Chapter Ten
Waylon woke up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields of golden wheat as the sun began to lift its head up from the horizon. He had not anticipated that the tranquilizer would let him dream, usually it just knocked him out and let him sleep the whole way through. It was the only upside to being knocked out. He got to his feet and want over to the cabin. As always he peeked through the window to see Madeline standing with her back to him in front of the oven, cooking breakfast as she did in every dream. Waylon would have happily stayed and watched her for a while but he wanted the dream to be over so he could get back to reality faster and go after the real Madeline.
When he opened the door he could hear Madeline faintly humming a familiar tune. He hesitantly walked forward to hold her and get the nightmare over with, but to his surprise Madeline turned around and gave him a suspicious look.
"Are you still attracted to me?" She asked with a frown. Waylon was a little taken aback by the question. Not because of the question, but because this wasn't the same script that dream Madeline followed every night.
"I-I err." Waylon stuttered, still in shock. Madeline scowled at him some more and pointed an accusatory spatula in his direction.
"You like the other me don't you, the lizard one." She accused, and again Waylon became very confused. How did the dream Madeline know about that. Well, it was a dream conjured by Waylon's imagination so it was only natural that dream Madeline would be aware of everything going on the real world, but he'd never expected that his mind would give him this situation to deal with in a dream.
"Of course not." Waylon blurted, desperate to say the right thing without even considering if his answer was true or not. He honestly had no idea what he liked anymore. Standing before dream Madeline felt real to him and the feelings of attraction he felt for her in the dream felt real. He found her human body extraordinarily beautiful and sexy, and all he wanted to do was hold her close and take her again and again until the end of time. But in this dream he was normal looking, or at least normalish, and it was a dream after all. How would his real body react in the real world to the human Madeline standing before him. Would he prefer the reptilian body? It would make sense that he'd be attracted to the form most similar to his own. Animal instincts and all that.
"So you think my new body is ugly then?" Madeline accused, looking even more irritated with him. Hang on a minute, why was she annoyed. She was human, hadn't he given her the right answer.
"No, its..." Waylon began, but then he realised that Madeline hadn't been the one talking, the voice had come from behind him. He slowly turned around to see a rather threatening figure towering over him, snarling at him with rows of sharp teeth, tail thrashing about impatiently behind her.
"Madeline?" Waylon asked, confused yet again. The reptilian Madeline was standing before him now, they were both in the same room. But why? Why were they two different people. As Waylon stared in shock and with a bit of fear at the menacing figure. He examined her appearance. She was taller than him due to his dream form, and she didn't look sexy. She looked scary, intimidating, and not someone he wanted to get anywhere near. He felt human Madeline hook her arm in his and appear at his side.
"See, he's scared of you. I win." Human Madeline teased, poking her tongue out at the reptilian Madeline who just shrugged and gave a half smile.
"Not for long." She muttered, and then the room around them changed from the cosy little cabin to the dark sewer. The sudden transition combined with the switch in narrative made Waylon feel very disorientated. He looked around for human Madeline who had let go of his arm. He spotted her a few meters away from him, lying on the floor with her torso ripped open and her guts hanging out, her face so pale and cold she was most certainly dead.
"So, I'll ask again." The reptilian Madeline asked, sauntering forward and hooking her arm in Waylon's. "Do you think my new body is ugly." Waylon's body had switched to his usual monstrous form now so the reptilian Madeline was a little smaller than him. But as he looked at her new body through different eyes he saw her in a different light. She wasn't scary or monstrous, she didn't look like a monster. She looked sexy and wild, intimidating in the right kind of way, the embodiment of her personality. She was someone he wanted to get close to very much so, and as he glanced at the dead human Madeline, he felt nothing. It was like his mind had decided they were two separate people. But why was it that when he had the human body he was attracted to one of them, and when he had Killer Croc's body he was attracted to the other. Wasn't he the same person? So why didn't he feel the same way.
"I'm waiting for my answer." Madeline teased, running her finger down Waylon's chest and sending shivers across Waylon's body. He didn't have any words to describe how gorgeous she looked, how sexy and unbelievably desirable.
"Come on Waylon." Madeline said, but it wasn't her voice speaking through her lips. It sounded different, male, almost like...
"Come on Waylon, wake up!" Riddler ordered, and Waylon opened his eyes with a start. Being yanked out of a dream was not a pleasant experience, especially one as confusing as that. He sat up and stared at his hands to make sure he was back in reality. Yep, monster hands, he was back. Oddly enough however, he hadn't expected to wake up still in the theatre. He would have thought the militia that took Madeline would have taken him too, but it seemed like they'd just knocked him out and left him there.
"Are you okay? What happened?" Riddler asked, stepping back a few paces as Waylon staggered to his feet.
"They took her, and knocked me out. The earpiece..." Waylon growled, spotting the frazzled earpiece on the ground.
"They released a short range EMP or something, that's why it burnt out. They obviously didn't want me listening in."
"It would have been helpful if you had. Maybe then you'd be able to figure out exactly who they are." Waylon groaned, rubbing his ear. He was slightly deaf in one ear from the frazzling earpiece and Madeline's roar.
"The militia I saw on my camera weren't wearing any particularly identifiable gear so it's likely they work specifically for whoever is responsible for this whole mess we're in." Riddler theorized, his brilliant mind at work as per usual.
"Excuse me, mess 'we're' in. Last time I checked you didn't have to deal with any of the messy stuff. I'm the one getting my neck bitten and knocked out in a god damn theatre." Waylon complained, crossing his arms and frowning at Riddler who had had the easy jobs this whole time.
"The only reason it's messy is because we didn't have a plan. It's all been fairly reckless and last minute if you ask me." Riddler grumbled, sounding like he was blaming Waylon for all the failures they endured, and that annoyed Waylon quite a bit.
"Hey, how can we come up with a plan when we don't know where Madeline's going to show up. She pops up all over the city without warning in the most random places, how can we predict that." Waylon snapped, seeing no possible way they could make any sort of plan to capture Madeline, other than carrying around a chloroform rag or something.
Riddler paced up and down the stage for a bit, thinking and muttering to himself.
"We need to find a common similarity in all the places she'd appeared. There has to be something linking them together." He thought, speaking his thoughts out loud since he didn't expect Waylon to have any sort of answer.
"There is no similarity." Waylon grumbled, stating the obvious as he took a seat on the edge of the stage. "Jewellery stores, theatres, aviaries and libraries. If there is a pattern it's super cryptic if you ask me."
"That's it!" Riddler blurted before Waylon had even finished his sentence. The triumphant riddle master whipped out his phone and put it one speaker as the dial tone rang.
"What's up?" Jack asked when he answered. Riddler seemed to have let him near the computers, a very rare thing for Riddler to do.
"Can you bring up all the locations your sister has appeared at." He ordered.
"What?" Waylon asked, confused as to what Riddler was trying to do.
"There isn't a pattern." Riddler beamed with an ecstatic look on his face similar to that of a child at Christmas. "It's a riddle. How I didn't see it before I don't know but it all makes sense now."
"Really?" Waylon questioned, raising a brow with uncertainty. "Because I'm still confused."
"Trust me on this." Riddler reassured, returning his attention to the phone. "Do you have them up?"
"Yeah. Gotham aviary, Tie The Knot jewellery store, Gotham Library, and Monarch Theatre." Jack confirmed. Again, Waylon couldn't see anyway those locations could lead to anything.
"Perfect. Give me info on the aviary first. Founders, bird species, that sort of thing." Riddler demanded, switching into genius mode.
"Just a sec... Ah, here we go. Commissioned by a Mr Lance Beagle to 'educate Gotham on Darwin's theory of evolution', his words. Contains numerous species of birds and a few reptiles..."
"That's all I need. Next. The jewellery store."
"Nothing special about that. It wasn't an especially big jewellery store or popular, involved in some shady business actually. Something about cutting stolen diamonds, rubies and emeralds, precious jewels and the like, down to size and making them into rings to sell to the public."
"Good. Next!" Riddler ordered. Waylon didn't feel like they were any closer to figuring out this riddle, or whatever it was meant to be. All this extra information just made his head hurt. Still, Riddler was a genius, if anyone could figure out a pattern it was him.
"Gotham Library. Founded in 1862, one of the oldest buildings in Gotham..."
"I don't need any of that." Riddler cursed, pausing to think for a moment. Then an idea seemed to hit him and he looked to Waylon for the answer.
"What?" Waylon grumbled, unsure how he was going to be of any help.
"Do you remember anything about the library. Anything distinct or unusual."
"I dunno. I don't go in libraries much." Waylon growled. Yes yes, he was dumb, did he need to remind everyone.
"Any special stands or something? Like a new book in or an author of the week?" Riddler asked, sounding frustrated with Waylon's lack of cooperation. Waylon had to think for a minute.
"There was an Alice in Wonderland book stand that we knocked over." He remembered, not quite sure of its significance.
"Which book?"
"Alice in Wonderland."
"No, the first book or the second book?"
"I dunno, I don't read kiddies books."
Or any books for that matter.
"Edward I got it." Jack interrupted down the phone line. "It was the second one."
"Thank you." Riddler applauded, sounding exasperated. "Now for the theatre."
Riddler took a moment to look around the theatre, scanning the posters on the wall for a clue. It didn't take him long to find something that made his eyes light up. He quickly tore down a poster for an upcoming performance and rushed back over to Waylon and the phone with it.
"The performance on is Animal Farm!" He announced, as if that was the answer they'd been looking for. Waylon stared at Riddler dumb founded. This didn't help them, did it? Sensing Waylon's confusing, Riddler sighed with frustration but everyone knew he was glad no one else understood the connection, giving him the opportunity to explain it and show of his brilliance.
"The aviary. Commissioned to teach Gotham about Darwin's theory of evolution. The man who commissioned it is called Beagle, the same as the HMS Beagle that took Charles Darwin to the Galapagos islands where he observed the evolutionary difference in the beak shape of birds."
"Okay that helps us how?" Waylon grumbled, too much information being thrown at him at once and becoming even more confused if that was even possible.
"The most famous bird for observing this were the finches, however, he did also look at Mimus thenca."
"The what now?"
"The Chilean Mocking bird!" Jack answered, sounding like he had just answered the million dollar question.
"Yes! But no points to you because you have Google." Riddler added quickly. Waylon could practically feel a gear in his brain click into place and start turning. A mocking bird.
"You're getting it now." Riddler said, looking very pleased with himself for making the dumb crocodile think for once. "The jewellery store made rings from stolen jewels. Diamond rings. And the second Alice in Wonderland book is Alice Through the Looking Glass."
"It's the song." Waylon realised, all the pieces of the puzzle fitting together and making him feel stupid for not noticing it sooner. How could he have noticed, they were pretty obscure connections. Still, the answer only managed to raise more questions. Why was Madeline appearing in locations that matched up with the lullaby. Or rather, why were the people that took her from him making her go to these places. Was this why she hadn't liked it when Waylon tried to calm her down with the song?
"I almost didn't understand it, but then I remembered you tried to sing that song before in your fight. And look..." Riddler hurried, shoving the poster for Animal Farm in Waylon's face. "On the poster. There is a billy goat, and a bull pulling a cart."
"So where is she going to show up next? A dog pound?" Waylon asked, unable to think of anything else to do with a dog named Rover.
"I got something" Jack interrupted, typing away on the other end of the line. "There is a car show in Gotham tomorrow night. Classic cars from the 60s, and one of the prize cars on show is a P5." Both Waylon and Riddler stared at the phone with confusion. Neither of them knew much about cars. Jack groaned with frustration.
"A P5 is a car made by MG Rover Group, the old car manufacturer before they went bust."
"The car show will go on late into the night though, will she show up with all those people around?" Waylon wondered. So far, Madeline's appearances had stayed fairly under the radar. Would she really show up in such a crowded venue?
"Perhaps. Each time she's shown up she's done something different." Riddler theorized, pacing back and forth across the stage. "In the jewellery store she'd wrecked the place, and in the library she'd been very careful until Waylon engaged her in a fight. In that fight she'd been on the defensive and made a quick escape, but this time she'd been the one waiting for him and was on the offensive. Each time she's appeared there has been no real goal other than to get to that location and get out again."
"It's almost like each of them were little field tests." Jack added over the phone.
"Yes, but with all those people around what are they testing. Her ability to get in and out undetected?"
"Or her ability to slaughter them all." Waylon suggested grimly, and the look on Riddler's face told him that for once he was right. Waylon didn't want to be right about it though. He didn't want Madeline to have blood on her hands. Sure, if it were him he wouldn't have any qualms with slaughtering a room full of innocent people. He wouldn't even blink. Besides, anyone who attended classic car shows had to be corrupt in some way with all the money they had. But he didn't want Madeline to be like him, even if she had been turned into a creature like him. The emotional numbness and distance from humanity that came with acting like a monster was a horrible feeling. It wasn't like Madeline was permanently turned into a monster though, they'd turned her back with that 'gene deactivation dosage'. There was still a chance that after all of this Madeline could go back to being perfectly normal. It also got Waylon thinking. If they'd turned Madeline into a monster like him and then turned her back, could they turn him back too?
"We need to come up with a plan to capture her before she kills anyone." Riddler announced, clapping his hands together in sudden determination and snapping Waylon out of his thoughts.
"How do we set a trap in a crowded room?" Waylon grumbled, getting to his feet as they headed to the door.
"Let me worry about that. All I need you to do is rest up and prepare for a fight with all of Gotham's heroes. Once the attendees catch sight of a 10ft tall naked female lizard, you can bet that Nightwing, Robin and all the other batspawn in existence will coming running to capture her as well as the GCPD task force and those private militia."
Waylon groaned at the prospect of fighting all those people. He just wanted to get Madeline away from it all and be with her again, was that too much to ask from the universe. Sadly the universe had other plans, including forcing him to ask the question, which Madeline did he want to be with.
As they headed out of the door of the theatre Riddler stayed on the phone to Jack. He'd switched the speaker phone off so the phone was against his ear.
"Get the analysis program up and running and replay the footage from the fight. See if you can figure out any patterns in her attack patterns or a weakness we can expose." Riddler ordered, sounding kind of pleased that he had a little assistant. There was a pause and then Riddler handed the phone to Waylon.
"He wants to talk to you for a sec." Riddler said plainly as he dropped the phone into Waylon's hand. Waylon stared at it as if it were a bomb about to go off. He hated technology. It was all so confusing and getting smaller and smaller by the day. Small phones were not good when you had claws for hands.
"About what?" Waylon grumbled as he held the phone between his finger and thumb, careful not the drop the thing. Riddler shrugged and walked across to the road to look for a taxi. Waylon always found it odd that a smart guy like Riddler didn't have a drivers licence.
"What do you want?" Waylon growled, holding the phone carefully to his one good ear.
"All the locations my sister has shown up in all tie in to the Hush Little Baby song." Jack explained. "She used to sing that song to me when I was scared to calm me down."
"Yeah, me too." Waylon confessed dismally, he really wanted to hear Madeline sing that intoxicating song again, just for another taste of complete and utter peace.
"Well it's weird don't you think. Say the people who turned her into that lizard thing are making her go to these places, how do they know about the song and its significance. It's a little to coincidental to be... well, coincidence."
"Yeah. Something fishy is going on with all of this. See if you can dig up any answers and I'll ask around to see if anyone knows anything." Waylon suggested, remembering what that city official, Twoface had interrogated, mentioned about a large sum of money being taken out of the Gotham bank for an unknown purpose. Perhaps the schizophrenic lawyer had cracked the case on what was going on.
"There's one more thing too that makes it all even more suspiciously coincidental." Jack added just before Waylon hung up the phone. "It's seriously freaky and makes me question just how much our lives are controlled by some omnipotent puppeteer in the shadows."
"What?" Waylon groaned, slightly annoyed with all the grim poetics. Why couldn't people just be plain and simple?
"The cemetery Madeline was supposedly buried in, Mère l'Oye Cemetery."
"Yeah?"
"Mère l'Oye is French for Mother Goose. Like the fictional author. There is a theory that the person behind Mother Goose was the wife of Robert II of France, Bertha, who was known for telling stories that enchanted children."
"Can you get to the point. It's cold out here and I'm tired." Waylon grumbled. Jack was as bad as Riddler with all the exposition. Why did he have to pry the answer from them all the time. Especially since this was about Madeline, he didn't want to waste a second on background information.
"Mother Goose is the fictional author who published the Hush Little Baby song." Jack explained, sounding half excited and half freaked out. Waylon certainly felt freaked out. That was way to convenient for it just be coincidence.
"And get this, the cemetery has been around for over a hundred years, well before Madeline was even born." Jack added, just adding more information to the mix. Waylon's head was spinning with all the confusion and that only irritated him. He wanted answers, and he'd been wanting those answers for a while now, and the longer they were kept from him, the more irritated he became. He needed to find Madeline and punish those responsible for turning her into their little Subject 3871.
Madeline woke up back in her cell. Her head was pounding and her body felt incredibly sore, but the strange thing was she felt more horny than anything else. She sat up and looked around her room with curiosity, why did she feel this way?
"You awake?" Jason asked as Madeline got to her feet and walked up to the glass.
"Yeah. I feel weird." Madeline confessed. No way was she going to tell him what weird meant though.
"You remember anything?" Jason queered half heartedly, he knew the answer was no.
"Only getting injected with something and feeling like I got hit by a bus." She sighed. She crossed her legs and rubbed them together as she stood, her hands on the glass. Damn she was turned on. Why? And more importantly, what could help her relieve it. There was a big fucking glass door that left her cell completely exposed to everyone else, no privacy.
She heard footsteps and quickly hurried back to her bed. Sure enough, the woman in the hazmat suit and her entourage appeared. The group let their boss out of the circle and step up the glass door of Madeline's cell.
"You did rather well today." The woman congratulated, again sounding like a proud parent. "You showed adept ferocity and skill. However, you didn't really think a lot during the fight. We shall have to improve on that for the final field test." Madeline was intrigued. A fight huh? Was she to be used as some sort of weapon then if they were making her fight on the field test? From what she had gathered she suspected that each field test had been for different abilities, like stealth one day, speed the next, and sheer violence in-between. It was almost like they were preparing her for something big. A final test, all abilities thrown in together.
The woman seemed to chuckle a little all of a sudden, which both confused and angered Madeline.
"What's so funny?" Madeline growled, crossing her legs as she felt a need to attend to her womanly desires.
"We will have to work on how flirtatious you are as well." The woman chuckled. "Poor Waylon, he could hardly keep his head straight with you acting the way you do." Madeline felt her heart stop in her chest and her breath catch itself and hold tight in her lungs. Waylon? Where? When? Had she seen him when she'd been turned into whatever it was they turned her into. Had he known it was her? What had they done instead of fighting. So many questions and no answers to speak of.
The woman turned to leave.
"Wait!" Madeline called out, hurrying to the glass door. "Where is he? If you've done anything to him I swear I'll..."
"He's fine." The woman answered plainly, but then a grin seemed to find its way into her voice. "For now. After tomorrow's final field test however... Well, we'll just have to wait and see won't we?" The woman walked off and did not give Madeline an answer to any of the other questions she was screaming. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she curled up on the floor, sobbing quietly. She was so confused and afraid. What was going on? What was going to happen to her? What was going to happen to Waylon?
They figured out the Riddle, but can they set a trap, and how does this secret organisation know about the Hush little baby song. So many questions and I don't even have the answers for them. Please let me know what you think in the reviews section. Keep an eye out for the update.
Also, thinking of plans for my next fan fiction since this one doesn't get another sequel (other than a couple skits or something) what do we think about a Roxy Rocket and Firefly fan fiction. Now I know its not a big dumb overly muscular idiot like Killer Croc or King Shark (like we like) but it has some potential to be more emotionally evocative and stuff. That or a King Shark X Killer Frost fan fiction continued from the events of Assault on Arkham (with King Shark's head intact of course) but I don't know how much mileage I can get out of that one.