Chapter 7: The First Joke
The month of June saw an increase in goodwill for the citizens of Gotham City. Following his visit from Batman, Mayor Hamilton Hill gave a speech one warm Tuesday afternoon with a solemn vow to remove any and all corruption from Gotham's political system. He promised the public that Gotham's people would receive higher wages, justice would favor no social class, and assured them that he would place new measures to secure the safety of the people, including the hiring of new police officers who would be trained to serve the public, not their pockets.
"As your duly elected leader, I promise you that never again will Gotham's officials step outside the law for the sake of pocket money," Hill was saying to his audience that day. "I know that I myself have been accused of corrupt actions, but no more. Gotham's people have had enough hope stolen from them and if in some future time that misfortune arises again, it will not start with me."
"What's your opinion on Batman, Mr. Mayor?" inquired Vicki Vale.
"My opinion of this masked vigilante is not important," Mayor Hill replied. "I will say this much: despite his unorthodox methods, he has done Gotham City a great service."
No one asked him much more on the subject of Batman, but they weren't disappointed with Mayor Hill's promise. In a few weeks, several city counselors who had paid money to Carmine Falcone and Sal Maroni to have their political oppositions removed were soon rooted out and were sentenced to stiff time in Blackgate Penitentiary. Police officers who were not in the sway of the mob were hired at the discretion of the newly elected Commissioner James Gordon, and a number of judges and attorneys who paid money to the mob were immediately fired on the orders of Harvey Dent.
Sal Maroni and his gangsters were no more lucky than Falcone, for Batman went after them just as quickly. He sabotaged Maroni's drug trafficking ring, foiled his jewel thefts, and quickly delivered Maroni's thugs into the hands of the police. Sal Maroni soon got so fed up with having his crime empire being torn down that he offered a bounty of ten million dollars to the one who brought Batman to him. Alas, it was a foolish idea, for Batman was far too well-trained for even the most professional street fighters in Gotham to handle and more than half of them ended up seeing Maroni's physician. Eventually, Maroni found himself on the run from the police and from Batman, and when he learned that Harvey Dent was offering a million dollars to have Maroni turned in, the mobster had no choice but to go into hiding.
For a while, Gotham City had some relief from the crime waves that had plagued it for over thirty years, and with the help of Bruce Wayne and his staff and employees at Wayne Enterprises, the people were living happier and healthier lives and there was hope for a bright future. However, there was always another crime ring that could easily take the Roman's place.
August came with a brief heat wave that had Gotham citizens on the beach for days. For Bruce Wayne, however, summer was another opportunity for him to give his employees time off for vacations when he wasn't trying to help Gotham and the rest of America alone with his science experiments and his multitude of charities. Better yet, with his considerable wealth, Bruce even offered to pay all expenses for the trips his employees took, and this made him even more popular in the business world. Little did he know that he would soon encounter lawbreakers who would plague Gotham City even worse than before, high crime rate or not.
It was on a rather chilly Wednesday evening when Bruce was at City Hall attending a dinner celebrating the peaceful time Gotham had seen thanks to the hard work he had put in to make it so. Half the police department had come to share in the festivities, and among them was the new police detective hired to replace Arnold Flass, who had been sentenced to no more than ten years because he had confessed to his part in aiding Gillian Loeb's business dealings with the mob. That detective was Harvey Bullock, a burly and tough-talking man who had been in many scrapes before and had gotten in with bad crowds in the past. However, he had no love for crime and was quite rough on lawbreakers.
"I gotta hand it to ya, Commissioner. You know which rich boy's parties to choose attendance," Detective Bullock was saying to Commissioner Gordon that evening as the two conversed over a glass of champagne.
"What can I say, Harvey? Bruce Wayne is a godsend to Gotham," Gordon replied. "And he's certainly a guardian angel to the children of our city."
Jim Gordon rubbed the red hair of his daughter Barbara, whom he had named for his first wife after she had left Gotham City with their newborn son following the threats Commissioner Loeb levied against their well-being. Then he noticed Bruce approaching him with a smile and immediately shook his hand.
"Good evening, Bruce," said the commissioner. "Thanks for allowing me and the men to come by for tonight's celebration."
"People say it's for me, but I'm just a spoiled rich kid who inherited this lifestyle before I was ready," said Bruce. "Men and women who work for what they earn and make that count like you do, they're the real reason we can celebrate."
Commissioner Gordon smiled in response and asked Bruce, "Have you met Barbara? My little angel aced her third grade finals this year. Made the honor roll."
Young Barbara Gordon, sweet-faced and smiling, curtsied to Bruce and said, "Good evening, Mr. Wayne."
Bruce beamed at her and knelt to her level, saying, "Your father's been raising you well, Barbara. He's a man who deserves the trust he's earned."
Barbara's smile grew wider still. She hugged her father's waist and replied, "No policeman has my trust more than Dad."
It was a merry evening, but the fun was to end sooner than expected, for Commissioner Gordon and the other police officers at the event received a message from headquarters. "Attention, all units! We have a 459 in progress at the Ace Chemical Laboratory. The intruders are armed and are being led by an individual who fits this description: a fair, dark-haired male with a thin build, about six feet five inches tall, weighing 192 pounds. Man believed to be Jack Napier. Repeat, Jack Napier."
Knowing that a break-in at a chemical laboratory could mean danger if anything was stolen, Commissioner Gordon had his officers head to Ace Chemicals and he would take Barbara home before he went to investigate the situation. While the police were leaving the event, Bruce Wayne had slipped out. He took his suitcase and immediately changed into his superhero uniform, and then he began running over the rooftops of Gotham toward Ace Chemicals.
On his way to the scene of the crime, Batman used a mini-computer stowed in his belt to check for files on Jack Napier. Thanks to his brilliant computer skills, he got all the information he needed, and it was intriguing. According to the records, Jack Napier had lost his mother when he was four years old and then he spent some time in juvenile detention after causing significant damage to his house at age thirteen. After a few years enrolled in a college for entertainers, Napier sought the life of a comedian. Sadly, his humor was ill-received, and after all his experiments in comedy failed, Jack Napier decided to devote himself to a life of crime. He was wanted for racketeering, burglary, and petty larceny, but had recently been running a small-time gang under the alias Red Hood. Now it was his turn to encounter the Dark Knight of Gotham City.
When Batman arrived at Ace Chemicals, he found the situation had escalated badly. At least two policemen had been injured in the scuffle and Commissioner Gordon and Detective Bullock were attempting to get into the chemical plant amid the ensuing chaos. Thinking quickly, Batman used his grappling hook to get over to the plant and used an explosive to blow down the door and let Commissioner Gordon and his officers inside. Then he rode his towline into the plant and hurried to the third floor, where he saw a man in a red dome-like hood and a suit signaling to his gang members to move to the fourth floor. As they went, Batman jumped the goons and tied a few to the ceiling while he knocked the others out with high kicks and pressure point strikes. In seconds, he had seven of the ten gangsters bound in his steel Bat-cables.
The Red Hood yelled to his two remaining goons, "What are you waiting for, ya nutjobs?! Waste 'im already!"
Batman was after the hooded hooligan in a flash. He repelled the gangsters' shots with his cape and disarmed them both before they tried to engage him in a duel of fisticuffs. However, Batman blocked every punch and caught every punch his opponents threw at him and then he tapped a pressure point on their necks that left them out cold. He ran after the Red Hood and used a cable to bind the menace by the ankles, which cost the Red Hood his disguise.
When the downed gangster turned to face the Dark Knight, it was clear that the man was none other than Jack Napier. He smirked and said with a sneer, "Well, well! Batman, isn't it? Who hired you to get me?"
"I'm no bounty hunter, Napier," answered Batman. "But you're breaking and entering on this property. Still, the judge might go easy on you considering your small-time track record."
"That's me, Bats," smirked Napier. "A small-time gangster with big-time ideas."
He took a knife from his coat pocket and threw it at Batman, who raised his right hand to block it. He soon found that it was a distraction, for Jack Napier had undone the knot with another knife and began to run toward the lower levels of Ace Chemicals in an attempt to escape. Batman chased after Napier, leaping over flights of stairs and using the claws in his gloves to cling to walls in order to prevent himself from receiving injuries.
Eventually, he cornered Jack Napier on a catwalk overlooking a room of tanks filled with experimental acids. Napier was there, and he had kept his Tommy gun on his person.
"You're not dragging me off to prison tonight, Batboy," sneered the gangster.
He fired on him, but Batman ducked and hurled a Bat-shuriken that blew the end off Napier's gun. In desperation, Napier took his other knife and tried to stab Batman as he came at him, but was easily disarmed. The two engaged in fist-cuffs for a few minutes when Napier had an idea. He tried to pull up a piece of the metal railing, but got his face pushed into the railing, which fortunately stopped him from falling into the vat of acid that was just under the catwalk.
"It's over, Napier," Batman said coldly.
The scoundrel replied with a smirk, "Wanna bet?"
He jumped up and tried several times to strike at Batman with his remaining knife, and at one point, he was bold enough to climb onto the left railing and then leap at Batman to strike him from above. But when he landed on the right railing and turned on his heel to leap again, he lost his balance and fell into the tank below with a yelp. Thinking quickly, Batman noticed an emergency lever and used one Bat-grapple to activate it while using another to try and get Napier out of the acid, which was starting to make his suit burn and his skin sting. Batman activated the drainage system which would send the acid in the tank into the sewers while he tried to pull Jack Napier to safety. His efforts were great, but Napier let go of the Bat-grapple and was swept down the drain, and the last word that came out of it was "Batsy!"
"NAPIER!" cried Batman, watching in shock as the small-time gangster disappeared in a whirlpool of experimental acids.
...
Batman was standing beside Commissioner Gordon as the rest of Napier's goons were loaded into the police van to be taken to the county jail. All the while, Gordon noticed Batman's downcast expression and assured him, "Don't blame yourself, Batman. The security camera footage is solid, so no court would convict you of putting Napier in that acid tank. Whether he lost his grip or let go intentionally, I guess we'll never know."
"Ahh, the guy was a psychotic loon," said Detective Bullock. "Might as well be good riddance to bad rubbish."
Batman said nothing. He only stood there and thought long and hard about it. There may have been a way he could've prevented Jack Napier's apparent demise, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
I won't lose anyone else on my watch, he promised himself. I will remain vigilant for the people of Gotham City. They may still need me.
...
A solitary figure was ejected from the pipeline leading to the plant waste disposal reservoir, battered, weary, and stinging all over, but very much alive. The figure just managed to crawl onto the concrete walkway beside the reservoir and then ran to the exit, then got a look at himself in a window of the Ace Chemicals Laboratory. Anyone who had seen this reflection would have screamed in terror and called themselves a hideous monster, no doubt, but not Jack Napier. When he got a look at himself in that nearly transparent reflection, he did the last thing anyone would expect.
He laughed.
"Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh."
His skin had been bleached to the point of becoming pure white thanks to the acid. His hair with its pompadour style had become a neon green, and his lips had become a rich red color.
"Heh-heh, heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh, ha-ha."
As his laughter became increasingly higher in pitch, he noticed that his mouth was being drawn back more and more until his smile became a clownish grin. Clownish was definitely the word for him now. And in his mindset, he had the finger of accusation pointed at the man who turned him into this.
Batman.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
All that the man who was Jack Napier wanted now was revenge. Revenge on Batman for sending him down that tank of acid and turning him into this ghastly, laughing, clown of a man. Wait! No. NO! There was something just as good.
Crime.
Crime had always been Jack Napier's racket, and if he was as much a freak as he thought Batman was, then he would be a bigger lawbreaker than the Roman and Sal Maroni combined, and he loved the idea!
"HA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!"
A/N: I hope this chapter was a thriller for you, my readers. Stay tuned, 'cause what Chapter 8 comes, Jack Napier will be history, and I bet you know who he has become. ;)