BOOOOM!
"GASP! Somebody better get that guy an ambulance!""Wait a minute, wait a minute... I think that guy was in an ambulance!""Well, let's just hope they hurry, because I think he needs another one!""HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" It's always the laugh. That godforsaken laugh.
It's the one thing that always lingers above all else.
It began three nights ago, when the clown managed to utilize a laundry list of ingredients - household chemical agents, packaged food, acidic beverages, whatever he could get his hands on from pickpocketing the guards, threatening the other inmates, and reaching out to his unseen, all-encompassing network of freelance agents - to formulate a homemade bomb within his cell at the maximum security wing at Arkham. Commissioner Gordon's forensics team at Gotham Central formulated a rough sketch of what it
might have looked like before it went off, and it tells the tale. He'd been working on the bomb as a side project for years. One of many "failsafes" that he kept working on in secret, tinkering when everyone's back was turned or a camera was off of him for just the right amount of time. The media have often scrutinized Arkham's security for his frequent successful escapes as being one of a corrupt system, but it's never been that simple. For as insane as he truly is, as demented as he portrays himself, the one thing about him that truly scares me - divorced from that feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever he's out there, knowing that the bodycount is only going to rise until I find him - is his inhuman capacity for patience. There's no telling what kind of things he's hidden within the Asylum, half-finished or near completion, that will buy his way out the next time that something like this happens. I've scanned the grounds of Arkham Island with state-of-the-art imaging technology multiple times, and he always somehow finds a way.
This time was ...particularly brutal. Whenever he mixed the components of the bomb together, it set off a chain reaction throughout the entire ward that he was being held in. Thirty-seven patients in Intensive Treatment, gone in an instant. Thirteen guards. Fifteen doctors, nurses, and general staff. An untold amount of injuries on the lower floors. And what saved his own life when the explosion laid waste to the entire wing? The glass of his cell was coated with a special polymer that was specifically designed to withstand multiple types of attacks. He's used many from the inside. Joybuzzers that emit a sonic frequency. Squirting flowers that spray a military grade chemical agent capable of melting solid concrete. Whoopie cushions filled with poisons and toxins that can slip through the tiniest cracks of a structure and immediately shut down any security officer's nervous system. To say nothing of the bombs, bullets, and brute force that his hired thugs have used in the past to break him free.
That glass was created by Waynetech. And it helped him to perpetrate his own escape without so much as a scratch. He literally couldn't have asked for a better substance to seal himself inside with, and whenever the debris settled from the blast, he simply pushed the door to the cell open after allowing the locks to melt. I could count the number of people capable of pulling off a stunt like that on one hand, but the person I always think of first - the one man in Gotham City who has routinely taken hundreds of lives with every new crime spree - is the one that's currently howling at the chaos he's already began to seed. Following a raid on a Luthorcorp weapons' depot just outside of Bludhaven, the clown actually managed to get his hands on a fully armored caravan. With even a small fraction of Luthor's abandoned military ordinance at his disposal, he and his group of "Hecklers" took to the streets of Gotham and began blowing up random pedestrians with RPG's.
All to hide an intended other crime, of course. He had also managed to spring his latest 'Harley' from Blackgate, one of a dozen women that he personally groomed to look, act, and sound exactly like Harleen Quinzell. The original Harley Quinn managed to see him for the monster that he is and leave him years ago, after all of his physical and psychological abuse finally took their toll. So he's been replacing her ever since, preying on the abused and disenfranchised to get them to see the world in his heavily askewed point of view. He's practically turned it into a science, mentally torturing his marks until they become another cog in his twisted machine. But the most insane part of this is that this latest Harley may actually
mean something to that sociopathic degenerate, because I managed to figure out the intent of these so-called random acts of violence: he's been pulling a kidnapping of every practicing Court Judge in the tri-state area. Each one loaded onto an unmarked van, they were driven to a single church in Amusement Mile.
The psychopath... wants to marry his newest Harley. And he wanted to make sure that for every judge that he kidnapped, he could have his assets legally bound to his new bride one at a time. Every single asset he's ever owned. Weapons, safehouses, every piece of his criminal empire. One at a time. It's an act obviously made by someone crazy enough to spend years formulating a bomb powered entirely off of generic cleaning supplies and vending machine leftovers, but it's certainly an act that few would have seen coming. Mercifully, his attempts to kidnap the judges went sideways a little under an hour ago, when each van was intercepted by a member of Oracle's Birds Of Prey, Black Lightning's Outsiders, and Robin's Knights. They've all been identified and placed under the protective custody of Jim's crisis management unit. All that's left now is to bring The Joker himself into custody.
Naturally, that responsibility is one that I'm not willing to take any chances with. Gordon's men have been warned to steer clear, as have the aforementioned groups of agents that made tonight considerably easier. I've already had Alfred tap into the Gotham City Central Power Grid in an effort to create a parameter that spans five blocks of the East End. The Joker's armored van, the last of five that were dismantled by The Batmobile's counter-attack systems, is currently speeding straight into Sprang Avenue and wildly firing a minigun onto the streets. At least five vehicles have been torn apart. My boot slams on the accelerator of The Batmobile's turbo-infused quad engine, bringing me ahead of the traffic and shielding any potential other victims. He won't get the chance to kill anyone else tonight.
"HA! Why, if it isn't my favorite little town mascot! The Gotham City Guano Gifter!", he calls out from the passenger seat.
"Fashionably late, as always! You may have ponied up the judges, Bats, but I still hold the trump card! Care to help me shuffle the deck?!" I'd rather just break your goddamn neck. 
No more games. No more of his sick, twisted jokes.
Just me and him. The way it should be.
"Jim, I'm about to intercept. Tell Blackgate that they can hold whatever's left when I'm through." "Careful with him. We need him relatively intact to be able to stand trial. He's committed a capital offense this time. An insanity plea might not be enough to keep him off of death row." "At this point..." I hit the boost on the throttle. The Batmobile's speedometer hits 200 MPH within seconds.
Years ago, I made it my life's mission to reform this city. To clean up it's streets and permanently turn the desperate and the superstitious, cowardly lot that infested Gotham into honest citizens, repentant for their crimes. But The Joker will never repent, and after all these years of trying, I'm done trying to reform him.
"They'd be doing us a favor." Tonight's the last time he breathes air outside of a concrete block.
I swear to that on my parents' graves.
Member
Captain Uni
Supermaxx
Eddie Brock
Divine Darkness
Neziul
Iluvtoji
Hound55
Hillan
Melissa
