Chapter 5: Ponitherapy
Over the next week Batman visited Arkham every night to drop off the ponies.
At first most of the inmates such as Bane, Poison Ivy, and Riddler had been reluctant to take the toys. Batman had even caught Poison Ivy trying to stick potted plants through her window to try and plug it up. Bane had been much more firm though. He had placed his hands directly over the opening of his door and would not take them away. It had taken the ticklish persuasion of the pink pony, or ‘Pinkie’ as the white one called her, to let the blue one into his cell. The Riddler was much easier to handle, the purple toy just melted a hole in the Riddler’s dinner-tray, which he had been using to cover his window.
Batman hadn’t seen any of the inmates throw the toys out of their cells however. Except when Joker had hit him in the back of the head with the head of the pink pony. However Batman had never found where its head landed. He only knew it was the pink pony because it had apologized when it hit him.
Croc and a few others, such as Harley, seemed delighted with the toys however. They waited by their cell doors for Batman to come. Croc had even thanked Batman one time.
He stopped at the door to the cell block, the key in his hand.
“Is something wrong?” asked the white alicorn, riding on his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” he said, “Something about this just feels…”
“Wrong?”
“Off. I mean you’re all talking toy ponies for goodness sakes.”
“Oh come on Bru- sorry Batman,” said Celestia, remembering he liked that name when he went out for the night, “I’ve seen some of your files. You’ve dealt with much weirder things that us before.”
Batman turned his head and looked at her sternly.
“And I suppose that while you were looking over my files, without my permission, you got hungry?”
Celestia shrugged and said, “Can I help it if than nice gentleman left some cake sitting right on the console? I didn’t know it was yours.”
“Riiighhtt…” said Batman, then sighing he said, “I think the problem isn’t what you are, or even what you’re doing. The problem is why you are doing it. Why help me? Why help them? What do you get out of all this?”
“Friendship.”
“Is that your answer to everything?”
“Listen her Batsy,” said the pink one, popping up on his left shoulder, “I know you don’t want to trust us. But it’s really true. We like helping people. It’s super-funtastic. You don’t always have to punch and smash your way through life. Sometimes the best way to help someone is to be nice to them.”
Batman hadn’t talked to any of the other ponies. Even after Celestia showed up they still seemed to be completely uninterested in him.
“It’s going to take a little more than that to convince him,” said Celestia, looking at Pinkie, “He doesn’t even trust himself. He has a backup plan in case he joins the ranks of the very people he battles against.”
“Time to pull out the big guns then,” said Pinkie, narrowing her eyes, “Pinkie Pie-style!”
Batman turned to look at her and found a cupcake jammed into his mouth. Pulling half of the confection out of his mouth he chewed, swallowed and the white eyes in his cowl shot open in surprise.
Focus on the mission, focus on the mission… said Batman to himself pulling the yellow toy out of his belt and handed it to Croc whose hand was sticking out of his cell.
The hand withdrew with a quick “Thanks” and a conversation began inside the cell.
Batman deposited the blue one in Bane’s cell and Bane started to sing quietly to himself.
“LOUDER!” came another voice from the cell, and Bane upped his volume.
Getting to Two-Face’s cell Batman deposited the navy-blue toy in Harvey’s hand and said, “Get better Dent.”
“He is,” came a voice from the cell as Batman walked away.
When Batman got to Joker’s cell he pulled the pink one out and said, “How have things been going with him?”
Pinkie looked up at him and said, “He’s tough but I’ve seen better. Don’t worry Batty before too long he’ll be saner than you… Don’t forget that cupcake now.”
He looked down at the treat in his left hand and said with a smile, “Got it.”
“Why hello my little friend,” said the Joker, bending down to talk to the toy on the ground, “I’m so glad to see you. You won’t believe what happened to me just the other day. After you left I said to myself “why don’t you stop being bad and just make friends with that nice pony”.”
Pinkie just stared straight ahead, she wasn’t buying it.
“Why don’t we hang out a little,” said Joker, holding up Pinkie nose to nose, “We can leave this place and go have some fun on the town. What do you say?”
Pinkie bit him.
Joker ran around the room yelling as she hung onto his nose.
After a few seconds he managed to detach her and throw her out of his cell.
“Maybe next time,” he said, sitting down on his bed.
He jumped up and spun around as Pinkie poked him.
“I’m not done with you yet,” she said, grinning.
Joker grabbed onto the edge of his cell window and held on for dear life as the pony pulled on his legs.
“You’ll never take me alive!”
“On the contrary, that’s just how I plan to take you. You’re no fun dead.”
The Joker lost his grip and she pulled him into the center of his cell; right into the center of the insanity.
The room spun around him, a whirlwind of concrete and pink.
“Wheee!” yelled the pony as she bounced off Joker’s head.
“You think this will stop me,” yelled the Joker into the maelstrom, “I revel in crazy, I worship insanity. You are looking at the lord, grandmaster tyrant of lunacy. Look up bad in the dictionary and you’ll see my face. I could give Satan himself a wedgie. I AM EVIL…”
“I know,” said the pink pony as the landed on the ground, “That’s why I brought you here.”
Joker looked up to find himself standing in what looked like candy-land. He was surrounded by candy, sweets, kittens and everything cute and cuddly.
“I’ve got this,” said the pony as she said goodbye to someone in a red suit and gas-mask who shook hands with Pinkie and left the story.
“Where am I?” asked the Joker, looking around him.
“This old place, I guess you could call it your couch until, I’m done with you. Go have some fun.”
Joker caught sight of what looked like some Russian guy’s head attached to a flying baby. Picking up a lollipop he advanced on it and swung his weapon. The little creature turned just in time to see it descend.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,” screamed the Joker, “Who’s bad? I am.”
Looking down for whatever remained of the thing he had just attacked he found it looking up at him with a big smile on its face and the lollipop in its mouth.
“What?!” said the Joker stomping on it with his foot.
It was like stepping on a squeaky-toy. His foot just kept rebounding from the resilient creature’s face with a cute squeak every time.
“Welcome to your own personal nightmare,” said the pink pony behind him, “You can’t kill a thing; it’s all sunshine and rainbows.”
Joker ran around grabbing things and trying to smash them. But everything was as light as Styrofoam and wouldn’t break, it was like he was trapped in a world where everything was made out of rubber. He clawed as the ground scraping up candy stones and throwing them around.
Batman looked into the Joker’s cell to find him lying there drooling on the floor, terror in his glazed eyes. The pink toy on the ground next to him looked up and winked at Batman.
“He’s trapped somewhere he can’t do anyone any harm. Don’t worry Batman he’s putty in my hooves.”
“Lollipops!” screamed the Joker, his eyes darting back and forth behind his twitching eyelids, “Lollipops everywhere!”
“This is just the first step,” whispered Pinkie in his ear, “Tomorrow night I’m thinking of bringing butterflies and maybe even some singing flowers.”
Joker twitched and, opening his mouth, he let out a scream.
“NNOOOOOOOOO!!!”
Batman raised his eyebrow at Pinkie and started to wander through the halls of Arkham observing the ponies and prisoners everywhere.
As he watched he saw the blue pony toss Bane around like a rag doll a few times, the purple one leave the Riddler stuttering and stammering for a reply and he even saw the green one untangle herself from one of Ivy’s vines by doing some sort of weird chant.
Harley was singing some crazy song and Croc was talking about crocodiles. It seems that in these ponies’ world there was a creature called a cragodile which was a crocodile made of rock.
Harley was having such a great time that when the music stopped she almost tripped and fell over.
Laughing, she looked up, “Hey, what’s with the uncalled for intermission?”
“I was just wondering,” said the orange pony.
“Yah?”
“You enjoying this?”
“Of course.”
“Well than how come you don’t do it?”
“What do ya mean?”
“Well I’m singing songs, and cavorting about here to make you happy. How happy do you think it makes me feel to hear that you like it?”
“Pretty happy?”
“Yes. So why don’t you do that?”
“You should see me and Mr. J when we get out of here. We make sure that everyone’s got a smile on their face. Whether they want it or not.”
“Yes, but how can you tell if they like it then?”
Harley didn’t have an answer for that.
“How about something in gold?” asked the Penguin as Rarity measured him, “I know the perfect place to get the material. 24 karat, solid bricks.”
“Now what did I tell you,” said Rarity, checking the tape measure, “You don’t need gold. Less is more. This way people can look at you and see that you are a hardworking, upstanding, honest gentleman who doesn’t need gold. Why you’ll soon have more friends than all the gold in… Where are we again?”
“Gotham.”
“Then all the gold in Gotham.”
“Yes, but what good are friends?”
“Well you can do a lot more with friends than you can do with gold bricks. Gold never tells you how wonderful you look. Gold never talks to you about what you’ve been doing lately. Why, compared to friends, gold is about as useless as… a rock.”
“Hmmm,” said the Penguin, lifting his arm so she could measure more easily, “I never thought about it like that.”
“I see your five and raise you ten,” said Two-face tossing some more of the little cookies onto the table as he munched on another, “Really nice of your friend to loan us the food.”
“I’m glad you noticed,” said Luna, looking intently at her cards, “I’ll let her know you appreciated them. If you keep any.”
Two-face looked at his dwindling pile, and then across the table at Luna’s monstrous stack.
“Lady Luck hasn’t been smiling on me that much, apparently.”
“On the contrary, she sent you me didn’t she?”
Two-face grinned and plopped his cards down on the table, “Yeah, maybe my luck’s changing.”
“Maybe,” said Luna, putting down her cards, “Full house over flush. I win.”
Two-face groaned and passed her the cookies.
“More pie?” asked Applejack, balancing one on her head.
Scarecrow sat there, his hand resting on his distended stomach, then be burped.
“No thanks. I’m good.”