Nightmare in Arkham
Chapter 33: "The Truth is Revealed"
-Dr. Leland slowly and painfully lifted her head, groaning as she did so. How long had she been out? Then the explosion flashed in her mind causing her to jolt to attention. She was immediately hit with nausea and achiness. Her body had several cuts and bruises from the impact and when she touched her coat she immediately recognized the wet, metallic feeling of blood. Whimpering like a frightened child, Dr. Leland frantically threw off her blood soaked lab-coat. That's when she realized she was no longer in the asylum, and she immediately overcome with an overwhelming sensation of fear.
MEANWHILE…
-Freddy was violently flung through the air, out of the twin set of metal doors, and out onto the stone balcony overlooking his dark playground. Batman sprinted out of the doors, charging Freddy like an enraged bull. Freddy reacted immediately.
-He leapt to his feet and swept his arms out to the sides, releasing a wave of energy that shook the ground beneath Batman's feet. At the exact same time, Alice used her mental control to release her own circular wave of energy that knocked all of the charging nightmare creatures back. Sekhmet and the Bridesmaid were sent out of the doors and onto the balcony while the others were flung against the walls and over the edge of the pit.
-Once Alice and Freddy's energy waves collided, the balcony crumbled to pieces sending Freddy, Batman, and the two female nightmares falling to the earth.
-Batman was undeterred. He used the falling rocks as leverage to work his way over to Freddy and he collided into him head-first in midair. Clutching Freddy in the same death grip he used on the Joker during his hallucination, Batman glided over the nightmare reflection of his home until he smashed through the window of a rundown boiler-plant. Batman hurled Freddy into one of the boilers causing a loud, ringing concussion to echo throughout the room.
-As soon as Freddy was on his feet Batman was upon him. First he punched Freddy in the chest and sent him staggering backwards. Then he followed up with a second punch to his face. Before Freddy could get his bearings, Batman grabbed him by his sweater and slammed him face first into the boiler causing a loud hissing noise to fill the room. Freddy screamed as his face began to melt.
-"That's right! Burn you monster!" Batman shouted as he pushed harder on Freddy's head. Freddy reached up, scraped his claw against the boiler, and the boiler exploded in a cloud of searing heat casting the whole room in mist.
-Batman staggered back, coughing violently as he inhaled the scorching steam. Suddenly, he was struck by an invisible force that nearly sent him to the ground. Batman swung blindly into the mist hoping to land a blow on Freddy but Freddy continued to hit him from a distance with more invisible blows.
-Growling in anger Batman snatched a pellet on his belt and smashed it on the ground releasing a thin vapor that dispersed the cloud. When the fog had dissipated enough for Batman to clearly see, the first thing he saw was Freddy standing right in front of him with half of his face seared down to the bone.
-Batman gave him a look of pure disgust before rushing him. Freddy stopped him in his tracks when he took out Two-Face's coin and flipped it high in the air.
-Before Batman could say anything, the coin reached its highest point and enlarged itself to gigantic proportions. By the time it started to land it was already wide and thick enough to crush both of them flat and it was still expanding.
-"Penny for your thoughts chief," Freddy said with nasty grin.
-Batman ran at Freddy and grabbed both of his shoulders in a vice-grip. Despite Freddy's lanky physique, he was able to run Batman into a wall with ease. However, Batman just as easily pushed him off, re-established his grip, and hurled Freddy over his shoulders right under the spot where the coin was about to land.
-Freddy had no time to roll out of the way as the coin slammed into the ground, shaking the building to its core. A river of inky blood seeped out from under the coin.
-Thinking Freddy was dead, Batman started to turn but snapped back to attention when he saw the blood take on a human form. Freddy rematerialized on top of the coin. He then looked down at the coin to see the result.
-"Heads…I win!"
-Out of the circular edges of the coin sprang a line of sharp, serrated, saw-like metal teeth which began rotating like a buzz-saw. It lifted itself off the ground and flew at Batman ready to saw him in two.
-With an athletic leap, Batman flung himself on top of the coin and starred Freddy down as the coin burst out of the roof and began flying through the city.
-The coin hovered through the air like a helicopter rotor and began slicing and cutting through several buildings, street lights, phone wires, trees, etc. and sent them crumbling to the ground.
-"Goddamn!" Freddy said with thrill in his voice, "I haven't had a fight this intense since I fought Jason Voorhees. But then again, that mama's boy had the IQ of a hockey puck. You on the other hand are as versatile as you are strong."
-"Yeah?" Batman responded, "Well I wish I could say the same thing about you."
-Freddy bared his teeth in anger.
-As Batman spoke his words grew angrier, "I've dealt with scum like you for so long I couldn't even give you an estimate of time. Scum that preys off of the weak and defenseless like a parasite sucking the life out of a victim and then running away when the victim swats you, only to come back and continue stealing and destroying their life. You're just another slinking coward who crawled out of his hole!"
-Freddy threw his head back and burst out laughing. He didn't know which was funnier: Batman's claim that he was a coward or that a little girl had already beaten him to this speech several chapters back.
-When Freddy's gaze turned back onto the Dark Knight, his face was now completely devoid of whatever measly resemblance to humanity it had just seconds before.
-"A coward you say…" Freddy brought all eight of his knives up to his face, "I'm not the one hiding behind a MASK!"
-In one motion Freddy used both of his hands to rip the flesh and underlying muscle completely off his face revealing a bloody skull underneath. The skull let out a high-pitched cackle before flames began to spew from the eyeless sockets. Then, the flames covered the skull and incinerated the body on which it stood. The floating, flaming skull flew toward Batman and struck him square in the stomach, knocking him off the floating coin and sending him falling to the streets. The coin flew off into the distance.
-The street Batman landed on was a cul-de-sac that was lined with empty barrels on the sidewalk. Batman looked up and saw Freddy's skull snaking its way downward leaving a trail of flames in its wake. As it descended, it passed over each of the barrels and allowed glowing embers to flake off and land inside them. The embers almost immediately sprang to life and turned into roaring flames. But these flames, much to Batman's horror, each contained a fully embodied soul of one of Freddy's victims. These souls seemed to dance forcefully with the rhythm of the flames that trapped them.
-While Batman stood by with his jaw hanging, the skull stopped right beside the soul of Selina Kyle. It was here that Freddy regenerated his form once again around the skull. Freddy turned to Selina with a wicked smile and caught her chin within the grasp of his claws. He drew Selina's face closer to his and licked the side of her cheek.
-"STAY AWAY FROM HER YOU ANIMAL!" Batman hurled a batarang at Freddy.
-Freddy turned and thrust his arms forward. The flames that were consuming Batman's former adversaries burst from their barrels at the speed of light and struck the batarang from all directions. Before long a raging inferno built itself up and completely obscured Freddy from Batman. Then the flames took on the form of a giant wolf.
-The flaming wolf raised its massive head to the heavens and howled into the night, the sound echoed off of the buildings in Arkham City. Freddy leapt from a nearby building and landed on the fire-wolf's back. He looked down on Batman with the same look of contempt that Scar gave to Mufasa, then he pointed his index blade directly at Batman and the fire-beast sprung to life.
-Opening its mouth and revealing scorching, yellow teeth, the wolf lunged forward. Batman just barely leapt out of the way as the beast snapped its flaming maw at the spot where he once stood.
-Thinking fast, Batman snatched a hydrogen pellet from his belt and when the wolf struck again Batman hurled the pellet into its mouth. The heat instantly activated the pellet and it exploded in a cloud of hydraulic liquid that extinguished the wolf's head. Batman used this opportunity to run.
-As he did so, the wolf's head regenerated. It turned in Batman's direction and charged after him, growling in rage.
-"That's right! Run pig! Run from the Big Bad Wolf!" Freddy shouted after him.
-The wolf leapt off of the street and began sprinting over the rooftops, lighting them up as it did so. Then it pounced off the roof and into the street, cutting off Batman's escape route. The wolf swiped at Batman with a flaming paw that completely incinerated a whole building upon impact but Batman dodged in a nick of time.
-As Batman was rolling out of the way, the wolf blasted him with a burst of flaming breath but Batman covered his entire body with his flame-repellent cape. Gradually, the wolf increased the ferocity by which it released the flames until it was spraying him with the force of a firehose. Yet Batman still held strong.
-"Full power!" Freddy yelled, and the wolf increased the force to the point where it wasn't just spraying flame from its mouth, it was actually projecting its whole body into the effort. By the end, the wolf had used itself up in the effort of destroying Batman but succeeded in doing nothing but leaving a smoldering mass of cinders around the cloaked target.
-Freddy ran at Batman with his claw raised but the second he got within striking distance Batman sprang to his feet and hurled a shuriken at Freddy with the speed of a bullet. The shuriken lodged itself deep into Freddy's eye and he reeled back, screaming in agony.
-Batman followed up by flinging a batarang at the dream demon while positioned in his blind spot. The batarang struck Freddy in the face and knocked him to the ground before flying off into the sky. Freddy shot to his feet with a look of pure rage, the shuriken still embedded in his right eye-socket. As he glared at Batman, he noticed the Dark Knight's lips curve into a tiny smile. Freddy was about to respond when he was dealt a sudden, sharp pain in his back.
-The batarang had whirled back around like a real boomerang and the serrated tip struck Freddy in the back and cut right through his spine. Freddy sank to the ground like a deflated balloon and lay face-down in a distorted heap.
-Batman took out another batarang and held it up like a knife. He walked over to Freddy with the weapon raised. He turned Freddy over and then backed away when he saw Barbara Gordon lying in Freddy's place with the shuriken lodged in her eye.
- "How could you?" Barbara feebly chocked out as she coughed up blood, a scarlet tear fell from her injured eye.
-"Yeah, Batsy, how could you?" Freddy said with an evil grin as he appeared fully healed in front of the Dark Knight
-"Just look at what you've done to the poor little Bat-Brat…that was supposed to be my job! Some hero you are," Freddy whined.
-Then he knelt down to the trembling and seemingly dying Barbara, tilted her head off the ground, and said like a loving parent, "Don't worry sweetheart, you still have me. Now give daddy a kiss."
-Freddy smashed his lips into Barbara's and literally sucked the last remaining shred of life from her body.
-As he did this, Batman was overcome with disgust. However, he was not horrified by what he was seeing, for he refused to allow himself to fall for a trick that he had been forewarned that Freddy would use on him. But seeing even a false image of his pupil in the "loving" clutches of this monster was enough to make him want to puke.
-Without hesitation, Batman pushed a button concealed on one of his gloves and the shuriken exploded right in Freddy's face. Barbara's corpse was completely destroyed and Freddy's head and arms were blown to pieces.
-As Batman took a stance to prepare for the worst, Freddy's corpse dispersed into a bed of snakes that began slithering and hissing over to Batman. As each snake got to within a foot of the Dark Knight, they each transformed into an army of Freddys. The Freddy duplicates all swarmed Batman and covered him like an army of ants. However, Batman easily burst out of the swarm and began striking each of the duplicates. One hard punch was all it took reduce the Freddy duplicates into a pile of sand. But the last duplicate, which was the real Freddy, retained its form after the hit and nonchalantly brought up his claw. He raised one finger and struck Batman with an invisible wave of energy. Then, by making random gestures with his hands, head, and body, Freddy struck Batman again and again with an invisible force that sent him staggering and falling this way and that. Finally, Freddy brought his hand all the way back and flung it forward, sending Batman flying down the street and into a dumpster.
-The dumpster shattered and sent scum and debris and God knows what flying all over the place. Freddy appeared in front of Batman as he lay in the crumbled heap.
-"Why won't you die?" He demanded angrily.
-In response, Batman struck his boot right into Freddy's groin. As Freddy let out a howling scream of pain, Batman shot to his feet and rammed him into the side of a building. He then began to strike Freddy repeatedly in his ribcage with his fist until Freddy choked up a wad of bloody in his face. Then he grabbed onto Freddy with both hands and slammed him into the wall.
-"Why won't you?" Batman demanded just as angrily.
-With a pained chuckle Freddy responded, "I've said it once, and I'll say it again, cause it just gives me such a hard-on to say these three simple words," He leaned his face in closer to Batman and said proudly, "I…am…eternal."
-Neither Batman nor Freddy Krueger saw what came next.
-The Bridesmaid came racing toward them, screaming in rage. She struck Batman in the lumbar with a metal baseball bat causing him to drop Freddy.
-"Take your stinking mits off of my Puddin!" She screamed maniacally. Then she slugged Batman repeatedly leaving him with little time to react. Freddy watched with sheer amusement.
-Batman tried to fight back but despite being blind and significantly smaller than the Dark Knight, the Bridesmaid was able to dodge all of Batman blows with impeccable athleticism while at the same time hitting Batman in all of his weak points with the bat. Finally, Batman was able to grab a hold of the bat, snatch it from the female monster, and give her a good slug that sent her flying through the air. This, however, did nothing to alleviate the hatred boiling inside her and the Bridesmaid charged at Batman again. Batman held up the bat, ready to strike the monster down once it was in range. However, as he was preparing to hit a home run, Sekhmet attacked from out of the darkness and delivered the most devastating and crippling blow to Batman that he had thus far been dealt.
-With one capricious sweep of her metal claw, the cat creature tore Batman's cowl clear off of his head revealing his true identity to the nightmare world.
-Caught completely off guard, Bruce Wayne turned around to face the creature who unmasked him only to be dealt a full assault by the Bridesmaid's bat.
In the real world, Batman let out a pained gasp that echoed throughout the Batcave.
-"Master Bruce?" Alfred said in a panic. Batman slumped down on his makeshift hospital bed, a trickle of blood ran down the side of his head.
-"Master Bruce?!" Batman slumped back onto the bed as he slowly slipped into a coma.
-"Oh dear God! Leslie! LESLIE!" Alfred ran stumbling in a panic to find Dr. Thompkins.
In the dream world, Freddy, Sekhmet, and the Bridesmaid stood over the now unmasked Dark Knight. Freddy knelt down and studied every minute feature of Batman's true identity.
-"So, the bastard is just a human after-all," Freddy said with a wicked smile.