Chapter XXIX: Twisting Like Bad Oysters
Humpty Dumpty led Batman, Gryphon, and the Cheshire Cat away from the Briny Beach, deeper into the Land of Fire and Brimstone.
A volcano spouted founts of lava in the distance, but nothing else...an idealization of a volcano, rather than the true thing. Literal rivers of molten rock flowed down and through the region, before flowing back into the Earth to continue the cycle. Humpty kept close eyes on the lava streams, his elephant gun held close, his finger never leaving the trigger.
Suddenly, up out of the lava popped a strange, red, piranha like fish. It hissed and spat a stream of bright, green acid from its mouth. The cat disappeared, and, with a startled scream, so did the fish.
Within seconds, Cheshire reappeared, the fish in his mouth, dropping out of the air. He spat the creature at Batman's feet.
The red, piranha-beast had webbed legs like a frog rather than fins. As it lay upon the hard, black, igneous ground, its body cooled and turned turquoise in color.
"Snarks," Cheshire purred. "They make a great filet, and a great filet might also be made from them."
"Unless they fry you first," Gryphon muttered.
Humpty Dumpty just nodded and continued to walk.
As they came over a bare, dark hill...
"...What in God's name is that?" Cheshire growled.
"I think...I think it's a mansion. A manor."
Batman's eyes widened.
"No," he whispered. "It's not a manor. It's MY manor."
All three of his guides stared at him.
"Yours?" Cheshire hissed.
"My home. Wayne Manor. This was my family's estate."
Cheshire raised an eyebrow.
"Emphasis on was."
The Wayne Manor before Batman was, in all ways, the Manor he had grown up with and still dwelled in. But with one major difference: it was a smoldering ruin. It was as if the mansion had caught on fire, and had been put out only a few hours ago.
The smell of smoke and death filled the air.
"The Jabberwock's Lair," Gryphon said quietly, a mixture between an avian hiss and a feline snarl rising from his throat. "No doubt about it."
"I think, Bruce," Cheshire meowed, "that you'll have to take care of this alone."
Humpty Dumpty winced nervously, and then nodded in agreement.
Batman stared at the doorknob.
And into the fire we go...
He opened the door and entered the manor house.
He began to walk through the hallways. All that could be heard was great, black grandfather clock, chiming ominously. The witching hour in Wonderland.
Gryphon's words rang through his head: "it is what is in your heart of hearts that the Jabberwock's Lair will be twisted into...but it will not be as it is inside you."
Wayne Manor is not my home...
In my heart of hearts, home is...the Batcave.
He walked up the stairs.
The charred, black and red door before him loomed like a phantom.
He opened the door.
The portrait before him, as he had suspected, was not as it was.
His parents, their hands on his shoulders...all of them skeletons in clothing.
He eyed the marble bust of Shakespeare on the now-smashed-in-half writing desk...
No. Not Shakespeare.
Edgar Allan Poe.
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Of course...
"Bravo, detective," indeed.
He lifted up the head of the bust, to reveal a bright red button underneath.
He pressed it.
The fireplace, bearing decorations of bat-winged gargoyles and with images of chains carved into its mantel, slid slowly aside, the broken, burned wood and wallpaper scratching and crumbling into black dust as it moved.
The entrance to the Batcave had never looked more threatening.
He slowly descended the stairs.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimzy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe...
Finally, he came to the Batcave...
It was just that. A cave. With a ceiling covered in bats, and a few lights...
...And a large, black throne, with a bat wings-shaped back...
...In which sat the Jabberwock, claws clutching at the armrests, orange eyes bright and demonic.
Batman quickly turned his gaze downwards, focusing his vision on the Jabberwock's neck brace.
Beside the Jabberwock, on either side of his throne, sat a pair of hideous, green, slug-like beasts with large, muscular legs, mouths lined in long, needle-like fangs, and beady, black, insectoid eyes. Their backs were lined with steel pipes, out of which puffed clouds of steam. They made soft burbling noises as they looked Batman over, like starving dogs looking at a slab of meat.
"My Jabberspawn," the Jabberwock said, as if in explanation of the creatures. "Hatter made them. You might call them my children...it does get lonely, you know, being the last one of my kind..."
He scratched the head of one of his Jabberspawn. It made a soft, garbled noise that was somewhere between a purr and a growl.
"You've kept me waiting, Bruce" the draconic creature went on. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that punctuality is a virtue?"
You and Alfred have much in common...
"Then again," Jabberwock considered, "you make it a point to be 'fashionably late,' don't you? Between your billionaire playboy daydreams and dim-witted, pajama-clad night flights, the hours just fly by...there's barely time for anything else."
"Is that the best you have? Second rate insults? They don't hurt-"
"Your parents were expecting you to help them, weren't they?"
A pause.
"...What's that?"
Jabberwock chuckled nastily, rising slowly from his chair, claws behind him, wings neatly tucked against his back. He began to walk in circles around the Dark Knight. His voice increased in volume and ferocity as he went on.
"Perhaps," he said, a sadistic and mocking level overlapping his casualness, "they thought you might stop them, or warn them of the danger...they could have gone out through the front. Perhaps they thought you might call for help, before their bodies went cold and stiff. Oh, they must have waited and waited...but all in vain! And they DIED for their trouble, didn't they?"
Another pause. A low, rippling snarl creeped into the Jabberwock's voice. When he spoke next, his words flew out quick and hard, like bullets from a rifle.
"You FOOLISH, COWARDLY, and DEPLORABLE NIGHT-CHILD! You knew the dangers of the alleyway! You knew the importance of the play! But, no! You were too frightened by – of ALL things – the lights and the costumes to think of anything else. You had to get out...you couldn't be bothered with little things like the desperate of Crime Alley. And you had nothing to lose...no necklace, no wife. So you were protected and spared...while your parents fell victim to the horror that lay waiting to STRIKE...!"
"SHUT UP!"
The Dark Knight lunged, launching a punch at the Jabberwocky's face. The creature sidestepped the attack, laughing maniacally.
"Eat, children!"
The Jabberspawn had been waiting for this. They ran up to Batman, snapping their jaws. The Caped Crusader jumped over them, kicking them to the ground. They bloated, impish beasts made puppy-like whimpers as they hit the stone floor.
That's when the bats woke up. They squeaked and screamed, spiraling downward and then flying off into the darkness. Batman let out a cry of fury, trying to swat them away as the scratched at him and flapped their wings in his face.
The Jabberwock took the opportunity, grabbing Batman by the collar as the bats left...
...And forcing him to look into the deadly amber-orange eyes of the frumnious beast.
"Look into my eyes, Bruce," he growled in a sing-song voice. "What is there to see...?"
The eyes suddenly turned blue, and then Batman felt a familiar wave wash over him...a wave he had felt once before in this misadventure...
Bruce...
M-Mom...?
Bruce...
D-D-Dad...?
Where are you...? Son, why aren't you here with us...? We need you...
...No...No, it isn't real...
Don't fail us, Bruce...
Won't fail...
...Bruce...
"BRUCE!"
There was a cry of rage, like that from a gigantic bird of prey, and suddenly Batman dropped to the ground. He shook his head to clear away the cobwebs from his mind and looked up.
The twisted construct of Wayne Manor and the "Batcave" had vanished.
As had the Jabberwock's right eye.
The ruptured eye was stuck on one of Gryphon's talons. The Cheshire Cat hissed angrily, while Humpty Dumpty aimed his gun, firing round after round at the howling, shrieking monster. The Jabberwock let out another furious roar, placing a clawed "hand" over the slashed socket before retreating, flying off in a clumsy, anguished way, the bullets from Humpty Dumpty's "BlunderBuss" barely missing his wings until he was far out of range, no more than a dark shadow in the smoke filled skies.
Gryphon held out his talon to Batman. With two fingers, Batman removed the eye from the bird-like claw.
"Don't look at it yet," Gryphon advised, and then blew on the eyeball. Out of the tube in his throat came a blast of frosted, frigid air. The eye remained orange in color, but dulled, no longer glowing.
"Thanks."
"Anytime."
"For the record, Batsy, saving you is becoming a habit. Please, try to stop it."
"Cheshire?"
"Hm?"
"Shut your mouth."
Gryphon glared after the Jabberwock as he vanished from sight.
"He won't be happy about that," he muttered. "The entrance to Queensland will no doubt be barred by a certain 'manxome foe.'"
"And we'll be ready," Batman said, dryly but determinedly, as he took the pieces of the Eyestaff and began to piece them together. He coupled the rods, and then placed the eye into the clawed end. The amber eyeball turned blue, but did not glow, as it had when the beaver-toothed ghoul had tried its hypnotic trickery.
Batman held it up like a rifle, aiming it at one of the unconscious Jabberspawn.
"Raven."
A blast of bright, white light shot out.
The Jabberspawn let out a loud scream as the bolt of light cut it clean in half, the wound cauterized by the heat of the blast.
He then did the same to the other Jabberspawn.
His companions stared, awestruck.
"So that's how it works," Gryphon murmered.
Humpty Dumpty saluted – this time it was a real salute – and propped his gun against his shoulder before signing something with one hand.
"What did he say?"
"Humpty says he will remain at the beach," Cheshire translated, "and make sure the Jabberwock does not return...or at least, he'll try to."
Batman nodded to the eggman, who half-smiled before turning on his heel and marching away.
"I will join you in Queensland," the Gryphon said. "I have a score to settle with the Jabberwock, to say nothing of the Queen of Hearts herself."
Batman nodded, and then turned to Cheshire.
"And you?"
The cat flicked out his claws, grinning more devilishly than usual.
"You won't be keeping me out of this game."
Queensland it is.
