Jester’s POV

I watched as the ominous gothic building come into sight. Perched on top of a rocky island, Arkham Asylum was absolutely massive—I guessed its huge size was necessary in order to keep Gotham’s population of the criminally insane inside. Joker peered out the window, smiling more and more as the asylum got closer. I knew he had something up his sleeve, I just didn’t know what.

I looked out the windows on the opposite side of the boat again; Batman was still in hot pursuit of us.

“What if he catches us before we get there?” I asked realistically.

Joker just kept looking out the window and smiling, finally he replied “He won’t.”

I watched as we were rapidly approaching the rocky coast of the island. It came closer and closer and yet we were still speeding towards it.

“Don’t we need to slow down? We’re going to crash into the island!” I stammered.

“Will you quit doubting my genius?” Joker hissed, coming centimeters away from my face.

I watched as we kept zooming toward the island, I couldn’t contain myself. We were going to crash and I was going to drown. I squeezed my shut and braced for impact.

When I opened them, we were inside some sort of a tunnel. Then I used logic and realized that there was a hidden cave at the baseline of the island. I felt like an idiot.

The boat rocked to an immediate stop in the cave. Joker giddily hopped up the stairs to the top deck, Harley skipped happily behind him. I took one last look around the bottom deck, thinking I had forgotten something.

Scarecrow still sat in a chair by the window.

Do I leave him here? He’s not my problem anymore.

A satanic smile blazed across my face as I danced up the stair, leaving Scarecrow incapacitated on the bottom deck.

From the top deck of the boat, I got a better look at the cave. It was extremely dark, the headlights on the boat where the only thing that allowed me to see six inches in front of me face. I followed Joker and Harley, who stepped off the boat and onto a dock that led to a steel door.

“Oh, Mr. Freeze! Would you please?” Joker sang.

The iceman planted himself in front of the door. “Stand back” his robotic voice chimed.

He pointed his arm towards the door, a cannon of some sorts was where his wrist should have been. Icy winds shot out of his freeze gun and froze the metal door.

“Your turn, big guy” Joker referenced Bane.

The masked man smashed his body into the frozen door, knocking it off its hinges.

“See what a little teamwork can do, gang?” Joker exclaimed. I watched Ivy roll her eyes dramatically, she really detested Joker; I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

We, a group of criminally insane rogues, entered through the empty doorway and walked up about three flights of stairs. At the top, there was another door except this one was not metal and it didn’t have a lock.

Joker led the way. He kicked the door down dramatically and did a cartwheel, making a big entrance.

Harley, the other criminals and I followed him. Inside the door was the main entrance of Arkham Asylum.

Several guards began running around and shouting various things like “CODE SEVEN!” Among all the commotion, I heard one guard yell “it’s the escaped convicts! They’re back!”

The guards formed a barricade with their bodies and one yelled “Nobody move!” They were armed with Tasers and guns.

Joker didn’t look phased. He continued to speak and even began to walk around, making me anxious as to whether or not the Arkham guards would shoot him.

“Well boys, here’s the thing” He started. “I like to consider Arkham, here, my home…and what kind of homeowner would I be if I didn’t invest in a security system?” Joker snickered.

Just then a struggle broke out among the barricade of guards. Several bodies hit the floor as bullets and Taser prongs began to fly.

I attempted to see what was going on but it was impossible. Silence quickly fell, a group of guards remained standing among the pile of bodies who were either dead or unconscious.

To my amazement, Joker had somehow bought off the Arkham guards…or replaced them with his own Joker clan, either way I was impressed.

“Glad to see where your allegiances are, boys. Now get to work, you know the plan. We’ve got to tidy up the place if we want to have our dearest friend, Batman, over.” Joker laughed as he sprinted through the entrance area and into one of the corridors. I hurried behind.

“Where are we going?” I asked excitedly, feeling free and ready to finally beat the Bat.

Joker kept running but he replied to me, saying “High security section, only the best for our Batsy! Now hurry up, dear. We have to get you ready for your big role, it’s almost show time!”

Robin’s POV

After losing Jester, Riddler and Scarecrow in the car chase, Batman and I had to regroup to try and catch their trail again.

 I couldn’t believe she actually pushed a woman out of a speeding car! Part of me was losing hope in breaking through to her, I tortured myself with thoughts of her being a deranged criminal for the rest of her life. All I wanted was to bring back the Annie that she used to be, before Joker got his hands on her. The longer it took to bring her back, the more guilt I felt. She was being manipulated into doing unspeakable evil and it was all my fault. If I would have just stayed away from her, none of this would have happened.

I watched as the nurse that was thrown out of the car was loaded into an ambulance, my thoughts racing. Batman approached me.

“She’s going to be fine. No life threatening injuries.” He stated.

I just looked at the ground and kept kicking a pebble, my untamable thoughts were eating me away.

Batman noticed my unreachable mind and started walking toward the Batmobile.

“C’mon, we don’t have time for sulking” He muttered.

I got in the Batmobile and stared at him. “Do you have any idea where they even are?” I questioned.

Batman said nothing, he just turned on the police scanner. The radio was flooded with reports of a speeding cop car. All I could think was “That’s my girl”.

We found the police cruiser, abandoned, at the docks. A fishing boat was sailing in the bay, just close enough so I could read the letters on the side of the boat.

It read “K.G. Bird Fishing Company”

Batman and I were both too intelligent to know that that was not an ordinary fishing boat. Penguin was notorious for using bird analogies in his aliases.

“Let’s go” Batman said and I followed him to the end of the dock. He pressed a button on his communicator, summoning the “Batboat”.

Before it reached us, a figure appeared by one of the other docks. It was Mayor Hill.

He approached us and spoke “Evening, Batman.”

Batman was silent, he was sometimes inept with social graces, I said hello for him.

Batman glared at the Mayor uncomfortably, I tried to make the situation less awkward.

 “What do you need, Mayor?” I inquired.

The Mayor looked a bit startled and replied “The Joker was just spotted across town, figured I’d let you know”

I nodded, confused, and watched Batman as he suddenly became reanimated with life.

“Thanks, Mayor” He said as he held out his hand for the Mayor to shake…which was odd.

The Mayor just looked at his hand with disgust before reluctantly shaking it…again this was odd.

Abruptly, Batman reached in his utility belt and pulled out a freeze pellet which he then threw at the Mayor. The Mayor became frozen in ice.

“What was that about?” I questioned.

“Clayface” Batman explained with one word. Holding up his glove, there were evidences of clay residue.

The Batboat had arrived so we both raced inside its cockpit and sailed after the boat.

I still had so many unanswered questions. “Is Joker working with Penguin? They hate each other, I can’t see why they would work together and what about Clayface? Also, they obviously know that we can catch them in this… so what’s their plan?”

Batman didn’t answer because a blue light flashed out through the dark. Batman steered to evade it, it came from the deck of the sailing boat; it was Mr. Freeze firing his ice gun at us.

Mr. Freeze clearly did not have mercy in mind as he relentlessly fired at us. While dodging chunks of frozen ice, Batman began to fire electrical shock charges at the boat to incapacitate it. It began to rock in the stirred waters. The boat was being tossed all over the water, it looked like it was going under the water at several points.

“Stop firing, the boat might go under” I begged, I pictured Annie drowning in the sub-freezing waters.

Just as I had finished picturing her lifeless body from drowning, I watched as the boat sped toward the Arkham Island. It didn’t show any signs of stopping, making me question whether or not they were going to crash into the rocky coastline.

I held my breath and tried not to pass out as the boat sailed forward—then it suddenly disappeared.

I looked at Batman with a dumbstruck look on my face. 

“You did see that, didn’t you?”

“They’re going in the Asylum. We’ll go through the front and cut them off.”

Arriving at the front gates at Arkham, Batman punched in his entrance code and the gates creaked open.

The dark night sky added to the ominous feeling I had. The stars weren’t even visible due to smog from the city.

 As we walked through the front entrance, all the lights were off—making everything pitch black and no people were around which was completely unlike its usual busy atmosphere. My suspicions were right…something was very wrong and I knew exactly who to blame.

 Right then I decided, this night would be one of the longest of my life.