Thanks for the reviews, everybody!
I do have a little announcement to make. This story is winding down and coming to an end. I see one or two more chapters. Three is highly unlikely. Thanks for sticking with it this far.
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"What do you think this thing does?"
"Maybe it orders pizza, beer and hot wings. How in the hell should any of us know what that thing does? It isn't like I've had a proper laboratory and ample days to analyze the belt." Crane replied.
"Yeesh, Johnny. Do you always get this angry when you haven't slept?"
"No, only when I've been repeatedly tortured throughout the day, and then forced to drive around aimlessly with my two least favorite people."
The Joker muttered something under his breath and went back to fiddling with the stolen utility belt. Crane considered asking what the clown had mumbled, and decided he didn't care. If the Joker was quiet, the Scarecrow had no intention of riling him back up.
With her Puddin' happily playing with his new toy and the Scarecrow hunched over the wheel and obviously not in the mood to talk, Harley was feeling lonely. She didn't particularly like silence. That was one of the reasons she clung to the Joker: he wasn't even quiet when he slept. He snored and sometimes giggled even when he was tucked in for the night. One time, he performed a whole comedy routine while asleep.
"Can I turn on the radio?" Harley asked.
"Must you?" The Scarecrow asked.
"I like listenin' to music when I'm in a car. Please, Professor Crane? Please?" Harley flashed him big, blue puppy eyes.
"Fine."
"Yippee!"
Harley eagerly pressed the power button for the radio. Tsunamis of heavy metal music flooded the truck. The 'singer', if the satanic growls coming from the speakers were indeed a song, sounded more like a wild animal than a man. The Joker threw his hands over his ears, Crane winced, and Harley hurriedly turned down the volume.
"Change the channel!" The Joker snapped.
Harley played with the dial, cruising through the stations. She found a strange talk-radio host who seemed obsessed with aliens, UFO's and the ever-popular close encounters of the fourth kind. He wasn't in the least bit occupied with encounters of the first, second, or third degree. After listening to a caller who claimed aliens had violently molested not only him, but his neighbor, his cousin Horace, and his high school science teacher, Crane begged Harley to find something else.
At one in the morning, it seemed only oldies and nut-jobs were on the radio. Disappointed, Harley turned it off. That creeping silence soon filled the cab.
"Professor, wanna play a word association game?"
Afraid of receiving a lethal dose of cuteness from another attack of puppy eyes if he refused, Crane said, "Yes."
"You're a real sport, you know that? Okay, let's see. The first word is hyena."
"Slobber."
"I was thinkin' cuddly, but okay. How 'bout sandwich?"
"Bologna."
"Moon?"
"Werewolf."
"Mister J?"
"Bastard."
"I'm sitting right here! I can hear you insulting me, Mop Man."
"Inconsiderate, evil, cruel, vile, inhuman, diseased, insane, frightfully pale, freakish, abnormal, hyper-active, senseless-"
The Joker jabbed the Scarecrow in the ribs. "Shut up, Spooky, or I'll toss you back there with the mutts and the Bat."
"Don't bother, I'll go willingly. Batman can't possibly be any worse than you. At least he's quiet." Crane replied.
"Well, since you want to go, you can just sit there and drive."
"Is your sole goal in life making me miserable? Because you're doing an unparalleled job of it." The Scarecrow said.
"No, I also want to destroy Gotham, find out who Batman is, raise a flock of emus and learn how to make peach-flavored Gelato. You're just one of many, many goals I have, so stop feeling so important."
While Crane wondered if maybe crashing the truck into a building wouldn't be the best course of action, Batman was developing a plan. The way he figured it, if the hyenas' jaws were strong enough to chew through the Space Age material of his cape, they should be able to bite through duct tape. If he could just get the hyenas to sever enough of the tape from his hands and forearms, he would be able to finish the job. With his arms free, it wouldn't be difficult to get the duct tape off his eyes, mouth, and feet. If he could accomplish all that without the Joker turning around and shooting him in the face, Batman supposed he could just shatter the rear window, reach through, and yank the clown through the hole. Then he could snap the Joker's arms off.
Reduced to relying solely on his hearing, Batman tried to pinpoint the hyenas' location. They were shuffling around, probably eying him like a choice cut in the supermarket. One of them snorted slightly to his left, and Batman thrust his bound arms at it.
Lou growled sharply and bit onto the offending limb thrown in his face. Bud, whose mind sometimes seemed partly-conjoined with Lou's, decided to join the attack. He snapped at Batman's arms and began to heartily gnaw on them.
"Shut up back there. I'm trying to work here." The Joker said.
After destroying Johnny's spirits, the Joker had gone back to tinkering with the utility belt. He had just managed to free one of the batarangs and was entranced by it. The clown had had guns, bombs, knives and a whole assortment of other items knocked out of his hands by batarangs, and he was eager for a close-up view.
"Harley, why don't I have anything this nice? Look at the craftsmanship! It's shiny!" The Joker said.
"You can't have nice things; you always burn them, break them over peoples' heads, or leave them on the couch and forget about them." Crane said.
"I asked Harley, not you. Did you suddenly decide to change your name, Mop Man? If you did, change it back. I only need one Harley, thank you very much." The Joker said.
Crane was going to point out that the world needed even fewer Jokers, but then remembered that every single point he had tried to make had been utterly ignored. He was wasting his energy and his breath. From now on, the Scarecrow was just going to play the quiet game.
Batman could feel the teeth worrying and scraping at his gloves and decided to hyenas had done enough damage to the tape. He yanked his arms back, nearly taking a few of Lou's teeth with him. Praying the tape had been chewed up enough, Batman pulled his arms apart will every bit of strength he could manage. What was the point of all those pushups if he couldn't even break some stupid tape?
Duct tape proved to be no match for Batman's determination and well-developed forearms. He clumsily removed the clinging chunks of tape from his fingers, hands, and wrists before pulling the strips from his eyes and mouth. Now that he could see, it was just a matter of removing the coil of tape from around his ankles. Whoever had tied him up—probably Crane because the doctor was thorough to the point of aggravation—had used enough duct tape to stretch from Gotham to the Florida panhandle.
Bud and Lou, seeing their enemy was mobile, started to make a racket. They snapped at Batman, though he was now able to hit their muzzles and keep them at bay. When nobody paid attention to just growling, the mutts began to laugh. Harley always came running when her Babies got the giggles.
"Harl, shut them up. They're ruining my jolly mood." The Joker said.
And did he ever have reason to be jolly. He had just found the Bat-cuffs. They were quite a bit cooler than the average bracelets the coppers clapped him in, because these were shaped like bats. The Joker would have rubbed his hands together in villainous glee had his fingers not been too busy playing with his newest jewelry.
"Babies, what's got your tails in a- Eek!"
"What is it? Holy llamas of the Bahamas! Spooky, brake it now! Brake, brake, brake!"
Crane stomped on the brakes, the tires squealed, and the entire truck jerked to a violent stop. Bud, Lou and Batman, none of them secured by seat belts, were thrown in a heap against the cab. Batman had the misfortune of being the bottom of the heap. The two hyenas, who weighed nearly 300 pound combined, compressed him beneath their furry bulk.
"I think I've got whiplash. Clown, so help me, you'll be getting a bill from my chiropractor." The Scarecrow grumbled.
"Shut up, Johnny. The Bat's loose."
"Don't even tell me that!"
"I all ready did."
"What're we gonna do about him?" Harley asked.
The Joker dropped the cuffs and picked up his trusted tire iron. "I'm going to play Whack-a-Bat with his head."
Once again pushing past Harley, the Joker climbed out of the truck. The clown had hardly closed his door when Lou fell out of the sky and landed on his head. Both clown and hyena went down on the pavement. Harley shouted in outrage and shook her fist at Batman.
"Get in the driver's seat." Crane said.
Harley looked at him as though he had asked her to help him build a spaceship destined for Planet X. "Why? Where're you goin', Professor?"
"This day will not end with me going back to Arkham. I absolutely refuse. I'm going back there to help the Joker. When I tell you to hit the gas, no matter what else is happening, you're going to develop the most severe case of lead foot ever." The Scarecrow said.
"But what if-"
"I don't care if a puppy, a schoolboy, the President, and a wheelchair-bound World War II veteran are sitting in the middle of the road! You will run them over, Harleen Quinzel!"
Harley gulped and nodded. Nobody had used the name on her birth certificate in quite some time. Even the head-shrinkers at Arkham called her Harley. Professor Crane must have meant seriously serious business.
"Good. Remember, child, no matter what."
Crane grabbed the Bat-cuffs and the utility belt. Maybe he could use a batarang as a weapon, stab Batman in the throat or the eyes with it. If not, he supposed the belt, laden with some tools that looked like they had come from the starship Enterprise, could be cracked over Batman's head. The Scarecrow knew from experience that even a little tap to an abused head could send a person reeling in agony.
The Joker finally managed to get Lou's wriggling carcass off him. The hyena rolled onto his back and his legs began to flail like those of an overturned tortoise or beetle. It appeared Lou had fallen and had no plans of getting up.
"Lose some weight, Lou! Oh, back spasms, I'm going to need to borrow Johnny's chiropractor." The Joker moaned.
With one hyena tossed out of the truck, Batman turned his attention to the remaining mutt. Bud snarled, showing teeth that could probably tear through tank armor. Bruce wondered if he could grab hold of Bud as he had Lou without getting shredded, and decided the hyena was smart enough to see any tricks coming. He'd have to avoid the hyena's bite best he could until he could remove the tape from his feet and gain full mobility.
"Clown, why are you hunched over like an old man?"
The Joker glared at him. "I was hit by a furry 500 pound meteorite. I'm lucky it didn't kill me."
"Lou's not 500 pounds; he probably doesn't top 150."
"Spooky, just shut up before I play Whack-a-Crow with your head." The clown said.
"I did come to assist you, since the Bat appeared to be making a fool out of you. If, however, you'd rather face him alone, I'll stand back and watch." The Scarecrow said.
"Nobody makes a fool out of me! A joker, yes, but never a fool!"
Miraculously cured of his spinal woes, the Joker stood straight up. "Try not to get in my way, Mop Man."
Showing how spry he was, the Joker unlatched the pickup's tailgate and then hopped backwards to let the gate fall. Batman stopped trying stare Bud down and looked past the hyena. He saw the Joker, tire iron in hand, standing next to the Scarecrow, who was masked and holding Batman's utility belt. For some reason, seeing Crane with the belt didn't fill Batman with the same desire to smash as when the Joker had it.
"Hi again, Bat-brain. Didn't I tell you to sit back and enjoy the ride? I distinctly remember warning you that I'd have to come back here and put a hole in your skull if you didn't behave." The Clown Prince said.
"Actually entering the brain cavity would certainly disable him, and in all likelihood result in his death." Crane muttered.
Talking out the side of his mouth so the Bat wouldn't hear him, the Joker replied, "Someone's death is going to get resulted in."
"Don't take English lessons from George W. Bush." Crane said, loudly enough for Batman to hear. Unless the Scarecrow was mistaken, the hero hadn't been quite able to hide his smirk. Let the Joker ruminate on that for a while; Jonathan Crane, widely regarded to possess no sense of humor whatsoever, had coerced a smile from Batman, who was also reputed to have no facial expressions except a frown.
The Joker wasn't a particularly reflective man. He was certainly never joining the ranks of Henry David Thoreau or Charles Sanders Peirce. Finding nothing funny in the situation laid out before him, and not bothering to consider the irony, the Joker jabbed Crane in the side with the tire iron. Causing the Scarecrow pain seemed to be the logical solution to many of life's problems.
"I think you broke a rib!" Crane moaned.
"Shut up or I'll break something important."
"Ribs are important!"
"Yeah, I guess they are. I like mine slathered in BBQ sauce and slowly roasted over a wood fire for hours. Mmm, slab of beef."
"You're inhuman."
"And you're just getting that now?"
The Scarecrow wanted to throw a tantrum, swear vigorously, and fall down into an inescapable black hole of unalloyed misery and woe. Just the thought of howling, waving his fist at the cruel universe and rolling back and forth on the ground while sobbing seemed to drain him of energy, though. Besides that, he didn't want to suffer a full-scale mental breakdown in front of Batman. Or the Joker. Definitely not the Joker. The clown would spread the news around Arkham faster than a diseased child infected his entire class with chicken pox. The Master of Fear would quickly be reduced to the Weepy Teenage Girl or The Master of Tears, or something equally mortifying.
"Johnny-boy, I can't see your face under Spooky Junior, but I bet you're down in the dumps, huh? How about this? I knock Batman out, and then we buy you ice cream. Would that make you feel better?" The Joker asked.
"No. Ice cream would make me feel better if I was four years old and lost my toy truck in the sandbox. A heavy dose of morphine, as well as seeing you savaged by a polar bear might do the trick, however." Crane replied.
"What kind of creature turns down free ice cream? Spooky, what planet were you beamed down from?"
"Your mind is grossly retarded."
"Hey, don't use the R-word. You'll offend the dummies."
"Dummy, he's getting the tape off!" Crane exclaimed.
The Joker looked like he was going to clock the Scarecrow over the head for his insults, but decided to take care of his bat problems first. Crane wasn't going anywhere; there would be plenty of time later to punish him. Maybe the Joker could even find a frighteningly muscular dimwit, such as the kind he always recruited to help him in heists and various dirty deeds, and let the un-evolved ape smack Spooky around.
Damn duct tape and its infernal stickiness and strength. Sure, he'd used it to do everything from emergency surgery on gushing pipes to hastily repair a table so Alfred wouldn't know he had accidentally karate-chopped it in half. Now all those miraculous repairs were nothing but reminders of how quickly something as genuinely good as duct tape could be corrupted into something that might just get him killed. While he was in the mood for damning things, damn the Joker, too!
"Bud, get out of here! Shoo, scram, scoot, vamoose, hit the highway, you get the picture." The Joker said.
The hyena reacted as he normally did when the Joker tried to order him around. He plopped down, yawned at the clown, and scratched himself rhythmically with his foot. Batman was grateful Bud understood the art of being an antagonist to the Joker's plans. He'd have to go easy on the hyena the next time the beast tried to maul him.
Crane watched with smug amusement as the Joker tried without success to coax Bud out of the way. The mutt's butt was firmly planted between the psycho and the vigilante, and showed no signs of moving.
The Scarecrow was not about the yell "Babies!" and make kissy noises, but he did know another way to move Bud. He whistled and rattled the utility belt. Bud's ears pricked up, he rose off his ass, and flew off the lowered tailgate like a Labrador retriever off a dock.
Batman growled with indignation when he saw Crane throw the hyena his belt. That belt held some of the most advanced gadgets on the planet, and now it was nothing but a high-end chew toy! To make matters worse, the Joker now had nothing to obstruct him.
"Those hairballs do love Spooky more than me! After all I've done for them, they run off with that scrawny nerd. Maybe they think he's a stick, and they just want to play fetch with him. What do you think, Bats? Any insight into the mind of a hyena?"
"I'll ask the Gotham Times to run an opinion poll. I'm sure most of Gotham would say it likes the Scarecrow more, as well." Batman said.
"But he's a nerd! When did the world stop liking the class clown and start honoring the people it used to stuff in lockers and hang from the flagpole by their underwear?" The Joker whined.
"Probably the second or third time the class clown blew up the animal shelter, introduced killer laughing gas into the neonatal ward at Gotham General, and stole a truckload of Girl Scout cookies." Crane said.
"For your information,I only ever stole one truckload of Girl Scout cookies, and they were all those peanut butter things nobody likes. Of course, I would have eaten them anyway just so those little brats couldn't get them back, but a certain someone had to get in my way. Three guesses as to who that someone is." The Joker said.
"Batman?" The Scarecrow ventured.
"No, actually, Commissioner Gordon. Next time I see him, I'm going to shave his moustache so he looks like Hitler." The Joker replied.
"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life."
The Joker actually seemed put off. "Really, the stupidest? Even worse than Ivy's feminazi plant spiels and those conversations the Hatter has with his tea set? There's no way I can be stupider than "it doesn't matter if it's green, it's still alive", no way."
"Oh, it's absolutely worse. I'd rather join Green Peace and E.L.F. than listen to your grand plans to shave the Commissioner."
"You're going to turn into a hippie, too?"
"No, I'm not going to turn into a hippie! I'm simply stating that, if forced between becoming a human green bean, or listening to you prattle, I'd rather paint a pink peace sign on my face and protest whaling."
"I'd rather eat a whale."
"That's not the point!"
"Well loop me in, Johnny, because I'm lost."
"You're an idiot, that's the point."
"Don't call me and idiot in front of Batman. Your bad behavior might rub off on him. Right, Bats?"
Batman's only reply was to drive his fist into the clown's unsuspecting face. He had finally managed to liberate himself, and was he ever pissed.
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Author's Notes: A close encounter of the fourth kind is an alien abduction.
"Holy llamas of the Bahamas!" is an exclamation from the show Futurama.
The Enterprise is the spaceship from Star Trek. I'm sure most people literate in the Internet didn't need to be told that. We're all nerds here, I suppose.
George Bush, who brought us such gems as: "Wow, Brazil is big", "Is our children learning" and "Whether or not it needed to happen, I'm still convinced it needed to happen".
Henry David Thoreau was a Transcendentalist most famous for writing Walden. Charles Sanders Peirce helped create the Pragmatism movement.
Feminazi is a derogatory term made by joining Nazi and Feminist and was popularized by Rush Limbaugh. I swear, I won't use any of that hijo de puta's phrases again.
E.L.F stands for the Earth Liberation Front. They're a radical group of environmentalists that like to burn down SUV dealerships and tip over radio towers.
The next update might take a little time. I just got Under the Dome, Stephen King's new book, and that baby is huge. Freaking huge!