And here it is, at long last. The end!

Thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited, and joined us on this 46-chapter journey.

Given the present company, the stench, and the stubby hyena tail that kept whacking the back of his head, Crane didn't think he'd ever be comfortable enough to sleep. But the stress of the day, the lack of sleep, the gentle rocking of the van (Nigma was such a perfectionist driver even the mangled streets of the Gotham city outskirts couldn't faze him) and the subtle fragrances wafting from Ivy overcame even Bud's enthusiastic wagging. Crane slumped down, his head coming to rest on Ivy's shoulder.

"Ah, Professor Crane's so cute when he's sleepin'," Harley cooed.

Nigma looked in the rear view mirror and snorted. "If you've never been fortunate enough to encounter kittens, puppies, naked mole rats, or radioactive mutants."

Out of curiosity, White looked back too. "I wouldn't want that sleeping on me."

Ivy glared at the driver and shotgun passenger. "Why don't you both worry about keeping your eyes on the road?"

"Or let me sit up there instead!" Harley peeped.

"See this seat? This is mine. You see that newspaper from three years ago? That's your seat," White said.

Harley continued to pout, and White continued to defend his territory like Heisenberg. That got old quickly for Nigma, who wished all his passengers would, bare minimum, drop into a snoring sleep like Crane. He needed to find some way to rid himself of these people, and quickly.

"So!" Nigma said loudly. "Where is this taxi service taking you?"

White seemed to be the only one who had a destination in mind. He ignored Harley long enough to give Nigma an address. An upscale address that no doubt cost dozens of acts of corruption, degradation, fraud, and the occasional kidnapping and murder.

Address delivered, White went back to basking in the glory of the front seat, much to Harley's chagrin. She, like an evil, evil child on a plane, began to kick at the seat in front of her. If she couldn't have that seat, she'd make sure White payed for his comfort.

Nigma had never had to drive a carload of children to an amusement park, but he supposed it would probably be less horrible than this. Because children, despite being noisy, noisome little animals, weren't allowed to have hyenas or filed teeth. And children probably listened to angry drivers at least once in a while.

Unable to control his passengers, Nigma's only option was to get rid of White as soon as possible, so Harley could have the front seat and order could be restored. Nigma stepped on the gas and the aged van channeled the Little Engine that Could and huffed, puffed, and managed to trundle a little faster.

"Does this crap-heap have a radio?" White asked.

"No," Nigma said hastily. Even if the van did have a working sound system, there was no way there would be any peace regarding the station. Not to mention the sudden burst of noise would likely wake Crane, who would then have his own opinion to throw into the mess.

White shrugged. "Nothing worth listening to nowadays anyway."

Harley coughed a cough that sounded suspiciously like "hipster".

Damn it, looked like the row over music was going to happen despite his best efforts. And, like an argument on the Internet, it spiraled into petty squabbling within a few words. Harley proclaimed that Disney soundtracks alone were worthy of anyone's undying love, and White said if he ever heard a song from Frozen again in his life, he'd pay ten thousand dollars to anyone who'd put a bullet in the brain of the movie's director, voice actors, or composers. This brought Harley to tears and Bud and Lou growling to her rescue.

"Don't make me pull this van over!" Nigma finally exclaimed.

"Do it, Eddie! Pull over so Bud an' Lou can eat him!" Harley replied.

White flashed his teeth. "I'll get in a good bite or two first."

"We are not having a death match between Jaws and Ed and Banzai," Nigma said.

The thought of her hyenas being gnawed by White's teeth was finally enough to scare Harley into sullen silence. She grabbed Bud and Lou and pulled them close. Nestled between their large bodies, Harley glared silent daggers into the front seat.

Now that it didn't sound like a madhouse right next to a zoo, Nigma was able to drive in peace. Not that he particularly needed to concentrate. He was still a ways from Gotham, and at this hour, even in the city proper, traffic would be relatively light outside of the entertainment district. And it wasn't likely that any of Nigma's passengers would suddenly get the urge to go clubbing or eat lobster.

As the night passed outside, the merciful silence inside the van eventually began to lure the occupants to sleep. Harley, cuddled up in her hyena sandwich, was the first to nod off. Bud and Lou followed her momentarily. Ivy might have been able to drift off, too, if the hyenas' snoring didn't sound like a diesel engine. She was forced to stay awake, and busied herself stroking Crane's hair.

The city of Gotham encroached on the van before much longer. Nigma was well-versed in most corners of Gotham, and he navigated the streets with ease. As they approached White's address, the Shark removed his feet from the dashboard and prepared to disembark as soon as possible from the S.S. Smelly Van.

In this neighborhood, the van stuck out like a boil on a Russian model's face. The only consolation was that most of the residents of this part of town came by their fortunes by, at best, quasi-legal means. They were unlikely to call the cops, even if they took notice of the van and its occupants.

Nigma pulled the van to the curb.

"Home sweet home," White said, looking out the window. He opened the door and hopped onto the sidewalk. He took a leisurely stroll up to the front door of the apartment building. As though on cue, a hulking doorman who looked like his mother had been a rhinoceros stepped out to greet him.

Nigma didn't wait around to make sure White got up to his penthouse alright. He sped away as quickly as the van would allow. Unfortunately, zero to 60 in roughly as many minutes didn't allow for a very graceful exit.

As though she'd been hibernating specifically until the front seat was liberated for her, Harley woke up a few minutes after White was gone. She wiggled out of her hyena sandwich and scrambled to the seat.

"Hiya, Eddie! I bet you're a lot happier with me up here, right? I got all my fingers!" Harley wiggled both hands to prove it.

"That's nice," Nigma said absently. "You wouldn't happen to, I don't know, have some filthy clown-themed hovel I can drop you off at, do you?"

"Sorry, Eddie, Mr. J burned down our last house. And blew up the one before that. And got the one before that infested with bed bugs. Boy, we were so itchy!"

Nigma grimaced at the thought of bed bugs. "You don't have anywhere to stay?"

Harley beamed. "Ah, Eddie, are you invitin' us to come stay with you?"

Nigma almost crashed the van. He had just enough tact and fear of Harley sending her hyenas after him to avoid screaming "NO!" at the top of his lungs.

Thinking fast, Nigma said, "My building doesn't allow pets." Since he was the only tenant and the de facto owner, it wasn't even really a lie.

"That's so lame!" Harley pouted. She grabbed Bud's face and smooshed it. "Who wouldn't want to let my Babies in?"

Every sane human being on the planet, plus a decent portion of the insane ones, Nigma thought. On the outside, he only said, "Sorry."

Harley continued to pout. "What if we smuggled them in?"

"There are cameras."

"What if we covered the cameras?"

"Harley, we are not sabotaging my security system."

"Okay..."

Harley rested her chin in her hands.

"What if-"

Harley interrupted Nigma with a shriek. "Wait, wait! I know where we can go! It's gonna be awesome!"

Nigma, still experiencing ringing in his ears from Harley's shout, only asked, "So where is this purported 'awesome'?"

"Uh, I don't remember the exact address. Don't make that face yet, Eddie, 'cause I totally remember how to get there. Mostly."

Nigma took both hands off the wheel to face-palm. Harley reached over to steer while the proper driver expressed his suffering.

Realizing who was now in control of the van, Nigma lowered his hands and reclaimed the wheel. Harley returned to her position as co-pilot.

"I'm pretty sure it's this street. Oh, wait, no, there was definitely not an animal hospital on the street. I would have remembered that, 'cause I'm always lookin' for a good vet in case Lou eats peanuts and starts barfin' again."

"You could have stopped after the phrase 'animal hospital on the street'. Really," Nigma said.

"But don't you wanna hear about it? The peanuts and the barfin'?"

"No, and dear God, no."

"Okay, but it's a funny story... Ooh, try this street! I remember that restaurant! But it used to be called 'Dumpling Dragon' and was Chinese and..."

"It's not the same restaurant, is it?" Nigma asked.

"...no..."

Nigma sighed. "Are you sure it was in Gotham and not, I don't know, New Jersey?"

"I'm sure of that, Eddie. And I'm sure there was-"

"I know Dumpling Dragon," Crane muttered. "It's real." He then closed his eyes and fell promptly back to sleep.

"Ivy, can you slap him awake?" Nigma asked.

Slapping was a little too rough for someone who'd been recently tortured, so Ivy flicked Crane's nose until he snorted and woke up. He realized he was slumped against Ivy's shoulder, and hastily straightened.

"Where are we?" Crane asked.

"Looking for a phantasm of a restaurant," Nigma replied.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The Dumpling Dragon. You said it was real, and you knew where it was."

"When?"

"Two minutes ago."

"I don't remember."

"That's not really the issue. The issue is, do you know where this restaurant is, specifically in conjunction to our current location?"

"Find me a street sign and I'll tell you."

Nigma did just that. Crane examined the intersection's address and then nodded. "We're not terribly off-course. Though who decided on Chinese? Don't we have more pressing matters?"

"Well, I've been driving for ages and got a sudden craving for moo goo gai pan and- No, I'm not being serious. Put away your death-glare. Harley apparently has a safe house in mind, but can't remember where she left it."

Crane couldn't say he was surprised.

"But I can totally find it when we find Dumpling Dragon," Harley interjected hastily.

Mercifully, Crane's memory was anything but a sieve, and with his detailed directions, within twenty minutes the van was parked outside the restaurant. Which, to Harley's disappointment, was closed for the night. It took Ivy reminding her that it would reopen in the morning to snap Harley out of her funk.

"This time, one hundred percent for sure, I know where to go," Harley reported.

Or eighty percent.

Or fifty percent.

"Eddie, turn around, turn around! It's down there!" Harley shrieked. Nigma pulled the van into a U-turn that nearly tipped it on its side. The tires screeched, everyone in the back of the van was squashed against the side, and Crane, of course, ended up underneath a hyena.

"For the love of the New York Times Sunday Crossword, tell me this looks familiar!" Nigma cried.

Harley peered out the windshield. "Sure does, Eddie! We're almost there. We just gotta go down here, and find the pawn shop, and then keep drivin' until we see the right building. It's really easy to recognize. I promise."

"It better be," Nigma muttered under his breath.

Unlike every other direction Harley had given, this set wasn't off the mark. Harley was certainly no Thomas Thomas, but she did come through, to a small degree, at the very end of a hectic, nerve-grinding journey.

As they passed the pawn shop, Nigma found it looked decidedly more Pulp Fiction pawn shop than Pawn Stars pawn shop. If he ever needed to unload stolen goods, he'd find somewhere else to do it, lest he end up gagged in the basement and given terribly unfair prices.

"See the right building yet?" Nigma asked as the craptacular pawn shop and its gaudy neon sign faded into the distance.

"Nope, nope, not it, hey, where do you think that lady got her shirt? I really like it! Eddie, go back so I can ask her."

"I'm not soliciting a prostitute so you can get fashion advice!"

"But it's nice!"

"No! Look for the building, not for hooker couture!"

Harley crossed her arms. "Fine."

The trip continued in silence until Nigma began to worry Harley had either forgotten what the building looked like, or had decided to be a brat and give him the silent treatment over the shirt. He was about to ask her when she suddenly thrust a finger forward, touching the windshield, and screamed, "That's it, Eddie! Pull over, pull over!"

"I think he heard you the first time," Ivy said.

"I just wanted to make sure. 'Cause that is definitely it," Harley replied.

Harley had been able to give Nigma ample warning, and nobody was crushed by hyenas this time as Nigma made the turn. Instead of coming to a complete stop directly in front of the building, Nigma rolled the van past, scoping out the place. He could only say he was happy he didn't have to stay here, and not just because of the housemates. The building looked like it had been abandoned for years, and whatever function it had once held had been obliterated by age and wear.

Ivy had crept from the back of the van and had joined Nigma in casing the joint. She, like the Riddler, didn't like what she saw. The building was almost guaranteed to be infested with rats, mold, and possibly junkies, so long as the floor was stable enough to support them in their drugged stupors. Given that, there was no good reason to have driven all the way out here. Crack dens were not exactly rare birds in Gotham.

Blind to her compatriots' reluctance, Harley bounced in her seat. She looked like a kid arriving at Disney World, not a grown woman arriving at a derelict eyesore.

"Here we are, kids, have fun at summer camp," Nigma said as he finally brought the van to a full and complete stop.

"I don't think I want to go," Ivy said.

"Put me up in a motel," Crane added. "Or a homeless shelter. Or under a bridge. I'd be less likely to contract lice or fungus."

"Don't be like that! It's totally great inside I promise," Harley said.

"Sure it is!" Nigma beamed. "There probably aren't any hepatitis infected syringes at all."

Harley reached back and grabbed Ivy's arm. "Come on, Red, I'll show you."

Forgetting Crane had recently been sliced up like a piece of sushi in Masaharu Morimoto's kitchen, Harley tried to grab him, too. He scuttled out of reach.

"I can manage under my own power, thank you, child," Crane said.

Bud and Lou got on the train and followed the trio out of the van. Bud paused to give the fragrant garbage a final sniff, and then squeezed by the two front seats and hopped onto the sidewalk.

As soon as all tails and paws were clear, Nigma reached across the passenger seat and pulled the door shut. He considered, in the moment before he peeled out, giving everyone the farewell middle finger, but decided that wasn't mature.

So he gave them two middle fingers and drove with his elbows. Nigma was truly a man of many talents.

Harley somehow missed the one-finger solutes, and waved to the speeding van like its driver hadn't tried his best to insult all his former passengers.

"Eddie must be goin' to meet his secret girlfriend," Harley said, giggling.

"The only way he could keep a woman would be to lock her in one of his death mazes," Crane muttered. Ivy nodded in agreement. Nigma's personality was repellent to everyone.

"Wherever he's goin', I bet it ain't gonna be as good as this," Harley said.

Crane and Ivy gave the building another dubious look. Harley strolled up to the front door and banged three times on it.

"Yoohoo, anybody home?" Harley called.

"Who do you expect to be here?" Crane asked.

"It's a surprise," Harley replied. She tried the triple knock again. "You got visitors!"

There was the scraping of several deadbolts being drawn back, and then the door swung open. A short man in an over-sized bathrobe that dragged the ground stood in the frame. He blinked at his visitors.

"Hiya, Jervis!"

Jervis broke into a frighteningly wide grin. "Harley! Frabjous day!"

"I brought some friends. You don't mind, do you?"

"It's very easy to take more than nothing," Jervis replied.

"Uh, I'm pretty sure that means he's happy to see us all," Harley reported to Crane and Ivy. Both of whom had stepped back considerably, and looked ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

Jervis nodded and held up an arm, beckoning his guests forward. Harley squealed and ran in, Bud and Lou following at her heels. Jervis pet the hyenas as they trotted by.

"I don't want to go in there," Crane said.

Ivy sighed. "Neither do I, but we can't really do anything tonight."

Sensing Crane and Ivy's reluctance, Jervis said, "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

Harley popped her head out the door. "Yeah, come on!"

"Do you swear there will be no mind control involved?' Crane asked.

Jervis stared at him with an uncomprehending smile.

"For both our sake, I will interpret that as a yes."

Crane and Ivy tiptoed past Jervis and entered his insane, rainbow wonderland lair. Despite the psychedelic, more-than-slightly-menacing collection of Alice, playing card, and Cheshire Cat memorabilia Jervis had accrued, Crane could find one bright point to cling to.

It felt good, for once, to be the mooch.

And a hot cup of tea was exactly what Crane needed just then.

The End!

Wow, the longest thing I ever wrote (remember when I said this would be shorter than the original?!) is finally over. Except for, of course, the references aplenty!

In Breaking Bad, Walter White's alter ego Heisenberg was fiercely protective of his meth territory.

The Little Engine That Could is a positive-thinking train engine from a kid's story of the same name.

Ed and Banzai were two hyenas from The Lion King.

Thomas Thomas is a character on Doctor Who who is very good with directions.

The pawn shop in Pulp Fiction featured a sex dungeon! The pawn shop in Pawn Stars regularly gets art, antiques, and no gimps.

Masaharu Morimoto is a chef on Iron Chef who has amazing knife skills.

Jervis' lines come from the works of Lewis Carroll.