The Demon In The Mirror
"Please I need this case! I can take it!" A psychiatrist pleads to her boss in Arkham Asylum.
"Alright! You owe me big time. How's dinner at seven thirty tomorrow night sound?" The sleaze-ball of a warden asks.
"You know I work nights." She snaps. "I'll be interviewing him by then anyway."
"Well...how about we skip dinner altogether then?"
"Depends on if I get this case or not. So what is is?" Her voice becoming more demanding.
"I would have thought you would have wanted to work with The Joker or Harley Quinn. After all they..."
"That's ancient history now are you gonna give me the patient or not?"
"Not with that tone of voice."
"Oh really? How's the sound of me telling the powers that be about your sexual harassment? Hmm?"
"You have the patient. Though I have no idea why you want him. He's had sixteen shrinks kill themselves already and he just talks about his life! I don't get how he does it."
"Maybe he was a shrink." She jokes. "He needs a woman's touch anyway."
"Absolutely. A firm grip around the throat. Do you know what that guy did?"
"No but it's in his file so if you please..." She holds out her hand. The warden hands her a thick manila folder labeled Draake 'Wicked' Armageddon. "Nice doin' business wicha." She peppingly replies as she exits out the door while grinning from ear to ear and passing several dangerous inmates' cells.
The shrink makes her way to her own office, plops down and opens the file before her and looks it over. The sound of chains rattling startle her and the echo of heavy footsteps accompanied with deep voices cause her to reject her reading and work on her appearance. The door opens as a ring of guards enter with her patient in the center.
"Okay boys you can leave now." She says as she puts on black lipstick.
"Ma'am," The captain starts. "I don't think you know who you're dealing with. This man is..."
"She turns to him with a look of impatience. "Be as it may, all sessions are strictly confidential and I cannot risk you rallying up the inmate or you leaking what goes on in here. There is a confidentiality between doctor and patient and I cannot compromise that for anything even my safety."
"Be as it may..." The captain says starting to sound both annoyed, stubborn and trying to poke out his chest to intimidate the misses.
"And the incident with Poison Ivy...could become unconfidential." She threatens with a smile and a happy tone.
The inmate begins to laugh. "Smooth. Ha ha ha. Very smooth." His devilishly deep voice replies.
"Well I..."
The captain doesn't get three words in before the inmate grabs him and throws him into the other men around him sending everyone out the door. "You heard the lady!" He says as he shuts and locks the door.
Draake Armageddon stands 6'6", weighs 200lbs of lean muscle, has long black hair to just past his shoulders and a blackened extended smile from ear to ear. He turns a menacing gaze to the girl before him and smiles.
"Well,...you got me here in your office. What do you want?"
The psychologist straightens her huge round glasses and replies. "I am your new psychologist."
"A new shrink? You're kidding. What ever did happen to my last one?"
"He...um...went home one day and...shot himself in the head."
"That's odd...usually they jump off a skyscraper. They are getting more enterprising with their deaths. I've killed so many people that I succeed even when I don't want to. Hell, all I really want is someone to listen to me and not have to worry about them committing suicide half way through my life story. It gets quite boring having to retell someone the same story over and over again. They always seem to quit when I get to a certain part but I digress. Who and how are you?"
"Does my name really matter?"
"Fine. Let's get started shall we?"
"Alright Draake Armageddon...
"I hate that name." He eerily interrupts. ""Besides, he's dead."
"Oh really?" She says skeptically. "I bet there is an interesting story behind your statement."
"Interesting is hardly the word I'd use. You remember how the mob was selling out all the super-villains right? Well, I didn't like that very much and decided to do something about it. With Wicked's help...."
"Who is Wicked?"
He pulls out a mirror and holds it behind him yet it is deprived of his own reflection. In it's place is a red, horned, pointed goatee, demon wearing dark shades. The fiend waves and turns to Draake.
"Who's she? She's hot!" The angel's enemy says.
"This is my psychiatrist. I got caught remember."
"Yes I remember. I was the one who... ah never mind. You're retelling the memory so tell it. I'll shut up."
The poor girl doesn't know what to do for her impulses are telling her to run the other way but she did beg for this patient and he is hers. Besides, what harm can come from a demon in a mirror anyway. She cautiously watches for any sign of danger as she grabs a bottle of pepper spray from her purse. He puts the mirror away and looks at the lady.
"That's Wicked. He is...my good side. If you can call it that. When I was thirteen, I was so bad, Luci sent him to try and calm me down. It worked and we are good friends now. Hell, he's not a bad guy at all. But that is a separate memory all together. Anyway, I was at the Macinez house one night to 'save' Poison Ivy cuz he had her captured and was torturing her. I was standing over his son...
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
"Stop flinching you git!" WHAM! "I said stop flinching!" WHAM! "Sheesh!" WHAM! "Can't you take your beating like a man?" WHAM-CRAAAACK! "There, much better." Draake says as he finishes beating Joel Martcnez to death. He leans over his shoulder and shouts; "HIS SON IS DEAD!", as if stating a fact. Rustling sounds behind him as Poison Ivy walks in strangely perky.
"Good. That loathsome worm deserves to die slowly after all the plant killer they sprayed me with! I cannot wait to find Raul. He..," she smiles, "deserves a kiss."
"Or a vat of poisonous waste dumped on him. Or radiation. Hell, I'd settle for grinding his brains in with a trash compactor."
"And I thought I was sadistic." Ivy replies. "I just poison people or feed them to one of my babies but you are...crazy."
"I'll take that as a compliment. Now where is Roxxanne?"
At those words the rustling stops with an eerie calmness. The door next to him creaks open as a violet haired woman stands in the opening covered in someone else's blood and mortified. "I...want...to go home." She says refraining from blinking for the fear of the horrifying event that just took place will replay in her head.
"So...how'd it go?" He asks.
"I have had one too many men try to touch me too many times. They are all dead. I kilt 'em all."Her voice sounds full of pain and she bursts into tears. "Monsters! ALL OF THEM! MONSTERS!"
Draake feels the heat of Ivy's gaze so her turns to her and says; "First time killing someone."
"Oh," She says. "Roxxanne is not like you and I then. Well...go over there and help her! Can't you see she's an emotional wreck?"
"Duh. I think I should take her home."
"Draake!"
"I don't mean that! Besides, it would be too easy. I love a good fight."
"You and I are about to fight!"
"Alright, alright, alright. I'm going. I'm going." He turns to her. "You gonna be okay here by yourself?"
"I was about to ask you if you would be okay with Roxy." Ivy adds. She sighs a sign she is thoroughly bored. "I guess I'll go rob their safe since the mob was so 'hospitable' during my two day visit. Hm-hm. They owe me."
"That they do. I'd love to stay and chat but my..." He looks deep into those pained filled light blue eyes of Roxxane's and...
"Shit I fell for her. Like a stone, I fell for her right then and there." Draake cant help but relent to his psychiatrist who stares wide eyed back at him wordless.
He stands there for a minute unconsciously blushing a bit before he snaps himself out of it and puts her into her car. He buckles her up as she grabs his tie and says; "I am yours." Then kisses him passionately enough to make Aphrodite jealous. Draake sways after the kiss brakes love drunk.
"Whoa." He moans. "I'll..I'll..take you..home now."
"Please do and can you get me a soda?"
"At home?"
"Yes."
Once home to his apartment on The Lower 5th also home to The Joker, he carries her inside which she does not complain at all about. She almost enjoys the servant fetch and carry life style he's putting forth. Once inside his ratty place, he places her on his couch but she protests so he places her on his bed. Nervousness overtakes the boy as he has no idea what to do.
"Can you get me a soda?" She repeats.
"Coming right up." And he takes his leave. As he walks into the mirror filled hallway, his demon friend can't help but allude to things.
"You honestly have no idea what is about to happen do you?"
"No what?"
"Honestly! My...badness you are hopelessly lost! Aren't you?"
"Just spit it out okay?"He jokingly pushes as he opens the fridge and grabs a can of some lemon-lime drink. Walking to the sink his demon continues his fun game.
"And ruin this fun game? Never. Let's just say...you'll be...surprised."
"She's not gonna kill me is she?" The human asks as he rinses the top off.
"No, I'd regale for you to leave at once. The conversation would consist of the words: 'run'
'run now' 'she is psycho' That is about it."
"Whatever. I still hate the innuendo so I'll just take her her soda and 'be surprised'. How's that sound?" Wicked hums a tune. "You're kidding!" He changes the tune. "You are mean."
He turns and heads to the room, soda in hand, opens the door and throws the soda backwards while shouting; "HOLLY SHIZNITTLE!!" For there stood Roxxanne in the middle of his room wearing nothing but a smile.
"Come here!" She pleads. Draake walks forward. "I wanna..." They don't really remember how it happened but they quickly find themselves in each other's arms then Draake finds himself underneath Roxxanne as she closes her eyes and sleeps. The wild night replaying in his head.
"So she just...gave herself to you?" The psychiatrist asks.
"Yeah. I'm still wondering what the hell I did so I can do it again. Maybe it was the trauma of her killing a bunch of mafia guys but she..." He pauses a minute. "Stood naked in my room nearly begging me to have her. I'm a guy so...chastity is not one of my strong points. Hell, she was soooo
incredibly beautiful too." He rolls over as the memory regurgitates in his skull. The demon possessed closes his eyes and lets his hands reenact the moment. They run up and down a phantom back, over the ghostly sides of his lover. His lips kissing a pair that is not there.
"It's when I woke up all hell broke loose." The long haired 27 year old says.
"Huh?"
He awakens in his quiet apartment late the next night and starving for anything edible. He rolls over finding Roxxanne gone. He feels the bed next to him finding it icy cold. He stills his breathe and listens for any sound what-so-ever but finds none. Throwing the covers off he narrows his eyes and begins a short search party but a note on his nightstand curtails that. It was short and bitter.
"Come to air strip. Come alone. We have Violet. Wear your suit 'Demon of Gotham' one last time or you'll never see her again.
Dante
His blood boils over and his nerves transfigure to nitroglycerin ready for anything. His eyes redden, his pulse quickens and he jumps into the shower.
"They can fuckin' wait on me." He coldly says.
"I hopped in the shower because I desperately needed to wake up. That and I wanted to wash off all the gunk on me."
"Gunk?" The psychiatrist repeats. "You ought to be happy she did that."
"I was. I just wasn't going to go out and fight without a shower. The...stickiness would have been distracting and fatally so."
"Okay you've made your point....How was it?"
"Virgin?"
"Well yeah. I mean. I want to wait to get married before I..."
"Is that why your boyfriend hits you?"
She gasps. "How did you...?"
"The purple mark under your ear on the back of your neck. That and you constantly shift your weight from your left leg and can't sit on it for more than forty five seconds at most. He broke your leg once before and it hasn't healed completely yet. I give it a week and you'll be fine. You never mentioned him at all. What's the beast like?"
"He is my fiancé right now and he...is abusive." She says crawling into herself like a turtle in its shell.
"He wants to marry you to bed you. Once the sex gets old you are yesterday's news or tomorrow's headline. You have to realize that."
"You know nothing about me!" She snaps.
"Maybe. But I'll prover you wrong later. Anyway...Me, Mr J., and Harley Quinn take out the mobsters that stole my girl relatively easyily but little did I know,..."
The sound of clapping echoes throughout the bullet hole filed hanger. The three villains and Roxxanne look around to find a tall man walking out from a shadow covered spot like a doorway. He too wears a blood red suit.
"Let's get out of here!" Roxx yells.
"Damn right! I'm with you!" Draake says turning to run.
"Come on Harley, time to go!" Joker says grabbing his girl's hand and heading to the semi truck labeled Slaughter is the Best Medicine. Then, without warning, Roxxanne flies backwards and into the suited man's cold grip.
"Come now Draake," He says. "You aren't going to leave her with me now...are you?" He mockingly condescends.
"Oh, it's on!" He yells and runs at the man with his walking stick reared back aimed to take his head off, but he throws Roxx and blocks the blow then kicks him through a wall. "Damn!" he exclaims at the sheer force of the hit. "Who the hell are you?"
"You fully realized! I'm a seasoned demon possessed like you. I am Dante."
"Well Dante, you messed with the wrong man's girl!" Draake snaps into his favorite fighting style as the elder moves his hand in a 'bring it' fashion. The ploy inevitably works as the younger comes running at him again. Dante summons a sword to his free hand and swings it at Draake but the twenty year old leaps over it.
"I can't do that!" He thinks as the sword comes for his head.
He ducks and uppercuts sending the demon possessed stumbling, but he quickly recovers and swings again, but his foe blocks with his boot then uses it as leverage to bring up his other foot to kick him across the jaw. After bouncing back from the blow, he swings again. The sword almost hits his gut yet the younger proves a bit too fast for the older guy and dodges then lands five punches to his sternum then five more to the face. Dante back hands him hard through a plane and out the other side. His foe is quick to spot him and even quicker to bring his sword to Draake's neck. The inexperienced demon possessed hits him with a blood-red beam throwing him through the plain he just left.
"How do you like me now!" Draake gloats as a black beam hits him shredding his skin like micro-blades. "Uh-ugh..." He collapses.
Dante teleports his sword away and summons his walking stick. "Not so tough now are you?" He raises the stick and hits him relentlessly with it.
"You know, it was at that moment that I realized that he reminds me of my father. I HATED my father! I leg sweeped him, jumped up, and beat him like a drunken chimp."
It doesn't last. In fact he only hits him for five minutes before another black beam hits him sending him skyward a few feet before gravity's curse takes over resulting in a severe head injury. Draake clutches his wound as his vision begins to go haywire and his thoughts scatter uncontrollably. Dante stalks his prey and doesn't hesitate to circle around him with a pep in his step and a condescending air about him. He even hits Draake with three more black beams that further add to his pain. Then assumes the golfer's position and swings his club across his foe's mouth. Ironically, the younger's face seems to shatter like a plastic mask revealing a joker-like face with black scars that take up his entire cheek instead of the thin ones his ally sports. Dante rears for another blow but one of Draake's friends can't take the screams anymore. Roxxanne drop kicks him in the back, round houses him as he turns around, ducks under his staff, uppercuts him three times, ducks, and head butts him.
As the demon stumbles back, he twists his staff revealing a small knife at the tip, rears back yet kicks her so hard in the face she vomits a quart of blood and falls on her back. He pulls the staff back.
The psychiatrist is wide-eyed and on the edge of her seat devoting every ounce of attention to his memory. Draake sighs and continues though there is something different about his speech.
The blade rockets downward towards her heart but her man sacrifices his own heart for hers.
"No, baby please! God no!" Roxxanne yells fearing her lover dead.
"I'm fine...just in...pain..immense...pain and dizzy. Am I spinning?" He says comically though serious.
"I love you, baby." She laughs.
Dante grows tired of the mushy and twists the handle further as the blade super extends and pierces her heart too. Draake gasps at the sound of steel hitting concrete and his girl's "ugh..uh."
"NOOOO!!!!NO! IT ISN'T FAIR! IT ISN'T FAIR! WHY HE'D HAVE TO KILL HER!" The psychiatrist yells as tear well in her blue eyes,run down her face, and washes away vast quantities of make up with ease. He recognizes the face at once but keeps his silence....for now.
"NOOOO!!!!" Draake yells and decks Dante for all he's worth with one hand, charges a Blood-Red Beam in the other to beyond maximum, shoves the ball of dead energy into his face, and fires. The enemy flies into the air, and crashes onto a small private jet that Draake destroys with another beam. He turns back to Roxxanne who is fighting back Death like a Spartan army. Leaning in, he gives her a short kiss.
"It's...okay baby." She gags then clutches him closely. "Hey...don't be ...a prick...and...wait for me. You'll...deprive...a good girl...Of..a..wonderful man." She looks upon his true face finding it beautiful if not more than he does hers.
"I love you!" He cries dissolving into tears about the same time the psychiatrist and Harley Quinn. The Joker just bows his head and lights a cigarette coldly.
"I...love..YOU...too" Death starts to win. "You...sang to me..once...do..it..again...please." And he brakes into an impromptu of Ozzy Osbourne's 'See You On The Other Side'. Every aforementioned woman weeps as he sings. Towards the end, she clutches his red tie with a never before seen ferocity. He stops instantly. With inhuman strength and stamina she fights off death one last time to lean up and give him a passionate kiss and breaths her last breath into his mouth before a dagger impales her in the back cutting her life shorter. Death takes his victory. Draake knows exactly where it came from...Dante.
The elder demon crawls out of the flaming wreckage hurting more than he realizes. "Took her long enough to die!" He exclaims. "Now it's-" Draake clutches him by the throat.
"You just created a monster!" he cries and knees him so hard he flies into the air like Superman hit him. Draake stretches out his hands as his suit turns into a black trench coat, his slacks to a bit more flexible loose fit armored material and his boots harden. Then, his body blackens out like a shadow. "Prepare to face a wraith's apprentice!"
"Ha! Don't make me-WHAM!" He ended up eating Draake's boot instead of finishing his sentence. Dante is semiconscious as his opponent lands seven hundred rapid blows to his sternum in twenty seconds, knocks his head around for thirteen seconds, lands forty five kicks all over his body in two minutes while dodging drunken blows from the elder demon possessed, lands one devastating knee to his ribcage and even feels it shattering on impact and then grabs him by his suit and head butts him over and over again. Like a rocker to his favorite song, Draake slams his head up and down against Dante's skull feeling a constant crack growing with each consecutive hit. Bored and wanting to avenge his girl, he throws him into the ground broken. Trying to turn the tide to his favor, Dante blasts him with his black beam but it seems to have no effect on him for his anger overrides his nerves. Now, Dante panics for he has nothing else; so he calms himself and summons a bigger sword to his hand. One swing hits his foe's rib cage but finds it stuck there. He tries to pull the staff out of Draake's shoulder for Draake pulled it out of his girl but forgot to remove it from himself. The staff also stubborn. This draws the murder weapon to the younger's attention. He rips it out and brakes it over his knee then discards the lot over his shoulder. Dante puts one hand behind his back and begins charging a curse.
"Think about what you're doing Draake!" He pleads.
"I'm about to kill the a-hole who killed my girl...um yeah that covers it!"
"Are you sure you can live with the consequences?"
"More now than ever before."
"I could train you to become the greatest demon possessed ever! What do you say?"
He looks at Dante a good long while before he answers his query. "Rule of thumb: When you can't see a mobster's hands then they are reaching for a gun. And to answer your question... HELL NO YOU KILLED ROXXANNE! YOUR ASS IS MINE!"
Dante turns a cruel smile. "A shame. I had such high hopes for you Draake. I guess we will never see your full potential unlocked. I'm sure...she would have been proud of you. Don't worry, you'll be seeing her soon if...and only if she isn't in Heaven." He places his over charged beam in front of him preparing to fire it. "So long! I'll be sure to save you a spot..."Draake hold out his arm as his hellfire blood erupts out its pours and forms into a short sword launching gun. "...I...can't...do...that!" Dante exclaims.
"FOR ROXXANNE!!!!" The younger yells and fires seven knives in a cross shaped pattern on his Nemesis's trunk. Then he turns and starts to walk away.
"Yeah, he started some condescending dialogue that I tuned out. After a while of it not stopping, I pulled out a detonator and blew him the hell up. I then cuddled Roxxanne until the police came and pried me loose of her. Heh Commissioner Gordon was the only one who believed I didn't kill her. He even testified on my behalf and got me sent here than prison. The Joker and his now wife high-tailed it out of there before the cops arrived and are still out there as far as I know. That was seven years ago." Draake concludes as his shrink wipes her eyes dry. "You do realize that your make up is all smudged right?"
"Is it?" She asks and quickly looks for a compact but Draake knocks it out of her hand spilling all of it all over the floor. "What you do that for?!" She yells as a wicked smile crawls over his face.
"Haley Jockeretta Quinzel! Daughter of The Joker and Harley Quinn, masked assailant to their deeds and even helped them escape Arkham a few times. What the hell are you doing here?"
She is speechless at first. "How..how..did..you..?"
"Sugar, you got your dad's skin; your mom's eyes, hair, and body;...and my heart."
"What?"
"Seriously! You are amazing! Not to mention I can see the reflection of all the drawings you make in your notebook in the reflection of your glasses. You like me! I...wanna...give this a shot if you don't mind ...AND DON'T YOU DARE SHOOT ME!"
"Why not! You're bullet proof!" She snaps. "No I can't! I'm..."
"Going to marry a complete asshole that is only interested in you so he can bed you and piss off The Joker. I..have feelings for you."
"Just like that?"
"Well,....you remind me of myself before I met Wicked. Abuses with no salvation, no saving grace, no way out. How many times does he hit you because you refuse to be intimate with him?"
Haley's eyes water. "A lot! He almost raped me but I threatened to shoot his balls off."
"Haley, I am on my knees with another alternative to the painful life you lead. I swear I will never strike you, never raise so much as an eyebrow at you! I can stop the pain and make you stronger because of it like me. All I ask for is your unconditional love. I'm not a home-wrecker. I'm just begging you to stop hurting yourself. I love you."
"Damn you're good!" Wicked says in his ear. "You got me sold."
"Can I honestly trust you! You talk to a demon!"
"And I am still thousands of times better than any other man you will ever find because of it."
"No." She says hurting.
"Haley Quinn! Look around you at you're 'normal' life! Is it everything you want and more? Are you satisfied with how things turned out?"
She looks around the room thinking about everything at once, her mind rushing back and forth between the legal and illegal life and yet she felt one side tugging on the core of who she is. It could not be ignored even if Haley wanted to. "And I"m just suppose to fallow my mother's path!"
"No, for unlike Mr J., I will never ever-even if you fought me to the death-hurt you on purpose just to hurt you for I have accidentally hurt people and I can't help that. It's an accident."
Her mind fights between logic and emotion in an extreme tug-of-war of nerves. "Really?"
He pulls the shrink in close to him as her fantasies play out in her emotions and logic says-'no but yes but no but yes' repeatedly seesawing back and forth. "When was the las time you made a bad decision Haley?" EMOTIONS WIN!!!! Draake's psychiatriast grabs him by this shackles and draws him into a kiss like noting he's ever seen before.
"What fun would it be if I just leaped into your arms?" She says after the kiss then shoves him onto her couch sold from the very moment he opened he said her name. "Let's put a smile on that face!"
Later on Haley Jockeretta Quinzel will drug the guards and run out of the facility hand-in-hand with her new man in a death grip. She'll pass the inmates who will all get a good look at Harley Jr with The Demon Of Gotham. They'll pass her parents and her mom will reminisce about how her husband swept her off her feet for a fun-filled life of crime. Amy doesn't know where the future will take her with Draake. The Joker will laugh and no one will get it for he sees how funny the sins of the Mother pass on to the Daughter truly is.
Never to be continued....