Quentin's face blanched.
"Oh, shit MOVE!"
They scattered.
The Beast lunged, a blur of murderous muscle. The darkness of the mindscape rippled with every stomp, shockwaves skittering across the endless void.
Vey met him first his eyes deceptively calm as he approached rapidly, "I've held you back before, I can do it again."
He in fact didn't do it again.
The Beast slammed into him like a truck plowing through a cardboard sign. Vey's body whipped backward, his heels carving glowing streaks in the dark floor. Quentin darted in from the flank, brass knuckles resting comfortably in his palms cracking them both into the Beast's ribs—
—only for the Beast to snatch Quentin by the throat and hurl him like garbage. Quentin spiraled off into the darkness, screaming curses the whole way.
Kieran tried to intercept.
"Hey! Big guy! Over here, you—"
The Beast swatted him aside as if flicking lint. Kieran hit the ground, rolled, and skidded until he thumped to a stop on his back, groaning.
Only Nolan was left standing.
The Beast's head swiveled toward him. Slow. Predatory. Inevitable.
Nolan stumbled backward.
"H-Hey, let's talk—"
The Beast roared and charged.
A freight train of claws, rage, and unstoppable mass.
He crashed into Nolan, lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the nothingness behind him. The impact detonated like thunder. Nolan felt ribs crack—or he thought he did. It was a mindscape. Did ribs crack here? Did pain work the same?
He didn't have time to wonder. The Beast grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him.
Nolan flew across the endless black expanse, tumbling, helpless.
He braced for impact.
He threw his arms around his face.
This is gonna hurt—
WHUMPH.
Softness.
Nolan blinked.
He was lying on… a massive, ridiculous, bright-blue couch cushion. Floating in the void like some cartoon gag prop.
"…what the fuck?"
He sat up. The Beast was already sprinting toward him again, claws tearing sparks out of the floor that technically didn't exist.
Kieran, pushing himself upright far in the distance, cupped his hands and shouted:
"NOLAN!"
No reaction.
"NOLAN, LISTEN TO ME!"
The Beast closed in.
"NOLAN, IT'S YOUR MIND!" Kieran roared. "THIS—ALL OF THIS—IS YOUR MIND! YOU CONTROL IT!"
Nolan blinked, stunned.
Kieran's voice echoed across the void:
"YOU ARE GOD HERE! NOLAN—USE IT!"
The Beast leapt.
Nolan's survival instinct fired and the darkness around him swirled.
Everything stopped.
For a breath, a beat, a flicker—the entire void around them rippled like ink disturbed by a dropped stone. Vey, Quentin, Kieran, and Nolan all blinked as the darkness swirled, pulled into spirals, twisted into fog—
—and then snapped into something else entirely.
Cold tile under their feet.
Flickering yellow lights above.
Distant screams, metal doors clanging, PA systems crackling with static.
They all turned, taking in the peeling paint, the rusted bars, the faint scent of disinfectant and rot.
They were standing inside Arkham Asylum.
Everyone froze.
Quentin was the first to break the silence, "…what the fuck?" He threw his arms up. "Why are we back here?!"
Nolan swallowed hard. His eyes drifted over a hallway he knew too well—the same turns he memorized during sleepless nights, the same corners where he felt watched, the same echoing corridors he'd paced before therapy sessions.
He whispered, "I… I guess I'm just familiar with this place?"
He exhaled.
"And when I thought of something maze-like… something that could distract him… this was the first thing that came to mind."
A distant roar rattled the vents.
The Beast was somewhere in the asylum.
Running.
Sniffing.
Searching.
The metal doors down the hall boomed one by one, as if he was punching through them, room after room.
Vey muttered, "Great. Love that for us. A pissed-off murder monster loose in a mental institution. Comforting."
Kieran spun in a circle, checking every direction. "Okay, okay—nice ambience, Nolan—but where the hell is the chair? The throne thing. Where's the fucking chair?!"
Nolan looked around with growing dread.
"I… I don't know. It didn't come with us."
Quentin pointed sharply. "You brought Arkham. You can bring that damn chair! Think!"
Another roar tore through the vents—closer this time.
Nolan squeezed his eyes shut, fists clenching, breathing slow, trying to focus past the chaos in his head.
Darkness swirled again.
The peeling walls of Arkham ran like wet paint. The floor dissolved under their feet, replaced by polished marble. The smell of mold and disinfectant turned into the faint aroma of antique wood polish and stale cigar smoke.
When the world reformed, they were standing in a familiar office—Dr. Halvorsen's office. Except the desk was gone.
In its place stood the throne.
Nolan opened his eyes.
"Well," he breathed, stepping back slightly, "here it is."
"Vey, take the seat we need to get back to the continental as soon as possible and I think you're the only one that can trek the terrain of wherever we are."
Vey took the seat and laboriously opened his eyes. He was in a swamp that much was clear.
Grunting Vey stood his body screaming for help as he walked forward mud squelching under his footsteps.
"Nolan." Vey spoke softly through gritted teeth
'Talk to me.' Nolan replied
"I have an idea, hit me with yellow. That should be bliss no?"
'You want me to effect you?' Nolan replied before the idea bloomed in his mind, 'Your a genius.'
Nolan focused on Vey in the chair changing the aura around him into a yellow hue, it was faint but Vey instantly felt bliss overwhelm his body.
He felt no pain as he walked, only pleasure.
"This is dangerous, I feel like I want to try to hurt myself just to feel my pleasure. We can't do this often." Vey spoke but kept walking
He passed by a marsh and saw a grey figure sinking into the swamp, "Is that Grundy? Remember this spot he could be useful in the future I guess Batman took him out earlier."
***
The hum of the Batcomputer filled the cavernous darkness, screens rippling with medical diagrams, hormone charts, and cellular scans rotating in slow loops. A vial of dark, viscous blood rested in a containment cradle, illuminated beneath a sterile white light.
Batman stood over it, still wearing half his armor—cowl off, gauntlets on—eyes fixed on the data streaming across the monitors. His jaw was locked tight. He didn't blink.
Alfred descended the metal steps with a tray of tea, moving with quiet precision.
"You've been at this for hours, Master Bruce," he said softly. "Please tell me you've found something."
Batman didn't answer at first. He slid a magnification bar on the screen, zooming in on a cluster of cells that shimmered unnaturally—overstimulated, raging like microscopic wildfire.
Finally, he nodded.
"Yes."
Alfred set the tray down beside him. "And?"
Batman leaned forward, fingers tapping across the console.
"This thing whatever Nolan becomes… it isn't just rage. It isn't just dissociation. There's a physiological shift—massive, violent. When the Beast personality takes control, Nolan's endocrine system fires like it's being electrocuted."
Graphs pulsed on the screen: testosterone levels spiking off measurable charts.
"Testosterone surges to impossible levels," Batman continued. "Adrenaline as well—both in quantities that should kill him outright. But it doesn't stop there."
He pulled up another scan—cells glowing with frantic energy.
"Cortisol spikes, but instead of creating fatigue, it's reinforcing the muscles. I'm seeing elevated IGF-1 and myostatin suppression—his body is literally unlocking its own strength by turning off the natural limiters."
Alfred frowned. "Limiters?"
Batman nodded.
"In a normal human, muscles only use a fraction of their potential force—otherwise every punch would tear ligaments, shatter bone. But the Beast… it overrides that. He's tapping into something closer to hysterical strength—the kind you see when someone lifts a car off a trapped child."
He brought up another chart—synapse firing rates.
"Neural conduction speeds are doubling, maybe tripling. That means faster reflexes. Pain response is suppressed. Inhibitory pathways? Practically offline. His brain is operating like a cornered animal that doesn't believe in dying."
Alfred exhaled. "Good lord…"
Batman's eyes darkened.
"And there's more."
He brought up a final scan—something swirling in the blood like smoke.
"This compound here… I don't recognize it. It behaves like a neurotransmitter, but it's not one I've ever seen. It acts like a catalyst—amplifying everything else, binding to hormone receptors, telling the body to ignore damage, ignore logic, ignore self-preservation."
Alfred stepped closer, voice low. "You're saying that this… creature… is turning Nolan's body into a weapon by brute-forcing its own biology."
"Yes." Batman's tone was grim, clinical. "He's bypassing every safeguard evolution put in place. The Beast isn't just rage. It's a runaway physiological system. Something that should burn itself out instantly… but doesn't."