Gardner, Craig Shaw - [Batman 01], page 18
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Both batmen turned.
"The Joker!" they said together.
They were answered by an eerie, fading laugh.
Dick Grayson sat in the large featureless room, waiting for a reason to get up. He had been through so much. But, thanks in large part to Batman, he knew who he was again. He was Dick Grayson, and he was Nightwing. But he was more than that. There was a part of him that would always be Robin, too; the young man at Batman's side.
Perhaps, on some level, this was something he had always known. When he finally got a chance to mull this over, he might know more about himself than he ever had before.
All this thought wasn't getting him off the bare cement floor. It was time for Dick Grayson and Nightwing and the former Robin to pull themselves together.
He heard an all-too-familiar laugh.
The Joker! Dick looked around the room as if he were seeing it for the first time. The place had a floor the size of a high school gym, but the walls rose a good half-dozen stories above him, as if this was intended as an open courtyard. The Joker's voice had come from somewhere in front of him, but was it from this basement level, or one of the floors above?
Dick stood and turned, searching for a hiding place. He saw an alcove on the far side of the room, which led to a doorway hidden in shadow. He ran to the darkened space as quietly as he could. If The Joker was coming this way, Dick wanted the element of surprise.
He flattened his back against the shadowed wall, and realized he wasn't even breathing hard. There was something about The Joker's laugh that had given him back his energy, and his sense of purpose. He guessed he was more like Batman in that respect than he had thought.
Everybody that Dick had ever been, and everybody he was now, was ready for this fight.
He had to stop The Joker. But he realized, with this other Batman running by his side, that he wasn't exactly the way to do it.
The plan formed in his mind as they hurried down the corridor. The Joker had always liked puzzles, word plays, mind games, anything to link his crimes together. For The Joker, it wasn't enough to steal. He had to link his crimes together to make them interesting, and the games he devised to join his crimes had become deadlier over the years. Nothing, however, was deadlier than his newfound use of psychology.
But maybe they could use this same psychology to their advantage.
The Joker's laugh drifted back to them again from somewhere up ahead. This could easily be another trap. Batman, however, planned to turn the trap around.
He motioned for the man with him to stop. Farther down the corridor he could see another open doorway, which led again to that large central courtyard. Batman knew, from studying the map back at City Hall, that almost everyone of the hallways in the underground complex led back to this central area. But his knowledge was far too general. The Joker knew every one of these corridors, along with all the new adjustments The Joker might have made; adjustments that wouldn't have shown up in those plans at City Hall.
"This is where we're going to have our showdown with The Joker," Batman explained in a soft voice. "Both of us. And forget what I said about you being Steven Winter. For now, you are the Batman."
"And you?" asked the Batman who was no longer Winter.
"Oh, I'm Batman, too. That's the only way my plan can work. Once we reach the door, I'll go left, you go right. We have to move fast when we get in there. And stay close to the wall---it makes you less of an obvious target. I believe we can depend on The Joker to do the rest."
Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Oh, and I'll give you a couple lines to memorize."
Dick saw not one, but two batmen run into the room. Each one sprinted toward an opposite corner. And, somewhere overhead, he heard The Joker laugh.
"Now!" the Batman to the right yelled. Both costumed men stopped and turned away from Dick to look up in the direction of the merriment. Dick looked up, too, and saw The Joker, sitting in a window one story up. He had a large pipe on his shoulder---it was a bazooka.
"Oh, dear!" The Joker called. "An embarrassment of riches! Too many batmen!" He patted the weapon on his shoulder. "And I can only blow one of you to kingdom come."
"Which one will it be, Joker?" asked the Batman on the left in a growl that altered his real voice.
"I think the one with the utility belt---" The Joker frowned. "Where's the utility belt?"
"Well, it isn't fair if everyone can't have one," the Batman on the left replied in a voice an octave too low.
"All for one and one for all," the other costumed hero added in that same growl. "That's the Batman motto."
Dick saw what Batman was doing. The Joker couldn't act if he couldn't determine the proper target. At least Dick knew which one was real; at least he thought he did. Batman was even consciously adjusting his stance so that his body language was a little different.
The Joker giggled. "So I blow one of you away, then disappear and reload."
The Joker wasn't confused enough. Maybe it was time for another Joker to step in.
Dick laughed. "Wait a minute! Who's this stealing my thunder?"
He stepped out of the shadows.
The Joker glared down at him. "Don't mess with me, boy! I made you what you are today."
"What?" Dick called out with melodramatic indignation. "The Joker is a self-made man."
"I'll say," the real Joker replied. "And one of a kind." He swung the bazooka around to point at Dick.
"This looks like a job for Batman!" the costumed hero on the left shouted.
"And Batman is here!" added the hero on the right.
Dick saw they both had Batarangs in their hands, each with an attached line. They were going to try and hogtie The Joker.
"Wait a moment!" the real Joker yelled. "I know this game!"
The Joker was getting on top of this again. That would never do.
"I'll say!" Dick shouted in turn. "Let's attack someone important around here, like me!"
"I can't take this anymore!" the real Joker announced. "I'm going to blow all of you away---with grenades!"
But there was a chorus of shouts before The Joker could move back toward his private weapons stash.
"There he is!" one voice yelled.
"Now we'll see who the real Batman is around here!" another added.
"One's a hero, the rest are zero!" a third voice chimed in. Dick could see three men in Batman costumes running on the other side of the windows of The Joker's floor.
The Batman on Dick's right---the real Batman, he guessed---threw his bat-shaped boomerang. The attached nylon cord caught The Joker's bazooka as the Batarang spun around the pipe. Batman yanked the other end of the cord, pulling the weapon out of the startled Joker's grip. The boomerang clattered to the floor.
The Joker screeched and ran.
Dick walked forward to meet the two costumed heroes. "All right!" he called. "Who's the real Batman here?"
The man on the right turned and smiled. "Maybe," he said, "there's a little of Batman in all of us."
"I'll agree to that," his partner on the left added. "Now let's go get The Joker."
The police had had their hands full for a few minutes, but they had finally rounded up most of the mob. They all seemed to be members of the Church of Perpetual Happiness. They were not shy in the least about mentioning this fact, nor the fact that they had been sent to destroy The Joker. Gordon thought they had collected more than a few candidates for psychiatric examination here. He imagined, since he had just arrested the entire congregation, that this might be the beginning of the end for the church as well, especially since a couple of his detectives had just called in to inform Gordon that they had apprehended Droll along with some tens of millions of dollars in cash.
Now that they had the situation in hand here, they had to see what they could do about helping Batman.
"Get away from me!"
What now? The scream had come from the entryway to one of the half-finished condominium buildings. At first, Gordon thought it was one of the few church members they hadn't managed to round up.
But then he saw it was The Joker.
"Get back! I'm warning you!"
"Who cares?" another voice replied. "I just want this over with." Batman stepped out of the shadows.
And then a second Batman followed. "We do The Joker in, and then we win."
And then a third. "We all want a piece of you, Joker. What say we divide you into thirds? Big, bloody thirds."
"You don't understand!" The Joker wailed, real desperation in his voice. "You're not real! I created you!"
"Not real?" shouted the last Batman to speak. "This isn't real?" All three men in Batman costumes jumped on The Joker.
"The Joker?" someone else yelled. "Get The Joker!"
The half-dozen members of the church that Gordon's men hadn't captured all ran toward the fight.
Oh, no. Whatever was going on here, the police had to put an end to it once and for all.
"And what happened?" Batman asked in disbelief.
"When we got over to the pile of bodies, The Joker was gone," Gordon explained. "But not very far away. My men saw him fleeing the scene in a purple Dodge. We have four cruisers in close pursuit. We'll get him."
Would they? Batman hoped so. For now, they had to pick up the pieces. Batman hid Dick away from the police in the Batmobile. Both Dick and Steve Winter seemed confused, but on the way to recovery, Batman imagined it would be the same for the other three men who had been dressed up as him. Both Dr. Andrews and Reverend Droll were in custody, and George identified the dead Joker as his fellow gang member Samson before George, too, was taken off to jail.
And Batman had seen part of himself, too. When Dick was feeling better, they really would have to talk. And Batman had to realize that Jason was dead. He had to put the anger, and the hurt, behind him. They had no place in him when he was fighting crime.
Which only left The Joker. Gordon swore his men would capture Batman's old foe. Batman wasn't so sure, but he did know one thing, now that The Joker had shown himself again.
One way or another, Batman swore, The Joker was his.
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The Batman Murders, Gardner, Craig Shaw - [Batman 01]
