Nightmare in Arkham
Chapter 25: "Saying Goodbye"
-Poison Ivy's eyes glowed with a daze as she sat on her couch with Batman massaging her neck, his cape still covering her body. She had not said a word since Batman brought her out of the ruined Eden but her occasional moans and sighs of relaxation told him that she was at least trying to allow her long-suffering mind some ease. Every so often, Ivy would start to doze off as the parallel stimulation on both sides of her neck caused her blood pressure to go down, at which point Batman would give her neck or shoulders a tight squeeze to snap her awake.
-When Batman took his eyes off the mirror, they stopped on the headshot of himself that Ivy had used as target practice.
-Ivy's throat felt sore from the strain of the vine and she took a sip of iced-water from the glass that sat next to the couch.
-"Batman," Ivy said with a weak, raspy voice.
-Batman paused his stroking on Ivy's neck. "Yes Ivy?" He asked sounding stunned that the plant woman had spoken. She turned her head and shrugged her shoulders, signaling for Batman to continue rubbing her, which he did.
-Ivy cleared her throat and tried to talk again. This time, she was able to muster more volume as she spoke but her voice still sounded like she was coming down with a bad cold. "Why did you save me?"
-"What do you mean?"
-"Why would you, of all people, go out of your way to save someone like me? You could have let me die; then I'd be one less freak for you to worry about."
-"Because," Batman said solemnly, "If I had done something like that, I could never go back."
-"Never go back? I don't understand."
-"If I wanted to rid Gotham of crime through murder, don't you think I would have? Don't you think I would have killed you, and Penguin, and Scarecrow, and H-" Batman was about to say "Harley" but caught himself; he dared not put that image in Ivy's head again. "Don't you think I would have killed all of you long ago?"
-Fair point, Ivy thought to herself.
-"Then why didn't you want to? It would have been easy."
-"Exactly," Batman said, "It would have been easy to just label something a problem and exterminate it, easy to just pull a trigger and watch the problem vanish, easy to just completely overlook the fact that everyone is just as equally a victim as anyone else. But then what would that make me?"
-"Just another murderer," Ivy answered.
-"Precisely," Batman replied, "I want to help you, Ivy. I've been trying to help all of you since day one. But the problem is none of you ever seem to want help."
-Ivy was speechless, she even felt touched. But after a moment of deep thought, she felt a heavy gloom push down on her. Batman saw this in Ivy's reflection; small tears had just started to run from her eyes.
-"Are you alright?" Batman asked concerned as he gently turned Ivy's head toward him.
-Ivy's lips trembled and she finally choked out, "I'm long past the point of help, Batman."
-"No, you're not," Batman insisted.
-"Do you know why I call myself 'Poison Ivy'? Because every living thing that I touch ends up dying," Ivy was crying now, "When you were down there, did you see the memorial?"
-"Yes."
-"That was for my children, my human children."
-"The ones that went missing in the earthquake?"
-Ivy nodded, "They died because of me. I loved all of them, and my love poisoned them," Ivy paused to sniffle, "And Harley-"
-"Harley was not your fault," Batman said leaning his face closer to Ivy's.
-Ivy ignored him, "Harley told me I was like a mother to her. What kind of mother lets her own daughter get beaten senseless by a psychopath for years on end? She had an addiction, and I enabled her! And then, right after I tore her away from someone who was trying give her the help that I never could, after I made her feel guilty for doing nothing wrong, she said 'I love you, Red'. That was the last thing she ever said to me…and I let her die!"
-As Ivy continued to cry, she broke off into a coughing fit.
-Batman took the glass of water off the table next to the couch and brought it to Ivy's mouth. Ivy drank the entire glass in just a few gulps and then began inhaling oxygen.
-"Easy, Ivy, easy," Batman said as he ran his fingers along Ivy's scalp. As he did so, something fell from behind Ivy's ear. Ivy picked it up and was both puzzled and amazed by what it was.
-In Ivy's left hand was the card that Alice had given to her inside of her dream. How was that possible?
-As Ivy stared at the card Batman instructed her to turn around and look at him. Ivy complied.
"Do you honestly think that's what those children think of you right now? The one who gave them a home; the one who gave them a family? And Harley, after everything that you and her have been through, after the chemistry you two shared for…oh God, how long has it been?"
-"Almost 10 years," Ivy replied.
-"And you think Harley would have willingly made her last memory that of you pushing her away? Let me tell you something, Ivy, you helped her in ways that not even I could have. Where do you think she would be if the Joker were her only companion? How long do you think those children would have lasted if you hadn't taken them in?"
-Ivy just stared at Batman in silence.
-"You know, Ivy, you have always intrigued me. Do you remember when you tried to start your own family with Steve Carlyle? Even though that family was created on your 'own terms', you did everything you could to make it seem real. Instead of forging a family from leaves and flowers, you gave yourself a human husband, human children, and you even told me that for once in your life you were happy. Were you?"
-After a pause, Ivy tearfully nodded her head, "More than you can possibly imagine."
-"And, once again, despite your hatred of people, you became a mother to dozens of human children. And you even struck up a friendship with one. Why? Why would someone who bears such a strong resentment toward mankind continuously embrace it and allow it to embrace her?"
-Ivy pondered for a moment but didn't speak. However, looking her eyes Batman could see Ivy knew the reason. But if she wasn't going to say it she he'd say it to her.
-"Because the one human you hate above all others is yourself, that's why."
-Ivy lowered her eyes. She could deny Batman's claim as long as she wanted, she'd denied it her whole life, but she knew he was right.
-"I remember you told me that, because of your immune system, you could never have children of your own. So what better way to relieve yourself of that pain than to shun away human contact completely? Except, while you can always distance yourself from a person or object, it's nearly impossible to escape the desire or need for it. Which, I'm sure, made you all the more happy when you finally got a chance to be the mother you could never be and to find love that you thought you would never find. But then, you seem to think that every time you fail to keep that person safe, you fail them completely. That their fate is completely your fault."
-Batman fell silent for a moment, having realized he had spelled out the exact same thoughts and feelings that been circling his own mind regarding himself and his own recent failures.
-After a moment, Batman sighed and concluded, "And in doing so, you make yourself immune to every poison except your own."
-Poison Ivy looked at Batman strangely. It sounded like he was judging himself as he was speaking to her.
-"Harley's death was not your fault, neither was the death of those children. Sooner or later, Ivy, everyone dies. Your touch had nothing to do with it. Because every touch you gave them was one of compassion."
-Ivy still didn't look too sure of herself.
-"But...But what abo-"
Batman then leaned his face closer to hers and cut her off.
-"There is no need for you to keep poisoning yourself, Pamela."
-Ivy threw herself into Batman's embrace weeping with passion. She had never been so touched by anyone's words in her entire life. Batman brought one of his hands to Ivy's back and started rubbing it while she basked in what she could only describe as genuine love.
-"I just…" Ivy said through her tears, "I just wish…I could have said goodbye."
-Batman opened his eyes and slowly ceased rubbing Ivy's back. After a moment of silence, Batman exhaled out of his nose and slowly rose to his feet. "Come on," he said.
-Ivy looked confused, "Where are we going?"
-"I'm going to give you a chance I didn't get," He responded.
Within the dream world, someone was watching Batman and Ivy on Freddy's screen as Ivy reluctantly rose to her feet and followed Batman out the door.
-"Christ," said a husky English voice, "For someone o' ra'ly cries, this plant sure 'as plenty a water in er'."
-Then a hand reached into a fish bowl that had small, live fish inside and grabbed one around its tiny frame as it tried desperately to wiggle free. The hand then brought the fish's head toward a mouth filled with yellow, pointed teeth covered in cigar stains. Once inside, the teeth bit down on the fish's head with a horrible "crunch" and severed it from the body. A tiny trickle of blood ran down the chin of the mouth as it grinded the scales, muscles, eyes, and bones like a piece of celery. Then, the Englishman casually tossed the fish's tail end over his shoulder and it landed on the ground in front of a catwalk just as the Headless Horseman and Mad Hatter ascended to the top, lugging the massive body of a motionless Gourmand. Gourmand's mouth was completely toothless and the teeth had been stabbed into various parts of his body.
-The Headless Horseman slipped on the ass end of the fish and released his hold on the bulking body and it covered the Mad Hatter as it fell on him.
-"There you blokes are!" The English voice shouted.
-"We would've been back here sooner if you'd have helped us," the Headless Horseman said angrily.
-"Pipe down and set that pika's boody up so we cun finish the jub!"
-"Who the hell died and made you king?" the Mad Hatter said as he wiggled out from under the reptile's body. When he got up, there was gunshot and a lance struck him in the forehead, tearing the neck from the body and pinning it against a wall. The English man then got up from the chair and walked toward the two monsters.
-The man was incredibly short, had a wrinkled face, a cigar in his mouth, a black umbrella with a tip that was expelling a small stream of smoke, a nose made from the tip of a steel blade that had been curved at an angel like a beak, and a top hat decorated with the yellow crest feathers of a macaroni penguin.
-"Oswald Cobblepot, that's who," the man said, "And I ain't a king, I'm the Emperor! The Emperor Penguin, hear me!"
-After the Horseman sat Gourmand's body up against a railing, he motioned the Emperor Penguin forward. "He's all yours', Master," the Horseman said with discontent.
-The Emperor smiled a disgusting, brown-yellow smile and said, "Gewd."
-He walked over to Gourmand and, as he was doing so, he activated a device on his umbrella that caused a razor-sharp propeller to emerge from the tip that spun in a circle like a saw blade.
-He looked at the Horseman, "You best stan' back son, things are about to get real messy," and with that, he gleefully plunged the propeller down on Gourmand's head, laughing as he did it.
MEANWHILE…
-Riddler and Two-Face were held up inside of the Solomon Wayne Courthouse. Both of them had scoured the city together after crossing paths with Riddler leading the way. Despite the abominable appearance of the slum they were roaming, Riddler still recognized much of the landmarks as those found within Gotham City: a little Italian restaurant on 19th Street, the Gotham Cathedral, the GCPD Building, and the Monarch Theatre. But, despite knowing precisely where everything was located in the city, logic was not serving him well. Every twist and turn would lead the duo into unfamiliar territory until they would find themselves hopelessly lost. Eventually, by a string of luck, they found themselves standing outside of the courthouse, the place that Harvey Dent was most familiar with. After flipping a coin, it was decided that they would take up refuge in the courthouse and wait for someone to come to them instead of blindly wandering deeper into the abyss of this nightmare realm.
-For nearly two hours now Two-Face had preoccupied himself with sitting in the judge's chair and flipping his coin up and down. Now the constant ringing from the coin was starting to grade on the Riddler.
-"Will you cut it out?!" he snapped at Two-Face, startling him and causing him to drop his coin as it descended. "How can you remain so calm?"
-"Because fate's telling me to," Two-Face replied.
-"Well have you tried listening to reasoning? Because mine is telling me that we should be doing something right now."
-"We are doing something: we're staying safe."
-"Staying safe? I'm about to die of boredom!"
-"Look I told ya this coin has never steered me wrong before. All we have to do is wait."
-"Wait for who, exactly? Did you see anyone else in the city while we were out there?"
-"No, but I also saw that we were getting nowhere. Do you even know how we got here in the first place?"
-"No, all I remember is resting my head on my pillow and then when I opened my eyes…wait a second."
-"What?"
-"We're in a dream!"
-"That's nuts, Eddie,"
-"No! Think about it: the repeating patterns in the directions we walked, the images that have been taken in by our minds' eyes, did you know it's impossible for the mind to create faces in a dream? Meaning, if you came across someone in your dream, you would have had to have seen them in real life. That's why you're the only person I can recognize right now: somehow our dreams have become intertwined."
-"Okay, so how does that help us?"
-Riddler face-palmed, "All we have to do is wake up!"
-"And how do we do that?"
-"Well, right now, we're clearly in some kind of lucid dream. So, since we're in control right now, we just have to create some sort of gateway for ourselves."
-Riddler turned to a door on the far end of the room, brought both of his hands to his head, and starred at the door with complete concentration as if he were trying to channel it.
-Two-Face chuckled, "Tell ya what: I'm going to flip my coin to determine whether or not you've completely lost your mind."
-Right after Two-Face flipped his coin, Bane smashed through the doors, causing both him and the Riddler to jump in surprise.
-"Dr. Johnson! Senior Freeze!" Bane called out, "I have found two more of our people!"
-Two-Face, having recovered from his shock, looked at the result of his coin toss. Heads: Riddler was still sane (more or less).
-Alice and Victor were in the midst of ascending a staircase when they heard Bane call them. Alice rushed down the stairs and darted around a corner with Victor following. However, just as Victor was about to reach the bottom of the stairs, he took one quick glance over his shoulder and stopped dead in his tracks. Nora was standing about eight steps higher on the stairs, her eyes piercing those of her long-lost husband.
-For about 10 seconds, Victor stood dumbfounded by the reappearance of his wife's apparition. Then, slowly as a drop of water sliding down an ice-cycle, a tear fell from Nora's eye.
-Victor's heart sank from the realization that his wife was in pain. "Nora," he said reaching out to her as a tear fell from his own eye.
-Behind Nora, as the staircase ascended higher, a mass of complete darkness appeared. Nora slowly closed her eyes and began floating backwards into the abyss.
-"No! Please, don't leave me again! Nora!" Victor screamed as he chased after his wife.
*"Thank God we found you," Alice said with relief.
-"Where, exactly, are we right now?" Riddler asked.
-"To tell you the truth, Edward, I don't have a clue," Alice said, then she added with a serious tone, "But we have got to get out, now."
-Riddler looked into Alice's eyes, sensing a major disturbance within her mind. "Something's troubling you, Dr. Johnson. Do you know something we don't?"
-Bane and Two-Face all looked at Alice with heightened curiosity. After a moment of depredation, Alice sighed and said, "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me. And right now, that's probably for the best. But if you want an explanation, right now we are all in one giant dollhouse and we are the dolls. As for the person playing with the dolls, the only way we can defeat him is if the five of us-"
-"Five?" Two-Face interrupted, "You mean four."
-Alice looked confused, "No, can't you see, there's-" Alice turned around and saw that Victor was gone. A cold shiver ran up her body.
MEANWHILE…
-Victor felt like his body was on fire. He had been racing up a staircase that seemed to have no end and the only light source guiding him through the shroud of darkness was the ghostly light. Otherwise, there was nothing else surrounding him but an endless expansion of black that threatened to consume him should he fall off the stairs. This thought greatly frightened him as vertigo began to set in, and he could barely keep his balance as the incline carried on to infinity.
-Finally, just when Victor thought his lungs would explode, the phantasmal illumination burst in a blinding flash that lit up Victor's entire surrounding.
-When Victor's vision recovered, he saw that he was inside of a giant ice-room that was lit with a dark shade of blue. The staircase had vanished completely and he was now standing on top of a giant iceberg at least 50 tall that was rising out of what looked like a frozen lake at the bottom. And standing right in the center of the icy platform on which Victor now stood was a cryopreservation chamber with the body of Victor's beloved Nora, once again frozen in catatonic slumber.
-Victor was devastated. Why was his mind torturing him so?
-As tears rolled from Victor's eyes, he slowly approached his sleeping beauty, placed both of his palms on the glass, and leaned his face and body into it in an attempt to give his wife as much love as her prison would allow him. Then, he looked into his wife's ghostly face and said, "Please, I'd give anything: my heart, my soul, my flesh, even my own life, just to hear you speak. Say something my love, anything." There was a long, moment of dead silence…then Nora's eyes shot open, and Victor beheld the most terrifying image he had ever encountered since the dead children.
-Nora's eyes were gone, replaced by two black sockets so vacant that Victor could see the bone-outline.
-Then, Freddy's voice sounded throughout the room. "Your wish is my command, but I'm afraid that before I hold up my end of the bargain, you'll have hold up yours': your soul belongs to me!"
-As Freddy's voice boomed inside of the room, the water inside of Nora's chamber began to boil and the entire room was cast into a crimson red light as the flesh and muscle melted off of Nora's body leaving only a charred skeleton. As Victor's heart was about to be regurgitated out of his throat, Nora's chamber exploded into a massive ball of fire.
-Victor was sent flying through the air along with a few chunks of ice as the blazing inferno that used to be his wife plunged downward into the frozen lake, completely melting the iceberg as it descended lower and lower. Once the hellfire touched the surface of the lake, the ice evaporated instantly and instead of being extinguished by the water the fire mass actually sunk into it as if it were a metal sinker. Under the surface, it took on the form of something gargantuan.
-Just as Victor began to fall toward the water, the form burst through the surface. It was a behemoth great white shark, so massive that it could have easily been classified as a baby Megalodon.
-Victor screamed a guttural cry of terror as he was pulled farther and farther toward a mouth as wide as the hood of a car that was filled with hundreds, maybe thousands, of butcher knives. He closed his eyes, preparing for death. An involuntary response caused Victor to point his arm toward the leviathan as if he were freezing him with his ice-gun.
-Instead of the pain of his body being reduced to a bloody, bony soup, Victor felt only the sudden blow that sent his body flying sideways through the air before he landed in the water. When Victor opened his eyes, he saw that somehow he was in his freeze suit! The problem now was the weight of the suit was too heavy and was now pulling Victor toward the icy depths. Then Victor saw the shark rising, rocketing itself toward him like an intercontinental missile. But as Victor gazed at the great white death approaching him, he saw that a block of ice that had been wedged into its maw forced the inside of its mouth open. Victor's freeze gun had saved his life.
-The shark struck Victor, knocking him clear out of the water and into a narrow tunnel in one of the walls. Victor turned just in time to see the behemoth sailing through the air coming directly for him. He quickly backed away from the tunnel entrance but, just as the goliath beast was about to collide with the icy wall, it once again shifted form in a flash of fire. This time, it took the form of Freddy, himself.
-Freddy gracefully landed right on the edge of the drop-off and stared with murderous eyes at his frightened victim.
-Victor could do nothing but stare frozen in horror, mouth agape, into the eyes of the devil that looked back at him.
-After a while, Freddy smiled sadistically at Victor and placed his gloved hand on the wall beside him.
-"Giving me the cold shoulder, huh Vic? That doesn't bother me, I've always been a little," Freddy's body ignited into flames just like when he confronted Dick Grayson, "hot under the collar."
-Victor began shivering with absolute terror. He raised his freeze gun. "S-S-Stay back!" he warned. Freddy began walking toward Victor, dragging his claws along the wall and leaving red scorch marks in their wake.
-"Don't come any closer you monster! You demon! You devil!" Freddy quickened his approach and Victor fired a blast of ice at the nightmare creature. However, the second the ice touched Freddy's body, it was vaporized into a cloud of steam.
-Victor began backing away while firing more and more rounds at Freddy, all with the same results. When Freddy started to close to within a few feet of him, Victor screamed and unloaded a hailstorm of ice upon his foe, concealing Freddy within a blanket of red mist. Once the screen of vapor completely obscured Freddy from Victor's eyes, the nightmarish fog began slinking its way toward Victor as if to devour him. Victor turned and began running as fast as he could with the fog close behind.
-As Victor ran the walls, which were frozen over in ice, would show him a reflection of Nora and then her face would disappear as Freddy's presence caused the ice to melt away. As more and more ice melted the vapor merged with the cloud, joining in on the hunt for Victor Friez.
-Suddenly, Victor lost his balance and slipped on a puddle of water on the ground. As Victor hit the ground his snow-globe, which had been stored away inside of a compartment in his suit, popped out of its containment and rolled far away down the tunnel as the cloud of vapor simultaneously transformed into a wave of lava. Victor screamed his last blood-curdling cry of pain as the lava swept over him, drowning him in a river of fire.
-After nearly a full minute had past, Victor's molten arm burst from the lava, followed by his horribly disfigured upper body. Victor should have died immediately, but his freeze suite had actually repelled some of the lava. But this only caused Victor to suffer a fate far worse than what he could have: a few more minutes of life, a few more minutes of agony too excruciating to imagine.
-The lower half of Victor's body was still submerged in the lava, and on his upper body, most of his suit had melted into his skin. There was barely anything left of his face except for one eyeball and a few bits of flesh on one side of his face. Other than that, his face and most of his body had been reduced to an over-cooked mass of red and black crust.
-As Victor feebly tried to use his last bit of energy to climb out of his fiery tomb, he saw his wife casually walk past him and stop in front of a huge door that stood in front of him.
-Nora stopped and slowly turned to her dying husband as the door flew open. Standing on the other side of the door was Freddy, who stood starring at Victor with a triumphant grin. Then, Victor's wish was granted: Nora spoke. She spoke the very words that Victor had prayed day after day, night after night, that he would never hear come from his wife: "Goodbye, Victor."
-Then Nora turned to Freddy, who grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the other side of the door and kissed her deeply as Victor was forced to watch in horror.
-"No!" Victor managed to scream, "Nora! Nora! NORA!" Nora took a hold of the doorknob and the last thing Victor ever heard was the sharp, penetrating sound of Nora slamming the door on him. Then, his quivering body finally stopped moving and Victor's body froze…for the last time.
In the real world, Batman stopped the Bat-mobile on the edge of a patch of woods. He exited his vehicle, walked over to the passenger side, and offered his hand to Ivy. She looked unsure at first, but then she slowly took Batman's hand and he eased her out of the car.
-Batman started walking toward a trail that lead through the woods and motioned Ivy to follow him.
-"Where are you taking me?" She asked. Batman stopped and turned around to face her.
-"25 years ago," he said to her, "I didn't get a chance to say goodbye, either. I want you to have that chance."
-Ivy felt cold run through her body and she hesitated for a moment, but then she slowly walked forward and followed the Dark Knight.
-Once Batman and Ivy cleared the woods, they found themselves in a small pasture with what looked like massive rocks in the distance. As they drew nearer, Ivy gasped as she realized they were tombstones.
-As they got closer and closer to the cemetery, Ivy became more and more wise to what Batman was intending to do and she tried to back away. Batman caught her arm and gently led her onward until they were standing in front of the grave of Harleen Quinzel. Written under Harleen's name was the quote, "Believe in the Best of Humanity".
-Ivy felt her throat constricting as the thought of Harley lying under the ground beneath her feet began tearing at her mind and she fought hard to hold back her tears. A part of her still didn't want her best friend to see her cry.
-"Go ahead," Batman said to her, "Say it. Say it now, Ivy."
-Ivy's lip quivered as she said, "Goodbye," then she could fight no longer and began to weep silently.
-Batman put a hand on Ivy's shoulder, "Do you feel better now?"
-Ivy took a moment to dry her eyes and compose herself, then she shook her head.
-"Of course you don't," Batman said, "Saying goodbye means nothing. But I know how you feel. After I lost two of the people closest to my heart, all I could see for years were shattered pieces of a life I thought I would never get back, of chances I thought I would never have again. The pain still hasn't gone away completely, and it probably never will, but I can assure you, it will get better if you allow it."
-Ivy looked at Batman with utter amazement, "I could have told the ones I loved goodbye anytime, but it would have done nothing to ease the pain. What has eased my pain is cherishing every moment that I was able to spend with them, accepting my tragedy for what it was, and continuing to move forward as I build a new life."
-For the first time, Ivy felt like she finally understood everything Batman had been striving for; everything Dr. Johnson had been striving for. In this moment, she was overcome with feelings she had not felt in years: trust, comfort, and even a small sense of happiness. She gave Batman a tiny smile and a final tear fell from her eye.
-"Batman."
-"Yes, Ivy."
-"I…want to go back to Arkham. I think I'm finally ready to heal. Will you help me?"
-Batman smiled at her.
A few minutes later, Ivy and Batman were driving down the street in silence. Ivy stared out the window at the half moon in the sky, thinking about the possibilities, both the good and the bad, that may lie ahead for her in her future.
-As Batman continued down the street, the Joker appeared in the road about 40 yards ahead.
-Batman gasped in surprise, but as he drew nearer, he put the thoughts out of his mind. The bastard was dead.
-He gently eased his foot down on the gas and increased his speed.
-The Joker began walking forward with a nightmarish smile as if daring Batman to hit him. Batman was undeterred.
-Just as Batman had anticipated, the second the hood of his car struck the satanic clown, he vanished. Batman continued onward.
-On the sidewalk, a man in a purple suit walked into the road where Batman had "hit" the Joker and watched Batman speed down the street.
-"Damn freaks," he said to himself as if it amused him, "think they own the city." Then the man broke off into maniacal laughter