Up on the roof of the bank, the SWAT commander double-checked to ensure that all his men were in place for the all-out assault. The commander had to admit to himself, though, that he was a little surprised that the commissioner had been so quick to order SWAT. Sure they had heard gunfire and seen evidence of a smoke bomb, but no hostages had yet been determined to be dead, and there was also the fact that Batman was still inside the building, somewhere, and that only probably should have been enough to hold off SWAT for now.

"Commander Walls, this is Commissioner Hughes, you have the green light, repeat, green light, go when ready."

"Roger that commissioner, teams check in with status." Commander Walls replied into his radio and listened intently as the three separate teams all checked confirming that, yes, they were in place and ready for the assault.

The door on the roof was quickly breached, but almost immediately an explosion could be heard downstairs in the bank, and suddenly the objective changed. Stealth and surprise were no longer weapons that could be used, as they had to assume their presence was known down below. Quickly scaling the steps, another explosion was heard right in front of them, and scattered across the stairs on the second floor was the SWAT team that had been assigned to smash through the second floor windows. This was clearly the source of the first explosion and the members were all badly burned and some appeared to already be dead.

"Jesus" was the only reply Hughes heard through the radio as he frantically screamed for updates to his SWAT team. Before he heard any reply though, he could hear panic rising from the surrounding area, and looking at the front door of the bank, he instantly saw the reason for this reaction. The lobby of the bank was engulfed in flames.

"Ground SWAT team swarm the building, repeat, swarm the building, now. All-out assault, stealth is no longer an option."

As the first members of the SWAT team reached the front door though, a third explosion came quite unexpectedly at the front door, creating a massive hole in the front of the bank and tossing the officers back several yards, a likely fatal moment for many of them.

Upstairs, Commander Walls continued to try to lead his team through the wreckage, and finally managed to scale the final few steps. Walls kicked through the door and saw the incredible chaos in the lobby before him. Looking quickly around, he saw a familiar figure struggling to free himself from ropes. Knowing that he would need any kind of help that he could get, Walls pulled a knife from his belt and sliced through the ropes, freeing Batman.

Batman jumped up immediately, and though he was badly wounded, he immediately took over the rescue effort. "The Joker and his men rigged the building with bombs, I don't know how many, so we need to be careful, there could be more anywhere."

"The Joker, where is he?"

"I don't know, when the bombs started going off, he and his men went up the stairs you just came down. Are you telling me you didn't see them anywhere?"

"No, there was no sign of them anywhere." Walls seemed utterly perplexed by this thought, but quickly lost his train of thought as he looked around the bank. "Wait a minute, there were supposed to be 25 hostages in here, where are they?"

"They took a lot with them, and lined about five of them against the front door," Batman said as he pointed to the spot where the most recent bomb had detonated, and almost certainly killed all five. "Don't even bother," Batman said as Walls took a step towards the wreckage. "They didn't stand a chance once that bomb detonated."

"Jesus, what is wrong with this guy." Walls and the handful of the other SWAT officers seemed to be unable to comprehend what had happened.

"Commander, we've got to go, we need to find the Joker, and I don't know that I can do it without you."

After a moment's hesitation as he looked around at the carnage, Walls regained his focus and shouted to his men "Alright men you heard him, let's hunt this sicko down and make him pay."

Batman flung the door open and quickly discovered that the fire had spread to the remainder of the building. Trying to maneuver around the flames, Batman led the way to the second floor, and, kicked open the door to the offices on this floor. He peered around into the darkness and saw nothing, but after just a few steps forward Batman knew they had fallen right into another one of the Joker's traps. From across the room Batman heard the malicious cackle for the second time and Batman watched in shock as small explosions went up all around him and quickly realized what the trap was. "Get back, BACK" he shouted to the SWAT team, and he snatched the grappling hook from his belt. Shooting it up into the ceiling above him, and hoping that it would hold him, Batman swung across the hole that had exploded around him and swung right toward the area where he had heard the Joker's laugh come from.

He landed in the pitch black and saw no sign of the maniac and desperate to confront his nemesis he screamed "JOKER!" into the darkness, but still no sign of him anywhere. Suddenly though, the laughter was right next to him. Startled by the noise, Batman bent down toward the sound and was disgusted to discover a speaker through which the sound had been coming. Batman bent down to pick up the speaker, and immediately regretted it. The speaker suddenly began to flash on the back, and realizing what was about to happen, Batman tossed the bomb down through the massive hole in the floor. Seconds later the floor shook with the force of the exploding bomb. Batman swung back across the hole, and back over to the doorway through which he had entered and practically ran directly into Jim Gordon as he did so.

"Gordon what's going on?"

"Jesus I can't believe you're still alive in here. There's dead bodies all over this place, it's pandemonium here."

"What's happened?"

"We tried to rush the front door after SWAT failed to penetrate. A bomb went off and killed half the team. The front of the building began to crumble and there was no way in. Then we heard some bombs going off inside and there was no way in. We were trying to dig through the wreckage to find a way inside because we were too afraid to try to make any more roads into the bank. Because all the cops were trying to dig through the wreckage we didn't notice when a fleet of Hummers tore through the police barricades and armed men started picking off cops one by one. The Joker and his men repelled off the top floor of the bank with hostages and threatened to kill the hostages if we followed them. Good God, they threw grenades at the cop cars as they left, there was no way to get on their trail quick enough, and last I heard there was no sign of them."

"No Sign? How? How can that be? DAMMIT! They didn't just disappear Gordon, get some men out there looking for them." Batman kicked through the door to the roof with such frustration it flew off the hinges.

"Listen to me, you don't understand what's going on down there. We've got more dead officers then we can count, they disabled most of our cruisers, and even the ones who aren't dead are mostly injured. We called all cars when SWAT rushed the building, they just flat out outplayed everyone here Batman, including you, so don't you dare try to give me orders."

Finally walking out onto the roof, Batman was able to get the full scope of the wreckage and seemed unable to react to everything he saw beneath him. It's true, he thought as he surveyed the territory, the Joker really did outplay and outthink us. "This is terrible, I-I don't know what to say Jim."

"I know, neither do I."