HOME | DD

Description
BATMAN: SOUTHERN KNIGHT
PART FOUR:
“FRIENDSHIP AND FATALITIES”
Based on the DC Comics Characters created by Bob Kane

Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham Hill Police Department found the twelve Night Hawks in the once again darkened lab at WayneTech; four injured from gunshot wounds, three dead from the same, and the rest crouched in corners or against walls still laughing like rabid hyenas from the effects of the Joker’s Mirth-ane Gas.
“Who or what in the name of Hell and Damnation did this?” asked Gordon as he stared one of the poor crooks right in his empty eyes.  One of his men then approached, shaking his head with equal confusion.
“Found four delivery guys outside with the same look on their face trying to strangle each other,” said the officer.
“Did you happen to see what they were delivering?”
“Nope, the truck’s nowhere to be seen.”
“This makes no damn sense; a missing truck, but all the criminals are right here gassed up on something.”
“Um… sir, they ain’t the only ones here.”  Gordon looked in the direction where the officer pointed.  There, being helped out of a closet by two other officers was a very shaken, but unharmed Oswald Cobblepot.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” said the mayor as he began to make his way out.  Gordon quickly stood in his way.
“Sorry, Mr. Mayor, but we really need to ask you some…” he began.
“The Joker’s your man, Jimmy,” interrupted Oswald.  “He’s the one behind all of this insanity.  I suggest for the sake of this city, you and your department quit gawking around and go out and find him.”  Cobblepot then ordered an officer to escort him back to his officer, leaving the Commissioner to give a long, suspicious sigh.

“It’s gone,” said Lucius Fox to Bruce Wayne in one of Wayne’s many uptown offices.  “The generator is gone.  Can’t imagine what this freak who calls himself the Joker would want with it, but that’s who everyone’s saying was behind the theft.”
Bruce was not ready for this.  He ended up costing people their lives the night before in order to save that of himself and a friend who had betrayed him and the rest of the town.  Blinding the intoxicated Night Hawks with a line of instant-exploding smoke bombs as they pulled their triggers was a split-second, highly uncalculated risk.  And he paid with the blood on his hands.  They may have been criminals, but they were still human beings, possibly with family.  But then a thought suddenly struck him.  The Joker had already poisoned them, had already driven them mad.  This now made Bruce think; was it he or the Joker who signed those men’s death warrants in the end?  His thoughts were then interrupted when Lucius placed an empty canister baring a smiling skull and crossbones on his desk.
“I found this after the police left,” he said.
“Whatever affected those gunmen must have come from this,” whispered Bruce.
“My thoughts exactly.  You want me to take this to Commissioner Gordon?”
“No,” Bruce stared at the hideous grin on the skull for a second.  “I’ll take care of it.”
The Joker acted like a kid on Christmas as he eagerly tried to pry open the crate containing WayneTech’s top secret delivery with a crowbar.  It of course now rested a good few miles away from WayneTech inside Joker and Harley’s novelty shop hideaway.  Joker eventually gave up on the crowbar and grabbed Harley’s giant mallet.  A few hard swings and the crate finally opened to reveal the massive, shining steel and metal generator that Fox had spoke to Bruce about earlier.
“Oh, oh ho ho ho!” laughed the Joker.  “Look at it, Harley!  Look at it!”
“I’m looking at it, Pookie,” said Harley.  “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” frowned the Joker, who then smiled again when he saw a set of plans and blueprints.  As he swiftly studied every sheet of paper, he turned each into some kind of origami creation (airplane, swan, Tommy gun), then handed each to Harley, who giggled herself like it was the holidays.
“A-ha!” said the grinning ghoul.  And as he looked over it again, that grin grew wider.  “A-ha!  A-ha! A-hahahahahahahahahahhahaha!”  Harley could only stand there confused as the laughter continued for the next moment or so.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, Alfred,” said Bruce as he examined the residue on the Mirth-ane Gas canister via the analysis computer in the Bat-Cave deep below Wayne Plantation.  “It says all over Napier’s file that he is a near-genius when it comes to chemistry, but this is amazing!”
“But Sir, I thought it was your suspicion to begin with that he was going to unleash some form of poison onto the good citizens of this community,” said his faithful butler.
“Yes, but nothing like this.  Along with his lethal combination of ingredients, it also features a very potent form of nitrous oxide- laughing gas.  That’s what was wrong with those Night Hawks.  They were under a rare form of hallucination, one where they not only had no regrets about killing… but enjoyed it… found humor in it.  Imagine what could happen if almost the entire population of this city became victims of that gas.”
“I could think of more pleasurable things to imagine, Sir,” said Alfred dryly.
“I’m serious, Alfred.”
“So was I.”
“What’s even more frightening is the fact that sooner than later, he will discover just what he stole from Wayne Tech… and just what that clean air generator can do.”
“But I was under the impression that WayneTech was going to utilize that device to aid against the town’s ever-growing smog problem,” said Alfred.
“Yes, but like most forms of high-cost technology, it can be used for a not-so-noble purpose if placed in the wrong hands.  Bottom line, I need to find the Joker before he puts it to use.”
“Well, I hate to throw another log into this curious fire, Sir, but are you forgetting the Cobblepot situation?  After your escapade last night, he is still in power… and many of his Night Hawks are still on the loose.”  Bruce crossed his arms and turned away in deep thought for a second.
“Actually by capturing the Joker, I might be able to accomplish two objectives regarding my old friend.  First, I’d save him from whatever vendetta that green-haired psycho has against him as well.”
“And the other?”
“To save him from his own hatred.”

As Oswald recovered from the eventful evening before, Batman’s words about betraying Bruce Wayne ran through his mind over and over again.  At first, he had simply seen the heisting of the charity money as strictly “business”, and not any personal attack on his friend.  But unlike criminals like the Joker, Cobblepot still had something of a conscience left.  The crime, along with Batman’s words, began to pick away at him.  After all, this wasn’t the first time he had betrayed Bruce.  Long ago, he had a chance to save his childhood chum a lot of grief… and didn’t take it.  If only he knew what his mistake had hatched… or rather who it created.
“Ever since I’ve been in office, Thomas Wayne has been a threat to me,” young Oswald heard his father, then-Mayor Vincent Cobblepot say as he curiously peeked into his office.  The man with his father looked strange, like some sort of television cowboy, an outlaw.  He even had a bandana hanging around his neck.
“Don’t see why, Mr. Mayor,” said the man.  “He’s just another bleeding heart for those damn blackies to attach themselves onto.  He’ll fad away just like the rest of those activists.”
“You don’t understand,” snarled Vincent.  “He’s respected in this town by both white and black, rich and poor, a hell of a lot more respected than I am.  If he keeps funding these civil rights organizations, as well as my opposing candidate, I can say good-bye to any possibility of re-election!”
“Hey, Mr. Mayor, I’m not trying to raise your blood pressure,” said his Western-clad friend.  “You’re paying me to do a job, and I’m gonna do it.”
“Good.  Last I heard, he’s taking his tasty wife and spoiled brat kid to the circus tonight.”
“How nice.  Tell ya what, before I do the deed, I’ll let him have one more ‘family moment’.  That might make it easier on the misses and the lil’ tike.”  Oswald, as frightened as any other kid would have been having just listened to a conversation like that, quickly darted away.  He then returned home and stayed in his room crying the rest of the night.  Poor Bruce, his poor friend Bruce.  But he never did a thing about it.  Because of him and his loyalty to his own father, he could not save his friend’s.
“Mr. Mayor?” said Mr. Byrd, Cobblepot’s personal assistant as he stepped into his office.  “Commissioner Gordon is here to ask you some questions about the Joker.  Do you want me to get rid of him?”
“No,” sighed Oswald.  “Send him in.”

“How long are you planning to be out tonight, Sir?” asked Alfred on the small monitor inside the Batmobile.
“Don’t know,” said Batman, who kept his eyes on the road.  “If my hunch is right, I might actually get a few hours sleep tonight.  As a precaution, I had tracking devices secretly installed on all WayneTech delivery vehicles.  I’ve tracked what I assume is the one the Joker stole to a closed down novelty shop in Historic Gotham Hill.  Hopefully, the Joker and that twisted sidekick of his are there as well.”
“Well, you’ve had quite a few calls since you left,” sighed his butler.  “Dr. Fries has invited you to his university lecture on Our Endangered Artic, Ms. Isley from the local Environment Conservation Society asked about you promised donation, and Ms. Kyle was wondering why you once again stood her up on a date.”
“Respectfully decline Victor’s invitation, tell Pam I mailed the check this morning, and… I’ll talk to Selina myself, if she’s willing to speak to me again.”
“Very good, Sir,” groaned Alfred before the monitor shut off.
“What would I do without you?” whispered Batman.
The truck was where Batman said it would be, but that was about it.  No Joker.  No Harley.  No Generator.  Fortunately, neither psychopath was a neat freak, and had left several interesting pieces of paper on the floor.  Among them was an ad for the soon-to-be-completed Gotham Central Mall… “The Future of Shopping… is Here!”
“Not if Gotham Hill doesn’t have a future,” sighed Batman.  And it was now up to him to ensure that the town did.

The Golden Gander Hotel was now a place of solemn mourning, as the Night Hawks who were lethally contaminated by Mirth-ane Gas were remembered by those who survived them.  Among then stood the Penguin, who finally spoke after a seemingly-eternal moment of silence.
“Remember your brothers,” he said.  “Remember the price they paid.  And remember how far we must go to avenge them.  Despite what I have told them, the police will fail to capture the Joker.  He has proved himself smarter than them… more cunning, more determined.  It is we, the true children of the night, who must find him… and eliminate him, or Operation NOAH can never take place.”
“But how do we find him?” asked one of the Night Hawks.  “He’s just as elusive as we are.”
“This Batman will find him… and we will follow the Batman.”
“But the Batman has become just as much a threat to us as the Joker,” said another Night Hawk.  “He knows who you are.”
“But he, like me, has a duel identity, something he hides from the world” said the Penguin.  “He will not expose me… if I expose him first.”
“But what if that proves impossible?” asked a third Night Hawk.
“Then, like the Joker, and soon the ethnic filth that plaques this city, he will have to become a causality.”

“If these Gotham Hillbilles think their air is nasty now,” laughed the Joker as he set up what would have been WayneTech’s latest prize atop the peak of the near-finished Gotham Central Mall.  “Wait until they get a whiff of this!”
“Wow, Sweetie,” said Harley as she read her own copy of the mall’s brochure.  “This mall’s gonna have everything, includin’ two MoonCoins Coffee Shops.  We gotta come back here some time.”
“When, Harley-Bear?” sighed the Joker.  “After all the underpaid workers who are responsible for building this mess have gone insane and killed each other just like everybody else in this town?  Sorry, baby, but this town is gonna be a graveyard the next time we pass through!”
“Oh…yeah, forgot.”
“You done pumping that Mirthane into this thing by now?”
“Almost, Puddin’ Pop.”
“Well hurry before the cops show up!  I don’t want to have to waste most of my precious gas on them!”  The Joker gritted his sizable teeth as Harley giggled and pumped away behind him.

Gordon slumped back into his officr feeling like the biggest failure on Earth.  The commissioner had busted his backside all day, trying to cure the three-pronged affliction he felt had befallen Gotham Hill.  But after all his work, all his sweat, all his good intentions… no Night Hawk hideout, no Joker… no Batman.  He crashed into the chair behind his desk and removed an unopened pack of cigarettes from his top drawer.  He pledged to his family and his force that he had quit, but he had kept this pack handy for nights like this.  He placed one in his mouth, and then removed a lighter from the same drawer.  But as he ignited the lighter, he noticed a piece of paper on his desk.  Without sparking his smoke, he placed the lighter down and read the contents of the note.  In seconds, he had shoved the cigarettes, including the one in his mouth, back in the drawer and was racing outside his office.
“Hey!” he yelled to one of his officers.  “Get everyone that’s been on duty, just clocked in, or hell, just clocked out!  I think we might have finally caught ourselves a prize bass!”  Gordon didn’t know that for sure, just as much as he didn’t know who sent the note.  But he wasn’t going to sit back and smoke while Gotham might be set on fire.

“All pumped, Sweetie-Buns!” exclaimed Harley.  The Joker was toying with a deck of playing cards to relieve the boredom of waiting for his assistant to finish, and the shout scared every single one of them out his hands.
“Thanks,” he growled.  He marched over, shoved a smiling gas mask onto her face, and then placing one on himself.  With one last ghoulish laugh, he switched on the generator, but before one sniff’s worth of gas could blow out from it, the entire machine shut down.  An annoyed Joker frantically flip the switch back and forth before finally ripping off his mask.
“What in the great blazes happened?” he howled.
“Give ya one guess,” squeaked Harley, who then pointed to their winged visitor, who had just pulled the plug on the device.  Just as the Joker turned, he was laid out by Batman’s upper-cut.  Harley went for her plus-sized hammer, but it was whipped away from her by a thin rope.
“I don’t hit ladies,” said Batman.  “So I suggest you keep me convinced you’re a lady.”  A petrified Harley backed away… only to run right into a group of Night Hawks.
“I don’t recall send out this many invites,” said the Joker as he returned to his feet and rubbed his jaw.  It didn’t get much relief as he was knocked down again by the handle of the Penguin’s umbrella.  Meanwhile, the NightHawks had Harley bound and gagged.
“We settle our differences later, Cobblepot,” said Batman to the newcomer.  “Right now I am trying to save your and my city from this lunatic.”
“The mayor cares for his citizens as well…” bowed the Penguin.  “Those who count anyway.”  Batman then found himself surrounded by both Oswald and the NightHawks.  “We too are only here for the life of this deranged freak.  It is we who offer you this one chance to leave.”
“You aren’t killing the Joker… and you certainly aren’t going to kill me,” vowed Batman as she suddenly grabbed two Night Hawks and rammed them into each other.  He then kneed another in the gut and back-fisted him.  A forth was tossed just enough over the ledge to make him wet himself before Batman hooked him onto it.  The Southern Knight then rose to confront the corrupt politician, but found the Joker behind him with a pistol aimed right for his fat head.
“All this talk about people kicking the bucket is turning me on!” laughed the Joker.  “And now in order for me to be satisfied, I have to blast someone to oblivion.”
“Put the gun down, Joker!” ordered Batman.
“Oooh, like that’s gonna work!  Besides, you know you want this bigot dead as much as I; all the hate he’s spawned, all the people he’s degraded.”
“You don’t care about any of those people, Joker, so stop trying to pull my heartstrings.”
“That’s not the point, Bats!  I’m doing this because I like you!  We have a lot in common, you and I:  We crave violence, we are completely unbiased in our work, and we both want a real change.  Oh yeah, did I mention we’re both off our rockers?”
“Forget it, Joker.  Put the gun down or I will remove it myself.”
“No need!” said the Penguin, who then fired a fog of smoke out the tip of his umbrella.  As both Batman and the Joker were blinded, police sirens were heard below.  The Penguin and his crew quickly made their escape.  As the smoke cleared, the Joker looked about, but saw no one in sight other than his poor, captured Harley.  He managed to pull off one last grin before he was grabbed and laid out with one more punch from Batman.
Once again, Gordon and his men had made their way up just in time to miss the elusive Batman.  At least the Commissioner received three acceptable consolation prizes; the Joker, Harley, and the stolen generator.

“No more martyrs,” whispered The Penguin to himself as he awaited the arrival of a mysterious contact outside the Golden Gander Hotel.  His Night Hawks gripped their firearms as a long, white limo pulled up, followed by an armored van.  “The strong will no longer suffer for the rights of the weak.”
Out stepped a tall, Romanian gentleman with slicked-back hair, small mustache and ivory suit as white as the vehicle he emerged from.  He placed a cigarette in his mouth and Oswald offered him a light.  As he accepted, he snapped his fingers, which alerted the men in the van to jump out and remove the contents from the back; a large, lead crate.
“The money?” asked the man after blowing out a puff of smoke.  Oswald had one of the Night Hawks hand him a briefcase.  Inside it was the money his goons stole from Bruce Wayne’s Charity Circus event.  The Romanian looked it over and nodded.
“I am certain my little package will serve your purposes, Mr. Cobble…” he began.
“Just call me Penguin,” interrupted the mayor/crime lord.  “And yes, let us hope it will be sufficient for Operation NOAH, or my Night Hawks will see to it that I am… compensated.”  The Romanian only had to take one look at the stone-faced henchmen to know that their boss meant business.
“I give you my word… Penguin,” he muttered.
“Then let us consider this a successful and completed transaction.  Good night, Sir.”  Before the Romanian could respond, the Penguin had several of the Night Hawks lift the crate and carry it inside with him leading the way.  The Romanian then snapped his fingers at his own crew, indicating that it was definitely time to depart.
Inside the hotel, Oswald had the crate opened to reveal a sizable explosive.  Cobblepot cracked a small smile of approval before he walked over to the window.  Not far away stood the massive dam holding back the waters of Lake Kane.  The mayor eyed that for a moment, and then looked down to see an outer, almost forgotten part of Gotham Hill that served as home for many of its economically mistreated minorities.
“You told me you feared that Gotham would be destroyed by fire, Jimmy,” he said, making obvious reference to Commissioner Gordon.  “But I shall save it from its impurity… by water.”

To Be Continued…

Description
BATMAN: SOUTHERN KNIGHT
PART FOUR:
“FRIENDSHIP AND FATALITIES”
Based on the DC Comics Characters created by Bob Kane

Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham Hill Police Department found the twelve Night Hawks in the once again darkened lab at WayneTech; four injured from gunshot wounds, three dead from the same, and the rest crouched in corners or against walls still laughing like rabid hyenas from the effects of the Joker’s Mirth-ane Gas.
“Who or what in the name of Hell and Damnation did this?” asked Gordon as he stared one of the poor crooks right in his empty eyes.  One of his men then approached, shaking his head with equal confusion.
“Found four delivery guys outside with the same look on their face trying to strangle each other,” said the officer.
“Did you happen to see what they were delivering?”
“Nope, the truck’s nowhere to be seen.”
“This makes no damn sense; a missing truck, but all the criminals are right here gassed up on something.”
“Um… sir, they ain’t the only ones here.”  Gordon looked in the direction where the officer pointed.  There, being helped out of a closet by two other officers was a very shaken, but unharmed Oswald Cobblepot.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” said the mayor as he began to make his way out.  Gordon quickly stood in his way.
“Sorry, Mr. Mayor, but we really need to ask you some…” he began.
“The Joker’s your man, Jimmy,” interrupted Oswald.  “He’s the one behind all of this insanity.  I suggest for the sake of this city, you and your department quit gawking around and go out and find him.”  Cobblepot then ordered an officer to escort him back to his officer, leaving the Commissioner to give a long, suspicious sigh.

“It’s gone,” said Lucius Fox to Bruce Wayne in one of Wayne’s many uptown offices.  “The generator is gone.  Can’t imagine what this freak who calls himself the Joker would want with it, but that’s who everyone’s saying was behind the theft.”
Bruce was not ready for this.  He ended up costing people their lives the night before in order to save that of himself and a friend who had betrayed him and the rest of the town.  Blinding the intoxicated Night Hawks with a line of instant-exploding smoke bombs as they pulled their triggers was a split-second, highly uncalculated risk.  And he paid with the blood on his hands.  They may have been criminals, but they were still human beings, possibly with family.  But then a thought suddenly struck him.  The Joker had already poisoned them, had already driven them mad.  This now made Bruce think; was it he or the Joker who signed those men’s death warrants in the end?  His thoughts were then interrupted when Lucius placed an empty canister baring a smiling skull and crossbones on his desk.
“I found this after the police left,” he said.
“Whatever affected those gunmen must have come from this,” whispered Bruce.
“My thoughts exactly.  You want me to take this to Commissioner Gordon?”
“No,” Bruce stared at the hideous grin on the skull for a second.  “I’ll take care of it.”
The Joker acted like a kid on Christmas as he eagerly tried to pry open the crate containing WayneTech’s top secret delivery with a crowbar.  It of course now rested a good few miles away from WayneTech inside Joker and Harley’s novelty shop hideaway.  Joker eventually gave up on the crowbar and grabbed Harley’s giant mallet.  A few hard swings and the crate finally opened to reveal the massive, shining steel and metal generator that Fox had spoke to Bruce about earlier.
“Oh, oh ho ho ho!” laughed the Joker.  “Look at it, Harley!  Look at it!”
“I’m looking at it, Pookie,” said Harley.  “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” frowned the Joker, who then smiled again when he saw a set of plans and blueprints.  As he swiftly studied every sheet of paper, he turned each into some kind of origami creation (airplane, swan, Tommy gun), then handed each to Harley, who giggled herself like it was the holidays.
“A-ha!” said the grinning ghoul.  And as he looked over it again, that grin grew wider.  “A-ha!  A-ha! A-hahahahahahahahahahhahaha!”  Harley could only stand there confused as the laughter continued for the next moment or so.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, Alfred,” said Bruce as he examined the residue on the Mirth-ane Gas canister via the analysis computer in the Bat-Cave deep below Wayne Plantation.  “It says all over Napier’s file that he is a near-genius when it comes to chemistry, but this is amazing!”
“But Sir, I thought it was your suspicion to begin with that he was going to unleash some form of poison onto the good citizens of this community,” said his faithful butler.
“Yes, but nothing like this.  Along with his lethal combination of ingredients, it also features a very potent form of nitrous oxide- laughing gas.  That’s what was wrong with those Night Hawks.  They were under a rare form of hallucination, one where they not only had no regrets about killing… but enjoyed it… found humor in it.  Imagine what could happen if almost the entire population of this city became victims of that gas.”
“I could think of more pleasurable things to imagine, Sir,” said Alfred dryly.
“I’m serious, Alfred.”
“So was I.”
“What’s even more frightening is the fact that sooner than later, he will discover just what he stole from Wayne Tech… and just what that clean air generator can do.”
“But I was under the impression that WayneTech was going to utilize that device to aid against the town’s ever-growing smog problem,” said Alfred.
“Yes, but like most forms of high-cost technology, it can be used for a not-so-noble purpose if placed in the wrong hands.  Bottom line, I need to find the Joker before he puts it to use.”
“Well, I hate to throw another log into this curious fire, Sir, but are you forgetting the Cobblepot situation?  After your escapade last night, he is still in power… and many of his Night Hawks are still on the loose.”  Bruce crossed his arms and turned away in deep thought for a second.
“Actually by capturing the Joker, I might be able to accomplish two objectives regarding my old friend.  First, I’d save him from whatever vendetta that green-haired psycho has against him as well.”
“And the other?”
“To save him from his own hatred.”

As Oswald recovered from the eventful evening before, Batman’s words about betraying Bruce Wayne ran through his mind over and over again.  At first, he had simply seen the heisting of the charity money as strictly “business”, and not any personal attack on his friend.  But unlike criminals like the Joker, Cobblepot still had something of a conscience left.  The crime, along with Batman’s words, began to pick away at him.  After all, this wasn’t the first time he had betrayed Bruce.  Long ago, he had a chance to save his childhood chum a lot of grief… and didn’t take it.  If only he knew what his mistake had hatched… or rather who it created.
“Ever since I’ve been in office, Thomas Wayne has been a threat to me,” young Oswald heard his father, then-Mayor Vincent Cobblepot say as he curiously peeked into his office.  The man with his father looked strange, like some sort of television cowboy, an outlaw.  He even had a bandana hanging around his neck.
“Don’t see why, Mr. Mayor,” said the man.  “He’s just another bleeding heart for those damn blackies to attach themselves onto.  He’ll fad away just like the rest of those activists.”
“You don’t understand,” snarled Vincent.  “He’s respected in this town by both white and black, rich and poor, a hell of a lot more respected than I am.  If he keeps funding these civil rights organizations, as well as my opposing candidate, I can say good-bye to any possibility of re-election!”
“Hey, Mr. Mayor, I’m not trying to raise your blood pressure,” said his Western-clad friend.  “You’re paying me to do a job, and I’m gonna do it.”
“Good.  Last I heard, he’s taking his tasty wife and spoiled brat kid to the circus tonight.”
“How nice.  Tell ya what, before I do the deed, I’ll let him have one more ‘family moment’.  That might make it easier on the misses and the lil’ tike.”  Oswald, as frightened as any other kid would have been having just listened to a conversation like that, quickly darted away.  He then returned home and stayed in his room crying the rest of the night.  Poor Bruce, his poor friend Bruce.  But he never did a thing about it.  Because of him and his loyalty to his own father, he could not save his friend’s.
“Mr. Mayor?” said Mr. Byrd, Cobblepot’s personal assistant as he stepped into his office.  “Commissioner Gordon is here to ask you some questions about the Joker.  Do you want me to get rid of him?”
“No,” sighed Oswald.  “Send him in.”

“How long are you planning to be out tonight, Sir?” asked Alfred on the small monitor inside the Batmobile.
“Don’t know,” said Batman, who kept his eyes on the road.  “If my hunch is right, I might actually get a few hours sleep tonight.  As a precaution, I had tracking devices secretly installed on all WayneTech delivery vehicles.  I’ve tracked what I assume is the one the Joker stole to a closed down novelty shop in Historic Gotham Hill.  Hopefully, the Joker and that twisted sidekick of his are there as well.”
“Well, you’ve had quite a few calls since you left,” sighed his butler.  “Dr. Fries has invited you to his university lecture on Our Endangered Artic, Ms. Isley from the local Environment Conservation Society asked about you promised donation, and Ms. Kyle was wondering why you once again stood her up on a date.”
“Respectfully decline Victor’s invitation, tell Pam I mailed the check this morning, and… I’ll talk to Selina myself, if she’s willing to speak to me again.”
“Very good, Sir,” groaned Alfred before the monitor shut off.
“What would I do without you?” whispered Batman.
The truck was where Batman said it would be, but that was about it.  No Joker.  No Harley.  No Generator.  Fortunately, neither psychopath was a neat freak, and had left several interesting pieces of paper on the floor.  Among them was an ad for the soon-to-be-completed Gotham Central Mall… “The Future of Shopping… is Here!”
“Not if Gotham Hill doesn’t have a future,” sighed Batman.  And it was now up to him to ensure that the town did.

The Golden Gander Hotel was now a place of solemn mourning, as the Night Hawks who were lethally contaminated by Mirth-ane Gas were remembered by those who survived them.  Among then stood the Penguin, who finally spoke after a seemingly-eternal moment of silence.
“Remember your brothers,” he said.  “Remember the price they paid.  And remember how far we must go to avenge them.  Despite what I have told them, the police will fail to capture the Joker.  He has proved himself smarter than them… more cunning, more determined.  It is we, the true children of the night, who must find him… and eliminate him, or Operation NOAH can never take place.”
“But how do we find him?” asked one of the Night Hawks.  “He’s just as elusive as we are.”
“This Batman will find him… and we will follow the Batman.”
“But the Batman has become just as much a threat to us as the Joker,” said another Night Hawk.  “He knows who you are.”
“But he, like me, has a duel identity, something he hides from the world” said the Penguin.  “He will not expose me… if I expose him first.”
“But what if that proves impossible?” asked a third Night Hawk.
“Then, like the Joker, and soon the ethnic filth that plaques this city, he will have to become a causality.”

“If these Gotham Hillbilles think their air is nasty now,” laughed the Joker as he set up what would have been WayneTech’s latest prize atop the peak of the near-finished Gotham Central Mall.  “Wait until they get a whiff of this!”
“Wow, Sweetie,” said Harley as she read her own copy of the mall’s brochure.  “This mall’s gonna have everything, includin’ two MoonCoins Coffee Shops.  We gotta come back here some time.”
“When, Harley-Bear?” sighed the Joker.  “After all the underpaid workers who are responsible for building this mess have gone insane and killed each other just like everybody else in this town?  Sorry, baby, but this town is gonna be a graveyard the next time we pass through!”
“Oh…yeah, forgot.”
“You done pumping that Mirthane into this thing by now?”
“Almost, Puddin’ Pop.”
“Well hurry before the cops show up!  I don’t want to have to waste most of my precious gas on them!”  The Joker gritted his sizable teeth as Harley giggled and pumped away behind him.

Gordon slumped back into his officr feeling like the biggest failure on Earth.  The commissioner had busted his backside all day, trying to cure the three-pronged affliction he felt had befallen Gotham Hill.  But after all his work, all his sweat, all his good intentions… no Night Hawk hideout, no Joker… no Batman.  He crashed into the chair behind his desk and removed an unopened pack of cigarettes from his top drawer.  He pledged to his family and his force that he had quit, but he had kept this pack handy for nights like this.  He placed one in his mouth, and then removed a lighter from the same drawer.  But as he ignited the lighter, he noticed a piece of paper on his desk.  Without sparking his smoke, he placed the lighter down and read the contents of the note.  In seconds, he had shoved the cigarettes, including the one in his mouth, back in the drawer and was racing outside his office.
“Hey!” he yelled to one of his officers.  “Get everyone that’s been on duty, just clocked in, or hell, just clocked out!  I think we might have finally caught ourselves a prize bass!”  Gordon didn’t know that for sure, just as much as he didn’t know who sent the note.  But he wasn’t going to sit back and smoke while Gotham might be set on fire.

“All pumped, Sweetie-Buns!” exclaimed Harley.  The Joker was toying with a deck of playing cards to relieve the boredom of waiting for his assistant to finish, and the shout scared every single one of them out his hands.
“Thanks,” he growled.  He marched over, shoved a smiling gas mask onto her face, and then placing one on himself.  With one last ghoulish laugh, he switched on the generator, but before one sniff’s worth of gas could blow out from it, the entire machine shut down.  An annoyed Joker frantically flip the switch back and forth before finally ripping off his mask.
“What in the great blazes happened?” he howled.
“Give ya one guess,” squeaked Harley, who then pointed to their winged visitor, who had just pulled the plug on the device.  Just as the Joker turned, he was laid out by Batman’s upper-cut.  Harley went for her plus-sized hammer, but it was whipped away from her by a thin rope.
“I don’t hit ladies,” said Batman.  “So I suggest you keep me convinced you’re a lady.”  A petrified Harley backed away… only to run right into a group of Night Hawks.
“I don’t recall send out this many invites,” said the Joker as he returned to his feet and rubbed his jaw.  It didn’t get much relief as he was knocked down again by the handle of the Penguin’s umbrella.  Meanwhile, the NightHawks had Harley bound and gagged.
“We settle our differences later, Cobblepot,” said Batman to the newcomer.  “Right now I am trying to save your and my city from this lunatic.”
“The mayor cares for his citizens as well…” bowed the Penguin.  “Those who count anyway.”  Batman then found himself surrounded by both Oswald and the NightHawks.  “We too are only here for the life of this deranged freak.  It is we who offer you this one chance to leave.”
“You aren’t killing the Joker… and you certainly aren’t going to kill me,” vowed Batman as she suddenly grabbed two Night Hawks and rammed them into each other.  He then kneed another in the gut and back-fisted him.  A forth was tossed just enough over the ledge to make him wet himself before Batman hooked him onto it.  The Southern Knight then rose to confront the corrupt politician, but found the Joker behind him with a pistol aimed right for his fat head.
“All this talk about people kicking the bucket is turning me on!” laughed the Joker.  “And now in order for me to be satisfied, I have to blast someone to oblivion.”
“Put the gun down, Joker!” ordered Batman.
“Oooh, like that’s gonna work!  Besides, you know you want this bigot dead as much as I; all the hate he’s spawned, all the people he’s degraded.”
“You don’t care about any of those people, Joker, so stop trying to pull my heartstrings.”
“That’s not the point, Bats!  I’m doing this because I like you!  We have a lot in common, you and I:  We crave violence, we are completely unbiased in our work, and we both want a real change.  Oh yeah, did I mention we’re both off our rockers?”
“Forget it, Joker.  Put the gun down or I will remove it myself.”
“No need!” said the Penguin, who then fired a fog of smoke out the tip of his umbrella.  As both Batman and the Joker were blinded, police sirens were heard below.  The Penguin and his crew quickly made their escape.  As the smoke cleared, the Joker looked about, but saw no one in sight other than his poor, captured Harley.  He managed to pull off one last grin before he was grabbed and laid out with one more punch from Batman.
Once again, Gordon and his men had made their way up just in time to miss the elusive Batman.  At least the Commissioner received three acceptable consolation prizes; the Joker, Harley, and the stolen generator.

“No more martyrs,” whispered The Penguin to himself as he awaited the arrival of a mysterious contact outside the Golden Gander Hotel.  His Night Hawks gripped their firearms as a long, white limo pulled up, followed by an armored van.  “The strong will no longer suffer for the rights of the weak.”
Out stepped a tall, Romanian gentleman with slicked-back hair, small mustache and ivory suit as white as the vehicle he emerged from.  He placed a cigarette in his mouth and Oswald offered him a light.  As he accepted, he snapped his fingers, which alerted the men in the van to jump out and remove the contents from the back; a large, lead crate.
“The money?” asked the man after blowing out a puff of smoke.  Oswald had one of the Night Hawks hand him a briefcase.  Inside it was the money his goons stole from Bruce Wayne’s Charity Circus event.  The Romanian looked it over and nodded.
“I am certain my little package will serve your purposes, Mr. Cobble…” he began.
“Just call me Penguin,” interrupted the mayor/crime lord.  “And yes, let us hope it will be sufficient for Operation NOAH, or my Night Hawks will see to it that I am… compensated.”  The Romanian only had to take one look at the stone-faced henchmen to know that their boss meant business.
“I give you my word… Penguin,” he muttered.
“Then let us consider this a successful and completed transaction.  Good night, Sir.”  Before the Romanian could respond, the Penguin had several of the Night Hawks lift the crate and carry it inside with him leading the way.  The Romanian then snapped his fingers at his own crew, indicating that it was definitely time to depart.
Inside the hotel, Oswald had the crate opened to reveal a sizable explosive.  Cobblepot cracked a small smile of approval before he walked over to the window.  Not far away stood the massive dam holding back the waters of Lake Kane.  The mayor eyed that for a moment, and then looked down to see an outer, almost forgotten part of Gotham Hill that served as home for many of its economically mistreated minorities.
“You told me you feared that Gotham would be destroyed by fire, Jimmy,” he said, making obvious reference to Commissioner Gordon.  “But I shall save it from its impurity… by water.”

To Be Continued…