The Fall of Gotham

Chapter One

"Gah! Watch the face, boys! It's the paycheck!"

The Joker cackled loudly as he was rolled down the halls of Arkham Asylum for the last time, his face bloody and his wrists tied tightly to the sides of the wheelchair as other patients yelled and groaned inside their cells. His eyes frantic, they darted around at all the rusting cell doors as the bright lights only seemed to make the place darker. 

"This place has gone straight to HELL!" He laughed again, Batman walking by the male attendant's sides as they rolled him down hall after hall. the tiled floor hadn't been cleaned in a while, and dirt had begun to collect in the corners of doors and walls. How perfect. He should come back home after all these years and it was a mess, it must be his job to find everyone a new place to live. "DADDY'S HOME!" he yelled down the hall, receiving screams from other inmates and banging on the walls in return. 

In a nearby cell, a young dirty blonde woman sat in a straight jacket with a red ball gag between her smeared black lips. She heard the cackling growing closer and closer. The squeak of the wheelchair. The footsteps of the Batman. She could even hear the pulse of his heartbeat. Bu-bum. Bu-bum. It was an evil sound and she wanted it gone, silenced, dead. Slowly standing up from her corner of the padded cell, she walked toward her door and looked out of the small barred window just in time to see two men and Batman pushing the Clown King down her hallway. Her eyes widened and she began to struggle, her heart speeding up as she ached to free him of his bonds. He didn't belong in here. Neither did she. They weren't insane. They weren't! He is the true leader of Gotham, and everyone knows it. But he has been wronged too many times, and they fear a reprimand if they release him. 

She tried to yell from behind her gag with the other inmates but her gag prevented it, her eyes wide and furious as she glared Batman, the man who had forced her to this prison of insanity. She wasn't insane when she was put in here, and she certainly wasn't now. Or was she? Perhaps this place had made her truly mad. he laughed at the thought, the Joker meeting her eyes as he was rolled past her cell. 

"Well hello there..." He said, arching a green eyebrow at her and smiling wickedly as they rolled him into the big cell at the end of the hall. Untying him, the attendants wrapped him quickly in a straight jacket and tossing him inside the padded room. They shut it and locked it before he could approach the door, his pale and done-up face staring out at them as he and Batman shared a look of hatred. The Joker let out a cackle when Bats turned away with a swish of his cape, glaring at Harley as she gave him a sickly sweet smile behind her ball gag. "You can run but you can't hide, Bats!" The Joker yelled, pressing his face against the bars as he turned the corner with the attendants and the wheelchair. "After my little vacation here, I'm coming to find you and I'm pissing down your throat!"

Harley giggled at the threat, looking at him from down the hall as he looked to her in surprise. He smirked, leaning against his door to eye her closely while he expertly removed his arms from the straight jacket. "So, come here often, darling?"

She giggled around the ball and blushed a deep red as the other inmates quieted down, some falling asleep while others tried to climb out their barred windows. She nodded her head to him, having been locked up for nearly two years in this Hell. All because of Bat-asshole. She smirked at him as she leaned against the door, dressing in a light blue hospital gown splattered with old blood. 

He chuckled, grunting as he slowly worked his arms free with a few pops in his shoulders. "Well, so do I. They told Gotham that this would be my last time being locked up. And in a way, they were right! HAHAHAHAHA!" he laughed loudly as the straight jacket slipped off of him and onto the floor around his ankles, leaning back to pop his shoulders back into place with a satisfied groan. Harley leaned in to the door as close as possible, trying to look down the hall at what he was working so hard on. But still she couldn't see or speak. She chewed on the red ball angrily, wishing she could just pop it and spit it out. But of course that hadn't worked. Her eyes went back to his cell as he leaned his arm out of the small window and entered in a code by the door handle, the metal door beeping and slowly sliding open to reveal him dressed in an old purple suit and dress shoes. He straightened his bow tie and sniffed as he slicked back his greasy green hair, pulling a small mirror out of his pocket to check his make-up. When satisfied, he began confidently walking down the hall as the other inmates yelled and begged for him to take them with him.