Chapter 07: Saving a Croc (Part 1)
[Clock - 11:00 | 11:00 AM]
[Calendar - 12/01/2003]
[Location - Arkham Asylum - Gotham City, New Jersey]
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POV Change
Atlas
'Okay.' Stretching his fingers and sighing softly- he has planned this for a literal week, he has failed many times on how to properly channel his energy through an outside medium without damaging the poor little rat, specially the highly dangerous acid that deals maximum damage to structures of stone, wood, and any other organic structural materials. He has learned with his failures, especially considering the fact that he has melted many things with acid, and he has learned how to combine two cantrips to empower them as they act in conjuction as well- [Prestidigitation] and [Mending] being cast together make it easier to clean something and repair it at the same time! 'C'mon...' With a pluck from his magical reserves, he began the ritual for the spell [Find Familiar], a basic but essential spell. The small summoning circle that he created on the backend of this alleyway, hidden behind a bunch of illusory boxes created with the spell [Silent Image] and the [Minor Illusion] cantrip. 'Here we go.' Casting spells in a ritualistic way (in Dungeons and Dragons) is a way to not waste spell slots when casting a spell, but in the world of DC, a ritual is just a way to channel your power.
This ritual used the magic of the world around him with his own to guide it towards what he wanted to do, and it took about a minute or so before he had managed to summon a fat black rat. "...beautiful." Hugging the surprisingly clean black fat rat (he wa summoned from another world, of course he's clean!), Atlas smiled as he held his big girl- it was a girl because of the rather obvious lack of big fat nuts that male rats normally have. His plan was simple: He was going to sent in Miss Girl Lady Woman and he's going to look through her eyes as she walks around the corridors of Arkham Asylum, so that way he can learn exactly where Waylon was. He has spent an entire week working hard to learn a lot of useful spells to help him rescue Waylon, and amongst them there were Illusion to confuse others, Conjuration to create distractions, and even Evocation spells just in case he needs to fight.
He knows that Waylon was put back into Arkham Asylum by Batman, and that he monitors the fuck out of it- he's Batman, and unless its for plot reasons, he is going to be a paranoid furry -and would certainly know if he came rolling in and asking to see Waylon. Instead, however, Atlas decided to go on the rescue route and planned for a week on how to break Waylon out of Arkham Asylum and only Waylon (he doesn't want Batman in his ass about it!) and he came up with a few things, but the main plan is simple: He sends in an inconspicuous animal (his new beloved rat, Miss Girl Lady Woman) that is his familiar, the animal goes around the facility and finds Waylon's cell, he waits until its dark and uses [Destroy Wall] - a cantrip that makes him able to, as the name suggests, destroy walls in about a 5 feet by 5 feet by 5 feet diameter. With this, he can get inside the Arkham and get close to Waylon so he can send in Miss Girl Lady Woman so he can have visual of where he is... Then if he is higher than the ground level he can get up there with a [Levitate] spell and break him out! Of course, he has also prepared himself for the cameras that are certainly going to be around, which is why he has learned the [On/Off] cantrip, to turn those cameras off whenever.
'Need to be prepared for whatever...' To be sure, he also learned a single spell from the Abjuration school of magic, and that spell was the [Mage Armor] spell, just in case. "You ready Baytor? I'm going under- remember, I'll be blind and deaf while doing this, so if it's an emergency, tap my shoulder twice and I'll come back." Atlas trusted Baytor to protect him while he is sharing his own senses with Miss Girl Lady Woman- and if not able to protect him, then at least warn him of danger! He had a few things to protect himself, mainly Evocation spells that can pack quite the punch and might kill his assailants, but who cares really? If someone is ready to attack a guy with no legs in a wheelchair, then they better be ready to get acid to the face, he hasn't learned the [Acid Stream] spell for nothing!
"[Baytor (Nervous, Worried, Whispering): I am baytor... (You ready? I just gotta watch over you, right? Okay, I can do that- also, if someone comes close, I gotta scare them... I can do that, I can certainly do that.)]" Just before Atlas went under, Baytor nervously fiddled with his robes with both hands before he steeled his resolve- Atlas trusted him to keep him safe if his Illusion spell failed to hide them away from prying eyes (after all, who would look down an alleyway, see a bunch of boxes, and think "Huh, seems weird"? Nobody!), and if he couldn't, at least wake up him from his trance at the very least. "[Baytor (Nervous, Determined): I am Baytor! (Don't worry Atas, I'll keep you safe- go explore the place that is full of my people, which sounds just like a business opportunity for me...)]" Ah, right- Arkham Asylum was full of insane criminals, so it falls right on his prerogative to have a bunch of clients inside that place, right? Seeing as he is Baytor, Demon Lord of the Criminally Insane and he can literally eat insanity or make people go insane.
He'll share his thoughts the new business opportunity with Atlas later, maybe they can make so... deals.
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Arkham Asylum was a big building. Especially from the eyes of a tiny little rat! The entirety of the building could be described as a haunted mansion, because it sure had the vibes of one... Maybe it was the lower perspective coming from tiny Miss Girl Lady Woman that distorted his vision of the building but it felt like something was trying to oppress him as Miss Girl Lady Woman approached the building with her tiny black body, ducking under the iron gate that had been reinforced and broken down who knows how many times before? There were a few dents in this gate, so it obviously must be a new one because according to the news, on the New Year's Eve of 2003, the Joker released all criminals from Arkham Asylum by simply blowing up the gates and opened all doors, and they are still working on repairing the building it seems, because there were a lot of construction men- a whole construction crew -working on one side of the building, which must be the one where the inmates escaped from.
'There.' Mentally signaling to his little rat Miss Girl Lady Woman, Atlas pointed out to the hole in the wall, a small hole where a rat would be able to easily walk through! It was a hole used drainage, because it took Miss Girl Lady Woman all the way to the ceiling of the building, where they had view of the almost entirety of the Narrows, a little bit of the East End, and Odaburg. He could also see Aparo Park in the Gotham Heights region... It was kinda cool to be so high up and be able to see so much. 'Down, right?' He saw a small opening in the ceiling, maybe it had been caused by the weathering, or maybe it was just luck, but Miss Girl Lady Woman was able to squish right through the hole and into the Arkham Asylum's top floor and highest point... And it was dark. And, thankfully, rats have Darkvision! 'Woah, so that's how it feels...' It was kinda weird to see everything in tones of gray, black, and white, but it was also cool to see everything completely outlined perfectly for him to see!
Still on the ceiling, this time on parts of the wall and in small crevices of the building, Miss Girl Lady Woman was able to stick close to the shadows of the building to remain unseen and undetected. Undetected enough that when they passed by, they could hear the screams of the inmates, their laughter, and their cries. 'This feels so fucking horrible...' It was in the air now, the sheer weight of a malicious and heavily oppressive presence that weighted down on everything and everyone, it felt like a loop of energy that fed a being of pure malice and that being fed the insanity inside the building, which produced more energy for the being to feed off of and grow stronger.
Arkham Asylum was, officially, haunted.
And by a power and malicious ghost at that! It clearly and maliciously was making the people of the building suffer, and making those who aren't insane, slowly lose their minds by fucking up with them in a metaphysical level... 'I pity them.' Was what came to his mind the moment he understood the fate of those within the walls of the Arkham Asylum: 'Maybe Baytor can do something about this... He is the Demon Patron of the Criminally Insane... Or was it Demon Lord?' Miss Girl Lady Woman was able to easily duck beneath doors and take refuge behind furniture, the long halls of white were as boring as being surrounded by psychopaths, murderers, rapists, pedophiles, serial killers, and other monsters. 'Can you smell him, girl?' Rats can discern a lot through scent, and Atlas did have Waylon's jacket!
It smelled weird nice, for something that has been in the sewers of Gotham... and, well, Waylon smells nice too, I guess.
Miss Girl Lady Woman lifted her little rat head to sniff the air around, searching for the same smell of the black leather jacket. They had to repeat this same process about 4 different times before she finally caught Waylon's scent, each time they went into a different side of the building as they were up on the 4th floor, and if Miss Girl Lady Woman wasn't able to find Waylon's scent here, then they would've gone down! 'Seriously, why would he be on the 4th floor?' It seems that (from what Atlas was able to gather) the higher one goes, the more dangerous they are and the higher the security on their floor... The building has 6 floors, the one at the top is empty because The Joker is still hiding, but some of the lower floors already have other people.
'Found ya!' Miss Girl Lady Woman, the fat rat that she was, crawled into a tiny crack on the wall, cracking it further as she pushed her way inside. Moving through wires inside the wall, Atlas told her to stay still as he could hear muffled... voices.
"-Mr. Jones. This is the last question of the day, if you would please answer it... do you have hopes for a full recovery? You see, this-"
"...why would I care if I make a full recovery? It wouldn't matter." A deep voice answered back, a voice Atlas recognized easily as Waylon: "Everyone would still see me as a monster, no matter what I do, so why even bother."
There was an awkward pause before a sigh could be heard on the room.
"Well, Mr. Jones, it has been a pleasure to speak to you regardless of your... lack of response, I will come back tomorrow the same time." The doctor said, there was a soft click sound before a click echoed, and Atlas felt energy gather, and he easily recognized it as electricity moving down the cables before they gathered into the single point that was the door. Several clicking sounds echoed after the electricity finished gathering in that single point, then a gate opened, and another, and another, until the doctor was out of the room- at which point, everything shut before clicking together.
It seems getting Waylon out of this place is going to be harder than he thought it would be...