The Batman stood in the alley, idly wondering how he had come to be here.

It was like something out of a movie. That sort of cheap indie production destined to be held over for seven months at a series of drive-ins before becoming a fixture at 3 AM on Channel 9. Yet those always held some brilliantly scary moments, albeit ones ultimately massacred by the cheapness - the five dollars more that could have made it look like something special. A grim thing destroyed by a lack of effort.

The alley was barely lit and bathed in shadows, every one of which threatened to hide some unnamable evil or danger. The streetlights had dimmed as though a mist had drifted across them, and the pavements no longer offered any reflections in their wetness. Steam rose from open pipes that protruded from the alley walls. Yowling cats slunk around overflowing garbage cans. He mused that the natural shadows and darkness were far more fearful than the gaudy thing that approached.

The sharp slash of braided leather cutting air announced its presence followed by the heavier, uglier snap of leather against flesh as well as the clink of chains. The origin was the arrangement of leather straps and buckles dangling from the coat it wore - black as midnight, stained with droplets of dried blood. Tight metal chains were wrapped in haphazard fashion around its tall, lithe body. The figure wore no gloves, and its fingers were thin, with long cracked nails, blackened from grime. The ear tips of the mask resembled thin, needlepoint horns. The mask itself had been redesigned to bristle with metal spikes over the eyes. Beneath that mask was the most distinctive feature: the rictus grin, almost too wide to be anything human. The yellow teeth filed to points. The gums inflamed and puffy.

"I AM-"

Despite being the farthest thing from a Plastic Man-style quipster, Batman was this close to saying 'The Terror That Flaps In The Night' as his response. A small bit of will kept him on script.

"You're a duplicate of me, from a parallel world. To be honest, the vampire was scarier."

The dopple seemed shaken twice over. This was not starting well for him.

"You...You are correct. Very good, Brucey. Vampire?"

To the Batman, this sick specter was something he saw out of the corner of his eye each and every day. It could only fail to impress him.

"It would have been obvious even to Damian in a blood rage. You were hoping to surprise me with that revelation and throw me off guard. As I just indicated, you aren't the first such duplicate I've encountered..."

The wannabe-nightmare pointed.

"But I will be your LAST!"

If dramatic pointing could be blocked, the dopple would have been in a broken heap as Batman stood unmoved.

"Not if you don't keep your emotions in check. Did you forget that lesson, Bruce? Also, that response was, to coin a phrase, fairly vanilla."

As he knew himself, so he knew his sworn foe. No worse sin than being boring and pedestrian.

"I AM NOT VANILLA! And I forget no lessons. I am a lesson-to you. A complete, but also a better version. I have your discipline. Your training. I have travelled the multiverse on a mission of merciful destruction and chaos, dispatched by the great God Barbatos."

Batman did not 'tsk' the one facing him. He didn't need to.

"You remember the training. How it focused you. You recall having discipline. What it once meant. There's a difference between recall and practice. Between advanced workouts and reactive muscle memory. Have you been keeping up with it?"

The dopple tried to get back on script.

"If I had the title it would be the Batman Who Laughs. And do not attempt to assault my form, Bruce. I am the ultimate fighter, the Greatest Gladiator of Gladness!"

Bruce looked the figure over the way he might have at one of his sidekicks at a bad costume party.

"From just glancing at you I can count at least ten things that could hinder you in combat. It wouldn't be a fair fight. It would be like socking a cripple. You wear heavy metal chains and tight leather. That's going to seriously hamper your movements. And you're so thin, deathly pale. Isn't your Alfred feeding you properly?"

The invite made, the Laughing Batman accepted quickly.

"I KILLED ALFRED AND ATE HIS CORPSE!"

This time, Batman did give in to his inner Eel O'Brien. His voice shifted to a decent British accent.

" 'Oh, dear, sir. I hope you didn't serve me with that awful Chardonnay. Bad year, and all wrong for human flesh. Dying is one thing, but my final service to you marred by bad wine? Unthinkable!' "

Batman saw his foe's jaw drop.

"Alfred always kept us on our toes. He would want to be remembered in good humor. But, that is a shame - for you. I can't count how many times Alfred fed me when I was sitting in front of the Bat Computer working on a problem and he would stroll in. A silver platter in tow. Delicious aromas wafting from it. French onion soup was one of my favorites. If anything happened to Alfred, I can't imagine what I'd do. I'd probably starve. Look thin. Probably look exactly like you. What have you been eating? Rats? For some reason, one of my crazier dopples liked to feed other people rats. Cockroaches maybe? Whatever rotting scraps you could find in the tomb cities of those devastated worlds you passed through?"

The Batman Who Laughs twitched in irritation. "Sometimes…" the monster admitted.

"How did it taste? Never mind. I don't want to know-and if you say chicken, we will be at war. I've have some dire survival situations, but never have I been that desperate. Let's change the subject. I can smell your body odor even from here. When was the last time you showered or bathed? Do you ever remove that tight restricting costume? The way the leather cuts into your flesh can be more dangerous than you realize. If you don't clean it and yourself regularly, you will get painful sores. You probably already have them. When was the last time you had a doctor examine you? Something to spot something that you couldn't diagnose yourself? On that topic, when was the last time you'd been to a dentist? You leave your mouth hanging open all the time like that and you're definitely going to let bacteria in and they'll multiply. I've been working the streets and I'm very familiar with the signs of what is known as 'meth mouth'. In fact I can recommend several effective remedies- "

The sickly man who thought he'd win just by showing up was now shaking with blind fury.

"THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME!" the dupe screamed. "This. IS. All. About. YOU!"

"Then why have you let me dominate the conversation? Are you that weak? Is that why you allowed yourself to be infected by Joker toxin and let yourself be turned into a pathetic shadow of him? A Joker clone wearing a Batman costume and who still thinks he can be nearly as effective as he once was? Where did the routine go? Oh, and you're not even my first Jokerized Batman. Now, he was effective. Once had to take down all of Arkham by him-"

"I am effective! I am Arkham incarnate! I can move and strike better than-"

Batman sliced a dismissive hand through the air in front of himself.

"Not without constant training. Diligent upkeep. And the support of all those around you! I spend two hours in the gym every morning exercising my body. I spend another hour in the library or lab exercising my mind. Alfred brings me breakfast. If you're anything like me, you probably had a routine just like it. But you obviously haven't been keeping up. You fell off the horse long ago, and the horse has run off and you can't find it again. You would have people around you that would have helped you stay on target, but you just had to kill them on a psychotic whim-I'm assuming. We do tend to push people away in some manner. Do you miss Alfred's delicious cooking now? The food that sustained you? The wit that kept you sharp?"

"I didn't need them! I don't need anyone! I am the Batman. I am YOU distilled down its CORE! The best traits, the fighting skills, the preparation, the brilliance - all of it taken to the next level of our evolution!"

"Does that next level involve dressing up in fetish gear and wearing a spiked dog collar for a mask? Let me ask you one simple question: Can you even see out of that spiked dog collar around your face?"

"I...I…"

"It is a dog collar, right? You simply took a common spiked dog collar and secured it to your face because...why? You thought it would intimidate someone? I'm sure it would scare little children on Halloween, but for anyone over the age of twelve it just looks like a dog collar."

"I ECHOLOCATE LIKE A BAT! I DON'T NEED TO SEE!"

"Overcompensation. I thought so. But compensation is all it is. You've denied yourself a vital data-stream for limited benefit. But it serves another purpose. I think you wear the blindfold because you're ashamed. You don't want to see yourself in the mirror and see Bruce staring back at you. The mask wasn't enough. The mask was the Batman's, so you needed to change it."

Batman shouted out the Clown-Bat's predictable next words at the same time as he did.

"Bruce is dead!"

" 'Bruce is dead!' "

Now, Batman did something that was known to scare the crap out of Harley Quinn. He smiled.

"I've often thought that. Sometimes, I even told myself he really died that one night in this alley. But the kid was tough. No, Bruce lives. He's a survivor. He survived this place and he lived each day in the hope that there would be a future where no other little boy had to watch his parent gunned down in the gutter. What do you live for, Laughable Bats? I imagine it's exactly what the Joker wanted. You want the tired cliche of spilled blood and chaos. You want smashed bodies and bad puns. You want card tricks and holocausts. But the thing is, even with the training and experience of the Bat, you can't substitute the dream of that little boy who became a man. You can't drown it in blood. I know the Joker, and you will always be just a pathetic imitation of him. Also, those children you drag along? He doesn't do sidekicks, and that's what they are. Neither Bruce nor Jack. You're a punch bowl that's been spiked so often, no one can taste the punch or the booze anymore."

"Stop it! Stop it!"

No, he would not stop. This dopple had dared try to overwhelm him in Batman's birthplace. He had dared try and be a nightmare in the place his nightmares derived from. This required punishment.

"Why? Am I speaking too loud? I'm sorry. Your ears must be hypersensitive if they are your primary means of gaining information about the world. You think you're the next level? You aren't even halfway to Robin when he completed his training and was ready for the streets. Believe me, I've read the Joker's files. I know how his mind and his psychosis works. If you are anything like that, then you are probably neglecting yourself just as he did. You must be starving yourself for long periods because in your madness you don't notice the hunger. You don't even look like you have the strength to stand. Your stance is all wobbly and you have a nervous quiver. It must be pure will and nervous anxiety keeping you on your feet. You let your mind go too far down the Joker's rabbit hole. You suffer from night terrors as well as possibly bedwetting, keeping you from receiving proper rest and revitalizing your mind and body, which is an essential in our line of work. Your short-term memory is probably fading as you become further and further detached from reality from the lack of sleep. I'll bet you can't focus on reading a single chapter in a training manual even if you could see it. You're too preoccupied with your own psychotic whims that you can't focus on what lies directly in front of you. Your attention falters unless it has something to do with your own ego or a scene of violence. The brain is a muscle, and if you don't exercise it, it falters. From the clues you've hinted to me, you've eliminated your entire support structure."

"But I have the Joker's madness! His insight combined with your intellect. The unbeatable combination!"

"The Joker was a sick man. More than he realized. Sick in mind, but also sick in body. I've seen the medical records from his physicals he received every time he was admitted to Arkham. X-rays of his brain and the diagnosis: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease caused by exposure to industrial chemicals. Either that, or he simply had a family history of it. Symptoms include problems with muscle coordination, personality changes including impaired memory, judgment, and thinking, insomnia, depression, or unusual sensations, as well as impaired vision. You will eventually lose the ability to move and speak, and become comatose. You are living under a death sentence just like he did. That 'unbeatable intellect' you boasted of is declining day by day. I'd say you have possibly another six months before you go totally blind and enter a coma where you will then perish without medical attention. No wonder you wear the blindfold. You won't be needing those eyes soon. The Joker was lucky; he lived with it for years and remained somewhat functional. But then he had his stays at Arkham where he received the best medical care provided by generous grants of the Wayne Foundation. You have no such thing. You're on your own"

The dopple was in the oddest position possible, a frozen frenzy.

"I have Barbatos protecting me! He would not let me die to some mundane illness! The Multiverse will fall by our hand, Bruce! Barbatos will reign! I have allies, other Yous from different doomed worlds. They've all killed their Leagues. We will do the same here! Do you know how many Justice Leagues we've ground to dust?"

"Not if Barbatos puts his faith on pathetic, ineffective knockoffs like yourself. If he has, then he's already lost. As to the Leagues? My guess is, you took them by complete surprise. That won't work here. As much as I ride Superman, that brain is in fact a steel trap, and he learns like a star afire. And Kal is the LEAST intellectual of my friends."

"My allies...my Dark Knights will-"

"-will abandon you at the first opportunity." Batman interrupted. "You're far too insane to be allowed to be in charge, even if they're all half as evil and insane as you they'll realize that immediately. If they're all me, then they've all fought the Joker at one time or another. And you're too similar to the Joker to be trusted. That's the very first lesson you get when you put on the mask."

The Laughing Batman tried to regain his footing.

"Heh! You think you're clever. You think you can stop me with your words? I have been imbued with certain authority. Special powers."

Batman once more showed his contempt, by turning his back on his enemy.

"Save it. If you could do anything of the sort, you would have already. I never monologued with an opponent if I could just take him out, quickly, effectively. Only times I was guilty of that was if I needed to buy time or bluff. See I know all about you as well. I know your situation, and I have seen you in the mirror."

"Barbatos will-"

Batman shook his head.

"Barbatos, whoever he is, has clearly abandoned you. He's also not my first evil deity. If you need the blessings of a dark god - assuming he really is one, and not just an opportunistic spirit - instead of relying on yourself and your trusted allies then you're already an utter disgrace to the Bat's legacy. I taught all my Robins that important lesson. What do you teach yours? I'll wager it's silly party tricks and how to apply lipstick and face paint."

It was then that the Batman Who Laughs removed his last remaining trump card from a holster on his utility belt.

"See this, Brucie?" he snickered. "It's the gun that killed your parents. I take it everywhere as a reminder. They died because they lived by ethical codes. That was the lesson in this alley. We'll come full circle. Now we can complete the loop and close the circle."

"That? That gun right there? What is it to me? It's just a piece of interlocking metal parts used to propel another piece of metal. I confiscate hundreds of them from criminals every year. The good cops of Gotham PD use them in their field of work. If you expected a visceral reaction and me recoiling in fear, you're not getting it. Besides, that isn't the gun that killed my parents. It's the one that killed yours. And now you're pointing it at version of yourself in a version of Crime Alley. I think Freud might have something to say about your situation. Just fire the damn thing if it makes you feel better."

In hiss of fury, the Batman Who Laughs fired off six shots in the direction of Batman's voice. Each and every bullet missed.

"That's why eyesight is important. Echolocation can only carry you so far."

The Batman Who Laughs pulled back and reared up his oversized cape.

"YOU'RE THE SETUP! I'M THE PUNCHLINE! I AM CHAOS! I AM BRUTALITY! I AM THE DARKNESS! I AM THE..."

To his absolute shame and horror, the Batman Who Laughs realized something. The Batman was now no longer in sight, or anywhere nearby.

"NO! YOU CAN'T DO THAT TO MEEEEEE!"

It was then that he felt it, felt the favor and the blessing of Barbatos leave him. He had never felt so diminished, like a man made of leaves that the slightest breeze could disperse.

"Robins!" he called out. "Attend to me. Attend to Daddy!"

But unbeknownst to the Laughable Bats, his Robins lay unconscious. Two of them had tranquilizers in their necks. One had been karate-chopped into the same state as the others. One had become hopelessly entangled in its chains and couldn't even stand up.

(Which was fortunate as the Robin in question was particularly hungry; having been neglected by its keeper for days. Had it been free, it was quite likely that the Robin would very much like to feed upon the flesh of said keeper.)

"Bryce? Dawnbreaker? Devastator? Anyone? Come here!" he called their names and titles. But not one of them came to his aid. If they had, they would have looked upon him with disgust at his weakness. Such was the arrogance and contempt that came with power towards the powerless.

"Alfred? Dick? Clark? Diana? Jordan? J'ohn?" His voice changed, lost its edge of madness, came to resemble the Bruce of old. A moment of clarity. A second of sanity and remorse. "I'm sorry… Please forgive me..."

And so the Bruce Wayne of Earth -22 kneeled in the nightmare of Crime Alley, and began to laugh. But this was not the joyous triumphant laughter like the Joker he imitated, but the wracking sobs of a broken soul beyond hope, beyond redeeming.

Special thanks goes to Gojirob for additional dialogue.