Chapter 2

Goodbye, Jack.
Hello, Joker.


As his first night went well with little to no problems, now donning his brand-new bat suit, Bruce went off to fight crime wherever his police scanner picked it up. Sometimes he stopped jewelry story robberies, sometimes he stopped bank robberies. but whatever the emergency, Bruce got the job done, leaving enough time for the police to take the criminal scum to jail and for him to make his get away before they showed up. To his relief, Bruce was pleased in his first crusade to know that things were going well, and compared to his prototype outfit, which didn't work out, the criminals were afraid of him now.

When he was ready to wrap up and go home after one last mission, it saw him taking down a couple of thugs who had robbed a bank and left an explosion outside, the police tried to catch up with them, but the two were almost safe and sound on the roofs when he appeared. The two drew their guns, he tossed a boomerang which was shaped like a bat (he called it the Batarang), the two were disarmed. Using this to his advantage, Wayne knocked out the first and the second charged after him, only to get punched himself. Bruce then took that one and held him over the edge to give him a scare.

"Don't kill me, man," the second thug whimpered. "Don't kill me!"

"I'm not gonna kill you. But you are trespassing, scum," Bruce said in a deep voice, "I need you to do me a favor, tell of your friends in the mob about me."

"Trespassing?" Asked the hired gun, "You don't own the night!"

Bruce rolled his eyes in his cowl, "You can tell all of your friends that I am the night!"

And with that, tossed the thug to the opposite side, knocking him out and making his exit as the police arrested them.

Driving home, Bruce headed for Wayne Manor. It was a busy night, but a successful one. But as he drove home, Bruce got a call from Alfred, he tapped a button putting his butler on speaker mode.

"Yes, Alfred?"

"I hate to intrude your merry hunt, sir, but…" Pennyworth began.

"What is it?" Bruce asked.

"Our guest Jack, he…" The older man stammered. "Well, uh…"

"Jack did what, Alfred?" Wayne demanded. "Out with it."

"I'm afraid that he's run away." Alfred sighed. "He didn't say whereto, but if I had to guess, probably that dread chemical plant. Ace's, was it?"

"Oh, no. I'll see if I can't find him."

With that, Wayne ended his call made a u-turn and then headed out for the chemical plant where Jack was. Now donning a suit, red cape, and a red hooded mask for protection. Recognizing Jack's suit, Bruce looked on for further inspection, by his side were to thugs, whom Wayne assumed were some of his old pals, who followed jack inside the Ace chemical plant.

"Okay," said Jack, "we go through here past the filter tanks and then Monarch Playing Cards is just beyond the partition. You know this place looks even worse in red. It looks like…"

But what it looked like, Jack didn't get to voice his opinion as a night guard appeared.

"Hey, you! Freeze," he demanded, the thugs, whose names were Vinnie and Joe, didn't comply, "Come on, come on, get 'em up!"

Vinnie of the two opened fire and the night guard took cover, every now and again he opened fire.

Speaking into a walkie-talkie he called out "Murph, get some men over to the rear bays. We're being robbed by the Red Hood Mob."

Gunfire was going off, Vinnie frowned at Jack, "You asshole, you said there was no security!"

"They must have altered things since I left," panicked a helmeted Jack. A bullet went off, causing steam to escape from a pipe, "It's so loud!"

Joe covered Jack's back, "This is all screwed up! Run!"

Upon reaching a higher platform, Vinnie asked, "Which way, man?"

"I can't see where I'm going!" Jack whimpered as he looked side to side.

Raising his gun to shoot Jack then and there, Vinnie sneered, "Ah, you useless son of a bi…"

He was shot in the hand and started bleeding, it wasn't long before Joe spoke up to the cops.

"I'm not the guy you want," he said, the shooting stopped as the fat thug pointed to Jack. "It's him, he's our ringleader! He's the Red Hood!"

He was shot too, only in the shoulder.

Afraid, Jack ran for his life, "No, no, no, no, no!"

Gunfire still went off until…

"Stop!" Bruce made his appearance at last, just as the gunfire ceased, "No more shooting, I'll handle this my way."

With that, he was gone.

"It's that human bat guy!" said one cop.

Dear God, what did I do to deserve all this? Jack asked himself. Oh, Bruce, if I ever see your face again, I promise that I'll never disobey you or Alfie again.

Somewhere from behind a voice approached him, "Jack Napier."

But it wasn't Wayne. From what Jack saw, the figure was dressed up like a frightening black bat. It… No, he spoke again.

"Come with me, I can help you. You don't have to be alone on the edge any more," he reached out his hand.

Jack looked at the hand then at the bat's jaw. But bats don't have human-shaped jaws… Unless this guy was human? He looked again at the jaw, there was something familiar about it to him, he then looked at the gloved hand, he reached for the hand, gunfire interrupted the moment as Jack slipped and held onto a railing pipe, barely hanging over the abyss, and below him several feet below was a vat of chemicals.

Knocking out the fat thug criminal who opened fire, Bruce ran back to Jack who was slipping and barely held on with one hand.

"Take my hand!" he said.

"I can't… I-I'm slipping!" Jack cried.

"You have to trust me…" Wayne answered, inside his helmet, Jack looked on nervously. "Jack, please!"

Jack began to reach with his free hand as he asked, "Bruce?" Bruce nodded with a faint smile.

All seemed to be all right, until Vinnie ran up and smashed Jack's free hand holding the pipe with his gun, which caused Jack to fall below and scream in terror.

"BRUUUUUUCE!"

In return, Wayne screamed his name, "JAAAAAAAAAACK!"

With a loud KER-SPLASH, he landed in the vat of chemicals.

Enraged, Bruce turned around to face Vinnie and started beating him to a pulp until a new voice entered.

"That's enough!" The bat-costumed Wayne turned around, there standing behind him was the cleanest cop in Gotham City, Captain James Gordon, better known as Jim to his friends. "Let him go. We'll deal with him, you go and see if your 'friend' is alright. But we want to ask him a few things if he survives." Wayne nodded reached for a grappling hook in his utility belt, "Who are you by the way?" Jim asked.

"Someone like you," replied Bruce, has he fired a button on the grappling hook gun, "Someone who wants a better Gotham."

With that, Bruce left the plant to find Jack.

"Who is he?" a young rookie officer asked Gordon.

"I don't know, but until we do find out," replied Gordon, "keep a lid on it."

He found him Napier outside, unscathed. Normally, any ordinary man would've died or suffer a great deal because of the chemicals, but something about Napier was different.

"Jack, are you alright?"

"I think so. Can we go home now?" Jack answered as he still had the helmet on. Bruce nodded and reached for helmet. "No. Can we keep it on until we get back?"

Bruce nodded again and went with the unusual request. No one said a word for a while as the two got in the car and drove back to Wayne Manor, until, "What gave me away?"

"Pardon?" Jack asked.

"What gave me away, Jack? At the chemical plant, that is."

"Just your chin." Napier replied. "And if you have to ask… I ran away in hope to call off the operation."

"I told you to remain at Wayne Manor!" Bruce said a little angrily, but his anger quickly softened, "But all just the same, I'm glad you're okay."

"Well, let's just see see how 'okay' I am when we get inside." Jack sighed.

Upon returning to Wayne Manor, Bruce took Jack to a chair, and awaited Alfred, who was preparing a chemical bath to cleanse Jack of his burns.

"Good to see your both in one piece." Alfred said coming down the stairs. "I was worried something had happened to you both."

Bruce, now out of his costume and in a bathrobe approached Alfred and Jack, "You got the therapeutic bath ready, Alfred?"

"I do indeed have it running, sir." Pennyworth nodded.

"Now Jack, I'm not sure how severely burned you were because of the chemicals, but we'll see to it a surgeon can fix that." Bruce said.

"Whatever you say, Bruce," Jack replied as he removed his mask, Bruce reacted a little surprised, Alfred did too.

"Mirror." he asked.

"Jack, maybe this isn't the best time…" Bruce said nervously.

"What part of 'mirror' do you not comprehend?!" Jack asked angrily, yet he was scared too.

Without another word, Bruce did as he was asked.

Upon examining his new looks in the mirror, Jack soon discovered that his body was bleached snow white, his hair was emerald green, his eyes were royal purple and his lips were ruby red.

"I'm… I'm… I'm a clown!" he panicked.

"Well, you said you wanted to start fresh in life," Bruce said with sympathy to Jack.

"But I didn't mean like this." Jack said, as he began to cry.

Bruce then put a sympathetic hand on Jack's shoulder, "I know it's going to be a lot for you take in, Jack. But I want you to know that I am not going anywhere." He then looked at Alfred. "And you will also have Alfred too."

Jack looked at Bruce, he knew that his newfound friend's words were more than true, "Thank you, Bruce."

"And don't forget, we're meeting with Gordon to discuss your defection." Bruce reminded.

"I haven't forgotten, and thanks again." Jack sighed.

"Any time." replied Bruce.


Author's notes:

* So there we have it, Jack's transformation and he was saved by Bruce instead of descending completely into madness.
* I don't have much to point out here, but yes, I was inspired by the opening of Batman: The Animated Series for Bruce's first night out on Gotham as Batman, same to be said about him saving Jack, as opposed to the latter falling into the vat of chemicals.
- Also, the dialogue exchanged between Bruce and one of the two thugs was referenced from an early version the 1989 Batman movie staring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson.
- In that draft, Batman called one of thugs him 'ratbreath' and told the thug he was trespassing. The thug in return said "You don't own the night." Batman, not caring, responds, "Tell all of your friends, I am the night."
- In the final version of the scene we see on film, the thug instead asks Batman "What are you?" To which Batman responds, as ad-libbed by Michael Keaton, "I'm Batman."
* Bruce Wayne/Batman, Jack Napier, Alfred Pennyworth and Jim Gordon owned by DC Comics and is ? by Bill Finger and Bob Kane.


Until the next chapter, my fellow readers and Bat-fans:
I'm M. R. Parkerson signing off…