Hey Jim, Get a Load of This
"I want Lau alive; the Joker, either way."
And so it had begun.
The police had broken in on the pile of burning cash, just a moment before Joker had made the call. It had been a fierce struggle to be sure, but they had managed to rescue Lau from his fiery death that surely awaited him just a moment before it was too late. There hadn't been enough time to save the Italian from his fate at the jaws of his mutts, but his underlings were arrested onsite and taken to County with the rest of their mob friends.
And in all the confusion, no one knew just how it had happened. It could have been Stevens' gun, or Ramirez, or Wuertz, Berg, Richards, Burns, Davis, O'Brian, Zachary. Maybe even the Commissioner himself. Out of all of them, perhaps with the fear that had nearly torn his family apart, he had the best reasons for it. But they still couldn't definitively say who had fired the shots that had certainly been heard around the world.
All they knew was that, when the smoldering piles of dirty cash were being extinguished and swept aside, they all noticed the bleeding, shattered body of the Joker in the middle of the room.
And so it had ended. Or so they thought.
The television could not be muted, even long after the program was finished. It still pounded in the ears of everyone tuned in, some louder than others, but always there, lingering ever after. The words that Coleman Reese had spoken that sealed the fate of the city.
"The Batman…is my client, Bruce Wayne."
The proof was far too conclusive to be denied, and most assumed that that was the reason he turned himself in. But he and Alfred gave up without a struggle, but the vigilante himself was taken to Arkham, to be evaluated for what twisted logic could have driven him to commit the acts that he had.
It wasn't until he asked about the Joker that he heard the news.
Harvey Dent, with his star witness of the Chinese accountant who had taken the now burnt money, successfully landed the mob in prison. But after his one last contribution to his city, his grief over Rachel took him over in full, and his suicide tarnished the morning papers the next day.
New criminals and mafia members came to Gotham, replacing those in County that had been wiped off the streets. But with no knight, white or dark, to combat them, they paraded around the city with just as much force as Falcone had years ago. With no unstoppable force to keep them terrified, or immovable object to hold them at bay, they ran rampant through the streets, with the rising police force always three steps behind them.
Now all that remains of Gotham is a shell of its former glory, reduced to nothing more than a cesspool of crime where the corrupt prosper and the pure suffer in silence. No longer the birthplace of a new universe, a city where two rising gods do battle for its soul, it belongs to no one anymore. Its soul cannot be fought over, because it has no soul left.
All that remains is a man screaming in his cell, screaming for the past and what he perversely craved, and for the loss that came about in a world outside that's just as much a hell as what's in his head.
And all because Detective Stevens didn't notice the TV.
Ok, that was probably one of the most depressing things I have ever written. It kinda reflects my current state of mind, but whatev. Funny how simple little actions in everyday life, like watching TV just before you ambush the worst terrorist in living memory, can impact the course of the future so much.