Mr. Freeze had absolutely no idea what Jude was talking about with his confident claims about candy-based medical treatment. But the man looked remarkably self-assured, spoke with the calm certainty of someone who knew exactly what they were doing, and—critically—hadn't brought any backup personnel or weapons.
He also didn't present like a madman. No wild eyes. No incoherent rambling. Just steady, pragmatic explanation of an absurd proposition.
So Victor made a decision. He chose to believe—or at least, to give Jude the benefit of the doubt for long enough to see what would happen.
He temporarily shut down the cryogenic preservation system.
The machinery powered down with a descending hum, like a massive engine winding to stillness. As the liquid freezing gas in the chamber was gradually drained through the circulation pipes, Nora lay quietly in the tilted sleeping capsule, still and silent as a porcelain doll in a display case.
She didn't wake immediately. The transition from suspended animation to consciousness required time—cellular processes restarting, neural pathways reconnecting, biological systems coming back online after months of absolute stasis.
"I'll ask again." Victor's voice carried barely suppressed anxiety. "Are you absolutely certain about this? Because if we wake her without a cure, we're just condemning her to die slowly instead of peacefully."
"Hurry up with the thawing process!" Jude checked his watch with mild impatience. "If you delay any longer, it'll be nightfall. Nocturnal creatures will be out and about—criminals, mostly, but also some genuinely supernatural things—and you probably won't enjoy the company."
Mr. Freeze was stunned for a moment by this bizarre non-sequitur about supernatural threats. He didn't respond verbally, just moved to open the warehouse's main door.
The massive door rolled open on industrial tracks. The remaining cold air trapped inside the warehouse immediately flowed outward, seeking equilibrium with the warmer external atmosphere. White vapor—visible condensation from the temperature differential—sank to the ground like fog descending. A fine layer of frost appeared instantly on the concrete floor where the cold air touched, spreading outward in crystalline patterns.
Jude watched Nora lying motionless in the chamber.
After the door opened and warmer air began circulating, he could hear her heartbeat gradually strengthening—faint at first, then stronger, the rhythm accelerating from hibernation slowness to something approaching normal human tempo. He saw her skin gradually regaining color, transitioning from the pale blue-white of frozen tissue to the soft pink of living flesh with active circulation.
It seemed that Victor's cryogenic preservation technique was remarkably effective—genuinely cutting-edge science that would revolutionize medicine if it could be properly researched and refined. The transition from frozen stasis to normal function took almost no time at all. No cellular damage from ice crystal formation. No organ failure from temperature shock. Just smooth, controlled revival.
After another moment, Nora's eyelids trembled slightly—rapid eye movement beneath closed lids, the first sign of returning consciousness.
Victor subconsciously reached out and grabbed her hand. His armored fingers wrapped around her smaller hand with desperate gentleness.
Then he loosened his grip slightly, suddenly aware of how cold his touch must feel. How alien. How wrong.
Ever since he'd woken from the ice himself—since he'd built the armor and the freeze gun, since he'd rescued Nora from Goth Corp's executives who were preparing to sell her along with the confiscated research equipment—even until this exact moment, he had not dared to thaw his wife.
Was it because he didn't want to waste her remaining viable time outside cryostasis? Or was it because he wasn't emotionally ready to face her in his transformed state? To see her reaction to what he'd become? To risk her fear or disgust or rejection?
Victor honestly didn't know the answer. He just held his wife's hand numbly, standing frozen himself despite the armor's heating systems.
In the end, his love for her prevailed over his fear. He didn't retreat. Didn't pull away. Didn't hide.
The Sleeping Beauty in the crystal coffin finally regained consciousness.
The first sensation Nora could process was someone holding her hand. But the hand had no temperature at all—no warmth, no body heat, nothing that felt remotely human. If she had to describe the feeling, it was actually cold, as if someone wearing thick winter gloves was holding her hand through the fabric barrier.
Who is it?
The grip was gentle, almost reverential. But who would be here? Where was Victor? Had something happened?
She opened her eyes with such confused thoughts and saw a figure standing beside her chamber.
The man in front of her was almost unrecognizable.
He had slightly bluish skin that didn't look remotely like normal human coloring—more like frostbite tissue or deep hypothermia. He wore disturbing red round goggles that hid his eyes completely, giving him the appearance of some kind of deep-sea creature. And he was encased in a strange suit of armor with a helmet that looked like a glass dome—technological and alien and completely unlike anything her husband would wear.
If it weren't for his familiar facial structure visible through the transparent helmet, Nora would have definitely broken free from his grip immediately and screamed for help.
"Victor?" Her voice came out as barely more than a whisper, hoarse from disuse. "Is that you?"
Nora called out to her lover with soft disbelief. He had changed so drastically she could barely recognize him as the same person.
He used to love wearing comfortable home shirts and black-framed glasses. He'd stand by her hospital bed during her illness, holding her hand with warm fingers, coaxing her to sleep when the pain was bad. He'd ramble on enthusiastically about the progress of his cryogenic preservation research, about hearing news of new experimental drugs, about improvements in her pathology reports, about what their future would be like after she was cured and they could return to normal life.
How did he become... this?
"Nora." She heard a voice coming from the helmet's speaker system. Although it sounded slightly metallic and distorted, it was definitely her husband's voice underneath the technological filtering.
Relief flooded through her. "Victor, what happened to you? How did you become like this?"
As she asked, she struggled to sit up, to reach for him, to understand what had transformed him so completely. But she had no strength at all—her muscles had atrophied from the long period of bed rest during her terminal illness, then further from the months of frozen suspension. If she wanted to stand up now, she would need significant time to readjust her musculature and bone density.
"Nora." Victor's voice was thick with suppressed emotion. "A lot has happened recently. There's so much to explain. I'll tell you everything slowly, I promise. But first—"
He changed the subject abruptly, unable to continue that particular conversation thread. Nora couldn't tell exactly what he was thinking behind the red goggles and helmet dome, but Jude—watching from the side—understood Victor's emotional state perfectly well.
So Jude took two deliberate steps forward, drawing Nora's attention away from her husband's transformation and toward the present medical situation.
"Mrs. Nora Fries." His voice was professional, matter-of-fact. "I know you've just been thawed from cryogenic suspension and have many questions for Victor. But given your urgent medical situation, I suggest we address the cancer treatment first. Would that be acceptable?"
As he spoke, he held up the two pieces of candy in his hand—one white like milk, one red like strawberries. "Here. This one has a milk flavor, and this one has a strawberry flavor. Take your pick."
Victor's attention focused immediately on the candy again.
Although Jude had explained in advance that he would use these two items to treat Nora's terminal cancer, Victor still couldn't reconcile the absurdity of what he was seeing. These looked like ordinary candy from a convenience store. Wrapped in cellophane. The kind of cheap sweets you'd give to children.
He hadn't expected that Jude genuinely planned to use these things—actual candy—as medical treatment for his wife's aggressive cancer.
Nora looked at the two pieces of candy being offered to her, completely bewildered by the entire situation. She turned to look at Victor, seeking some kind of explanation or reassurance.
He nodded to her—a small, encouraging movement of his helmeted head.
So she looked back at Jude with cautious trust. "Who are you? Are you the doctor Victor hired to treat me?"
"That's one way to understand our arrangement, yes." Jude's smile was disarming, friendly.
"And your treatment depends on... these two pieces of candy?" Her tone suggested she was reconsidering whether she'd woken up in reality or some kind of fever dream.
"Whether they cure disease or not," Jude said philosophically, "eating candy can make people happier. That's worth something, isn't it?"
Nora couldn't figure out what was going on with this strange, cheerful man. But she believed in Victor. Even though her husband had been transformed into something she didn't fully understand, he was still the man she loved. If he trusted this person, she would too.
"Can I have the strawberry flavor?" She asked politely. "I don't like milk candy very much. Never have."
Jude smiled at her with practiced kindness. "No problem at all."
Then, the instant she opened her mouth to continue speaking, he took advantage of the opportunity and tossed both candies directly into her open mouth.
Do you think this is The Matrix? Jude thought. Picking between red pill and blue pill? Not today.
"Mrs. Nora!" He said cheerfully as she made a startled sound. "Don't spit them out. You can't be picky about food when taking medicine. Both candies are necessary for the full treatment."
Nora had two pieces of candy suddenly filling her mouth. She was about to protest—or possibly spit them out in indignation at being tricked—when she suddenly felt something strange happening inside her body.
It was... vitality.
A surge of healthy, vibrant, long-lost energy flooding through her system. Like sunlight breaking through clouds after months of gray sky. Like warmth returning to frozen limbs. Like breathing deeply after years of shallow gasps.
Victor, standing beside the chamber, watched in absolute amazement as his wife chewed the two candies with an expression of shock and wonder.
Then—impossible, medically impossible, defying everything he understood about muscle atrophy and physical rehabilitation—she suddenly raised both hands. Placed them firmly on either side of the cryogenic chamber. And with what appeared to be minimal effort, she pushed herself up and jumped out of the container to stand steadily on the concrete floor.
Her face had completely regained its healthy color—rosy cheeks, bright eyes, skin with the glow of active circulation and cellular health. Her body moved with surprising lightness, no longer burdened by the crushing fatigue of terminal illness. Her voice, which had been weak and thin moments ago, now sounded strong and clear.
Her previously sluggish spirit—that quality of exhausted surrender that terminal patients developed—had been completely replaced by vibrant alertness.
This transformation made Victor, who had spent months teaching himself advanced oncology and pathology textbooks in desperate attempts to understand his wife's condition, suddenly doubt every piece of medical knowledge he'd accumulated.
How? His scientific mind screamed. How is this possible? Candy doesn't cure cancer. Candy doesn't restore muscle tone. Candy doesn't eliminate metastatic cellular damage. This violates everything we know about—
"I know you're surprised," Jude interrupted Victor's spiraling thoughts, shaking his head with mild concern. "But don't celebrate yet. Mrs. Nora's physical condition isn't as completely recovered as it appears. She's regained her vitality—her energy, her strength, her cellular function—but not her fundamental health."
He paused, checking something invisible that only he could see.
"The cancer is still there. Just... dormant. Suppressed. But not eliminated."
The system panel floating in Jude's vision hadn't shown mission completion. The task status still displayed as [ONGOING], not [COMPLETED].
It seemed that "cancer" or more specifically "Mr. Freeze's wife's terminal cancer" couldn't be simply cured by the basic healing items like fruit candy or milk candy. The condition was too advanced, too aggressive, too deeply rooted in her cellular structure.
He needed something stronger.
"What should we do?" Victor grabbed Jude's arm with desperate urgency, his armored fingers clamping down hard enough to bruise normal flesh. His eyes—visible now behind the red goggles as he leaned closer—were shining with a light Jude had never seen before.
Hope. Pure, desperate, all-consuming hope.
"Tell me what you need. Anything! Whatever you want, I will do it! I'll rob every bank in Gotham if necessary! I'll steal research from Wayne Enterprises! I'll do whatever it takes, no matter the cost!"
At this moment, Victor felt like he was being reborn himself. Like possibility had returned to the universe after months of crushing certainty that his wife would die.
"Well," Jude said carefully, "the price might be a little high. For me, I mean. Not for you."
He walked to Nora again, who was standing there looking confused but remarkably healthy. In his mind, Jude navigated to the system shop, found the Fast Life Recovery consumable, and examined the prompt.
He selected: [Use on target: Nora Fries]
A new system message appeared immediately:
[TIP: The target's condition is quite severe and unusual. You will need to invest additional asset points beyond the standard cost to achieve complete healing. Otherwise, the cancer will not be fully eliminated and will return within months.]
"How many additional asset points?" Jude asked the system mentally.
[ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND POINTS]
Jude checked his current status display.
He'd been working at Wayne Prison for the past several weeks, responsible for the inmates' meal preparation and general supervision. Bruce Wayne had been extremely generous with compensation for these services—he'd paid Jude a total of two hundred thousand dollars for the prison administration work.
He manages to gain a loop hole by making Bruce give him all the documentation and contract stating his work in Wayne Prison.
So, all he did on the prison are all work that put into the contract, that use his available skill set, so all his payment he got can gain Asset Points.
Combined with his previous savings, Jude's asset points currently stood at approximately 260,000.
Using 100,000 points for this cure would drop him to 160,000. A significant expense. Not crippling, but definitely painful.
"I'll use it," Jude thought, confirming the purchase. "I just hope the permanent cold resistance ability is worth this price."
[The milk candy and fruit candy are candy made by Jude, the milk candy created using milk from the systemthat cure Grundy from the Joker laugh gas in Chapter 71, and the fruit came from the Horn of Plenty = Provide life recovery and vampiric effects]
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