PART NINE

Two hours after hearing about the mass break-out, Commissioner Gordon hit the floor as another bomb blew out the floors under his. The streets were full of thieves, looters and costumed criminals as the Green Goblin surveyed the carnage he had started. The Riddler and the Archer were in other gliders as they robbed jewelry stores and flew over the heads of the police. Things were getting bad as every window up the street blew up or shattered from the reverberations.

"Well, is he coming?" O'Hara crawled the floor over to his superior as the police courthouse was bombed, fired upon and used as target practice from missiles.

"That last explosion knocked out the lines." Gordon held up the red phone. "I only hope Bonnie got a call to Metropolis or to Manhattan, maybe even those Avengers."

"Look!"

The grotesque green face of the Green Goblin rose up in the window as if he was on a lift. He looked around giggling with a pumpkin bomb in his hand.

"Grandpa!" His mask moved with his face. "I'm home!" He tossed in the bomb as Gordon and O'Hara crowded behind the desk. The room exploded once more and blew out the windows as the emerald menace flew through one window and out the other cackling and laughing.

The Batmobile charged down the main street at eighty miles an hour as it rushed into town to save the city. Recognizing its jet turbine engine, Mr. Freeze strapped his booty over his shoulder, walked to the middle of the street and aimed his freeze gun point blank at the dynamic duo ready to eliminate them before anyone else. Batman noticed him, hit a switch and turned on the shields of his computerized crime mobile as the iceman's ray ricocheted back and froze the cold villain in his own solid block of ice, the Batmobile roaring by as Freeze cursed from within his icy tomb.

"Watch Joker," Egghead noticed the Batmobile as well charging for them and hesitated from the safety of the sidewalk outside the bank. "A flip of the switch..." He turned a dial on what looked like an egg timer.

BOOM! The largest explosion yet blew out under a manhole under the Batmobile and sent it reeling front over end. Flipped over its front end, it crashed upside down from the underground explosion with a mighty crash. Bookworm and the Penguin laughed at the sight and danced a jig at the destruction of the thing. Around them, much of Main Street rioted and tore the town apart. Shooting by overhead, the Goblin tossed a few pumpkin bombs at the underside of the upside down vehicle as more explosions rocked the city.

"Robin!" Batman crawled out relatively unscathed. "Good chum! Are you alright!"

"Holy... liability!" Robin staggered to his feet as the Penguin opened fire on them and the Archer fired arrows hovering from a glider.

CRACK! Batman tossed a batarang that knocked the arrow caster out of the air as Robin found his senses and kick boxed the Penguin's rifle umbrella out of his hand.

SMASH! A left uppercut and blow to the stomach and the smoking bird was down for the count.

There was still several more to go as Batgirl tore down the street in her cycle trying to do what she could. She caught a glimpse of something over her head as Selina Kyle, the original Catwoman, vaulted on a traffic pole and landed on the cycle with her.

"We finally meet!" She clawed the dynamic damsel and forced her to ditch the sliding cycle. Batgirl rolled, leapt to her feet and stood ready as the feline villainess kicked, jabbed and ripped at her hair.

"I'm the only girl in the Batman's life." The feline fury knocked her down. "And you're just a mouse with wings!"

"Appearances are decieving!" Batgirl leapt over her opponent's head and kicked back. She hoped this Catwoman was as easy to fight as the African-American imposter who had masqueraded as her.

SMACK! The Catwoman stumbled backward, danced over a bench and landed on her feet. Locking Batgirl's neck in her legs, she pile-drived her into the asphalt. A bit dazed by the move, Batgirl rolled, jumped to her feet and sent as many karate kicks as she could send. The Catwoman's mask flew off as she lashed out.

"Care to be cat-apulted into space?" She dove at Batgirl only to be caught and tossed through the open window of the pet store. Catwoman gasped and looked up to the eyes of a Rottweiler.

With Bookworm and Egghead out of the way, Batman knocked the Riddler out of the air with his last batarang. The Joker and Penguin were being tied to each other as the Green Goblin fired his missiles at the street. Dodging the explosions, the caped crusader grabbed his grappling hook and tossed it as he held on to the rope.

"What the?" The Goblin felt his craft suddenly kick into burning more fuel as if it was carrying more weight. Looking back, he realized he was hauling the dark knight detective behind him over the streets.

"Oh yeah!" He hit the speed button as his gestures and balance guided the glider closer toward the buildings. Batman ran along the surface of them as pulled himself closer and closer to the demon responsible for the terror. His eyes rounded as he saw the glider dip for a warehouse as the shot in through a window.

SPLAT! The Goblin began laughing sadistically after hearing the sound of something hit the walls. Shooting out of the warehouse through another window, he reached for another pumpkin bomb as he shot out and zoomed high over the industrial section of the city. Why was his glider still so sluggish?

"Give it up, Goblin!" Batman was on his back after holding on to the bottom. "You're finished!"

"Am I!" They both saw the huge letters of Osborn Chemicals rearing up. Screaming like a banshee, the glider nicked the surface, spun and smashed into a catwalk.

BOOM! The explosion took out the glider as the catwalk shattered from the force of it. As the two foes landed on it, it creaked, groaned and began falling off the wall. Jason Pryde's eyes went wild under his mask as he clawed for something to hold him. He began sliding on the angling twisted metal as he looked down to the raw sewage that Norman Osborn dumped in Gotham River then up to Batman hanging upside down like a trapeze artist.

"Pryde, give me your hand!" He reached out. "A life in prison is better than no life at all!"

"Do you think I'm crazy!" Pryde began laughing in the face of death. "And give you the credit of saving my life?"

"You can't hold on!" Batman pleaded. "Drop the stuff you stole! It's pulling you down! Think of your wife!" Pryde began laughing his psychotic Green Goblin laugh. Batman stared at the sight of him as the prince of terror suddenly went serious.

"I already lost her." He let go of the groaning twisted catwalk with dire seriousness as if he had already accepted his fate. He fell straight down into the murky green water with an unceremonial splash and vanished under the surface. Batman stared at the water for a second waiting for his body to pop up from below then heard the catwalk bending under him. His head then looked up next to the police helicopter lowering him a line and he decided to save his own life from the toxic lake.