Beware the Batman

Crocodile Pearls

After the savage beating of Killer Croc, Bruce Wayne's recurring nightmare changes for the first time since he was eight years old… and a devastating revelation occurs.

The sun was fully above the horizon when Bruce finally slipped beneath the covers; higher still by the time he fell asleep. The heavy curtains blocked out the morning light, as Bruce tossed and turned. Before long, the sheets were damp with sweat, the blankets twisted around his feet, pillows thrown to the floor.

It was the same dream as always. A nightmare which had plagued his nights for the best part of twenty years. It was always the same. The same dark alley, the same gleam of metal, the same bone-chilling voice. The gun flashes twice, the blood spills, and he sits in the circle of light between the bodies of his parents watching the killer escape.

Always the same. Except this night.

Bruce ran through the alley, chased by creatures of the night, climbing up and down ropes that dangled like strings of saliva from the jaws of gargoyles above. Voices called from the darkness, mocking and taunting, laughing as he tripped and stumbled. Mefistofele watched, and the young boy felt his eyes like hot pokers on his back.

The bat-like men jeered and laughed as he sprinted through the endless labyrinth, always the same alley, always the same roses. Question marks cascaded through the passageway; some, lights on the wall, others, ghostly spectres with a life of their own. They asked him questions he couldn't understand and mocked him for lacking answers.

Puddle water splashed with every step, until at last he slipped. And now the puddle wasn't rain water, but chemicals. A sickly green. Reflections stared back, none of them his own. A blood red smile, a puckered purple cheek, a scaly neck, a pig-masked brow.

The laughter rose, and with it a chorus of baritone voices, singing in Italian. They sang, he presumed, of his damnation. Metal bars streaked the windows, and leering eyes glared out murderously. Chains rattled, feet stomped. Above, an iron sky contained a small opening through which the rain fell on Bruce alone.

Two signal lights crossed in the sky, painting silhouettes on the metal clouds. At first, they were bats, wings fluttering against the shifting rust. Then the shapes melted, the wings forming capes, the ears becoming cowls, and then again changing shape to become more humanoid. A moment later, the silhouettes came to life. They turned around, each in their separate circles, and the murky shadows grew in detail until the boy found himself staring at his parents.

"Help us, Bruce!"

"Why don't you do something, son?"

The apparitions dissipated in a haze of red rust and the iron sky was all that was left.

Bruce clambered to his feet and ran. Green question marks dripped down the walls, eddying around the painted anarchy symbols. At the end of the alley, he could see his parents. Even with the distance between them, he saw the terror in their eyes. His mother clung to her husband, eyes averted, tears rolling down her cheeks. His father's jaw clenched as he handed over his wallet and watch. But it wasn't enough.

The mugger reached out and grabbed at his mother's neck. The string broke and the pearls fell, clattering on the ground like spent ammunition. Above, the rain falling on Bruce's head turned to pearls. They hammered down on Gotham City's skyline, smashing windows, crushing cars. His parents spoke to him again.

"Bruce, please, help us! Why won't you help us?"

The sound was distant and vague, almost unrecognizable. It echoed down the street with an empty, hollow sound.

Bruce called to them – at least, he tried, but no sound came out. He tried again, trying to shout louder but he'd lost his voice. His words were drowned by the opera filling the alley, the laughter and the taunts.

With every step, the alley lengthened and darkened. Tears rolled freely down his face. At the other end, a man stepped from the shadows, his face obscured, his cruel smile palpable nonetheless. He pulled out the gun. The barrel gaped like a yawning lion, like the earth itself had torn asunder and Hell had sprung forth, and there, there was Mefistofele upon his throne.

The alley was a tunnel down. A train track below his feet, he scurried on like a rat. Wings sprouted from his back, long leathery featherless appendages, but the moment he tried to fly, the flapping broke the bones.

He fell to the ground again, mud smudging his face. He watched as the finger squeezed tight on the trigger. Screaming he tried to intervene, but his foot was stuck, the tracks squeezing, holding him in place. Holding him back.

The music died, the opera reaching its climax. Faust had won out, but Bruce had not. Bruce was damned. The horn of the train blared, silencing the laughter and the voices. The questions fled as the track rumbled and Bruce struggled to free his foot. Behind him, smoke jetted off into the sky as the horn brayed again.

At the last moment, Bruce slipped his foot out of his shoe and jumped aside. The train roared past, but as it went, it shrank. Smaller and smaller, until it was the size of a fist. Then smaller still. Before his eyes, it became a bullet. There was a flash, and Thomas Wayne crumpled on the floor.

Cold sweat beaded on the boy's forehead as he watched, frozen in fear and horror. A second train rolled past at lightning speeds and shrank out of sight. The bullet ripped through Martha Wayne's stomach. Bruce screamed.

Suddenly, he was between them, on his knees looking up at their killer. He couldn't make out his features. All he could see was the gun, shining bright in the shadows. He sat in the pool of light, sobbing as the blood drained from their bodies. Too afraid to anything else.

And that, normally, was where the dream would end.

Usually, the mugger ran away and Bruce woke with a start. But this time, the crook stepped forward. A sharp yellow smile glinted in the streetlight as he approached, his scaled features coming into sight. Yellow eyes stared, unblinking, at the distraught child. But there was no remorse. No mercy.

"No need to cry, kid," Croc jeered. "Now you get to live the dream. Be the hero you always wanted. And now you got a sob story to tell when they finally catch you. Something to make them understand. And just maybe they won't put you in Arkham with me."

"I'm not scared of you," Bruce whispered.

"Naa, of course you're not," Croc agreed. "I'm just a punching bag to you, boy. So dry those crocodile tears of yours and get on with it. Nature's calling, and you're a natural-born killer."

Suddenly garbed in his present-day suit, Bruce stood. Reflected in the puddle beneath him, he saw his own eyes, red and violent within the cowl. The puddle turned to blood as the Dark Knight launched himself at the murderous brute.

Claws slashed, jaw snapped, but Batman dodged each attack, returning heavy blows into the ribs and neck of his foe. Killer Croc laughed as the scales cracked like panes of glass, and blood poured from his mouth.

"Go ahead, Bat, get it all out. I'm a criminal, after all. Who cares how far you go? Cross that line. Nobody will miss me."

No, I can't, Batman thought.

But his body didn't listen. The punches kept flying, each harder than the last. The buildings around them shook with every blow, car alarms sounded, fire hydrants erupted with a hiss. Croc slid backwards, his clawed feet leaving ruts in the asphalt. His grinned as another right hook connected.

The crocodile teeth fell from his mouth and scattered on the floor with a vague tinkling. Bruce could see them as they tumbled into the gutter, but they weren't teeth anymore. They were pearls. His mother's pearls.

But still the onslaught continued.

Killer Croc fell at last, his eyes rolling back. With a thud he landed on the ground, his tongue hanging from his mouth. Batman leapt on top, pinning the reptile's limbs with his knees and continuing to rain down punches on the unconscious thug. The scales on Croc's face turned blue, then black, then shredded away like peeling wallpaper.

Blood-smattered gauntlets continued to pound, separate to Bruce's intentions. He wanted to get off, to stand up and put the creature in cuffs, but he couldn't. He was stuck there, unable to stop, fuelled by an uncontrollable anger. An anger distant from himself, and yet recognizable. It was the very anger that had overtaken him in the prison.

At last, the savage beating ended, and with it, Croc's life. Batman stood and looked down at all he had wrought. Killer Croc lay motionless between the Waynes, framed in a pool of blood that shone down from a streetlight, branded with the symbol of the bat.

Glancing down at the symbol on his chest, Bruce realized his costume had changed. It had turned white. He was Batman no longer.

Now, he was Anarky.

Bruce woke with a gasp. Spots danced across his vision and his hands ached from clenching so tight to the sheets. For a moment, he imagined he could taste blood.

Sitting up, he sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He felt more tired now than he had when he turned in. More tired than he'd ever felt before. The confusing, surreal aspect had made it worse.

The nightmare wasn't normally that way. Having an eidetic memory made his dreams vivid, realistic to the point that he relived his parents' deaths every night. Every moment, every texture, every emotion was fresh. Raw.

Yet this time had been different.

Dreams, he knew, were a manifestation of waking thoughts, an attempt by the subconscious to work through issues the conscious mind couldn't. It seemed obvious to Bruce what he'd needed to work through. But he didn't want to believe the conclusion.

It was just a dream, he told himself, unconvincingly.

The beating he'd given to Killer Croc weighed heavily on his mind; that much was clear. But there was another layer of meaning to the dream, something more important. He knew he'd gone too far with Croc and he felt the guilt. Control had slipped away, replaced by anger.

Mugging were commonplace in Gotham. Batman dealt with at least one every week. Often, every night. But there was one in particular he sought. The man Killer Croc had stood in for in his dream. The man who killed his parents.

Bruce closed his eyes as if he could return to the dream and change it, make the outcome different. Make the revelation null and void. An invalid observation about a man in control. But he wasn't. He'd beaten Killer Croc to within an inch of his life.

What more would he do to the man who killed his parents?

He swung his legs out of bed and rest his head in his hand, his elbows proper on his knees. Crossing that line, taking a life, was unacceptable. But his encounter with Croc had showed him there were instance when even his self-control could be tested.

He couldn't allow that to happen. Ever.

Setting his jaw grimly, he nodded, silently making a promise to himself. One that tore at his heart, that threatened to break the oath he'd made all those years before. But one that was necessary all the same.

"I can never face my parents' killer."