King of Gotham

Chapter 2

Batman woke with barbed wire tied around his wrists. He was in a small room without his utility belt. All of his weapons were gone. All of a sudden the door swung open and the clown prince of crime came in followed by a child that looked like Jojo from Horton hears a who. Batman couldn't even remember how he knew what jojo looked like, but he did. Joker was in his usual attire of clashing colors, well the boy behind him had black hair, a pale face and was dressed in a black sports jacket. The boy had a big smile on his face but he was scowling. It began to come back to Batman... that boy had shot him, in fact now he looked he saw the boy had a butcher knife in his belt.

"Hello old bats time to introduce you to a new friend" said the joker, cackling

"I work alone, I don't need friends"

"Oh well party pooper, you're just like little frowny here" joker said gesturing at the boy. "In fact, here we like to call him death breath" joker said "say hello bats" as usual it seemed joker was imagining responses since Batman stayed pretty silent most of the time.

"No manners, well I don't want to play with you then" said the joker puckering his bottom lip before going into a laughing fit. Suddenly the joker had a gas mask in his hand with a pipe attached to it. The joker strapped the gas mask to Batman's face over the mask. Batman thought it was odd that the Joker would give him a gas mask until he saw the mask was connected to a big machine.

"This is gonna hurt" the little boy spoke for the first time in Batman's capture. Batman thought maybe the boy was sympathetic about the pain, many children thought he was cool. But his hopes vanished when the boy began pulling levers and smirking. All of a sudden gas began to come into the mask. He tried not to breath it but it poured into his nose, ears, and eyes. It wasn't choking or killing him which was odd. The caped crusader felt numb before the pain crashed in. It was excruciating, it burned and froze him at the same time. The joker was on the floor laughing well the boy turned off the gas and walked over to Batman and looked him straight in the eye.

"Because of you my family is broken, you sent my mother to a jail were they beat her to DEATH, you let my sister onto the street" he paused now a tear trickling from his eye but he wasn't done "do you know what we did at her funeral" Batman was starting to feel bad to spite his emotional barriers.

"No" Batman whispered

"Oh but you were there. Not only did we only have her head and a note for the funeral, you used it as an opportunity to swoop in with the cops and arrest all the crooks at the place" as the boy said these things they came back to Batman.

"Do you know how many people tried to kill me" Batman shook his head

"Forty two" the boy said, tears pouring from his eyes now. Forty two was a lot of attempted murders.

"Are you going to kill me" said Batman, figuring the boy wouldn't have the guts.

"Of course not." Batman felt relieved until the boy said the second part "I'm only going to torture you until you aren't human anymore, just like what you did to me" but in the child's rage he had come too close to Batman. The bat kicked him in the shin. The child screamed and fell. Batman Flicked the butcher knife from the kids belt with his toe and delivered it to his tied hands. Batman cut the bonds and jumped up. Joker was getting up now too. The small boy was still on the ground. The Joker backed up against the wall before turning and running away. Batman chased Joker until he finally tackled him in the boiler room on the first floor of the old run down warehouse. They grappled for a moment before Joker punched Batman in the face and ran to the door. Batman grabbed his arm but was elbowed in the face. Joker aimed a pistol at Batman and the caped crusader had just enough time to dodge before the gun fired. Unfortunately Batman's arm hit the wood burning boiler and a burning log fell onto the dry crumbly warehouse floor which went up in flames instantly. Joker ran and Batman chased him, disregarding the fire for the moment. Batman caught joker on the stairs and got in several good punches before joker shook loose again, continuing to climb the stairs. Eventually they got to the third floor to see the catwalk but beneath the cat walk a huge fire raged. The metal of the catwalk had become heated from the fire below. They began a fist fight, eventually Batman got the better of him and started punching the joker like crazy, all of a sudden Batman drew back his fist to punch the joker but his elbow collided with something. Batman turned and it seemed like slow motion as the little boy who looked like Jojo with the heart 3 sizes two small, fell backwards off the catwalk, his teeth coming out in shards. Batman watched as the boy fell into the fire. Joker seemed petrified. He stared at the place where his godson had been a second before. Batman walked behind him and cuffed him up. All of a sudden the Joker, for the first time Batman had seen it, was sad. He stared at Batman, then the fire.