Chapter Text
On a rainy night in Gotham, Jason Peter Todd crawled out of his grave. Catatonic, He would wander the streets aimlessly before being abducted by the League of Assassins. There he would be submerged in the Lazarus pit and awaken as a wrathful revenant.
But the League would have to wait.
“Time out.”
———
Agent Y didn’t know why he was the one to go check on an insignificant fluctuation in Gotham’s ectoplasm. He hated it here, what with the supervillain attacks, the constant bad weather, and oh yeah, the bat problem. The GIW needed to stay under the radar so it could operate, and this barely counted as a blip in Gotham’s ecto levels, this was all in all a smoggy, psycho ridden hellhole that wasn’t worth his time.
He drove through the city to where the anomaly had been pinpointed. A cemetery, how predictable, and raining to make matters worse. He got out and and checked his ghost sensor, it beeped steadily and the screen pointed him forward. He was miserably cold as he trudged through the graveyard. The sensor beeped faster signaling that he was close, dead leaves and mud dirtied his white shoes as he squelched past headstones. The beeping became more urgent and in the rain he nearly missed it.
The headstone read: Jason Peter Todd, beloved son.
The ground was overturned and when he stuck his foot in it it sunk, something had dug itself out and he would find it. Finally a good reason to be in this city.
The sensors beeping led him to the streets, where he searched for hours. It beeped fast, then slow, then fast again, the sensor took him to ‘park row’, if he read the sign correctly, truly it needed a more fitting name like ‘shit hole’, but he digressed. There was trash on the street and the whole area looked rundown and filthy.
He turned into an alleyway and saw a figure huddled in the distance, it curled into itself, shivering. It looked like a fifteen year old boy but he knew better, it wasn’t human. It wore a mud soaked formal suit with a withered flower on the lapel, it’s knuckles and fingernails were coated with blood and it had the most vacant expression on it’s face.
Agent Y snapped his fingers at it to get the thing’s attention.
Nothing, it didn’t even twitch.
This pissed him off, at least every other ghost had the decency to pretend it had emotions, they cried and screamed, trying to elicit sympathy by faking pain when they were cut open. This stupid ghost however, couldn’t even register the agent in front of it.
He hovered the sensor over it. It finally showed discomfort, curling deeper into itself like it was trying to get away from the beeping noise, which was ridiculous. He pulled out his cellphone.
“Agent Y to home base. You’re not going to believe what I found.”
———
Log entry 251. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Subject: J
Physical appearance: Caucasian male fifteen years of age.
Hair: black.
Eyes: blue.
Species: revenant or zombie.
Agent Y returned to base with the most unusual specimen, a revenant. Subject has been labeled ‘J’ as the host is the deceased Jason Peter Todd. J is unresponsive to most stimuli and is to put it frankly an empty man so to speak. It has been stripped of the deceased’s clothes and put into a medical gown after it was hosed down.
We began testing J immediately, mazes, puzzles, but J remains listless, not even the shock collar prompted it to move. We were not remiss in collecting tissue samples though, and have also done several blood tests. It mimics a heartbeat although slower then a baseline human’s and appears living, albeit unresponsive and vacant.
Agent Q
End Log.
Edit: we will put off Vivisection as it is our only revenant and we need further tests.
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Log entry 260. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Subject: J
It has been one week since we acquired subject J and it is still unresponsive, it can eat human food and performs all other human functions, but is vacant.
Agent S has suggested we ‘charge’ it with ectoplasm to bring some false sign of life to it, and I am in agreement, it will be much easier to test if it responded to stimuli.
We began setting up the procedure immediately, ten vials of ectoplasm and the electricity to charge it are allotted for this test. We will get it to respond, if the host is damaged so be it, it was already deceased before we obtained it.
J has been restrained to the table, (although it’s hardly needed), and we began hooking up the vials and the electric pulse generator*. After everything was ready we flipped the switch and the subject began screaming and thrashing around immediately and mimics panic, anger, and shock almost perfectly as it calls out for help, this is great as now we can resume physical testing.
Note: Scream was able to short out lights.
We began undoing the restraints which was a mistake as the moment one of its hands was free it broke Agent I’s nose. Subject was promptly sedated.
J was dragged back to its cell, when it awoke it began pounding on the glass. Will observe further as its strength has seemed to increase with the procedure.
Note on physical appearance: Subject now has a white streak in hair and it’s eyes glow with a green hue.
Agent Q
End log.
*the electric pulse generator is based off of EMS machines for physical therapy, those give a small localized shock but ours delivers a much higher dose of electricity as subjects are inhuman.
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Log entry 282. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Subject: J
It has been three weeks since the procedure and we have come a long way in physical testing. J is extremely intelligent and physically fit and moves through mazes in record time. J’s capacity for human mimicry is astonishing and is capable of fluent speech.
Audio transcript.
(Sound of metal chair scraping)
Agent S: “What is your name revenant?”
Subject J: “I don’t know! The only thing i remember is you ###holes electrocuting me half to death!”
Agent S: “Electrocution was needed, you were unresponsive to other stimulation. Now who were you before you possessed this corpse?”
Subject J: “Corpse?! Are you nuts, I have a pulse, idiot!”
Agent S: “Irrelevant, you’re not human, just an echo of one. We found you after you dug yourself out of a grave.”
(Sound of file hitting table)
Subject J: “What the #### is this? You guys are insane, I’m human! People don’t just come back from the dead!”
Agent S: “I agree, Agent I, sedate him please.”
(Sounds of scuffle, cuffs rattling)
Subject J: (shouting) “No! I’m human, please get me out of here! Get me the #### out of here! No-“
Transcript ends.
Note: Subject was taken back to cell and began pacing when it awoke. J is watching us closely but we won’t let it escape.
Agent Q
End Log.
———
Log entry 325. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Subject: Phantom
Physical appearance: Male humanoid with pointed ears and fangs, and blue tinted skin (Possibly was around fourteen before becoming a ghost)
Hair: white.
Eyes: ectoplasm green.
Species: ghost.
Warning: Phantom is a threat and will cause serious damage to equipment and personnel.
We finally captured it, after months of it evading every trap we laid out. The trap had originally captured another ghost but Phantom had freed it, from there we got our chance and caught it instead.
We’ve placed Phantom in a specialized cell next to subject J. Phantom and J spent approximately five minutes analyzing one another before Phantom released a call that sounded almost like whale song it warbled, chirped, and crooned before Agent I activated the Shock collar. We will run tests to see how they interact.
Agent W
End Log.
Edit: Damn him for activating the collar before I could record the call.
———
Log entry 337. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Subject(s): J and Phantom
They’re communicating I know it. They don’t speak to each other at all but they’re somehow communicating. We’ve run a number of tests and sometimes all they’ll give one another is a single glance before they run through, working together so perfectly without a single word spoken.
Sometimes in their cell J will look like it’s listening for something, it has to be Phantom. This is dangerous, we don’t need the problems a revenant controlled by Phantom could cause.
We shall go ahead with the cloning process, we need a blank slate and more test subjects, this will fulfill both.
J and Phantom are becoming to risky.
Agent Y
End Log.
Edit: I’m not crazy.
———
Log entry 454. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Update on cloning project.
First several batches were unviable, those that weren’t only lasted a few weeks in their pods before expiring. Longest lasting specimen survived two months in pod before it too expired.
Cloning the living dead is near impossible.
Agent H
End Log.
———
Log entry 455. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Update on subject(s): J and Phantom
We have had subject J for six months now and Phantom for five, they’ve been surprisingly well behaved thus far. We’ve furnished the cells a bit, Agent H has found a bunch of second hand books for them. J dove straight for the classics, while Phantom grabbed an astrology book. They both are voracious readers.
Note: Subject J has hit a growth spurt and has bulked up significantly and now stands at six ft four in. He will need new clothes.
When they rest they do so huddled against the shared glass wall so that they are nearly touching. (I must remember that they’re not human in these moments.)
They are growing restless even with the new enrichment. We should be cautious and look out for any plans to escape.
Agent W
End Log.
———
Log entry 467. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Subject(s): J and Phantom
We tried to separate them and a struggle ensued. Phantom took J and ran, and when we finally caught up with them, Phantom bit Agent I. We’ve got them in different locations on base now. I looked at Agent I’s bite, it didn’t seem bad to me but when Agent Alpha saw it he immediately decommissioned him stating ‘he didn’t need anyone contaminated.’
Agent I was a friend, if those two had behaved he’d still be here.
Agent Q
End Log.
———
Log entry 481. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Cloning project update.
Only one was viable in the entire batch. Hope it survives.
Agent H
End Log.
———
Log entry 482. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Subject: J
The lights have been flickering and J seems to be having some sort of episode. It’s shivering and curled up in the corner of the cell, I think it has a fever. I went to check on it despite my better judgment, it definitely has a fever, if it was human I’d say it had a cold. “Phantom’s gone” J whispered, I don’t believe it, Agent S had said that they are running things smoothly over there. Regardless I have a sick revenant to take care of.
Agent W
End Log.
———
Log entry 483. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Subject: J
An explosion had wracked the building just after I had finished the last Log, it came from the other side of the compound where they were keeping Phantom. I say ‘were keeping’ because I’ve been informed that phantom had been vivisected and when it expired it’s body had spontaneously combusted. We now have several pieces of equipment that needs repairing or replacement, including the shield and radars.
We lost Agents S and Q in the explosion.
Agent W
End Log.
Edit: If I could quit this job I would.
———
Log entry 490. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Cloning project update.
Clone is growing steadily and looks much healthier then any of the previous ones. Heartbeat is slightly slower than a normal fetus but given J’s own baseline it could be normal.
Agent H
End Log.
Edit: Someone left their coat on the door and it spooked me for half a second because I was sure it wasn’t there before. It’s an ugly thing too, deep purple with a old pocket watch in the front pocket. I can still hear the watch ticking away. My coworkers are pulling a prank on me, this isn’t wonderland and I was never a fan of Lewis Carroll.
———
Log entry 503. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Subject: J
J got over it’s cold, and has been reading Pride and Prejudice out loud to relieve some boredom and possibly to annoy me. A couple of days ago J asked me to ‘smuggle in some Shakespeare for him’, I just might, they don’t take it out for testing anymore.
Sometimes it still gets this look like it’s listening to someone else not even here, just like when Phantom was around.
Agent W
End Log.
Edit: What the hell am I doing, this is going to get me fired or worse.
———
Log entry 525. Date XX/XX/XXXX
Cloning project update.
Subject: J-2 (Junior)
Clone has survived its first day out of the pod, subject has been named J-2. J-2 looks to be a healthy newborn, all ten fingers and toes. Only thing off is the slightly slower heartbeat, which is sure to match J’s when it grows up.
Note: I got rid of the coat but the pocket watch is still here, I’ve tried throwing it away but it’s always here the next day, so I believe the watch is here to stay, even if the ticking drives me nuts.
Agent H
End Log.
———
Log entry 526. Date XX/XX/XXXX
The alarm is blaring and the main lights are off, the only lights in here are the red bulbs that shows that the emergency generator is on. I hear people running and shouting out there, gunshots too.
I’ve locked myself in the supply closet but the knob is jiggling, someone’s trying to get
Delete Entry?
Yes
Entry Deleted.
Transfer files?
Yes
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