Dark Knights (Fan Fiction)

The Truth?

Chapter 4-No More Sara

Steve Barkley sat in the living room in his recliner sipping on a cold beer as he watched old re-runs. His mind wasn't exactly focused, but after several bottles of alcohol in the past couple hours his mind wasn't really anywhere except for a memory he ran spitefully over and over again through what consciousness he still had left.

A week before Sara's disappearance Steve was so drunk he couldn't tell the ground from his ass. Sixteen year old Sara, five feet five with the body of an athlete, didn't seem all that different from the average hooker. So, in his desperation to get some action, he attacks her. Sara screamed and fought, clawing furiously but pointlessly, as he chuckled while unbuttoning his pants. He got close, but Sara got away. She managed to knee him in the crotch before he could go any further, then ran. as Steve keels over in total agony. The profanity from his mouth could not match his pain, and no banshee could surpass it's intensity, not even the Banshee herself. Unfortunately, he filed a report to the police accusing her of being a bitch and attacking him. Sara was found and returned the next morning, as reluctant as she was.

Steve smiles at his close victory then sips at his beer unaware of the silenced nine millimeter pistol only an inch from his skull. When his brains painted the glass of the old tv screen, and the crimson life spilled all over the dingy gray carpet, he smiled no more. For a few more days, until a mailman passes by and sees the front door swinging back and forth from the summer wind, life will continue. No one will solve his murder. Yet.

Beep. Beep. Beep. What is that? Beep. Beep. Beep. Where am I? Why does my head hurt? Wait...

Sara springs up from the metal operating table, scared out of her mind. Her hand slips accidentally on the metal surface sending her over the edge and onto the cold stone floor, smooth yet damp. Breathing heavily, Sara hadn't noticed she was naked even when the cold air nipped at her bare skin, at least not until she looked down and started screaming. Her sound was matched by a cloud of frenzied bats startled by her sudden appearance. She pulled wires from her arms and chest causing the previous beeping noise to suddenly become a long sustained high pitched note. In her self conscious moment she pulled the white sheets tightly over her body and quickly scanned the area. No one. The strange place was quiet apart from the humming of advanced hardware and unknown creatures crawling in the shadows. All of a sudden while dumbfound and in shock there came a thud and a whirring with a slight hiss, like that of an elevator door. Sara panics. She fanatically searched for a place to hide, settling for a dark space under a nearby counter. From beneath she heard the strike of large black boots, slow, steady. They echoed like canons in her ears just as her heart did as her blood rushed and breath quickened with every closing step. It seemed like forever before they finally walked away from her towards a set of computers several paces in another direction. The tall dark shadowy figure did nothing to acknowledge her existence, as if she was never there to begin with. Sara attempted to find an exit creeping out from her hiding place, when all of a sudden he stood before her like a looming shadow. His dark demon-like posture and frightening visage stunned Sara into silence. With every step he took Sara took in the same direction until she was left with no where to run but down into an abysmal space of darkness, and he was in kissing range.

"Who are you?" Sara managed a whisper, but his intimidating aura forced her once again into silence.

"Do you know why he wanted you?"

"Who?! The Joker? No, I don't. Do you?"

He walks over to a large screen accompanied by a massive amount of advanced hardware where he pulled up a video of yesterday's news feed from GCNH.

"A few days ago the body of Steve Barkley was found in his home. According to the police he was shot in the head and left there for a few days before being found by a mailman. Police have yet to find the criminal responsible. His niece, Sara Valentine, is still missing. Authorities say she was kidnapped by Joker, but after our very own Dark Knight's rescue she was still unable to be found."

She wasn't surprised, she wasn't scared. She looked to the silent and solemn figure standing beside her and knew who he was. Batman, Gothan's vigilante. She had only heard about him from tidbits of conversations. Now he stood before her, as frightening as they said he was, and she knew him as he knew her. Someone broken and lost with nowhere to truly belong, forced to pretend and hide in the darkness.

"Why am I here?"

"He took you for a reason. I don't know who gave Joker  the information on you, but you were part of a government experiment when you were younger. As long as a massive amount of stress was induced the effects of that experiment would surface. I didn't get all the details on that yet."

"Experiment? You're wrong, there's no way my parents would allow that to happen to me!"

Batman frowned, frustrated at the sudden ordeal he had to go through. "Sara, your parents were the scientists in charge of your experiments."

There were no words for how Sara felt then. Her heart had faded into a dark hole in her chest. Her loving parents, the only untainted memories of joy and happiness, of a family, were gone. Sara Valentine of before was no more.