224 My SI Stash #24 - Relentless Hearts Burn Metal by Rain Reid (DCU)

-Some new hardcore gore with the SI as Bane~ Same author of The Hammer Effect! This author pumps out a lot of SI fics, he never finds the time to stay and finish one (￣□￣」)

Sypnosis: I don't know if this world is real or not, but I do know that no one truly wants to die, everyone wants to live for another day. No matter the despair, hardship or hopelessness. So what do you do? You kick, claw, bite and fight for your life with all you have! Destroy all obstacles to your continued existence, even if it means ending your heroes. Suvive, thrive. Become Bane DC SI

Rated: T

Words: 5.7K

Posted on: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13518376/1/Relentless-Hearts-Burn-Metal (Rain Reid)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1+2 (exceptional)

RISE

His heart was filled with intent, but his fist could not convey his conviction. I allowed him to rain down his fury on me. It barely stung. His flurry of punches and strikes all aimed at lethal spots on my body barely fazed me. A strike across my face filled me with disdain for him.

How does a man such as he become so weak?

So feeble.

So frail.

I caught his strike. My palm wrapping around the hard leather glove of his balled up fist. He was shocked to say the least. I slammed my forehead down on his face. The hard metamaterial of his cowl helmet cushioning some of the impact force, but it was enough to stun him and send him stumbling backwards.

He observed me, his eyes trying to find a weak spot – something for him to exploit and bring me down. And like an enraged bull, he dashed for me, wielding his anger like a spear meant to impale me. I struck him, breaking his stride and destroying his charge.

It was disappointing. I expected more from him.

"Peace has cost you your strength." I said, lending him a piece of my wisdom. "Victory has defeated you" He wasn't so appreciative. He roared in my face as he once again lunged for me. His wicked strikes combined with a finesse he had left to rot in ignorance and complacency. A lesser man would have long crumbled under the vicious and relentless strikes, but I wasn't a lesser man.

His negligence would be his downfall.

His doom.

My fingers dug into his shoulders like hooks, I ripped him off the metal platform and tossed him off the railings. He reacted fast, widening his inky black cape. And true to his name sake he fluttered to the floor like a graceless falling bat. I followed after him, like red on blood, I tormented him.

He was my hero. And yet, I regretted meeting him, alas the saying was true.

This man left me feeling utter disappointment, like a father watching his child willingly fall into disaster.

My moves were brutal but clinical. Fierce but result oriented. I did not hide the loud pounds of my feet against concrete, I did not silent my heavy swings nor my derision. I aimed, I struck and delivered pain and torture.

His breaths were becoming labored. His ignited spirit was a flame past its prime, it was about to be exhausted. I wanted to give him one last chance to prove himself. I let myself lag, he latched onto the opening like a leech onto flesh.

He groaned and grunted as he struck me with all he had, channeling his innermost strength into his hands. His very purpose into his style, like an artist would transfer his vision to reality through his paint brush. It was flashy and visibly intimidating.

But he was a butcher with a blunted blade, trying to hack away at a dragon's scale. It was as pointlessly useless as having naked children trudge through the frozen tundra of Antarctica.

I shifted his grip from the back of my head to my shoulder, ending his relentless combo of body shots meant to drive the wind away from my lungs, I rotated using the momentum to send my fist into his face. He stumbled like a wounded animal, crawling away and back to his feet he widened the distance between us. I followed after him one step at a time. He aimed for my head and swung, I dodged under it and struck at his midsection. He folded as the air was viciously driven out of him. I half knelt, bringing our eyes to level. His conviction was weak, his spirit was on the verge of collapse, holding on only by the skin of his teeth – teeth that were about to break and shatter beneath my knuckles. I sent my fist rocketing upwards, slamming against his chin. Like a bow bent backwards, he flailed as he careened backwards, nearly falling on his back – a boot to his chest accomplished that.

He lay prone on his floor. His breaths short, hard and strained. He raised his head, I imagined the water from the cracked pipe helped alleviate his fatigue but it would catch up to him soon – a glass of water could not put out an inferno.

He tossed black pellets from his utility belt at me, I swatted them away, even as they exploded on contact. The heat tickled my skin, it was less than the pain of my rebirth, weaker than the flames I had to walk through during my days of training with the league. The pain wasn't going to be impeding me not when I was in near constant agony.

"You have forsaken yourself. You have thrown away your fangs. Your purpose is blunted. Bruce, you are lost" I sighed. It must have maddened him, he dove for me like a car without brakes. I picked him up and body slammed him to the floor, his momentum adding an extra kick to the impact. He tossed the bat-shaped shurikens (batarangs) at my face, I leaned my head to the side, letting them sail away. It granted him the distraction he needed slide into the shadows.

I would've facepalmed if it wouldn't have been so out of character for me to, I walked around the place, strutting like I owned it. "Bruce, do you really think the darkness is your ally? You merely adopted it. I was born in the dark, moulded by its heartlessness. I didn't see the light of day until I was a man..." I recited. Mixing the truth with poetry as I reminisced to my days in the pit, the place of my second birth. I had already found him hiding in the dark behind the shadow of an aged stone column, he was as noticeable as a candle in a cave. "..by then, it was already blinding!" my hand shot forward, accurately coiling my fingers around his neck. He let out an uncharacteristic "Urk!" to which I silently chuckled as I lifted him off the floor, suspending him in my grip.

I shook my head at him, as he tried clawing at my arm. I outclassed him, like a tank outclasses a bicycle. This is where dedicated training gets you. I had been out there fighting master assassins, trading blows with beasts who hid beneath the thin skin of humans but shared nothing with them, tossed and turned with men who made demons look like saints.

Burned, beaten, bruised, flayed, stabbed, impaled, abused, molested, tortured. And yet I not only thrived, but survived.

I came out on top, I broke them all and buried them beneath my feet. While he tussled with street rabble, while his conviction was constantly chipped away by thoughtless, inflexible ideals. And when he won, he celebrated in that victory putting away his edge in a framed glass case hung above his head like a prize. While all I had were scars to remind me of what would come if I did not improve myself and a dream – a single dream of seeing my home again.

I slammed him with rage, hearing parts of his ribs crack. I raised my fist and brought it down. His cowl began to fracture, I brought down another and it broke. Bringing his bare face to view. I brought down another breaking his nose, chipping tooth and shattering jaw, making him bleed.

I rose over his prone form. "You disappoint me, Bruce" I said. About to slam my boot down on his head when she interrupted. I expected it.

"The deal is annulled miss Kyle" I stated. Catwoman in her full body leather outfit stood over the unconscious bat. She understood the meaning behind my words, I could see her gaze alternate between him and I.

She sighed, fixed her sights on me and responded in her lovely challenging tone."...Don't be a sourpuss darlin-!" she was surprised by the uncharacteristic speed I exhibited or maybe it was the swiftness with which I took action. That made her unprepared, even as she utilized her quick reflexes and reactions to try somersaulting away, she was just too unprepared. Not as trained as we were, true combat was not her forte.

She lashed her whip forward, stinging me across the face as it impacted my breathing mask. If I was the less disciplined version of myself that was addicted to the drugs, this would be where she would cut off the delivery tubes, leaving me suffering the debilitating side effects and too weak to defend myself.

Too bad for her it wasn't.

I gripped her whip and pulled. Dragging her along right into my grip. "Your nine lives won't be enough to save you" The claws on her arms cut razor thin lines through the flesh of my arm as she relentlessly clawed at me, quite fittingly like an enraged cat. I wasted no time in snapping her neck. Watching it bend bizarrely to the side after a sick crack – a way it was never meant to, her tongue sticking out of her opened mouth. Her eyes painfully wide open. Her body writhing as the last vestiges of life vacated her body. I tossed her far away, keeping the smell of her soiled body away from me. Sometimes people shit themselves when they die. I casted a last glance at her, I admit it was truly a waste of a very fine piece of ass.

"NO! SELINA!" Bruce cried as he once again rushed me, fury was severely blinding his reason. I had broken this man.

"Tell me Bruce, is your spine as strong as your spirit?" I asked, driving my elbow down onto his back. He let out a painful cough as he collapsed to the floor. I hefted his body over my head in one swift motion and brought it down on my knee. I felt his vertebrae shift, but I wanted to hear it crack instead. I hefted him higher this time. And with a primal roar I brought him down on my knee.

–– CRACK!

Batman was folded over backwards with his spinal column touching pushing against the skin of his stomach. It looked a bit similar to the icebox scene in Deadpool 2, where deadpool falls over the edge of a metal table and his spine is folded in half. That is what this looks like, but more raw. Bruce Wayne was literally broken in half over my knee. He was convulsing uncontrollably in my arms as tears painful slid down his eyes, it was almost serene, like a scared and lonely child seeking the warmth and love of his angelic mother during a cold night. Except this was a morbid scene with glorified savagery.

"No, no it is not" I concluded.

So much for being my hero.

He is well dead, but just to be certain. I grab his head and twist it all the way round, a full 360 degree rotation. Crushing his windpipe, brutally tearing his axial vertebra and the muscles that held his head in place, with one final grunt, I ripped it clean off, severing it from the spine using nothing but pure strength. This was unmatched gore and untold brutality. His blood dyed my hands red.

I could hear one of my men retching his guts out in the background, I eyed my current second in command who understood what I wanted and swiftly put a bullet through the – vomiter – lesser willed man. While I held the still warm head of batman, the whites of its droopy eyes looking out into nothing, the snot and dribble sliding down the face in a thin trail. The drops of blood leaking from the large mess of raw flesh that was once a neck dripped into the velvet pool below adding to its mass, as it spread around the twitching headless body of the bat, like his cape normally would.

Revive from that.

I held it by the hair and brought it up to the camera lens. My message was properly conveyed, there were no need for anymore words.

Power. Strength. These things were the most sought after. Every single person with a hint of ambition in them wanted one – if not all – of it. An individual goes to their job to make money with which they would use to ensure their lives were comfortable and secured. That was a form of power, after all you truly are never satisfied with what you have. Hence the reason why they aim for more – higher salaries, promotions, better houses, finer men or women, better food...etc the list goes on, it all comes down to one fundamental purpose – a better life. And power was necessary for that because if someone else with more power than you have comes along and decides that they want what you have, you will lose it all.

No one truly wants to die, everyone wants to live to witness another day. Those who face despair and decide to run from it, always regret it. Those who shirk away from confronting their hardships and responsibilities find themselves destitute and without purpose. Even at that no one truly wants to die. Why would you want to lose out on enjoying your "better life.

Strength to bring down those against you. Strength to trample on those who would trample on you, strength to tear down those who rise against you. Strength to protect your "Better life" and ensure that nothing threatens it. Strength allows you to enable your will.

Alfred wished he had strength. Alfred wished that his body was that of his past prime and not this ailing thing, because maybe then he'd have been able to have done something. And more than anything Alfred prayed for strength to live long enough survive this disaster.

He saw the broadcast – everyone in Gotham had seen the broadcast. The brutality by which that monster dealt with Bruce made him shiver. Alfred had seen a lot of things during his days in the queen's service. What the brute had done, wasn't mere physical decimation. It was a systemic psychological breakdown hidden beneath physiological collapse.

It was the most profound definition of torture he had ever had the misfortune of witnessing.

He broke the spirit, and then the body. He destroyed the soul and then incinerated the husk that was the body in a blazing fury of wickedness.

How long had it been since he had been sitting here staring at the figures on the TV screen but barely even making out their voices? The crack of Bruce's spine was as deafening as the crack of midnight thunder. It sounded like the singular clap of a mad god above – like the breaking of a sacred soul. The crack was all he could hear now, it occupied his ears and flooded his mind. The figure of Bruce folded over, it was wrong, it was just wrong.

He imagined that it was all a dream, perhaps a nightmare that would soon fade, but the devil stood before him. It had stepped out of the shadows cast by the large looming halls. Its massive steps unmuted as it inched nearer towards him. The mask over its mouth amplifying the sound of its intake and outtake of air, giving the illusion of a dragon's periodic breath. The large heavy coat draped over his shoulders like the regal tunic of a conqueror. He sauntered towards the seated old man.

He knew not when, but something had gripped hard on his shoulder. When Alfred stared up, he was face to face with the monster. Its eyes betrayed no emotion or feeling, not even a hint of elation. Just a burning gaze of inglorious purpose.

"He was once my hero too." It spoke as though it understood his pain. "Oh but I do" it said, as though reading Alfred's mind.

Alfred had made up his mind. His hand hidden behind the arm rest of his seat shot forward, in his grip was a silver 9mm pistol pointed straight at the monster wearing the face of man. A powerful grasp latched onto his, immobilizing his trigger finger. He tried rising out of his seat, but the grip on his shoulder held him down.

Slowly but surely the barrel of the gun pointed towards him. His death was imminent, it was eventual and that was unchangeable. Like the fingers of the clock forever moving from one digit to another, Alfred now stared down the dark barrel of his gun. Terror gripped his heart, causing to beat wildly and sporadically. An ache began to take over his chest and the underside of his arm, his breath becoming hard and strained – an indicator of a heart attack.

––BANG!

The clap of localized thunder echoed deafeningly through the deserted mansion. A thin trail of smoke spiraled away from the tip of the pistol. Alfred lifelessly slumped backwards into his chair, a thin line of blood trailing down the bloody hole in his head. Bane admired the weapon, it held history, it had a story to tell.

Bane pulled down the drawn back eyelids of Alfred. Laying his prized pistol over the man's chest in a rare display of courtesy. He pushed the chair Alfred sat on to the side, allowing him full access to the antiquated grandfather clock that stood silently strong – an unwavering time keeper, a silent astute watcher through the ages.

Bane pulled the clock fingers into the code sequence of 10:48. A memorable number with deep meaning that only two people knew of, and both people were now deceased. Gears whirled and click into place, the grandfather clock receded into the wall, where it once occupied now a passage into the deep secret reaches of the Batcave – a secret system of tunnels and caves beneath the Wayne Manor.

Bane took a step into the rocky gray metal box of the elevator, the machine hummed as it lowered into the belly of the large cave, the bats screeched away as lights erupted with a deep hum showering the Batcave in a brilliant white that brought all its contents to view; A set of Batsuits – armors encased in glass, vehicles ranging from two wheeled bikes to mobile tanks, an assortment of gadgets, tools, lab stations, monitors and a large mainframe computer resting against the cave wall.

"One step closer" The man in the mask pronounced, walking into the glorified bunker filled with multi-billion dollar technology.

Chapter 2

GOALS AND PRIORITIES

No one truly knows me. No one on this earth at least. I'm not trying to be poetic, I mean it when I say that no one truly knows me. Some have partially gleamed into the meanings behind my actions and have used that to try and define me. But if they truly knew why I did what I did, they'd balk.

I want to go home. Simple words, an even more simple wish. Home, the place where my true family resides. I never asked to be brought into a fictional world where nothing truly matters – I had a life, a good one back in my native world, and I was going to do everything in my power to get back. I won't lie, sometimes I'm sidetracked or distracted, but they are momentary – they can never stop me from trying to achieve my goal.

*.*.*.*

Twenty – four years prior to the death of Batman.

The Pit.

I woke up in hell. How could I tell? It was dark, filthy and crowded and there was a great gnashing of teeth and pitiful moans of suffering that went to a bone grating symphony like a chainsaw on wood. The first thing I did was to Immediately close my eyes and remind myself that it was all a vivid dream. Because it was – I am dreaming, how else would I leave my king-sized bed for the ice cold pool of rusted skeletons and decaying bodies. Then the smell hit me – the eye watering kind of stench, the one that abuses and violates your senses, the one that makes you want to pour raw sanitizer down your nostrils.

I coughed and dry heaved, using whatever wet rag I had on me to cover my face. I shouldn't have, things were crawling in that rag and I had now introduced those things to my face. I yelped, coughing and spitting as some got into my mouth. I began furiously scrubbing away the disgusting hoard of slithering maggots and crawling insects that sought to explore and conquer my face, leaving painfully itchy bites as monuments to their progress. Pun not intended, but I finally found out what was bugging me out, after hours of trying to rid myself of the filth I was in. I noticed my tiny, bony fingers as they trailed over my very small face.

It was disconcerting to say the least. Going from having strength filled adult hands to those of a malnourished child's. Going from having an angular masculine jaw and full beard to that of a young oval face as smooth as a sick baby's ass. Yes, I realize my analogies are quite awesome. I also realize my use of humor to silence the absolute terror I was feeling.

But I needed to set my priorities straight, first of which was getting out of this hole if I didn't want to die...again. I used what little strength I had to try latching onto whatever I could to climb towards the silver of light. But the world decided to throw me a surprise gift. There was a grunt, and then a whoosh followed by a bam! The whoosh was the sick body of someone either willing falling, or forcefully thrown into the hole. The bam was the sound it made when it crashed on me.

Have you ever tasted shit water? Have you ever tasted shit water with loads of decaying bodies in it, some of which were still alive? Have you ever been nearly drowned in water that probably contained an astounding concentration of hepatitis A through F? I puked, and then watched my puke flood back into my mouth – it tasted better than the water.

The body on top of me was killing me. Heh! that's what she said! Right, brain. You're so fucking helpful. I pushed and prodded but the bastard wouldn't get off me. Not because he couldn't but because he wouldn't. He was using me to survive, to keep afloat while I drowned beneath him. This would be instrumental to my change in becoming the demon I grew up to be. It wasn't some life changing epiphany or such. It was an obstacle I overcame that would nudge me on the right – or wrong – path to surviving.

I was going to die if I did nothing. And with the body of what I assumed to be a four year old starving child, I barely had strength to spare. So I used technique. There's a scream a man makes when you have his gonads viciously gripped in your hands – It is loud enough that you can even hear it's piercing screech underwater. His trashing gave me the opportunity to breach the crowded surface.

The man had swallowed quite a large quantity of the putrid water, enough to leave him as weak as I was, but more vulnerable. Vulnerable enough for me to then use his body as a life buoy. The trashing of a dying person is not to be underestimated. His frail body exhibited so much strength – enough for him to even kill me. But I guess he was angry and wanted to punish me badly, and as you all know, unfocused anger makes a man irrational.

The punch was hard enough to break my jaw – it dislocated it instead. And the slap left me seeing bright spots in my vision when normally it'd be dark instead. I cried and begged for mercy. I was scared shitless and terrified. I was so weak, I pitied myself. But alas, even a dying man's strength runs out. Upon finding it easy to free the fingers that had held the rags I had for clothing tight enough to strangle me. I realized that the bastard was finding it difficult to even breath. His inhales sound like the painful wheeze of a dying cat.

I held two handfuls of his hair and pushed downwards. He trashed and kicked, his finger nails like razors as he clawed at my hands and face. I did not let up; he stopped struggling eventually. It took awhile for me to kill him, as my own strength came in periodic bursts. And he made use of the lag between the burst to grab some air from the surface. He just made it painful for himself.

Right about now, you might be wondering why I didn't dwell more on the fact that I just took a man's life, or on the implications of what I just did. Please, I was too busy not dying to truly care. And in days later I would resort to limited cannibalism to give me enough strength to even think of leaving the hole.

*.*.*.*.*

Six days. That's how long it took me to slowly make my way out of the hole – which I later found out was the graveyard of the prison I was in – only to be kicked back into the hole by a sacred man who thought as I was either a zombie or a demon sent from hell. Technically, I had done things down in the hole that would qualify me for both.

All in all, it took me another three days to climb out the shit-hole. That was the beginning of hell. Sometimes I wonder if I should have let myself die in there instead. But I had a goal, and I needed to see it through.

I stood mouth agape, jaw finally relocated and utterly stumped. I crawled out of one hole, only to find myself in a larger one. It was a wide circular pit with reinforced concrete on all sides and within the concrete were dilapidated prison cells. I saw no guards, no wardens, not even other prison facilities, unless we're counting the make-shift ones.

This place was evil. This was where hope came to die. I could not only feel it, I could see it. The people in here, they had zero morals and no qualms at all. I watched a man kill another just because he found it funny. I watched them laugh and cheer on torturers who raced to skin men alive, the fastest being the victor if they'd keep their victims alive, it was all a sport to them. As the afternoon sunlight illuminated my surroundings, so also did it give me a great epiphany; this was a place filled with two kinds of people; predators and prey. Right now, I was a delicious morsel to their eyes – I was prey for eyes that were currently all focused on me.

I'll save you too much details of what happened to me. But know that there are things done to people that leave them feeling forever unclean, even when I had fallen into a literal shit hole filled with corpses it was nothing compared to this. This was another obstacle that taught me the true cruelty of reality. A lesson burned and branded, not only to my flesh but to my soul.

*.*.*.*

Twenty – three years prior to the death of Batman.

The Pit.

The days blurred till they combined into one endless cycle. My conscious mind receded due to all the abuse and my mentality became fractured. I died, not physically at least, but I still died. I went through so much that I just went under, my very soul went on lock down for a very long time. The only thing that caused me to regain myself was my goal, I couldn't abandon it, I couldn't give up. When I did wake up, I was nailed to an X shaped cross and some inches taller – apparently I'd been used for a year.

The past me would've asked why me. I would have cried for mercy and begged as I questioned whatever it was that brought me here. I'd have asked why I had to be tortured and put through hell, when all the others I'd read about in situations like mine from fiction had gained either massive wealth, immense amazing powers, or endless charisma that made every other person bend backwards to please them. No, I wasn't given shit. All I had was a scarred soul, a broken body and my own fortitude and willpower.

Slowly and painfully, I widened the injury on my palm, using the rod stabbed through it to scrape away flesh till the metal met bone. Wide enough for me to get both my hands free with a yank –

Here another comes.

I slowed my breath and closed my eyes. Cracking them slowly open when I felt the hand of one of the bastards inch closer to my naked body – so close I could feel his disgusting stench of his breath brush against my cheek. When he cupped my face, I knew it was my time.

Pain is relative. You learn to control it.

I yanked myself free from the cross. Leaving wide gaping, bleeding holes in the center of my palms. I fell right on the fucker's face and held on like a humanoid vice, the bastard screamed in surprise. What I did next left him screaming in pain.

With fingernails left growing for close to a year and sharpened to fine tips, I dug them into his squishy eyeballs. They burst like a bag full of pus, I dug deeper, burying the entire length of my thumb up his orbital cavity. Blood showered me, washing away my filth.

The man fell backwards, spasming and still crying bloody murder, I held him down with all my strength. Killing a man by trying to stab his brain with your thumb is much harder than it seems.

I was losing too much strength to continue with that venture – but I still had enough to do what needed to be done.

I bit into his carotid artery, teeth against soft almost slippery flesh. I just took a chunk of his flesh off instead of hitting his vitals. I spat it out and took another bite – this time not missing.

My mouth was filled with the almost salty metal scented blood. I was tempted to drink, but resisted that urge. I let the vigorous spurts of blood soak me instead. I slowly and shakily rose to my feet, the tears in my eyes only recognized by myself. My body bathed in a wet crimson paint, fresh enough for me to still feel the heat off it.

The prison was eerily quiet. I realized that eyes were focused on me, I looked back, memorizing each and every one of them.

I will kill you all.

Someone shook his head and pulled out a rusted metal rod sharpened to a bladed edge, that someone then began approaching me. I barely had enough strength to stand as it was and it seemed like this was finally it, the moment I die.

"Boyo let, Gustav put you out of your misery" said the man with the weapon as he now stood a meter away from me. "I'll be quic—urrkk!" It happened in a blur, large hands wrapped around his head and folded his neck. This wasn't a break, it was a literal fold.

I stared up at this neanderthal looking man. He was massive and hairy with very sharp features.

"Child. Follow me and I will teach you your strength and how to use it to survive." His voice was as gentle as a bulldozer running through wood. Like the wet licks of a serpent before it strikes.

"Why?" I asked Why didn't you save me earlier? Why should I trust you? Why do I have to follow you? I wanted to speak more but I would end up crying, my voice was quivering as is. If I did that (cry), I'd just revert to being a victim, a prey.

The man stared down at me, maybe in fascination or maybe some other emotion I was too tired to notice. But all I know is that he stared at me and then laughed, laughed without a sound. I'd acquired the ability of recognizing how deadly or deranged a man was by his eyes. His eyes told me that this very man was a demon, a beast and a saint. It made no sense. "You, a child whose very soul has been broken, is now rebuilt stronger, stronger than anyone else's in here, by your very own hands. It is a thing that cannot be and yet is. Come, let me teach you to harness your strength, to direct your mind, body and spirit towards your ends. It would be an honor."

It sounded like cryptic bullshit and I don't know why it resonated with me, but it did. If he was going to try doing anything else other than what he stated, I'd either kill him or myself, I'll never be victimized again.