Okay. Sequel to 'Faces of Evil' is a go. This is what I am planning.
The first couple of chapters will be dedicated to Lydia. You, as the readers, are going to get an inside look in the head of Ms. Valmont. Joker will be in the story just not the first few chapters… maybe. Yes there is a new villain in town by the name of The Riddler. I don't want my story getting too perplexed to the point of me not knowing exactly what to do. That being said, Riddler and Two-Face won't be in a lot of chapters at first. Batman/Bruce will be in it, of course.
This story is going to be on the more so graphic side. I will most defiantly post disclaimers before you read them. Graphic as in her history, more sexual situations, death, probably suicide attempts, and other things I can think of.
That being said, let's get this story on the road. Shall we?
The buzzing noise is heard along the hallway. Lydia silently stirs from her sleep. Her back is facing the door, one eye open as she watches a shadow on the wall shut the door behind it. Small footsteps echo in the silent room. A heat radiating from the newcomer is cascading along her back. Clenching her jaw, she feels a hand run along her covered thigh. It starts from her knee and works its way up to the cup of her cheeks. A firm squeeze is given to the tender flesh.
She bites the inside of her mouth, fearful to let out a scream. She clenches her body tighter against herself, trying to discourage the predator from touching her again. The hand comes back once more, this time running its fingertips along her spine and up to her neck.
The feel isn't skin but more so leather. She body almost relaxes until she feels the leathery skin grasp her neck. Another hand is present as it makes Lydia fall upon her back. A giggle escapes the predator's lips. Her eyes shooting up to meet the toothy grin of the Joker.
She begins to struggle against him. She lets out asphyxiated words of 'No', 'Stop', and 'Please'. Nothing seems to work against the dark clown. His laughter penetrates her eardrums, reverberating against the empty walls. Her hands struggle against his arms, trying somehow to weaken him. She grabs at his ever so tightening hands, trying somehow to make him loosen her hold.
His smile grows wider, his laughter becoming more insane. Tears wail in her eyes, stinging her cheeks as she blinks them away. Her hands go up to his face, attempting to gouge his eyes out. Only to see that his face is beginning to wither away. The smile is still there, as well as his laughter. Lydia tears at his face with bloody nails. The white face paint is beginning to fall upon her face and body.
With one final grab, a new face is revealed.
She pushes herself up from the cot of a bed she is on. Sweat drenches her face, hair, and shirt. The distraught woman's eyes search the room to find no trace of the Joker. Swinging her feet off of the bed and onto the cold floor, she buries her face in her hands.
"Fuck…even in here he is still around." She mutters to herself.
The Gotham sun beaks out from behind buildings, offering a certain brightness to Lydia's room. She pushes her fingers through her hair as she cocks her head to the side, staring out of the window. Her feet begin to bounce against the floor, her elbows resting against her thighs. Biting the inside of her lip, her nicotine craving is beginning to kick in.
Placing a fingernail in her mouth, she sucks under the nail to try and taste something close to nicotine. One by one, each finger digs their way into her mouth. She quickly stands and walks towards the window. A fingernail still in her mouth, she places a hand against one of the bars. Lydia's stare is intently focused on what took place about a month ago.
Her thoughts are interrupted as the buzzing noise is sounded. The kind face of Jeremiah Arkham shines in.
"Ah you're already up. I trust you slept well?" He asks, raising his eyebrows in a friendly gesture.
"Too well." She mutters, her nails still captors in her lips.
"Well, it is 9 AM. Ready for our first session?" He asks, placing his clipboard under his arm.
Lydia eyes him cautiously. She wonders why he is being so kind to a murderer. She is the reason why this new Arkham Asylum is here. She wraps an arm around her waist, her other hand is still in her mouth. She walks slowly and lightly towards the man and out the door. Two security guards are standing there, machine guns in tow.
--
The room patient and doctor are in is white. Well mostly. The walls are white, the couch in which the patient rests upon is black. There is a table with two seats, painted in the same onyx color. A fireplace is to the right of the table. A large desk is further back, near the window.
Dr. Arkham allows Lydia to choose how she will be 'interrogated' for the hour session. Instead of the comfy looking couch, she goes with the chair. She pulls it out, allowing the legs to scrape the floor making the god awful noise. She smirks as he winces. Plopping down on the chair, her fingers find their way back into her mouth.
He begins to take a look at the page with her information scribbled upon it. "Fingernails to long Ms. Valmont?" He glances up from behind his glasses.
She manages to mutter a 'no' and goes back to trying to salvage the taste of nicotine. "Then what are you doing?" He asks, setting the notebook on the table.
"Nicotine. Gotta craving Doc." She says, her eyes looking past him and to the window.
He smirks slightly and rummages through his pockets, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and tossing them on the table. She glances down at the pack and back to him, her eyebrows raised.
"They aren't going to bite you nor explode Ms. Valmont. Consider this a peace offering. You talk to me and you'll get your kick." He says.
Reasoning. Reasoning with a murderer. I like him already. She quickly takes the pack and beings banging it against her palms. She tears the wrapping off unmercifully as she takes a cigarette out and the man before her lights it.
She takes the cigarette away from her mouth and slowly blows the smoke from her lips. She sits back comfortably, leaning her head back against the chair.
"So I'll go over some basic stuff. That alright with you?" He asks her, opening the notebook before him.
"Mmmhm." She replies, taking another hit, holding the smoke in her mouth until she blows it from her nose.
"Alright. Interrupt me if there is something wrong. Your full name is Lydia Faith Valmont. You are twenty one years old. Your date of birth is April 26, 1987. You were born in Atlanta, Georgia to a Cadence and Andrew Valmont. Both parents are deceased, only close relative is a Katherine Valmont; a younger sister. You were a student at Gotham University." He sets his notebook down. "Anything I missed?"
She sits up, running her palm over to mouth as if to wipe something from her lips, and shakes her head. Dr. Arkham places an ashtray on the table in which Lydia flicks her ashes into. She looks at the doctor in front of her.
"Ms. Valmont-" He begins but is cut off.
"Please. That would be my mother. Call me Lydia." She reasons.
"Very well. I'm going to start with the question so many others have." She sucks on the cigarette, waiting. "What attracted you to the Joker?"
He picks his pen up from it dormant position. She exhales the smoke, her eyes narrowing.
"What makes you think I was the one to was attracted to him? How do you know he wasn't attracted to me?" She asks darkly, sucking more of the cigarette.
"What caused the Joker to become fascinated with you?" He asks.
"Better question." She exhales the smoke and puts the cigarette out in the ashtray. "I remember him saying that I was corruptible. I had all the right tools but no one to show me how to use them." She brings her hands together on the table, giving him a nice stare.
"So…" He begins to write notes on blank paper. "He became hell-bent on making you evil. He did everything he could to drive you to the very brink of your own insanity?" He asks, glancing up at her through his glasses.
"You could say that." She pulls another cigarette out and it becomes lit, once again.
"Did you two ever have sexual intercourse?" A serious tone in his voice.
Lydia raises an eyebrow and blows smoke out. "Ah Doc, this is only our first date… wouldn't want to give away too much now would I?" A smile comes upon her face.
"Fine. I'll save Joker conversation for our later 'dates'. What was your childhood like?" He asks, noticing a slight twitch of her left eye.
"It was fine. It was normal and dandy." She says, lying through her teeth.
"Okay. If you want to lie I can take the cigarettes from you. You're a bad liar." He says, his hand coming towards the pack.
She quickly slaps his hand away. "So I've been told." She moves her arm back to her side of the table, making sure to drag the pack closer to her.
"So, no lies. You're here to get better. You need to tell me everything in order for your healing to begin."
Lydia stares at him for a moment. Her jaw clenches. Smoke dances around her face. Lydia has done the best she can at blocking anything from her childhood out of her mind. Her mother pasted away and her father turned into a drunk. She did the best she could to protect her little sister by laying her life in the hands of her drunken father.
"Lydia, I'm scared." A small girl cries out to her older sister. Katherine bursts through her door and runs to Lydia's bed. She embraces her small sister in a hug and promises nothing will ever happen to her.
Her father hasn't dealt with her mother's death very well. Ever since the night she died, Andrew Valmont would be at bars until all hours of the morning. He would stumble in drunk and quickly go to bed. He'd never emerge until about three in the afternoon. Once he was awake, the bottle became his friend.
It didn't get bad until he began drinking at home. There he was able to torment his daughters and not worry about police escorting him to the station.
"Lydia! Katherine! Get your sorry asses in here." He would call out to them.
As if they were being chased by Death, the two young girls would quickly come in the room; fearful of their father.
She snaps from her minor flashback and looks up at Dr. Arkham.
"Thinking?" He asks.
"Something like that…" She mutters, taking another hit from her cigarette.
"Are you going to tell me anything about your childhood?" He asks, setting his hands on the table.
"In due time Doc. Can't we talk about something a little more interesting? Like, what have you diagnosed me with so far?" She asks, bringing herself forward.
"Schizophrenia Disorder. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Anorexia Nervosa. Manic Depressant." He states without looking down.
Her mouth parts open, her tongue flicking the inside of her cheek. "Huhhh." She smiles rather delightfully. "I'm impressed. Although you are wrong about me having schizophrenia. I don't hear voices." She says, waving her hands in the air like a mother would do to 'spook' a child.
"When I heard someone mention that disorder, I was muttering how I am going to kill the Joker. So you can strike that off the list Freud." She giggles, sucking the last amount of nicotine from the cigarette and killing it in the ashtray.
"Uh huh. The first step in recovery is to admit your disorders, not try and give a logical explanation." He says, tapping his pen against his paper.
Lydia rolls her eyes. "I didn't hear you mention anything about 'insanity' on that nice little list of yours." She crosses her arms across her chest.
"Insanity is a legal term. As far as it being a psychological term… one who breaks the law without realizing it. You aren't insane. My guess, Joker isn't either."
"So you're saying a person with a mental handicap is insane?" Smirking.
"Not necessarily. You see Lydia, you know killing people is wrong. Joker knows it as well. It's against the law to take a life. Stealing is wrong."
"So you are saying that when people steal, cheat, or murder they are insane?" Her smirk widens.
"No… Joker is such a genius in himself. You are ahead of the curve." He catches an eyebrow raising from the woman in front of him.
"You see… Joker has what some call 'super-sanity'. H-"
"Okay, you see I don't care anything about discuss the Clown Prince of Gotham. Brilliant yada yada yada, insane. All of that mumbo jumbo bullshit about him. He is a murderer, insane, and madding brilliant. I get it. I know more about him than your bullshit theories."
At this point, Lydia is livid. She is standing and is pointing her finger at him. "You don't know anything about him!" She screams in his face.
The door busts open and the two guards come in, a syringe in hand. She kicks the chair towards the one with the needle. He begins to fall but she grabs his hand and takes the syringe from his hand. In a matter of seconds, Lydia manages to get the other guard in her grasp.
"Get me out of here." She states calmly, the needle about to penetrate the man's neck.
"Lydia, that is full of something that will sedate you. It's not going to harm him if you inject him with the fluid inside." Dr. Arkham states, standing placing a hand out to try and calm her.
"Lets find out!" She calls out and pushes the needle into his neck. She pushes the top down causing the liquid to fill into his body.
Her eyes dart back and forth between the guard in her hands and the doctor. She feels the man begin to weaken in her hold until she lets him fall to the ground, completely knocked out.
"Well fuck…" She mutters.
She turns and runs out of the room. She hit's the elevator button but there is no use; it will take far too long for it to reach the floor before someone apprehends her. She takes off towards the stairs, flinging the door open as her feet pound themselves against the stairs. The final door to the asylum is in front of her. She flings the door open but is met by guards.
"Shit…" She mutters.
Surveying the scene; four guards armed to the max. "Shit, fuck, fuck, shit!" She screams, punching the wall.
"Get her. Escort her back to her room. Now." Dr. Arkham's voice calls out from the opening elevator.
"I suppose there is no way we can talk this over, huh?" She asks, trying to reason. "Guess not." She mutters.
One guard comes forth but Lydia sends him back. A swift punch to the nose caused the man to drop his weapon. Being the opportunist she is, she quickly grabs the gun and aims it.
"Uh oh! Female with a gun!" She scream out. She lets loose bullets that spray into the guards bodies. Bullets cease fire. "See why she likes this thing!"
Bullets begin to penetrate into the bodies. She feels the tearing of flesh as a bullet enters her lower abdomen. She stops shooting once all of her targets are on the floor. She glances over at the stunned Jeremiah Arkham.
"Thanks for the talk! But I gotta run. Very busy female, you know. Places to go, Clowns to kill. Later Doc." She salutes with a bloody hand.
She turns and runs quickly through the door and jumps from the tiny island. Her body is submerged in water. She winces slightly as the water stings her new wound. Although she is tired, Lydia pushes on in the thrashing waters. It takes a good thirty minutes to get to shore. Another hour to get back to her mansion. She had to evade police and the SWAT team.
They only knew of her previous location, the apartment, not her new location. Stumbling into the house, the loss of blood beginning to make her mind weak.
"Robert? Robert! Crisis on my hands!" She yells out.
Footsteps begin to run down the stairs. Lydia passes out before the owner could greet her.
Dun, dun, dun. Chapter One to the Sequel. I am sticking with what I said way up there in the beginning. So yes… Review or whatever you like. I am open.