Happy Christmas Laughing Boy
It was a snowy Christmas Eve in Gotham. Charles 'Chuckles' Wilberforce was lurking near the Monarch theatre. Charles was one of Joker's henchmen but today he was hoping to carry out a little freelance blackmail, maybe a some protection racket 'work' if he could be bothered to get round to it. Joker had gone a bit quiet of late and there didn't seem to be a big 'plan' on the go, so he'd been kicking his heels and was a tad bored.
Chuckles had big aspirations though: what made those smug 'Super Criminals' so special? What was the big deal with that psychotic dwarf Penguin, or coin obsessed Two-Face? Even his own boss, the Joker was a psychiatric nightmare: half loon, half mad, 100% utterly insane. Besides all that, Chuckles didn't want to be a lowly henchman all his life: he wanted more; he wanted the fame and the money. Start small he told himself, if there's an opportunity, knock out some of the slightly bigger fish in the criminal pond. As he lurked, he saw an opportunity present itself. Gary Speed, one of Two Face's guys came out of the theatre. Gary was fairly high in Dent's organisation, and bumping him off would certainly increase a guy's rep. What's more, Gary was one of those smart ass weasel types who wormed their way to the top, rather than show any fighting skill, and he was alone. Follow the little creep down an alley and 'wham', one improved reputation.
He stayed in the shadows, watching Gary as he sauntered along. When a suitable distance opened up he started to follow, waiting for the chance to make his move. As he casually walked he checked the holster under his coat, making sure he still had his trusty pistol (silenced of course.)
Gary turned down Hangman's Alley, a twisty little path that few people used due to its reputation as a hangout for lowlifes. 'Maybe a better identity than Chuckles' he thought as he tailed Gary, 'what sort of crime boss is called Chuckles?' As he was lost in thought, contemplating names, he suddenly realised he'd lost sight of Gary. He stopped in a slight panic, wondering if this was some sort of ambush. He looked around carefully and pulled his gun out. He was about to sidle up to a wall when something grabbed his leg. In an instant he was whipped off of his feet and high into the air. He looked up or possibly down and realised he was about 40 feet in the air dangling from the edge of an apartment block. Something spun him around as he dangled upside down, and he found himself face to face with the Bat.
"Helllo Chuckles. Where's your boss these days?" growled Batman.
"I ain't telling you nuthin', Batface." replied a defiant Charles. Then he remembered his gun. He tried to aim as he hung, but the Bat flipped him around, grabbed his arms and deftly tied them together, then just for the look of it swiped his gun away, quickly dismantled it and left the bits on the rooftop, taking care to keep all the bullets and a couple of gun components. He readdressed Chuckles: "Don't try to get clever. It doesn't suit you. Where's Joker?"
"Y..y..you don't scare me Batman!" yelled Wilberforce, still trying to be tough.
"Really?" said Batman, who simply punched Chuckles in the stomach, "care to talk now?"
Chuckles coughed but still had a little resistance left, "Stuff you Bats!" he said.
Batman grabbed Charles' ankle with one hand and lifted him up and shook him. "Where is he? Don't make me have to get rough. You won't like that."
Chuckles' resistance finally took the hint and departed. "All right, all right! He's holed up with Harley in Falcone's old warehouse down by the docks."
"That wasn't so hard was it?" Batman said.
Suddenly Chuckles was in a blur again and found himself lying on his back on the roof of the building. The Bat had vanished.
Down at the docks, in a swivel chair in the admin office of Falcone's old warehouse, sat the Joker and like Chuckles earlier, he was bored. He lazily threw a dart at a picture of batman and then spun the chair around.
"Oh come on. Where's the fun in this?" he shouted at no-one in particular. He was in the middle of setting up an audacious plan: he was going to rob Gotham central bank and at the same time replace the statue of Amadeus Arkham in the park with a statue of Batman in a tutu. The one problem with setting these little japes up is that they took so much time. Half of it involved sitting about and waiting for your henchmen to do stuff.
He stood up and stalked over to the desk where a few more darts were impaled into a small Penguin figurine. He was about to throw the doll in the air when something small crashed through the skylight and split the dart in the Batman picture in two.
"What the hell?" he asked himself "Why ask me, I have no idea?" he answered.
He started to move toward it with a large degree of caution "Looks like a Baterang" he muttered.
It suddenly started to make a rapid bleeping bound, causing the Joker to leap backward.
The beeping became increasingly rapid, until it was replaced by a rather familiar song sung apparently by high pitched hamsters:
Jingle Bells
Jingle Bells
Jingle All The way
The Jokers plans,
Just will not work
On any given day
Because he knows
His henchmen are
Worth less than a dime
And of course
The Batman will
Stop him every time
The music came to a jaunty little finish, and the hamsters shouted "Happy Christmas Joker!" at the tops of their voices. The beeping returned, slow at first but building up speed rapidly. When it was almost a continual tone, the baterang exploded.
"What the bloody hell was that about?" He said to himself.
"What was what about?" asked Harley as she walked into the room.
Joker pointed to the shattered skylight and then to the charred smoking mess on the wall, "That my dear, that. Y'know I think some of me's rubbed off on the Bat." He stood there perplexed at what had just happened.
Not far away, on top of a communications tower, the Batman grinned to himself "That'll confuse him for a bit."
A voice came through on his comm set, "Is everything alright Master Bruce?"
"Yes Alfred, everything is fine. I know my job is to stop people like the Joker, but sometimes just confusing them is good enough"
"If you insist Sir. Are you coming home soon?"
"I'll be back shortly. I just have to pay a quick visit to the Penguin and I'll be on my way"
"Right you are Sir"
Bruce looked over the city and launched himself into the air. Time to find an impromptu informant.