CHAPTER TWENTY-Five/EPIOLOGUE

I sat glaring at the TV, gripping my hands into tight little fists in my lap as the news anchor delivered her prewritten spiel.

" –ack Mask and a number of hired criminals were taken into custody today by the Gotham City Police Department along with the cannibal, Killer Croc. An apparent long-term sting operation at Sionis Industries unearthed an enormous, and frightening, drug cartel based here in Gotham. Eyewitnesses report that the arrests did not occur peacefully and that Batman, Gotham's very own caped crusader, had a hand in subduing the suspects. Authorities deny such accusati - " I stood up and crossed my arms, leveling a death glare at the news hostess.

Great. Awesome. Exactly what I need. Pacing the circuit of my apartment, I fumed. These fuckers. How goddamn dare they. And Batman. Always fucking Batman. Seriously when was that guy going to go fall down a well and die, I mean honestly how much more of a nuisance could he be? Growling, I stopped in my tracks as I passed the TV, staring at the unfamiliar building on the screen.

" – octors hope to rehabilitate the so called super criminals in the newly reopened Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane in the upcoming months." I frowned as the camera switched from the news lady to a doctor of said facility while images of a newly remodeled asylum showed over the screen. Did I know…? It hit me like a rock to the gut and I was scrambling over the couch and whipping open doors as I bolted to the study. Throwing blue prints to the ground and over my shoulder, I found it. A copy of Arkham Island's newly remodeled self, all facilities included. Smoothing the roll down, I bit my thumb and glared at the schematics.

I'd been working hands off for too long, there was no way I'd be able to get in and out of the old mental hospital right now. No matter how urgently I wanted to go after Black Mask and Croc I wasn't about to potentially incarcerate myself for decades just to scratch an itch. I glanced down at my right hand, flexing the nimble digits and stretching the limber tendons. Maybe I still had that magic touch, but what about getting back into the game? Do I really want to potentially subject myself to another Blackgate situation? And it's not like either of them would do anything to help me if the situation were reversed. I growled through grit teeth, fighting the plans already formulating in my head, pushing against the ideas of what I could do that would deem me mentally unstable and dangerous enough to get sentenced to Arkham. I couldn't do it. I'd be putting myself back into too risky a situation.

I should just wait here in this plush apartment and live clean. My eye twitched.

Yeah right.

THE END

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/AN: Thanks so much for reading!
Now that the whole thing's out, I can see I made some mistakes. The pacing was off, I'm more than sure there's a hefty amount of grammatical errors, but mostly I seriously didn't do a very good job with most of the characterizations.
Besides Loose Lips, I think I did pretty great with him - I fucking love that guy holy shit.

I don't plan on doing a follow up to this story but you can bet money I'll write another Killer Croc story sometime. I want to go more monster movie with him but also cutesy friendship. The struggle.

Thanks again for reading, and to everyone who followed/faved/reviewed I am in eternal awe and embarrassment that anyone else liked this. You guys are great!/