Ratcatcher

Otis Flanagan. The name sounded a little unfamiliar, but add in the detail about rats, and Miao Mu immediately remembered who he was: Ratcatcher, one of Gotham's supervillains.

He remembered him because Otis had become a villain due to a wrongful conviction. It had that feeling of someone being driven to rebellion by the authorities.

Gotham's public safety had always been terrible. Like its gloomy skies, it seemed as though it had never once improved.

Otis had been a ratcatcher under the Gotham Sanitation Bureau. His main job was catching rats in the streets, sewers, and residents' homes to make a living.

Once, he came across a street brawl. In Gotham, such things were commonplace and seemed to have nothing to do with an honest man like him.

But someone had died in that fight. When the police arrived, they found Otis beside the body. The evidence seemed conclusive, and he was treated as the murderer and thrown into Blackgate Prison.

Ten years. Ten years of wrongful imprisonment, in Gotham's most dangerous Blackgate Prison. The current Blackgate was not yet the villain sanatorium it would become, where breaking out was easier than throwing a party.

Driven over the edge by those ten years of imprisonment, Otis came to believe that all his hard work clearing out rats had been pointless. Humanity was Gotham's real threat. With that realization—

Blackgate Prison, the birthplace of evil, had not been stingy either. It granted him the ability to communicate with and control rats. Perhaps it had been fate all along.

After his release, Otis began his revenge. He captured the officials who had judged him and used rats to inflict both psychological and physical torment on them.

And that torment lasted five years.

Miao Mu picked up a glass bottle filled with gasoline, sealing its mouth with tape and strips of cloth. The golden hexagram pendant around his neck gradually swayed with his movements.

"Mumu, will this really work?"

Beside him, Jerry Cabson was putting on a pair of somewhat battered sneakers. He wore football protective gear, and two metal baseball bats lay at his feet.

"Relax! You just focus on fighting. Leave the thinking to me. Nothing can go wrong!"

Miao Mu hung the prepared glass bottle from his belt, a confident smile on his face. Ratcatcher Otis had not started out as an utterly evil man; if anything, he had been quite principled.

He only captured the officials involved in his case and had not implicated innocents. It was only years later, after spending too long in the sewers with rats, that he became a true supervillain.

He used rats to spread plague throughout Gotham. After Batman defeated him, he was locked up in Blackgate Prison once again.

At the DeAngelo Wastewater Treatment Plant, rusted pipes lay sprawled across the ground like dead trees. Beside the massive sewer entrance was a gathering place for homeless people.

Yesterday's rain had been heavy, but it had stopped now.

Quite a few homeless people had crawled out of their doghouse-like "homes" and gathered around a gasoline barrel, burning wood, rubber, and scraps of paper for warmth while drying their damp clothes.

A cold wind in the late autumn chill was enough to make people shiver all over. One homeless man in a tattered coat, his bony rib-like chest exposed, huddled beside the barrel to warm himself.

His pale blond hair was messy, flecked with mud. His gaunt face held a pair of evasive eyes, and he wore a filthy pair of leather gloves.

Just as the homeless people huddled together around the fire, two men in black hoods came over, baseball bats slung over their shoulders.

The homeless people looked at the two men with fear in their eyes.

Especially the particularly burly man in football padding. His hood exposed only his eyes, making him look like a bank robber.

"Otis! Which one of you is Otis?!"

Wearing gloves and holding a lighter, Miao Mu swept his gaze over the homeless people. The location they had gotten from Feiso General Store yesterday was here. That guy was definitely here.

The homeless people looked at one another but said nothing. They could barely remember their own names, let alone someone else's.

"Whoever knows him gets this!"

Miao Mu pulled out a cream bun they had bought on the way with their last bit of cash. He tore open the wrapper and waved it before the homeless people.

The sound of swallowing saliva rose in unison, as loud as frogs by a pond. Every eye turned toward it. If they had not been afraid of getting beaten, they would have rushed over to snatch it already.

"Squeak, squeak."

A rat poked its head out from one homeless man's pocket. Seemingly catching the scent of the cream bun, it wore an almost human expression of drooling.

A rat!

Miao Mu immediately looked over. It was a pale blond-haired man, hunched over in a tattered coat, his evasive gaze making it obvious that he had something to hide.

"Otis Flanagan!!!"

Miao Mu suddenly let out a thunderous shout. Otis's heart jolted in fright, and he turned and ran. That alone confirmed it.

"Get him!"

Miao Mu casually tossed away the cream bun and chased after him. Jerry, carrying his baseball bat, looked in the direction they were running, then hurried off another way to cut him off.

The homeless people watched the cream bun fly through the air and immediately reached out to grab it. It traced an arc through the sky and was about to fall into a puddle of mud when—

A hand caught the falling cream cake.

The homeless people tumbled into a heap, struggling forward to seize the cream cake. But they pulled and yanked at one another, fighting in a tangle without getting any closer.

The person holding the cream cake wore an Ace Chemical Plant uniform and a thick mask over his face. He looked delighted at the cake in his hand.

"Jenny will definitely like this. Cake is her favorite."

Looking at the homeless people fighting in a heap, the man laughed. "All right, gentlemen, smile. Why so serious?"

The next second, the homeless people all turned to look at him.

"Uh-oh. Not good."

The man immediately turned and ran, not forgetting to pull a plastic bag from his pocket and wrap up the cream cake as he fled.

"Stop! Otis, I want to talk!"

Miao Mu chased relentlessly. Otis, running ahead of him, clearly had less stamina, and the distance between them kept shrinking.

Otis panted heavily as he looked at the sewer entrance not far away. The iron grate above it had already been removed. As long as he got there, he could shake off the guy behind him.

The sewers were his home. Even if there was no longer any place in this world that could take him in, the sewers remained exactly the same, unchanged in the slightest.

"Ah! Shit! Stop right there!!!"

Jerry, who had come around from the right to intercept him, held two baseball bats like drumsticks and crossed them together with a piercing metallic clang.

Otis looked at Jerry blocking the way ahead, then at Miao Mu chasing close behind. There was no path forward or back, no way to escape.

He suddenly raised his hands and clasped them together. A resentful, savage expression crossed his face. "You brought this on yourselves!"