One hundred and three reviews! You guys went above and beyond the call of this author. Hugs for all!
Theatre-gypsy: You got the Inglourious Basterds reference! Extra hugs for you!
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Thanks so much to everyone, new and old, who reviewed.
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"Hey, Johnny, I think the Bat's getting impatient. He doesn't want to hear us squabbling like petty teenage girls, does he? No, I don't think so." The Joker said.
Batman desperately wished he hadn't taken that step. His one movement had been enough to get Crane and the Joker from snapping at each other like dogs and focused on the real enemy in the room. The two lunatics obviously didn't like each other at all, but they both had to despise him worse.
"I see you're right for once, clown. I suppose the Bat came all this way for a fight, and it wouldn't be gentlemanly to send him away without one." Crane said.
"Nothing like a knock-down, drag-out slug-fest with my favorite flying rat to get the old ticker pumping. Woo-hoo!"
The Scarecrow almost frowned at the Joker's abject eagerness. He was like one of those little white puffballs that never stopped yapping, and could chase its own tail for hours on end. It really was quite sickening to be so close to a man with such boundless psychotic energy. Though the sudden burst of adrenaline certainly made Crane feel better, compared to the Joker, he was still one step from being a zombie.
There was no way, despite the Joker's savage glee, the clown would dare have a fair fistfight. Batman had more than enough experience, and scars, to know the Joker's fighting style involved as little physical contact as possible, and as many exploding chickens, cigars, smiling grenades, and flowers containing twisted nerve gas as one clown could carry. The lunatic's coat had a pile of pockets for a reason.
"What tricks do you have up your sleeves?" The Bat asked.
The Joker feigned innocence about as well as Crane played full-contact rugby. "You wound me, Batsy. When have I ever not fought fair? Not counting all those times I threatened nuns, tried to grind your feline friend into cat food, or threw Harley at you and ran away."
"I could stand here all day and site examples, Joker. You're a snake in the grass." Batman said.
"Well, if you're just going to insult me, I'll stop playing nice. And as for my glorious purple sleeves…" The Joker trailed off.
Crane barely had time to jerk his hand out of the path of a razor-edged playing card. The devious card, a joker of course, imbedded itself firmly in the table. The Scarecrow had to bring his hand up to his face and wiggle his fingers before he was satisfied none of them had been chopped off. He had come within bare inches of being maimed, and he was not pleased about it.
"You nearly cut my fingers off! How the hell could you miss the Bat? He's three times wider than I am!" The Scarecrow yelled.
"It's a playing card, not a guided missile. Honestly, sometimes you have to sacrifice a little accuracy for art." The Joker said.
"Let Munch worry about art and Von Braun worry about missiles!" Crane snapped.
"I'll pretend I know who either of those people is. Now, stop whining and do something. Like get out of the way!" The Joker said.
The Scarecrow didn't need to be told twice. He backed away as quickly as possible, never taking his eyes off the Bat. Though he was loath to admit to it, Crane was smart enough to know he was the weak link in the line. If Batman was going to throw his considerable armor-plated weight at someone, it was going to be at the most breakable man. Once more, the Scarecrow cursed whatever sinister genetics gave him a coat hanger-thin frame.
"Come on, Johnny-boy! I've chased old ladies that moved faster than you!" The Joker taunted.
Never mind that it was the Joker's fault he had to shuffle like an arthritic geriatric. The Scarecrow imagined Killer Croc eating off the Joker's head in one monstrous bite. He couldn't help but grin, and he desperately hoped the grin looked evil and not cheerfully goofy. When you were fantasizing about a lizard-man, or a man-lizard, or whatever Croc was nibbling on the skull of your hated houseguest, you wanted to look frightening and not completely sane while you did it.
With old Straw-and-Bones out of the way, the Joker was finally able to commence the card-throwing. He wasn't particularly worried about Crane's physical wellbeing; if he had been, he wouldn't exactly have electrocuted, strangled, poisoned, or otherwise tortured the mad doctor. It was just that the Joker had never actually seen the Bat under the effects of fear toxin, and was madly curious. For a nerd with his nose in the books, the Scarecrow did have one shining achievement.
Batman was too quick and agile for card tricks. He dodged the first three untraditional blades, and managed to actually catch the fourth. The Joker booed like a drunken college frat boy whose favorite football team was losing badly.
"That's not how you're supposed to play! Why can't you be an easy target for once?" The Joker demanded.
"I don't play according to your rules." Batman replied.
"Bah! Rules are for chumps, cops, and nerds. Any good clown knows the secret to life is keeping it random. If you don't spice it up, life is boring! Do you know how easily I get bored?" The Joker asked.
"Yes." Batman said.
"Then don't just stand there, entertain me!" The Joker said.
The clown was done with card tricks. He switched back to the gun, which, mercifully for Crane, he could aim much better. Batman might have been quick, but he wasn't Ozymandias. There was no way for him to catch a bullet as he had the finely honed playing card.
Hoping Crane wouldn't be startled into turning the basement into a gas chamber, Batman dove under a test-tube laden table. The Joker, utterly clueless as to what the various glass beakers and tubes contained, fired at the fleeing vigilante. The Scarecrow howled in horror as glass shattered and assorted chemicals dripped from their ruined containers, mingling together on the table and the floor.
"Stop blowing holes in my lab equipment! You don't know how those chemicals will react with each other! You fool, stop shooting!" Crane yelled.
The Scarecrow's voice was drowned out by rapid gunfire. He might as well have tried to shout on the summit of an erupting Mount Saint Helens. Even if the Joker had heard Crane's distressed words, he would certainly have ignored them.
Wisps of smoke were beginning to rise from the chemical soup. Crane knew that when things started smoking, it normally didn't take long for them to ignite. He was all too aware of how bad the air quality was about to get in the closed confines of the basement.
The smoke, which was tinged an ominous green, thickened considerably. If not for the Joker shooting like an idiot gangster and the stray bullets that added only more unknowable chemicals to the smoldering mess that was probably eating through the floor, the Scarecrow would have scrambled for the stairs. He had no intention of being around when the basement's atmosphere became inhospitable and everyone asphyxiated, or when the fire finally started.
Another glass was shot and broke, and the seemingly harmless clear liquid spilled out. A layman might have mistaken the chemical for water because of its colorlessness, but even the most uneducated person would have quickly wised up when, instead of dampening the smoke, the chemical set off a violent chain-reaction.
A bright rush of fire lit up the basement. The smoke detector began to shriek in earnest, alerting Harley that something was badly amiss below her feet. She inched forward, toward the door before remembering what Mister J had said. In very explicit terms, he had warned her not to open the door but to stand ready to bash the Bat. She desperately wanted to see what was going on, but she didn't want her pigtails chopped off with a weed-whacker.
"I told you, you stupid bastard!" Crane yelled. Before, gunfire had drowned his voice. Now the ravenous cackle of a chemical fire was doing it.
The Joker wasn't above the occasional arson or vehicle-mounted flamethrower. Certainly, there was a pyromaniac facet to his disturbed personality. The raging fire that had suddenly sprung up like an otherworldly flower was entrancing and he was quite proud of having accidentally created it.
Batman, who had taken temporary cover on the other side of the cellar, wasn't so pleased with the fire. What was worse than fighting in a basement? Fighting in a basement that was quickly filling with toxic smoke and prowling flames. In fact, if didn't get much worse than that.
Asides from turning the air into a black cloud of smog even a Los Angeles native would choke on, the fire separated the hero and the villains. The Joker was completely safe on the stairs; he could escape without effort. Crane and Batman were trapped on the other side of the fire; to get out of the cellar, they would have to cross over the fire line.
The Scarecrow came to the realization that he was trapped on the same side as Batman. That made him mad as hell. Never mind the fact a home he had grown fond of, weeks' worth of fear toxin, books of notes, and thousands of dollars of equipment were going up in smoke. It was the Bat's presence that really ticked him off.
At about the same time Crane realized his predicament, Batman and the Joker reached the same basic conclusions. The clown was the only one particularly happy about the arrangements. As far as he was concerned, his arch nemesis was cornered. Unless the Bat was wearing his Evel Knievel flameproof underwear, he wasn't going to go anywhere near the intense fire. As the fire spread, the Bat would have less room to hide. Eventually, shooting ole Bats would be as easy as microwaving a TV dinner.
Crane resisted the urge, barely, to chuck the fear toxin at Batman and see what happened. The only thing that held him back was the fear the aerosol poison would react with the fire and create more fire. It was best to err on the side of caution when being reckless might burn all the skin from your body.
"Crane!"
Batman's voice was easily audible above the hungry roar of the flames. The Scarecrow turned toward the Dark Knight, contemplated telling him to go and use a blender as a sexual orifice, but kept that snarky comment to himself.
"What? Shut up and save what oxygen there is." Crane replied.
"Do you have a fire extinguisher down here? You couldn't have been stupid enough to forget about the danger your experiments carry." Batman said.
The Scarecrow could have kicked his own ass half-way across town. There was a fire extinguisher down here! Harley had sprayed both Crane and the Joker earlier in the day to make them behave. She had dropped it and it had rolled…
Roughly two feet to his left! Rushing as much as his condition would allow, Crane grabbed the extinguisher. He hoped Harley hadn't used all the foam putting out the Joker's temper. The fire currently reducing a table to nothing but charred screws and nails wasn't going to go out without a fight.
"Can you handle that thing?" Batman asked. He was tempted to take the extinguisher from Crane and use it himself, but the villain's toxin kept him at bay.
"It's a fire extinguisher, not the Hadron collider. A second-grader could use this." The Scarecrow replied.
A second grader might have been able to use the fire extinguisher, but the normal second grader didn't attempt it with one hand resolutely refusing to let go of a canister than contained a chemical weapon. Holding the extinguisher steady and squeezing the handle was proving tricky. The stupid thing was too heavy and ungainly to work with just one hand.
While paranoid Crane refused to put down his toxin, as though Batman was going to jump on him like a leopard the second he did, the fire continued to spread. The floor was mercifully uncarpeted, and that probably saved everyone's life. The fire, as hot as it was, would have burned through the synthetic fibers of a rug in under a minute. Even without carpeting to aid it along, the flames quickly nestled down on the Scarecrow's text books, chemicals, and anything else flammable that was within reach.
"Either use the extinguisher or give it to me!" Batman ordered.
"Shut up! Stay over in your corner and be quiet." Crane said. He didn't care that he had just told the Bat off in the exact same way a day-care provider would discipline a very naughty child.
"Don't let your ego get us killed. I'm not going to attack you, so stop being a fool and spray the fire!" Batman said.
"I'll believe every Senator in Washington before I believe you. As far as I'm concerned you can go and-" The Scarecrow's words dissolved into a coughing fit. The air quality was shot to shit. As much as he would rather eat an old boot than admit it, the Bat was right. The fire had to be extinguished, or both of them would cook.
"All right." Crane knelt down and placed the fear toxin on the floor. Simply lowering his head made the world spin. The smoke, compounded with the effects of a nasty concussion, was sickening him. The Scarecrow was on the verge of collapse, try as he might to deny it.
Batman saw Crane falter, and prepared to make his move. As truly awful a man as the Scarecrow could be, he didn't deserve to burn to death in his own basement. If the villain did pass out, Bruce would finally be able to get to the extinguisher and stop the fire. As a bonus, the metal extinguisher would make a very good bludgeon to throw at the Joker.
The Scarecrow straightened and cast Batman a baleful glance. "Stay there!"
So much for that. Batman intended to keep his word and not strike the unarmed doctor, so long as Crane got that fire out in the next ten seconds.
"Keep it together, Jonathan."
It was all much easier with two hands. Crane lifted the extinguisher, aimed it at the rapidly growing fire, put pressure on the handle, and was promptly shot. He heard the solitary bang over the noise of the fire, looked down and saw the extinguisher had both an entrance and exit wound. The bullet had been slowed down by the metal shell, but had retained enough energy to inflict damage to the Scarecrow.
The fire extinguisher was now useless; that had been the Joker's target the whole time. He wasn't about to let the Scarecrow put out the blaze and ruin his fun. The clown hadn't actually been sure if the bullet would make it through the extinguisher, but he was pleased to see the abject look of horror on both the Bat's and the Mop Man's faces. As far as he was concerned, any injury Johnny ended up with was punishment for trying to interfere.
Crane dropped the punctured extinguisher and brought a trembling hand to his chest. He felt very little pain, and took it as a bad sign. He was probably all ready in shock; he'd been shot in the general area of his heart and lungs. A wound like that could kill a man in a minute or less.
Batman watched anxiously, fully expecting Crane to topple over at any second. He was currently pulling at the material of his shirt, directly over the wound. There had been no spray of blood that would indicate a mortal wound, unless the Scarecrow was bleeding internally.
To the immense surprise and relief of both the hero and the scrawny villain, Crane removed his hand from his chest and brought the bullet with him. The fire extinguisher had acted as a shield, taking most of the damage from the shot. If not for the protection, the Scarecrow would have been a corpse. As was, his skin had barely been broken.
Though Batman was too far away and the air was too murky for him to see it, Crane was able to examine the round that had nearly killed him. The bullet hadn't fared well; it was flattened and warped, looking more like a bottle-cap than ammunition.
"No magic bullet here!" Crane said. He sounded like a man who had just walked away from a plane crash as the sole survivor.
The toxic air, concussion, and trauma of narrowly escaping death were all touch much for the Scarecrow. He collapsed to the floor gracelessly. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the fire creeping closer, consuming tables and anything else combustible. His survival instinct demanded he crawl away before he was roasted like a luau pig, but he could hardly keep his eyes open, let alone coordinate an escape.
"Hope you two like it hot!" The Joker cackled.
Forgetting about caution, Batman dashed forward to the fallen Scarecrow's side. Crane was still conscious, but barely. Hoping he would be in the mood to listen and not fight, the Bat said, "I'm going to move you away from the fire. We'll get out of here."
Apparently, Crane's brain interpreted Batman's words as, "I'm going to hang you from a tree and let little children beat sugary treats from you with a stick." He tried to sit up, to attack, but only managed to get his hand to flop like a dying fish. By some miracle, that hand flopped down on the canister of fear toxin.
"Don't do it. I know you want to, but if you do, we're both going to die." Batman said. He coughed, too. Even the Dark Knight was human. He couldn't stand the smoke much longer, either.
Crane's feet were starting to get mighty hot. It was essentially now or never.
The Scarecrow was yanked back viciously. His shoes were no longer in danger of spontaneous combustion, but there was little room for further retreat. Whatever master plan Batman had, he had better enact it soon.
"We're going to jump through the fire." Batman said.
"WHAT!?" Crane yelled. Suddenly, he found he did have a little more strength.
"The suit's flame retardant. I'll wrap the cape, whatever's left of it, around you. Then we'll jump and hope to clear the fire." Batman explained.
"You're insane. I can't walk, let alone jump." The Scarecrow said.
"I know. I'm going to carry you."
"No! I'd rather stay here and die."
"I'm not going to let that happen."
"I will not be carried by you! No! No! No!"
"Yes."
With that it was sealed. There was no use arguing with a stone. Much to his chagrin and embarrassment, Crane was hefted off the floor and into the air. He was never going to forgive the Bat for this. Never!
The black cape, tattered and hardly half its original size, was wrapped around the unwilling Scarecrow. The cape was saturated with the stink of bad hyena breath. Great. Not only was Crane relying on the bastard that always foiled his plans, but he was going to have to smell Bud and Lou's dead-zebra breath the whole time.
"Ready?" Batman asked.
"I'm going to die." Crane moaned.
"Hopefully not." Batman said.
It was a shame there was no Olympic event for clearing a fiery wall of death. If there was, Batman would have been given the gold, silver, and bronze medals. It was unlikely any other country would send one of its athletes to perform in such a lunatic event, but that didn't diminish how well Batman performed.
There was one swift instance of terrible, eyebrow-frying heat and then the cape was pulled away. The fire was now safely behind them, and intent on eating what little it hadn't all ready. Crane was torn between immense relief and equally powerful fury at owing the Bat such a debt.
"The Joker's gone."
Indeed, the stairs were empty. The clown had retreated back upstairs, probably to either get more ammo, or to grab some stupid exploding gag joke. Batman didn't intend to sit around and find out; he was getting out of the basement, which was completely filled with smoke.
"I can get up the stairs! Put me down!" The Scarecrow ordered.
"Don't try anything." The Bat said. He didn't want to drop Crane, but he needed his hands free. If the Joker was waiting on the other side of the door, Batman wanted to be ready to counter the clown.
Gently as possible, Batman set Crane on his feet. The Scarecrow was dead-set on walking under his own power. For reasons of safety, Batman had Crane go up the stairs first.
The Scarecrow opened the door and stepped into the mercifully clear and clean air of the kitchen. The first thing he saw was Harley, armed with the toilet plunger. She swung it upward, like some medieval barbarian with a battle axe. Crane had the good sense to duck and avoid the less-than-deadly weapon.
Batman was clocked with the toilet plunger. That was a new experience for him; he'd never been assaulted by a woman holding a plunger before. Considering the stupid thing was made out of rubber and not stone or wood, he supposed he got off lucky.
Harley jabbed with the toilet plunger, and Batman made a grab for it. She pulled back and the Bat followed. He was going to take the plunger from her, whack her with it so she knew how it felt, and then throw it out the nearest window.
As soon as Batman cleared the door, the extent of the Joker's plan became evident. The clown emerged from behind the door and brought something up high over his head. It was the toaster.
The toaster had some serious heft. It was one of those appliances that could brown enough toast to satisfy an entire office building. Crane had never explained why he had an eight-slot toaster when he never ate more than one piece for breakfast, but the Joker was grateful for it now.
The blown to the head sent Batman stumbling. The Joker was on him in an instant, smashing the toaster into his head again. If there had been an Olympic event for breaking your enemy's skull with an everyday appliance, the Joker would have won gold, silver, bronze, and some other medal invented just to make him happy and keep him from blowing up the Australian gymnast team.
One final whack with a toaster that would never toast again, and Batman was out cold on the floor. Harley and Crane peered at him with a combination of awe and disbelief. The Joker had just bested the Batman. With a toaster.
The Joker apparently got the irony of the situation, and burst into his trademark laughter. "For years I've been trying to do this with every trick you can imagine. I must have been going about it wrong. It turns out a bat's natural enemy is the common toaster. Who knew?"
"That's great Mister J, but what are we gonna do with him now?" Harley asked.
The three villains exchanged looks. None of them really had any idea.
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Author's Notes:
That was much longer than anticipated. I kept saying "cut it off" but my hands kept typing.
Munch is most famous for The Scream but did a lot of other creepy art.
Von Braun worked on V-2 rockets for the Nazis, and then on spacecrafts for NASA.
In Watchmen, Ozymandias was purported to be the fastest man alive. He does actually catch a bullet.
Evel Knievel was probably the most famous daredevil ever.
The Hadron collider is the world's largest particle accelerator. People feared it would create a black hole and destroy the planet. It didn't, obviously.
The so-called magic bullet passed through JFK's throat and then through the body of Texas governor John Connally. It was hardly damaged, despite having traveled through both men.