Robin was deep in thought as the Batboat sailed along the sea.
"One thing I don't dig, Batman" he said.
"Oh?" said Batman wanting to hear more.
"If that ship was just a mirage, what happened to the real one?" said Robin.
"Taken to some secret island hideaway with every soul aboard save one" said Batman.
"Commodore Schmidlapp?" Robin guessed.
"Precisely. For some baffling reason, the hijackers needed him or his invention as a part of their criminal scheme" said Batman.
As they got closer to the buoy, Batman started to get suspicious.
"Keep an eye on the scope. Watch for suspicious vessels" he said to Robin.
Robin looked at the screen of the Batscope.
"I'm watching, Batman. It looks like we've got the whole ocean to ourselves" said Robin.
But little did they know, the Joker, the Riddler and the Penguin were underwater in the Penguin's submarine.
The submarine was white in the front and black in the back. And there were penguin feet in the back and a penguin face on the front.
The Penguin himself exited his cabin and approached one of his piratey finks who was working the controls.
"Diving planes, Mr Bluebeard. Hoist her three degrees" the Penguin ordered.
"Yo-ho! Hoist three degrees" said Mr Bluebeard.
"I certainly hope you know what you're doing, Penguin" said the Riddler.
"Mr Riddler, I ignore your insipid insinuations" the Penguin quacked.
On the other side of the submarine, the Joker was leaning against the wall with his hand on one of the controls.
"Mr Joker! You're leaning on the current control!" the Penguin squawked.
The Joker took his hand off the control and said "Don't sound so bossy if you please!"
"My dear sir, as the poet says... on land you may command, at sea it is me" said the Penguin.
As the Joker mocked his quacks, the Penguin spoke into a penguin statue/microphone.
"Now hear this, now hear this. This is your captain speaking, my fine-pinioned pirates. We're approaching the tricky buoy. Sharpen your cutlasses. There may be skulduggery ahead" he said.
Another pirate was watching for skulduggery.
"Yo-ho!" he said.
"What?" said the Penguin.
"Unidentified small craft bearing 1-1-3" said the pirate.
"Mr Bluebeard! Hold her steady! Up periscope!" the Penguin quacked.
"Yo-ho! Up periscope" said Mr Bluebeard raising a periscope that was in the shape of a penguin's head.
Soon, the Dynamic Duo reached the bellbuoy.
Through the periscope, the villains saw them climb out of the Batboat and onto the platform of the buoy.
Robin docked off the boat by connecting it to the buoy with a rope.
"Great quivering icebergs! Just as I hoped" said the Penguin.
Batman found a net under the buoy.
"Watch your step, Robin. An underwater shark cage. The source of that fiendish fish" he said.
"What cruelty! Stuffing a poor shark with a ton of deadly TNT" said Robin.
"True. Nothing is sacred to those devils" said Batman.
In the submarine...
"Torpedoes! Torpedoes! What are we waiting for?" said the Riddler impatiently.
"Chain of command, Mr Riddler! The Penguin runs a taut ship! Now hear this, Mr Joker. Load the torpedo tubes" said the Penguin.
"Yo-ho!" the Joker cackled.
He picked up a radio transmitter and said "Load torpedo tubes" to the crew.
The submarine crew loaded tubes with torpedoes while Batman and Robin studied the buoy some more.
"Salt and corrosion. The infamous old enemies of the crimefighter. No prints here" said Batman.
Robin moved to another side of the buoy and saw a metal plate that was sealed on top of the others.
"Look here, Batman!" he said.
Batman took out a screwdriver and loosened the screws on the plate saying "That tricky mirage projector must be behind this plate".
The duo removed the plate and a projector was behind it. It looked just like a giant camera lens.
"Wow! What a set of superpower lenses! No wonder we were fooled" said Robin.
Batman then spotted the penguin head periscope in the distance.
"Look, Robin" he said.
Robin had a look himself and he did see what Batman saw.
"Holy Long John Silver! A pirate periscope!" said Robin.
