One day

In part of downtown Gotham there was a nightclub called Rapture. The club was a usual looking one; a dancefloor in the center, a DJ stand in front of it, and a second story balcony that wrapped around the inside. This club was meant for something else though. It was an example of another establishment that fronted for more unlawful activities. It was built to sell all kinds of drugs. The owner was a criminal known as Black Mask. He had set up the club in order to start up his new business endeavor, drugs. Now, the Black Mask was no stranger to selling drugs but he found it hard to sell what he had, mostly cocaine and heroine, due to the events of the past year. Since the death of the Joker, police were cracking down HARD on crime. He found that he lost a lot of his contacts in the GCPD, his drug dealers were getting arrested on practically every corner, the Batclan was out busting some of his operations, the man in black had massacred some of his men, and on top of all that his dry cleaner doesn't want anything to do with him.

It was somewhere around noon outside so the club wasn't open at the time. The staff was running around doing various tasks from cleaning, to stocking shelves, and electronic rigging for the lighting and sound, all to get ready for the crazed crowd that they usually get every night. The Mask wasn't watching his staff like an owner, he knew they did not want to disappoint him, but instead he was in his office counting expenses, income, and maintenance. He was mostly worried about the money he was making off of his new drugs, psychedelics. He noticed that his new club attracted the young crowd, and they didn't care for the super hardcore drugs that he usually carried, they wanted drugs that would make them trip balls to the music and make them think that they are dancing with lizards and aliens. So, with his new found knowledge, the Mask supplied the demand with all sorts of trippy shit that will make them think that the colors from the lighting his solid.

Even the Mask was looking through his profits, the worry that he usual had about it wasn't what was on his mind at the moment. He was thinking about the damn dry cleaner who kicked his secretary out when he had her take his suit for it's usual cleaning. Speaking of which, she was in his office telling him of his schedule and the messages he had gotten for the day. He wasn't listening, he was thinking! That dirty fucking chink, he thought, how dare he just get rid of his most loyal customer, hell, if it wasn't for me then he would've gone out of business long ago! Now I have to find some other slanty-eyed fucker to clean my suits. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the office door and looked up at the door. "Were you expecting some one sir?" His sesecretary asked due to her not seeing anything on his schedule about meeting someone. "No. Must be one of the staff," He answered,"go see what they want."

"Right away sir."

With that, she turned and walked out the door and left the Mask with his reports and thoughts, but it wasn't for long because soon he heard the door open and close.

"What did they want?" He asked.

"A conversation."

The voice that had answered was one that he did not recognize. The voice had such a tone to it that it gave him a chill down his spine, goosebumps, and made him break out in a cold sweat, all at the same time. He dreaded the fact he was going to look up because he feared that in front of him was a monster and not a man. Still, he looked up anyways. Standing before him though was neither, it was worse.

The Joker.

At first the Joker looks like a regular man who likes the color purple; purple pants, purple suit, and purple gloves, his brown dress shoes being the only thing not purple in his outfit. Looking above his neck gave away that he was anything but regular. His green hair was the first thing that you noticed but his face is what was so nightmare inducing; the white paint hid his face from recognition, the black around his eye sockets look almost empty, and the red painted as a grin did not hid his glasgow scars too good, if anything it made it look worse.

The Joker walked up and took a chair that was off to the side and sat himself in front of the Mask's desk. He decided to initiate the conversation, "nice little place you have here Mask, you take a loan for it?"

"What do you want?" The Mask feared the answer that he would get, but his curiosity got the better of him so he asked his dumbass question anyways.

"How about a joke?" The Joker said this with a sickly grin, "ya know, to ease the tension. Ok, so a blind guy walks into a bar and he says," he pauses before the punchline, "ouch."

The Mask doesn't smile, let alone laugh. "Tough crowd," the Jokers says with a slight frown. He leans forward a bit and continues, "anywho, I have a little proposal. I hear that a certain man makes your operations hard to do anything around here, so I plan to kill him."

"How do you plan that?" the Mask is a little skeptical about the sanity of the man in front of him, so he has no faith in his planning capabilities.

"I sense the doubt, but I know that he plans to make an appearance tomorrow night. All that needs to happen is a little trouble happening here and there around the city, and that's where you come in. You have your goons go around doing whatever shenanigans they can think of to get the police distracted. If all goes according to plan, then I'll be killing him with no interruptions."

"Why me?" the Mask asks, "isn't there anyone else that can do this for you?"

"You think you're special? I have other people at the ready to do this, I just need everyone I can get."

"And if I say no?"

"You won't want to say no."

The Joker got up out of the chair and started to leave. "Oh and don't worry about the signal, you'll know it when it happens."

With that settled, the Mask only had one more question, "where's my secretary?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, she is a little tied up with something." After answering, the Joker left.

The Mask was now stressed more than ever. He had no idea what this man was capable of, and he had no choice but to say yes because he had no idea what would happen if he said otherwise.

This calls for some late-night binge drinking.

00000000000000000000

That night

Sitting in his office enjoy a nice chardonnay and a smooth jazz record was none other than the Black Mask. The unscheduled meeting with the Joker had got him stressed out his fucking mind. That crazy son of a bitch wants him to do something for him with nothing in return. Although, good business is a pretty fair trade. The piece of shit cops needed to be taken down a peg or two, so his deal sounded really good.

He thought he was safe, that his security would stop anyone. So imagine his surprise when a man in a black coverall and a gas mask walked into his office. He noticed that he was carrying a shotgun with the biggest suppressor on it, so he started reaching for his gun in his desk drawer.

"Don't do that," the guy says as he aimed his shotgun at the Mask. The mask slowy moves his hands away. "Sit right here," he points to a chair in the middle of the office. The Mask complied because he didn't want to get blasted away.

"What do you want?" he can't believe that he had to ask that twice in one day since he was a bigshot crime lord.

"Simple, I know you met with the Joker and I wanna know what he is planning." he says as he sits down behind the Mask's desk with the shotgun on top of it. The way his voice sounded beneath the mask was just bone chilling, it may be muffled but he could still hear the killing intent in his voice. If anything, the way the mask made his voice sound was probably more terrifying than if it was heard without the mask. It made it worse staring at the eyes because the dark tints make it seem like his eyes are hollow.

"Well?" the Mask hadn't said anything for awhile and was just staring at the man with the gun. "He wants to kill the new head of gang enforcement." He answered quickly because he didn't want to go down for that fucking clown.

"What does that have to do with you?" from an outside perspective, it didn't seem like the Mask was needed.

"He wants me and other bosses to cause havoc across town to create a distraction."

"To cause all the police force to alreafy be preoccupied once he kills the guy is what I'm guessing," the guy sounded like he had some kind of knowledge of situations.

"That's his idea," the Mask really doesn't want to go down for this fucking clown. He gets a surprise visit from that psycho and that causes thid psycho to give him a surprise visit too.

"Do you know where he plans to kill him?"

"I'm not certain-"

The man started to reach for his gun causing the Mask to panic.

"But I have an idea of where it'll happen!"

The man stopped, "go on," the Mask now had his undivided attention. The Mask let out a sigh of relief. He seriously didn't want to go down for the clown.

"Wayne is holding a sort of celebration for the police force in one of his city penthouses. It's said to be super exclusive and meant for bigshots and heads of law enforcement, which most likely means the guy who has been causing me business trouble will be there. That's what I'm thinking."

"You think this, why?"

"Because I told the Joker of this," he just did a bad thing. The man slowly started to lean back upon hearing this. After a few silent moments he got up, got his gun off the desk, then went for the exit.

"Hey, you got a name?" the Mask turned around and called out to him, curious as to what to call the man who held him at gunpoint.

"I don't have a name. Although, the Red Hood called me a menace, and I seem to like that name. Call me the Menace," the man, now named the Menace, said without looking back.

"Ok then Menace, how do you plan on taking down the Joker?" The Mask was now facing forward.

"Simple, like this."

"Like wha-"

PUWEE*

He went down for that fucking clown.

The Mask had gotten blasted by the Menace's shotgun but it barely made a sound. It made more noise hitting his body than actually shooting the slug. Now the Mask was laid out on the floor with a big hole in his back. The Menace opened the door to leave and what was seen was several of the Mask's security guards also on the ground dead. He went over to the lone desk by the office and looked over and saw the secretary just the way he left her, bound hand, foot and mouth with some packing tape.

He dropped a pair of scissors next to her and said, "good luck, if you don't get out then I highly doubt you'll be found." He got into the elevator to leave and as he got in, there were three more dead bodies. As he walked he walked out the building, there were plenty more dead bodies on the ground. He got in silently and was leaving with no one there to stop him.

He now had a plan to kill that freak. He wasn't going to let another freak roam the streets like Batman and his crew did, he was going to stop this problem before it destroyed the city. He didn't really like Gotham, but he'd be damned if he let these fuckers burn it to the ground.