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Guppy Parsh · (10-11-2016)

~Act I~

"Dr. Salp, Batman is here to see you. He doesn't have an appointment."

"Batman?...Guppy, sure send him in. I have time."

The caped crusader steps through the shrink's doorway; his cape slides across the carpeted floor.

"Good afternoon Mr. Parsh."

Batman shudders like a transgendered individual that just heard their dead name. Dr. Salp looks up from his paperwork; he seems displeased when he catches glance of something more heroic than he is expecting.

"I thought we made so much progress. I thought you came clean, but here you are dressed like that."

The Dark Knight begins to stare intensely at an empty chair next to the doctor's desk.

"Go ahead and sit there."

Not a single movement is wasted as he sits down in a calculated and precise fashion.

"We did make a lot of progress last time."

"That's what I thought, a few days later you even said you were done pretending to be Batman. What changed?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean?"

"I took off the bat suit and I was just a dad for eight months. When I saw undocumented immigrants raping women on the side of the road I didn't interfere, because that isn't what a dad would do unless it was his kid getting raped. I tried to tell myself that because the woman was also an undocumented immigrant it was fine. I tried to tell myself that it was sexual slavery, not rape, so really it's no big deal. Deep down I knew I couldn't just ignore it forever."

"You know, you have other options. You could call the police or an ambulance. You don't have to put on a mask and attack rapists to fight...um...rape culture."

"If I got them deported wouldn't they just go back to their country and rape the women there?"

"I'd hope not...So when you were Batman you'd stop these rapes, but you wouldn't turn them over to the authorities?"

"Even if the police could prove he did it, and decided to put them in prison instead of just deporting them, they'd just rape other rapists. My wife Stevella used to be a prison guard and she said that when the prisoners rape each other they aren't throwing their poop at guards, so it's easier to do her job."

"Um okay...so what did you do with them?"

WHER! WHER! WHER!

The sounds all come flooding back to the bat. The sounds of metal clanging against bone. He tries to forget those sounds.

"Well...I used to rape people too, but that was legal because an evil voice told me too. I still felt bad though. Anyway, that was harder for me than most people because I'm not very tall or strong. I had to be really sneaky when I did it or they'd get away and then the voice would be mad at me."

Dr. Salp nods.

"So, I have to do something to bring these rapists done to my level and make it so they have a much harder time the next time they want to do it..."

"Right, how do you manage that?"

Batman breathes, "I cut off their arms with a chainsaw"

"Really?"

Batman nods. Dr. Salp looks down at his notes before staring at the eye holes in the caped crusader's mask.

"How come I never heard anything about a rise in armless people."

"I leave them in the cellar with the others until they starve to death."

"Oh."

"It's scary the first time you slice off someone's arm without their permission. The possibility of me doing that to innocent people all along was starting to scare me even more. When I first came to you a year ago I let a rapist get away because I wasn't sure if I just made the whole thing up in my head. That's when I knew I couldn't do that anymore."

"My son was born a week or so after. Everything started to make since again, but that didn't last. When I learned his favorite color was pink I wasn't sure if it was a mind game or not. My own son loved the color that has been oppressing women for decades with its mere existence. I tried to put gender non-conforming toys in front of him but nothing changed. He loved pink. He loved dolls. He wasn't my son."

"She was my daughter. We put her on Estrogen hormones right after my wife convinced me it wasn't a phase or just my imagination. I started to stay up at night thinking about how I could ever forgive myself for letting Lagena grow up in a world full of rapists."

"When I was asked to solve XWF related mysteries I finally had the courage to put the suit back on, but facing the city that I abandoned will prove difficult. That's why I came here to thank you and ask for your help."

"Why? What have I done?"

"Do you remember when you told me that "The Battle of Shaker Heights"'s Ben Affleck wasn't really dead?"

"Yes, you said he was killed by a pizza."

"You used the Internet to find that out. You introduced me with the most vital tool in my arsenal. If you just enabled my insanity like so many others did I would have never learned everything I know now. I will be using this knowledge everyday of my life to make sure I don't accidentally play mind games on myself again."

"You've never heard of the Internet before that?"

"No, I knew about it I just thought it was for looking at pictures of cats and puppys, but I had no idea I could use it to become The World's Greatest Detective."

"Well okay, what do you need help with?"

"What do you know about #BoycottXWF?"

"About what?"

"You heard me."

Dr. Salp stares at Batman, dumbfounded, then looks at his computer. He types #BoycottXWF on Twitter's search bar.

"Um, no results."

"It was trending on May 26th and no one knows why. The narrative was that the XWF fans were a powder-keg ready to blow over the result of a tag match, but you saw it yourself there were no tweets. There was nothing. No revolution. No boycott."

"Who is saying it trended then and why?"

"That's what I need the Internet to tell me. You're the expert."

"Um...okay...were there any articles written about this incident? Have you typed Boycott XWF into google?"

"MOVE!"

The World's Greatest Detective shoves aside Dr. Salp and types "Boycott XWF" into the address bar. A grimace of disgust crosses his face when he sees that the default search engine is Bing. Batman rolls his eyes and types "google.com", then he presses the "Enter" key. The Batman then types "Boycott XWF" but this time on Google's search bar....

[Image: YIhlnDr.png]

The mouse pointer hovers over the first result before selecting it with a swift click.

Quote:
#BoycottXWF trending after Warfare

By: Steve Sayors

"Steve Sayors?"

"He's an interviewer that works for XWF, but why is he writing about things that never happened?"

Dr. Salp scrolls down, "It says the boycott is about the Union not being disqualified when they should've been and that they should still be champions."

"That doesn't make any sense. XWF fans hate disqualifications. They like to see people get decapitated and buried in poop. They'd never suggest that a match should end like that."

"Interesting..."

"The Union were a team of British wrestlers, maybe this has something to do with..."

"Brexit?"

The Bat shakes his head.

"I think I'll have a word with Steve Sayors about this. Thanks for your help, doctor."

"Sure, no problem, but I realized we didn't really get a chance to catch up all that much. Maybe I could meet your wife and daughter?"

"It will be arranged.'

With a flick of his cape The Masked Manhunter vanishes from the office.

Guppy Fin.

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