//------------------------------// // Death // Story: Smile Like You Mean It // by Cool_Quick //------------------------------// Gotham City. It’s a beautiful place on the outside. Inside, it’s like hell. It’s a land of corrupt cops, scared people, and crazy psychos. A few crazies have come and gone already. Some have stuck around. Penguin is mayor of Gotham, and really enjoys it. Most of the time. He also enjoys killing people who disrupt his daily schedule. At his side, working against him in the background is Edward Nygma, who will become the Riddler soon. I could go on for a while about Mr. Freeze, Butch Gilzean, the Red Hood gang, and, the reason for this tale. Jerome Valeska. In just a few short days, he managed to kill around 20 people, and brought all of Gotham in an uproar. He was killed by billionaire Theo Galavan, who just so happened to be a psycho himself. Galavan’s dead now, but his sister remains to remind everyone that his soul lives on. It’s been a year since Jerome died. Since then, a cult rose around him, growing by the day. At the time of this telling, over half of the city was under the cult. And now, they have a plan. To revive Jerome. Our story begins on a cloudy evening in Gotham, right in front of the building where all the frozen corpses had been taken after the destruction of Indian Hill lab. Guarding the building were two very bored guards, beginning their 23rd round of “Go Fish.” “Do you have any 2’s?” the guard on the left asked. “Nope, Go Fish,” responded the other. The first guard picked up a card, and shivered as a sudden breeze kicked up. “Jesus, it’s cold!” “Quit whining,” the other responded. “It makes it worse when you complain. You got any 5’s?” The first guard shifted position in his cold metal chair for the 17th time in the past half hour. “Nights like this make me wonder why we’re out here. And yes.” The second guard took the five card from the other, and shuffled his deck. Looking out across the street, he stiffened. “Hey, do you see what I’m seeing?” His friend squinted in the dim light the overhead streetlight provided. “Yeah.” He got to his feet. Coming down the street was a shadowy figure, walking with a bit of an unconcerned strut. “Someone’s coming,” said the first guard. Suddenly, the shadow split into two. “No, two someones! Now three! Now… holy crap.” The man had turned into around 100, and it just kept getting bigger. The first guard pulled out his revolver. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” The man in the front, leader Dwight Pollard, just laughed. A shot rang out, followed by two more. Dwight looked with exaggerated confusion as three of his “friends” went down, before going back to his strut walking. “I said stop or…” his words were drowned out by another shot, this time from the other guard, who pulled the trigger on his companions head. “Took you long enough,” he said to Dwight. “Ran into some trouble,” was the response. Dwight was a very jittery man, eyes always seeming to be looking everywhere at once. His fingers always fluttered, and when he stood still his feet tapped nervously on the concrete. “Well, at least you finally arrived,” the guard finally said. Dwight held up a hand. “Is he here?” The guard smiled. “Still dead, but not for long.” He led Dwight and two other cult members inside. The room was extremely gloomy, and very cold. There were a couple dozen frozen corpses, which were stored at -200 degrees Celsius. The room was like a giant freezer. Even Dwight, who normally didn’t mind cold, found himself wrapping his scarf about his neck and shuddering a bit. “Yeah, we have to keep it cold. Keeps them fresh.” “Where is he?” Dwight exclaimed in impatience. “Right here,” the guard responded, gesturing to the third capsule in the second row. Dwight nervously walked forward, as if expecting the corpse inside to suddenly jump out and attack him. This was Gotham after all. Looking inside, he stared in awe. “It’s you.” The guard’s face broke into a grin, and so did Dwight’s. “It’s really you.” Dwight broke into hysterical giggles as he stared at the frozen smile of Jerome Valeska. Everyone else did the same as they lifted the capsule out of its resting place, and carried it into the night. The next morning, at Gotham Police Department, Detective James Gordon and his friend Captain Harvey Bullock were having a drink. They had just looked at the crime scene, and talked to one of the cult members they had arrested. He was talking about "the awakening." That made everyone uneasy. Not only that, one of their own officers had betrayed them by calling Dwight and telling him about everything. He had been arrested as well. As the two sat and drank, Lucius Foxx came in. "Bad news." "Joy," Harvey said. "What is it?" "We've just had signals from Gotham Power Plant go a little haywire as little as fifteen minutes ago. They're trying to revive Jerome." "Oh, yeah, we really need that maniac to cause us more harm." "We have to go," Gordon declared as he headed out the door. "What about your...?" Harvey began, holding up Jim's half empty glass. Finally, he followed, muttering about spending money on nothing. At the same time, Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer were taking a walk around Twilight's castle. The two were having a conversation, which started with the typical how-are-you, and the-weather-is-nice-today and so on. Soon, however, it turned into a summoning spell discussion. "I know I can do it Twilight!" Starlight exclaimed. "I don't know," Twilight responded. "It takes a lot of energy and skill." Starlight gave puppy eyes. "Please?" Twilight finally gave in, and Starlight focused. "What can I summon?" She closed her eyes, and reached across time and space. Suddenly, she felt a jolt, almost like electricity. She thought she also heard a voice say "Come on, wake up." She saw an image of a man, unlike anything she'd ever seen before, smiling as he pointed a gun right at her. She saw him holding a knife to the neck of a little boy, laughing hysterically. "Starlight?!" "Jerome?!" A bright beam shot from Starlight's horn, and shot into space. She screamed, and crumpled to the ground. "Starlight!" Twilight yelled, rushing to her side. As she tried to revive her student, she looked at the sky. What could she have seen? What had she summoned?