“As for this young man, his symptoms are largely similar-” Minstrel began, but was quickly cut off by the captive.
“I’ve never done anything as bad as that cunt!”
“Language, Mr. Walcztloh! We’re on local public television, not the Gotham U locker room!”
Oliver looked at Minstrel indignantly, “Look, kid. I get it. You’re pissed that the lady over there framed one of your brothers and made him kill himself. I get it, I do. But I’m not like her. Lots of good guys on my team nearly got ruined because of false reports, myself included. Whoever’s told you otherwise is mistaken.”
Minstrel reached an arm behind his back and pulled a clipboard forward. He read from the obviously blank sheets of paper before he responded to his captive. “No, I don’t think so. Obsession of a sexual nature, indicative of deep rooted racial fetishes ultimately leading to harm against others. Page’s Disease, same cancer as Ms. Rachel Walters over there. Isn’t that why you had three separate sexual assault claims made against you while you attended Gotham University? All by Black, female students?”
“Nothing but lies!” Oliver shouted as his body writhed against his restraints. “Those girls were drunk sluts that regretted it the next day and wanted to gain further sympathy playing the race card! Why don’t you tell all of Gotham that none of those claims led to criminal charges while you’re at it?”
Minstrel acted as though he didn’t hear Oliver’s protests and continued speaking, “And then there’s the truly troublesome matter of Ms. Ariella North, a cheerleader from your short lived professional career. Her suicide caused a lot of discord in the sport’s community, especially after she was revealed as an anonymous source in the Daily Planet’s exposé on sexual harassment of college and professional level cheerleaders across the nation. Rather curious timing, don’t you think?”
“I barely even knew Ariella! And she never even said who it was that raped her!”
Again, the Minstrel shook his head and sucked his teeth, “And once again we see the strength of this cancer’s delusions. Oliver, there are photos of the two of you at a post-draft party all over her social media page. The two of you tagged each other in posts. Yet you say you barely knew her?”
Minstrel stepped away from Oliver before he could respond. Reaching behind a curtain at the end of the stage, he wheeled together a gas tank with two masks attached to it. He was silent as he brought it to the front of the stage and positioned it perfectly between the two captives. He covered Oliver’s face first, and though the man screamed and cursed in a futile attempt to fight back, his breath quickly slowed and his voice slurred.
“Please,” Rachel cried as Minstrel moved towards her with a mask. “Please don’t do this. I know what I did was wrong, and I live with this guilty conscience every day. Don’t destroy your own soul just for revenge! You can be the better person here, a model for all your peers. I’ll do whatever else you want until you think I’ve been punished enough. But please, don’t hurt me.”
Minstrel smiled down at her. After taking a huge, deep breath that puffed his chest nearly a mile out, he began to sing in a sweet, melodious voice.
“I don’t really care if you cry. On the real you should have never lied. Baby, don’t you see the madness in my eyes? I just really want you to. Die...”
The rest of Gotham didn’t get to know the fate of Rachel Walters and Oliver Walcztloh until the next morning. At that very moment, the feed was terminated.
Ending the transmission wasn’t Minstrel’s choice. If he had his way, the broadcast would have continued to show all the gruesome details. He had no interest in sparing the sensitive audiences of Gotham a high-definition, front stage glimpse of him cutting out Walters’ tongue and castrating Walcztloh. Of course, the recorded footage still made it’s way on the internet anyway, no matter how hard Batman and the Oracle tried to stop it from leaking.
“I heal their cancer,” Minstrel said as he showed Rachel’s cut tongue and Walcztloh’s dismemberment to the camera. He tossed both over his shoulder haphazardly, then discarded his gloves and mask in a similar fashion. Minstrel reached behind his back again, and pulled out a small tube.
“And now I make them beautiful!”
Minstrel walked over to Walcztloh’s body first. With a firm press on the tube, a black spray shot out and began to stain the unconscious man’s face. In less than five seconds, Walcztloh was as dark as the Minstrel, but he still wasn’t ready. Minstrel turned the same tube upside down, then twisted its sides until a blood-red stick shot out. Before he marked the man, he turned to the camera and presented the device to the audience he still thought was there.
“Minstrelfier! For the next time your pasty ass needs Instalikes. Order right now with promocode, SHAMEC, and receive two for the price of one!”
He turned away from the camera and began walking towards Rachel Walters to begin the same process, but he didn’t make it in time. A shower of glass shards began to fall from above him, and Minstrel dove for cover. A second later, two figures descended upon the stage.
Minstrel recognized them both, and pointed an accusatory finger at his intruders as he shouted, “Batman! And, ew, put that thing away! No one wants to see ya Dick!”
Batman and I chased him through the old theater. He threw old stage equipment and props to try and stop us, but we avoided them as well as we dodged his quips and jeers.
“How did you even track me down?” Minstrel cried as he tossed a broom behind his back. “That’s the last time I buy a VPN off an app market!”
Minstrel wound up running himself into a dead end. He was sandwiched between an old, brick wall and Gotham’s Dynamic Duo. Most criminals knew that wasn’t a good place to be, and Minstrel was the same. He immediately dropped to his knees and clasped his hands together in prayer.
“Please dear Lord, send my guardian angel to get me out of this!”
“A bit too late for that, Minstrel,” Batman said.
“I doubt the man upstairs is doing you favors after everything you just pulled,” I agreed.
Minstrel just looked at me and laughed, “Oh you poor, confused, Nightwing. My god has no gender!”
Before I could even think to ask what he meant, a giant blast went up in our faces. Batman threw his body in front of mine and raised his cape up to shield me from the debris. The smoke was thick enough to cut with a Batarang, and the blast rung a bell in my ears that refused to stop tolling. Despite that, I could still hear a familiar voice and recognize an equally familiar silhouette standing beside Minstrel.
“Run, Jimmy! I’ll hold back Batman and the Brat Wonda!”
“Harley!” Batman said in shock. Neither of us had expected her to show up, least of all to actually help Minstrel.
The night ended like too damn many nights end; Minstrel got away. Batman and I tangled with Harley for a couple of minutes before we finally managed to restrain her. Gordon’s boys showed up soon after and dragged her to the station for questioning. Paramedics told us that both Rachel and Oliver would live, but they’d live permanently disfigured by a criminal that Batman and I failed to stop.
“We failed, Dick. We failed the whole city,” Mr. Brightside said once we returned to the cave.
Though I typically ignored his pessimism, I couldn’t help but agree. The minute we got the call from Gordon about the broadcast, we did everything we could to arrive before Minstrel had a chance to harm his hostages. But we couldn’t find his location fast enough. Once we finally had, Harley Quinn arrived and ruined everything, and Minstrel was in the wind once more.
“It’s not a complete failure, though,” I told Batman as a thought suddenly dawned on me. “Bruce, I think we have a clue who Minstrel is.”
“What do you mean? Did you notice something earlier?”
I nodded, “Remember what Minstrel said when we first crashed in?”
“‘No one wants to see your dick,’“ He quoted. “I remember. It was a pun, a play on your name to let us know that Joker told him our real identities. Luckily for us, it looks like he doesn’t want to share that knowledge with the rest of the world, either.”
“No, you’re wrong Bruce. Not about him knowing our identities, that’s given. But the joke wasn’t what you’re thinking. He actually said ‘No one wants to see ya Dick.’ Ya as in you.”
“But it’s the same-”
“Just listen, Bruce! Based on that picture, we thought Minstrel had to be a circus kid, right? Well when I was a kid in the circus, I had a friend. Every time we saw each other, he would say, ‘No one wants to see ya, Dick.’“
Batman’s eyes widened as the realization hit. But they quickly narrowed again as he let out an uncertain groan, “So you think the Minstrel is this kid? I’ll agree that it’s possible. But how do you know Joker and Minstrel didn’t just find out about that joke between you and your friend?”
“Because Harley didn’t call him Minstrel when she appeared. She called him Jimmy, and my friend’s name was James Byrd.”
End Chapter 9
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