The New Batman Adventures 'Fan Fiction Love Story'

By Tayla Drago

Episode # 97 - Joker's Millions

Just so you know, that another cartoon of the DCAU will take place in between this series too. More on that later to know of the timelines in between on your own...Now, on with the story. The Joker and Harley Quinn flee a botched attempt at a robbery, pursued by Batman, Megan, and Batgirl.

"Geeze, Joker, what's wrong? Afraid to get caught and waste anymore of your so call money?" Megan taunts the clown while shooting back.

Batman trying to grab hold of Joker, he almost fires at him to get goop on his arm from Megan's slime ball to try running away next.

"When you got to pay either way to steal, Megs, then the love of that don't coast a thing!" He laughs for Megan to miss her shots.

"You're up, Batman."

"Right." he throws his Batarang at Joker

Going after him, Joker ducks down in time...

"Missed me."

But it almost hits Harley to try stealing the microchips.

"Hey!" she got mad.

The two clowns make a run for it.

"Quick! More bullets!" Joker tells Harley.

"Sorry, puddin', that was our last clip. You know how expensive they are."

Soon Batgirl comes up behind Harley to stop her.

"Sounds like someone turned off your cash flow." she said.

Only for the Joker to stop Batgirl, Batman, and Megan to get acid sprayed from Joker's flower.

"If it's a flow you want, I'm happy to oblige."

But he was emptied.

"Too bad, so sad, Joker." said Megan.

Ha! Joker's money problems come up constantly during the battle, as they cannot afford ammo for their gun, acid for Joker's boutonniere to make their escape somehow. Even the gas for the getaway car.

"I thought I told you to get gas!" said the Joker.

"We're broke, remember?" she tells her boss/lover. "What was I supposed to do? Fill the tank, shoot the guy, and drive off?"

Well, to him maybe.

"Mmm-hmmm."

"Now you tell me!" And even more than a single ejector seat, which Joker uses to escape, ditching Harley to be caught and returned to Arkham Asylum. "Hey, where's mine?!"

"Sorry, kiddo! I could only afford one!"

Well, there he goes again and Harley was caught by Batman, Megan, and Batgirl. Only for Megan to have her eyes on Joker the next time he does something bad again like they always do.

"(You may out run us, clown, but you can't hide forever you know. We will find you somehow.)"

It'll be a while for that part to happen...Joker retreats to his low-income apartment.

"Yeah, yeah, you're hungry, I'm hungry. Do me a favor and eat each other." Joker said to Bud and Lou.

And gets a sudden burst of glee when he reads a letter revealing that one of his criminal enemies, Edward 'King' Barlowe, has passed away and left a staggering fortune of $250 million to him. Say what?! The first thing Joker does with his money is assemble a team of shady lawyers and psychological experts who are able to erase Joker's criminal records and have him declared sane.

"If a man's full of glee, that man must go free!" said the lawyer on TV.

For Megan to be seeing this and such to spit out her drink to be very shock to hear and see the news.

"Joker's rich?! Got a lot of money and he's not a criminal anymore in Gotham as a free man?! What the heck?!"

She wasn't the only one either, Bruce/Batman wasn't too happy about this at all. Although Batgirl believes that Joker may give up crime now that he's rich, she agrees to keep an eye on him.

"Well, now that he's rich, maybe he'll give up crime." she said to see Batman tears the device he's working on in two with his bare hands. "Right. I'll call Dick."

With Barbara/Batgirl doing that to have Dick/Nightwing help them out, Megan knows that something was up to try hugging Batman's worries away to solve this problem somehow, someway.

"Hey, Bruce, I know. I'm the same way like you are. Still, I know that Joker just didn't get the money by luck from a mob dead guy." she tries hacking into something with Gidget's help. "Gidget, see what you can get from this Edward King Barlowe person right away. Let's try to get something, then Joker won't be rich anymore."

Gidget gets to it right away to be a while...Batman sees that Megan won't stop until Joker was behind bars again.

"You think that the will he got from King will take Joker down from becomeing rich?" he asks his girlfriend.

"With any luck, I sure hope so. I rather deal with your riches with some good people than any type of criminal."

Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon crash a 'going legit' party being thrown for the Joker at the Penguin's Iceberg Lounge. To their chagrin, they wind up saving Joker when a disgruntled former bodyguard of Barlowe attempts to kill him. For Nightwing and Batgirl to stop them in time.

"Well done, kiddies!" Joker said to Batgirl and Nightwing.

"We were trying to save innocent lives." Nightwing talks back. "You're just an unpleasant bonus."

Laughing at the thought that Batman's 'family' can't touch him now, Joker continues to enjoy his new wealth: purchasing a luxurious mansion, playing golf while driving around in a golf cart, and cruising through the city in an open-air limousine, scattering money to the people. Megan asks Nightwing how Joker was doing afar.

"He's just throwing his money away to the people in Gotham, that's it." he said. "I'll keep looking."

"Thanks, Dick." said Megan. "Barbara. Bruce. This isn't good."

"I know, the mad clown who's rich." said Batgirl. "I don't like this either, huh Bruce?"

Even he hated it to walk away for now.

"I'm sure we'll get something from Gidget soon."

"I'm trying, believe me." said Megan. "(Man, Joker's so annoying!)"

Barbara/Batgirl had one thing to ask Bruce/Batman about Megan's job with Gidget's help.

"How do you know that Megan will get something done?"

"Because I do." he answers back.

Good point there. At Arkham, Harley is confident that Joker will eventually set her free, only to be outraged when she learns from Poison Ivy that Joker is holding auditions for a new 'henchgirl'. Ouch, talk about being burned by your lover, you know?

"Drown the kids and shoot the neighbors! We've got a winner!"

The Joker soon hires a new Hench-girl, whom he dubs 'Fake Harley' though he quickly regrets it after discovering she has a very annoying voice and laugh (and a tendency to pronounce 'Mr. J' as 'Mr. G'). Problems soon arise for Joker when he learns that he owes the Internal Revenue Service a large inheritance tax. For Megan finally has something to give that guy some information thanks to Gidget's help, for that will stop the clown with something else from it.

"You got something?" she checks it from Gidget's screen. "Yes! Nicely done, Gidget! Hey, Batman! Call Dick and Barbara! I've done something to take down the clown! Look!"

With that going on, Joker, Fake Harley, and Ernie try to gather money up.

"137 million?" shock Ernie.

"Yes, and if I don't pay up, I'll go to jail for tax evasion! I'm crazy enough to take on Batman and Megan, but the I.R.S.? No, thank you!"

When Joker opens his vault to gather the necessary cash, he finds that all his remaining money is counterfeit by seeing that every pack of bills has Barlowe's picture on them. He also finds a videotape, on which Barlowe leaves a message from his deathbed, explaining that the inheritance was a ruse to get Joker into exactly the fix in which he now finds himself: having to choose between going to jail for tax evasion, or else admitting that Barlowe fooled him, thus becoming a laughingstock in the underworld. Barlowe finishes by cackling that he had the last laugh on his old rival after all.

"Hiya, Joker. If you're playing this tape, you've probably figured out you've been had. Yeah, I left you some cash, but only ten million, which, knowing you, you've already blown. All the other stuff — money, jewels, gold — it's all fake. See, I always hated your guts, and this was the perfect payback. By now you're probably out of real money. The I.R.S. is after you, and you can't admit I fooled you, or you'll be the laughingstock of the underworld. The joke's on you, sucker. I got the last laugh after all!"

Nicely done, Megan. One thing after another made this clown get in trouble. Joker shoots the television in rage before walking off. Joker laments over the situation he's in now since he knows that if he doesn't pay his taxes, he will go to jail. But if he admits Barlowe duped him, he'll look like a fool. Ernie suggests he pulls off one of his classic routines, like The Laughing Fish but is angrily pushed back by the Joker as such a thing would ruin his free life and get him sent right back into Arkham. Speaking of Arkham, bad way for Harley Quinn to escape, huh?

"Harley Quinn's escaped!" said one of the guards.

"Seal all exits!" and another.

They started looking around for the criminal.

"Maybe she went down the laundry chute?"

"None of the yahoos are crazy enough to pull that old stunt!" said the guard.

This sure made Poison Ivy laugh under her breath.

"Ha!"

And of course, Harley was in the laundry room, from inside a jumbo washer. How the heck did that happen?

"Help, help! Ivy, anybody, GET ME OUTTA HERE!" she said while spinning around a lot.

Back at Penguin's Iceberg lounge place, Bruce and Megan 'as his bodyguard' meet up with Joker. Really...? To talk about something.

"Mr. Joker is waiting for you two." said Penguin.

For Megan could tell that something was up with Joker...

"(I heard of criminals having fun, but this bird's something else.)" she said to herself and then to Bruce next. "Ah, Bruce..."

"I know." he said to act like his rich self.

It was Ernie disguising himself as the Joker. I guess Megan was right about this one...

"Well, well, Bruce Wayne and his bodyguard Megan Tsuki. Join me. A bottle of your best, my dear, for my guest." he said.

Now they both know that this wasn't the real Joker.

"You'll understand if I refuse." said Bruce. "The last time we met you tried to throw me off a building."

This made Ernie to never hear this part to make up something to hide his identity.

"I did? Well...that was so long ago!"

"Oh, really?" Megan questions the clown. "Don't you remember?"

"It was last month." Bruce glares at the so call Joker.

Ernie begins sweating and wipes makeup off of forehead.

"What's wrong? Losing your cool?" Megan pressures him some more.

"Well, gotta be going..."

As Ernie leaves to use the restroom to take off the makeup...Soon Batman comes in the men's room to make him talk with his head in the toilet. Ha! For Penguin and his three girls Jay, Raven, and Lark to overhear this from the outside, Megan points out here gun to make them leave.

"Move along, all four of you. Nothing to see in there. Unless you want to make this a bit harder than it already is, Penguin."

They do as Megan says on this one to stay out of it.

"Well, my good Joker friend...You're on your own." he said to slowly leave the scene.

This sure made Megan happy, for her and Batman got their answers they needed. Also, it looks like Joker decided to return to crime to rebuild his fortune, but commit a normal one without his trademarks or gimmicks so that no one (especially Batman) suspects he is behind it and have his name protected. He plans to steal a load of money from the Gotham Mint as it is transported by boat. So that no one will notice his absence, the Joker instructs Ernie to pose as him in the Iceberg Lounge, but Batman sees through the disguise and interrogates him in the bathroom. And from there, the stealing begins...Batman, Batgirl,Megan, Gidget, and Nightwing can successfully capture the Joker, Fake Harley and their goons. Right on time. Stopping the bad guys for all five of them and the money from being taken away...

"Just in time." said Nightwing.

And even though at one point Joker tries to commit suicide as an alternative to losing his money.

"Don't be stupid! You can't save that money!" Batgirl said to try saving the Joker.

"I don't want to save it! I want to go with it!" said the sad clown.

And from there, Megan shock everyone with her taser watch to make sure than none of them were going anywhere, for Gidget to tie them up next.

"Got them!" she runs over to Batman to hug and kiss him. "We did it, Batman."

Batman has one thing to give to his enemy.

"That we did. Hey, Joker. you'd better call your fancy lawyers." Batman tosses Joker a nickel. "Here, it's on me."

Megan laughs.

"Ha! Nice one. I knew that King had something to fool you, Joker."

No more Joker being rich to be a criminal once again, good enough. In the police van, Joker is ready to laugh off the whole fiasco, but he finds that the police officer supervising him is a disguised Harley, who had escaped from Arkham to get back at him, and she repays his disloyalty by beating him with a nightstick, much to his discomfort. Nice one! I guess Megan got that part taken care of.

"You didn't..." surprised Nightwing.

"What?" Megan didn't care. "I told the guard that Harley could. She'll go back quietly after knocking some sense into that clown. Besides, not all money brings people happiness."

True, so true on that. It doesn't. This episode was too funny.