//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: The Medical Facility // Story: Batmare: Arkham Asylum // by TheDarkMare16 //------------------------------// Inside the Medical Facility, I entered the Medical Foyer. The foyer is like your everyday foyer in any medical institution. A desk, chairs, and a small TV screen mounted on the pillars. What I expect is that the demented clown’s marefriend, Sweetie Drops, or Bon-Bon. (I go by Bon-Bon right now). She is calmly sitting on the chair, humming a tune while filing her hooves innocently. I noticed that an electrical barrier is the only protection between her and me. She stopped her tune when she noticed me. “Hey, scram Bats! This is my ‘me’ time,” Bon-Bon barked. “Where’s Shining?” I asked darkly. “Wouldn’t you like to know-“Bon-Bon replied rudely before she was interrupted by another voice. I know it is Shining Armor, tied up in a chair, out of my view on the other side of the Foyer. “I’m over here!” he shouted. Bon-Bon looked at his direction and threw a coffee mug at my brother. “Shut up!” she barked. “Ow, you crazy heifer!” he snarled angrily. As expected, the TV screen switched on to the clown. “Bon-Bon!” she cried out. Bon-Bon made a startled shriek and turned to the TV. “What’s she doing here? It’s too early!” Mane-iac demanded. Bon-Bon got up from her chair walked seductively to the TV, planting her hooves on the screen. “I’m sorry, pudding. Don’t be angry with me,” Bon-Bon replied flirtatiously. She smooched the TV screen in a loving affection. It sickens me and Shining of watching that horrendous affection and honor to the most murderous, dangerous, and most insane criminal in all of Manehattan. “Oh, you little minx, I can never stay mad at you,” Mane-iac said in the same manner before switching off. Bon-Bon turns to my direction. “Sorry, B-mare, you have to find another way. Bye-bye now!” Bon-Bon cheered. She turned around and did several backflips, out of sight. “No way past the security gates. Got to find another route.” Out of sheer frustration of another obstacle in my way, I exit out of the Medical Foyer and back outside. I grappled to the roof of the Medical Facility and galloped across the rooftops until I spotted a weak wall on the other part of the Medical Facility. I ran over the gap and pulled out my Explosive Gel. I sprayed the weak structural wall, stood back, and pressed the detonator. As the rubble flew everywhere from the explosion, I shielded myself from the blast and saw that it is another route to the Facility. I landed in the small space and opened the door to head back inside, the long way to find my brother. The Maintenance Access is a series of ventilation ducts and girders for janitorial and custodial uses. I climbed over the girder and spotted a duct I can crawl. I pulled the grate out of the way and crawl in. I heard the intercom, but it doesn’t have the tedious chime this time. “I want all the doctors rounded up, search every inch of the Medical building! I mean it; search every room, every corner, and every trash can! If another doctor tries to run and get out of the building, then you don’t! I’ll just flood the room with Happy Gas and leave you to die! Hell, I might do that anyway, sounds fun,” Mane-iac announced menacingly. As I crawled through ramps and forks, I found a dropout and landed in a small hallway. I crawled in a duct filled with cobwebs until I found the room that I was looking for: the Sanatorium. The Sanatorium is one of the biggest areas of the Medical Facility. The Sanatorium helps out patients, mild or hardcore, for patient interviews, examination, and mental treatments. A walkway with two stairs and ladders connected the lower and upper platforms of the room. At the bottom, showers and an area with a gigantic cell in it. On the far left of the Sanatorium are the examination rooms for interviews. There are five in total and one the far right, a small office-like box has all medications for the Facility. Enormous ceiling fans hung from the ceiling. It looks like one of the largest sanatoriums in your everyday mental institute. I peered through a fence of the duct and spotted five armed Blackgate scum holding innocent doctors hostage. One doctor is a mare, with scarlet mane and sierra eyes. She is trying to refuse their barked orders. “Get off of me!” she shouted. The thug ordered threateningly when he shoved her in front of the elevator. “Get down with the others, move it!” the thug barked. The mare flinched from the gun aiming at her head. “Okay okay, I hear you, I’m going,” she replied in a quivering tone. She walked slowly with the gun at the back of her to the front of an elevator on the upper level of the Sanatorium. She curled into a tiny ball and cried softly amongst the other terrified doctors. “Why does she need the doctor, I got to save them!” I crawled away from the fencing and stood up from the ventilation duct. Examining the room thrice for any nearby threats, I grappled to the adjacent stone gargoyle and switched between them silently. The thugs heard absolutely nothing but only hear the soft sobbing of the Evergreen doctor. I glided to the roof of the small office box and sprayed Explosive Gel on the weak roof. I used Detective Vision to spot a thug in the box, remaining absolutely statuesque for any slight movements. I grappled to another gargoyle looking overhead of a thug covering the entrance of the Sanatorium. Luckily, there is a small wall between a miniscule medical space and him. I lowered down the ground on the side of the wall and sprayed Explosive Gel on the wall and I quickly grappled up to the centermost gargoyle and counting the timing of two more thugs walking the walkway. I going have to wait until the two thugs walk past each other and with each other’s backs turned towards one another. I waited like a nocturnal predator, waiting for the opportune time to sneak attack them. Finally, when the two walk past each other for a good distance, I dropped on the walkway behind the left thug without so much of a decibel. I crouched without attracting the attention of the center thug looking over the elevator and the hostages. I punched the thug’s back and muffled his cries until he is still. I did the same to the other one. After finishing knocking the two out silently, I grappled to the centermost vantage point and noticed that the two thugs that are underneath the rigged roof and one beside the rigged wall are still there. I wasted no time pressing the detonator, resulting in two simultaneous explosions, the blast and rubble of the debris instantly knocked them out, and that alarmed the last thug. “Spread out, find her!” he shouted and galloped to the explosion of the wall at the door. This gave me enough time to glide to the doctors’ hostile location when the thug is out of the elevator’s area. The scarlet-haired doctor noticed my shadow and looked up to me, mascara smeared from her tears. “Batmare?” she asked quietly and shakenly. I nodded and grappled to a gargoyle. “Stay quiet, it’s not safe yet,” I replied noiselessly. I noticed that the last thug is terrified that his four comrades have unknowingly been knocked out by a mystique presence. That is what I like: pure terror and fear of me, the utter abhorrence of my presence, the shudder of my name and the knocking of teeth and bones in sheer dread. “Is anypony going to help me, hello, I need help here!” he shouted fearfully. He stood up from his unconscious comrade and began scouring the Sanatorium. Unlike the others, his levitation grip on his rifle is so unstable and shaken of his dread that he is absolutely next; he drops the gun and picks it right up. He swiftly switched from front and back, trying to catch whether I am in front of him or behind him. He never suspects that I am above. To ease his fear, I calmly glided towards him and kicked him in the head and performed a Ground Takedown. Shamefully, he didn’t have time to react when he spotted me flying towards him. He cries a little before I smashed my hoof on his head, sending him to sleep. Now that the threats have been taken care of, I can go the hostages. “The room’s secure, you’re safe now!” I called out. I climbed up a ladder on the lower floor and walk to the doctors. The scarlet-haired mare stood up with the others. The mare’s name is Sara Cassidy. “Hello, is there a doctor in the house? No, well I think I have a pile of wounded henchponies that need medical attention,” Mane-iac asked and said randomly after the threats have been taken care of. “Batmare, over here!” she cried out. I walked to her and she spoke. “I don’t know what happened. One minute, we were doing our evening rounds and the next, armed thugs burst into the room and took us hostage,” she said. “Did they have anypony with them?” I asked. “They took somepony to the elevator, I couldn’t tell who it was,” she replied. “They obviously didn’t want to be followed. The elevator appears to be powered down. You’re going to be okay,” I added. “We’ll be fine,” she said. The other doctor in a green nurse suit added in with more trouble. He is the same cream colored Earth pony from the very beginning of this madness from the Cell Block Transfer. Luckily, he managed to reach the Medical Facility after hearing Mane-iac and the Blackgaters are freed. “What about the others, we’ve heard gunfire, they could be in trouble. We should go and help,” he said. “Oh, no, I forgot! Dr. Kellerman is in the Observation Room and Dr. Chen went to Surgery,” Sara informed urgently. “And Dr. Evergreen went to X-ray,” the doctor finished. “Okay, stay here. I’ll find the other doctors,” I ordered. The doctors walked to the other hostages strapped in gurneys for examination. They calmed them down about my arrival. I climbed down the lower level and walk in a small are underneath a pathway above me, left below the walkway in a gargoyle perspective. Inside, I spotted a large cell for an obvious disfigured patient. The cell is has been horrendously ripped open with the bars jagged by the opening. Inside is a chilling site for the fidgety: skulls and skeleton bones of ponies that this patient had devoured. The bones are piled up in the corners. Some bone pieces are missing and skeletons are incomplete. Despite this shameful site, I used the Environmental Analysis and scanned the cell to solve the riddle: “TICK TOCK, somepony is not getting out of here alive!” “It’s the Enigma Show!” Trixie cheered. I exited out of the Sanatorium at the bottom of the area and entered the Upper Corridor that leads to these three medical examination rooms to rescue the three hostages.