A Beware the Batman fanfic – Bring on the Badguys!
Written by WDCain Man

Disclaimer: Batman was created by Bob Kane and owned by DC Comics, which is owned by Warner-Brothers. No profit is being made from this fanfic.

Normally I would post this one New Year's Eve but I'm going to be super busy tomorrow so I figure I better post it today or I might not get the chance tomorrow. I hope you all enjoy this because after this, I'm taking a break from this story to focus on my other fanfics. Enjoy!

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Bring on the Badguys!

Part Fourteen:

The Dollmaker

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Sasha Rasputin shook her head, trying to get the fog out of her mind. Where was she? She was on a metal table of some kind. The last thing she remembered was being with her parents and little brother as they left the homeless shelter to head for a nearby soup kitchen. They always huddled closely together incase to ward off any kidnappers when… things went dark.

Now frightened, Sasha looked around to find her family. Her frail, skinny father was nowhere to be seen just like her obese wrinkled mother. Poor sixteen year-old Sasha couldn't even find her six year-old baby brother, Niko. She was alone in this strange room.

It was a mix of the medieval and sci-fi. Stone mason walls and floors with the most sophisticated computers and medical equipment Sasha had ever seen filled the chamber. An antique full figure mirror was in a corner of the stone room. A tray of empty syringes and scalpers of strange shapes, but all very sharp, were nearby the table she laid on, which she now identified as an operating table. Very scared, Sasha hopped off the table and checked herself out in the mirror. And screamed. "DEAR GOD!"

She looked like a corpse. Her Caucasian skin now had the pale blue hue of death and her bright scarlet red hair had turned a dull rust color. Her emerald green eyes that shined so brightly before were now white like opals. Black onyx rings were around her eye sockets like all the blood was drained from her face and body.

Her clothing, strangely though, was beautiful. Athletic 16 year-old Sasha was dressed in an exquisite black ballerina leotard with white gold embroidery and a flawless gossamer-like tutu around her slim waist. She even had on matching black ballerina slippers to dance with. How did whoever do this to her know she secretly wished to be a ballerina? Even since she was a youngling, she was in love with the grand majesty of the ballet after watching a special on PBS in one of the few times her family could afford a government apartment.

Sasha was so in awe of her costume that she momentarily forgot the horror of her situation. She giggled and playfully pirouetted just like the famous ballerinas on the TV. But to her surprise, she mimicked the dance move perfectly. She pondered for a moment and decided to test a theory. Thus she began play-dancing like she remembered a ballerina did from Swam Lake. Yet she reenacted every movement perfectly just as would the top talent of the Russian ballet.

Even though she was now able to do what she always dreamed of, the teenage girl could not find joy. This wasn't natural. She wasn't natural. Someone did this to her against her will and was most likely doing something similar to her family. All Sasha wanted was to find this person and punish him, hurt him back for what he has done to her. She wanted revenge!

Pop! The ghastly Sasha gasped as foot long claws popped out of each of her fingers. A similar blade launched from her extended foot, leaving her a whirling dervish of death during her ballet spin. Unable to retract them and scared over cutting herself, Sasha leapt back to the operating table hoping to get her bearings. But her long foot and finger claws sliced through the stainless steel table, leaving it in ribbons.

Sasha stopped breathing while watching the heavy metal table fall in pieces to the stone floor, somehow triggering her claws to retract. She was left on the sliced up remains of the operating table as a hyperventilating cadaver in a tutu. "WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?!"

"Because you deserve to be the best 'you' you should be, my precious doll." Sasha turned to see who talked.

He was a funny little man dressed in a fancy Victorian green leather trench coat. Underneath the old-fashion green coat was a matching green cummerbund with a white puffy-shirt beneath. He had German-styled trousers ending just below his knees where rolled up white stocking socks ran all the way to his rustic gold buckled green loafers. Within the pockets of his trench coat were hi-tech handheld tools the likes Sasha had only seen on sci-fi shows. In his hands was a silver cane with a baby doll's head as its handle. But most curious about him was the theatre 'happy' mask he wore over his face that went all around his grey ceramic-like head with a green top hat topping off his curious outfit.

"YOU DID THIS TO ME? WHY?! WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING SO HORRIBLE?!"

"Horrible? Horrible you say? That just can't be." He was waving his hands around theatrically and in a blink his smiling theatre mask had somehow shifted to a mask show showing elaborate surprise. Then the mask, somehow, instantly changed again to show one with a proud smirk. "That's not possible because the Dollmaker, that is me myself and I by the way, always absolutely positively makes certain that the toys I make are happy one-hundred percent all the time."

The corpse ballerina Sasha looked at the Dollmaker in terrified awe. "YOU EXPECT ME TO BE HAPPY AFTER YOU KIDNAP MY FAMILY AND SLICED ME UP TO HELL AND BACK?!"

The mask quickly changed to show a horrified expression. "Cutting with knives and scalpels?! That's barbaric!" His mask instantly morphed back to the happy version. "Thankfully for you and all my pretty dolls, I have nanomachines!"

"Nanomachines?" Sasha shook her head. This was just too crazy.

"YES! NANOMACHINES!" The Dollmaker struck a pose and puffed out his chest like a bird proudly showing his plumage. "Back when I was simply simple scientist supreme Dr. Barton Mathis I was the first to create the greatest, niftiest, stupendous item sci-fi writers have been imagining about since the 1960's: Nanomachines! With these little darlings of mine I've able to make the world my toy chest and the sad pathetic people in it, that's you by the way, into my perfect dolls to play with and be happy for the rest of my life!"

"YOU'RE A MONSTER!"

The Dollmaker waggled a finger. "Nope, nope, nope! I make certain to take care of all my toys and see to it that they're happy all the time!" His thumb tapped the doll's head on his cane's handle. Instantly the large mirror in the room crackled like television turned on and showed images from movies of gothic horror, sci-fi warfare, and medieval fantasy. Considering what the Dollmaker did to her, Sasha had no way of knowing if these images were real or not

"That's your family, Sasha; and they couldn't be any happier." The images in the mirror focused on each one at a time as the Dollmaker spoke.

A voluptuous vampire sex-queen in a slinky red dress lounged on gothic-styled furniture while drinking blood from a gold chalice. "Your previously obese mother is now part of the beautiful elite she always wanted to be all thanks to my precious micro babies."

The next image showed a massive green ogre with a cyborg arm holding a plasma axe while cutting off space marines heads with a vicious grin on his tusked face riding a giant pig. "Your meek daddy isn't a puny coward anymore. Now, he's the powerful brave warrior crushing faceless enemies he's always fantasized to be with some work from me."

A brown dog with wings and a human face flew through a dark forest around a samurai castle before landing on top of a tree. "Your little brother thought dreams could never come true while rummaging for food in a garbage can. Now he flies through the air free of all responsibilities and the horrors that the world gives us."

The Dollmaker faced away from the mirror and looked at Sasha with his mask still looking happy but spoke in a gentle and calm voice. "And you, my dear Sasha. A young girl who dreamed foolish dreams to one day dance in the Russian ballet now is as skilled as their top talent for Black Swan. Why shouldn't you be happy for what I've done for you?"

"BECAUSE I LOOK LIKE A CORPSE!"

The mad scientist waggled finger like he was talking to a petulant puppy. "That's the price to pay to be in my playhouse, dear Sasha. It took a lot of effort on my part to acquire this abandon amusement park, plenty of spilt blood (none of mine mind you), and lot of modifications for each area to look like the way it does so some cooperation on my dolls' part to have their dreams come true is more than reasonable, my dear."

"YOU'RE A MONSTER!"

"Not at all, my precious doll. I make dreams come true and hardly anyone complains. Your family certainly didn't. When they each woke up and I explained what I had done, they all practically wept for joy when they realized they were free from their old ugly lives of sleeping on the streets hungry every night and are now in a world, my world, where they living their dreams every waking moment. That can be you too, Sasha. Just dance away…" he tapped the doll's head on his cane. "And be happy."

And Sasha was happy. She felt such bliss all of a sudden and she knew why. No more rummaging through garbage for leftovers. No more cold winter nights with only rags keeping her warm. Now she had purpose. Now she could ballet dance as she always wanted, as she was destined to be!

Sasha looked in the mirror tucked away in the corner. Now she looked like a corpse.

And she still felt happy. "Are… are you doing something to my mind?"

"Why yes. Yes, I am." The Dollmaker started dancing around her. "My nanomachines have not only altered your body but also gives me access to your brain's inner workings." He tapped her forehead. "Now while I don't have control of your thought process, not that I want it anyway cause it's too much micro-management; I do have access to your brain chemistry, especially your dopamine – the hormone that basically creates happiness. So I cranked up that baby to the max."

Sasha was fighting hard to keep from smiling. All this madness was starting to make sense. "That's why no one wants to leave. You're fiddling with their brains and making them want to stay since they've never been happier."

"Too true, smart Sasha! My nanos give them that jolly buzz so they take advantage of their new abilities and appearance without giving me lip like you're giving me." The Dollmaker sighed melodramatically and his mask instantly shifted to a sad face and tapped his cane handle to shut off her emotion matrix nanos. "It looks like you're too smart to be fooled, my sweet dancer."

"Darn straight." Sasha grinned, her sense of triumph honest and not mechanically induced.

"It's such a shame… such a shame you're a doll that's got to be broken before I can play with you." The Dollmaker's face-make shifted to show absolute evil. "GET BACK IN YOUR WRAPPING!"

Sasha felt her black ballerina leotard melt as it started to lose its elasticity. But instead of dripping off her slender form, it started to grow all across her body like latex mummification. This super strong material restrained her arms around her stomach like a straightjacket just as her legs were pressed together as close as possible. She lost her balance and fell to her knees, struggling and failing to pop out her blades.

As the latex flowed up her neck after engulfing her entire lower body in a tight bondage bodysuit, Sasha looked up at the evil mask of the Dollmaker. "You invented nanomachines, the future of science, and you're wasting them on this?! Why don't you patent it and make yourself rich, you lunatic?!"

The Dollmaker leaned in close to his corpse in restraint, his theatre mask still in evil form. "Because I don't want to be rich, my dear. I want to have fun. I have spent years working in labs and now I want to finally have some fun in this dab boring simple world. You'll have fun too, after a month or two in your wrapping complete with total sensory deprivation. Trapped in total darkness, your mind will be left a blank after it eats away all your memories in madness. All you'll feel then is happiness from my nanomachines when you dance and cut in my playhouse." He waved goodbye. "Next we meet, you'll be too crazy to even remember your name. See you then, sweet Sasha."

Sixteen-year old Sasha screamed in defiance just as the nanos in her prisoner-suit covered her face, cutting her completely off from the outside world. The only sounds she could make were incomprehensible muffles as she rolled on the floor like a helpless worm.

"I was so looking forward of playing with you and my other new toys, Sasha; but you were just too smart for your own good." The evil mask changed to show a crying and pouting expression. He walked over to the mirror and the image within changed to show a curvaceous young blonde woman in a sexy nurse outfit with a cracked Chinadoll mask. "Matilda, this toy has too much smarts for her own good so she's going in isolation for a few months to soften her up. See to it while I go check on the homeless people I turned into zombie gorillas for the haunted zoo playset."

Matilda bowed respectfully. "I and Bentley will see to her immediately, Dollmaker. Have fun."

The Dollmaker spun his cane joyfully and headed out, his face mask having shifted back to show joy. "I do love playing with my toys."

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End Part Fourteen…
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Yep, I employ the Hideo Kojima school of writing here and say nanomachines can do anything.

I hope you like this chapter. I based the Dollmaker off the Wizard of Oz figurine from Todd McFarland's creepy Monster Land of Oz toy series with ReBoot's Hexidecimal's face-mask. Personality wise he's the Warden from Super Jail. I love that evil Willy Wonka and I think he would make a great enemy of the stony Batman. This would be a great episode with a real "video game" feel with each section of Dollmaker's amusement park set up differently from the last like in Midway's Carn-Evil. I love that game and you could say it was a big impression on me shaping this story. Sasha was based on the zombie ballerinas from Rise of Nightmares.

White Rabbit and Dollmaker were two villains I did not want to do for this fanfic. I've already explained why for White Rabbit but not Dollmaker. In my opinion, the Bat books suffered the most with the new52 reboot. While the character Batman was written better than ever, his rogue's gallery suffered severely as they all lost their charm and became nothing but remorseless psycho killers. Harley Quinn rigged dozens of 3DS's to explode on Christmas morning hoping to gain the Joker's favor, the Joker while always dangerous had become so evil that he couldn't make me smile. Even Mr. Freeze was rewritten to be just a delusional serial killer and that his tragic origin in "Heart of Ice" was just part of his delusions. They're all just plain mad dog killers.

The Dollmaker is the embodiment of the problem with Batman's rogues in the new52. His entire character is in the horror that he does. He has no charm or quirks. He's no different from a villain in a slasher movie. His character is what he does: He's the villain who mutilates his victims and leaves them deform. Why does he want to do this horrible thing? He says he wants money and to be famous. That's simple and just stupid. That sentence seems to describe all of Batman's rogues in the new52. They're all one-dimensional and cold blooded that I find only the comic The Dark Knight bothers to give any baddies a hint of pathos and depth.

Truthfully I would never have thought of a way to do the Dollmaker for this story until I was inspired by FXX's marathon of The Simpsons Halloween episodes in October. Specifically, Treehouse of Horror XIII "The Island of Dr. Hibbert". The ending where most of Springfield's citizens decided they were happier living as animals on Dr. Hibbert's island instead of as people back in civilization made me think that there are a lot of folks in the world who would gladly walk away from their life just to live in a fantasy world. So I made Dr. Hibbert there into the Dollmaker with a dash of Super Jail's Warden. I hope you all liked this story since I'm taking a break to focus on other fanfics.

Since this is my last update of the year, I'll list my favorites of 2014.

Favorite new game: God Hand. Everything about that game is brilliant. It's challenging, but the right kind of hard. When you mess up and die, it's your own fault and not the game being cheap. I don't say this too often but this game is perfect. I did not find a single flaw in it and I only wish more games would take after it. I was able to beat it on Normal with 91 continues and an enemy level average of 1.7 and I loved every second of it. I can't wait to play Mad World next.

Favorite new comic: Jeez, there have been so many comics this year that I've loved. Mark Waid's Daredevil and Indestructible Hulk are both fantastic. I also love Brian Bendis' All New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men comics too. Bendis does a great job reminding me why Cyclops is my favorite X-Man. The Uncanny Avengers comic is also fantastic too. Heck, I like the mainsteam Avengers comic because I love the new cast. I wouldn't mind it at all if for the Infinity War movie they ditched the old cast and had a new one consist of Captain Universe, Manifold, Starbrand, Nightmask, Smasher, Hyperion, and Captain Marvel. They are all that awesome! The only DC book I'm following is Harley Quinn and that's a great one too. There's so many that I just can't decide.

Favorite new cartoon: It's a tie between Star Wars: Rebels and Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja. I love all things Star Wars but Randy Cunningham has a great tongue-in-cheek humor to it that always makes me smile. It actually reminds me of Danny Phantom, one of my favorite cartoons and I might actually like it more than the new Star Wars cartoon.

Favorite new anime: Attack on Titan is the only anime I've seen this year but I must admit that it was fantastic. I just wish the ending was more uplifting instead of so depressing. On the manga front, I'm really enjoying Mobile Suite Gundam: The Origin series. It really puts a fresh coat of paint on an old series and makes me look at old material with a new perspective. I really didn't care for the original crew of White Base but now I'm completely enthralled by them. I love the series absolutely but my one grip is how expensive each book is.

Favorite new novel: Joe Schreiber's Star Wars – Darth Maul: Lockdown. Even though it's a Star Wars book staring my favorite Sith, the book is really suspenful and kept me guessing on whether or not Maul would succeed or not. Reading it and learning that the Darth Maul video game being cancelled breaks my heart.

Favorite new TV show: It's a tie between Gotham and The Flash. I think Gotham has better actors but The Flash has much better writing.

Favorite new musician: 7Lions. Their tribute song One More Time for the Ultimate Warrior gets me every time I hear it. I met him several years ago and got to shake his hand so this song really pulls my heart strings. They're my new favorite group because of it.

Favorite new movie: Amazing Spider- BWA HA HA HA! Oh man, I had you; didn't I? That movie was garbage! Seriously, the story in the ASM2 game was way better than that trash. I'm serious when I say that I found the story-mode in the ASM2 game to be one of the most mature well thought out stories I've seen in a long time. I've seen youtubers put together a movie out of its cutscenes that are just as much fun as The Lego Movie, X-Men: Days of the Future Past, Captain America 2, and Guardians of the Galaxy, Big Hero 6, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, & Hobbit 3. This was a great year for movies so I really can't pick one out.

Happy New Year, everyone! May the next year be better than the last!