CHAPTER 24: Part 3 - "Every Villain Is A Hero In Their Mind"

COUGH COUGH BLEUGH COUGH COUGH

James kept his head low as he threw up into the toilet. His stomach was a complete mess from the emotions and mental strain he was feeling after the day's events.

"Alright, alright I should be good now, nothing left in the tank... wait never mi..." BLEUGHHHHHHHHH!

Breathing heavily he now knew for sure there was nothing left in his stomach. The minor pain in his abdomen with the aftertaste of vomiting was truly one of the foulest things the human body could be afflicted with.

Grabbing some toilet paper due to its convenience, he wiped the sides of his mouth before sitting back to lean against the sink. Keeping his eyes closed he tried to still the panic and feeling of dread. Why is this happening to him now and not earlier?!?

'Because earlier you were full of adrenaline and too distracted... now you have a chance to think about what you have done.' A sinister voice whispered in his mind.

"No... no... it was an accident. It wasn't even my fault..." James whispered back.

'Hahahaha, is that what we are calling it? An accident? No tienes culpa?' the voice said mockingly.

James brought his hands to his head, "Shut up, shut up, shut up..."

The voice sneered, 'Tell others whatever you want. Tell the cops it was his own bullet that killed him. Tell Batman you were just defending yourself. Tell Jane that you had no control...'

'But we both know the truth...' the voice purred in his mind, 'We know exactly what really happened.'

The door to the bathroom flung open, and outside were the familiar cave walls of Freeze's lair were made clear. And standing there was the man himself, Freeze with a look of complete confusion.

"What the... James, what is going on?" Freeze asked.

Shaking slightly, both from being sick and the shock, James looked up to his crime partner.

"I... I messed up."

Freeze rolled his eyes, "What? Did you forget to destroy some of the cameras? Oh wait, let me guess, you bumped into someone and beat them up. Seriously, at this point, your childish naivety for the work we do is becoming unbearable..."

'You see, even Freeze is finding your behavior intolerable... how about you just man up and accept...'

"SHUT UP!" James yelled.

He had yelled to make the voice in his head stop but it had the added benefit of also causing Freeze to shut up to. Blessed silence greeted his loud exclamation and for a few seconds, he felt peaceful. But it would not last, soon the emotions returned, sadness... dread... guilt all piled on him.

Freeze gave him a careful look before kneeling down next to him and felt his head. Shaking his head he took out another tool, a small pad, and held it up to scan him. Lowering it back down he clicked a few buttons only to shake his head again.

In a bored voice he said, "You don't have a fever so you are not delirious, this basic scan shows no signs of mental intrusion from foreign aspects. I could do a much more thorough examination but I am feeling like my conjecture is spot on."

Standing up Freeze stared down at James, "Symptoms point to you being psychologically compromised. I hate to say I am not an expert on this... clean yourself up and if you are feeling like it come outside to the lab and speak to me like a normal mentally stable person."

He walked out the door leaving James leaning against the sink, the dismissive nature he showed to what James was feeling shocked him. The attitude showed gave something for him to hold onto, it wasn't necessarily happy, but it was something different from what he was feeling.

'Good, good... let go of those pesky thoughts,' the sinister voice said with happiness.

Ignoring it, James stood up and washed his hands. Bringing water to his mouth, he swirled it around before spitting it out. He re-did this a few times to rid the disgusting taste of vomit that was in his mouth. He took a moment to look ever himself in the mirror, his eyes were back to the same brown as normal, not like the pure black they had turned earlier.

Walking out of the restroom he saw Freeze was looking at some data on his computer, even when he wanted to talk he always was working on his research. That familiarity helped as James walked over and sat on a stool next to him.

Freeze kept his gaze on the data and wrote notes on a small pad. Say what you want about the man's social skills, his ability to multitask was outstanding.

He continued to scribble something on his pad, "What exactly happened today that put you in such a delicate situation?"

"I..." James began before stopping, "Today during the job... I..."

"I am being patient with allowing you to divert a fraction of my attention to this, I hope you will make good use of it while my concern lasts." Freeze dryly said.

With a soft exhale James steeled himself, this wasn't exactly a great replacement for a trauma therapist. But Penguin was in jail and Jane... he could not face her right now.

"Today I stole the hard drives the client wanted."

Freeze hummed, "Yes I saw them with the computer components."

"Ya well, it was really easy to grab them. No one was suspecting it to happen in broad daylight, plus they are empty hard drives, the only thing special is how much space they can hold. Not exactly something Wayne is going to keep super locked up."

James' throat felt dry, "Everything went exactly as we expected. The plan was perfect..."

While James did all the legwork and Freeze never actually monitored the robberies, he was after all busy with his research, Freeze did assist with providing gear and planning for the thefts.

Their plan for this heist was similar to a simple smash-and-grab with a few extra steps. James would rob it in the middle of the day in hopes of lowering his chances of bumping into the Batman. While the vigilante and his lackeys were seen in daylight, it was much rarer, maybe the suit looks bad in daylight. Either way, the near noon time was perfect both for the lunch break which most of the employees would be on, and limiting police/vigilante involvement.

Arriving at the location, James had on his disguise. A Wayne Industries janitor uniform with a grey hat and a hospital mask to help cover his face. Most people would assume he had the mask on to stay safe from the chemical fumes of cleaning products. The next step was both simpler and more complicated than people realize, walking through the lobby with confidence until reaching the back where the security office was. He had admittedly doubts about this initial part of the plan but Freeze insisted. People dressed appropriately and with the right attitude would barely be noticed, it was a camouflage, one especially effective in Gotham where people wouldn't blink twice at a janitor causing problems.

So with that in mind and a prayer that he could collapse the building on top of himself to hide the embarrassment of being arrested so easily, he walked in. With a small cart full of cleaning supplies, no one blinked an eye at him. One of the receptionists did look his way for a second, only to pause and then shrug before going back to work. A small part of his mind though did wonder that if these people thought about it, why would the janitor come from the front with his cleaning supplies? He guessed that was part of the disguise working, no one was thinking too heavily about a random custodian.

From there he crossed the lobby and made his way to the security office on the main floor which was tucked away out of sight. This was so it would not be distracting to guests and help keep security stations more secure. Today though it would prove to be a boon for James. Reaching the door he took out a handheld device that had a shape like a key card sticking out of it. Something Freeze had lent him to hack into locked modern doors.

Inserting it, it beeped a few times before the clear clink of the door unlocking sounded. Going through James was met by two guards sitting in chairs monitoring the feeds from the cameras around the building. Knocking them both out proved easy, no one expects their filing cabinets to be thrown their way.

After the guards were knocked out he went to the computer terminal and inserted a small thumb drive which saw immediate effects as many of the doors of the building unlocked and cameras became blotted with a black screen. That neat trick was provided by an associate of Freeze, someone called Anarky who owed him a favor. Either way, it effectively made access to a lot of the buildings easy and eliminated the fear of cameras.

Leaving the security office and disabling the door handle just in case, he made his way to the stairs and walked down to the 2nd basement floor where much of the surplus corporate technical supplies were kept. While he had knocked out security for much of the main building, most of the real secretive or expensive equipment this particular office held was located in vaults with their own separate security systems that they had no chance of getting into. Luckily, the hard drives he was stealing had no data yet on them, and as such were not quite as secure.

To his surprise, he ran into no one on the 2nd basement floor. The drives themselves were all stacked in a neat pile in a corner with a simple clipboard denoting where they would be used. Tossing a few in a trash bag he had, and then a few extra because why not, he began to make his way back to the stairs and back up.

Now for those confused about why someone would pay him to steal empty drives with no data, it's because they intended to use the drives themselves to store data. These were massive data storage units with complex digital security that once the password was set would require quite a few resources to crack. Freeze had been more knowledgeable about how much storage could be saved, something akin to the 'Library of Congress,' or something. Only large corporations or some government entities would use these, so there was a hefty value to them. But not enough to put him on America's Most Wanted poster, so he felt safe stealing them without drawing too much attention.

Going up the stairwell back to the main floor was fine, it was when he was in the lobby that he was confronted with multiple employees and a dozen security guards all around the atrium. The expressions on everyone's faces told him that it seemed people knew something was up.

He would find out later that one of the security guard's wife had plans to have lunch with him and had made her way to the security office to eat with him. When no one responded to her knocks, she contacted reception, reception contacted other guards, and those guards then got maintenance down to work on the busted door. With suspicion in the air, the chief guard order everyone to stay in the main lobby area while they sorted out whatever was going on.

'Mother f&*king, dogshit, with a piece of c&*$ added to it,' James cursed in his mind about how FUBAR his whole plan had gone. You could never plan for the worst thing to happen on a heist, the unexpected.

Still, though, the guards were not watching the doors super carefully so he thought he could slip out quietly no one the wiser.

Unfortunately, one guard had been keeping an eye on the doors, and before he got close he was stopped and told he needed to wait in the lobby with everyone else.

He really tried to stay stealthy. He put on a fake accent, pretending only to speak Spanish, he pretended he had some very important trash he needed to take out, his best acting was out to escape this random guard. Though in retrospect, maybe that is what triggered the guard because he immediately asked for some ID.

From there things went completely off the rails, the questioning guard was sent flying into a wall. A few people in his way were forcibly bulldozed with telekinetic gusto sending them skidding to being thrown out of his way. A few guards tried to tase him only for said barbs to swerve around back at them. It actually turned into a pretty good time for James as he left behind several hurt but fine people. Though a few of the guards who ditched tasers and tried to hit him with batons did get blasted a little bit harder and ended up flying about the lobby hitting chairs, walls, and other people. But overall, everything was a success, he manage to dodge or incapacitate anyone from stopping him and made it back outside when...

"Well, when..."

Freeze irritably said, "Well, when what? Everything seems fine so far, sure some broken bones but nothing to throw a fuss about."

James closed his eyes as the events started flashing in his mind.

"There was a cop, some random uniformed walking outside of the building at that time. I don't know what he was doing, maybe just patrolling, maybe handing out parking tickets, I don't know...

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*James, Wayne Industries Offices, Gotham City, 11:45 A.M.

"Excuse me, sir, are you alright?"

The cop was young, probably mid-20s at the most. He had his hands held out as if to calm James who had just burst out of the offices he was robbing.

The cop looked at James, then at his trash bag, then back to the offices which were making quite a lot of noise. The wheels seemed to have connected because his stance changed to one slanted towards James with a hand on his service piece.

"Sir, please make no sudden movements. Please put your hands up in the air right now."

James rolled his eyes, this was the first time he had bumped into a uniform since the Narrows War. Mind you, he got shot by them, but he was injured and normally he could deflect or block quite a few shots. Against one cop, he felt confident and a little cocky.

Sarcastically he replied, "Ya... listen here Wyatt Earp I am going to go my way and you will avoid being concussed for a week."

"I think that is a good trade don't you?" He said as he began to walk away.

The cop at that point drew his service pistol and with steady hands and a commanding voice said, "Hands behind your head and get on the ground now!"

"Listen, maybe we can both calm down before things get out of hand?"

"Shut it, get down on the ground now!" the cop ordered again, he also with one hand reached to his shoulder where his radio was and began muttering something.

Probably back-up which is something James did not need right now. He did take appreciation in the fact that despite the cop's young age he did seem pretty competent. No nerves or shaky motions, he was acting mature and experienced with some random robber he had just bumped into.

It was admirable, efficient, and skilled, this guy would have done well in the mob. A job offer that he doubted the cop would appreciate.

Looking around he spotted across the street that there was a small newspaper stand. Plenty of stuff he could throw at the cop and keep distracted while he made his escape.

So he lifted his hand and...

BAM BAM BAM

The first shot was wide and missed him, the second clipped his hat and the third would have hit his torso if he hadn't dodged out of the way.

As soon as the first shot sounded, James immediately began diving to the side. He was surprised, to say the least, the cop must have thought he had something up his sleeve, which technically he did but still!

Maybe he should take back the credit he gave this guy.

The cop himself seemed surprised by the dodge as well.

"Don't move!" he said, a little shakily.

James though had been shot before and was not planning on getting shot again anytime soon. Instead of focusing on throwing items from the newspaper stand he brought his hand in front of him and formed an invisible barrier.

The cop saw James move his hand in his direction and open fire again.

The bullets hit the shield with most of them deflecting off to the side and a few stopping dead in their tracks, falling to the ground slightly crushed from the impact.

It was at that point something happened, time seemed to slow for James. The sounds of gunfire, and shouting of people, why was this so familiar?

Pain erupted in his right shoulder, like two hot bee stings but a million times worse. His head became light, he felt dizzy, a shaking began to overtake his body, his breaths became more rapid and he started sweating. It felt like he could feel flames around his body, but also his body was feeling pain all over it.

Feelings of incredible fear and rage came upon him, the shield he made stayed up but around him, objects from trash to even his clothes began billowing from an unseen force. If he could see himself now he would see his eyes had turned completely black, with power causing them to seemingly glow.

This felt like minutes for James but for the rest of the world, it was merely seconds. James looked directly at the cop and increased the density of his shield and something more until...

BAM BAM "AHHHHHHHH GURGLEEEEEE"

The fifth shot the cop fired hit James' shield and reflected directly back at him. The round's trajectory went straight into the cop's neck ripping itself out to the other side. The brief moment of yelling, followed by a gurgling noise and sudden fear and pain in the cop's widening eyes burned itself into James' mind.

The cop stood standing for a moment before collapsing on the ground without even a twitch. It was strange, James almost never could feel the insides of a person, but somehow for this cop, he did. He felt the stillness of the muscles, the slowing of the destroyed windpipe, and the rhythmic beat of the heart quickly picking up, only to slow to a crawl and then stop completely.

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"So you escaped down the sewers in the back alley I assume, after the cop... died," Freeze questioned.

James had his head in his hands as he looked down, despite emptying his guts he felt the familiar sensation of wanting to hurl come upon him again.

Freeze meanwhile had moved on from studying his data on the screen and taking notes to looking through his microscope at some samples.

"I find it strange that this death is bothering you in such a way... you have as I understood killed before."

James looked up, "What happened at the bridge was and still is a blur. I remember being so angry, and in pain, but the events are a bit hazy. Plus those guys were crooks who burned down a city block, they were bad guys, they..."

Pausing to consider what he wanted to say, Freeze supplied him with 'deserved.'

"Ya, they deserved it, bad guys get what they get... but that cop." His voice quivered slightly, "He was innocent."

Freeze sighed and stood up straight to turn around to face James. The only emotions James had ever seen on Freeze were annoyance or anger, save for once when he saw him in the distance giving a tender look at a picture of his wife. Otherwise, his cold demeanor was a constant, with hard blue chips of eyes not exactly creating a sense of compassion.

Right now that was still true, but he also did have a look of... understanding.

Quietly Freeze said, "Did you think there would be no casualties in your endeavors?"

James shook his head and put it back into his hands, "Yes but... not like this."

"Then you are a fool," Freeze said sharply.

Standing up, he walked over and stood in the doorway to the secure room. The one place James had briefly seen but only once, it was where Freeze kept his frozen wife Nora, while he searched for a cure.

"Men like us must understand the costs of accomplishing the end goal."

Turning to face James he said, "I warned you that the path we will tread to secure what we need would require sacrifice... sacrifice of not only the material things but of our very souls. You did not understand it seems."

He paused before saying with emotion, "My Nora... my precious Nora is everything to me. I suspect you feel the same for your family and thus your actions. In my life, I have killed many who stood in my way, both deserving and non-deserving. Yet I never was bothered by it for one simple reason."

James stood up straight while listening to Freeze, enraptured by his words in hopes of solving his inner crises.

"There is a phrase that many philosophers argue about, it is 'the end justifies the means.' Some argue that it does not, others that it does but there is a limit. What I tell you now, know is the universal truth of the matter."

Freeze had walked over to stare down at James, utter seriousness in his voice as he spoke.

"If it matters to you, truly matters to you, then the ends are ALWAYS justified!"

Staring into Freeze's eyes James finally saw the madness associated with the good scientist, it just seemed like he was a determined villain. But now looking at him he saw that like many his obsession had become insanity, was that to be his fate?

Freeze coldly said, "You should not worry too much. Your story indicates that while you had a hand in it, it was the cop's own folly that led to his death. Take whatever comfort you may from that, but also remember this. I do not have time for a weak-willed partner who is backing out now that blood has been spilled."

Turning his back on James he walked back to the secure room door and was about to enter it when James asked in a quiet voice asked a difficult question.

"How do you handle it?"

His partner paused for only a second, "I am genetically incapable of feeling emotions like you, I recommend talking to a doctor or a fellow villain."

Freeze then walked through the secure room door and closed it. It seemed the little heart-to-heart was over.

James sat there, not sure what he was feeling. The nausea had left but he still felt feelings of guilt and dread.

'Freeze is right you know, Crystal needs his research and his research needs tools and resources. Why fret over the minute details of how we get there?' the insidious voice whispered.

He shook his head in denial though, "I am not a murderer."

The voice was quiet for a moment before saying this time surprisingly gently, 'You can lie to the whole world, but you cannot lie to me... to yourself.'

He felt himself returning to the scene in his mind, to what he had told Freeze.

'You still feel guilty because despite what Freeze said you cannot take comfort...'

The images in his head replayed, the panic, the anger, the flashes of what happened 6 months ago, his powers strengthening the shield...

'When we strengthened that shield we did more than just secure ourselves... we could of knocked him out but we wanted more... we wanted it to stop... we didn't want the cop to threaten us...'

The rage he felt as the bullets hit his shield, rage at his life, rage at was was happening to his family. Crystal being on death's doorstep, and Jane... leaving. Add to the panic, he just wanted it all to stop.

'We didn't reflect that bullet... we grabbed it and aimed it...'

He could still feel it when his mind wrapped around it, holding it close to the shield and then focusing on its direction. He aimed it to not incapacitate but to eliminate. It was a moment that would appear to happen in a flash of a second.

'I grabbed that bullet and in that instant killed him...'

His telekinesis propelled it directly into the cop's throat, he still saw the look the cop gave. And the satisfaction after he did it, to know it was over.

'In my mind, I keep thinking I can be a hero for my family... but to keep what I have left safe... I need to become something more.'

The cold dead stare of the officer looked back at him, but for the first time that evening he was feeling an emotion beyond guilt, he felt emptiness.