29 See No Evil (Young Justice SI)

Synopsis: Vergil St. Jude finds himself at a crossroads -- go left for greatness or go right for safety. Longing for greatness, Vergil goes left towards Gotham city where he finds that he starts out not on the lowest rung of society, but he's flat out under the ladder itself. There he learns that greatness is not something that is handed to you, but it is something that you take and become.

Author: Ideas-Guy

Site: Spacebattle

Chapter 1:

Ideas-Guy

Jul 22, 2020

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#1

"Hell is closed but Gotham is open?" I read the graffiti sprayed over the sign that welcomed people to Gotham city. A sprawling metropolis that looked like it was the unholy experiment gone wrong between gothic architecture and modern buildings, with a splash of steampunk thrown into the mix for funsies. It looked like a city that had absolutely no idea what it wanted to be and the city planners were all trying to do their own separate thing. But, standing above the rest of the skyline was a building that displayed a single word in bright white neon light -- Wayne.

I sucked in a deep breath as my feet carried me towards hell. Or Gotham. But calling it hell was probably fair too. The main highway was a patched over mess, the paint lines faded, but still, people drove in and out of the city. I've long since abandoned the idea of trying to hitch a ride and there wasn't much of a point since I was already at the city's gates.

Not a moment too soon either. The sky was darkening as the sun dipped below the horizon while clouds heavy with rain swirled overhead. It wouldn't be long before it started pouring cats and dogs, at night no less. In a shithole like Gotham City.

"Ah… this is dumb," I told myself not for the first time as my hands reached into my pocket to take out a slip of paper. Like an hour ago I found myself in a new universe. Which was a thing. Not sure what kind of thing, but it indeed was a thing. A thing that happened to me. If it was a good thing remained to be seen. I unfurled the paper once again and read it as if the words would have changed in the last five minutes.

Go left for greatness. Go right for safety.

Apparently that fork in the road was the highway that would either take me to Gotham City or Metropolis. Left was Gotham. Right was Metropolis. And given which city I was walking into, it should be pretty obvious what my answer was. After all, who didn't want to be great?

"I have no money, only the clothes on my back and I don't exist in this universe so I won't have a valid ID…" Yeah, this was a really stupid idea. But one I was committed to.

Refolding the slip of paper and tucking it back into my pocket, I continued into the city. I eyed the tall skyscrapers that seemed so much more imposing than they did in my home city. I stepped onto a broken and cracked sidewalk and felt like I had crossed a threshold, a point of no return, and only then did it really sink in what I was about to do. Mostly because I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

Especially in a city like this. Gotham looked rough from a distance but that was nothing compared to seeing it up close. Pieces of trash littered the road, the few people that walked on the sidewalk looked nervous as they moved with a sense of urgency to not be on the streets. The cars that were parked on the side of the road looked rough as well with chipped paint, dents and cracked glass on top of being old -- the kind of cars you left out on the street because you were too poor to afford a safer parking spot or you didn't care what happened to the car.

Which was fair enough. Who drove in a big city other than taxies?

I reached the end of the block, taking in a deep breath of smog and overflowed sewage as I scratched at my cheek and looked around. Right. Now, how exactly did I go about meeting Batman? Do I just walk up to the Wayne Manor, knock on the door and pour my heart out? Stand around and wait for the Bat-signal to light up the sky? Try to cause enough trouble that he comes to me and then I explain the situation?

Releasing that deep breath as a sigh, I shook my head. What guarantee did I have that Batman would help me at all? He could flat out not believe me and toss me in Arkham, or he could be a raging asshole like he was in Batman #1 The Boy Wonder. Not only that, I couldn't imagine me showing up on his front door, revealing that I knew his secret identity would exactly endear me to him.

Until I knew more, I couldn't put all my chips on him helping me. Not when I didn't know anything about him. It was up to me to help myself.

As always.

I turned to a man walking towards me, his hands tucked into his coat. Not sure why he was wearing one, but I could hardly comment when I had a phase when I refused to wear anything but pants, long sleeves and a hat. "Hey, could you-"

"Fuck off," He dismissed me as he walked by without giving me a second look. My lips thinned as I forced myself to count to three before I started walking in the opposite direction. A woman was next, but she was eying me like I was a shark with her hand in her bag. I passed her by without asking her because I didn't want to get a face full of mace.

Another man walked down the street, his expression haggard with bloodshot eyes with black bags underneath them. I offered a friendly smile as I approached, "Hey, would you be able to point me out to a pawnshop nearby?" I asked, making him blink as he took me in.

He scratched at his cheek before he turned and pointed down the sidewalk we were on. "Yeah, there's Blakes nearby. Just take a left at the end of the block, and it's at the corner two blocks down. You should be able to see it, but I think they close soon," he said. Then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet before he passed a twenty over to me. "Don't spend it on beer, okay?"

I looked down at the twenty-dollar bill for a moment before I accepted it, my pride rebelling at the thought of accepting a handout the entire time. But I was too broke to afford pride.

I offered him a smile, memorizing his face because as soon as I could, I was going to pay him ten times over for this. "Thank you so much, and you don't have to worry about that. Not old enough to drink," I reassured, making the man let out a small huff.

"Like that's ever stopped anyone," he commented before he nodded at me. "Take care of yourself," the man said before he continued on his way while I held the twenty dollars in a death grip, unwilling to so much as put it in my pocket because it could fall out.

I took in a steadying breath and I only realized that I never got the guy's name. That didn't matter. Even if I had to hunt him down to the ends of the earth, I was going to pay him back for that act of kindness. No matter what, as soon as I got mine, I would make sure that he got his due. No matter what. Period. Exclamation mark.

But it sure stung I looked desperate enough that the guy just handed me a twenty when I just asked him for directions.

"Right," I said, shaking my head to clear my thoughts about my wounded pride. He said that the pawnshop was about to close for the night? Then that meant that I didn't have much time. I broke out into a jog and it didn't take long until I felt myself grow breathless. I wasn't out of shape, just not particularly in shape. There wasn't time to go to the gym anymore, and I had never been one for cardio.

Blake's was an inner-city pawnshop if I had ever seen one. Iron bars covered the glass to make sure that the merchandise stayed inside, while a faded yellow canvas hoop used to keep the rain away was marked with 'Blake's' in cursive red letters. I caught my reflection in the mirror and I quickly looked away as I yanked the door open.

My too pale skin was flushed a splotchy red from the run. I had always been scrawny, but an additional ten pounds lost left me looking skeletal. My usually short black hair had needed a haircut months ago, and now it looked like a mop. Add that to my faded red shirt with a few holes in it from the wear and tear, I… I looked like someone who needed twenty bucks.

Pushing the thought out of my mind, I stepped inside the pawnshop. The carpet was a dull gray, and the walls were painted a soft yellow, with one wall used as shelf space for various items locked behind a glass sliding door. On the other side was a long L-shaped counter made of more display cases, the contents ranging from phones to DVD players, to jewelry and knives.

"Can I help you?" The man behind the counter greeted me, leaning on the counter as he sent a practiced retail smile at me.

"I was hoping to pawn a phone -- it's mine," I quickly explained as I pulled it out, unlocked it and revealed a screen filled with apps. I had dozens of the things, from time waster games, to gimmick apps that I used once then never used again, and others. It took me a moment, but I pulled up a photo to show him, a picture of a much healthier looking me. Showing him the screen, I shifted through a few photos to confirm that it was my phone and I thankfully didn't scroll by any dick pics. However, the pawnshop owner, Blake apparently, frowned at it.

"That's not a brand I recognize," he commented before I passed the phone over to him. I was momentarily confused before I realized that Apple wouldn't be a thing here. The equivalents were probably Wayne or Luthor something. "Looks well made," he mused, testing the screen's responsiveness before he flipped it over, checking the back for scratches. There weren't any.

His gaze flicked over to me, taking in my appearance for a moment, "I can give you… thirty bucks for it. People want used brand name phones, not well-made knock offs." He explained why he was lowballing me. I know it was his job, but that phone was stupidly expensive and that's why I took care of it religiously.

"How about fifty?" I shot right back at him, trying to get as much money as I could. Because, at the end of the day, the phone was worthless. It wasn't even able to connect to wifi or create a hotspot, much less connect to satellites for a phone signal -- it was literally useless. Any amount of money I could get for it would be an improvement. The pawnshop owner looked pensive for a moment before he shook his head.

"Fifty is what I would offer for a recent X-phone. I can go up to thirty-five," he shot my offer down.

"Call it forty?" I fired right back at him again, knowing how this game worked. I gave more ground than him, and he would only be spending an additional ten bucks. Blake looked at the phone, then at me for a moment, a picture on the screen before he nodded.

"Call it forty," Blake agreed, sticking out a hand that I clasped firmly. Handshakes were weird. I never knew how tightly I was supposed to shake someone's hand. But he didn't seem to mind or care if I shook his hand with too much desperation. I was practically jittering when he went to the till, printed out a receipt, and an additional forty bucks.

"Thank you," I told him as I tucked the money and the receipt into my sock. It felt a bit weird, but even if someone stole my shoes, they wouldn't get all the money that I had. My gaze lingered on a knife that he had on display, only for the price tag to chase me off. As much as I would like a weapon, I'm sure I could find something that would fit the bill nicely somewhere else.

Stepping out of the pawnshop, I let myself smile a bit. This wasn't going too poorly. I already had about sixty bucks. Provided I spent it on nothing else, that was plenty of ramen noodles to fill my stomach. I would have to eat them dry, but with a plastic bag, I could crush them up and sprinkle the seasoning on it. It was doable.

Though I still had one major problem, I thought as I turned my attention upwards to the darkening sky above. The street lamps were on, and the countless lights of the city were as well. Nighttime was closing in on Gotham City, and if comics could agree on anything, the night belonged to criminals and Batman. Meaning that sleeping on the streets was the absolute last possible thing I would want to do.

So, it was a question of did I try to find some nook to huddle up in for the night, or did I spend the little money that I had on a motel? The few bills tucked into my sock felt like they were made of lead rather than paper, making each step incredibly difficult to walk down the sidewalk that had decades of old gum stuck to the surface.

My lips thinned as I realized I already knew the answer to that question. After the sixty bucks was gone, what would I do then? What was my source of income? Get a job? With what ID? With what clothes? Steal? In Batman's city? I like my legs not broken and my brain not turned into mush. Collect cans and try to turn them in? Begging? Hitting every vending machine and arcade for loose quarters?

I had to act as if I was never going to see another penny for the rest of my life. So, with that thought in mind, it became increasingly clear that I needed a safe place to bunker down. A place where I wouldn't be found by the cops or any criminal wandering by. Sleeping on the train, or at a park bench were out. Too exposed. Too dangerous. And that was back home, who knows what kind of messed up stuff happened to the homeless in a city like Gotham?

Pretty much in every single horrible experiment that was done by some mad man was done on the homeless precisely because no one gave a shit about them if they went missing. We, I suppose.

I needed… someone that could take me to a community where someone would at least notice if I suddenly disappeared.

I needed a friend.

…

College taught me a lot in the brief time I was there. Most importantly, it taught me a lesson that I had spent eighteen years not knowing. That lesson was how to start a conversation. To just walk up to someone and start talking. It sounded stupid but that was a life-changing lesson to someone who spent most of their life being a hardcore introvert/socially awkward.

The secret was to bring them something that they wanted and use it as an icebreaker. For college students in a fraternity, the thing that they coveted most was beer. Or pizza. Or vodka if you wanted everyone to be your best friend for the night. There was still the issue of following up with an actual conversation, but the hardest part was taken care of.

For homeless people in a dumpster fire of a city, I used my limited funds to buy two things -- cupped noodles and beer. It cost me ten bucks, but it would be well worth it if I got a place to keep my head down and not worry about some mad scientist kidnapping and experimenting on me.

By the time I left a supermarket, night had fallen on Gotham city and I noticed something as I stepped outside. With each breath I took, I could see a cloud of fog. Meaning that it was cold enough that I could see my breath, but I didn't even feel a chill wearing nothing but a t-shirt. And I had no idea what that meant for me. Unless I had gone hypothermic in about two seconds, then I should at least feel the cold.

Or maybe my isekai superpower was not feeling cold? Knowing my luck, I would find myself homeless in another universe with the most useless superpower ever.

I let out a sigh as I started walking, the paper bag clutched in my hands held protectively to my chest crinkling with every step. Walking down the sidewalk, I eyed everyone that passed me by with the same amount of suspicion that they sent at me. I would have thought that the only people that would be out and about would be gangbangers, monsters, and other criminals. Yet, there were plenty of normal-looking people.

If slightly twitchy as they rushed to their destination.

I ended up finding mine down the block, a source of light emitting from an alleyway between two rundown looking buildings. Given that more than a couple of street lamps were busted out and everyone inside had learned the value of blackout curtains, it might as well have been the sun for how much light it produced. I walked towards it, hearing the sound of people laughing and chuckling around a fire in a barrel drum.

Three older looking men -- salt and pepper in their beards, their hair either shaved down or tucked underneath a hat, while they wore thick canvas jackets that looked like they had seen some hard use. Naturally, they fell silent when the center one saw me step into the alley, making all three of them stare hard.

"Mind if I share your fire?" I asked, holding up a six-pack. The guy that gave me the twenty was right -- being underaged had never stopped anyone. Especially not in a city like this. The three men shared a look for a moment before the center one gave me a wide grin.

"Welcomed to it," he said, gesturing to the fire. A knot of tension melted away from between my shoulder blades as I grinned back and started peeling off cans of beer. "Names Jack," the center one introduced himself before he gestured to the other two, "Bill and Tony."

I was in a new universe and my name was about as boring as they came. So far, this isekai adventure had been pretty not fun, but there would be a silver lining. Even if I had to make it myself.

"Vergil," I introduced myself before reaching into the paper bag. "And I have these if you have a way to boil some water," I continued, holding up the cupped noodles. They were hardly gourmet, but they were a step above the usual cheap trash food. The three men shared another look before one of them nodded.

"Yeah, I've got a kettle. You three wait here and I'll go grab it," Bill said before he started wandering down the alleyway in the direction of where he stayed.

"Rather generous of you, Vergil," Jack remarked, trying to sound casual about his suspicion. And he was. If I didn't expect him to be as suspicious as all hell, I wouldn't have guessed that he was.

"I'm new in town," I explained, as I folded up the paper bag and tucked it into my back pocket. You never knew what you would need until you needed it, after all. "So, I figured I should meet some friendly faces while I could."

Jack perked up, "Where are you from?" He questioned as we both warmed our hands by the fire. Well, he did at least. I could feel the warmth of the fire, but nowhere near as intense as it should be. Meaning that I was also somewhat immune to heat. Not sure if that translated into being fire immune, but the only way to test that was no way to test it.

"New York," I answered. New York, Metropolis, and Gotham were sister cities that worked on a sliding scale of awful. Gotham was naturally the ugly sister, New York was the decent looking sister and Metropolis was the hot one.

Jack nodded at that, and I'm guessing he was the de facto leader because Tony was already moving onto his second beer. "Yeah, I can hear your accent. Most of our kind have been coming from Metropolis for a while now," he commented, making Tony scowl.

"Fucking Lex Luthor," he cursed the name like it was venom. Jack saw my expression of confusion and explained.

"Having a bunch of bums like us doesn't sell the image of the city of tomorrow, now does it? Lex Luthor has been making it impossible for homeless people to live in Metropolis. The mayor couldn't be more of a puppet even if Luthor's hand was literally up his ass, so whatever bill Luthor wants passed gets passed. From harsher vagrancy laws to putting up spikes wherever someone gets caught sleeping… well, the long and short of it is that the reason why Metropolis doesn't have any homeless is because we've all moved to Gotham."

"That's…," I trailed off, my lips tugging into a frown as Jack shrugged.

"It is what it is," Jack dismissed before he nodded at me. "But what brings you to Gotham? I can't imagine this place is any better than New York City," he questioned, fishing for information. Luckily, I had an answer prepared for that question.

"Basically? I'm trying to make the most of my fresh start. Lost whatever I had back home, and didn't have any money saved up. So, I figured with nothing holding me down I could start over in a new city. Make my break, you know?" I explained, clenching my fingers as my gaze found itself staring at the flames, feeling… ashamed, for a lack of a better word. At the end of the day, the forces that put me here were wildly out of my control and I was left cleaning up the mess left behind by others.

It wasn't my fault. None of it was. But, regardless of whose fault it was, I was left standing by a barrel fire in the middle of an alleyway.

"Shit," Jack muttered with a shake of his head, deciding not to pry deeper into the subject. I was thankful for it. "Well, you're young. You'll bounce back," he reassured.

"If you live through the winter," Tony remarked, gesturing to me with his beer. "Do you even have a jacket?" He questioned, his eyebrows drawing together. Despite the words, the tone he spoke them with was one of concern. I probably didn't need one, but I didn't volunteer that information. Just like I didn't mention that all that I had was a phone that I pawned off for some quick cash.

Jack and Tony seemed like decent people, but so did everyone else until money got involved. From pennies to billions.

"I don't. It's… a very fresh start," I admitted. All I had was the clothes on my back now. And that was a sobering thought. Jack and Tony shared a look at that, prompting me to change the subject. "So, are there any spots I should stay away from?"

"Cauldron. Just… all of it," Tony replied instantly. "Stay away from parks too. Wayne set up these benches that can become a bed for guys like us, but if you sleep in one you'll be robbed of everything before you wake up. If you wake up."

"The docks are fine during the day if you want to do some fishing but stay the hell away during the night. Mobsters do business there and if you see anything then that makes you a loose end. Crime Alley is a hit and a miss -- The Doctor's clinic is there. She gives out free healthcare, but the gangs are fighting again, so only go there if you need to," Jack stressed.

"And if you're going to try begging or street performing, then don't do it in central square. There's a group there that doesn't like others edging in on them, and those assholes have enough money to hire a gang to mess your day up," Tony continued the barrage of advice. "Also, if you ever get arrested for some bullshit, then ask for Jim Gordon. He still might toss you in jail, but he'll listen and give you a fair shake before he does."

That was a nice segue, "What about Batman?"

"Eh," Jack shrugged his shoulders. "He's around, I'm sure. Him and that whole flock of his," he added. So the bat family was a thing. Good to know. Still, that didn't settle my worries that Batman could be a raging asshole that wouldn't help me. Simply because I had absolutely no idea which DC comics I was in. Was I in Injustice? Silver Age? Golden Age? Or maybe I was in one of the negative universes that were all various shades of awful? I didn't know yet and I wouldn't approach until I was certain I was dealing with a version of Bat Dad.

"But most don't care for him much. He's ruined a bunch of lives," Jack continued, making me worry and it must have shown. "Not everyone is a criminal because they want to be. Sometimes folks don't have a choice. Then Batman comes in, breaks their legs. The hospital charges them out the nose, and they were desperate already. So, they end up on the streets. And they stay on the streets."

"I never thought of it like that," I admitted. I was a fan of comics for years now, and every time Batman broke someone's face, I just assumed that they were a bad guy and that they had it coming. Or Bruce Wayne would use his fat stacks of cash and stealthily pay off their medical bills. Or something.

There was the argument that being desperate didn't excuse committing crimes, possibly ruining innocent lives for a quick buck… but, honestly? Right now, I didn't put much stock in that argument at the moment. And I doubted that Jack or Tony would either.

"Most don't," Jack said with a sigh, telling me that story might have come from personal experience.

"Ahhh!" Tony sighed, finishing off his second beer. "That hit the spot," he muttered before he looked at Jack's unopened can almost longingly. When Jack didn't offer it, Tony looked at me, "So, if you just arrived, I'm guessing you don't have a place to stay?"

My hopes soared with the change of topic, "No, I don't. I was probably going to find some quiet place to pass out for a few hours." I told them, making Tony look at Jack, who in turn looked at me. He scratched at the patched over wool beanie for a moment before he gave a small shrug of his shoulders.

"We have a place in the sewers. A couple of dozen of us. It… well, it smells like shit, but it's safe enough," Jack informed, making my eyebrows draw together. The sewers?

"Doesn't Killer Croc live down there?" I questioned. Killer Crocs personality varied from animalistic, to a decent reptilian dude, to a man-eating monster. "And doesn't he eat people?"

Jack looked sheepish, "Well…"

"That response doesn't inspire a lot of hope," I remarked, making Tony chuckle.

"A lot of the rumors about the big guy are exaggerated. Basically, so long as you don't give him a reason to eat you, he won't," Tony explained, earning a look from me. Because that also didn't help.

"I brought you beer, so you have to be honest with me -- are you trying to feed me to a lizard person?" And when I woke up this morning, that wasn't a question I thought I'd be asking. Jack let out a small huff of laughter as he gave me a toothy grin.

"We aren't. If we were going to feed the big guy, then we would do it for someone that has a bit more meat on their bones," he reassured. I looked down at myself for a moment, and it really hit home just how much weight I had lost. I looked skinny enough that Jack wouldn't want to feed me to Killer Croc in the first place. "That being said, trying to steal or anything like that is a really good way to give him a reason."

"You don't have to worry about that," I waved off the issue. "I'm not going to bite the hand that feeds me, you know?"

Jack nodded before he jerked his head, "Then follow us. Bill is probably shifting through his junk for that kettle." With that, Jack and Tony walked away from the fire with me right behind them. I stuffed my hands in my pockets as I did, feeling relieved and anxious at the same time. Relieved that my plan had worked out, but anxious about it being a trap.

But what were my options? Chancing it somewhere else and hoping that I didn't meet a bad end? In Gotham? When my luck was proving so thoroughly shit already? My hands clenched into fists, the rough calluses on my palms felt warm to the touch from the lingering heat of the fire.

It felt like I was being backed into a corner. My options were trying my luck or following them into the sewer and meeting Killer Croc. With both options, I had to cross my fingers and hope that I didn't die. That someone else didn't try something when I was asleep. I had chosen to follow them, but…

I was completely at their mercy. At their generosity. Like I was with the man who gave me the twenty, and like I was with the pawnshop owner, and like I was with Jack and Tony. And that galled at something deep down inside of me.

I hated feeling so… vulnerable. So helpless. So completely out of control over my own life that I was stuck reacting to things that happened.

That was going to change, I swore to myself as Jack reached a manhole cover and pulled it up. I was hit with the overpowering stench of waste, but even still, I followed him down while Tony was last to replace the manhole cover. I didn't say the words out loud as we climbed down the ladder, but I made a promise to myself.

I wouldn't live in a sewer. Not forever. I… wouldn't let this be my life. I wouldn't.

Reaching the bottom, I saw that the sewer was surprisingly well lit. Part of it was because of the white floodlights that lined the wall, illuminating a wide walkway the three of us could walk shoulder to shoulder. Most of it was because of the Christmas lights that were strung up over the makeshift camp off to the side. It was small, made of tents and rough-looking shacks made of wood.

The camp was divided, one half on one side and the other half on the other, and both were connected by a wooden platform that went over a river. It looked sturdy enough judging by the fact that a few people walked over and there was a barrel drum with another fire burning in it. I took it in for a moment, thinking that it could be worse.

An elderly lady noticed our approach first as I looked over the camp. "I thought you went up for some fresh air? Who's the kid?" She asked, looking me over as she sat down on an old cushion. Her home consisted of a sleeping bag inside of a cloth tent with a flap propped up by a piece of wood.

"Vergil," Jack introduced me. "He bought a six-pack, so the least we could do is give him a place to sleep tonight," Jack explained, making her look over me again. She looked thoroughly unimpressed despite the friendly smile I offered.

"Did you leave any for me?" She asked, holding out her hand expectantly. Jack obediently handed over the other beer that I got, and that told me that I wanted her to like me.

"And I have this?" I said, holding out a cup noodle for her to take. Which she happily did, and all of a sudden, she looked at me in a much friendlier way.

"Welcome to hell kid. Hope you get out of here quick," She said before retreating into her tent to enjoy her prizes. She sounded like she meant it too. However, as she grabbed the wood to let the flap fall to give her some privacy, she looked at the three of us. "Waylon is in, so you should take the kid to him."

Right. I was about to meet Killer Croc. That was a thing that was about to happen.

Then, as if summoned, I heard the water surge behind me as if something utterly massive was emerging from it. Turning around, the murky water slowly revealed a hulking form of a man. It was hard to tell because I didn't know how deep the water was, but if I had to guess he was somewhere in the ten-foot range. His chest was wide, his arms thick and his hands deadly sharp claws. Like the name implied, he was covered in dark green scales that became whitish around his stomach.

The scales that covered his arms and chest were thick and segmented, some jutting up. His face, however, was the worst combination of a lizard and a person. He lacked a snout or anything like that. Instead, his face was uncanny-valley -- covered in scales with bright yellow eyes, but not human-looking enough.

Killer Croc moved out of the water, climbing up and I, unfortunately, found that I was right about my guess about his height. He towered over us, forced to hunch over or he would hit his head. Jack and Tony took a step back, but I found my feet rooted to the spot. Not out of fear like I expected, but… call it stupidity. Or pride. Either way, I didn't back down when he walked towards me.

"You're new," Killer Croc observed in a deep and rumbly voice, the slits that served as his nose flared as he took in a deep breath, smelling me. His eyes narrowed a fraction and I tried not to think about how his hands were large enough that he could probably crush my skull in one of them.

"I am. Jack and Tony said I could stay here. For the night at least," I added. Killer Croc didn't look at them, his gaze settling heavily on me. I thought my heart would be hammering like a jackhammer at my ribs, but instead, my heart beat at a steady pace. My breathing was even. My mind felt calm. I wasn't sure if I had accepted that the situation was completely out of my hands or what, but I wasn't panicking and I was thankful for it.

Killer Croc stared hard at me, his hands flexing for a moment. Then, to my surprise, instead of taking a bite out of me, he backed off. "He can stay. Get him a tent. And a jacket, or something," Killer Croc said before he stepped into the slow-moving sewer water. And, just like that, once he dove below, only the ripples proved that he had been here at all.

"That went well," I decided. I still had all my limbs, and I was going to get a tent. Implying that I could stay for more than one night. I turned around to look at Jack and Tony, who shared yet another look before they both looked at me.

I looked beyond them, at the small camp in a sewer, with Bill walking towards us with a kettle in his hands.

This wouldn't be my life forever. But, for now, I would make the best of it.

Chapter 2

Not all suffering was created equal, and all things considered, I had it better than most. I wasn't in crippling debt that would undercut my attempts at getting ahead in life. I didn't have any priors that stopped me from getting a job. The one thing that was holding me back was my lack of identity. But, in a city like Gotham, that problem was hardly insurmountable.

"A new identity?" Jack asked as we sat on the edge of a long wooden dock, fishing poles in our hands with the lines bobbing in the water. He decided to take me out fishing, which was apparently one of the core sources of fresh food. There were donations at shelters, but sometimes there wasn't enough to go around. And dumpster diving was a real good way to get sick.

"Yeah. Apparently despite me living here my entire life, I'm not a US citizen," I explained as I slowly rotated the lever to drag the hook back in. It was my first time fishing, not counting my experience in video games. I decided that I liked it. "And now I don't have anything thing tying me down to my old life, I figured I could do something about that."

Jack scratched at his scruffy beard for a moment, giving me a sideways look. "That kind of thing is expensive. For a completely new identity, you would have to go to someone like Penguin and he'll charge a couple of grand. Or a couple of hundred if you want something that'll hold up to the scrutiny of someone like Batman."

Well, that was a little disheartening, "Huh. Well, what about something that could get me an actual job?" I had a rough plan in place -- get a job, make money, then get off the streets. That plan was probably shared by anyone in my position, but the success or failure would be determined by me getting work in the first place.

"Something like an ID card? That'll still cost you about a hundred something," Jack answered, looking at me like he was wondering if I had that kind of money. And I wasn't going to admit if I did or not, much less that I was about halfway.

"Then it sounds like I need to start saving up," I muttered more to myself than to him. Without a job, I had to look to other sources of income.

Jack looked out at the murky brown sea that surrounded Gotham. Our fishing lines continued to bob with incoming waves for a moment.

"There is a way to get the money quickly," Jack said after a long minute of silence. "It's risky, but there's Henching."

"As in being a henchman?" I questioned and earned a nod from Jack. "That sounds… really dangerous," I pointed out. And given what he said last night, I'm surprised that Jack considered that an option. I liked my legs unbroken.

"Not as much as you'd think. The whole Bat-Family can't be everywhere at once, so most jobs go smoothly. So long as you don't get assigned to a big job, and the cops don't bust you, then it's a couple hundred in your pocket per job."

I considered it a moment, still waiting for something to bite at the worm I placed onto my hook. Was I really that desperate? I didn't think so. I didn't feel particularly desperate. Not right now, at least… but, at the same time, winter was coming. Whatever was going on with me helped with the cold, but would it help with negative fifty and below? Could I afford to assume that it would?

"Is that really my best option?" I questioned quietly, still waiting for a fish to bite at my hook.

"Maybe. A lot of the usual tricks are picked clean from people doing last-minute preparation. I won't say that it's your only option, but if you're looking to make some quick cash before winter then it is," Jack said with a nod of his head. He glanced at me again, "I think it'll work out for you. You have more balls than brains, standing up to Waylon like that. Carry yourself like that in everything you do, and it'll all work out for you, kid."

I tore my gaze from the lure that continued to bob in the waves and settled it on Jack. "I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, or anything, but why are you helping me so much? I haven't seen Tony or Bill since last night." After I woke up after hours of nervous thinking, I woke up in my 'new' sheet tent to find Jack holding two fishing rods.

"Because I'm old," Jack answered as if that was an explanation. "I've been living on the streets for… thirty years by now. Longer than I have lived in a house, at any rate. This? This is normal for me. Honestly not sure if I would pick anything different if I had the chance." Then he sent me a lopsided smirk, "You though? I can see it in you -- you don't want this life. And you're going to do whatever you can to get out of it."

"Sorry," I said, not quite sure what I was apologizing for, but I felt like I should. "I'm not trying to look down on you or anything, but…" I trailed off, unsure how to explain it without it sounding like I was looking down on him. On everyone that was homeless.

"But you want more. No shame in that," Jack reassured me as he lazily rotated the lever to bring his hook in. "If anything, good on you. You're young. You should want more for yourself than living on the streets. As for why I'm helping you? Well, you seem like a decent enough kid, but your hands convinced me."

My hands? I glanced down at my palm, wondering what he meant by that. Before I could ask, he explained. "Your hands are messed up," Jack said with a light laugh. There were callouses, parts where the skin had dried out and was flaking off and a few scars. Most noticeably was my ring finger that was a little crooked from a break that I had mistakenly trusted a medical student to set so I wouldn't have to go to the hospital. "Those aren't the hands of a pencil pusher. I don't know your story, and I don't got to know. Those hands of yours tell me that you're willing to put in the work to get ahead in life."

Jack offered a shrug before he sighed as his hook came up. The worm was gone. "I had someone help me out when I found myself on the streets when I was around your age. Figured I could pay that forward."

"Thank you," I told Jack, meaning it. I… the number of people that have helped me in life was rather small. Ever since I was a kid, I was the one stuck taking care of myself. First when my mom died when I was preteen, then when I was in foster care, and I kept having to take care of myself when my dad walked back into my life saying that he was a changed man. I have always been stuck taking care of myself and even when people knew how completely over my head I was, only two people had bothered to throw me a lifeline.

One of them was Jack.

"You can thank me by catching something," Jack dismissed the issue with a wave of his hand, gesturing for me to check my bait. I obeyed, letting the moment pass by. As the hook raised from the water, I tsked to myself.

The bait was gone.

…

The Iceberg Lounge looked like what the name implied -- a massive iceberg sticking out of the water that was only attached to land by a long pier that I found myself walking down. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my dark blue canvas jacket that helped hide that I didn't feel the cold. And my scrawny build. I would have felt incredibly out of place when I was dressed up in my best clothes, but now I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb.

Even still, I kept walking forward, following the oddly specific instructions I got from Jack before he sent me over. I walked past the main entrance, finding a wooden walkway that was tucked out of sight. At the other end, by the sea, was a door, just like Jack said there would be.

"Jack has been Penguin's henchmen before," I hazarded a guess as I walked down the steps. He made it sound easy. If everything went well then I would just have to lift some boxes that I couldn't look inside, and that would be that. I would get a couple of hundred bucks and that would be enough to get me set up. I could get a fake ID, a haircut, some nicer clothes, and then I would be ready for an interview.

I was hoping that since he felt comfortable recommending Penguin to me, that meant it was safe enough that I didn't have to worry about getting fed to penguins. Which was an actual worry. What was my life now?

Pushing my doubts to the side, I knocked on the door twice, paused, knocked twice more, then paused again before knocking three times. The door swung open to reveal a beefy looking guy in a three-piece black suit. He wore sunglasses, blocking my view of his eyes, but I could tell that he had narrowed them at me.

But, thankfully, he didn't say anything. He simply jerked his head, gesturing for me to come inside. Once I stepped passed the threshold, again, I felt like I had made a choice. This time, it wasn't between greatness or safety. This time… if I had to put it in words… it felt like I made a choice between asking for help and helping myself.

"Follow me," the guy said, closing the door behind me. I nodded, falling in step as I took in the interior. Everything was purposely gray -- concrete floor and walls that were left unpainted with no kind of decoration. The hallway that he took me down was lined with white doors that were perfectly spaced out. In all, it didn't look like a mob boss's place. I expected it to be lavishly decked out considering how rich Penguin was, but what did I know?

I wasn't even a mook, much less a criminal mastermind.

He led me to a seemingly random door before swinging it open, revealing an equally blank room. A simple black couch, but there thankfully wasn't a desk, and that was it. The guy gestured for me to step inside, and once I did, he closed the door behind me.

"I'm seriously doing this, huh?" I asked myself before I took a seat on the couch. I wasn't as nervous as I should be -- Jack had more or less walked me through the process, and so far he was right beat for beat. Now, all I had to do was wait for someone to pick a job for me, and then I would do it.

I was seriously about to become a henchman. For a supervillain. Or mobster. I still wasn't sure which universe I was in, so I'm not quite sure what Penguin was. Jack seemed to think he was just a mobster, though. And given that he hadn't steered me wrong so far, I would choose to believe him.

This was seriously my life now, wasn't it? Homeless, dirt poor, and now a nameless mook for a mobster.

Just for now, I told myself. I was only stuck like this for now. I would get my money at the end of the job, and that would open doors for me. At the very least, I wouldn't be dirt poor anymore.

The door opened up again and the same guy stepped inside, this time followed by someone else. A scrawny man in his mid-thirties by the look of it with wide frame glasses. He looked jittery, a bead of sweat falling down his forehead as he stepped inside. Like me, the door closed behind him and the sound made him flinch.

"Uhh," he started, turning to me. I looked at him for a moment, realizing that I should probably be just as twitchy and nervous. And, in a way, I was deep down. It was simply overshadowed by the fact that I was in so deep at this point that I just didn't have a choice. "Are you here to…?" He trailed off, looking faintly reassured when I nodded.

"Okay… okay, so do you know what we'll be doing?" He asked me, taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch, his leg bouncing nervelessly in place.

"Not a clue," I answered evenly, watching the door. Jack was right again. The room will be filling up with people until there was enough for whatever job that needed to be done, then we would go do it.

"Oh… well, do you know how long we'll be waiting for?" He continued and I knew that I should probably go out of my way to reassure him. But, I didn't. People dealt with stress in different ways. He, whoever he was, got jittery and nervous. I got quiet and focused.

"No idea," I answered shortly, really hoping that we left before he could begin a round of twenty questions. The guy looked like he wanted to for a moment, but he got the hint. He closed his mouth with a click as he clasped his hands in his lap while his leg continued to bounce. There was a short silence as we both waited for another person to walk through the door until it was broken by the man.

"Sorry… just… first time doing anything like this," he explained. "Got laid off from my job -- apparently my boss can get a million-dollar bonus, but guys like me don't need our jobs. Heard about this through that Henching app, and figured… well… you know." He trailed off, stealing a glance at me before he caught the hint that my situation wasn't exactly stellar. "Have you…?"

Before I could answer honestly, the door opened again. The same guy stepped inside, leading in a girl with hacked at strawberry blonde hair and a scowl permanently etched onto her face. This time, the guy in the suit jerked his head at us, gesturing for us to follow him. The nervous guy jumped up while I stood, realizing that this was the moment of truth.

The three of us followed through the halls and found ourselves taking a seat in a nondescript black car with tinted windows. None of us said a word as the guy drove off, driving through a tunnel that led to the city streets. The sun blazed overhead, which was kind of weird at first until I started thinking about it.

There was that trope 'Reed Richards was useless', and that applied to every superhero in comics. No matter how long Batman fought the war on crime, Gotham was doomed to be an eternal shithole because of the Status Quo. If it wasn't, if Batman won, then there would be no more comics, thus no more money. But, without the status quo, why wouldn't Gotham be a second Metropolis?

It was because the criminals adapted to Batman. Just like they adapted to the police. Just like they adapted to each other. Batman, for all of his tech and training, had been adapted to. He only came out at night? They did their business in the day. He hacked their systems? They wrote things down. He had someone on the inside? When no one knew anything but those at the top, his information would always be incomplete.

We pulled up into a warehouse at the docks, the ninth judging by the massive nine painted on the side of the building. The guy in the suit got out first, prompting the rest of us to do the same. The layout had an opening for a small boat to come through -- giving direct access to the warehouse. I knew exactly nothing about boats, but it looked large enough to fit some boxes.

"Get on the boat, grab the cargo, then load them up in that truck. You don't look inside, you get paid. Three hundred each. Look inside, then you get put in a box six feet under," the guy in the suit explained, pointing to a U-haul truck. I heard Nervous Guy swallow thickly, while the girl just grunted. I nodded. "Those two," he said, pointing to two similarly dressed men on the boat, "and I will be making sure that you don't look inside. Now get to work."

And we did. I started walking over first, looking up at the rafters just to make sure that Bat People weren't about to swoop in and break my legs. Luckily there was nothing. After making sure the coast was clear, I stepped onto the boat and tried not to pay attention to the other two men. They gestured down below, and once I was down there I saw that the hull was filled with wood boxes of various sizes. Dozens of them.

Without further ado, I grabbed one and started hauling it up. At the very least, this was familiar. Retail jobs boiled down to picking crap up and moving it around. As I went up, Nervous Guy walked down while the girl waited her turn. Carrying it to the truck, I set it down towards the back and went for another box.

We cleared through the smaller ones first, the ones that didn't need more than one person. Though, thankfully, there weren't many. As the job went by, I felt a knot of tension leave me as it became increasingly clear that Batman wasn't going to drop in to personally hand me my ass. I was getting closer to my paycheck for only an hour of work and then it was all uphill from here.

"This isn't so bad," Nervous Guy remarked as I got ready to lift one end of a long box. He crouched down to lift the other. "If it's always like this, then I could get used to-"

He cut himself off when something thumped from within the box we lifted. A heavy thunk. My heart jumped to my throat, worried that we had just broken whatever was inside, but my heart made a quick drop to my boots when I heard another thump. Then another. Like something was reaching out, hitting the walls of the box with increasing franticness as it realized it was trapped in a box.

Expect… it wasn't something.

It was someone.

"Wha- hey! Let me out! Hey! Hey! Get me out of here!" I heard a woman's voice shout from within the box, banging at the lid. Nervous Guy's eyes went wide as his jaw dropped, looking at me as if I had some kind of explanation. He stumbled back, his end of the box slipping from his fingers. It slammed into the ground hard enough that the thump and the sound of plywood breaking seemed to deafen me.

There was a person in the box. I… the cargo… was people. No- the other boxes couldn't fit a person. But that didn't change the fact that a person was in the box. I... I was a part of a human trafficking ring. Fuck. Fucking fuck.

Whoever was inside didn't wait to seize the opportunity, pushing away the cracked lid. She half crawled and half dragged her way out of the box, grunting when I dropped my end. Distantly I heard shouting up above as someone raced down the stairs. However, I barely heard them as the woman turned her head to look up at me.

Reddish-brown eyes, raven black hair that was tangled up in an absolute mess, a heart-shaped face while wearing a white tank top with a black sports bra underneath. Despite how impossible it should be, I knew exactly who it was. Tifa Lockhart.

"Help me, please…!" She whispered, her eyes glazed over. Distantly, I was aware that someone had pushed me out of the way, knocking me into another box. My hand bumped into a smaller one that no one grabbed because they didn't want to look like they weren't working hard. Looking over, I saw the guy that drove us here crouching down in front of Tifa, cursing up a storm.

"Ah, screw it," he cursed before he stood, his hand going to side to pull out a gun. For a split second, I thought he was going to shoot Tifa. Instead, he took aim and pointed his gun at Nervous Guy.

"W-wait-" He started to beg, only to be silenced as a bullet punched through his forehead with a muffled whisper. A silencer. Blood splattered over the boxes behind him in a fine mist, his body going slack and fell in a heap. The guy started to turn, but my body moved on its own. My hand curled around the box, gripping it like it was a lifeline, and I slammed it into the guy's face hard enough that the box shattered into splinters.

The murderer went down like a sack of potatoes, falling over with a too loud thump. The contents of the box spilling over him -- some kind of blank white card roughly the size of a poker card. The gun escaped his hands as he went down and I scrambled to pick it up and it was only when I felt its deceptive weight did it click into to place what had happened.

"Oh, I'm so fucked," I cursed to myself, looking up at the stairs as I pointed the gun in that direction preemptively while I crouched down next to Tifa. Sparing a glance at her, I saw her look up at me with some suspicion, her head bobbing. Her eyes were glazed over, so I was certain that they had dosed her with something. "Hey, take my hand. I… I'm going to get us out of here," I said, having no idea if that was a lie or not.

Tifa looked at the hand for a second before she reached out and took it, mumbling something, but I couldn't make it out. I helped drag her from the box to see that she was wearing her signature outfit -- a black mini skirt with high stocking and suspenders.

"Alan? What's-" Someone started to shout, going to walk down the stairs. I hesitated on what I should do until I saw the gun in his hands. Stray thoughts of trying to explain what happened, or how I would keep my mouth shut vanished like smoke in the wind. They were replaced with an ice-cold certainty that if I didn't do something, then I would die.

No if, ands, or buts. I would die. Here, on this boat, for no reason.

"Oh, crap!" I swore, my finger pulling the trigger. There was a sharp whistle and the gun bucked in my hand with surprising force. The guy, on the other hand, suffered much worse. A shocked scream ripped from his throat as a hand went to his stomach, trying to stem the bleeding of a rapidly growing red spot.

He slid down the rest of the stairs, his back leaning against them. "You, you shot me!" He accused while the hand with the gun moving in my direction. So, I pulled the trigger two more times, this time shooting him in the chest. The gun drifted to the side as his head rolled back, dark red blood staining his suit as blood began to drip down the stairs.

I just killed someone.

Well… getting help from Batman or the cops was definitely off the table now.

Swallowing a lump in my throat, I reached down and helped Tifa to her feet. "T-There should be one left, but I don't know if they have reinforcements on their way. We need to get out of here," I told her, withdrawing my hand. Tifa swayed dangerously, forced to use the crate she just crawled out of as support.

"I'm fine. I… I can help," Tifa said in a soft voice, but I didn't believe that for a second. So, it meant that I was on my own for now. I wasn't going to be able to carry Tifa out of here. I wasn't an action hero. So, we would need a car. But… they would have trackers in them, wouldn't they? Or would they not risk it because of Batman?

I…

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. If I stood here doing nothing then we both were going to die. Pushing my worries to the side, I glanced around the hull for some magical answer that would make our problems go away. My gaze landed on the white cards that were sprinkled over the unconscious guy's face.

Reaching down, I grabbed a card and lifted it up. In response, every scattered card on the ground flew up into the one card that I had until it became a deck. That was… kinda neat but not particularly helpful.

"Come out with your hands up, kid," a new voice interrupted my thoughts. As my hand jerked to aim at the one opening, I stuffed the cards into my pocket. "Surrender now and you could still live through this."

A sardonic smile tugged at my lips at the offer, "I think we both know it's way past that point," I shouted back at him. I gestured for Tifa to stay where she was as I slowly crept forward with both hands on my gun. "I surrender here, I definitely die. I escape… I'll still probably die, but my odds are better," I spoke to hide my approach, trying to get an angle up the stairs.

Wood paneling wasn't strong enough to stop a bullet, nor was hard plastic. If he was doing what I was, then he was waiting for me to show myself before putting a bullet in me.

So, another crossroads. Was he peeking from the left or the right?

"Maybe. But you dropped two guys and the boss is the kind of guy that can respect that. You step up here, give me your gun, and odds are you'll be sworn in by the end of the day," the voice on the other end said. It was impossible to tell what side he was on.

I glanced back at Tifa, who looked like she was getting her bearings. She glanced up at me, her eyes wide with her lips pressed together.

I didn't even consider the offer.

"Tempting, but I might be a sorry sack of crap, but I'm not a human trafficker," I responded and I could only hope that caught him off guard because I leaned to the side and picked one to prefire at. I guessed he was on the left and judging by the pained shouts I heard a moment later, I was right. The bullets punched through the paneling, hitting him on the other side. He collapsed in a heap, holding his side as blood poured from his wounds.

Rushing up, I knocked the gun away from his hand, making him groan as he continued to reach for it before giving up. Rolling into his side, he looked up at me. Blood covered his face as his sunglasses fell off -- I had hit him in the eye. Probably the one he was using to aim at me with. His one lone eye looked at me for a long second that felt like it could have lasted an eternity. Then he closed it.

"Do it," he told me, his voice firm.

So, I did. The gun bucked in my hand once again as I shot him in the head. An ice-cold part of my brain telling me that killing him would mean one less of them chasing me later. Even still, bile rose up my throat but I swallowed it down. Not here. I could puke and feel horrified with my actions later, but right now we had to go.

A breath I hadn't realized I was holding escaped me. My hand trembled as I flicked on the safety before shoving the silenced gun into the back of my pants. It felt odd having the silencer between my ass cheeks but I paid it no mind as I quickly grabbed his gun before marching down the stairs.

"What happened?" She questioned, her words slightly slurred but her eyes seemed more alert than they had been a second ago. Tifa stumbled a step forward and this time she managed to keep her balance.

I didn't answer in favor of grabbing the unconscious guy's gun before my hands began digging through his pockets. "Well, I took care of the guy upstairs. We… we really need to get out of here before more of them show up," I explained to her, trying to pretend that I was confident. Simply because I knew that freaking out would get me killed. Get both of us killed.

Grabbing the keys, I stood up and offered Tifa a hand. "I… I'm going to do what I can to get you out of here," I told her when she hesitated to take my hand. "So, please, just trust me for a bit, okay?"

Tifa's warm red-brown eyes stared into mine for a second before she nodded, "I'll trust you," she said before she took my hand. Throwing her arm over my shoulder, I helped her up the stairs. With each step, I noticed that she grew stronger, but whatever drug they had dosed her with was still in her system. Walking up the stairs, Tifa spoke. "Where are we going?"

That was a really good question, I had to admit.

"I…," I answered as we made our way to the car. I saw another body, the girl that had gone with us. She laid on her back, a pool of blood spreading beneath her, while her eyes stared up at the ceiling. She was dead. I guess there were orders to kill whoever took the henching job if something went wrong. "We could try the sewers. There's a community down there that let me stay…" I started before I trailed off.

"But we would be leading Penguins men right to them," I said more to myself than to her. I would be putting them in danger to save my own skin. Jack, Tony, and the others -- I owed them for helping me out. I couldn't repay their help by bringing trouble to their doorstep, to their home.

What were my other options?

My eyes darted to the Uhaul truck and for the briefest seconds, I considered jumping in it and driving off. I didn't know what else we had loaded up, but if I could sell it then I could be set. Only that plan had so much wrong with it that I didn't even know where to start. Not to mention that if Penguin was going to put a tracker on a truck, it would be the one with the expensive items, not a random goon's car. That, and I didn't want to give Penguin any more reasons to gun for us.

"The Doctor in Crime Alley," I decided, taking Tifa to the car and helping her in the back seat. "She'll be able to help us. Probably," I added, though I felt like I shouldn't have. Settling into the front seat, I turned on the car and resisted the urge to peel out to put as much distance between us as I could.

"The Doctor in Crime Alley?" Tifa questioned, forcing herself into an upright position. "Who… where…" she trailed off as we pulled out before I heard her gasp. "The plate -- where are we?"

"Gotham City," I answered, pulling out onto the road. I scanned the incoming cars for one similar to the one I was driving. Thankfully, I found none, letting me drive away from the scene of the crime unmolested. "The Doctor is someone that runs a no questions asked clinic. She should be able to get whatever crap is in your system out of you, and then… well, we'll just have to take it from there." I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.

"Gotham City? Where -- I've never heard of Gotham City. Is it close to Midgar?" Tifa questioned. There was a time and a place to have a heavy conversation about the multiverse and traveling through it. Driving away from the scene of the crime wasn't it. "What's going on? Who were those people, why did I wake up in a box and- and who are you?!" Tifa demanded, her confusion and fear morphing into anger.

"Look, I don't know, okay?" I told her honestly, looking at her in the rearview mirror as we came to a stop at a red light. "I have no clue why you were in the box -- I was just hired to move them from place to place by a mobster called Penguin. I had no idea you were in there. I... I thought I would be moving drugs or expensive crap."

Tifa seemed to mull that over for a few seconds, the light turning green and letting us continue on our way. "And your name?"

"Vergil," I answered, taking a left as I tried to recall how to get back to the manhole that was above the homeless community. A landmark to help me orientate myself. "My name is Vergil… Saint fucking Jude," I added more to myself than to her. I hadn't been a believer in a long, long time but I could use a little luck and Saint Jude was the patron saint of lost causes.

"I'm guessing that middle bit isn't really your name?" Tifa questioned. And, to that I responded with.

"It might as well be."

"I'm Tifa Lockhart," Tifa introduced herself. "Thank you for helping me. It… seems like it's causing you a lot of trouble," she observed before she crawled into the passenger seat. She sighed heavily when she all but collapsed into the seat, warning me that she still wasn't at a hundred percent.

I kept my eyes on the road, anticipating the entire mafia family to appear as I drove past each block. "Don't worry about it," I dismissed the topic. Trouble was an understatement. If the Penguin caught me then I was beyond dead. "Just… check the glove compartment for me. There might be a map in there," I said, hoping that would be the case. Hard copies of maps couldn't be hacked by Batman.

There was, luckily. Leaning forward, I spotted the road we were currently pulling into, "Alright. Find a road called Everett street, then another called Park Row," I ordered, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. My heart was still pounding in my chest, but the edge of the adrenaline was starting to wear off. Now there were dozens of thoughts tugging at my focus, and the one thing they all had in common was how utterly screwed I was.

This was supposed to be a simple job. Instead, I killed two people.

"Okay, go straight until you reach a Charleston avenue, then go right," Tifa said, looking over the map before she looked out of the window. "How big is Gotham?" She asked, eying the buildings and skyscrapers in the distance before looking back at the map. "It looks like it's about as big as Midgar," she continued, answering her own question.

"I'm not sure. It's a major city, but I arrived last night," I told her, spotting Charleston avenue and taking a right. "So it's probably home to… eight million people, or something," I said, earning a sharp look from her. Her lips thinned before she glared hard at the map, the paper crinkling where she gripped it. "Sorry for not having more good news for you."

"Don't be sorry, it's not your fault," Tifa said with a shake of her head. "It's this Penguin guy's fault," she reassured me, and her tone told me that she intended to get answers directly from him.

And she might be able to, I thought to myself. I had no idea how exactly she was here, and my knowledge of Final Fantasy 7 was spotty at best, but I knew that Tifa ended up punching out kaiju. Not sure how much of that was a result of gameplay mechanics, but at the very least she was an accomplished martial artist.

"What's the last thing that you remember?" I asked, checking the rearview mirror for the tenth time in a minute to see if we were being followed as we made our way to Park Row. We weren't.

"Getting on a train to take me to Sector Seven's Slums," Tifa answered, looking out of the window and up at the sky. "It's weird to not have a massive plate blocking the view of the sky. It's really blue," she remarked.

I… that meant pretty much nothing to me. I knew about Final Fantasy through osmosis and the occasional fanfic. Never played the games for myself, both because I was too broke and the games being so dated. So what I knew was spotty. Sephiroth was bad, Cloud wasn't a Soldier, Aerith dies, the Sector Seven plate falls on Sector Seven and Tifa was best girl. General stuff that you picked up when you were passively familiar with the series.

But, given that the last thing she remembered was that she was going into Sector Seven… that meant she was probably from the start of the game. Meaning that she probably wasn't kaiju KOing levels yet.

Still, Tifa might be a match for a bunch of goons with guns. Hopefully.

Because just like I saved Tifa, it looked like I needed her to save me.

I pulled up to the side of the street and killed the engine. Tifa sent me a questioning look because we were still more than a few blocks from Park Row. "We should walk the rest of the way. They might have a way to track the car and I don't want to lead them right to us," I answered before we got out of the car. Tifa was able to stand on her own now, but looking at her…

"Here, take my coat," I said, seeing gooseflesh rise on her arms and legs. Tifa looked hesitant for a moment, so tossed it to her. "I don't need it and… well, you're a lot more… memorable than me," I pointed out. And by that, I meant she was way, way, way hotter. Tifa seemed to pick up on that given the slight smile that tugged at the edges of her lips before she shrugged on the dark blue canvas jacket.

After readjusting my shirt so that the guns were hidden well enough, we started walking down the street. We were just outside of the couple of blocks called Crime Alley, and it showed. The buildings looked more rundown, some cars parked on the side of the street were stuck on cinder blocks, and the people that walked down the sidewalk openly wore gang colors. They eyed me and Tifa, not making a secret of it, but they were able to recognize what the bulge at my pantline meant so they walked by.

Tifa walked beside me, only occasionally having to use me for support. Though, she did show some hesitance when I walked up to a couple of guys sitting outside of an apartment building, all of them wearing red. They watched me approach, cocking an eyebrow at me. "You a duck?" One of them asked, his gaze lingering on my own red shirt.

"No, just a red t-shirt," I answered before I held up the car keys in one hand. I wasn't stupid enough to pretend to be a gang member. I had enough trouble on my plate as it was. "I'll trade the car for your hat," I said, gesturing to his black hat with a flat brim. The gang member looked over to the car that I had pulled up in, then at me, then at Tifa, then at the keys.

"You in some deep shit, huh?" He questioned but he took off his hat all the same and tossed it to me. In exchange, I tossed him the keys to the car. Turning and placing the hat on Tifa, obscuring her face a bit, I turned to him and offered a lopsided grin.

"Yeah, you could say that. Enjoy the car," I said before we started walking again.

"You're using them to lead Penguin's men away?" Tifa hazarded a guess as we made our way down the streets. I nodded, turning the corner and seeing what must be the Doctor's Clinic that Jack had told me about.

"They know that the car is hot. Hopefully, they'll just get a free car. If they're smart, they'll just take it to the nearest chop shop and cashout before Penguin can find them if he does have a tracker on the car," I answered, leading Tifa to the clinic. I really hoped that I didn't just get those guys killed, but better them than us. "And this is the place," I told her, glancing at Tifa to see that she was looking at me with an unreadable expression for a moment.

It passed before she nodded, opening the door to the clinic. I was hit with the smell of antiseptic and bleach, though it was a welcomed change from the stench of waste from the sewer. An elderly lady was behind the counter, her white lab coat marked her as a doctor and her name tag told me her name. Leslie Thompkins. The Doctor.

"We need some help, she-" I started, uncertain if I should just spill my guts.

"I was drugged, stuffed in a box and now I'm not in the right city," Tifa informed, making Dr. Thompkins' eyes narrow. I expected her to ask some questions for context, but she simply nodded and grabbed a clipboard with a few slips of paper attached to it.

"Come this way," Dr. Thompkins said, gesturing to a room. I started to follow, but she pointed at me, "You go into the waiting room." I could see what she was doing, trying to separate us so she could get Tifa's unbiased side of the story. Just in case if I was pressuring her to say something or something like that.

"Right," I agreed, walking towards the waiting room. I glanced over my shoulder to see Leslie leading Tifa into another room. Tifa glanced over her shoulder to look at me and offered a small smile when our eyes met. Then she disappeared when the door closed behind her. Swallowing thickly, I stepped inside the waiting room to find it empty, thankfully. Walking over, I threw myself into a chair and placed my face in my hands.

My mind was painfully blank as I replayed everything that happened over and over again on a loop. From the moment Tifa fell out of that box, to shooting those men, to arriving here. Just reliving that time again and again in my head, going over it, questioning if I had made some kind of mistake or if I could have done something better.

"They have my face," I muttered into my hands. There had to be some kind of security camera that had seen my face back in the club. Just so they would have a face to track someone down if this exact kind of situation happened. And that meant that without a shadow of a doubt Penguin was going to be hunting me down. I stole from him and killed two of his people.

No matter which universe I was in, things were pretty consistent; that kind of thing would put me at the top of his shitlist.

Dragging my hands down my face, I readjusted the guns in my belt loop so I could sit a bit more comfortably. Only for my hands to fall on the deck of cards that I had shoved in my pocket. I had almost forgotten about them. Pulling them out, I saw that they were completely blank on both sides.

Pursing my lips, I bent the cards a fraction and sent them flying out in a spray over the floor. They scattered on the ground at my feet, sitting there for a moment. Then, with a thought, the cards came rushing back to the singular card that was left in my hands. Within a second, I was holding a full deck of white cards.

"That's… staggeringly unhelpful," I commented, looking at the cards. I had no idea what they were, but there was clearly something weird about them. Only that weirdness didn't exactly help with the whole 'a mob boss wants me dead' situation I had going on for me. Feeling frustrated, I slammed the deck of cards onto a coffee table that was covered by old magazines. And those old magazines fell to the floor when the table underneath them suddenly vanished.

I flinched at the unexpected noise, blinking a few times at where the coffee table had been a moment ago. My gaze drifted from the magazines that hit the ground, to the cards that had scattered about with the impact. Leaving the bottom card exposed.

Brushing away the others on top of it, I picked it up. Only instead of the back of the card being a blank white, it had a dark brown background. Flipping it over, I saw a picture of the coffee table that had just disappeared. Underneath it was the ranking of F, right next to the name Battered Old Coffee Table.

I blinked down at the card for a moment before I tossed it back down to the ground, and the coffee table leapt out of the card, reverting it back to its previous white status. I sat there for a few seconds, my mind wrapping around the callous disregard for the law of conservation of mass before I reached down and grabbed the magazines and cards.

"Huh," I muttered, standing up. Checking around, making sure that I was alone and no one could see me, I reached down to my pants line and grabbed one of my guns. Grabbing a card, I pressed the gun into the card and watched as it sank into the white surface. The white of the card darkened, this time instead of brown it was a steel gray. A picture of the silenced gun appeared on the surface of the card.

Silenced 9mm Pistol. D-Rank.

Okay. That was something. At the very least, I would be able to walk around armed in a less obvious fashion. I could slip by metal detectors without any issue. It was simple, but I needed every advantage I could get. With that thought in mind, I quickly pressed the other two guns into the cards, so I had three of the same, all of them D-Rank. Which meant… something.

Sitting back down, this time feeling much more comfortable without the barrel of a gun poking me in the butt, I looked at the three cards, comparing them. They were all the same rank, but should they be? They were all the same gun but some of them were missing some bullets while one was fully loaded. Did that not count? Would I get a different rank if I put an empty gun into the card?

Looking the cards over, I tilted my head at them. Could I put a card into another card? Maybe that way I wouldn't have to walk around with an entire deck in my pocket? Slowly, I pressed the edge of one gun card into the other and saw that the card sink into the surface, much like the guns had.

Only this time the card changed again. The dark gray became a dark bronze color and the surface of the card changed.

Pristine Silenced 9mm Pistol. C-Rank.

"Huh," I muttered, trying to separate the two guns again, but nothing worked. It seemed once I combined two cards, I lost the item. But, when I counted the cards, fearing I was forever short one, I counted fifty-two. I still had a full deck, so the card had been replaced. Somehow.

I stared at the surface of the bronze card for a long minute, my mind running through the possibilities.

"This opens up some options."