Setting: Arkham Asylum, 12:06 AM
A lamppost flickered outside the old, decrepit walls of Arkham Asylum, Gotham’s infamous psycho-holding facility. Many of the city’s most famous criminals and killers were either present at the prison or were alumni of its ranks, usually getting out via jailbreaks rather than parole. This was partially why the Dark Knight had to remain ever vigilant over the city; he and practically every officer of the law knew that any ordinary prison would never be enough to contain the kinds of criminals that plagued the streets.
Cletus Kasady was one such individual. It might have been midnight and pitch black in the cell block he was sitting in, but he was wide awake, seated upright and staring at the wall patiently. He knew that he was going to bust out of here. He only needed to wait for his getaway partner.
The sound of something slipping across the ground heralded its arrival. Sounding like a gelatinous mess slowly scooping its own weight across the metal asylum floor, the sound of its movement slowly grew louder until it spindled up the wall, approaching Cletus in his seated position. The homicidal killer grinned widely, barely making out the frame of his crimson symbiote in the darkness of the jail cell.
Cletus: Took you long enough.
His plain and open voice rang out across the silent prison block, awakening many prisoners and a guard that was half asleep in the center of the prison block, stuck with night watch duty due to the normal guy having an out of town emergency. He wasn’t exactly the gutsiest of the guards, so when he heard the hauntingly emotionless voice of Kasady from his cell, he snapped awake and hugged his rifle, scrambling to take out his flashlight and storming towards the voice in the midst of other inmates hurling insults and threats at Cletus for waking them.
Guard: E-e-everyone stay quiet and in your c-cells!!
A few voices quelled at his clearly frightened demand, but some persisted nonetheless. Sighing and deciding he couldn’t deal with them right now, the guardsman shone the beam of his flashlight into Cletus’s cell, towards where he knew the cell bench was.
Guard: K-Kasady! It’s light out and y-you’re supposed to be-
The smaller, twiggier man was shocked to discover the bench unoccupied, just barely swinging in place from the swift departure of the inmate who had been sitting there seconds ago. His eyes widened in fear and he rapidly shone the beam of light around the other corners of the cell, seeing no sign of Cletus within.
Then, from around the area of his feet, a loud creeeeeak rang out, rousing the rest of the inmates in the block. The guard trembled as he shone his flashlight down, and he beheld the sight of his death – a tendril-possessing, symbiote-bearing beast grinning up at him with blank white eyes.
Carnage: Bet ya wished ya weren’t stuck on night watch, huh, shrimpy?
The guard’s scream rang out in the midst of the cells, followed hastily by the sounds of his flesh being rendered messily. The alarms began to blare as one of the guard’s vitals went flat, and the asylum sent out an automatic distress signal to any nearby members of the Justice League. On their wireless radio comms systems, various active members began to converse over the sudden alarms at Arkham Asylum.
Cyborg: Ugh… anyone else gettin’ that?
Batman: Security breach at Arkham Asylum. The night watchman’s vitals have gone dead. Something’s happening inside.
A green streak of light flew over the dark buildings of Gotham City, Batman watching from the edge of a rooftop as it soared towards Arkham Island.
Green Lantern: Lantern here. I’m on my way to check it out; I’ll update once the threat’s been neutralized.
Batman: Affirmative, Lantern. I’ll be on standby if things go south.
Hal nodded in understanding as he landed at the front doors of Arkham, opening the asylum doors slowly. The large double doors emitted a loud squeeeak as their old, rusty hinges scraped together, opening the way inside the lit-up prison. Alarms were blaring at full capacity, their wailing and flashing lights slamming on Hal’s senses. He grumbled a bit as he covered his ears with green ring-made earmuffs, the red lights reminding him of a certain foe of his.
Hal followed the directions of other present guards, heading to the cell block that the alarms had originated from. The staff turned off the alarms, and Hal lit up the whole room with a basking green glow, the containment doors shutting sturdily behind him.
The intense smell of gore and murder hit his nostrils as he gazed over the blood-drenched floorings and walls of Cell Block 4-R. Every cell’s bars seemed to have been pried apart forcefully, the large streams of crimson liquid spilling from each cage telling Lantern all he needed to know of the state of those inside. He floated up to one of the metallic floors of the higher levels, drifting slowly over the dead bodies of prisoners that littered the floors.
The observant staffers outside the prison block indicated which cell was the one that the guard’s body was by, and Hal made his way over to it with haste. The guard’s body was indeed laying face-down in a pool of his own blood, shredded organs scattered around the corpse and its red-stained uniform. An inmate’s body lay on top of the guard, however, and Hal crouched by it to move it off.
Hal: I’m going to inspect the body no-
Suddenly, the body he was shoving off the guard sprung to life, its disguise dropping and the beast beneath the disguise lunging at Green Lantern with all ferocity. Carnage laughed insanely as he pinned the superhero to the ground, slashing at his armored costume with symbiote-formed hand blades and pinning him down with the use of his symbiote’s tendrils.
Carnage: Surprise, hero! Like my work? It didn’t take long to wipe all these losers away, but I’d say it’s a MASTERPIECE!
The containment doors flew open again for the guards to open fire on Carnage, who leaped off Hal with glee and rushed to score more kills on the pitiful guards of the asylum. Hal tried to get up to fire off some blasts from his ring at the ghastly villain, but he was suddenly struck with a rush of anger stemming from a burst of adrenaline he’d experienced from being taken by surprise by the crimson psychopath. Red flecks of blood from the bodies around him, as well as some symbiote bits left from Carnage’s attack on him, were reminding him more and more of the certain villain he’d thought of before, and with the rush of adrenaline from being attacked came a rush of anger… of fury…
…Of rage.
Green Lantern: No-!
A loud thoom resonated from behind Lantern, and a red blast of energy slammed into his back, knocking him off the cell block platform and to the ground below. From a swirling scarlet vortex stepped a large behemoth of an alien lifeform, bearing a full suit of red armor and a glistening red power ring.
Atrocitus grinned down at the fallen Green Lantern before turning his attention to the seething, psychopathic rage emanating from the being before him. Carnage had just finished disemboweling the last of the security guards present, and he turned to face the new arrival to his playground with a sick grin on his face.
Carnage: Well, what have we here? Red Hulk, is that you?
Atrocitus grinned a fanged smile and clenched his fist around his red ring, the portal behind him closing as he faced his newfound adversary.
Atrocitus: At first I was attracted by the rage given off by Hal Jordan… But you give off such an inhuman anger! Twofold of the average human’s!
Carnage hissed threateningly, taking up a combative stance. This guy didn’t look like as much of a cakewalk as the other guards. Atrocitus slammed his ring’s face into his red lantern and tossed it aside, training it on the symbiote-bearing murderer.
Atrocitus: Your countless victims demand payback for the violent ends they met at your hand, madman… They demand…
The ring’s light shone brighter than ever as Atrocitus finished his declaration, sealing their confrontation.
Atrocitus: …VENGEANCE!
Atrocitus became surrounded by red light as he flew towards Carnage at a high speed. Carnage snarled like an animal and bounded up the stairs towards the cell block floor Atrocitus was coming from, and the two red villains collided at the height of the steel staircase, ramming each other fiercely. Atrocitus slammed his clenched fists into Carnage’s jaw before his symbiote could attack with its many, many tendrils, sending him flying down the stairs before he caught himself in midair, landing roughly and scraping to a halt with his claws.
Carnage: That as hard as you can hit?
Atrocitus scoffed and pointed his ring at Carnage, blasting red rays of energy at him. Kasady’s symbiotic parasite flashed out with spiraling tendrils, blocking the ring shots effectively as Carnage rushed at Atrocitus on all fours. Seeing his reckless sprint, Atrocitus drove his hand into the metallic balcony-esque flooring of the high cell block level, ripping it up and sending the rest of it into a state of collapse. Seeing his footing fall, Carnage leaped to stick to the wall of the prison block. Atrocitus had already predicted this movement, however, and he quickly formed a giant alien war mallet with his ring, smashing Carnage into the wall. The symbiote bearer cried out in surprise and pain, falling all the way to the concrete floor amidst the swath of carcasses. Atrocitus grinned evilly as he floated high above his opponent, his ring glowing bright red on his tightly clenched fist.
Atrocitus: If you think you can match me… Then you are gravely mistaken!
Waving his fist up toward the ceiling, creating giant spiked boulders that rained down. Then, Atrocitus flew down beneath the deluge of death, flying towards Carnage, who was poised to strike.
Atrocitus: But I will entertain you with a battle if only to sustain the rage I intend to harvest!
Carnage grinned insanely, disregarding the rain of giant ring projections falling towards him.
Carnage: Then show me whatcha got! I’ll enjoy picking you apa-
Carnage began to move to strike at the flying Atrocitus at the end of his sentence, but the word ‘apart’ couldn’t leave his lips before Atrocitus summoned a bar at his feet, tripping him up and causing him to fall flat on his face with a screech of surprise and pain. Atrocitus, smirking at the fool he’d made his enemy look like, flew overhead and unleashed a breath of boiling blood at Carnage from his mouth, scalding the symbiote before floating out of the way, intent to let the giant spiked rocks crush his foe flat.
Back on the floor, Carnage clenched his fist and slammed it to the ground in order to get a grip on himself, a bit stunned from the boiling blood wave. His symbiote lashed upwards with a giant crimson spike from his back, running through the spiked ball that was about to fall on top of him.
Atrocitus: What!?
The giant spike spun around like a drill, causing the red ring’s creation to shatter, sending shards of it in all directions. Carnage leaped back to his feet with a sadistic grin, speaking in a taunting manner.
Carnage: Ah-ah-aaaaaaah! I won’t go down that easy!
Pushing his chest out and loosing an inhuman screeching sound, Carnage ejected several shots of his symbiote in Atrocitus’s direction, which grew into giant blades in midair. Atrocitus scoffed at the measly weapons and formed a giant sword out of his ring, deflecting each sword as they came with skill and precision. Once every blade Carnage had blasted was parried away harmlessly, Atrocitus dropped to the floor forcefully and pushed his chest out as well, creating the giant Red Lantern bull, the Butcher.
Atrocitus: Suffer the Butcher’s charge, weakling!
The massive beast roared and stampeded towards Carnage, who kept his insane smile and sprinted towards it in kind. Carnage’s fists closed around the Butcher’s colossal horns, planting his feet on the ground as he attempted to stop its movement entirely. Fed by both Atrocitus’s pure rage and Carnage’s insane bloodlust, however, the Butcher was not inhibited by Carnage whatsoever, and it drove him through the wall of the prison block into the main hallways of the asylum. Carnage, still maintaining his grip on the Butcher’s horns, replanted his feet on the ground as the bull continued to charge him down the hall.
Carnage: Haaah! Not bad! But I ain’t done with you yet, big red!
Carnage’s symbiote stuck itself into the floor and through the ground beneath it, creating a giant system of symbiote roots that anchored it in place securely. The Butcher screeched in fury as it found itself unable to move its target, and Carnage shot a tendril of symbiote matter that wrapped around the Butcher quickly, encasing it in a flesh-red snare. The beast flailed violently as Carnage lifted it off the ground and nimbly leaped back into the cell block, where Atrocitus remained.
Carnage brought the trapped Butcher over his head, slamming the beast down on top of Atrocitus’s head. It howled and vanished in a puff of red, and Carnage shouted in anger as he slashed into Atrocitus’s chest with clawed hands, drawing blood from the Red Lantern before trapping him in an enlarged fist. Without sparing a moment for Atrocitus to recover and retaliate, Carnage swung his arm around the room, slamming his opponent this way and that into the walls, ceiling, and floor of the cell block. Atrocitus’s anger boiled as he was smashed into the foundations of the environment, and finally, he mustered up enough strength to grab free of Carnage’s hold with a mighty bellow, shrugging off the symbiote-bearing killer’s grip.
Carnage: Hah!?
With both hands, Atrocitus seized Carnage’s arm and yanked with all his strength, sending Carnage hurling through the air towards him. Once he was close, Artocitus flew through the air to intercept his path of travel, slamming his strong fists into Carnage’s head and gut in a series of brutal blows. With his final hit, Atrocitus created a giant war lance, sticking it through Carnage’s chest flinging it with enough force to shoot through all the walls of the asylum, forcing Carnage to land at the front entrance.
With the power of his symbiote, Carnage deformed and reformed off of the lance’s shaft, looking around for any sign of his foe. From within the walls of Arkham Asylum, he could hear Atrocitus bellowing, and he heard his fists slam together. The next instant was met with a huge explosion of rage-fueled power, sending out a crimson shockwave that leveled the entire asylum. Carnage raised his arms to shield himself of debris from the explosion, and that left him open to being grabbed by Atrocitus, who raced towards him as soon as the building was obliterated.
Atrocitus: WITH BLOOD AND RAGE OF CRIMSON RED…
Atrocitus held Carnage up with his left arm, forming a red spike around his right fist. He drove it into Carnage’s stomach, impaling him once again through the midsection. Carnage screeched at the top of his lungs, agony writhing within him.
Atrocitus: RIPPED FROM A CORPSE SO FRESHLY DEAD…
The Red Lantern ripped his arm out of his enemy’s gut and threw him to the ground, stomping on his chest and shooting him point-blank with a red beam that persisted in its firing, scalding his foe’s symbiote and exploiting one of its primary vulnerabilities – extreme heat. Carnage writhed under his boot, trying to pry him off, but it was fruitless. Atrocitus’s foot was planted firmly, and the beam sent pain coursing through him.
Atrocitus: TOGETHER WITH OUR HELLISH HATE…
Shifting his foot, Atrocitus kicked Carnage into the air, the beam carrying him high up above the ground. Atrocitus flew up after him, only ceasing his ring’s blast when he was in range to deliver a brutal uppercut to Carnage’s chin. Again he flew to meet him as he rose into the sky, grabbing him with an unyielding strength.
Atrocitus: WE’LL BURN YOU ALL!
Artocitus dropped his jaw and vomited boiling blood onto Carnage in a relentless stream. Carnage screamed out as his symbiote writhed in the heat of the attack. The red substance coated Carnage’s body, burning him not only on the surface, but on the inside as well, injecting raw hate into his system.
Atrocitus: THAT IS YOUR FATE!!
Still clutching his squirming foe, Atrocitus plummeted like a stone towards the ground, slamming Carnage chest-first onto the cold dirt. As Carnage bounced off the ground after being slammed, Atrocitus clenched his right hand tight, his ring glowing intensely, and swung the back of his fist with great might.
SCHRAP!!
With the sickening sound of flesh being rended violently, Carnage’s head was torn from his neck, the force of Atrocitus’s strike sending it flying. It bounced off a shard of concrete rubble from the asylum’s ruins, rolling to a stop a few feet away. His body collapsed motionlessly on the ground, and Atrocitus scoffed as he turned away, one hand covering the lacerations on his chest, grimacing slightly from the still-present sting they presented.
Atrocitus: And with this… Vengeance has been delivered.
Atrocitus could not see, however, that Carnage was not as dead as he seemed to be. His severed head dissipated into symbiote spirals, which silently reattached themselves to the main body, reforming his head. Carnage’s symbiote fangs turned into a sick grin, and his gaze turned to his still-present enemy.
Carnage: Nice chant. But you’ll have to do better than THAT.
Atrocitus whirled around to meet Carnage’s claws as they raked his face, extracting a cry of equal parts shock and agony from the Red Lantern. Carnage’s jaw unhinged and he spat a huge wad of symbiotic slop upon Atrocitus’s face, and he darted into the darkness of the asylum ruins for cover.
With an enraged roar, Atrocitus began firing blasts of his ring in all directions, blindly trying to hit his seemingly resurrected enemy as he scraped at the persistently clinging symbiote mass covering his eyes and nose. This was his opportunity to strike, and with a savage hiss, Carnage sprung forward from his hiding spot, cloaked in the night’s darkness up until the point where he lunged. Atrocitus, blinded by the crimson symbiote webbing covering his eyes, flailed around as he continued to angrily tear at the sticky substance in hopes of prying it from his face, creating giant flails with his ring that swung around him in giant arcs, blindly trying in vain to strike down Kasady.
Carnage: This has been fun, but it’s curtains for you!
The symbiote goop covering Atrocitus’s eyes suddenly began to spasm and fidget wildly, the blinding substance slowly seeping into Atrocitus’s eye sockets from around his eyes. The Red Lantern bellowed in pain as his eyes were slowly and gruesomely minced and diced in their sockets by Carnage’s symbiote, his hands instinctively flashing to cover his agonized face as blood and vitreous seeped down his cheeks. Carnage grinned with an insane glee as he scampered up to his blinded and vulnerable opponent.
Carnage: Lights out, big red!
With power shooting through every inch of his body at the glee of a killing strike, Carnage pounced and delivered a mighty blow to Atrocitus’s chest. Then, his symbiote exploded from the knuckles of his fist, creating a dozen bladed tendrils that instantly impaled Atrocitus, puncturing his lungs, ribs, stomach, and several other vital organs, each one of them protruding from his back. Blood seeped from the puncture wounds, and Atrocitus’s hands dropped from his face as strength began to leave him, beholding the bloody messes of his two shredded eye sockets.
Kasady laughed insanely and morphed the tips of his tendrils into hook shapes, securing their position in Atrocitus’s flesh. Then, extending the length of the tendrils and moving their stem to his hands, Carnage began to swing Atrocitus around in the destroyed ruins of Arkham Asylum, the hooks digging deeper and deeper into his body. The centripetal force built up in the momentum in the swinging, kicking up rubble and dust as he swung the dying Lantern around and around.
Finally, the velocity was too much for Atrocitus’s perishing form to handle, and the hooks ripped right through his body, cutting him into several bloody, limp fragments that fell to the ground lifelessly. Atrocitus’s head still had a bit of life to it, and Carnage shot out a web, snaring it and pulling it to him. Atrocitus’s right arm came sliding to a stop at Carnage’s feet, and the red power ring on its hand glinted as its owner slowly died.
Carnage laughed insanely with joy as he brought Atrocitus’s head high up, followed quickly by the quick descent of his arm. Atrocitus’s forehead smashed into the red power ring, and the mighty trinket shattered into pieces. Carnage then dropped his head and, in a final penultimate move, stomped on the severed head of his slain opponent, crushing it into a bloody mess of bone fragments and brain matter.
Everything lay still in a blanket of destruction and death, the scent of blood nauseatingly pungent in the air. The only living thing left standing was Carnage himself, and with the delighted satisfaction of having one of the best killing nights of his life, he turned his head to the sky and screeched in victory, the symbiote flashing sporadically out in all directions. The moon shone directly overhead, indicating that the evening was still young, and Carnage’s eyes glinted with psychotic joy.
Gotham City was in for one hell of a night.
