I walked out of the canceled barrier and beside my left of the other control room where Mane-iac was, three chatter teeth are on and chattering incessantly and irksomely. Definitely one of Mane-iac’s toys and they mean that she was here. The most exasperating feature of the teeth is the high-pitched laughter of the Mane-iac in an insulting manner. From all I know, Mane-iac will scatter these tedious blabbermouths all over Arkham Island. They need to be destroyed, so I pulled out my batarang and threw at the three chattering trinkets, destroying them and giving the Holding Cell area peace from the mocking teeth. I ran through the gate to process to the Processing Corridor where Mane-iac was.
Unknown to me, a cell below the ramp, top right, is tainted, scratched, and unorganized. The locker in is titled and the wall is ripped and smeared with green paint. Tiles were out of place and a little hole in the wall defines the inmate’s desperate escape attempt. The bed is unmade and springs were exposed. But that’s not the exotic feature: the feature is that the cell is decorated with green question marks with words that said: Riddle me this. Can you solve this one, and one beside the bed, hell?
On my way through the Processing Corridor, the tedious teeth are chattering throughout the corridor. Several doors with hatches are lined up on the left side of the hall. Small television screens are mounted on top of the ceiling, facing anypony who is walking through the hall. What really captures this scene is a dead guard, mutilated and strangled to death, sitting and his back leaning on the wall. Eyes rolled up in his head and his natural beige coat whitens.
“Mane-iac was here. These poor guards never stood a chance,” I said to myself angrily.
I ran through the Processing Corridor, the alarm signifying whenever an Arkham inmate escape blares constantly. To my left and right, dead Royal Guards, Arkham guards, doctors, and nurses made the Corridor a horror show. Every dead body I see stokes my anger towards Mane-iac. I’ve seen atrocities Mane-iac caused, environmental and ponykind, but I’ve never seen bodies at this magnitude since four years ago. I watched the monitors that are mounted on the ceiling that shows the worst: Mane-iac has released all the Blackgate convicts throughout the asylum. They were running throughout the hall, killing or tormenting defenseless faculty members.
“Warning, security breach at level B1,” the intercom announced while the television switched between different areas in the cells.
“Alert, security breach at level B3,” it continued.
“Alert, security breach at level B7,” it said. I looked up at a TV screen, and like the others, a Blackgate convict looked at the surveillance camera watching them escaping their imprisonments. He looked at the camera and shook it violently, resulting in all the screens in the Processing Corridor static noise. The intercom continued to announce the numberless security breaches, more convicts to beat.
Speaking of inmates, I saw two escapees ran towards me, no other. A Pegasus and a griffon blocked my path to the Decontamination Chamber to the left. I countered the Pegasus’s punch by kicking him in the shin and the chin. I flew in the air and kicked the griffon, knocking him out. I landed on the Pegasus and performed a Ground Takedown. I did another at the pinned griffon.
I ran to the door leading to the Decontamination Chamber and a guard is trying to put in the security protocols to unlock the door. He is a white Unicorn with a shaven head, wearing a helmet with a small grid covering his face, obscuring it a little. His name is Eddie Burlow.
“Batmare, what happened?” he asked.
“Mane-iac happened. You’re lucky to be alive,” I replied.
“Must have gone this way, door is jammed. I’ll try to get it open,” he added.
“Attention, we need backup at Patient Pacification. Repeat, we need backup at Patient Pacification! Can anypony hear this?” a voice on the walkie talkie asked frantically.
“Loud and clear, Franklin, I’m with Batmare, what’s the problem?” he asked, answering the distress call.
“Backup immediately, it’s Zsasz! He broke free; oh my, Celestia, he’s got Mike!” Franklin exclaimed, followed by a garbled screaming on the other end. That could only mean trouble; I have to go to the Patient Pacification Chamber to stop Zsasz for killing another life.
“Where are they?” I asked.
“Down the other way, need any help?” Eddie replied and asked, pointing in the opposite direction.
“No, I’m better off alone,” I replied. Eddie nodded.
“Franklin, if you could hear this, help is on the way,” he said nervously. Eddie walked towards the protocol box, attempting to open it.
I ran to the right side of the Corridor to Pacification. More dead bodies ornamented the hallways. Before entering, I called my computer expert. Her real name is Princess Skyla, daughter of my sister-in-law, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, or Princess Cadence and my big brother and Royal Guard commissioner, Shining Armor.
Since joining my team, she was known as Batfilly, yet she is not relatively in the age of a filly, she’s around her early 20’s. She was exceptionally well in hoof-to-hoof combat and computer technics, but her career was tragically cut short when Mane-iac shot her through her midsection, crippling her to a paraplegic. She now adopts a new alias, Oracle, a master in computer hacking and networking.
“Oracle, can you hear me?” I said to my communicator encased in my cowl.
“Loud and clear, what’s up?” she asked.
“Mane-iac escaped custody and she’s running free in Arkham,” I replied.
“Do you need anything, is my dad still there?” Oracle asked.
“Commissioner Shining Armor is okay. I’ll stay in contact when I’m done,” I replied and turned off my communicator before I entered the Patient Pacification Chamber. I saw two guards standing in front of the door protected by the barrier. They appeared to be calling out to somepony. One is Zach Franklin, a brown Earth pony and another random guard member.
“You’re making a big mistake, Zsasz! You’ll only get in more trouble if you keep this up! Let him go now!” Zach cried. A pony named Victor Zsasz is on the other side, doing something threatening.
He is a pale Earth pony with shaven hair, wearing gauntlets around his hooves and one collar around his neck. His most horrifying description is the tally marks written over his entire body. From his hooves, his chest, abdomen, flanks, and head, he cut himself every time he makes a kill. He doesn’t care about stallions, mares, colts, fillies, or life whatsoever. He sees that they are zombies, stumbling over the meaningless purpose of living, so he liberated them by slicing their throats and leaving them in life-like positions doing everyday routines. He is a nihilist and sociopath who only kill for his body count. No pony knows how many and police and other authorities had trouble with tracking him down because his murder has little to no patterns.
He was Prince Blueblood, a royalty in Canterlot, nephew to Princesses Celestia and Luna; he lost all his money and status to poker and gambling. He lost his parents in a traffic accident and devoted his life of restoring his parental status. A thief tried to mug him after Blueblood’s life spiral in the Iceberg Lounge, lost a poker game against Fancy Pants aka the Penguin. Blueblood grabbed the knife and killed him, then mutilated himself by cutting a tally mark on his arm and the story goes on. In addition, he added tattoos on his back, tribal wings on his back and the back of his head. His incarceration in Arkham is indefinite because his unsympathetic perspective towards life and murder of over 300 ponies. Definitely one of the most dangerous ponies I have ever encountered in my Batmare career.
“Thank Celestia you’re here, Batmare! It’s Zsasz, he’s got Mike strapped to a chair; Zsasz has totally lost it!” Franklin exclaimed.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get him,” I replied.
“You can’t, he says he’ll kill Mike if anypony sees him!” Zach warned.
“He won’t see me,” I said darkly.
In the Pacification Chamber, Blueblood is levitating a remote that controls the electrotherapy chair with Mike in it. Mike is terrified and breathing heavily due to the countless shocks he’d received from this monster.
“If I see anything that looks even a little bit like a bat and this guard dies. Do you hear me?” he warned. He pressed the remote, adding another 5000 volts through Mike. Mike screamed was drowned and garbled by the power surge. Zsasz laughed manically with it. This ends now.
I ran through the stairs leading to the upper floor and control box of the Pacification Chamber. At a control box, I spotted an elderly psychiatrist who did therapy with Killer Croc, Zsasz, and the Riddler. Her hair has a salt and pepper pattern in it and dons circular glasses. Her name is Gretchen Whistler; she’s been in Arkham the longest. Unlike the other psychiatrists who became nervous and had a psychological breakdown, she is the most experienced of all.
“This is disgraceful. How did a patient like Blueblood get free?” she asked with a Slovakian accent.
“We’ll worry about that later, doc,” I said.
“You now he wants to kill the guard. He needs to kill the guard,” she added and turned back to work on the Pacification system.
I walked to the railing with two more guards, watching from below, Zsasz completely oblivious of their presence.
“Batmare, he’s got my buddy, do something, please?” a guard asked.
“Don’t worry, keep him occupied. I’ll get in behind him,” I ordered. The guard nodded and continued to draw Zsasz’s attention.
“Give up, Zsasz, you’ll get in a lot of trouble!” he shouted.
“How many times do you need to be told? Keep away or this little piggy dies,” Blueblood said cruelly.
I looked up at the ceiling and used Detective Mode to see four stone gargoyle vantage points. This mode is an X-ray vision, heat vision, and night vision. I’m allowed to see hostages, people, hostiles, day and night. I’m able to see their heart rates, health status and their moods: Deceased, Unconscious, Minimum Life signs, Calm, Nervous, and Terrified. This is a very useful mechanism for my cowl.
“These old gargoyles are able to support my weight when I grapple on to them,” I said to myself.
I used my Grappling Gun to grapple on the stone gargoyles and climbed on top on them, making no noise at all. I grapple to the other gargoyles when I am above and behind Zsasz, perfect. I glided behind Zsasz and kicked him behind his head, knocking him to the ground, making him drop the remote. It’s not over yet.
“Zsasz is down but not out. I need to get in close to perform a Takedown to finish him off,” I said.
I jumped and landed on Zsasz and punched the deranged, former royalty of Canterlot to submission. Now, it’s over.
“Somepony, put this animal back to his cell,” Zach ordered angrily.
Just before I progress to put Mane-iac back to custody, I spotted a television screen turned on and being adjusted. A pony is working on it, probably the one who helped Mane-iac. Then, I heard that familiar female voice.
“Can you hear me, is this thing on?” she asked innocently.
The mare is cream coated. Her purple and white curled mane is made into two pigtails, one end dyed red and the other black. She dons a red corset with a naughty nurse outfit underneath, exposing her abdomen. She wears two boots on her hind legs, her right one red and the left one purple. Her face has make-up and wears a small black mask to cover her eyes, leaving her azure eyes visible. Also, the reason why Mane-iac is free is because she got the Warden’s security card, the only card with protocols that can access anything and anywhere on Arkham Island.
The only thing I feel a little pity for is she was a former psychiatrist at Arkham, a very inexperienced one, excited to do therapy with dangerous patients with extreme personalities. Unfortunately, she met with the Mane-iac. Mane-iac found the perfect opportunity to feed her lies and garbage about jokes, life, and how I was portrayed the villain in the ‘party’. She believed every falsehood that came out of Mane-iac’s filthy mouth. She later freed Mane-iac after I put her in after our first fight four years ago. She now plays the role of Mane-iac’s sidekick and could do anything, even kill, for Mane-iac’s approval, the only thing she ever wants. Of course, knowing Mane-iac, she treats her crew and sidekicks like nothing. If there is a time that pony quits or even thinks wrong about Mane-iac, she’ll seduce her again and keeping her under her control. Severe case of Stockholm syndrome; the mare’s name is Sweetie Drops aka Bon-Bon. Surprisingly a good athletic, her syndrome continues to drop with her sanity if anything bad happens to Mane-iac, devotes her whole life protecting and loving her, only resulting in Mane-iac’s approval, which of course, is a front to keep her from killing her. After her encounter with Mane-iac, Sweetie became the victim herself, albeit a very dangerous one.
"Oh, hiya, B-mare; Bon-Bon here, how do you like my new uniform? Pretty hot, huh?” Bon-Bon introduced and twirls around, flaunting me with her outfit. “Oh, I’ve got something to show you; one second, B-mare!” “Tada!” she said while going off the screen to get something. That something is no surprise to me. A chair rolled in front of the camera and the Warden Quincy Sharp is tied in it. Muffled shouting are his only answers in front of me, the tape that covered his mouth has a crudely drawn smile on it. This display sickens me.
“What you think, B-mare? Old Sharpie has never been happier,” she said while rubbing Sharp’s head seductively, irritating me more. “Now in case you’re wondering, today is the Mane-iac’s big homecoming and you’re the guest of honor,” she said while playing with Quincy’s staff.
“You got one chance to surrender, Bon-Bon,” I said angrily.
“Tempting, Bats, but no dice. Now, the inmates are running the asylum; technically, they’re Mane-iac’s goons shipped in from Blackgate, but you get the idea. Bye-bye, for now,” she added. Then, she hit the camera with the staff and leaving the screen a static noise. Now, I’ve got two clowns I need to take down, Mane-iac and her crazy sidekick.