So he showed. Mid-sentence, too. I hate getting interrupted in the middle of a damn word.
This guy was smarter than I expected. Bigger, too. He makes old Batsy look as slender as a young willow.
He was smart enough to wear a gas mask, which tipped me off that he wasn't a total moron. He was also smart enough to spray himself down with some kind of herbicide. Ivy's vines wouldn't touch him.
He's studied, I'll give him that. He knew enough to take out the biggest threat first. I'll admit I was taken by surprise when he pulled out this fucking bazooka and shot Poison Ivy.
Turned out just to be a net gun. Pinned her to the wall and electrocuted her. Might not have taken all the fight out of her, but it took her out of the fight.
Harley shot him in the stomach with her boxing glove. He doubled over.
"Get his mask off," I yelled. If we could do that, it was only a matter of time.
Lexy grabbed for it. He knocked her away. She went down hard. Not a fighter, that one.
I swung at him with the axe. He blocked. I should have chosen a weapon less reliant on physical strength. But Lexy didn't have a gun. And I like axes.
My second shot caught him in the left shoulder. Broke the skin but not the bone. Just enough to make him drop the gun. Harley shot him again, in the face. Knocked him over backwards. Lexy snatched off his mask.
"Mr. Bolton?" She sounded furious. Harley and I sat on the guy's arms to hold him down.
"You know him?"
She punched him in the face. Take that as a yes.
"You told me you'd take care of him!" She punched him again. "I trusted you!" Punched him again. And again. The skin on her knuckles split open. He wasn't even bruised.
"Just hit him with the fear gas, Lex," I said. So she did.
Um…whoops.
Apparently, I'm not the only one with the ability to channel fear into anger, and anger into action.
As soon as he stopped choking on the gas, he spoke the first words I ever heard from him:
"No! The prisoners are escaping!"
He effortlessly heaved me and Harley off of him, focusing all his attention on Lexy, the pygmy Scarecrow. He threw her up against the wall. He…hurt her.
This is what he did to Eddie. This is what he would have done to scrawny little Dr. Crane and cute little Harley and anyone else he could get his hands on. This is what he did to hospital patients who couldn't fight back. This is what he does to a woman, a civilian, a girl who's begging him to stop.
The fear toxin is no excuse. This man is a bully. A creep. A lowlife bastard.
I couldn't watch. I picked up the axe and buried it in his back. This time, I made sure to hit hard enough to go through the bone.
He went down. So did Lexy. I pulled the axe out of him while Harley got Ivy out of the net. I was raising it for another blow when Harley came back, playing with a little plastic flower.
"Hang on, Chucks." For the first time since I've known her, there was not a trace of laughter in her voice. "I think he should die laughing." She held the flower under his nose and squeezed, spraying him with a cloud of mauve. He started to giggle. Resourceful little minx.
"Is little Lyle going to die happy?" Poison Ivy said in that sultry voice of hers. "I know how to make him really happy."
She kissed him.
Oh, God.
Between the poison in the air, the Scarecrow's fear toxin, the Joker's laughing gas, and Poison Ivy's pheromones, something…interacted…badly. And his face, um…exploded.
Poor Ivy.
So I took the axe, and…I dismembered him, and…we buried him, and…I feel sick.
I feel sick. I feel sick. I feel sick.