Authors Note: Woah- you Batman fans sure are pushy! Seriously, I've been so busy. My sister and I are the only one's who actually celebrate Christmas, so we have to clean the house/decorate/buy junk and all that jazz. I did mean to update, and would never leave you hangin'!
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"Good evening bat-bully!" Crane's voice echoed the aquarium speakers. "Guess what we have for you? A nice, tasty DEATH. Yours or the child's in here. Either one would invoke an unbelievable amount of bliss!"
Batman had been roughly shoving Joker in front of him, and only now had stopped pushing the gaunt clown.
"That's right. We're in control. More literally, the control room- if you bust in and ruin everything, consider the kid dead! Well, maybe he's dead right now, but you don't know that, do you?" Crane's voice mocked. "Either way, you're trapped in your biggest fear, right Batman? Death. Bitter, reckless, avoidable DEATH! Tune in for another broadcast by yours truly— we'll be announcing our demands! HA HA HA!"
Joker had started giggling madly as Batman's grip unconsciously got tighter around the back of the straightjacket.
"This is a nightmare." Batman growled. He needed to pull himself together, and fast. He grabbed his communicator off of his belt trying to get in touch with Tim.
"Where are you Robin?" Batman spoke as he maintained a tight grip on Jokers straightjacket, which he was wriggling in.
"Sorry Batman, I was ushering people out- there was almost a riot! Serial killers lose in the aquarium is no small deal and-"
"Get back in here. Everyone except Joker is loose." Batman said, feeling quite ashamed at how sloppy he was being.
"I'm not that modest! You're making me blush!" Joker shouted, erupting in a new fit of laughter.
"Shut up you filthy minded-." Batman growled.
"You know I love it when your eyes go all white and flashy like that."
Batman shook the jacket in a rough quick jerk.
"Say Bats, don't let this situation get you down. In fact, let me be the Riddle dork for you. I can see you're not enjoying our time together." The Joker said as Batman destroyed a security camera in the corner.
"What are you talking about?" Batman asked half heartedly, searching for more cameras.
" I mean, it's mostly my fault he's gone. I told him I dismantled the electrocution panel- HEE HEE- He bought it! I mean, of course I scrambled the wires, but dismantle it? What a dope! Actually it's sort of ironic that most of the shocks go to him, but that's what makes it FUNNY! -But I can see you miss the little brain-iac, so I'll pretend to be him, okie-dokie?"
"I don't have time for your sick games Joker." Said Batman without looking at the clown, his fist still clutching the straightjacket tightly.
"Well that's not very sporting of you." Joker said in a sophisticated 'Riddler' voice. He made a grotesque face and pressed it against the glass full of seahorses, scaring the animals away. "Besides, I toiled my brain all morning and came up with an absolute gasser of a riddle."
Batman remained silent and continued to break security cameras much to Jokers annoyance.
"Are you ignoring me?" Joker accused. "Because if you are, you'll never be able to solve the riddle. Not with a little help. Anyway, I assume those spiky extensions between your head are ears, so listen up! Ahem. Riddle me this Batman— how did the man lose weight in two seconds?"
"He jumped."
"Ooo, good answer- but not what I had in mind!" Joker shouted. In an instant he dropped to the floor, slipping off his straightjacket. "The answer was," Joker said punching Batman in the jaw, "He took off his jacket!"
Physically, Batman easily outmatched Joker. He kicked Joker in the stomach and landed a hard punch in the eye. There was a loud crack and Batman fell to the floor.
"That's a good riddle, but I think Batman's answer was more clever." The Riddler said with a smirk. He tossed aside a baton that he was holding that he had smashed against Batman's scull.
"You know Bats, for someone who had jumping on the brain, you had fall on every other part of your body!" Joker said kicking Batman's limp form. His maniac laughter echoed in the dimly lit aquatic hallway. He then turned to Riddler with a frown. "What took you so long?"
"'Riddle dork'?" Riddler questioned crossing his arms. "You're lucky I found this baton in the security locker room, or I'd of said no way to our deal. And other thing, you know that Two-Face and Scarecrow are trying to make a deal with a conscious Batman, right? We might have just foiled whatever plans they had."
"What do I care about Double-Ugly and the Scare-Freak? If they have beef with me, that's tough cookies!"
" By the way, did you really cross the wires on the electrocution panel?" Riddler asked raising an eyebrow.
"Come on Riddle chum, you're smarter than that. How could I possibly twist wires with a straightjacket on?"
"You didn't have your straightjacket on all the time." Riddler said with kicking the jacket on the floor.
"Technicalities, technicalities, you think too much." Joker said slumping an arm around Riddler's shoulder. " Now be a doll and tie Bat-bore up while I concoct my famous Joker Toxin, mmk'?" Joker pinched the Riddler's cheek painfully.
"You never said anything about Joker Toxin. Only you are immune to Joker Toxin, and there's no way I'm going to get caught in a room with that stuff. I thought you said we'd feed Batman to the man eating shark!" Riddler said shrugging off Joker's arm.
" Weren't you listening? They're not man-eating. Besides, I already tried that gig. Didn't work out too well. Sharkey died and Batman got away." The Joker said brushing his fingers to his lips.
"So basically," Riddler said extremely annoyed "We're scrapping the old plan and making up a new one along the way?"
" Geez, did you call yourself the Riddler because you ask too many stupid questions or because you can't figure out that I'm totally sporadic when it comes to plans?"
"A mixture of both, because I was stupid enough to think a chaotic clown could stick with a well thought-out plan." Riddler growled.
"Woah, woah, woah, hold the pickles." The Joker said in mock hurt as he held his hands up meekly. " We never had a well thought-out plan. Just a sketchy boring one."
" That's it! I'm working alone!" The Riddler shouted while grabbing Batman's left arm.
" Peachy keen with moi- But I get Batman. He's mine!" Joker shouted back with a dangerous glint in his eye while snatching Batman's limp foot.
" I'm the one who knocked him out!" Riddler growled yanking Batman's arm. "You did nothing but play stupid!"
"Well yeah- of course- I was pretending to be you." Joker replied in a tone that showed he thought it was obvious.
Nygma's face went red and he was about to say something when the Scarecrow's loud voice through the speakers cut him off.
" Very clever Batman, knocking out all of the cameras. But that doesn't change our position! Here are our demands-"
" Great, with Two-Face and Scarecrow in the control room they can make things difficult for us. And their plan is likely to fail, the Batman is unconscious!" The Riddler scowled. "Don't you get it? Our plans are conflicting! We're at square one until Batman or the S.W.A.T team takes us out!"
The Jokers face fell and he sighed. "You know what? You are sooo right." He dropped Batman's foot with a thud and snaked his way next to the Riddler. " Why, I don't know what I was thinking. We obviously need to regroup, and work together and all that peanut butter."
"R-right." Nygma responded giving the Joker a suspicious look. Scarecrow's voice was echoing around the building, unaware of his lack of audience.
"Come on, we'll start by-" Joker said slamming the baton over the Riddler's skull. Nygma slumped down on the ground like the life had been instantaneously ripped out of him. " Well how rude! There's no 'sleep' in 'team'!" The Joker scolded dragging Batman's body. " But there is an 'eat' and 'tea' and 'meat', and I'm quite hungry. Aren't you Bats? Sure you are. You didn't have brains for breakfast like me. Nighty-night Riddle dork- hope things work out for you in Dreamland! Ohhh weee'll meet again- don't know where…don't know WHHEEEENNNN!!!"
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"Ugh…" Batman groaned as his head felt like it had split in two.
"Good day monsieur."
Batman's eyes opened in surprise, as he recognized the Joker's voice at once. He found his hands and torso duct-taped tightly to a chair located in the abandoned food court. In front of him was a bunch of bottles of common cleaners that could be found in any janitor's closet. Silverware had also been set before him.
"Welcome to C'est Joker, the finest restaurant ever to be found in an aquarium run by inmates of an insane asylum." The clown had drawn a curly mustache under his nose that Batman suspected was made of smeared chocolate syrup. He was dressed in what looked like a chiefs coat, and was wearing a hat to match.
"Allow me to recommend the soup de jour!" he said grinning wildly as he slammed a bowl of striped tropical fish in front of Batman. They all had their colorful fins removed except one, which was still alive.
"Oopsie!" The Joker shouted stabbing the fish clean through with a thick, bloody kitchen knife. "Sorry about that- our cook is still new."
Batman turned his head towards the counter see a dead man laying on it, obviously stabbed, in uniform wearing a chief's hat.
"Found him in the kitchen. He's so talented- brought his nametag and everything! 'S.W.A.T', it must be foreign." The Joker broke out with his hideous laughter.
"You're insane." Batman growled.
"Tisk, tisk. You didn't even touch your soup. How will the cook react to that I wonder?" The Joker said brushing his fingers against his lips.
"You're sick."
"I guess we'll need to move on to our main course!" The Joker said dumping the 'soup' on the floor behind him. "It's a shame too. That soup was expensive. I found the main ingredience in a tank titled 'rare'. But I thought that meant that was the way you cook them!"
"What do you want?" Batman asked.
"We'll be moving on to our main course." the Joker explained dumping chemicals into a pot in front of Batman.
"Joker Toxin."
"It's the only thing really I really know how to make. It's pretty darn embarrassing, but I'm not much of a cook ya' see." The Joker explained.
"So, you're going to poison me?" Batman asked.
The Joker laughed and swiveled Batman's chair around towards himself. He laid his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned in front of Batman's face.
"Very tempting Bat-face, but no. I have other plans for you, more fun plans. I'm hopelessly insane, not stupid. I know that there's going to be more chiefs like Swat over there bursting through this miserable little fish tank. It's only a matter of time. And I just love dead crowds, but your death will be special." The Joker's nose was touching Batman's.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Batman said with a smirk.
"What? Is my mustache coming off?" The Joker asked self-consciously touching one side of his mouth with his tongue.
A loud thud caused the Joker to turn, but he only had enough time to see a white stick slap him across the face. He covered his face with his hands and Robin shoved the stick into his stomach, causing the Joker to hunch over. Robin then swung the staff to connect with the Joker's back, however, the clown easily caught it with one hand.
"So predictable- just like the last boy blunder!" Joker said laughing.
Batman, perfectly seated in back of his enemy, kicked the inside of the Joker's knees hard. Immediately, electrical pulses flowed from the damaged shockers. Joker dropped the staff and started screaming.
"THIS ISN'T FUNNY!" He screamed grabbing the underside of his knees in agony. "You did this on purpose Batman and it's NOT FUNNY!"
"Then why am I laughing?" Robin said chuckling at the Jokers antagonized face. With one, hard swing Robin managed to knock him unconscious. "I saved your life."
"No you didn't." Batman said finally freeing himself with the kitchen knife the Joker had used. He walked over to the dead body and found that his utility belt had been used as a headband.
"Good job with Nygma back there by the way." Robin said. "But why did you just leave him there? I had to lock him in an office."
"Nygma? I haven't seen him since this morning." Batman replied.
"Oh. Well, he was unconscious."
"The Joker doesn't always work well with partners." Batman concluded. He bent over the Jokers limp form and sighed. " Did anyone explain how to take these shockers off?"
"No, why?" Robin asked.
"They're malfunctioning, and I don't want them to set fire to the Jokers pants." Batman replied.
"You think that can happen?" Robin asked. Milliseconds later, to his surprise, the Jokers pants started smoke and small flames erupted.
"Worst day ever." Batman grunted moodily as he ripped the Jokers flaming pants off.
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"P-please man, I got nothin'." The teenage boy said crying in the corner of the control room.
"Nothin'? Well then I guess we should kill you Timmy." Scarecrow replied with a grin.
"Stop scaring the boy and get over here Crane." Two-Face ordered.
"Why? I thought you said you could handle our little camera black-out." Crane sneered. "What have you been doing?"
" I've been trying to figure out what these other controls do. Look at what this button does. If Batman goes into the east hallway, which isn't too far from this room, I can open this tank and he'll be hit with tons of water." Two-Face chuckled. "So where is the Bat now?"
"I thought you were watching the cameras." Scarecrow said crossing his arms.
"I thought you were." Two-Face growled.
" You mean no one was watching?"
"Well if you weren't so darn fascinated with terrorizing the kid-"
"You were the one sitting at the controls!" Crane accused.
"I was busy doing something constructive."
Crane scoffed and walked over to the monitors. A quarter of them weren't working, but that hardly caught his eye when he saw the escapade before him.
"Oh my." Scarecrow said.
"What?" Two-Face inquired.
"I don't think you want to miss this."
"Miss w-…oh my." Harvey said, at a loss for words.
Batman was stomping out the Jokers pants while Robin was trying to tear off the shockers in back of the unconscious Jokers legs. The small devices were sparking terribly, and Robin looked a tad nervous, worried that he would become electrocuted. Or worse, caught on fire. Both Harvey and Crane looked at each other nervously.
"Do you think they'll do that to us?" Crane asked.
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Authors Note: I just spent the past four hours wrapping gifts. Ugggghhh, I'll be so glad when December 25th rolls around. I'm so disgustingly busy, you guys should be ecstatic that I updated. The next chapter is going to be centered around Crane and Dent by far.