Who: Batman, the Joker and Vicky Vale What: Trouble at Amusement Mile When: Winter Where: Gotham Rating: R Status: OPEN / Incomplete
An abandoned amusement park, in Bruce’s opinion a rather expected and cliché location for the Joker to have chosen for his new hideout, a place the Gothamites affectionately donned “Amusement Mile” and here is exactly where the man found himself in present times. The wind kicked up along the dockside, flowing along the empty stands, dilapidated rides and over to him, causing his cape to flow to his side. It covered him in darkness. He flipped down his night vision goggles and scanned over the lot. There was an unusual lack of activity.
The Joker peered up from his paper and stared curiously at the monitor with an amused detachment. He wasn't particularly surprised to see Batman wandering wandering around above on the dockside. He wouldn't have picked the amusement park's ample underground parking garage as a useful place to store himself and a few henchmen if he hadn't wanted to advertise his presence to that damnable winged rodent... But still. In the middle of his newspaper? Did he have to be interrupted? Ah well, the paper was, he glanced at the cover to check again, about five years old and what he was reading was an advertisement for sofa restuffing, so he supposed he could deign to switch over to more interesting topics, like making life hell for his nemesis.
Strange. The more quiet things were, the more dangerous confrontations with the Joker tended to be. In often indicated that he was about to walk straight into a rather deadly trap. He needed to be cautious but there was a reason he came tonight. Reporter Vicki Vale was missing. She’d came to write a store on the events of the Amusement Mile and Mayor Quincy’s plans to make it a part of his new designs for “Arkham City.” But it has been over twenty four hours since the journalist had been seen and frankly, the territory had Joker’s name written all over it- literally. Bruce passed a large billboard with “Joker was here” scribbled across it.
Sigh. Ah well, didn't look like Batman'd be making a quick fly over, so to speak. The Joker tossed his newspaper across the room hitting a henchman in the head. "Bob..." Joker's macabre voice seemed to slide across the vast space to the lounging lowlife. "Bob, Bob, Bob, why aren't you UPSTAIRS DEALING WITH THIS?!?" And within the span of a minute a knife flew 'cross in much the same trajectory as the newspaper, hammering home the point finely. It landed quivering between Bob's legs and without flinching or so much as a word Joker's lackey hopped up, grabbed the knife, cocked his own gun, and went wandering up the utility stairs nearby to the hidden entrance dockside, masked behind the billboard that used to advertise rides and games.It now sat defaced and ugly with warnings of the Joker's presence all over it, and in one corner... A little indented set of lines that could, on close enough inspection, quite possibly be the plywood-covered entrance to a utility tunnel down to the garage. There were of course other, more grander entrances, but they were rather heavily covered by henchmen and booby traps and a lot less pleasant to navigate, even for the Joker's own men, so it was to this door that Bob walked up. The Joker, meanwhile, watched with the same bemused curiosity as he always seemed to wrap himself in. He had no expectations that the rather dimwitted little house robber he'd drug up from the gutters would be anything more than a mild annoyance for Batman. He quite hoped for it, in point of fact. If Bob's presence and a few flung bullets would serve to point Batman through one method or another towards the little door and down towards his lair and the annoyingly whiny, whimpering blonde reporter, then it was worth the probable sacrifice. With a lazy wave of a gloved hand Joker smacked a button, arming the various traps down throughout the shoot. Whoever went back down it... Was due for an explosive surprise.
And there it was. Movement. A clown faced goon popped out of an underground shaft. One? An obvious set up. Joker was drawing him in like a moth to the flame. But of course he knew he would go. If there was any chance Vicki was down there, then he had no choice than to walk right into the Joker’s clutches.
The goon had a canister with him. Joker’s toxin. Bruce fitted his gas mask to his face and leapt forward. He released a smoke bomb at his feet and immediately the goon responded with his canister as well. Being well protected against the Joker’s biological warfare, Bruce swung bolas around the henchmen’s legs and tripped him to the ground. In moments the man was hanging upside down from the abandoned roller coaster for the GCPD to find. Batman headed to the shat covered in plywood and grappled down, using a flashlight to guide his way…
Joker watched without too much concern from the security monitors in the former guardhouse of the garage as the big wandering bat lumbered down the utility shaft. He motioned for a couple of goons to go out another entrance, taking care to avoid the booby traps, and go cut down Bob. Wouldn't do to have the cops here too, not yet anyway. Everything has a proper time. and now was the time for Batman and Batman alone to meet Joker in his strange underground world. The garage had been repainted in garish shades of purple and green, clumsily as if (and in fact as it was) some very crazy people had gone down into a garage with a bunch of abandoned cars and sprayed industrial paint all over the place with large hoses. Or perhaps toxic waste. With the Joker it was never entirely clear which... Always seemed to be a matter of whether cold logic or sadistic whimsy was holding grasp of Joker's mind at the particular moment. In any event with the lights low and randomly placed, odd beams all over the place, it was like being inside a giant psychotic funhouse. And into that world Batman was approaching. Far too slowly though, for Joker's taste. He decided to speed it up. Wacking a big red button, he did so love big red buttons, he detonated a shrapnel mine mounted on the shaft wall, sending jagged bits of metal flying into the rope of Batman's grappling hook, severing it in several places. If Batman was coming he prefered it to be a fairly quick entrance, especially with all the delightful pressure mines at the bottom just waiting for a heavy impact.
There was a loud exploding sound. His D-Cell snapped and his body went crashing to the ground at shocking speed. Of course. He should have known explosives would have been involved. The Joker was never was subtle. Bruce tried to slow himself down by gripping the walls, but they were coated with some sort of slippery substance and it was to no avail. He landed hard on a metal ground, hearing his shoulder snap completely out of it’s socket as he did. Groaning, Bruce shuffled his weight off of his arm and grinded his teeth. Pieces of debris from the shaft, heavy steel and concrete rained atop his head and all the man could hear was a ringing laughter in his leather covered ears. A voice rang out from loudspeakers throughout the parking garage. "Hope you had a nice trip, Batman! See you next Fall!!!!" The Joker never could resist a bad joke... He stared at the pile of metal and Batman through a video camera and giggled. Wasn't any particular reason for hurrying things. Batman seemed fairly comfy under all that rubble. He shot out a couple of orders to some nearby thugs and went over to go play with the little tart he'd kidnapped. He listened to the glorious sound of music as two henchmen hopped up and down on the pile under the tube while a third played a somber violin. Yes, music to his ears. He didn't hear any Bat-yelps though... He really hoped the two lummocks doing a jig on his temporary grave hadn't done the winged nuisance any permanent, fatal harm, he did so want to see some kind of a reaction to what Joker was about to do to Miss Vicky. Smiling he picked up a little vial of acid and a candle from a shelf and wandered whistling over to his knife drawer, staring intently at the locked supply room door just ahead. Bruce groaned. He pushed and shifted the debris off of his body and cursed under his breathe, grinding his teeth. He stood, the pain in his dislocated shoulder, excruciating. Turning to meet the two henchmen and taking one down with a batarang to the throat and the other a stiff palm to the nose tht left both rather bloody but alive. He turned and listened in the darkness for a sign of the Joker or Ms. Vale.
Out of his office, the Joker didn't notice the change in activity at the rubble count. He also failed to notice the diminishing personnel count. He was a bit busy looking through his knife drawer, drooling over which ones to bring. Finally sighing, with an exaggerated shrug, he grabbed the whole drawer out, carrying it like a briefcase, knives clattering out with a rhythmic jingle as he kicked open the utility room door, too full of things to ponder digging out the key. With a jaunty hello and a tip of the beautiful feathered felt hat he wished he was wearing, he hurled the knife drawer at the trussed up Vale so she could see the five or six left. "That's Auntie", he helpfully told her, as she looked with wide, fearful eyes at a nasty looking serrated blade that looked wicked enough to carve a sliver off a block of steel. "I love her so. She gets quite thirsty though, needs a drink now and again." He smiled cheerfully at Vicky and waggled the bottle of acid. "And that's Uncle. Not a nice man. Gluttony, you know. Sinful the way he eats."