Jervis Tetch was the final runaway inmate to reach his destination. It was the address of a home, though the home seemed to be completely abandoned, apart from a paper pad on a desk, next to a phone. The top piece of paper had been torn off, leaving just impressions of what had been written there before. Tetch turned on a nearby lamp and read out what looked to be a second address. He memorized it quickly. That address wasn't far from where he was.
He followed it to a construction site. Apart from the frame of what had been set up, the dual front loaders that stood at its entrance sat there unmanned. Within the half constructed building however was a large hatch on the ground. Tetch tried to pull it open, but to no avail. The thing was locked up tight, possibly from the inside.
He noticed, however, an air vent that led up from the hatch to the half constructed wall that surrounded the hatch. "Oooh, do I spy a vent for air? Could there be people down there?" A cross grill blocked him from directly accessing the vent, but air was getting sucked in from there. He figured releasing the canister right in front of the grill would be enough.
Carefully, he unlocked the canister and let the scarlet gas leak down to the basement. He did it with a laugh. Then he listened carefully to sounds emitted via the vent. Just like the subject in Crane's lab, he began hearing a mesh of snarls, screams and things getting tossed about and smashed.
And then a low rumble came his way, shaking the earth under his feet. The partially constructed walls began to come down, like a kid's lego set. Tetch leapt out of harm's way just in time. The rest of Gotham was shaking too, and the ground was visibly swaying.
"Get out of the building!" yelled Gordon, just as slabs of concrete began to come down all over the station. The majority of the force exited the G.C.P.D in moments. The quake had started while they were watching the live stream of Jerome on the air. He was still on the air when they'd left. He'd mentioned something about puppets and puppeteers. It would seem that he was taken by surprise as much as they were. But what was that about insanity gas? And the timing of the quake - it all seemed too huge of a coincidence.
Shortly after Waylon and Lucius had returned to the tower, they began feeling a bit of a rumble. Suddenly, the tower came alive, a clear beeping sound from within, and then what seemed to be a sonic blast getting sent into the ground, enhancing the strength of the quake. It shook trees, showering their leaves down around both Waylon and Lucius.
"We need to get into that tower!" yelled Lucius.
Waylon nodded. "I'll go get a rock," he offered.
"Actually, I have one better," he turned to look at his car. His car was bouncing around on the earth from all the quaking - natural and unnatural. He figured he might still be able to drive it in one single direction.
Waylon obliged almost immediately. Both men walked over and just Lucius. got into the car. For a while, all the swaying felt surreal - like he was in a theme park with his vehicle shaking in a controlled environment. But as Lucius reared the engine, it brought him back to earth. Waylon handed him one of the large rocks he had tossed earlier, and Lucius it used to wedge the accelerator down.
"Here goes nothing.." he muttered, releasing the brakes. With a jolt, the car lurched forward, and Lucius opened the door, rolling himself out before the smash. With a loud crash, sparks flew everywhere on impact, and the sound of electrical energy bursting crackled all around them. The car's front bonnet was crushed, but its wheels still kept turning. It'd landed itself through the gate and onto the tower, where the aged structure proved to be unable to bear the strength of the car. With a final sonic blast through the ground, the earth began to split apart, Waylon and Lucius on one side, and the cliff from which they'd come, on the other side. The car kept going. Lucius could see the tower weakening and bending.
With a high-pitched creaked, the tower finally gave way, and was overrun by the still moving car., sending both the vehicle and the tower, flying off a cliff, out into the sea. Lucius listened carefully. The sonic blasts had stopped. The original quake itself was fading quickly.
Then it dawned on them - they'd stopped the plans of the Court of Owls. The tower was down - although the extent of damages to the city had yet had to be determined, at least it wasn't going to be worse.
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