Chapter 1: Welcome to Gotham City

So I wrote this story like 3-4 years ago and then deleted it. So some readers may recognize names (though I've decided that I'm going to take the original story in a whole new direction)

I own nothing but my own characters.

Large jets and passenger planes moved through the bright blue skies of Gotham City. People busied themselves with their own tasks and jobs. The Gotham citizens went about their day trying to make a living in one of the most crime infested cities in the United States. No matter how many mad men were put behind bars, there was always another to take the lead of the pack of mad dogs. That's the thought that made its way out of the darkness and into the light of Bruce Wayne's mind as he looked down at the newspaper that sat in his lap.

A black and white photograph of a woman was printed in the middle of the page. She was first page news, though the Joker headline beat her to the top.

"So Gordon asked in for re-enforcements on this one," Bruce asked as he looked at the woman's picture and the headline "NEW DETECTIVE TO LEAD JOKER CASE" glared back at him in an attempt to shame him for not capturing the murderous clown. He heard a chuckle escape from his trustworthy butler and caretaker. He looked up at Alfred who was driving him to his building in downtown Gotham.

"What," Bruce asked as a small grin pulled at the corners of his lips. The newspaper rumpled and crackled against his legs as the car moved over covered pot holes in the road.

"I was just thinking, Master Wayne," Alfred answered with a mischievous smile on his face, "about what you would do if a girl beat you to the Joker? I can just hear the criminals in this town. They'd never let the Batman live it down that a detective won where Batman lost."

"It doesn't really matter to me," Bruce answered as he casually glanced down at the woman's picture, "if this," he peered through the article to find her name, "if this Detective Bagheera Lewis gets to him first. As long as he is captured by someone and locked away so the madness and bloodshed can end. And for the criminals," he chuckled and shrugged his shoulders, "well I can just knock them around a bit."

Alfred and Bruce shared a short lived laugh at Bruce's honest answer. There hadn't been much laughter between the two since the Joker had entered Gotham City from seemingly thin air. He was like a ghost that appeared and refused to leave. He had a tight grip on the city. The Gotham newspapers had dubbed him "The Clown Prince of Crime" and had issued out theories on the Joker's identity belonged to. The Joker was given the same treatment as the Batman. Theories had been sent in from all kinds of people, from nurses at Arkham to decorated police officers. There simply was no answer as to who he was and where he came from, and that little fact caused more fear to ripple through the city.

"Did you read the article," Alfred asked as he pulled to a stop at a red light.

"Scanned through it," he answered simply as he pushed the newspaper away from him. He looked out the car window and looked up to the city that his father had helped bring into modernity. Large towers and bridges looked down at him as the car was pulled into motion once again.

"She was sent here," Alfred informed him, "as a favor to Gordon from Baltimore. Ms. Lewis has led the front on many large cases down there. She pulled in some big fish apparently."

"It said she's shot and killed five people," Bruce said as he allowed his eyes to move over to the newspaper. He looked at the woman's photo. It was a plain photo of her during a perp walk. Her ling fingers wrapped tightly around the perp's arm and her long, dark hair had been pulled up in a simple pony tail. She wasn't beautiful, but she wasn't ugly either from the photograph. She looked hardened from her work, but yet there was something about her in the photograph that caught his interest.

Alfred smiled and looked through the rearview mirror and replied, "Maybe you should introduce yourself. The paper said that she would be arriving in Gotham by the end of this week," he smiled as he watched Bruce look up at him with a small glint of interest in his eyes, "It's Friday, Master Wayne."

"I know what day it is Alfred," Bruce answered with his own smile as the car pulled into the parking garage of Wayne Tower.

...

Bagheera Lewis looked around her small apartment that the Gotham City Police Department had procured for her in advancement of her coming to their scandalous and corrupt city. The walls weary drab and painted a light brown. The floor was brown indoor/outdoor carpet that the landlord had put in to save on cleaning costs once a renter had moved on to a different apartment building or a different town. There was a couch and a bed ready for her, a table and a working kitchen, and even a television had been placed in front of the couch in her new living room. The apartment was small, but it was habitable. To her eyes, she could not see any signs of rats or cockroaches which was a relief to her. The apartment seemed fitting. She was single, but her life revolved around her work. Her vivid blue eyes were her weapon. The men from Baltimore had given her the nickname "Baby Blue Eyes" and "that sharp eyed shooter" since she had been the detective with the most deaths under her belt. She was lucky in Baltimore. Unlike some female law enforcement officers, she had been mostly spared the sexism that still existed within the law enforcement field. She had only been hassled by criminals and by higher ups when a case ended in some kind of bloody incident. For the most part, she had been lucky in her line of work.

She took in a deep breath. Her new life was beginning in Gotham City and she had been gifted one of the toughest cases that she had ever been given. She had seen reports on the Joker from her residency in Baltimore, but she had never dreamed that she would be the leading lady in capturing him. The commissioner, at the request of Jim Gordon, had called down to her offices and had asked if they could spare someone good, someone that knew how to bring in violent criminals. She was the lucky one to be picked. She had never wanted to come back to Gotham after she had escaped its suffocating, loveless grip, but here she was in an apartment just outside of the Narrows of Gotham City.

"Why so serious," the memory of the first time she had heard that clown's voice echoed in her mind. She had been sitting in her living room alone, eating Chinese takeout, when the news interrupted a re-run of SVU. The Joker had entered her life from the first time that she had seen him on the news.

A honk came from outside her apartment. She looked out the window from the second level of the apartment complex and smiled as she spied a dirtied yellow cab just below her. Her cell phone rang and she quickly picked it up and answered with a happy voice.

"Ms. Lewis," the man, the cab driver, on the other end of the line asked in a fatherly tone, "You called for a cab?"

"Yes," she answered, her voice slightly laced with a Southern accent from many years in Baltimore, as she waved out the window, "I'll be right down."

Bagheera hurried to grab what she needed for her meeting with Jim Gordon. She made sure everything in her apartment was secured and locked tight. Years of living on her own had hardened her to the truth of living near impoverished areas. Nothing was safe in a ghetto.

She entered the cab, ready to start her day as the new lead detective over the Joker case. She gave the cab driver a polite smile as the cabbie pulled her away from her new home.

They rode in silence for most of the cab ride. The sound of the busy freeway was white noise inside the vehicle that the two shared. Bagheera's blue eyes looked up at the approaching towers that zoomed high into the skyline of Gotham. She felt like a small ant as the moved deeper into the city.

"You that new detective they've been talkin' about in the papers," the cab driver asked her as he looked into the rear view mirror to observe her. He watched as her pony tail shook slightly as she turned from the window to look at him. He was an older, burly man, early fifties with greying hair at the edges of his auburn hair. He wore clothes bought from a dollar store that had small bleach stains that would never leave the cloth of the shirt he wore.

"I wasn't aware that I had made the news," Bagheera answered with a kind smile.

"Your picture is all over the place," he answered with a smile, "They said you have killed five people."

"What," Bagheera asked with a small smile of disbelief, "That's not even close to being true."

"That's what the news is sayin'," he informed her.

"Don't believe everything you read," she said with a simple shake of her hair, her ponytail moved with her movements, "I've shot four people. I've only killed one man," she could see the curiosity sparkling in the taxi driver's green eyes as she explained her story, "He was tweaking on some synthetic. He had jumped from a three story building when my partner cornered him in his apartment, he broke and arm and his foot was dislocated after the jump. I met him on the ground and," she paused as the memory crossed her mind, "he was holding a woman as hostage at gunpoint. It was like," she shook her head, "it was like he was immortal, blood was everywhere, he was a raging wild man from those drugs. He tried to kill her, but I was lucky and beat him to the punch," Bagheera rolled her eyes, "It got my ass into a lot of trouble."

"That's why you got sent here," the cab driver asked with a smile as he took in her annoyed expression.

"I was sent here," she answered, though her eyes seemed to deaden at her answer as if she did not entirely believe her own answer, "because I'm good at what I do."

"Well," he said simply as he turned onto Gotham's Main Street, "My daughter is excited for you to be here."

Bagheera's head cocked to the side in interest, "And why is that?"

"She wants a woman to stop him…the Joker," he said, "Her momma," he paused, Bagheera watched as a sudden sadness came over the large man, "May God rest her soul, she was killed by the Joker."

Bagheera straightened in her seat at the man's admission.

"What was her name," she asked simply.

"Claudia," he answered, "Claudia Marie Davies."

"That's a pretty name," Bagheera said with a warm smile as she allowed her blue eyes to me his green eyes in the mirror.

"She went out to get some milk or eggs," he answered, his eyes rolled, "She was making corn bread, she wanted to make it like my momma did when I was growing up. She had to stop at the bank first and well…"

He blew her up. Her mind pictured the explosion. She could see the people weeping as the deranged clown with the war paint laughed at the chaos that he was creating.

"I'm going to catch him," Bagheera reassured him just as he pulled the cab in front of the police station.

"Detective Lewis," he stated before she pulled herself out of the back seat, "Thank you for coming here."

"What's your name," she asked as she looked from the large police station back to her cab driver. Her pale blue eyes betrayed no emotion as she awaited his answer. Her facial expressions were blank as she watched him.

"Martin Davies."

"Well, Mr. Davies," she gave him a polite smile, "I promise your wife's murderer won't be free for much longer."

Martin Davies smiled at Bagheera and thanked her as she pulled herself out of his cab and paid for the ride with what little money she had left on her from her trip. The cool Gotham wind blew around her as she walked to the high steps that led to the police station. Wayne Tower looked down on her as she made her way to her destiny.

A sudden jolt moved through her body and she felt someone's presence close beside her. Someone's hand touched her shoulder as she steadied herself from falling backwards down the steps. Bagheera looked up to see a tall, thin man with dark hair and handsome features looking down at her. She cleared her throat as he was apologizing for being so clumsy.

"I was so caught up in myself that I," he stopped as he looked her over, "that I wasn't paying attention."

Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, stood in front of the new detective that was to bring down a new threat in Gotham. He couldn't help but take her in. She had the bluest eyes. He had only seen blue eyes like hers on one other person in Gotham and he certainly did not want to think about that character as he looked her over.

"Don't worry about it," Bagheera answered as she continued up the stairs, leaving this handsome stranger behind.

"Hey you're that new detective, right? Helping to catch that clown? What do they call him" Bruce asked, feigning ignorance. He had been waiting for her to show up at the station so he could assess her.

"The Joker," she answered in slight annoyance, "Let me guess I was on TV," she asked as she turned to look him over. Something in her brain snapped and she looked over to Wayne Tower and back to the man in front of her that stood tall in a very expensive business suit. She could tell that he even had an expensive hair cut to complete the look and shiny shoes that she knew she would be able to see herself in if she tried to look. Bruce Wayne was standing in front of her with a large smile, and about to cause her to be late for her first day.

"Can't help but not remember a pretty face," Bruce smiled as he backed away from her, his hands slapped together as he moved, "Well I better get back to the tower," he said smugly as he pointed to Wayne Tower in the distance, "and I wouldn't want you to be late for your first day Detective Lewis."

"Thanks," she answered quickly and turned from the billionaire playboy. She rolled her eyes at the encounter. It seemed odd and out of place to her that Gotham's billionaire playboy would go out of his way to meet her. She looked to the skyline and smiled up at Wayne Tower that loomed over the city like a watchful parent.

"Detective Lewis," a voice questioned from the large double doors of the police department.

Bagheera turned away from Wayne Tower and looked over to the small man that was calling her name. He was waving her towards him and she obliged.

"We've been waiting for you," the small, pudgy man informed her, "Gordon would like to brief you on your assignment."

...

The room was mostly silent. The rustles of people from the streets echoed softly throughout the room where the Joker sat alone in front of the old television set. Rabbit ears covered in aluminum foil allowed the clown to see the video of the woman clearly. Her face was down, hiding from the camera, as she pulled her captured criminal to the jail house. He chuckled as the talking head on the TV screen talked about how the detective had shot down five criminals.

"Bagheera Lewis," the Joker announced and allowed his tongue to click against his teeth as if he was tasting her name in his mouth, "What a weird and wacky world we live in Baggy."

The Clown Prince of Crime pushed himself off of the old, moth eaten couch with a flourish of his hands. He chuckled once again as if he were losing control of himself.

"Detective Bagheera Lewis is a new up and coming detective out of Baltimore," the talking tv head reported, "She's shot and killed five felons in Maryland. She was asked to come to Gotham City last month in an effort to curb the Joker's violent crimes at the request of Jim Gordon of the Gotham Police Department."

"In related news," the second talking head said, "The Joker has gone on a new spree of robbing and blowing up local banks with mob affiliations a source has revealed to us. The Bank of-"

The Joker laughed uncontrollably and kicked in the old television set. The sound of the glass fell from the television screen and onto the dusty, dirty, bloodstained floor of the living room. A skin headed henchman, who had lived on the street for most of his adult life, hurried into the living room. His gun was in his hand as he looked for a potential threat inside the small safe house. He watched as the Joker hopped on the glass shards, breaking them into smaller and smaller pieces with each hop.

"Well Spade," the Joker announced as he dramatically jumped from the mess that he had made, "We have a new visitor in town."

The henchman, with the alias of Spade, looked at him in slight confusion.

"Sir?"

"I uhh," the clown stated with a growing smile, "I want to know about this," he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, "little detective that's been sent after me."

The henchman quickly nodded and hurried out of the living room, successfully putting off death at the hands of his employer once again. He could still hear the Joker's wild, manic laughter as he and another henchman hurried out of the hideaway to find out where the new, soon to be deceased detective called home.

Reviews are awesome :)