I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk! and ahting school, might I add. Being a freshman sucks. And I have homework on a weekend. Grrr. So, I began reading the Batman Graphic novels, and I'm afriad I'm hooked. Now, a note about Joker: he's a mix between the fat-jack-nicholson version and the anorexicly-thin-and-tall-comics version. Not that that helps any. Oh, Nightshade is MIA! grr, review soon, or else! I only have a four person readerdom, I need those reviews!
Savitri: I told you I was going to kill K.C., I don't know what all the fuss is for. And you spelled reincarnate wrong.
Maid of the Mer: Wow. I'm shocked, you can write more! Who says random information is a waste of time? How about some random information about
my fic?
Pirate Gyrl: Yes, I do hope they nail Joker too. In fact, not to spoil, but I know the end result of the story since I'm writng it! Oh, I do love control! I'm suprised
you didn't ask about Carm's history again. Well, I've got more!

Not so practical Jokes

"And so, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am, in short, proposing a partnership, the likes of which this city has never seen." The audience in front of the Joker was amassed of crime lords and mob bosses, all gruff and wary.

One particularly stubborn woman asked, "So, all of our mobs made into one big mob? Sounds good in words, Joker," She openly mocked him, "but there's too many glitches. Who, for one, runs the whole damn operation, huh? Where do we keep our HQ? What businesses do we interact with? I don't like it; not yet."

The Joker nodded, a dangerous look in his eyes. "It'll be run by all of us, a board of such, presided over by me-" that brought several protests "-because I have control of the largest gang. Our HQ will be in the penthouse suite in Wayne Hotel, and our businesses?" He paused for dramatic effect. "Everything, Ladies and Gentlemen, everything. In six months, we'll have Gotham on a leash, every penny will be coming in and out of our pockets, and the rest of the grand United States will follow."

Falcone's burly replacement waved a hand for the floor. "Six months? How do you intend to do that?"

The Joker nodded in respect, mostly for the man's gang. "A good question. Do you remember not long ago when terrorists brought our beloved Narrows to it's knees will a gaseous toxin that blew everything frighteningly out of proportion?" Nods from everyone, they'd all suffered losses. "They planned to destroy Gotham, I plan to revitalize it with the same methods. I've had may skin analyzed for the chemical that made me the gorgeous beauty I am before you," nervous laughter broke out, "and have mass produced it."

"So?"

The Joker's patience was thinning. "So we hold the city for ransom. After several million poisoned deaths, leaving the victims ravaged, the mayor will undoubtedly be impeached and we make sure that we have all the candidates in our pockets. No hard feat, because at that point a mixture of fear, greed, and money will have us unstoppable."

A fantastic sell, so fantastic that he got a standing ovation; except for one elderly man on the Joker's left. Quietly he spoke, but everyone could hear his raspy voice. "What about Batman? And for that, what about Dragon?"

Dead silence before the Joker spoke. "What about them?"

The old man steepled his fingers pensively. "We don't know who they are; not yet. Thus far both have proved incorruptible to a maddening degree. They may prove somewhat of an irritation should they get wind of this, and what with Dragon's fascination with your mob, she most certainly will. I suggest you proceed with caution, and until I am convinced that you have the situation under control, I won't be joining this endeavor of yours.

The Joker seemed irritated. "I assure you, I have them taken care of, but it's wise to never show all your cards."

The old man cackled and motioned for everyone to leave. The Joker was inexpressibly incensed that they did; wordlessly like obedient children. "Seems we're alone, Jack. You can tell me now."

The Joker fiddled with the flower pinned to his suit. "Alright, if you want to know so bad." He leaned in close. "Batman is just like any other knight; he's got a whopping weakness."

The old man raised an eyebrow. "And that is?"

"Dragons." The Joker squeezed his cufflink and a spray of yellow liquid shot into the man's face.

"I'm worried about her, Alfred." Bruce fiddled with his tie after K.C.'s funeral. Throughout the whole procession Carm hadn't shed one tear, an extreme change for her.

After she had fallen asleep in the library Bruce had let her stay the night in his old bedroom, conveniently across the hall. Between bouts of sleep she'd cried the whole night, trying to convince her own inner demons that it wasn't her fault her best friend was dead. The day after that she'd cleaned out the whole apartment, except for what she was going to sell. All of K.C.'s possessions were sent to various family members, other than small mementos and valuable Carm claimed for herself. By the end of that afternoon she'd turned her home over to a realtor and begun home hunting. In the meantime she was staying in Wayne Manor, and still crying herself to sleep at night. She'd arranged the funeral in record time, not giving the doctors time to analyze the corpse and find a cure, and busied herself to no end. It seemed to Bruce she hadn't stopped for one moment.

"She's just grieving, Master Wayne. Do you remember how you were when you're parents died?" Alfred watched Carm scurry up the front steps, already pulling off her pumps.

"I remember crying a lot." Bruce really didn't want to remember that.

"After that, if memory serves, you spent quite a bit of time surrounding yourself in activities in order to keep your mind from your parents. She is merely doing the same thing." Together they entered Wayne Manor, Alfred silencing his reminder as Carm, already changed, rushed down the staircase and slid into kitchen with her arms full of clay pots.

Intrigued, Bruce followed her. She pulled Alfred's largest pot onto the stove and began pouring different liquids in and out of the pot. The whole thing smelled vile. "What is this?"

Carm looked up and returned to her mixture. "Dracoignis. Dragonfire in Latin. Basically it's one hell of a chemical reaction. After being distilled several times it's incredibly flammable. If heated past the temperature of seventy-six degrees it ignites as soon as it hits open air and doesn't stop burning until there's nothing left to burn."

Bruce held a hand up to his nose. "It reeks. This wouldn't happen to be the stuff that's in the Dragon gloves, is it?"

"And boots, actually."

"How does it work?" Bruce fingered the gloves, which were next to the pot.

"Easy. Those three spikes on the forearm have cooled vials of this stuff and all feed into one pipe that follows the contours of my hand to the fingertips. The harder I flex my fingers the more liquid comes out, running past a heated wire, and burning anything that gets in the way. The boots are the same, but because I have to flex my ankles to make the flames work I don't use them often."

Bruce whistled. "So, what happens when you climb?"

"Well, the liquid comes out but because there's no air, all that's left is a slight residue. Only design flaw, as it has such a unique chemical makeup, is that if you manage to find some, it gets traced right back to my apartment or Korea."

Bruce watched as she set a large contraption of tubes over the pot. "Why Korea?"

Carm finished setting the distillation device up and turned to him. "Did you learn to be Batman in America?"

Wondering what that had to do with anything Bruce warily answered, "No, I didn't."

She lifted herself onto the counter, all the while looking at him. "Me neither."

Bruce was silent.

She looked at him. "There's a lot of things I never told you, not just about being Dragon, and I'm sure it goes both way. But I don't want to know now, in rue of past experience."

"But I do. I began -" Carm put a hand over his mouth, very gently.

"I don't want to know, Bruce." She was silent, watching her concoction boil. Finally, she began speaking again. "I never told you I know Korean, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mongolian, did I?"

Bruce whistled again. "That's… impressive. Who taught you?"

Carm grinned in reminiscence. "Ryu. It means Dragon in Japanese, which is why I chose Dragon for my… monster, I suppose."

"He must have been important. Who was he?"

Carm eyes watered up, to Bruce's dread, and he expected something about K.C. "My best friend, my confidant, my lover, and my husband."

Bruce was shocked. "You were married?"

Carm nodded, a sad smile on her face. "I told you that before, but I don't expect you to remember. Actually, I technically still am because he was never legally declared dead, even though we all saw him die."

"What happened?" Bruce wiped away a tear.

"I made a mistake." He was smart enough not to continue the conversation.

"Can you hear me?" Dragon winced as Batman's voice crackled in her ear and adjusted the volume. It was a no-brainer for both parties to keep their alliance secret, Batman continuing to stalk the Joker between breaking up petty crimes and Dragon haunting the Narrows and giving hell to the gangs. Still, she'd been given a microphone as thin as cloth on her mask (courtesy Fox at Wayne Enterprises) and a small ear piece that more than anything looked like a growth of skin rather than a speaker.

That wasn't all they'd done to her suit. Fox had a field day with Dracoignis, improving it and taking most of the guess work out of the recipe. Her fuel tanks were larger, needing less insulating, her "wings" were less conspicuous looking when folded, and her face-painted tattoos were now airbrushed to avoid smudging. Not to mention that she virtually had a computer built into her suit, monitoring her different body rates, including stress level and blood loss. Pretty nifty, overall.

"Yes, I can hear you. Painfully so, in fact. What do you need?" She was doing nothing in particular, other than following a hearse that contained the late leader of a "gentleman" gang. Oxymoron of the century.

"I think I found the Joker." Batman's voice was deep and harsh, nothing like Bruce's.

"Let me guess, you were playing solitaire and you forgot to take out that card. I'm not stupid, if you'd found him you wouldn't be telling me, you'd be killing him." She glided to a fire escape and her "wings" jumped into their pouch.

"I'm not a murderer. Or a liar, I found him, I just can't get him." Dragon heard the steely note.

"Why? Hold on a sec." She jumped down, most likely snapping the spine of the rapist's shoulders she landed on. His buddy was quickly dispatched with slash across the neck. Criminals had shown her no mercy, why should she show it to them? Compassion was weakness, no matter how much Batman stuck by his morals. Morals were weakness too.

"Done? He's surrounded. I'll need your help; I'm right by Wayne Hotel."

She purred, "Aww, do you miss me? I'll you had to do was say so."

Batman hung up. After the grieving was done, Dragon had become ruthless and callous while Carm had become driven and more alive than ever. But he knew that under both exteriors she was shriveling up, convinced that she could do only wrong despite her best efforts to counteract her seeming curse.

She was there quickly, landing softly behind him and putting her hands around his eyes. "Guess who?"

He didn't have time to answer even if he had planned to. A pistol fired and he felt a smack between his shoulder blades. Dragon whirled around, landing with a sick crunch on the man's chest. Another shot went off, this time grazing just above her head.

They were surrounded by mobsters, all of which were heavily armed. Dragon slipped between two, setting them afire while Batman knocked a good many unconscious. Twisting and turning, them never touched each other, but it was still an odd and incapacitating dance to watch. She swung her legs under a mobster while he would leap over her and land on another, followed shortly by him ducking a flame to set someone on fire. On and on, punch, duck, throw, catch, punch again, it was seamless, almost as if they'd practiced.

Dragon turned around and found a gun trained at her head. The owner of the hand that held the gun was white. Albino white. "Hmm, déjà vu! So what do you say Bat, leave and I won't kill her? Hey, déjà vu again!" He cackled, pushing the gun further into Dragon's temple.

"Napier." Batman stepped forward and was inches away from Dragon.

The Joker cocked the gun. "Ah ah, Simon said leave, not come forward.

Batman raised a hand.

Joker's finger tightened on the trigger.

Dragon spoke at her own risk. "Boys, as much as a girl loves being fought over by two such sexy men as yourselves, I'd really like it if you didn't."

Joker's eyes flicked to her face for a moment then back to Batman. "Sorry, sweet cheeks, unless your boyfriend here steps off, the gun ain't going nowhere."

Dragon laughed. "Boyfriend? Say who?"

To the great surprise of both she spun around and grabbed Batman's cowl by the ears and pulled his face to where she could look him in the eyes. One hand dropped and slid behind his back. Joker was thinking he should shoot her merely on principal, but he saw Batman was as shocked as he was and Dragon's claws were digging into the Batsuit. Batman mouthed a question, but Dragon's only response was to slam her forehead into his. Dazed, he put up little fight as her claws directed him to the edge of the roof and pushed him off.

Joker's eyes were wider than usual as she wiped her hands and sidled up to the Joker. Her microphone was on, giving Batman some consolation for being disposed of. "So, where were we, sexy?"

Joker chuckled and reached for her mask. She snatched his wrist, drawing small beads of blood. "I don't think so."

Joker was suddenly aware of a very sharp pain in his stomach. He looked down to find Dragon digging her hands into his flesh, and boy did it hurt. So, in a weak retaliation attempt, he punched her.

She reeled away, but both hands dug deeper into his fleshy tissue. "You need to work out, Joker."

He was loosing consciousness, but he had enough sense of mind to hold the gun to her head again. She grabbed it, one hand leaving his bloodied front. Galvanized, he produced another firearm, this time pointed at her chest. She grinned realizing he was beginning to fade and grabbed the gun as well. Joker sank to his knees, and Dragon began to dig at his throat.

Slowly she clawed up his face. "Sorry now, sexy? Sorry for what you did? Sorry for who you killed?"

He managed to gasp, "I didn't – do – anything to – you."

She pulled him up by the face. " That's what you think. You killed someone close to me, and you know what I'm going to do as thanks? I'm going to kill you, slowly and painfully, the same way I died."

Dragon seemed to have forgotten she had her microphone one, because Batman swung himself back onto the roof, pinning both of her arms behind her back before she could do anything. Joker crawled way, slowly and painfully while pressing a button on his suit.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" she screamed, struggling to get loose.

"You can't kill him; it won't solve anything." His voice hissed in her ear.

"YES IT WILL! LET ME GO!" By that time Joker's backup had arrived, machineguns roaring as loud as their choppers.

As captivated as she was by the thought of revenge, she realized that with those odds it was best to retreat today and fight tomorrow. Batman released her, pausing to see what she would do before he left. She screamed and set his cape aflame, stranding him on the roof top while she soared away.

Carm came tramping up from the library, screaming incoherently as she shed her suit. Alfred sighed, swallowed an aspirin, and followed her. He came in to find her clothed only in the tight t-shirt and shorts she wore under her suit. Seeing him (and still ranting) she hopped into the bathroom and pulled on some decent clothes. When she came back half of her tattoos had been washed off, giving her face an odd, half finished look. She without ceremony she threw her possessions into her suitcase. That completed, she sat against the wall and stared blankly ahead.

Not at all like a butler, Alfred sat down across from her. "You look terrible." He handed her a wet towel he'd had sense enough to claim from the bathroom before sitting.

She chuckled half-heartedly at his joke. "You should see the other guy."

"Who was the guy?" Alfred spoke in a detached manor that matched Carm's.

"The Joker. I had him in the palm of my hand," she held out a hand and then closed it into a fist, "and I could have been free, he could have gotten his recompense, but… Damn him, Alfred!"

Alfred nodded wisely. "The Joker or Master Wayne?"

She smiled dejectedly. "You pick up quick. Batman. Damn him and his morals, he ruined it all." She looked up, eyes glossy with tears. "I hate him, Alfred, but I love him at the same time. I hate him! I hate him and I love him. I love him so much, but I hate him! How can he be so… frustrating? He gives me everything I want, tangible or not, but the thing I want most he takes away! How can he do that? How can he make me hate him and love him?" She grabbed her hair in her anger.

Alfred watched her writhe for a moment before answering with the attitude of a psychiatrist analyzing a fictitious character's psyche. "Perhaps because he loves so much he thinks he knows what is best for you. Or perhaps he is content to leave you to your own devices unless those devices may cause harm to you. Perhaps he is afraid that in gaining your revenge you will kill a part of you as well. And as Batman, he might also be afraid that as a murderer he would have to bring you to justice. After all, he would be no better than the corrupt judges if he were to let personal feelings stand in the way of his duty." Carm just gasped back sobs.

Bruce was in the hall, listening to the whole thing.

Ah, I smell trouble! So, what will happen next? Do tell in your BLEEDING REVIEW!