Rain poured heavily upon the ominous city of Manehattan, thunder booming the sky and lightning crackling and flashing the darkness hovering above the city. The residents of Manehattan sheltered in their homes to keep themselves safe from the storm that is raging outside. As everypony are locked in their homes from any outside danger, a beam of light brightened the sky. To everypony else, it appears to be another strike of lightning but from everypony else that are working in the pouring rain, the light shows a symbol. But not just any symbol, but the symbol that promises protection and justice for the innocent and punishment and fear to the guilty. That symbol is the Bat-signal. As everypony are sleeping in during the storm, sirens blared throughout the slums section of the city.
“All units proceed to Manehattan Hall. The Discord has been apprehended, Batmare is now en route to Arkham Island,” a radio voicepony announced to the Manehattan Police Department. After the annoucement, many MPD police cars raced to the city hall where the incident happened. Sirens blared loudly throughout the entire city as they are approaching the center of the city. As they race through the slums, a long, black vehicle jet past them, leaving a red light trailing behind it. The vehicle is on it's way to the island to drop off the criminal that almost killed the mayor and the council tonight.
1st POV
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‘Hardly any traffic tonight, good.The faster I get to Arkham Island, the-,’
“Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” a cheerful, eager and maniacal pony asked repeatedly.
‘Better,’ I finished thinking to myself.
I drove past the MPD through the middle of Manehattan to drop him off back to Arkham Island, again. Tonight, I stopped him from killing the mayor at the Mayor Hall, without any civilian or police casualties, I defeated him when I snuck up behind him. Strangely though, I would’ve expected him to fight back but tonight…he just gave up and wanted me to take him back to Arkham Island.
This thing, who or whatever he is, he is no pony or living thing, that is for sure. Too many times he broken out of Arkham and continues to wreak havoc upon the city and endangering many lives in his wanton path. Too many times I failed to save lives as I wanted too, to keep anypony from suffering any worse from his chaotic destruction. Too many times I stopped him from causing any more death and violence and too many times I brought him back to the island to be locked there. I wonder if this is the last time he’ll be locked away, but frankly, I’m not too hopeful on it.
The thing that I am bringing back to Arkham is an amalgamation of many animals. A draconequus to be more precise, I wanted to say a chimera, but a chimera at least is made up of three animals.He—is not. He has the head of a pony, that’s for sure .Everything else: a lion, an eagle, a goat, a bat, a deer, a snake, a horse, and even a Pegasus. There is one feature that always get me, his jaundice-colored sclera and his beady, lifeless, dark, evil red eyes.
Those eyes are unlike anypony I’ve ever seen, they have no life. No mercy, no emotions, no light, just…they are red portals of nothing. Stare into them and you will be looking at the numerous atrocities he has committed throughout my career and his life.The number of lives lost in those eyes, just pure chaos and evil personified. No name, no former life, no occupation, no origin, no family, like he just appeared out of nowhere. There is only one name that he goes by, a name that strikes fear into everyponys’ hearts, a name that infuriates me and torments me in this life-and-death rivalry we have.The name?Discord.
‘I’ve been hunting the Discord for nearly two months. It was as if he had dropped off the face of the earth,’ I thought to myself again.
“Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” Discord annoyingly asked repeatedly. His hands are cuffed.
‘I like it when he’s quiet—,’ I pondered to myself.
“Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we--,”
*CRNCH*
I punched his face with the back of my fist, shutting him up. ‘But not that quiet,’ I finished thinking to myself. ‘He’s gone back into the chemical business, but that clown had way too much time to make mischief.’
“Hey, it’s Oracle! Heard you had a busy night,” a voice coming from the Batmobile radio called out.
“Yes, indeed. Inform Commissioner Armor and Warden Mare I’ll have the Discord at Arkham in fifteen minutes,” I replied and ordered.
“Already done. You know, this is the THIRD big gun you’ve brought in this month. I wonder if Arkham has any vacancies left,” Oracle said.
“There’s always a room ready for the clown,” I said.
“You don’t sound happy,” Oracle implied.
“All these arrests in the month, these came from three anonymous tips, and all of them panned out? That’s too…clean,” I replied back.
“What do you think?” Oracle asked.
“That they came from the same source, somepony with deep ties to the criminal underground, somepony who wants to clear the playing field,” I answered.
“Well, it can’t be Two-Face, she’s still in the hospital from you last…encounter. Black Mask has retreated to Mludhaven, everypony else you’ve pretty much locked up,” Oracle added.
“Somepony’s behind it,” I said.
“Remember the first tip? Police found it in Dr. Sweetheart’s office after her abduction. It led to the Old County Hospital,” Oracle asked, telling me about the first tip that happened earlier this month.
I narrowed my eyes as I remember of the incident that almost had Sweetheart killed that day.
FLASHBACK
Saturday, October 6, 11:45 p.m.
Four weeks ago, I found the first tip at the office where Dr. Sweetheart was interviewing with a patient but moved for a weekly leave due to her past…interview with the patient that left her greatly disturbed. Dr. Coldheart became her replacement after her leave. One day later, the patient escaped from the asylum and walked to Sweetheart’s apartment and abducted her to the old hospital. The patient was Prince, sorry, former Prince Blueblood, a rich and well-known pony from Canterlot City but lost all his fortune to gambling.
He became a thing that is close to the Discord’s level of insanity and twisted view of life. He views life as meaningless, unworthy, a nihilistic view of it. So, he believes he was purified from life’s grasp and decides to “liberate” others from it. By liberate, he kills them gruesomely with a knife and the worst part, he leaves the bodies in life-like manner, doing daily chores or anything a normal pony would do. He is never indifferent to any of his victims.He kills stallions, mares…even little colts and fillies.
Blueblood is a white stallion with icy blue eyes. He used to have long, wavy, blond and pampered mane but he cut it off after he discovers his new “purpose” in life. The one feature that always crawls his victims’ skin is the number of tally marks that tattooed all over his body. Hundreds of lives lost to his delusion, hundreds I could’ve saved. Truly, he is a heartless and emotionless monster that only cares about body count and tally marks.
Sweetheart is a plump, medium pink colored mare with fuchsia and white colored mane and tail. She has a white nurse symbol for a cutie mark and has white freckles on her cheeks.
I used the Batwing to fly to the abandoned hospital where Blood is with Sweetheart. The MPD followed along to get Sweetheart to safety.
“Remember how you poked and prodded my brain at Arkham, Doctor?” Blood asked to the terrified doctor.
Dr. Sweetheart is strapped on a patient’s gurney, mascara dripping, her eyes filled with indescribable terror and fear of the mad pony that is intent on killing her.
“I thought I’d return the favor,” Blood said with a sickening and deranged smile on his face. Blood picks up a scalpel and pointed it close to Sweetheart’s forehead. Sweetheart’s face is marred with sweat and tears, all she can do is muffle and whimper in fear. As Blood is closing in on her to tear her forehead open—
*CRASH*
“Hmm?” Blood asked and turned his head around.
“If I had gotten there any later—”
*CRUNCH* “Mmm!”
“He’d already have cut a new notch on his skin,” I said.
After knocking the insane pony out, I handcuffed him to a steam pipe. I took off the restraints from Sweetheart and comforted the traumatized doctor. She hugged and grasped me tightly, sobbing heavily from the near-death experience. I glared at the now awake Blood, screaming and cursing at me from stopping him from earning a new mark.
“I had taken Blood by surprise, he wasn’t happy about it. Can’t say the same for the next one,” I finished thinking to myself. Police sirens blared outside the hospital, they took Blood away and comforted and took Sweetheart in to be taken care of. The next tip started two weeks afterward.
FLASHBACK II.
Wednesday, October 17, 9:24 p.m.
I was doing my daily rounds of securing and looking at the city before heading off back to the Batcave. I turned and saw the Bat-signal in the distance, I knew something will come up.
I dropped by the MPD rooftop and spotted my brother, Commissioner Shining Armor.He is holding a tube in his hand.
“After I came into the main hall of the MPD, an officer gave me this package. I asked who was it from and he replied, ‘I don’t know’. Thinking it is a trap, I carefully opened it with my gun in hand and all I see in the box is a tube of a sudden. It has a note in it and it says it’s for you,” Armor explained.
I took the test tube back to the Batcave to check what was in the tube. I did a computer analysis and put the tube in a container and ran tests to see what was inside. I wasn’t surprised to discover that the tube contains a colorless, odorless fear gas, like Scarecrow’s previous toxins—but this version is stronger.
As soon as the gas leaked out, I saw horrific visions of monsters and hydras coming at me from all angles. The atmosphere changed to an ugly orange shade with billowing smoke coming from the shattering ground. The monsters roared and growled at me, fully attempting on devouring me alive.
It took almost all my willpower to defeat the monsters and wake up from the twisted warp of reality. I traced the tip back to Arkham Island, and as I suspected, I found Dr. Zecora already tormenting her interviewing doctors. Zecora doesn’t like it when other doctors are psychoanalyzing her.
The doctors, one is Dr. Stable and the other two are therapists helping Stable keeping notes of Zecora’s mind. They were clawing and screaming and crying in agonizing pain as they tried to fend off their darkest fears, both physical and psychological. This version of her fear gas vastly surpassed her formula she used years ago by miles.
I stopped Zecora from torturing the doctors even more and the Arkham guards burst in to restrain the drugged doctors from harming themselves more. This time, when I captured Zecora, she wasn’t seething in irritation and anger; she was smiling.
Hiding behind her sack of a mask, her twisted smile battles my scowl. She laughs even though she is beaten for the umpteenth time.
“What are you going to do, Batmare? Lock me up in a cell again and everything will be calm? *cackles* Oh, my sweet, delusional bat…this is only the prelude to the utter and complete chaos of what is about to come!”
I growled after she said those words. Not wanting to hear anymore of her fear-based drivel, I knocked her out with a right hook to her head. I looked at the restrained victims and told the guards to keep them strapped up until I came with an antidote to kill the gas in their bloodstreams. Hours later, I developed the cure and calmed the distressed doctors down.
The guards locked Zecora in extreme isolation again. I can’t help but keep thinking of what Zecora said. Normally, I ignore my enemy’s last words but these words, what if she is telling the truth? The first tip and now this in a short amount of time?What is going on?
END FLASHBACK II
I continue to drive the Discord back to Arkham at high speeds. I sped past the sign that was put up months ago to warn visitors or any other people about the dangers of picking up hitchhikers, potentially an escape inmate. Glad that he quieted down from his constant and annoying babble. But like always, he never stays quiet. He is always—
“Stand back fool, I got a bomb!Ah…no, wait.*giggles*,” Discord says to himself.
*sigh* loud.
“I still wonder who could’ve gotten close enough to Scarecrow to get a sample of her fear gas,” I said.
“Is it the fact that Zecora and Blueblood both attacked their doctors? Seems like a pattern,” Oracle added.
“Yes, that’s what I thought also, but the Discord broke it. He went after the mayor,” I said.
“Also, he also set a fire at Blackgate prison before he came by city hall to get the mayor. Discord’s rarely been to Blackgate, hell, he’s been there once. The only time he went there was two years during that prison riot you stopped. Why would he go back there and start a fire?” Oracle said and asked. I knew the answer to that question.
“To set his henchmen free, Discord has a lot of inmates in his crew. Question is, why would he set the fire and he came by city hall with only four henchmen?” I replied and asked.
FLASHBACK III.
TODAY, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 10:12 p.m. .
Luckily, the MPD received the third tip only seconds before Discord’s assault. The mayor was having a conference room meeting on Manehattan’s business and future events. Everypony in the council came by tonight regarding the planning.
“And now, fillies and gentlecolts, if anypony wishes to address me or the city council on city business—,” the mayor asked before he was interrupted.
“I do, I do!” a foreign voice cheered. Instantly, machine guns were raised at the confused and terrified mayor and council. Discord walked through two of the armed Blackgate stallions.
“It’s come to my attention, Mr. Mayor, that there’s a paucity of parking spots for designated clown cars. I tried to park handicapped, but they said I wasn’t sick enough. Heh, can you imagine that?” Discord announced.
The mayor shivered in complete terror of the disturbed thing that came in the hall and threatened them with ponies armed with guns, ready to turn them to Swiss cheese at any time.
“Why, Mr. Mayor, why you look so excited? You look like you could explode,” Discord said.
Discord raised up a bulletproof vest lined with highly explosive chemicals at the breast area. He walked up to the terrified mayor and ordered his henchmen to knock him out and hold the rest of the traumatized council hostage. Discord brought the unconscious mayor outside and brought him up to the top of the city hall building and strapped him on the needle top of the hall. His goons tied him up with the explosive vest on with a sack with a crudely drawn happy face on it with eye holes cut open.
The mayor groggily woke up and tried to move but he is unable to. Once he got bearing of his surroundings and saw where he’s at, he panicked and screamed. Unfortunately, his screams are muffled by the sack covering his head.
“Don’t be so scared, mayor! You’re about to be the main event to tonight’s celebration! Just think about it—one push of this button and all those chemicals will mix together to create one big, bodacious burst of patriotism! You’ll light up the sky, Mr. Mayor!” Discord called out to the terrified mayor. The mayor’s response to his impending demise are only muffled cries and screams.
However, Discord didn’t press the button to blow up the mayor, instead, he is waiting for a certain pony to show up.Discord looked at his watch and hummed impatiently.
“Hmmm, drat! I was hoping she’d be here by now. Guess she’s not the patriotic type. Oh well, guess the mayor will go out with a bang without her,” he said.
As Discord was about the push to button to kill the mayor, the remote shattered. He looked down and saw a bat-shaped projectile destroys the remote.
“Hmm?” Discord asked in confusion.
BATMARE’S POV:
Luckily, I destroyed the device and swooped in and unstrapped the mayor from the tower and the explosive vest. I looked down at the demented clown and his goons and was ready to take them down. Once I saved the mayor, Discord’s goons spotted me.
“Is that her?” one of them asked. They shot at me, trying to kill both me and mayor. They are terrible at shooting but one of the flying bullets hit the falling vest and shot through three of the highly explosive chemical containers. The vest exploded in red, white and blue colors, colored smoke billowed from the explosion. Discord and his goons ran away from the blast radius. The mayor and I were several feet above the explosion. I floated down to take down the clown and his goons. The mayor climbed up the tower in fright and decides to make an early resignation.
“I’ve had enough of this city, I quit!” he cried out.
Discord pulled out a large parachute that protected him and his goons from the explosion. I stepped on the parachute with enough force to take the three of them down. Strangely enough, I expected a fight from the clown, but this was the easiest takedown I’ve done this month.Three consecutive tips, I’d expected Discord of all the criminals that committed the tips to be the hardest to take down, yet he gone down so much without a fight. Something is going on, and I’m about to find out once I get this demented clown back to Arkham.
END FLASHBACK III.
As I continue to race back to the asylum with the cuffed clown, I continue to talk with Oracle about the situation.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, Bats,” Discord said. Likewise, I ignored him.
“Think you can I.D. who made the 911?” I asked to Oracle.
“I’ll try, but you know, all these tips could be unrelated,” Oracle replied and said.
“Maybe, but my instincts still say it’s one person,” I said.
I raced through the ominous thicket in the heavy rain. Hopefully, the answers to all of this going on will appear once I get to the asylum. The sooner I get to the asylum—
“Ooh, Bats! Have you ever tried to stay and maybe, not stop me from turning our beloved, dear old mayor into our country’s pride and joy? I mean, it could’ve been so amazing! Still, I should’ve expected the party to be ruined by Miss. Dark and Brooding. Ha!” Discord exclaimed happily.
*sigh* the better.
Meanwhile, in Arkham Asylum
Inside the asylum, many ponies wearing military vests and protective armor lined and surrounded the pony in charge of the asylum. Every guard is armed to the teeth with stun guns, batons, machine guns and various rioting equipment for the asylum. The security at the asylum upgraded from normal security to military grade. The pony that allowed such tight security is ordering the guards about their assignments once Discord comes back.
This pony is Warden Filthy Rich, the pony that allowed Arkham Asylum to re-open after Discord’s riot at Blackgate two years ago. He wears a black suit with a red neck tie. He wears black rimmed rectangular glasses and carries a cane with a red ornament with the Arkham logo in it. He is a middle age mayor, with black mane and tail with gray streaks, curled up in nice fashion. He wears a stern and strict look on his face as he is addressing the new security of what is about to happen.
“I need not to remind you of my frustration when you allowed the Discord to escape the last time. I will not tolerate such incompetence, not under my watch. We have a reputation to restore, do you understand me?” Rich announced and asked sternly.
“Sir, yes sir!” the guards cried out. Rich nodded and called them up in line to ready themselves for Discord’s return.
“We straighten out Arkham today, we straighten out Manehattan tomorrow,” Rich finished. Meanwhile, across from them, a stallion wearing a blue vest with a pistol and spear at the holsters sips a cup of hot coffee.The stallion is the husband of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, father of Flurry Heart and Twilight Sparkle’s older brother, Commissioner Shining Armor.
“Hmm, sounds like Warden Rich’s running for office,” a regular security guard remarks.
“No kidding,” Shining replies as he sips on his coffee.
During this, in a dark room in an unknown location, a door opens. A pony walks up at the doorway, standing with a seductive pose. Hardly can tell who the pony is, but we know that it is a mare. Inside the room, a bed with numerous tubes hooking up to a patient that is in the bed. The patient sounds sickly with the tubes sticking in the patient.
“Who, who’s there,” the male patient asked feebly.
“Me? Just your perky, rehabilitated nursing assistant,” the female pony replied in a perky and upbeat tone.
The mare walks up to the bedded patient and came into light. The mare is pink, she wears her poufy mane in pigtails; she has light cerulean eyes. She wears a sexy nurse outfit with a white unbuttoned dress shirt, leaving her cleavage open to the imagination. She wears a red and purple lacy bra, revealing her perky breasts to the pony who sees her. Around her waist, a black Victorian-style corset tightens her waist, enhancing her hourglass figure.
On her exposed stomach, a black, lacy G-string is on her hips. She dons a mini-skirt with fishnet stockings and black and red high heel boots. What really stood out is her face. She has white make-up on and black lipstick. Her eyes are covered with a black mask; she puts on a smirk on her face as she pulls up a syringe.
“No icky bedpans this time, mister, we got visitors. So, we want to make sure you’re nice and quiet,” she says. She pushes the plunger and the liquid inside the syringe glistens in the dimmed room. The patient tried to back away from the syringe but couldn’t because he is strapped tight with tubes running through him.
BACK TO BATMARE
I finally arrived at the asylum. I drove past the two pony statues that stood creepily at the gate. The asylum still stands at it’s unsettling glory. The late Gothic style architecture stood tall above the night sky. Surrounded by the Manehattan Bay, the asylum represents the solitude and emptiness once the bridge connecting to the city and Arkham lifts. Many buildings of the asylum are sectioned off into four main quadrants: the north, south, east and west wings. Better organization, better for the faculty to keep track of what is happening at the asylum. The main tower that stood amongst the buildings of the asylum is the mansion, which houses many archives and books that holds records of the asylum’s past and current history; from the mid 1800’s to today, over a century of history held in the mansion. It is also where the warden lives in.
‘It’s all easy, too easy. The night, the arrests, everything,’ I thought as I stopped in front of the building where the patients are housed at: the intensive treatment.
“Oooh, you got me home safe and sound, Batsy, and right before my curfew.Daddy will be so pleased, maybe he’ll let us go out again,” Discord said giddily.
‘Something’s off,’ I growled to myself. Narrowing my eyes, I stood out of the Batmobile and took Discord out of the passenger seat and walked him in front of the intensive treatment entrance. Whatever is happening, whatever Discord is planning, I am about to find…and I am going to stop it.