Chapter one
"We all have our own 'all most got 'em' Batman story…"
The train station in Detroit was cram packed with people from all different corners of the earth, some coming from as far away as Los Angeles or Quebec. The smell was musty and reeked of month old cigarette smoke. The benches were old, rusted and downright dangerous to sit on, the one reason Celine was sitting on the disgustingly dirty floor instead.
Although a book hid her face from the world around her in Detroit train station, it sure didn't block out the smells or the simple lack of class and mood, something Celine was used to having, being the head psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum on Arkham Island off the coast of Gotham Bay.
Her watch read twelve twenty four, her train was set to leave forty two minutes ago, she was counting, but it had still yet to arrive at the station.
Celine sighed and closed her book; she no longer held the amount of energy she needed to read it. A rather large man gripping a greasy McDonald's bag quite firmly passed her by and left with her a not so pleasant odor and she cringed. She didn't deserve this torture, and that was what this was.
Celine was sent out to Detroit, Michigan for two months to work on a rather mysterious case at The Redding Institute which she never thought she would be able to pull the answers out of her butt until the last couple of weeks of her stay. The man's name was Jack Napier, what she had pegged to be a simple case, turned out to be a full two months stay filled with session after session with Jack until finally, two days before she was scheduled to leave she was able to place a diagnosis on him and he was set free as mentally sane.
But now she was returning home. She couldn't exactly say she missed Gotham City, but it beat Detroit my miles. Maybe not in safety, but in her mind, Celine pictured Gotham as her only home. She couldn't even count Maine, her birthplace, where she grew up and went to school. Maine still held too many horrible memories; it could never be counted as a home, not even a home away from home.
Anyways, she missed Luke and Leah, two of her best friends since high school, twins in fact, although they never acted like it.
Luke was around five foot eight with long shaggy brown hair. In high school he was a total jock, a ladies' man and the most popular guy in school. Luke maintained around four girlfriends at a time, but the girls didn't care. He would walk down the halls with them suctioned to his forearms and drooling over his beautiful chiseled features and warm caramel colored eyes that would make you melt to the bone. Celine always had a crush on him in high school but the fact was that she refused to be a shallow low-life like all the other girls were, and she believed Luke respected her for that.
Leah was five foot five and she had beautiful golden blonde hair that draped around her shoulders and caressed her body but sadly came to an end at the small of her back. Her beautiful hair contrasted well against her naturally tan skin and her lovely pale blue eyes glittered in the sun. Leah was the varsity cheer captain all throughout high school and was the snottiest girl in all of the school until she outgrew her much too oversized ego near the end of high school when so happened to be when she and Celine began to hang out.
The fact of the matter was that Celine was never much of a popular kid and it truly remained a mystery to everyone besides herself how she had ended up befriending Leah and Luke Penn.
Celine's job required her to share quite a lot of information with the government and her employer, Quincy Arkham himself. Though there were some things she still kept to herself, she had her own inside jokes like everyone does; she had her own secrets and embarrassing moments. She had her likes, her dislikes, her fears and her phobias. It was even kept to herself that she took a visit to a therapist every other week for her own personal issues in her life.
Celine hated the stereotypes that were placed on her and most of her friends and acquaintances. Not all rich people were stuck up and snooty. Not all rich people inherited all their money from rich parents or had it willed to them from departed extended family you didn't know.
Celine worked for her money, and she liked it that way. She let people know she earned her money from her job, and what a hard job it was to acquire too. For five years she worked her way up, and for most people her age she had an amazing job. Some friends she knew from high school were still working at a McDonalds in her old neighborhood.
Twenty-six. Celine had walked the earth for twenty-six years and managed to attain place of residence three blocks from play-boy billionaire bachelor Bruce Wayne, head of Wayne Enterprises. Twenty-six years and she managed to finish high-school, achieve her Masters degree in Clinical psychology and become head of psychiatry at Arkham Asylum. Celine was somewhat of a legend to people, put she would rather to not think of herself in that way.
"Last call – 48 – Gotham –," Celine could hardly hear the faint staticy voice come over the intercom over the roar of laughter and talking. She squinted her eyes to see through the mobs of people boarding the trains. Number 48 was boarding.
Celine looked at her ticket, Train number 48. The train blew its whistle three times, signaling departure and Celine made a run for it. Pushing through the crowds of people to make it onto the train, the many people she knocked over. She could hear a boy's voice calling for her, holding out an arm for her to grab onto.
Celine was a few feet away, and the train was picking up speed, she could tell the boy was struggling to stay fixed on the train now, and she was sweating.
'Just a few more seconds…' She begged to herself.
"Come on Lady!" The boy encouraged in a snotty tone, gesturing with his hand for Celine to hurry up.
Celine knew it was going to be too late if she waited for it any longer, so she flung her body towards the boy, reaching for the outstretched arm.
'Please god,' She whispered to herself, 'oh please god, I want to get home.'
She closed her eyes and prayed to herself, relying completely on her sense of touch. She felt her hand hit something hard, whether the train, a wall or the boy's hand she didn't know, then her body went cold and everything went dark and she blanked out. Celine was sure she had fallen onto the tracks.
--
"Lady?" a soft voice whispered in Celine's ear. The air from the voice was warm and sent chills down her spine, whatever she was sitting on was incredibly soft too. It felt like heaven. "Hello Mrs. Lady?" she heard a voice whisper.
"Shut up, I think she's coming to," a conflict, surely not heaven.
Celine signed and leaned her head over the other way, slowly opening her eyes only to be blinded by an unnatural light.
"Get that stupid thing out of the way you idiot," she recognized this voice as the first boys as she was coming to.
"I'm looking," the second boy answered.
Celine squinted her eyes and looked up into the boys faces. The images of them were blurred but they seemed to be incredibly tall. Then she patted the floor, she was sitting. The boys were standing up. As the image got clearer she realized that made no difference to her at all, the faces were still unrecognizable to her.
"Hello," she managed to croak out in a horse voice.
"Miss?"
"Miss Neifer, Celine Neifer."
"Are you feeling fine?" said the second boy, now able to be recognized as the oldest one.
"Yes, yes I'm perfectly fine it's just, am I on the train?" she asked.
"Yeah, Sam 'ere got you jus' in time. In a hurry? Where you goin'?" said the younger boy.
"Gotham Bay Station."
The two boys looked at each other exchanging looks of discomfort and fear.
"I didn't miss Gotham Bay Station, did I?" She asked, quickly moving up trying to balance herself. The fast jerking motion of her head made it throb and she put her hand to the back of her head to rub it. "Why is my hand-" she whispered. Celine looked at her hand, covered in dripping wet red. The blood trickled down her fingers and hit the floor in *drop* *drops*, "Oh my god."
The younger boy shut his eyes closed and the older boy, Sam, ripped off his shirt and tied it around Celine's head. "You didn't miss your station, but we'll be there in about- ughh" Sam was jerked forward from the sudden stop of the train. "Now." He ended.
Celine grabbed her bag and pressed her left hand hard against the back of her head, trying to force the bleeding to stop. She could feel her hand getting wetter and wetter by the second and her shirt soaking with the blood. She wondered how many weird looks she must have gotten from the people exiting the train with her.
"Wait up!" The boy, Sam, called after her and running up the aisle, "Mark and I are coming with you. You can't walk around Gotham at night alone, especially not with a huge gash in the back of your head."
Celine sighed and stared at the boys, they seemed to have such good intentions and she desperately didn't want to have to break their hearts. "I think I have a friend waiting for me outside." She said in the kindest fashion possible.
"We'll come with you and check," they said simultaneously.
"Don't you have parents?" she asked, desperate for an excuse.
"We travel alone 'ost all the time, their at 'ome," Said Sam.
Celine was shocked, parents not wanting their kids at home most of the time have mental issues that they may want to work out with a psychologist. "You can come then," she sighed, giving in to their begging.
Same and Mark smiled at each other and said together, "Thank you!"
Celine led the boys out of the train and off the station. She could hear their excited and interested 'oohs' and 'ahhs'. She sighed and smiled to herself, she would have to take them to the Asylum and that's why she didn't want to bring them. No child should be subject to those criminal masterminds.
Her car was parked in the same space; number twenty-three her lucky number. She unlocked the doors and opened the back for the two boys to slide in. She was amazed at how stupid and gullible these boys were, how easy it would be to kidnap and kill them if that was her plan. She would have to talk with them at Arkham.
"Are you going to take back off late tonight?" She asked the boys.
"Ya want us too?" asked Sam, who seemed like he did most of the talking.
"You could stay with me tonight if you'd like, but I have to stay overnight in my office if that's fine with you."
Celine looked through her rear view window and saw Sam and Mark both shaking their heads intently, it seemed they enjoyed a sense of adventure, even if it had the possibility to get them in loads of trouble.
"So where do you work?" asked Mark.
"Arkham Asylum, head of psychiatry," Celine stated with pride and listened to the boy's mmms and oohs. "You're alright at sleeping over at a loony bin, am I correct."
"The crazier the beh'r," Sam said with a huge smile.
Then you guys are in for the best trip you've ever taken on that sickening train," she said with a little laugh as they crossed the bridge to Arkham Island and pulled into the nearly empty parking lot.
When Celine first started working at Arkham she used to think it was haunted, but she did find out on the first day that rumors of Arkham were true. Arkham Asylum housed the most dangerous, psychotic, criminal minds America had ever seen, and still does. In the time Celine has been at Arkham, she had seen quite a few, in their peeks and in their toughs.
Celine parked in space twenty-three as always and got out of the car, waiting for the boys to come out and follow her inside, she was sure she was in for a pile of work on her desk when she got inside and immediately regretted letting the boys come along with her.
--
Meanwhile, just inside Arkham, a new inmate was arriving.
"He's been transferred over from GCPD," said the voice standing outside the Plexiglas window talking to the receptionist.
"Name?"
"We're not sure; he hasn't said anything but nonsense since we left the station." The woman outside the Plexiglas stated.
"Where are we?!" The man strapped to the carrier asked in an annoying high-pitched voice.
"What did I say?" said the cop, "nonsense."
"Any alias? Codenames? Birth date, place of residence, family members? Anything?" asked the receptionist.
"Nothing. All we know is that he appeared outside the GCPD tied up and gagged," said the cop outside the Plexiglas.
The receptionist opened her mouth to ask more questions but was interrupted by the strapped down criminal-
"The name is Joker. Bats brought me to your doorstep." He said his mouth spreading into a smile.
The cop opened her mouth to say something and the receptionist was quick to write down the information on his info form.
"Why weren't you talking at the-" the cop started but was soon irrupted by more blurted out information by the impatient 'Joker'
"You weren't worth it." He stated simply and with his never ceasing smile he added, "But her," he said pointing with a shaking finger to the wide-eyed, surprised receptionist sitting behind the glass, "she's worth it."
The cop was silent, not knowing how to treat this man; this Joker was what he was. His face was bleach white, no makeup but a 'freak accident' as the doctors has put it. At the station he hadn't seemed to be reckless, or even in the least bit a danger to Gotham city when he was locked away safely inside his small make-shift cell, but the GCPD had insisted she drove him down here this night specifically. She could see now that when he was out of his cell, he really did belong here.
His voice was like a razor sliding down a chalk board, not a natural voice to say the least. It reminded her of a gravel path, rough but with a nice feel, still it gave her chills. She wanted to say it was the accident the doctors had spoke of that made his voice sound this way, but she couldn't because she didn't know for sure. The way he talked, it was like everyone was his victim. It was like everyone was out to get him but he wanted to get to them first.
The cop sighed and gave up, "Where do I need to take him?" she asked, interested, turning back to the receptionist, who laughed her in the face. The cop frowned.
"Sorry," She apologized, wiping the grin off her face, knowing it wasn't correct in this situation and with this patient. "I'm guessing you haven't done this before."
"Well, you guessed right."
As she talked a guard came through the sliding glass doors at the right side of the 'lobby' so to speak, and took The Joker away from the cop, "I'll take this from here," he said in a deep, rough tone.
The cop let her hands slide off the cold metal handles and watched the guard as he pushed The Joker through the glass doors with such ease, "Bye bye sweetie!" he called before they slid shut again whether it was to the receptionist or her, she wasn't sure of.
The guard pushed Joker past four filled low security cells and two empty ones on the first floor that looked exactly like regular jail cells. When they reached the small rusted chain metal elevator at the end of the end hall, the guard went in first and pulled Joker in backwards.
The guard pressed the up arrow on the controls board and Joker wanted bad to reach out and press the big red button that warned: 'Only press in case of emergency', but he restrained himself. Well, the board he was strapped to restrained him in that case.
The elevator shuddered and started ascending slowly and by the time they had reached the 5th floor, Joker had a good feeling about the layout of this place. He wasn't in a good situation though. He tightened his hands and closed his eyes in somewhat of a sorrow, not that this place could bring down his spirits, not after what had happened last night.
"How's a guy supposed ta get outta this place?" he asked in full spirit f starting a conversation with the guard.
"You're not," the guard said roughly, stopping any chance of a friendly conversation and Joker fell silent.
The guard reached the end of the hall. "Cell 23: High security." He said to himself, not meaning for the Joker to hear, but knowing he obviously would have. He took some keys out of his left pocket and fiddled through them, looking for key number twenty-three. After five minutes of searching he found the key and he jammed it into the lock and opened the door to the lightless, dark and damp cell.
He grabbed the handles of the board Joker was strapped to and pushed him inside. He fit a different key into the several locks that restrained him and let him go free in his cell. "Don't try anything funny, or I'll have all of the security team piled on you." The guard warned.
Joker smiled and nodded his head, trying to act innocent, he wasn't mad at this man, it was Batman who put him in this loony bin, and that's who he planned to get.
"What a nut," the guard whispered and left Joker in cell 23 for the night. He called up to the front desk to tell them that Cell 23 had just been filled.
Joker sat in the cell and tapped his fingers against the floor, it wasn't his fault. He didn't make himself do this, it was that bat. Nobody would believe him though. Batman was a legend, a myth, a figment of his imagination as they all had said. But he had seen him! He had to tell himself that in order to keep himself from going even madder. Batman was the reason Jack was dead. Gone.
The stories that the Red Hood had bit the dust were all true in Joker's eyes. Heck, they were true. And Joker knew it. His face was no longer to be seen in Gotham again, and in its place was a cruel, white mask and a horribly altered mouth that sent fear through the eyes of Gotham's public. Joker bit his lip. It was his face.
The chemical bath that Batman had managed to shower him with had left his skin all over his body a bleached white and his lips a blood red. A ghastly grimace replaced his old caring smile he used to give his wife when he came home from work at the 'chemical plant'. His eyes were hard and cold. They were uncaring and ungrateful, like two black tunnels dug into his face and they were still red around the pupils from the chemicals. Jack Napier was dead, a long gone face in his eyes; and in his place was a monster, a monster by the name of Joker.