"Oh god..."
I glance back as the portal closes behind us, and the Fries get their first look at the secret that's been hiding beneath their feet all this time. The green glow of the alchemical mixture inside the chasm is the first thing that anyone coming inside the chamber would see, but I notice that Nora's attention is quickly drawn away from the Pit, and towards the row of human bodies lining the edge of the wall on the other side of the room. The stench of burning human flesh is still heavy in the air, mixing with the strange, almost sulphuric smell of the Pit itself. Victors arms are quickly draped around the shoulders of his wife, once he follows her gaze, and notices the same thing she did.
"Don't... just don't look at them, honey. There's nothing we can do for them anyway..."
Wildcat walks ahead of us, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly "Yeah, sorry 'bout this, folks, me and Flagg tried to clean the place up the best we could, but we can't exactly bury the poor bastards down here. We'll dispose of 'em properly once we've got you all better, Mrs. Fries."
The remains of the League assassins have been laid out, face up with their arms crossed over their chests, their faces covered with black cloth we'd torn from their uniforms, to give them something resembling dignity in death, at Wildcat's insistance. The charred body of the vampire is there with them, his severed head placed right by his neck, with the sword still sticking from his chest, just to be on the safe side. Frankly, it's more than any of them deserved as far as I'm concerned, but Ted Grant has a thing about doing things properly, and I did think it'd be scary enough for Victor and Nora down here without seeing dessicated corpses littering the place like discarded candy wrappers.
"Let's- let's just get this over with." Nora says, tearing her eyes away from the bodies, and back towards the pit. She presses closer against her husband, pulling the robe she's wearing tighter around her body, trying to block out the wet chill of the underground world. "How... what do I have to do? Can I just... wash myself in it?"
I shake my head as I walk towards the edge of the Pit "Sorry, you have to submerge yourself completely, right over the top of your head. I know this must be terrifying, but unfortunately, that's how the Pit works. Don't worry, we'll be ready to drag you out once the process is finished."
Victor hesitates, staring dubiously at the bubbling, green ooze "I don't like this, Flagg. Maybe I can go in with her, help her through-"
"NO!!" Victor looks up, startled at my sudden exclamation "Sorry. Sorry, but no, for god's sake, whatever you do, you CANNOT go into the Pit while your wife is inside it. If two people go into a Lazarus Pit at the same time, the consequences can be DISASTROUS!"
"What-what kind of consequences?" Nora asks, looking equally surprised.
"Best case scenario? One of you dies while the other gets a much longer lifespan."
Granted, the only time I've actually read about that is from Batman And Superman: Generations, I have no idea if that's how it works in this world or not, but I can't imagine the results of two people in the same Pit would be pleasant, and judging by the sudden paleness of the Fries, my explanation was enough to keep them from trying. Unfortunatley, there's one more issue we need to deal with...
"Dr. Fries, I understand how difficult this must be for you, for both of you, but please, trust me on this, the best thing you can do for your wife is to stand back and let me and Wildcat help her. Once the process is done, we'll pull her out of the Pit, and you be ready with the blankets I told you to bring-"
"Hold on, you won't even let me-"
"BECAUSE, the rejuvination has the side effect of causing a temporary state of mania, and I don't want to risk her pulling you into the Pit with her while she's trashing around and freaking out. Me and Wildcat are both plenty strong enough to just yank her right out afterwards. Oh, which reminds me!" I reach into the plastic bag I brought, and pull out a pair of rubber dish gloves, quickly putting them on, before grabbing another pair and tossing them to Wildcat. "Don't want to take the risk of our grip slipping when we're helping her out." Not to mention that while I have no memory of there being risks with getting splashed with the stuff, it doesn't seem like a good idea to take chances at this point.
As Wildcat slips his own gloves on, Nora glances at her husband, before slowly walking up to the edge and staring into the green ooze bubbling inside, like some massive witches cauldron. I can only imagine what she must be feeling at what is literally a point of no return. Once she steps in, there'll be no turning back, one way or the other. Finally, she takes a deep breath, and undoes her robe, letting it fall from her shoulders, revealing a modest, black one-piece swimsuit, which can't make the cold of the underground chamber any better. Rubbing her arms against the chill, she turns her head one last time, looking at her husband.
"I love you, Victor..."
And with those words, Nora Fries begins her descent into the Lazarus Pit....
...
"I love you too, Nora..."
While the day of his wife's diagnosis would forever stand out in Victor's mind as the worst day of his life, this one moment of terror and a dreadful hope fighting within him as he watched Nora descend into the glowing, green chasm would be a close second. She didn't gasp or make any sort of sound that would indicate what it felt like, if she felt anything at all. She simply strode down into the Pit, slowly disappearing beneath the surface, until all he could see was the back of her head. Finally, that vanished as well, and Victor was left staring at the unbroken surface of the Lazarus Pit.
An eternity seemed to pass as he stood there, waiting, a thousand fears racing through his mind. He didn't even register the two men who stood at the edge of the Pit, ready to pull his wife to safety. All he could see was that calm, unmoving surface of green liquid, as if by staring hard enough, he could somehow will the Lazarus Pit to return Nora to him. What if something had gone wrong? What if the next thing to break the surface would simply be an unmoving body, like the gruesome remains that were laid out by the other side of the cave? What if she simply never resurfaced at all? What if-
The only warning he got was the flicker of a shadow just beneath the surface.
A scream like nothing he'd ever heard before pierced the silence of the chamber as Nora Fries suddenly burst through the surface, her hair flying in wet strands as she struggled, the green liquid soaking her, coloring her skin! For one horrible moment, the way the ooze sloshed off her almost made it seem like she was melting, and in the coming days, Victor would look back on this moment, and almost feel grateful that fear and shock froze him to the ground, otherwise he had no doubt he would have tried to pull her from the Pit himself, and to hell with Flagg and his warnings.
Thankfully, Flagg and Wildcat seemed to know what to expect. The two larger men moved quickly, grabbing Nora by her flailing arms, seemingly ignoring her shrieking and mad struggling, yanking her from the Pit in one pull, and back onto dry land. Nora landed roughly on the rocky floor, kneeling between the two as they held her tightly by her arms, gasping for breath as her screams were replaced by an exhausted wheezing. Finally, Victor felt his paralyzis leave him, and he rushed to her side, grabbing the blanket from the bag he'd brought. The two men stepped away, releasing Nora as Victor reached her, quickly wrapping the fabric around her body, and pulling her into his arms. She was calm now, almost languid, whatever the Pit had done to her mind leaving as quickly as it had come. Her head came to rest on his shoulder, and he could her her leaning her weight against his.
"Nora! Nora, please, talk to me! Are you alright? Are you in pain? Are you-"
"V-Victor..?" She answered, her voice hoarse and tired "Victor, is that you?"
"Yes! YES! Oh thank god, you're okay!" He tightened his embrace, pulling her closer to him "How are you feeling? Did it work? Are you... are you well again?"
"Ah...I'm not sure..." She shifted in his arms, pulling back slightly to allow her to look him in the eyes. Her eyes seemed unfocused for a second, like she was staring right through him, but then she blinked, and her gaze cleared, like a sleeping person waking from a dream. One hand moved up to her face, using the blanket around her to wipe away some of the gunk still clinging to her skin. "I feel... different. Not bad, just... it's hard to put into words. It's not... clean isn't the right word, but it's the closest I can think of. I... I think I feel clean, Victor..."
"That's... that's good, right? Is that good?" Victor babbled, looking over his wife's shoulder to Flagg, who just shrugged.
"She's one of the few people I know about who went into the Pit who wasn't already dead, but her manic state didn't last nearly as long, and wasn't nearly as intense as theirs were, so... I'd give it a tenative yes? You'll still need to go to an actual doctor to get a confirmation though."
"Right, right, of course..." Victor nodded, burying his face in the side of Nora's neck "We'll have to go outside Gotham for that, but... we'll find someone. What do we do next?"
This time, Wildcat was the one who answered "Now we get you two good folks back home, so you and your wife can rest up from all this. After that, me and Flagg here's got to wrap up a few loose ends. Flagg, scribble that little doodle on the wall there so we can- Oh, what are you doing now?!" The hero said exasperated, and Victor noticed that the magician was now kneeling down by the Pit, scooping some of the sludge inside into the plastic container he'd been given before they arrived here, using one gloved hand to carefully keep anything from dripping out before sealing it with the lid.
"Just bringing a few leftovers home with me, Wildcat. I'm sure this gunk will be useful for something..."
.......
Somewhere In Death Valley, Mojave Desert, 2:30 AM, 1987
"I still don't get why we had to haul our way to the armpit of the West Coast for this. We have a perfectly good swamp back in Gotham, ya know..."
It's a cloudless night out here in the desert, a brilliant display of stars stretching out in the black sky above us, even with the black smoke slowly rising up into the dry air from the burning pyre in front of us. I've never been in a desert before, not a lot of those in Northern Europe, so coming out here is a novel experience. Unfortunately, our task at hand puts a rather somber mood over the whole thing.
The remains of Ra's Al Ghul's men, along with the vampire who killed them all, are slowly burning to ash, the closest thing we can give them for a proper burial. Well that, and the hole we've dug for whatever bones are still left once the fire has done it's work. The only things spared from the flames are a few blood and skin samples I took from the vampire, as well as his sword, though atmittedly, the latter is less because I expect to get any use out of it, and more because it makes a cool trophy.
"I didn't think it'd be a good idea to bury a vampire, not to mention his victims, in the middle of a magical hot spot like Slaughter Swamp" I answer Wildcat with a shrug "I'm not entirerly sure how becoming a vampire works, or if these guys were ever going to turn into one, but considering the track record that place has, I didn't want to take any chances." Plus, I don't think Grundy would appreciate the potential roommates he might end up with.
"Still though, Death Valley of all places? Why all the way out here?"
"It's the most isolated place I could think of, that I could also form enough of a mental image of to create a working portal to. Plus, even if this somehow doesn't work, and the vampire comes back, he'll still be stuck in the middle of Death Valley, so... I like our chances."
We watch in silence for a little while, the only sound the crackling flames, and the wind sweeping across the wasteland around us. It's almost funny, normally this place would feel at least a little eerie, but after the day we've had, the vastness and freedom of the desert frankly feels like a vacation.
Probably feels less liberating during the day though...
"You know, it's funny..." I finally say, drawing Wildcat's attention back to me "We beat the vampire, we probably cured Nora, and now we're wrapping things up with this burial... yet this doesn't feel like a win, not a full one anyway. It's more like... halftime, I guess? Am I using that right? I'm not good at sports."
"No, you got a point, kid. I remember it from back in the day, you could take down the small fish all you wanted, but as long as the big sharks were still swimming around, the ocean wasn't safe. And unfortunately, that guy..." He points towards the charred remains of the vampire atop the pyre "...was a small fish if I've ever seen one. You should feel proud, you succeeded in what you were supposed to do, but I'm afraid the case isn't closed just yet either..."
And as I stand there, watching the greasy, black smoke block out the starry sky, I can't help but feel like I've blundered into something I shouldn't have...