Nightmare in Arkham
Chapter 29: "Execution" (Part 2)
-The Riddler felt like he was going to throw up as his mind tried to process the horror that had befallen his friend.
-"Victor?" the Riddler choked out unable to contain his shock. He grasped Victor by both shoulders. "Victor it's me, Eddie." The monster gave no response. "Victor please! Speak to me! Let me know you're still there!" Still nothing. "SAY SOMETHING, DAMIT!" The Riddler shouted as all of his fear surfaced.
-In a flat, monotone voice that sounded entirely machine, Victor responded, "Goodbye."
-Before the Riddler could say anything else, Painkiller struck him up the side of the head and sent him to the ground.
As the Hydra's head continued to carry Bane farther back, he tightened his grip on the fangs as his feet dragged through the sand. Bane finally stopped at the far end of the arena inches from the flame barrier. The heat from the fire burned intensely behind Bane and urged him to fight. Still grasping the serpent's fangs, Bane started pushing his way forward while the serpent head fought to push him back.
-Bane wished more than anything that he had a sword on him so that he could lop off this monstrosity's head and this image burned within his mind as he fought the creature. As Bane squared off against his foe like a heavyweight boxer the tiny blade fell from Bane's belt and landed point first into the sand. Bane didn't even notice until the blade gave off a fiery glow, and then it changed from a miniscule shank into a 33 inch steel scimitar.
-Immediately seeing his opening, Bane summoned a surged of strength and drove the serpent head's fangs into the ground, stomped his massive foot down on the head, and in one fluid motion Bane grabbed the scimitar and sliced clean through the thick neck of the snake with the sharpness of a guillotine. The remaining four heads shot forward with their jaws open ready to tear Bane to pieces but he cut them call down to size with four well placed slashes from his weapon.
-As the heads fell, Bane threw his arms out with the sword in one hand and faced the audience in a victory pose while soaking up their praise. This was short lived, however, as Bane heard the pained cries of the Riddler.
-Bane turned to see his friend battered and bruised as he was being thrashed mercilessly by Painkiller. Bane started running to his friend's aid but one of the headless necks intercepted his path and, much to Bane's shock, two new heads sprang up out of the stump, hissing with a vengeance. Bane turned to the central body just in time to witness the other four necks repeat the same process. The threat had doubled from five to ten.
-Before Bane could react, one of the heads clamped down on his arm. A searing pain shot through Bane's arm as the snake's lethal injection began to course through his veins. Then a second head clamped down on his other arm, then two more on his shoulders, his biceps, his legs, and then one on his back and the last one on his head.
-Within seconds Bane's entire body was enflamed in toxins. His heart convulsed, his vision become blurry, his muscles began to spasm out of control…and then he was overcome with the power and strength of a God! Bane soon realized this was not venom being injected into his body; it was Venom.
-Part of Bane's mind tried to resist the drug, for he knew the power of this super-steroid would consume him and he would once again become dependent on the drug in order to survive. But this moment of doubt was brief, as it was soon eclipsed by the surge of adrenaline, fury, and invincibility that had taken Bane over completely.
As Painkiller continued his assault on the Riddler, the Riddler tried to reason with him. "Victor, I know you're still in there," he said weakly, "I don't know what they did to you. But we can help you. Whatever pain you're in, we'll get you through it."
-"Pain?" The Painkiller said in his robotic voice as he lifted the Riddler off the ground, "I am not in pain. I am impervious to pain. Pain has become my weapon, as I am sure you are now discovering."
-Painkiller threw Riddler to the ground and as he landed he saw something escape from his possession and skitter across the sand. It was the Memory chip!
"No!" the Riddler shouted as he reached a hand for his chip as it continued to roll toward the fire. The chip stopped just a few inches from the flaming wall and the Riddler breathed a short sigh of relief as he started to move toward it. However, his body was in too much pain to make a hasty run for it and he could only crawl along the sand.
-Painkiller slowly walked to the side of the Riddler and lifted one foot as he prepared to stomp the life out of him. Before the Painkiller could deliver the fatal blow, he was struck by a force like a freight train and sent bouncing across the ground. Bane towered over him, his body and muscles now more than ten times their normal size. Painkiller didn't look worried or even affected by the blow; he looked indifferent.
-On Painkiller's cybernetic arm there came a low humming noise that sounded like a rotating fan. Bane took little notice of it and grabbed Painkiller by one of his legs and bashed him into the ground before hurling him aside.
-Painkiller rose to his feet as if he had simply tripped over his shoelace and starred at Bane, his red eye scanning him like a security camera.
-Enraged that his attack seemed to have no effect, Bane charged his foe like a bull and uppercut his enemy in the stomach knocking him into the air before landing another devastating punch to the glass helmet. However, when Painkiller rose again Bane saw that there was once again no damage, not even a crack in the helmet. The only change was that the humming noise had gotten louder.
-Now angry past the point of rational thinking, Bane took the scimitar and slashed at the hydra heads. Once they had doubled to 20 he allowed them to latch on and pump more Venom into him. Now 20 times his original size, Bane grabbed Painkiller in his giant hands, raised him high over his head, and slammed him over his knee with enough force to break him in half (but it didn't). Sure that he had crippled the android, Bane began to relentlessly pummel the nightmare creature with smashing blows from his gargantuan fists.
In the real world Dr. Leland and a team of doctors had been working around the clock waking the inmates from sleep. They had awoken half of the inmates when the news of Harvey Dent's death had reached them. This caused Dr. Leland to go into overdrive and she had managed to wake up the entire asylum save for Bane and the Riddler. At this moment, she was in Bane's cell.
In the dream world Bane had slammed Painkiller with his blows for nearly five uninterrupted minutes. Now he was starting to become exhausted. The excess amount of steroids in his system combined with the excursion Bane was putting on his body began to wear him down and now he felt himself growing weaker with each blow. Before long, Bane's blows stopped making their impact all together and he just swung at the air in a disoriented stupor. After that, he stopped moving completely and fell to his knees breathing heavily with his body covered in sweat and his knuckles covered in blood.
-Painkiller rose to his feet and slowly approached him, his legs giving off a mechanical buzz as he walked, and stopped right in front of him.
-Bane looked up with his eyes filled with contempt. After a brief moment, he gave a long sigh, closed his eyes, and responded acceptingly, "Take your best shot, you piece of artificial shit…"
-Painkiller grabbed one of Bane's shoulders and said, "As I said: pain is my weapon."
-Then Painkiller's mechanical arm started vibrating and the humming had reached a crescendo that was nearly as loud as a helicopter rotor. To say Bane's punches had no effect would not be entirely true. They actually strengthened his enemy. The Painkiller's body was like a mechanical sponge that literally sucked up the energy from heavy impacts dealt to the body and stored it all in the metal arm. And now, the arm contained the power of 10,000 bone shattering fists. Like Freddy said: "If you just stop feeling pain, you can start using it."
-As the Painkiller drew back his arm for the finishing blow, Bane had a vision of his mother hovering above him with her body encased in a heavenly light. She smiled tenderly at him and held out a hand to him. Bane smiled back and took his mother's hand.
-"Bienvenido a casa, mi niño," The mother said in a loving voice.
-The Painkiller's fist struck Bane square in the center of his chest.
*In the real world Bane's entire body exploded in a hell-storm of blood and bones. The glass door to the cell shattered and the walls and floor cracked and the blood filled these cracks and flowed through them like tiny rivers. A crowd of security officers and doctors rushed to the cell and when they arrived they found nothing left of Bane except a bloody heap on his bed. One of the doctors turned to the cell on the opposite wall, whose door had also been demolished, and noticed something lying crumpled on the ground in a pile of glass and bone fragments. It was completely covered in blood and laid totally immobile without and even the slightest movement or sign of life whatsoever. It was Dr. Leland.
HEADLESS HORSEMAN: "OH! That's gonna leave a mark!"
-"NO! BANE!" The Riddler screamed. He was now completely alone in this nightmare.
-The impact from the punch left a massive dust cloud in its wake and when it settled Painkiller had vanished and all that was left of Bane was his mask. The Riddler was now alone with the 20 headed Hydra, but not for long.
-"Hahahahahahahaha Gotta love the Power Glove!" Freddy's voice exclaimed.
-The Riddler looked up and finally saw the dream demon himself standing atop one of the snake heads. With Freddy's presence made known in the arena, the crowd went wild. Six spectators lined side by side used knives to carve "F","R","E","D","D","Y" into their stomachs, some female audience members clawed their way through the crowd (some using literal claws) and screamed Freddy's name like a horde of banshees, and many of the crowd actually ran into the flame barrier in hopes of getting close to him only to be incinerated by the fire.
-Freddy tapped his foot on the head and the serpent lowered itself to the ground. Freddy causally stepped off the head and walked over to the Riddler. He stopped a few feet in front of him and stared down upon him.
-"Alone at last," Freddy said with a wicked smile.
-"So you're the one behind all of this," the Riddler said with shaking anger.
-"BINGO! We have a winner!" Freddy exclaimed pointing one of his fingers.
-"Why?" The Riddler asked.
-"Why, because I'm an intellectual, like you. I believe in exercising the full power of the mind. The mind is, after all, the strongest weapon that has ever existed. But you already knew that, Edward. For Christ's sake you're the king of minds. And that's why you're still breathing."
-Freddy knelt down beside the Riddler. "You and I, Eddie, we're two sides of the same coin," As Freddy said this he flipped a coin in the air and it landed tails up in the Riddler's hand. Much to his horror, the Riddler immediately recognized the coin of Harvey Dent. "We both know the true power of the mind, we're both misunderstood geniuses, we both want the world to bow down to our superior intellect. Oh yes, you and I...we practically speak the same language." The Riddler bawled one of his fists in the sand.
-"So what do ya say Eddie, care to join me in making history," Freddy's tone turned threatening as he flicked up the blades on one hand, "Or would you prefer to be drafted like the rest?"
-The Riddler's body shook with rage. He muttered something under his breath that Freddy didn't quite understand. He knelt down closer to the Riddler.
-"Speak up son," Freddy stuck the tip of one of his blades in his ear and twisted it like a Q-tip. When he removed it, it was covered in blood, "I'm a tad bit deaf in this ear."
-"I said I'm nothing like you. I am not a monster!" The Riddler swung his fist off the ground and chucked a handful of sand right into Freddy's face. Freddy covered his face with his arm screaming in pain from the sand that was lodged into his eyes.
-Taking advantage of Freddy's momentary weakness, The Riddler made a mad dash for the scimitar, fumbling from his injuries as he did so. He grabbed it off the ground and staggered toward Freddy intent to kill. Riddler took a violent swing at Freddy's head but Freddy caught the sword with both hands and disarmed the Riddler. He then grabbed the Riddler and flung him through the air where he landed on the ground with his face mere inches from the fire.
-The Riddler tried to get up but Freddy stomped down on the back of his head and pinned him down under his shoe.
-"Typical Eddie: always too stupid to take advantage of a golden opportunity, never willing to play ball like a good little boy. I should be disappointed, but I would expect this from a moron like you," Freddy said coldly. The Riddler opened his eyes…and just a few feet to the side of him he saw the Memory disk.
-The audience began shouting in a riotous frenzy, "Kill the moron! Kill the moron! Kill the moron!" and Freddy was willing to oblige. He grabbed the Riddler by his hair and turned him over and when he did he was dealt a blast from a shockwave that sent him flying several feet into the air.
-The Riddler emerged with the disk planted firmly on his forehead and his injures completely healed. The device had spiked the Riddler's thinking, memory, and processing power to the highest level and since the Riddler's strength was linked to his intelligence, his mind and body were now at 100% capacity.
-"How's this for seizing a golden opportunity?!"
-One of the Hydra heads made a quick strike for the Riddler but, with lightening swift agility, the Riddler dodged the attack and leapt for the scimitar. When he grabbed a hold of it, it transformed into a weapon more fitting to the Riddler's style: a large, golden staff that was topped by a bladed sickle in the shape of a question mark.
-Using his expanded memory, the Riddler recalled the Second Labor of Hercules in which Hercules defeated the Lernaean Hydra. When the fowl beast struck again, the Riddler swung the sickled end of his staff through the flames and when he drew it out the sickle was burning. He then slashed the blade through the serpent's neck and the head was sent into the firewall. This time the head did not replicate because the fire from the sickle had cauterized the stump. Unable to regenerate itself, the headless neck receded in the central body. Then several heads came at the Riddler at the same time.
-Thinking quickly, the Riddler leapt onto the neck of one head out of the reach of its fangs. The head reared up and a second head struck at the Riddler but he jumped off of the snake's neck at the last moment and the serpent clamped its jaws down on the neck of its own comrade, killing it.
-The Riddler then decapitated the assaulting head and descended to the ground. The second he landed he was attacked again but he used his staff to sever one of the serpent's fangs. Another head attacked from above and the Riddler held up the snake fang and when the assaulting beast tried to close its mouth on the Riddler the tooth stabbed through its brain. The Riddler then grabbed onto the point of the fang protruding from the head and was hoisted off the ground as the head rose, and as the dying snake lifted its head another snake struck at the Riddler and also became impaled on the fang. The Riddler slid down the dying snake's neck.
-When the next head attacked, the Riddler hooked his sickle into its lower jaw and leapt onto the neck. He then pulled it out of the mouth and plunged it into the beast's throat and allowed himself to slide down the neck, gutting the body as he did so.
-Once on the ground, Riddler relit his weapon in the fire and lopped off the head of another attacking serpent.
MAD HATTER: My God, this man could give the Queen of Hearts a run for her money!
HEADLESS HORSEMAN: I couldn't agree with you more. He's almost as good as I am at making heads role.
MAD HATTER: What are you talking about? You have yet to decapitate so much as an insect.
HEADLESS HORSEMAN: That's not true! I impaled that Bat-Whore on my scythe remember?
MAD HATTER: With MY body, and I also remember her kicking your sorry ass immediately after. In fact, you couldn't even land a hit on me when we first met.
The Headless Horseman punched Mad Hatter in the face and knocked off his head.
HEADLESS HORSEMAN: Well lookie here, it looks like my mark's improving.
The Mad Hatter's headless body leapt onto the Horseman and the last thing that appeared on the monitors before they went blank was the two headless bodies smashing into the camera as they sorted out their disagreement.
-Freddy shook his head in disgust. "Kids these days," he said to himself. Then he was struck by a severed Hydra head and knocked to the ground.
-The Riddler had successfully destroyed all but the central head and now the single headed Hydra slinked away in fear. The Riddler allowed it to burrow into the sand and out of sight while he shifted his focus onto Freddy.
-As Freddy stood up the Riddler brought the sickle down on Freddy's shoulder and hooked it in place. He then leapt over Freddy, twisting the point farther into Freddy's shoulder and then he retched it free tearing a chuck of flesh out of it. As Freddy screamed in pain, the Riddler used the groove of the sickle to wrap around Freddy's leg and pull it out from under Freddy, causing him to trip. Freddy landed on the ground face down and the Riddler jumped on his back and locked the groove of the sickle around Freddy's neck in a perfect position to decapitate him.
-"Hey diddle diddle, time for a riddle," the Riddler said triumphantly, "It can be cracked, it can be made, it can be told, it can be played. What is it?" The Riddler placed a foot down on the back of Freddy's head. "Give up? The answer is exactly what you are: a joke!"
-Before the Riddler could finish Freddy off he made a seemingly desperate plea with the Riddler.
-"Wait, wait! Before you execute me, allow me to speak my last words. I'd like to test you with one last riddle."
-The Riddler pondered for moment then responded, "Very well. Make it quick."
-"I can't hurt you, but I can leave you with scars. No one wants me but everyone has me. But even though everyone has me, you are the only one who can see me. What a-"
-"A nightmare," The Riddler interrupted, "The answer is a nightmare. It can't hurt you but it can mentally scar you. Nobody wants them but everyone has them but only that individual person can see their individual nightmare."
-There was a brief pause and then Freddy began to chuckle. "Good, very good, there's just one problem," Freddy spun his head around so that he was facing the Riddler, "A nightmare can most certainly hurt you!"
-The Riddler jolted back in shock at seeing Freddy twist his head around. Once he was off, Freddy rose his feet. He then realigned his head back to its forward position and starred the Riddler down with a sinister smile.
-"Case in point…" Freddy raised his arm and pointed his index blade directly at the Memory chip on the Riddler's forehead. Then the chip began to multiply until his head was crowned with the chips. Before the Riddler even knew what was happening he was struck with a migraine worse than any he had ever felt in his life. The crown of Memory chips began to discharge electricity as the Riddler's vision began to blur. And then the Riddler let out an agonized cry of pain as his mind felt like it was being consumed by flames. The Memory chips were meant to be used one at a time or else…
-The Riddler's body spasmed out of control, he foamed at the mouth, and his entire central nervous system crashed. The Riddler was still alive, but his mind was now nothing but one giant question mark.
-"Riddle me this: What is the one question you can never answer, if the answer is 'yes'?"
-The Riddler's only response was a strand of drool that oozed out of his gaping mouth.
-Freddy raised the index and middle blades on one hand and plunged them through the Riddler's eyes and into his brain. Then he raised his other hand to the heavens with all four blades extended. A bolt of lightening came down and struck Freddy's blades, passed through his body, and went into the Riddler's brain. The electric current had no effect on Freddy. As for the Riddler, the electricity built and built inside his brain until it finally exploded out of the top of the Riddler's head. The remains of the Riddler's head looked like the bottom half of a broken, hollow eggshell and the jagged edges of what was left of the cranium resembled a crown, thus confirming Bane's prediction.
-Freddy lowered his face to within a few inches of the Riddler's lifeless body and asked, "Are you dead?" there was no answer, "I'll take that as a yes."
MEANWHILE…
- Robin sped down the street on his motorcycle following the high-pitched wailing of the police sirens. He was praying to God that he would get to Batman before they did.
High above Robin the Joker floated through the air like a tiny cloud on a summer day humming the ending of Johann Strauss II's Blue Danube Waltz. He backstroked through the air while lightly kicking his feet as if he were moving through water. As he neared a brighter section of the city, the large shadow of a bat descended upon him from above.
-Batman's body slammed into the Joker with the force of a sledgehammer. With his arms wrapped around the Joker in a grip that would have snapped his spine Batman crashed through the window of an office building. Everyone inside the room jumped in fright and began screaming and fleeing in a panic toward the exit as Batman smashed his way through three cubicles. Paper flew through the air as desks, chairs, computers, and file cabinets were knocked over.
-Batman stood up with the Joker still in his grasp but when he did, the clown slipped out of his arms like a bar of wet soap and went flying through the air before landing in a cubical about four rows over.
-Batman sprung over the cubicles in one single rage-fueled bound to the one the Joker had landed and was furious to find that he had vanished.
-The Joker's head popped up from another cubicle. "Haha, ain't I a stinka?" He said with a cheeky smile.
-Batman picked up a desk chair and hurled it at the Joker but he ducked back behind the wall and the chair flew past the spot where his head was before landing with a loud crash.
-"Brucey, I'm home!" The Joker said in a singsong voice as he appeared at the hole in the wall to Batman's cubicle. He then started mimicking Ricky Ricardo's laugh.
-Batman took a swing at the Joker's head but the sadistic clown quickly jerked out of the way. "Oh, almost had me there," Batman swung again and missed, "Just a bit more," Batman continued to swing relentlessly at the Joker but never landed a single blow.
-"Sufferin succotash, I don't even think Selina was this much of pussycat when it came to fighting," Hearing that line momentarily doubled the already ponderous anger roaring in Batman's head and he finally landed a heavy blow right square in the Joker's face. The Joker smashed through a cubical wall and rolled under a desk. Batman was on him almost instantly.
-He grabbed the Joker by the throat in one hand and slammed him face up onto the desk. With his free hand Batman snatched a letter opener off the desk and raised it high in the air above the Joker's head. But before he even had a chance it to start bringing the killing blow down, a batarang struck Batman's hand and sent the letter opener spinning down to the floor.
-"STOP! STOP!" Cried a voice that Batman seemed to recognize. Robin appeared before Batman. Keeping a cautious distance from the mentally unstable vigilante, Robin slowly approached, his entire body pleading for Batman to listen to reason.
-"Please, please don't do this!" Robin begged nearly on the verge of tears from seeing his mentor reduced to such a mentally broken state. "I know it hurts. You and I both know-"
-"No!" Bruce snapped with a sharp, penetrating glare that caused Robin to back up toward a wall in cold fear. As Batman spoke his breath shook and tears ran down his face. "No, you don't know. You don't know how many lives I allowed to slip through my fingers, the amount of pain I could have prevented from spreading, how worthless and helpless it feels to know that the last thought those people will leave this world with is that I failed them." The whole time Batman raved, Robin was helplessly bound to the wall by the unrelenting grip of fear as he was forced to watch the poor young man struggle for breath in Batman's unrelenting grip of rage. Batman's unstable, volatile mind saw this man as an image of the Joker, and now his face was starting to turn as purple as his suit.
-The man feebly pleaded for Robin to help him, which Batman heard as the Joker saying, "Hey, pain is the root of all comedy." Batman tightened his grip on the man's throat causing him to gag. Robin clenched both of his hands into fists.
-Batman finished in a dark, almost malignant tone as he lowered his face closer to the Joker's, "Or how long I've wanted to tear this disgusting smile off of this inhuman menace."
-And then something happened that caused Robin to experience a fear unlike almost any he had ever encountered in his entire life: Batman started to laugh.
-It wasn't a hysterical laugh, but it was so unnatural and so devoid of empathy or emotion that the sign stuck out to Robin as if it were written in neon lights: Batman was nearing the end of his mental breakdown, which would very likely result in the birth of a new, more dangerous Joker.
-Batman turned his gaze back to the Joker and in a wide smile, comprised of both boiling rage and emotional collapse, Batman said in the voice of true psychopath, "You and I have been playing Cops and Robbers for a long time. Now I have a new game; it's called 'Execution', and it looks like you're it."
-Suddenly, there was a loud Bang that came from two different sources. One came from the door to the office as it was burst open by a squad of heavily armed policemen lead by Commissioner Gordon and the second came from the sound of the metal fighting staff that Robin slammed over Batman's head.
-At the same time, Jim and his troopers were maneuvering their way through the office space and pointing guns into every cubicle. When they finally reached the spot they were looking for, Gordon shoved his way to the front of the crowd and gasped at what he found.
-The purple man was on his knees gasping for breath, Batman was lying motionless on the ground, and Robin was on his knees clutching a bent staff. His eyes were filled with horror, as if he had just committed murder.
In the dream world Alice, Poison Ivy, the Nightmare Reflections, the crows, the Nightmare Horse, and even the T-Rex looked up to the heavens in sheer awe. A swarm of bats dispersed from a church bell tower and fly into the sky passing in front of an image in the clouds that seemed eclipse the entire city. It was the Bat-Signal.
-From his lair, Freddy Krueger gazed at the monumental image with a smile wider than any he had thus far displayed since his arrival in Gotham City.
-Brandishing the blades on both hands, Freddy said with pure enthusiasm, "It's about time!"