Part V – INFERNAL JEST

Xxx

Batgirl had been monitoring police and radio channels along with surveillance systems nearly all day and night since Bruce's return from Funnybones Warehouse. Both knew it was a matter of time before the Joker enacted whatever plan he had and Batman planned to be ready for it.

Then it finally happened.

"Batman, the Joker's blimp is over at the gasworks." Batgirl turned from the computer as an image of the blimp that had been stolen by the Joker's men was seen hovering over the Gotham Gasworks.

It had even been given a 'make-over' of sorts with the symbol of the Joker card and flashing lights to go with it.

"Then it's starting." Batman replied, all suit up and ready to go.

"What is?" Batgirl asked.

"The Joker's death and everything that has happened since then has been part of something bigger." Batman answered. "Some kind of big twisted joke."

It was all coming into place:

Mr. Freeze's attack on Gotham Industrial.

Poison Ivy blackmailing Gotham's wealthiest men.

Harley pointing him to the Gasworks.

Isaac Evers and his insurance scam so no one would know his work had been funded by the Joker.

Batman framed from injuring Commissioner Gordon.

And now this.

"How? Why?" Batgirl asked the two biggest questions that Batman had yet to uncover.

Yet. "I intend to find out."

Xxx

Even with every cop in the city looking for him, Batman had easily evaded their detection by foregoing using the Batmobile and opted to reach the Gasworks by grappling across rooftops, avoiding the police and making his way up from the ground entrance. He emerged on the roof top to see the blimp just overhead with a large hose feeding down into the basement. He took the straight path to the door on the other side that would lead into the upper floor and control room of the gasworks.

Just as he reached the door he stopped, seeing smoke rising and stepped back just in time.

Kaboom!

The door blew open and from it came a familiar laugh.

"Haha…Hahahahahaha!"

"Joker." Batman said darkly.

There he was.

Emerging from the fires with the same demented grin on his face, as if he was walking out of the fiery depths of Hell itself.

"Heck of a joke. Huh, Bats?" The Joker asked, pointing his favorite gun at the Dark Knight.

"Hilarious." Batman said sarcastically. "What's the punch line?"

"Some detective." The Joker said, sounding disappointed. "Here's the joke: I'm not dead and Gotham is. The punchline…It's all your fault, Batsy."

It took a second for Batman to realize what he was talking about. "The blimp. The Promethium. It was all you."

From the very beginning the Joker had been behind the entire crime wave that occurred after faking his death, by subtly manipulating the other villains and using Isaac Evers' research, having worked with the scientist and funded all his experiments and operations through his ill-conceived fortune, to produce large quantities of the highly flammable Promethium. The Joker then had arranged the fake kidnapping scheme to fake his own death in order to reside in the shadows and out of the police and Batman's scope, while he manipulated the other villains: he was the one who sent Mr. Freeze the promotional tape on Promethium to provoke him into attacking Evers' lair, so that his men could convince Evers to hire their services in an insurance scam with the use of Gotham Gasworks; he also gave Poison Ivy the plant enhancement chemical and used her schemes to his advantage.

"That was me but small potatoes." Joker admitted, confirming Batman's theory. "I needed help if I wanted to murder a whole city."

And Batman knew whose help he had needed. "Harley."

That's right. He also used Harley to relay false information to Batman, to send him deeper into his plot at the Gasworks and ultimately frame him for attacking Commissioner Gordon.

"Sure, Harley had you wrapped around her little…whatever." The Joker shrugged. "But I needed more. That's where you came in."

It took just one guess. "The Gasworks."

So the Joker had wanted him to open those pipes to the sprinkler system and had used Evers as a scapegoat for the early Gasworks scheme.

"Oh, good guess with that one, Bats." The Joker answered, pleased to see the Caped Crusader was keeping up. "Opening those pipes did wonders for this little 'Burning down Gotham' idea I've been digging around."

"And Poison Ivy." Batman queried.

"Ha! I've met Yams with a higher IQ than that wenchtable." The Joker scoffed. "It was the quietest way to make as much Joker toxin as I needed."

Now Batman could see it.

Ivy rebuilding Gotham Chemicals allowed him to later mass-produce his own signature Joker toxin in a quiet fashion, without Batman noticing. That was why he destroyed the chemical factory from the very beginning. Ivy rebuilt Gotham Chemical to mass produced more the plant enhancement formula that she needed to enhance her own plants and when Batman fried the entire garden by turning the power back on Joker was free to enter and mass produce his custom made Joker toxin.

But there was still one more question.

"And the Promethium." Batman probed.

"Well, that's the burning questions isn't it?" Joker asked rhetorically as he stepped back. "I believe I can answer best with a small demonstration. Boys!"

Out came two muscular henchmen dressed as mimes with what looked like chemical packs attached to their backs and connected to both packs was a small tube connected to what looked like…flamethrowers!

"Show our rodent friend why Promethium and Joker toxin are two great deaths that kill great together!" Joker said gleefully.

Batman jumped back just in time to avoid his face being burned by the fire. So together, Joker toxin and Promethium were highly flammable.

Which means-

"Just think of it, Batman!" The Joker called out with a taunting smile. "Both circling through the pipes of the city, through every drain and facet!"

Batman could imagine it and he didn't like the look of it one bit…

Gotham burning to the ground as its people wandered the streets, all of them on fire and yet laughing as they burned to death.

"An entire city on fire and its people with undisguised glee."

Their laughter frightening as the flames consumed them.

"Dashing through the flames, with a nonexistent sleight…laughing all the way…To Hell!"

Now the Joker's laughing face appeared above the flames, his laugh eclipsing the laughs of his dying victims

"What beautiful way to go out. Literally shining bright enough to lit up the entire sky." The Joker said as he let out his mad laugh while disappearing back inside that left a chilling echo. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

Not if Batman could help it.