"Excuse, care to repeat that again?"
"I want to send Waylon to another dimension, and I need your help to make it happen."
Me, John and Rachel had asked Wally, Clark and Bruce to come to the Fortress. Behind us, the door to Waylon's cell shook as he tried to force it open, no longer roaring but still defiant despite it being clear he couldn't escape.
"You want to punt Killer Croc to another universe? Freaking Killer Croc? The maneating lizard man?"
"Please, do not call Mr. Jones by that name." VEGA told him. "Even though he can't hear this conversation, he's known to react negatively to his nickname in this kind of circumstances." In truth VEGA had too grown fond of Waylon.
"Ok, calling the lizard man by his real name, noted. Again, you want to send Ki-Waylon, to another... what, dimension? Universe? Is there an actual difference between the two?"
"That's not the point, mate."
"Why another dimension? Wouldn't sending him to just another planet in the Milky Way suffice and be easier to do?"
"I have my reasons." Not a good excuse, I know, but even though Bruce didn't like it, he accepted it, though eventually he asked me for an actual reason.
"But why call Wally for this?" Clark asked us. "Can't you use the technology that brought you here to send him away?"
"After finding out about the things that live in and between other dimensions, and what happened last time, I'd rather not risk it, at least not without preparation."
"Smart." Bruce said in an approving tone. "And me and Clark?"
"Just in case, as always, and because you'd want to know everything about Waylon as long as he stays here."
Bruce didn't make any expression that could have betrayed his emotions at that, but I knew that he, after having fought Waylon a few times before and seeing the people's digusted and horrified faces, shared my thoughts.
"Which is why we asked you to come." Raven continued as she turned to Wally, even though her question wasn't to anyone in particular. "Do any of you know about the Speed Force?"
"Of course I know about the Speed Force, I'm it's living embodiment! Admittedly I don't know that much, but I know the basics."
"Then you know it's one of the most powerful sources of energy in any dimension, enough to power my spells, and then some, and in some cases even open holes in the veil of our reality." Rachel replied. "With your aid, combined with Slayer's technology, we could open a portal powerful enough to send Waylon to a world of our own choosing."
"Why not your magic?"
"That kind of conjuration would require a lot of power from me, and that might draw the attention of... certain beings." Like Trigon or his hordes. "The Speed Force doesn't have that problem."
"It also makes it an stupidly efficient energy source that could reach all homes in the entire world... if you're willing to slave away on a treadmill the rest of your life. Just in case you break something and need the juice." John noted.
"I already knew that, thank you." Wally replied with a huff.
Clark ignored them and turned to me. "But why do you want to send Waylon away? He could be a great help like Victor and Pamela have become."
"Because the world, your world, will never accept him, no matter what he does, for reasons that should be more than obvious to any of you and which I'm not going to bother listing. By taking him to another we'll be giving him a new chance at life, a clean slate, away from the things that would never allow him to start from anew."
Bruce then spoke, still not happy about the situation. "But what happens if he ends up in somewhere far worse than here? What if he dies?"
"Then he'll die free instead of lying in a dissecting table or rotting in a modernized dungeon." The possibility of it happening anyway but in another dimension did crop up in my mind, but Bruce didn't point it out either. "But given his strength, that's not likely to happen, taking him alive I mean. Still, we might be able to send him somewhere lacking intelligent life."
"Leaving him alone?" I knew what Clark was inquiring: that despite everything, Waylon wouldn't want to be alone, potentially forever. I forgot that most sapient beings wanted to be with others, be their kind or simply thinking creatures. Most.
"He's perfectly happy being by himself, remember? In fact, he desires solitude." It actually reminded me of another green giant who reacted badly, only Waylon wasn't as dangerous.
"What about his condition? You said that curing it would depower him, but it-"
"Mutates him continuously, makes him more bestial, and causes him pain." I finished for him. "I managed to stop the mutation from changing him further. He'll stay in that form, capabilities included, but he won't be hurt by it, and he'll keep his mind."
"And the public? Even if they assume you killed him, they'll might want to know what did you do with the corpse."
"I'll tell them a partial truth, that I sent him to another part of the galaxy. They'll assume that being sent to a far away world in the middle of nowhere is a worse fate than death; for those who don't see it that way, they won't be able to do anything about it."
It was Clark's turn to speak. "And what happens if Waylon doesn't want to go?"
"Believe me, after everything that has happened to him in his life, he won't want to stay here. Besides, he has no other options left."
How had he been there, slamming and clawing the walls? A week? A month? An eternity? Killer Croc didn't really care, not anymore; all he cared about was not going quietly into that night, if he still remembered that poem he had read a long time ago.
Only one day after his capture he realized he wouldn't be getting out, no matter how much he struggled, but again, that didn't stop him.
Some would have cried and begged for their miserable hides, others would have lied down and despaired and waited for their inevitable demise at the hands, barrels or whateve Doom Slayer had, and yet others would have bitten their own wrists to 'escape' before the armored monster offed them himself.
Not Croc. Despite being practically helpless, he wasn't going to just stand there and let that soldier blow his head off and pose over his cold corpse like some demented hunter from a pulp novel.
He wanted to kill an animal, he'd give him an animal! A furious, diseased freak of nature he'd have no other option than to kill as quickly as possible! Diseased! Since the day the first scales erupted from his skin, that damn pain had never let down! Worse than being shot, all he could do was channel that pain into rage against the whole fucking world!
Only, he hadn't felt the pain since he had been beamed to that cell. It felt rather nice for the couple of seconds he realized it, but after that he didn't care and continued attacking the cell, thinking it'll just come up later. But as time passed, the pain didn't return. It was something that actually made him actually stop, if only for a couple seconds.
With the pain gone, he then began having something he didn't have for a good while: clear thoughts, truly clear ones not strained by the pain. Not that it made him any happier about his situation, nor make him cease his attacks, but it did made him wonder, namely about the pain vanishing all out of sudden. How did it happen? He saw nothing since arriving. Why did it happen? Was this Doom Slayer's doing? Possible, given the crap he had, but why? And why him? Hell, why didn't he kill him before? By what he had heard, he didn't give a damn about laws, and nothing would have stopped him from striding into Arkham and putting lead between Croc's eyes.
And then one day the door opened, and Croc stopped clawing at it when he saw who stood at the other side.
Doom Slayer in person.
Shorter than him, but taller than everyone Croc had ever meet, the guy exuded an aura of power that made him seem like a titan, despite it concealing his face the majority of the time, and Croc standing up at that moment. It was this what stopped Croc from attacking him and getting himself killed faster.
This could only mean one thing. Croc, momentary awe at the man forgotten, prepared himself for what was going to happen.
"Is it the time already? Do you promise to make it quick and painless? Else I'll roar and bite."
"Depends of what you're thinking about..." He said with that deep voice of his as he trailed off, a voice that many heard before getting a free ticket to Hell, before saying a word that Croc never expected to hear from him. "Waylon."
Croc's eyes narrowed when he heard the name, not expecing Doom Slayer of all people to know it, let alone say it. "That's not my name." He growled out. Not that he really being called Killer Croc, but he liked even less being remembered of his real name, of his past.
"It is, no matter what everyone thinks. And that includes you. Follow me." With that Doom Slayer turned around and began to walk up a nearby corridor, one big enough for Croc to walk through without even crouching.
With no other option left, and having the feeling that Slayer wouldn't kill him even if he attacked him directly, Croc went after the soldier. Along the way, he noted that the base seemed more like an actual castle with modern stuff here and there. Then again, they did call it the Fort of Doom or something like that, but he didn't expect it to be a literal fortress out of Dungeon and Dragons.
Some kind of big, glowy yellow thing hovering in the middle of the room. There were other people in the room, some of which he recognized, even the Bat himself, and some he didn't have the slightest idea who they were, but Croc paid them no mind, mesmerized as he was with the alien sight.
"The hell is that?" He asked, not bothering to look at his jailer.
"The door to your new home." Doom Slayer replied.
That caused one of Croc's eyebrows to rise in a mix of confusion, interest... and a faint feeling he hadn't felt for a long time, to the point he had forgotten its name. He'd rather keep it simply, it'd be easier. "Ok, I can believe that, but what exactly is it?"
"A portal to another dimension." Doom Slayer said in a matter-of-fact tone.
This is getting pretty damn weird, Croc thought, but then, he had seen weird things before, just not as much as his current situation. "What for?"
"To send you to a place where you won't be treated as a monster."
Croc's gaze alternated between Slayer and the so-called portal. Then, a thought crept into his mind, one that wondered.
"You didn't think of curing me? Because I think you can, and that would be easier to do."
"I stopped it from getting worse, but if I had gone through you'd be bereft of everything that makes you, including the good things."
"'Good things'?!" Croc nearly roared. The bastard outright called it 'good things', just like that! Not even something like 'boons' or 'benefit' or some stupid and big, smart word those scientist fucks liked to use! "I'm a freak because of it!"
"Strength, durability, regeneration, enhanced senses, jaws strong enough to bite through even reinforced steel with ease... Things that many would pay, even kill to get."
"I already knew that." Croc said with a shudder. He still remembered his earlier days in Arkham after the blotched crap with Joker. They said it was for his own good, to understand his condition. More like to understand what made him tick and weaponize it, or just because he could. Goddamn labcoats.
Croc couldn't help but chortle, but not in mirth. "I AM a monster. Everyone thinks so, myself included, you know that, right? And it only got worse after I killed people. I ATE people, and I don't regret it."
"Worse monsters than you look like completely normal human beings, or close, and have no real excuse for their actions. And yet, they got their redemption." Before Croc could reply to that, Slayer raised a hand. "I'm not defending or justifying yours, and forgival is out of my reach, but at least you had a better excuse than any of them. And again, they're atoning for their crimes as we speak."
"Like who?"
"Poison Ivy. I forced her to see the error of her ways, made her suffer what she had put others through, and that changed her. She's now protecting the world's forest from those who cannot be reasoned with."
Croc wanted to laugh, but all that came from his mouth was a huff. With all the crazy shit he had seen, Doom Slayer himself included, that red-haired bitch stopping being a bitch wasn't all that strange. 'course, he could have just brainwashed her or something.
"Okay, I guess I don't really any other options, no?" Without bothering to wait to even mentally prepare himself for was he was going to do, Croc began to walk to the portal. Who knew, maybe he ended up in that desert planet full of graboids and spices. At least he'd have some entertainment there. "Bye, wish me a nice death."
However, before he left, Doom Slayer stopped him. "Before you leave, take this." He raised a hand to Croc's holding a metallic object.
Grabbing it with some care, Croc inspected the thing. It kinda looked like a walkie-talkie, but one made of a smooth, yet strong metal and with blue lights all over it, capped with a green button. "What's this?"
"A one-use emergency beacon, in case something, anything happens and you actually need help. Press the button and we'll pinpoint your location to help you. Good luck... and good life."
"Thanks."
And with that Croc crossed the portal, leaving his home behind, presumibly to never return.
It was a tropical island. After a couple of hours exploring the place, he found out it wasn't all that big, probably just a tad larger than Gotham.
Dinosaurs. Honest to God dinosaurs (plus things like bigass bugs, even bigger bats, hyena-dogs, long-fanged cats the size of cars, giant murder chicken, and then some more, but they didn't leave a big an impression on him like the dinosaurs): the hornies, the long-necks, the anchillasaurs, the raptors, and of course fucking t.rexes. He was in some kind of lost world or Jurassic Park crap!
Cro-no, not Croc, Waylon, after thinking that the space soldier, and after finding a cave to stay the night in, began to think as he ate an unlucky dinosaur whose species didn't know. He was alone at last, away from all that had tormented him all his life, and the people he had tormented in turn. Evem better, he still didn't feel the pain, which meant Doom Slayer hadn't lied.
At first, Waylon didn't really know what to feel. On the one hand, he had been basically banished to a God-forsaken island on some planet in another universe, far away from anyone, essentially just another prison, if one full of prehistoric monsters he could still escape from by simply swimming if he braved the sea, and of course fighting the aforementioned monsters himself.
On the other, he was free. Not from the growing guilt he was developing, but from the torment, the pain, the anger. He wasn't going to forget what he did any time soon, but the fact he began feel shame over it had to mean something.
He had found peace.
What Waylon didn't know was that his arrival in that island, in another dimension, was but the beginning of his new life, one that would challenge both body and mind. But that's a story for another time.
Back from the hiatus, and giving a resolution to the imprisoned villains arc. I've also began writing a One Piece story, Water, Water Everywhere. The title oughta tell you what is it about. And yes, this is a set-up for a future arc that will involve travelling to the Earth (b). It's not Marvel's, though, too obvious and cliché all things given.