Twilight didn't get a blink of sleep that night. How could she? A deranged serial killer poisoning ponies with candy being on the loose is bad enough, even if those ponies are scumbags. But this combined with that homicidal maniac formerly known as Trixie Lulamoon also being out there made things infinitely worse. She didn't discriminate between her victims based on their morality or who they crossed in the past. She just killed. Horribly and painfully. If she didn't find her soon, she didn't even dare to think about the bloodbath that might ensue.
Surprisingly, the night Joker escaped passed without incident. At least as far as she knew. She was probably laying low to make preparations for whatever she was planning. She'll have to find her before she had the chance to carry it out.
Her only lead was the police mare who delivered those explosive chocolate balls for her. No doubt another one of the Candy Colt's little tricks. They managed to defuse the bombs before they went off but the mare was hospitalised after passing out from the stress and panic she went through. She still wasn't ready for questioning. As much as Twilight hated it, she was once again forced to wait.
But there was something suspicious about this whole situation. When Twilight saw the police mare, she immediately recognised her as the same mare who guarded the evidence room during the night Black Mask broke into the MCPD to retrieve her pearl necklace. The night she was killed by a poisoned piece of gumdrop on the exact same necklace. That was more than suspicious.
While she waited for the mare to wake up and be questioned, she conducted a little research about her. She learned that her name was Silver Bullet. A perfectly ordinary mare who has been serving on the force for over ten years. Twilight and Spike didn't find any dirt on her. No police brutality, no suspicious dealings, no gambling debts. She was completely clean.
Next, Twilight checked the prison's security footage for any clues, but she failed to find anything useful there either. Silver came through the main entrance with the package that contained the bombs and made no stop anywhere to tamper with it. She headed straight to Trixie's cell where the unicorn lured her into her cell and trapped her while she made good her escape. The key was obviously the package, but for some reason, it was gone. Apparently, Trixie didn't want her to find it. But why?
Searching for the Joker took up all of her free time for the day. The Candy Colt could wait, compared to the death and destruction the crazed street magician could dish out, he was a small fish. But she had little to no lead on the clown either. None of the cameras recorded her leaving the building and since she took the package, Twilight had no lead. She could go to Capper to ask if he or his henchponies heard or saw anything, but she didn’t like to rely on his help too much.
Eventually, the blessed night came and Twilight quickly suited up, heading out into the night as she did everyday once the sun went down.
Her first destination was the hospital where Silver Bullet was recuperating. She already discussed with Captain Garden that they would meet there once she woke up. As expected, the officer was already at the hospital by the time she got there. Most of the staff have already left for the night so she had no trouble getting around unnoticed. The door to Silver Bullet’s room was just next to a window and when Batmare crawled through it, she saw Garden already waiting for her.
“You’re becoming predictable, my friend.” He said. Batmare elected to ignore that remark.
“How is she?” She asked simply.
“Doctor says she's gonna make a full recovery.” Garden replied. “In fact, she woke up an hour ago. I tried to question her about what happened but she said she'll only talk to you. And before you ask, no, I don't know why. She just said you're the only one who can make use of what she has to say. Whatever that entails.”
If Batmare’s suspicions were correct - and they usually were - she already had a pretty good guess on what she wanted to talk about. She thanked her police pony friend with a nod and headed towards the door.
Inside, all of the beds were empty except for the one where the mare she came to visit was lying. When she entered, the squat mare looked up at her and when she saw who her visitor was, she cast her eyes down in shame.
“I know why you are here.” She began. Batmare slowly walked to her bed and sat down in a chair next to it.
“How are you doing?” She asked in genuine concern. The wellbeing of citizens have always been her first priority.
“That doesn't matter now.” Silver shook her head. “What matters is that you find that maniac before she carries out whatever twisted scheme she has planned.” Batmare watched her thoroughly and decided give voice to her suspicions.
“You were the same mare in front of the evidence room the night Black Mask died. This isn't a coincidence, isn't it?” The police mare's long silence was all the confirmation she needed.
“Yes. I was the one who put that poisoned gumdrop on her necklace. And I was fully aware of what I was delivering to Trixie's cell last night. But I badly underestimated her. And now she's on the loose.” She said regretfully. Though her regret rang more than a little hollow given that she just confessed to a murder and an attempted one.
“Why did you do it?” Batmare asked firmly. There was no anger in her voice, but the compassion she felt when she first entered was gone.
“I acted under orders. Orders from the Candy Colt.” Even under the mask, Silver could tell the other mare's eyes widened. “Yes, I know who he is.”
“Did he blackmail you?” Batmare asked with a faint sense of hope. “Does he have something he can use to force you into it?” But to her surprise and disappointment, Silver shook her head.
“No. I helped him on my own free will.” If there was no anger in Batmare until now, that statement certainly evoked it.
“Why?” That was the only thing the vigilante could ask.
“Because they deserved it.” Silver said curtly and full of determination. “Every last one of them. I didn't buy Scarecrow’s reformation crap for one second. Black Mask laughed into our face during all of our investigations to bring her in. Penguin is no better and Joker… She is the worst of them all. This new breed of criminals makes the Falcons and the Martinis look like model citizens.”
“If you feel this way, why are you giving up the Candy Colt to me?” Batmare asked. Silver sighed.
“Because she's going after him. The Joker. She's going to be out for his blood after he tried to have her killed and I know you're the only one who can stop her.”
Batmare was uncertain. She wasn't sure she should trust the word of an officer who turned out to be a hired assassin. But if there was even the slightest chance that she could lead her to the Joker, she should take it. She already wasted too much time.
“Tell me everything.”
A few minutes later, Batmare marched out of the hospital room, slamming the doors open and greatly startling Captain Garden in the process.
“She will talk to you now. She has one hay of a story to tell.” She told him before making her way to the window.
“What happened?” Garden asked, confused by her hasty leave.
“Ask her yourself. And call a few more officers to stand guard at her door.” Batmare replied as she pulled out her grappling gun. “All I'm gonna tell you is, the Candy Colt case gets closed tonight.” She said before firing the device and pulling herself out of the building.
Batmare raced towards her destination at breakneck speed. Chances were she was already too late, but she might still have found some clues about where to go next. In fact, she was sure of it, because the Joker will want her to find her. She had come to know her well.
She leapt over the edge of a building and spread out her cape to glide over the walls surrounding the Falcon mansion. She wasn’t bothering with the stealth this time. She ran to the front door and kicked it in before running inside. The mansion was eerily silent. Even her forced entry didn’t attract any attention which was a dead giveaway that the Joker has already been here and she could only pray the occupants were still alive.
She decided to search through the mansion. She began with Caramel’s bedroom but she found nothing out of the ordinary. She then went to his son’s room but once again, she found nothing to suggest what had taken place. But in there, that wasn’t the only thing she was looking for.
Being an expert of hidden areas herself, she examined the entire room, looking for anything that might disguise a secret entrance. The bookshelf was a good start - cliche as it may have been. She pulled out all the books and flipped through them but nothing happened. She then remembered her own hidden entrance of the Batcave, she pulled out all the drawers and checked under the bed as well, but once again to no avail.
In frustration, she kicked the trash can next to the bed, causing it to fall over and a bunch of chocolate wraps rolling out of it. Either Alabaster Falcon had a huge sweet tooth, or Batmare had found what she was looking for. She searched through the contents of the trashcan and between the chocolate wraps, she found a crumpled note.
She unfolded it and began to read. As she suspected, the note it was written by Silver Bullet, telling the colt about the successful delivery of a box of explosive chocolate to the Iceberg Lounge to a certain abyssinian crime boss and waiting for the next one that they were gonna deliver to Trixie. Her eyes widened. The Falcon foal has been doing this in his room out in the open? If that was the case, he was even better at hiding secrets than she was.
Believing the note could be an important piece of evidence, she placed it in her belt before making her way out of the room. She still had to find the occupants of the mansion. She checked the bathrooms, the kitchen, the living room and any other place she could have thought of before finally arriving at Falcon's workroom.
She opened the door and saw that the stallion’s chair behind the desk was turned back towards the window, but it was clearly occupied as Batmare saw a hoof on the armrest. But strangely enough, it didn’t look like it belonged to Falcon. It was of a different color and looked too feminine. She slowly walked up to the chair and spun it around.
She backed away in fright. A dead pegasus mare in a maid outfit was sitting in the chair behind the desk with a wide, unnatural grin across her face and something stuffed inside her mouth. Batmare walked over to the body and reached for the object which turned out to be a CD case. The disk in the case had the words “PLAY ME!” written across it with a smiley after it.
In front of the body, there was an open laptop on the desk obviously left for her, so she placed the disk inside it and launched the media player. When the video started, she saw the Joker’s smirking face greeting her, much to her chagrin. She watched with a frown as the deranged clown mare moved the camera around her head and began to talk.
“Hiya, Bats! Long time no see, huh? Way too long for my taste. So I arranged a little get together just for us. But don’t be sad! I have a present for you that you will really appreciate. Check it out!” Trixie moved the camera and pointed it at the tied and struggling figures of Caramel and Alabaster Falcon. Batmare narrowed her eyes. So she did take them hostage. But at least they were still alive.
”That’s right!” The crazed mare continued. “I’ll bring you the Candy Colt himself! And his father as well! The big bad former mob boss, free of charge! But don’t expect me to be all give and no take! If you want them back alive, get your little batty flank over to the old Ace Chemicals building before midnight. If you won’t make it, these two will take a dip in the exact same chemical waste that fixed me! And we both know you won’t allow that, will you?” Suddenly, the video was interrupted by the laptop launching another program. A loading bar appeared on the screen that began to slowly fill up as the Joker continued to speak.
“Oh, before I forget, I installed a self-destruct program on this laptop and left a little TNT under the desk!” Batmare’s eyes widened in alarm. “If you’re still in one piece after this video ends, come see me! Later!” She finished before breaking out in psychotic laughter. Batmare jumped back and ran to the window, bursting through the glass just as the laptop detonated and the hidden TNT took the entire room with it as well.
The blast threw Batmare’s flight off course and she ended up crashing into the ground. She slowly got back up, groaning in agony from the crash and looked back up at the room she just escaped from now being engulfed by flames and smoke. Once she got herself together, she gave a quick call to Spike at the Batcave to call the fireponies to the mansion before grappling herself to the top of the mansion and staring out at the Ace Chemicals building in the distance.
“Alright, Joker!” She growled as her eyes narrowed in determination. “You want to play with me? Get ready to lose!”
The Ace Chemicals building was a perfect testament of Caramel Falcon’s fall from grace. The chemical plant has been completely deserted after the fall of his criminal empire, even the vats full of chemicals have been left there to rot without anypony doing anything about it. Once it was buzzing with activity, both legal and illegal, now only the rats and the bats sought refuge in here. But there was one bat who wasn’t there for refuge.
Batmare knew her way around the place. She had studied it very carefully when she attempted to stop the fake burglary that was meant to steal the documents connecting this place to Falcon, which would have been enough to finally put him away for good. But instead, the goons escaped with those papers and Batmare ended up accidentally creating the biggest menace that this city had ever known. The menace she was here to stop. even if it meant saving the pony she despised most.
She pushed the vent grate out of the way to crawl out of the duct that lead inside the building. Unorthodox way of traverse it may have been, but it allowed her to get in unnoticed and try to get the drop on the Joker. Seriously, who kept making these things big enough for a full grown pony to crawl through?
She glided onto the floor level of the plant and took out a flashlight to look around. There was no sign of either the Joker or the Falcons anywhere. She quietly went up to the upper floor to get a better look of the plant. She crossed the platforms over the vats of chemical waste and remembered the last time she was here. The time she failed to save a desperate pony that she pushed to crime and indirectly created her greatest nemesis. But she was done beating herself up over that. It was her responsibility to stop her then, just as it was now.
She kept looking around, but she still couldn’t find any trace of anypony. She started to think the Joker took her for a fool, but deep down she knew that wasn’t her style. She wanted to play with her and if she said she wanted her to come here, then she was here. But where? She got the answer to that question when suddenly heard the rattling of chains over her head and looked up to see a large wooden board being lowered from the ceiling towards one of the full vats of chemical. When the board reached the level of her eyes, she saw Caramel and Alabaster Falcon chained, gagged and unconscious. The lights in the building suddenly came to life as the intercom released a screech.
“Welcome, Batmare!” The Joker’s voice echoed through the building. The door to the top floor office opened and the Joker appeared in the doorway before slowly making her way down the stairs. “Nopony can say that I am not a clown of my word! As promised, there they are! The Candy Colt and his father. Now whether or not they’ll leave this place alive, is up to you.”
“I don’t think so.” Batmare replied as she began to advance on the clown. The other unicorn lit up her horn and the board began to descend towards the vat, along with the two ponies chained to it. This immediately brought Batmare to a halt.
“Now do I have your attention?” Joker asked before stopping the chains. “Good. Here’s the deal. I’m gonna give you twenty seconds. And if you don’t want Candy Colt and Candy Daddy here to take a chemical bath, here is what you’re going to do… You’re going to finish what you started. You’re going to kill me.”
“I told you before, Trixie. I am not a killer.” Batmare replied. “I’m not going to kill you.” The mare with the bleached coat sighed in disappointment.
“That is unfortunate.” She said before turning her attention to her hostages. “For them!” She reignited her horn and pulled the board down towards the chemical waste.
“NO!” Batmare jumped forward to tackle the clown, but she pulled out her boxing glove gun and knocked her back before she reached her. She looked up in horror, watching the board fall towards the vat, only stopping before an inch above the liquid.
“Last chance, Bats!” Joker tried to keep her cool, but Batmare could sense the rising anger in her tone. She’ll have to be careful from here on. “Twenty seconds, starting now! Your choice: me or them?!”
Batmare looked over at the hostages, thinking hard about the situation. They were criminals, rotten to the core. Murderers, thieves, ponynappers and who knows what else? They committed at least one of every crime in Equestria’s lawbook. Why should she care if they died? Everypony she met and/or saved used to ask that of her. Spike used to ask that of her. But the Joker was even worse. She vowed that she would never kill, but would she do it to save a life? Two lives? Including one of a child, rotten as he may be?
“Tick-tock, Bats!” Joker interrupted her thoughts. “Ten seconds left!”
Slowly and hesitantly, Batmare pulled out a batarang. Joker’s lips curled up into a grin. This was it, she finally had her. But in the blink of an eye, the bataring split into two. Batmare raised her hoof and threw them away… up at the chain winches holding the board with the Falcons on it. The projectiles stuck between the winch and the chainlinks, stopping them from moving. Joker’s smile instantly faded.
“NO!” It was her turn to cry out in shock, but before she had the time to do anything else, Batmare charged at her and tackled her to the ground. She raised a hoof to punch her, but Joker managed to grab her boxing glove gun and pushed the vigilante off of her. Batmare groaned in pain but managed to grab the glove before it retracted and broke it off before throwing it away.
Joker was not happy upon seeing the destruction of her toy, but she still had a few surprises up her sleeve. She used her magic and summoned a deck of cards. “Pick a card!” She said before sending several of them flying towards the hero. Batmare pulled up her cape in front of her to shield herself, but apart from their razor edge, she found that they were also explosives. They blew up upon impact and sent her back on the metal floor. When she managed to get up and get her cape out of her face, The Joker was nowhere to be seen.
She heard a sinister chuckle coming from somewhere in the darkness, but the echoes made it difficult to locate the source. As Batmare kept spinning in a circle in an attempt to locate the other mare, she felt her hoof contact something soft. She spun around and saw a small plush doll sitting on the floor, looking up at her. The doll let out a slow, mechanical laughing sound and Batmare’s eyes widened as she realized what was about to happen.
It was too late to escape it, however. The doll exploded and the the blast sent Batmare crashing against the railing. She was becoming disoriented at this point. She needed to cut this fight short. Though the world was hazy and her vision was rotating around, she could still make out the Joker’s silhouette come out of the darkness and stop in front of a window.
“So selfish, Bats.” She tsked. “You could have killed me when you had the chance and save the Falcons, but no! You had to hold yourself to your stupid vow of never taking a life. Was it worth it? Does it make you feel better knowing they’ll die along with you, knowing that you stayed true to your ‘no killing’ nonsense?! Is that the only thing that matters?!”
Batmare slowly got back on her hooves and reached for her belt, pulling out another batarang. Her only response to the clown’s taunting was throwing it at her opponent but she missed by a good one meter and the projectile burst through the window behind her. Joker laughed at this futile attempt.
“Too late for that, I’m afraid.” She laughed. “You had your chance and you blew it royally. Now it’s…” Whatever she was about to say, she never got the chance as the batarang came back in through the other side of the window. Joker turned to see what just happened, but it was too late. The batarang hit her in the face with enough force to knock her back and Batmare took this chance to run at the murderous clown, jumping at her and pushing her through the window.
As the two ponies began to fall towards the ground several hundred meters below, Batmare pulled out her grappling gun and fired it upwards. It wrapped itself around the neon letters of the building and stopped their fall halfway between the window and the ground. The Joker slowly recovered and when she finally realized what just happened, she laughed again.
“Sneaky, sneaky, Bats! You never cease to surprise me! Where do you get these wonderful toys?” Batmare ignored her and simply began to pull them back up with the grappling gun. Just before they reached the window they crashed through, Joker spoke again. “Here’s an opportunity of a lifetime for you! Drop me! End this between us once and for all!”
“Don’t tempt me!” Batmare groaned as she desperately tried to hold onto the clown. She tossed Joker back inside the building through the broken window before jumping after her and smacking her head against the floor, knocking her out. Once she was sure she was out cold, she finally allowed her exhaustion and pain to catch up with her and collapsed on the ground.
It was over. The Candy Colt’s reign of terror was brought to an end and the Joker was going back to where she belonged. The Long Nightmare Night is finally over.