Chapter 1: The Children

[Batman's POV:]

"Recently I've gotten a tip from an anonymous source stating that there's an heir of joker. I suspect he likely had the child with Harley Quinn since they were in a relationship during the expected time period. Now that both of them are locked away in Arkham Asylum I need to find this child and ensure they don't follow in their parents footsteps. They deserve a better life than that." I stopped the recording there as I overlooked the hideout which I suspected to find them. According to my Intel the child's name was Lucy and only 5 years in age. It's still unclear who is looking after her these few weeks.

Grappling across to the building, I peered in through the skylight, scouting out the location of any goons I could find as well as locating the likely position of Lucy. As usual, they had positioned the henchmen around the place on a patrol and yet still hadn't covered any vents.. they never learn.

I quickly glided down from the skylight and straight into the vents. Since it was a single target, I decided I'd let the police handle the goons later and put sole focus on collecting Lucy. Needlessly attacking the henchmen could result in alerting them and her escaping.

I maneuvered through the ventilation shafts to the back room where the child was and to my surprise more. 5 more to be precise and with no guards or cameras, were they hiding? Were they not with these goons? I cross referenced Lucy with the Intel I had received and found a match. Based on looks it seemed that the rest of them were children of Gotham's most dangerous criminals I had not long locked away. I could see whom I suspected was a son of Clayface and daughters of Catwoman, poison Ivy, mister freeze and scarecrow. These complicated things I could not just leave them. But the bat-car could only accommodate 4 people.

"Alfred, I need you to send the Bat-truck near my location" I can't let it get too close since it runs substantially louder than the bat-mobile having no sound muffled.

"Right away sir, I'll have it waiting in a nearby alley close enough for remote operation" That's transport acquired. I needed to take out the goons before I could have it backed up to the loading port. For now I'll use some sleeping gas to put the children to sleep, but I'll have to synthesise one to work on Jonathan, Clayface and Ivy's children and manually knock out Dr. Frie's daughter.

After having found the right chemicals for each and ensuring they did not mix unsafely I began dispersing it through the ac system as my suit would simply filter it out. After the first 5 dropped to sleep I burst out the vents delivering a sharp controlled blow to the last one's neck before carefully laying her on her back. I couldn't risk any damage to the integrity of her suit.

Once they were all dealt with I took a look around to find any clues as to their personality types. For the most part it seemed Lucy was raised by Harley more than Joker with all her pictures showing mainly the two. In contrast any mention of Joker was clear indications of neglect and abuse training her to be like him even pushing her into chemical baths like he did her mother. With that I decided if she were to be placed in foster she'd probably be suited to a single mother family.

Next I checked on the belongings of scarecrow's daughter, the girl herself wore a similar outfit to the man himself only she sported red hair out the back of her mask or sack whatever they call it. Her belongings were minimal as I expected and I learned her name to be Duela. She had cases full of modified scare gas, after a quick analysis it turned out that the effects were purposely lower than the original serum due to the added inhibitors, alongside a plentiful amount of antidote. I wonder what purpose she had for them. She seemed to be a good kid on the inside, but finding a suitable family would be near impossible due to her biological differences. Unfortunately Gotham isn't all to accepting. I'll have to find somewhere good for her to go. She deserves it.

Moving on to Clayface's son. He had messy brown hair and looked completely human now that he was asleep, before he had formed his arms as what I believe was a blue clay substance. I found his diary and learned that his name was callous clay. An interesting name choice if I said so myself. Based on his entries he stayed predominantly out of his father's way, apparently not due to any neglect or abuse but because he felt he could never make his father proud. He also seems to hold much hate for me which was understandable since I had sent his father to prison. Though looking further back through his diary I saw a different tone, one what I could only conclude as guilty admiration for me. Lines such as "batman looks so cool fighting dad.. I could never let dad know though, he'd get mad" was common. Perhaps he too is redeemable like the other two.

My curiosity now spiked at the mental states of the others I moved on to Selina's daughter. She reminded me so much of my mother with those crystal blue eyes and curled black hair that I was tempted to do a DNA test. I ruffled through her belongings avoiding the clothes bag and found her name was Helena and that she had her mother's.. Rich taste in jewels. I suspect she had been trained as a thief like Selina. Though I was unsure of her villain name, kitten girl. One thing did peak my interest, she had documents of anonymous export to charities around Gotham and to her mother. And while it was a crime I still had to give her merits for the good that came from it and the skill. Most of these jobs I had thought to be the work of her mother. An expert in her field. She had good in her just like her mother, but also her greed.

Next was the daughter of Ivy, she had taken her mother's deadly looks with her rose red eyes and vine like clothes, her hair was a mixture of black and red hair with a swampy vine blooming with flowers. My scanners indicated high traces of poison in her veins that was actually harming her slowly. The substances matched that of swamp thing's poisonous gas only much more concentrated and fused with a liquid binding agent. I assume the swamp thing is the father, but I don't understand the reason for poisoning his daughter like this even if she is highly resistant to it. I found no other indications of personality other than a photo with what I presumed was her name Rose. A name quit befitting in all honesty. The picture was of her and her mother Pamela laughing together. I must admit they looked so happy together...

Shaking my head I brought myself back to my senses and moved on to the next child, the daughter of Mr. Freeze. This one was older than the rest at 7 years old and had ice blue hair with bright green eyes with light freckles. The rest of the kids had all been roughly the same age of 5. Her suit looked well built, better than Mr. Freeze's in fact. By the looks of the tools she had lying around I suppose she had modified the suit herself. Impressive. Though I could see her cryo fluids hadn't been refilled in a while with her tank showing 15% based on the consumption rate and tank volume I predicted she'd have around 4 hours left before it would run out. Luckily I have a stockpile of compatible fluids that I can use to synthesise one. Moving past her suit, I saw she also had a diary and with that her name, Nora. Her diary was one that I must say was excellently organised contents and all. While strange it was helpful, I need to understand their personalities that doesn't mean I wish to too deeply invade their privacy. I looked for any sections surrounding anger, family and other emotional times. One of the consistencies I found was a strong research into cryogenic and super cooling, and not just for upgrades, this looked like something straight out of a university scholar. Very impressive especially when considering she's only 7. Another was her longing for attention, specifically her father who based on this had been neglecting her for his infatuation with his wife, who I've transferred to a cryo-stasis clinic to run tests and of course keep her alive. It would be very hard to find a suitable family for her much like Pamela's and scarecrow's daughter.

I logged my findings and sent it to the bat-computer to begin a personality fact file on each of them. I'd need it to properly home them. Now I had to take out the remaining goons scouting out the loading dock. Then have the Bat-truck move into position. I had been meaning to add silencing material to the trucks armour, but the project was put aside due to the lack of need for it at the time. I'll have to make do with what I have for now.

After ensuring the teens weren't going to wake I returned to the vents to pick off the various goons one by one. As usual they were ill organised and didn't maintain a proper radio contact making them easy picking. Gordon was going to have a fun time putting these amateurs away and I partly felt sorry for them since their bosses were not going to be happy when they found out how badly the children had been treated here.

After I ground slammed the final goon from an overhanging support beam , I accessed my Bat-trucks remote systems and drove it to the loading docks positioned behind the kids. Opening the shutters and the rear of the Bat-truck I began loading them into the seats taking relative notes of their light weight. Excluding callous who was quite heavy thanks to his dense clay infused body.

Once I had everyone seated and buckled I once more released a knockout gas made from the same substances as I had used prior. This time having injected a new "cold friendly" serum alongside a diffusing agent directly into Nora's air flow systems making sure to keep the dosage relatively low. It would keep her out for around 4 to 5 hours.

With that I set the trucks course for the bat-cave. While it was a risk bringing them there, I had already taken measures to ensure they couldn't communicate to the outside world plus I had to make sure they were all healthy. Nora needed a cryo fluid top up, Rose needed that poison extracted or at least diluted and all of them needed to consume food and water badly as they were stricken with malnutrition.

[At the bat-cave:]

"Alfred, the mission was successful, a little too successful. I found 6 of them in total all holed up together. Children of various villains I've faced and all them severely malnourished. Could you have an appropriate meal prepared for them? Oh and hold off on food for Rose, I expect her diet to be vegan, but at the same time I cannot be sure and such a mistake would prove a fatal first impression. As for callous add a side of clay unlike his father his clay counterpart is fully infused into his system he'll need clay in his diet to allow for his growth. With Nora I believe a nice ice cold sushi will suffice based on her diary. For Selina's kid, just give her some fish. I'm sure she'll like Cod just as much as her mother hahaha and for the rest to prepare a simple pasta dish" I was acutely surprised that I had nit picked their meals so eagerly. I felt a genuine excitement and anticipation for this.

"I'll begin the meal right away sir.. might I ask what you'll be eating?" Me? Oh yeah I need to eat as well.

"I'll have.. Actually no. I'll follow you to the kitchen, I'd like to cook the food myself" Alfred raised an eyebrow with his signature smirk, I knew he somehow planned that. I don't know how, but he did.

"Right this way sir. Let's get cooking".