We should always encourage those around us to reach their highest potential.

—Nightwing

Ben kept his eyes closed as Nightwing flew, for the trip was jarring and made Ben's stomach turn.

He twisted and floated through a dark and loathsome dream. He came awake once to find that the bat had climbed above the storm, and down below him, lightning popped and flashed beneath the black and boiling clouds, while overhead the stars loomed so close that they threatened to burn him.

Ben could hear the bat muttering as he flew, reciting vile poetry beneath his breath, his voice alternately hissing and then booming.

"But see, amid the mimic route

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—It writhes!—with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food

And the angels sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

"Out—out are the lights—out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

And the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, 'Man,'

And its hero the Conqueror Worm."

Nightwing dipped beneath the clouds again, and in the distance Ben glimpsed the sea surrounding a rugged jut of land. There was a statue atop the jut, a strange one unlike anything that Ben had ever seen. It was an Egyptian god, a jackal, holding a huge brazier above its head—a saucer that at some time far in the past had been filled with fire. Suddenly, Ben realized what the strange statue was—a lighthouse, here at the end of the world.

But then Ben must have passed from a dream into a nightmare, for the bat dove steeply past the statue, down among trees that were bent and twisted into shapes that were so grotesque that they no longer looked like trees. Knotholes gaped like screaming mouths, and Ben felt sure that he saw pain-filled eyes hidden behind the leaves. Ben found himself clinging to the bat in terror, more afraid of the woods than of his vile master. Vines and creepers clung to the demented trees, but these were no ordinary vines. Ben saw lengths of them, coiled around tree limbs like serpents, or just crawling upon the ground.

Ben smelled death below, the stench of rotting flesh. Indeed, strange funguses grew in huge colonies, giving a deathly green glow, and by their quavering light, he spotted dead bodies—a man and his family, their car surrounded by the grotesque woods. Thorn bushes circled the car, raking the air with thorns as long as daggers.

A strange cry rose up from the broken land, a cry that seemed to be neither human nor animal. Ben looked down and saw a raven with the sharp-nosed face of an evil old man.

"Aaaaah!" the monstrous raven cried. "The master returns! The master returns!"

Other shouts rose from the woods. They might have been cheers of greeting, or they might have been cries of lament.

Nightwing dove under the trees, into a dark grotto where all was shadow. Enormous spiders, as luminous as fireflies, had built nests here, and as the spiders suddenly fluoresced, their webs lit up like gauzy ropes of light.

The bat flapped into a dank cave, where hot pools bubbled and among rocks that looked strangely like animals trying to flee.

Then Nightwing rose up, flying through a haze over a vast chamber. The lightning spiders were everywhere in here, covering the ceiling so that it shone with luminous webs. And on the floor of the cavern were monstrosities—scorpion-like creatures as big as rats, opossums with heads that sprouted bony armor, toads with eyes that glowed as red as coals. Giant evil-looking worms that buzzed their tails like rattlesnakes and watched Nightwing was if hoping that he'd drop a meal among them.

The cavern reeked of decay. And as Nightwing swooped low, the horrid creatures shouted in unison, "Master returns! Master! Master!"

Nightwing flew up to a rock where an enormous serpent lay, a snake that looked as cruel as a cobra. But its skin glowed sullenly, and upon it was painted the most amazing scene—a child whose world seemed to be melting as he cried in horror.

"Welcome, master," the snake hissed, rising up to look down on the bat.

"Good evening, Fanglorious," Nightwing said. "I see that you molted while I was gone. How do you like the new skin? Edvard Munch's 'The Scream,' I think it's called."

"It's much better," the snake said. "I was getting so tired of that grinning face of Alfred E. Neuman."

"Well, it does suit you," Nightwing told the snake.

All the while as they spoke, the monsters in the cave kept chanting, "Master! Master! Master!"

The bat set Ben on the ground, strode around him, as if anxiously inspecting a new toy.

"Hey, that's not Darwin!" Fanglorious said.

"No," Nightwing hissed. "It's not. It's something better." The bat addressed Ben. "Now, my little friend, it is time for a test of your powers. Don't fail me. You know what happens to insects that fail me."

The bat surveyed his cavern, and shouted to his minions, "Release the hummers."

Suddenly, a pair of spiders parted their webs, and a humming filled the air. Ben glanced up to see a dozen hummingbirds come swooping from a hole. They darted around the room, first veering, then pausing in mid-air, diaphanous creatures, their emerald-green feathers making them shine like gems come to life.

"Die!" Nightwing shouted.

Instantly, the hummingbirds seemed to explode, leaving nothing but feathers drifting in the air.

From the horrid mob of creatures on the floor came evil cackling, and the monsters rushed to feed on the remains of the fallen hummingbirds.

Ben gaped in horror. He had never imagined that the bat might use his magical powers for anything so terrible.

"Aaaah," Nightwing sighed in satisfaction. "Very nice. Now, we shall put the mush room to good use!

"Bring forth some prisoners."

There was movement among the mass of grotesque bodies below, a seething as creatures moved aside, and from a pair of holes came two creatures—one of them was a mourning dove, as white as snow. The other was a crab. The dove crept forward timidly, eyeing the monsters all around it. The crab scuttled sideways toward them, waving its claws in the air as if to ward off any attack.

"Welcome," Nightwing called down to the prisoners. "Welcome to the Dark Arena. Here in my cavern, we have a saying, 'Extinction is the destiny of the weak.' And tonight, for our amusement, someone is going to become extinct!"

Guffaws of laughter rose from the mob of monsters, along with cheers of "Hooray!" The crab looked up at the dove, his eyestalks waving as he studied his foe. The crab was huge and his claws were massive, while his carapace kept him safely armored.

For its part, the dove just ducked his head and peered around with eyes as black as marbles.

"Hey," Ben said. "That's not fair. There's no way that a dove can beat a crab!"

"Fair?" Nightwing asked. "You want fair? Well, all right then, let's make it fair!"

From the crowd of monsters, a chant began to arise. "Mush them. Mush them. Mush them."

And with a wave of his clawed wing, Nightwing used his vast powers to make the dove and the crab slide toward one another. Both frightened prisoners tried to pull away, but they were shoved together as if by invisible hands, and in a moment, they pressed against one another firmly.

The dove cried out in pain and the crab wriggled its claws desperately, and all of the denizens of this place kept shouting, "Mush them. Mush them!"

Then the most horrible thing happened. The two creatures seemed to melt, like warm butter, and were pressed together, into one another, forming a strange and loathsome creature.

What stood below was a horror—a bird with red wings all covered with a crablike carapace. Where the joint of the wings should have been, claws curled out like hooks. Its head displayed armor plates with strange horns. Its chest had segments of armor on it, too, and the crab-dove scurried around, his six bony feet clacking on the rocks.

"Hooray!" the monsters all cheered as they looked upon this newly formed horror.

The dove-crab looked at itself in shock, and Nightwing cried out, "Oh, don't be so alarmed. Your disfigurement serves a higher purpose. If you fight well, you will live, and I might even reward you—by creating more monsters of the same design to fight under your command in my army!

"Now bring in this week's champion!" Nightwing cried with glee, and the seething mass of monsters moved aside as some evil beast came slithering among them. Ben gulped as it came into view—a sharp-toothed wolf eel, gasping in the air. It had hundreds of powerful little rubbery legs, and armor plates running the length of its back. Ben realized with disgust that the wolf eel had been mushed with a centipede.

Cheers arose, as the two combatants began to circle one another, each searching for an opening. The dove-crab looked terrified, and kept trying to run, but it didn't seem know whether it should inch sideways or rush forward, so it tripped over its new feet.

The eel-ipede responded by whipping its tail around, bashing the helpless creature against some rocks.

Ben gazed down in horror at what was happening, and realized that it was like some evil game of Pokemon.

No, he thought. It's more like a cockfight or a dogfight.

But then someone in the crowd shouted to the eel-ipede, "Use your poison attack!" And Ben realized that yes, it was exactly like Pokemon.

The eel-ipede lunged and grabbed the dove-crab, lifting it high in the air and hurled it down with a sickly crunch.

There was a brief moment of utter silence, and the only sound to be heard was the crash of waves upon rock, and then the monsters broke into a wild cheer.

Nightwing drew his huge ears back, and raised his wings to cover them protectively while the cavern shook with cheers and applause.

"Good times, eh?" Nightwing shouted to Ben. "I've barely scratched the surface of your power. Oh, we're going to have gobs of fun. Gobs of it!"