Nightmare in Arkham
Chapter 34: "The Dark Knight Rises"
-Dr. Leland felt sick to her stomach and didn't know how much longer in would be before she puked her guts out. She had been climbing the myriad of stairs and catwalks for nearly an hour and each room they lead to contained a unique and twisted nightmare world. These rooms belonged to Freddy's nightmare creations and they all were themed after each individual one. For example, Mad Hatter's room was a twisted Wonderland, Sekhmet's was dark Egyptian tomb, and the Judge's room was like a prison house. She wondered what would get her first: the vertigo or this crazy funhouse of horrors that seemed to try and kill her with every step.
-Finally, she came to the top of the stairs and was met with a seemingly normal, albeit foreboding room. The room was pitch black but the exit door was just on the other side about 25 feet away from her. She ran to the exit as fast as she could but when she finally reached it she was knocked onto her back. She shook her head and looked up. The opening that she had tried to run through was actually a two-way window. She looked through the glass and what she saw on the other side made her jaw drop.
-On the other side, she saw Alice, Poison Ivy, Robin, and Batgirl all fighting an onslaught of grotesque monsters. Then suddenly, in the midst of the chaos, everyone stopped. A flame appeared in the middle of the crowd and quickly formed into a large mass of fire. Then the fire changed into another darker, more sinister looking creature than the ones surrounding the four heroes.
-"Ladies and gentlemen," Freddy proclaimed loudly and proudly, "I give you the moment you've all been waiting for. I give you: your worst nightmare…revealed!"
-Freddy moved to the side and revealed Sekhmet and the Bridesmaid each holding the unmasked Bruce Wayne by either arm. They each dropped him and allowed the unconscious body to slump to the floor, the anguished face exposed for all to see.
-"NO!" Batgirl screamed. She and Robin ran toward their mentor but they were stopped by the Mad Hatter, who lassoed them in the chain of his pocket watch.
-"Ah, ah, ah," The Hatter said with an evil glare, "I've waited a long time for this moment and I won't have it ruined by the likes of you!"
-Alice and Pamela also tried to rush to Bruce's aid but they too were thwarted by the Hydra as it wrapped its coils around them and hissed menacingly at them.
-Pamela stammered as she looked at the unmasked hero, "That's…that's-"
-"Bruce Wayne," Alice finished with complete astonishment.
-"Oh, so you know him," Freddy asked with a wicked smile, "Well now you're about to get even better acquainted." Freddy raised one of his knives.
-"Stay away from him! Don't you fucking touch him!" Robin shouted.
-Freddy wrapped one of his claws around Bruce's cranium and pointed at the mirror. Batman's profile lit up and Bruce Wayne's entire story began to play over the screen.
It started where Bruce developed his fear of bats when he fell down the well as a small child. Then it cut to the moment when he and his family abruptly left the Monarch Theatre after little Bruce was scared by a figure dressed as a bat-like creature. Had it not been for their early departure, the parents may have left in the thick of a crowd and not have been such easy prey for the death that awaited them outside.
As the parents walked down the vacant alleyway that would later become known as "Crime Alley", a figure emerged from the darkness brandishing a handgun. The metallic "chink" from the gun caused the family to freeze in their tracks.
"We'll start with the pretty pearls around the lady's neck," the figure said with a deep, growling voice.
In one swift motion the figure brought a hand up and tore the pearl necklace from the woman's neck, some of the beads fell to the ground clacking like bullets. The father got between the figure and his wife and was about to bring his fist into the figure's face when the sound echoed, the sound that would bring about the beginning of Batman's story: "BANG"
The father sank to the ground, his blood running red through the street.
"Tom!" The woman screamed. She ran to her child but the thug, shaken by the sudden attack, perceived this as a retaliation attack and the second "BANG" echoed through the alley.
Thomas and Martha Wayne both lay side by side with only a few feet separating them. Bruce walked between their corpses, fell to his knees, and looked up at the figure with tears streaming like rain down his face. The figure didn't respond. He was absolutely paralyzed with horror at what had just transpired. He backed away two steps before running off into the night leaving Bruce alone in more ways than one. Then Batman's entire story came spilling out:
-His nightly crusades where he wore nothing but a ski mask
-His brief moment of happiness with Andrea Beaumont
-His first time wearing the mask and scarring Alfred half to death
-His training in the mountains
-His love affair with Zatana, Selena, and Talia al Ghul
-His encounter with Ra's al Ghul, himself
-His inner conflict when he lost Harvey Dent to Two-Face
It showed everything Batman had ever gone through, every emotion he had ever felt, every encounter he had ever had from his childhood up until this very moment in time.
-When it was finally over, the room was so quite that the sound of venom dripping from the Hydra's fangs was actually audible and there was not a single breath from anyone. Finally, Freddy's laughter broke the silence. Freddy's laughter grew louder and louder until his amusement abruptly turned into blood-fueled rage.
-Freddy kicked Bruce in the stomach so hard it sent him flying across the room.
-Freddy reached out a hand to Bruce's body and it levitated off the ground.
*In the real world, Alfred and Leslie were both shocked when Bruce's body began floating in midair.
*"You pitiful, insignificant, worthless little insect shit!" Freddy flung his arm to the right and Bruce's body slammed into a wall. It did the same thing in the real world as well.
*"Dear God, what's happening?" Dr. Thompkins exclaimed.
-"It must be this Freddy that Dick warned us about!" Alfred answered, "We have to wake him up now!"
-They both ran toward Bruce but he was flung directly at them and knocked both of them down.
*"All this time, I thought you were special," Freddy said angrily with a clear sign of disillusionment, "You were the terror that haunted the nightmares of all of my victims minds!"
-He hurled Bruce across the room again.
-"I thought you were something more than a man!"
-Freddy brought Bruce's body toward him and angrily snarled, "But underneath it all, you're just another scared, lonely little child crying for mommy and daddy. I should have killed you first!"
-With that, Freddy slashed his glove across Bruce's chest, tearing the Bat-symbol off his suite. The force of his impact caused Bruce's body to spin around and Freddy slashed him vertically, ripping his cape in half. He then kicked Bruce toward the two-way window (Though on Freddy's side it appeared as a mirror rather than a window). Dr. Leland drew back into the darkness just as Bruce's body smashed through the mirror and into the dark room. A mirror shard skidded toward her and came to a rest at her feet.
-As Freddy entered the room, Dr. Leland took the mirror shard in her hand and crouched down to ensure the darkness would hide her from the monster that now stood before her. Freddy walked over to Bruce, crouched down, and lifted his claw into the air.
-"Lights out, Bruce Wayne."
-Before Freddy could stab his claws into Bruce's chest, he felt something grab onto him and then he was dealt a pain so excruciating that it was unlike anything he had ever felt.
-Dr. Leland had a moment of bravery wash over her as she was about to witness Gotham's hero get slaughtered and she leapt on Freddy and stabbed him with the mirror shard in the spot where the spine meets the neck. But instead of blood, the wound glowed with a bright blue illumination.
-Freddy turned to face his aggressor and when he saw Dr. Leland brandishing the mirror shard like a knife he took a step back.
-"Stay the fuck away from me bitch!" Freddy angrily demanded as he backed away from the shard.
-"Who are you calling 'bitch' you ugly piece of shit? The name's Joan Ann Leland!"
-"I'm warning you, stay away!" Freddy lashed at Dr. Leland with his glove and she flinched but still held onto the shard. Freddy lashed at her again and this time Dr. Leland jabbed the shard into Freddy's side. When she retracted the shard, Freddy was left with another glowing wound.
-Freddy backed away, clutching his side in agony. Dr. Leland lunged in and stabbed Freddy three more times, slashing deep cuts in his skin as she did so.
-Freddy crawled out of the room, injured and hurting.
-"Master!" Yelled Sekhmet
-All of Freddy's creations ran toward him but drew back when Dr. Leland stepped out of the room holding up the mirror shard.
-"Joan?" Alice asked astonished.
-The Hydra hissed at Dr. Leland but she kept it at bay with the shard. Keeping her eyes focused on the Hydra, Dr. Leland made her way over to Robin and Batgirl and cut them loose with the shard.
-"Let them go," Dr. Leland ordered.
-The Hydra glared at the doctor for a moment but eventually it did as it was told and slithered over toward its injured master.
-Freddy lay in a crumbled heap of pain as Sekhmet knelt down to heal him. However, before she had a chance to place her claws on Freddy's wounds, five souls (one from each wound) escaped from Freddy's body and shot toward the scattered mirror shards that lay on the ground by the broken mirror. The five souls entered five of the shards and they began to glow with a bright-blue, angelic light.
Within Bruce Wayne's mind he hung suspended over the Abyss by a set of chains fastened to his wrists. As he struggled to get free, Freddy's face appeared above him, smiling maliciously.
-"Checkmate, bitch!" Freddy let out a satanic laugh as he slowly reached down with one of his claws and cut the chains, sending Bruce Wayne falling inside the black.
-All around Bruce, there echoed the sounds of defeat, the screams of the innocent, and the laughter of sadism. Bruce fell for what felt like an eternity with the sounds never ceasing or letting up. They all played like a symphony at an orchestra, conducted by the failure of one man and the success of a force much darker than anyone could imagine.
-Bruce did not resist. This would not be his undoing.
-"I don't need Batman to beat you!" He shouted with such force that it drowned out the sounds smashing the silence of empty space. Bruce positioned his body into a head-long dive.
-Bruce finally landed in what appeared to be a bottomless pool of black ink. A long moment passed and just when it seemed that Bruce had been lost to the darkness forever, the ink began to surge and boil and rock in a torrential force like the ocean under the power of a hurricane.
-A black force erupted out of the ink and, propelled by giant gargoyle-like wings, it shot itself upward with the force of a rocket.
In the dream world, Bruce's eye opened but was milky white.
-Just as Freddy got back on his feet and turned to confront his attacker a loud metallic noise stopped him. The sound was like the footsteps of a being clad in body armor. And when the figure emerged from the darkness everyone, especially Freddy, was startled to see that was exactly what it was.
-Standing in the doorway to the shattered mirror, visible only by the light from the five glowing mirror fragments, was Bruce Wayne. He had merged with the Abyss in his mind and was given a new form. His suit had turned into a full set of pitch-black body armor. In one hand he clutched a massive three-foot-long blade and in the other a black Spartan shield. And his cape, which had been torn by Freddy, had turned into a set of wings that spanned at least 10 feet across. He had literally transformed into the Dark Knight.
-"Now that's more like it!" Freddy shouted with joy. His joy was cut short when the Dark Knight flew at him with the speed of light and struck him in the face with his shield with such tremendous force that it knocked him through a wall and out of the tower and into the night air of Arkham City.
-Freddy fell to the earth and when he looked up he saw the Dark Knight falling after him with his sword poised and ready to kill. Freddy kicked off the wall of the tower in midair just as the Dark Knight was getting ready to strike and he flew through the air, avoiding the blow.
-"Catch me if you can!" Freddy shouted as he flew through the air. The Dark Knight readjusted his course and flew after the dream demon.