Laughing Gas

The National Guard's operations command room.

Mayor Carlo sat in his seat, terrified.

"Scarecrow—"

Joker looked at Scarecrow in surprise and delight. "What a strange surprise!"

Scarecrow silently drifted down from the windowsill. He was tall and thin, like a huge walking bamboo pole, yet unexpectedly agile.

"I'm offended, Joker. With a master available..."

"You went looking for an amateur in the Kingdom of Fear instead."

"Ah, right. You're the master, of course." Joker spread his hands as he replied. His expression was that of an excited little boy, gleaming with innocent malice.

"But I thought maybe I could control Cornelius Stirk, hm?"

(Note: The supervillain Ogre, who first appeared in Detective Comics #592.)

"How catastrophically wrong you are. What a rotten choice, Joker."

Scarecrow's voice sounded somewhat shrill beneath his respirator.

"This makes me very angry. In fact, I'd quite like to give you a dose of my fear..."

"Then give it a try, Scarecrow. I'm sure I'll find the experience fascinating—ah hahahahahahaha!"

Scarecrow silently stared at Joker. The standoff, which made one feel as though one's heart had stopped—in Mayor Carlo's opinion alone—lasted for roughly ten seconds.

Mayor Carlo slumped in his seat, unable to say a word.

Scarecrow said, "I want to replace Scott—but this time, it has to be an equal partnership... No one controls anyone."

With a creak, the door was pushed open.

Ogre, Cornelius Stirk, pushed open the door and walked in.

"Damn it! Scarecrow!" he said in surprise. "Why are you here?"

"Stirk!" Joker greeted him like a middle-school girl. "Where's Captain Steve, the one I told you to kidnap?"

"Here." Ogre pulled a huge red mass from behind his back, along with a pile of other red, jumbled things, and began wolfing them down at the table without the slightest concern for Joker's presence.

As he ate his snack and sweet treat, he mumbled, "That Captain guy's adrenaline was pretty good... Mmm, a delicious, bubbling stress-source hormone. It had all the natural ingredients needed for a hearty organic fear stew..."

"No, you idiot!" Joker clutched his scalp in despair. "You illiterate moron, you were supposed to kidnap him, not kill him!"

He lowered his head and slapped both his ears. "Fuck you, bastard! I shouldn't have used Scott. He was too unstable. After all, you're a lunatic! Ah hahahahaha! Well, so am I! Lunatics belong together—what can I say? I chose you as my partner."

Joker asked again, "No one else saw you kill Steve, right?"

"Nom nom nom... Of course not!" Ogre swallowed a mouthful of food and mumbled, "I hypnotized the soldiers at the entrance when I went in. No one knows Smith is dead. Even if he is dead, our plan won't be affected."

"Fine, fine." Joker pressed a hand to his forehead helplessly. "We'll go with it. You've already done it."

He scratched his head in a frenzy, then said, "I'm dying of thirst! Stirk, pass me the glass of water on the table behind you."

Joker took the water Ogre handed him, drank a large gulp, and let out a satisfied hiss.

Scarecrow, who had been ignored for quite some time, finally couldn't hold back any longer.

"So, Joker, about our partner—"

With a crack, Joker smashed the glass in his hand against the table. Half a second later, he had driven all the shards into Ogre's throat.

"Urk! Urk... You... you..."

Ogre had not reacted at all. He struggled to pull a blade from inside his clothes, but the moment he stood up, he helplessly toppled backward onto the floor.

Joker strode forward, snatched his dagger from inside Ogre's clothes, then straddled Ogre's twitching body and swung it again and again. "Fuck—you! You useless piece of trash! Worthless! Worthless!"

Blood soaked the food Ogre had just been chewing, making it look tender and appetizing, like rare steak.

Only after all the red liquid had been wrung from Ogre's body did Joker throw away the dagger and elegantly wipe the red droplets splattered across his face with his sleeve.

"Then," he said, performing a revolting knightly hand-to-chest salute, "Scarecrow, my dearest friend, it's time to show us your true skills."

Scarecrow was silent for a moment, then strode forward on his long, thin-bamboo-pole legs. He stepped over Ogre's corpse, whose eyes remained open in death, and walked up to the mayor. Without a word, he aimed his skull-shaped sprayer at Mayor Carlo's cheek and released a huge cloud of mist.

"No! Impossible! This can't be real!"

Mayor Carlo's eyes widened. Under the chemical's stimulation, red veins stood out across his eyeballs.

"It... It must be a nightmare... No, no, it isn't real!"

"Ah, but we're quite real, Mr. Mayor. Super real."

Joker shrieked with laughter. "If the guards outside your door could still speak for you, they could testify on our behalf!"

"No, no, poison!"

"What's poisonous, Mr. Mayor? What do you see? What are you most afraid of?"

"Spiders? Venomous snakes?"

"Rotten sushi?"

"No, no!" Under the effects of the fear toxin, Mayor Carlo trembled all over like a helpless infant.

"Snakes... Snakes are... poisonous!"

Scarecrow leaned close to Mayor Carlo's face. To the mayor's horror, two venomous snakes crawled out of his eye sockets, while Scarecrow acted as though nothing had happened, as if he couldn't see the snakes at all.

Scarecrow's whisper sounded beside his ear.

"Snakes, Mr. Mayor. Pythons, vipers. Their rapidly flicking, forked tongues prod at the soft flesh of your throat, where your pulse throbs, sliding over it only to quickly pierce it... with those hooked... hollow..."

"Fangs!"

"Please... I beg you, what do you want?"

"Well, Mayor Carlo—" Joker said. "It's time to use your influence! Dance lightly beneath the fiber-optic lights and make this dark city kneel!"

He laughed wildly. Like a mischievous child revealing the answer to a riddle, the looks of despair, rage, and terror on other people's faces—followed by their helplessness—were his greatest reward!

"Besides throwing all twenty thousand of them onto the battlefield, I have a special gift of laughing gas for Bane—as a little revenge for taking away our Batman's affection!"

Frazzled, battered beyond recognition, and perhaps with one more broken rib.

My energy was almost completely gone. I had never felt so haggard, so awful.

But I wasn't dead yet.

Bane lowered his head and looked at the growing number of enemies spreading toward him.

"Venom injection... maximum output."

"Activating."