This, all of this, it feels like the presents found under the tree on Christmas day. The paper is shiny and new, wrapped up with a fancy ribbon that feels like silk as it runs through your fingers. But it is that which is underneath that enthralls you. What is it? Is it that new wristwatch you always wanted? A laptop? Some cyanide? There lies the thrill of it, the enigma of not knowing.

The mystery slithers into your brain and wraps itself around your mind until all that you can think of is what is inside the box. You have to know, you need to know. It burns its mark upon your consciousness. As the allotted time comes you find yourself obsessed. Everything you say, everything you know, everything you do becomes driven by that yearning desire to know what it is, to peel back the wrapping paper, to open the box and see what is inside.

And then curiosity gets the best of us. Deep in the night we sneak from our beds, enacting that master plan to catch a sneak peak. Every child has likely concocted such a plan, to creep past their parent's room, prowl down the stairs into the living room where the prize ultimately lies. And then comes the eleventh hour, the moment where we hesitate upon the precipice, gazing up at the tree and down at the gifts underneath, and for but a moment we hold back. We stand there, gazing down, and we wonder, we wonder if we really want to know.

Do we want to know? It is a question that raged in our minds, in my mind, every time. Some waver and beat a hasty retreat to their room while others press on, having recognized that they have crossed the line that indicates the point of no return.

Just as I have.

We kneel beneath the tree and reach out for that gift, that hidden secret that has driven us mad with yearning for the reality that eludes us. And some of us wonder, is this how Adam and Eve felt, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, this trepidation that threatens to hold us back, and this temptation that drives us forward.

And then we open the package and realize we got socks for Christmas.

What a ripoff.

Such is the feeling I have been going through over the last few hours. Harley is off who knows where. She knows I want to be alone. The screams that once filled the Asylum have fallen silent once again.

Phase One is complete. Now Phase Two can commence in earnest.

It is all rather anticlimactic. I would have preferred it if the truth had come out another way, but it seems that Batsy has forced my hand. He could have let me take off his cowl at any time during any one of our games, but the rodent simply wouldn't play by my rules. He forced my hand. If he wouldn't reveal who he was, someone else would have to.

It was obvious from the moment that Robin took off his mask who he was. Tim Drake, a completely forgettable kid if it wasn't for the person he was connected to.

Bruce Wayne, Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and scourge of the underworld it would seem.

Actually it is all rather painfully obvious in hindsight. Reclusive billionaire, owner of a massive corporation that specializes in advanced technology, amongst other things. I had always wondered where he got those wonderful toys of his. Now I know.

It seems torture is a very useful tool when it comes to persuading one to speak. After he broke down the dear boy told me everything. And by everything, I do mean everything.

But the reason, the catalyst that brought about the rise of the Dark Knight seems so, so, underwhelming to me. I mean, his Mom and Dad get shot and he decides to deal with it by taking out his rage on Gotham's criminals? Is that the best he could come up with? As far as motivations go I suppose it isn't terrible, but it is rather cliche, and for someone like Batman the cliche is not exactly the most becoming of tropes.

I am rather disappointed. I was expecting something more. I was expecting someone who had been tortured to the brink of insanity. I was expecting a hard and brutal man beneath the cowl.

Instead I get a little boy in a costume who is still crying for his parents. Instead I get Bruce Wayne, the prince of Gotham City.

What right does he have to claim that he is tortured or misunderstood. The man's rich for crying out loud. Money can buy happiness after all. Get over it.

I mean, it's all a front? Beneath the frown and the gadgets there is just an overgrown mama's boy? Is that who I have been fighting? Is that the man who has beaten...

No, no, no! Don't think about that. It is in the past, it doesn't matter, not anymore. I'll get him this time. Everything that occurred in the past is irrelevant. I've never let past setbacks keep the smile off of my face. I just keep on going.

Another difference between him and I. He is stuck in his past, reliving it and rethinking it over and over while I never give the past a second thought. He is order and I am chaos. He is dark and I am light. He is broken, and I am not.

This is the best way to break through that stern facade. He is even more vulnerable than I had suspected. He isn't as indestructible as everyone would believe. The things Drake has told me! It is all falling into place.

I had never given Bruce Wayne much thought. He was always in the background of Gotham City, much like Batman. Which makes sense since they are one and the same. You always heard about the two of them. You would see pictures of the two of them and see them on TV occassionally, but to the average person you never saw them in the flesh. It all makes sense now. I never really liked it when things made sense.

The funny thing is that the two, Batman and Bruce Wayne are more alike than most people would think, which is odd. You would think that a secret identity and a hero's identity would be polar opposites in order to attract attention, but recently the two have become more and more similar for Batman.

Looking back over the years, just through casual observation, a rather interesting pattern emerges. Back in the old days when the game was new Batman was not quite as brooding as he is today. He was much more talkative in those days, trading one liners with the first boy blunder while giving out insults to his opponents. Rumor has it he would even crack a smirk every once in a while! Imagine that. Of course he never smiled in front of me, but he was definitely much more pleasant. The same could be said for Wayne. He was always laughing, smiling, partying, and dating pretty girls. It's obvious now that it was all a front meant to cover up the truth, but deep down there was probably a small part of him that partially enjoyed those parties and those girls.

And yet as the years passed one after another Gotham's greatest son began to lose his youthful vigor. The man who had gained a reputation as a playboy was seen less and less in public. He dated fewer women, had more seemingly serious relationships, went to fewer events and generally pulled away from society. The few times he was seen in public he seemed worn down and tired. Now that I think of it he never smiled in those later pictures. His voice became more gravelly and harsher in tone.

He seemed bitter.

Most merely assumed that he had finally grown up and become a responsible businessman. But this change in attitude coincided with the changes that came over Batman. As the 90's faded away into the early 2000's Batman became more and more vicious. He spoke less, he never smiled, and the one liner's he would share with his proteges practically ceased to exist.

Perhaps he finally realized that you can't stop crime. You can't change human nature by punching a few crooks. The world was made rotten, there is nothing that can be fixed. Maybe he finally realized this. The question though is why does he continue to struggle against the inevitable. It is all so pointless.

Perhaps he is stubborn.

Harley claims that this is perfectly natural. Apparently old Bruce never got adequate therapy to deal with the problem, and by the time he decided to don the cape any therapy would have been useless. He isn't all there.

Just like me.

We both saw society's black underbelly, both saw humanity at it's absolute worst. I just accepted it. He didn't. And so as the years passed Batman was made to experience horrors most people could only dream of. He dealt with psychopaths and their victims on a nightly basis. He dealt with the fear of millions, the pain of thousands, and the never ending stress. No regular human being could deal with such mental trauma and hope to retain anything resembling sanity.

And so, one step at a time, Batman cut off everything that made him human, and it bled into his civilian life. He just couldn't stand the pretension and the lies that made up human society.

He withdrew himself from the world, cutting ties with friends, lovers, and those who would call him family. Why?

Because he couldn't bare the pain of loss. He knew that if he kept losing those who were close to him like his parents he would lose his mind. And so he pushed everyone in his life away and kept them at a distance so he wouldn't become as attached to them as he was to his parents.

He cut himself off from humanity, having seen and felt the horrors of the world, wanting never again to feel the pain that he was experiencing. He thought that this would make him strong, but it has made him weak.

He fears losing those close to him. I wonder, how quickly will he shatter upon learning that it is one of his loved ones who shall end him?

I looked from my latest science project to Drake's pale and troubled face.

Drake was resting peacefully, or as close to peaceful as you could get in his situation. He had been sedated and restrained. Looking at him now he looked like a shorter doppelganger of myself. His face was chalk white and his hair was dark green. Unfortunately there wasn't a vat of chemicals nearby to toss him into so we had to settle for make up and hair dye, but the important component has already been installed.

He is stark raving mad.

There is only so much one man can take. For years I and my colleagues have tried to drive Batman batty. We've made him bleed, made him hurt, made him suffer, and made others suffer while he watched on. Will this be the straw that breaks the camel's back? We'll see.

But the final indignity to the legacy of the Caped Crusader won't be when Timmy here shoots his father figure, no. My revenge must be much deeper than the meticulous revelation of Tim Drake's decline into insanity and the death of Batman.

The final indignity shall be much, much more personal. For years now I have realized that soon this green hair will start to turn grey. It is only a matter of time. I can feel it in my bones. I'm slowing down. As much as I would like to deny it I am not immortal. Not yet. But where there is a will there is a way.

I hadn't given it much thought in the beginning, but with the rise of the superheroes and all the mad scientist technology lying around the idea of living forever suddenly didn't seem quite so farfetched. Why should I someday die, leaving future generations denied my clever brand of comedy? And so, while Batman was off saving the world with the Justice League I found myself traveling the globe in secret, searching for some means by which I could cheat death forever.

The Lazarus pits were one potential means, but Ra's al Ghul didn't seem very keen on sharing. And so I turned to a more technological angle. In time I came across Project Cadmus, a government sponsored organization dedicated to ensuring that America would stand a chance if anyone in the League suddenly went nuts and decided it would be fun to take over the world. It was during a raid on one of Cadmus's warehouses that I came across my current science project: a microchip.

Not just any microchip mind you. This one was reversed engineered from captured alien technology that the Feds had acquired from countless failed alien invasions. This chip made it possible for a person to make a digital copy of their entire personality and all of their memories and download it onto a small, seemingly unnoticeable computer chip. A back up copy of an entire person as it were. But that wasn't all. The chip, when implanted upon someone's neck, could, given the proper circumstances download the digital personality into the brain of the subject, overriding that person's mind and allowing the digital consciousness to take control.

There it was, the key to my immortality lying right on the back of Bird Boy's neck. I'd have Batman broken and dead, and best of all it would be his adopted son who would destroy his father's legacy. And he would be just the beginning. With Batman dead I'd keep going. Now that I know who these people are it will become all the easier to destroy them. And when this body is old and grey I'll activate the chip.

Every time a body starts to age I'll simply use this technology to transfer my conscience to a new body. It will be a never ending cavalcade of comedy.

Gotham won't know what hit it.

But first things first. All the pieces are in play.

It is time to send Batman his invitation.

The Grand Finale is about to begin.

In the next chapter we hear a little from the Dark Knight himself. Needless to say he will not be very happy. Please Leave a Review!