflicted on people." Said Jim as that seemed to catch both Oswald and Edward's attention because they realized that they were Jim's top suspects.
"Tread lightly Jim Gordon because if you're accusing us of what I think you are, you'll be leaving here in a very poor condition!" Said Oswald as Jim stepped closer showing he really wasn't afraid of Oswald.
"You know what I think Oswald, I think you regretted making Daniel your successor and once you regained your youth you wanted to shove him out so you held him captive. You were trying to get him to step down but just like his old man he was stubborn and refused. When it finally came time to kill him you couldn't kill your own son. You knew that if you were going to release him you needed to make sure that there was no way he could come after you or be in charge of Gotham's Underworld any longer so you took the one thing he had that made people fear him more than they ever feared you." Said Jim as Oswald started to laugh.
"I think you've finally gone senile, Jim!" Said Oswald as he laughed.
"Really then how come your son accused you of doing this to him!" Said Jim as Oswald became shocked that Daniel would make such an accusation.
"He's lying, Daniel hasn't woken up yet." Said Edward as Jim glared at him knowing Edward had caught him.
"How do you know?" Asked Oswald softly as Edward smirked.
"When Jim is bluffing he gets this glossed over look in his eyes like the lights are on but no one's home." Said Edward as Jim huffed. Jim turned and left having nothing more to say to them but Ophelia had something to say.
"Commissioner Gordon, his hands were cut off weren't they?" Asked Ophelia as Oswald and Edward were taken back by that information. Jim turned and looked at her confused.
"How did you know that?" Asked Jim as Ophelia scoffed.
"Please I've worked very closely for Mr. Van Dahl for the past 3 years but anyone who watches the way he performs hand to hand combat would know exactly where his powers are most focused. You're not looking for someone who already knew that information let alone someone who actually wanted to hurt him, you're looking for someone who is trying to correct what Dr. Halestrum did to those Arkham patients and Blackgate inmates. He was only targeted first because he's the only one who chose not blend in and pretend he didn't have these powers." Said Ophelia as she reached under the bar and grabbed a business card. "Go here, she'll be the most help." Said Ophelia as she handed Jim the business card. He stared at it for a moment and looked up with shock.
"Thank you." Said Jim as he turned and left.

Jim went to the address on the card which was an abandoned building in the Narrows but once he stepped inside it was very busy. There were tons of people and it almost looked like a hospital but with a circle of chairs in the center of the large space. Jim wandered around for a moment until he saw her, Fish Mooney standing in the center of the chairs. He noticed she was talking to a group of people who all must've been altered in their genetic makeup. "And remember no matter what the normal monsters of this city say you're no different than they are-"
"Despite the fact that their freaks." Jim interrupted as the occupants of the entire building turned and glared.
"Detective Jim Gordon, what a pleasure." Said Fish as Jim adjusted his lapel.
"Actually it's the Commissioner now." Said Jim with a sense of pride in his tone.
"Don't worry darlings, he's an old friend. Why don't we pick this up next week?" Asked Fish as everyone stood. As the group stood Jim recognized one of the group members as Vanessa Kyle, Selina Kyle's daughter.
"Vanessa, does your Mom know you're here?" Asked Jim as Vanessa hissed and bared her fangs in a grin.
"She's the one that told me to come." Vanessa walked off as Fish approached him.
"Jim, what can I do for you?" Asked Fish as Jim pulled out a mugshot of Daniel.
"Did this man ever join in on sessions?" Asked Jim as Fish scoffed.
"No, Daniel never joined in on our sessions because he never saw a problem with his powers. Occasionally however he would talk to me privately stating that his father's, Oswald and the skinnier one, were frightened of his powers and whenever they were frightened of him he would come here and talk about how he hated himself for scaring them. All he ever wanted was Oswald's approval in everything he did so when Oswald was afraid of him he hated himself." Said Fish as Jim hummed.
"You're surprisingly cooperative." Stated Jim as Fish sighed.
"In the past I was obsessed with power but that day when I died in Oswald's arms, I was ready to die Jim so when Dr. Halestrum brought me back to experiment on me since I was Hugo's only true success, all I wanted was to die. However when I saw all the other people she had tortured and abused, I suppose I gained a sympathy for them and wanted to help them live as normal Meta Humans so I started all this with the help of our basis Dr. Sarah Ivory." Said Fish as Jim looked around.
"Sarah helps you run this?" Asked Jim as Fish nodded.
"Of course, after all the basis for her genetic makeup was under to create or bring back every single one of us so she does what she can to help since she feel guilty for allowing them to experiment on her and ruin so many lives. I actually begged her to teach me about psychology so I could help these people." Said Fish as she smiled softly which was not a look Jim had ever seen on her face. "Trust me Jim, I've changed." Said Fish as Jim sighed.
"Well do you know of anyone that would want to hurt Daniel personally?" Asked Jim as Fish scoffed.
"Oh please anyone who wanted to hurt Oswald wanted to hurt him!" Said Fish as she turned and started walking away from Jim but Jim followed.
"Did you know of anyone he recently upset or anyone he talked about being afraid of." Asked Jim as Fish paused and turned.
"He often said he was worried when 'she' would get out." Said Fish as Jim looked at her.
"Who?" Asked Jim as Fish shrugged.
"I'm not sure, when I'd ask him to explain he would say nothing more than if he told me his wife would be mad at him and didn't like to make Sarah angry so I asked her but pretended like she had no idea what I was talking about." Said Fish as Jim nodded realizing that there were things that Sarah wasn't telling him. "Jim tell me, did you find Daniel?" Asked Fish as Jim nodded.
"Yes, he's doing well." Said Jim as he left.

Jim went back to the hospital and found Sarah and her son Adam sitting with Daniel who was awake. Jim requested to speak with Daniel alone so Sarah and Adam stepped out. "Daniel who did this to you?" Asked Jim as Daniel looked at him coldly.
"No idea." Daniel spoke in a cold and tired tone almost like he had given up.
"Look I know losing your powers will make you lose all your power in Gotham but you've been mutilated and were left for dead! It's my job to find who did this to you and bring them to justice!" Jim barked as Daniel scoffed.
"Look Jim, I appreciate the thought but you're way out of your depth with this one so why don't you just back off and let the ones with all the power handle this!" Daniel barked as Jim didn't like his implications.
"Look here-"
"No! YOU LOOK HERE! I meddled in the wrong parts and look what happened to me!" Daniel shouted as he held up what was left of his hands which was really just his wrists with nothing attached to the ends of them. "If you know what's good for you and those you love you'll declare this case unsolvable and move on!" Daniel turned away and curled up in a ball. "Drop my case to keep those you love safe..." Said Daniel as he had a tearful tone.