"Wake up, bitch."
The last thing Phoenix Joker remembered was rushing to stop Ledger Joker from opening up the briefcase containing the payment.
Why was that voice he was hearing now so familiar? Someone was sticking fingers into his mouth. Wearing gloves that tasted bitter, medical. Reminders of a trip to the dentist. Pushing against the corners of his mouth, dragging up. He tried to grab those hands, take them out of his mouth, but his arms felt bound. And he himself felt like he'd been doped up like a motherfucker rhino.
"Remember this? Smile clown smile." Phoenix Joker's vision was clearing. In front of him was Bruce Wayne.
"Bruce Wayne? Shouldn't you still be a kid in this movie continuity?" Phoenix Joker said with disbelief. He looked around and saw that in chairs next to him similarly bound were Leto and Ledger's Jokers. Leto's Joker was wired up to receive periodic electric shocks to his nipples. His arms were a-filled with druggie needle marks and looked pretty disgusting just like Requiem for a Dream. Meanwhile Ledger's Joker had been waterboarded after Bruce Wayne had gone to work on him with a few power tools. A couple old DVD copies of 10 Reasons Why I Hate You and A Knight's Tale had been stapled onto him and partially burned into his flesh.
"Steroids, yo." Bruce Wayne said as he proceeded to slice up and taze his Joker around for a bit before he took a break to feast a few cans of cold beans.
"Why are you doing this, Bruce? You may or may not be my unknown half-bro, we're like Muhammad Ali and the Viet Cong. We ain't got no quarrel." Phoenix's Joker tried to approach this diplomatically.
"WRONG!" Bruce Wayne yelled. "We got all the quarrel in the world! Did you like forget what happened in the last act of Joker (2019)? Bitch, you got my parents killed!"
"Nuh-uh. Just cause some douchebags also decided to dress like clowns and go nuts the day I dressed like a clown and went nuts does not make me responsible for the deaths of your parents." Phoenix's Joker defended. "It's like the Batman The Dark Knight movie. It ain't Batman that killed Harvey Dent, it's the gravity that did it. And society too, I guess. Be a gamer like me kid and blame all your woes on society. It makes life a lot more understandable."
"Yeah, haven't you like played video games? Metal Gear Solid V and The Last of Us Part II – they say stuff like revenge is, like bad yo." Leto Joker chimed in.
"SILENCE FOOLS. VIDEO GAMES ARE FOR LOSERS. I PLAY SPORTS." Bruce Wayne rubbed some cigarettes into his Joker's open wounds and laughed along to his screams. "I have trained far too long to be swayed by mere words!"
"You can't kill us! Bruce Wayne is Batman! Batman don't kill!" Ledger's Joker came to and pleaded. Leto's Joker looked off to the side extremely awkwardly.
"Perhaps the Bruce Waynes in your movie universes don't… but I ain't no Batman. I'M RAT-MAN!" Bruce Wayne proclaimed. "You see, in my last scene in Joker (2019) a large rat runs off to the side in the shot. That was my inspiration for my costumed identity, but now that you Jokers will soon be dead… I can discard of it and spend the rest of my life like any responsible billionaire would: selling out and destroying the world for my personal benefit."
"This feels an awful lot like a last-minute expository villainy dump…" Leto's Joker commented. "You know what I mean, guys?"
"Oh, you mean when the writer realized that the bad guy's kind of shallow and one-dimensional so they just quickly insert some cheap bits of dialogue thinking that is all that's needed to develop them? Or whatever the right word was." Phoenix's Joker responded. "Of course, it's all pretty moot because it often precedes the scene where the protagonist kills th"
"I SAID SHUT UP." Bruce Wayne kick Phoenix's Joker over. However, as The Joker fell over, there was a familiar noise from the last chapter. Coming from his back pockets.
"What the fuck is this?" Bruce Wayne asked as he reached in and pulled out the Deus Ex Machina button.
"My god! The Deus Ex Machina Button from last chapter must've still had some juice left in it!" Phoenix's Joker gasped. "And when you kicked me over, I must've butt-pressed it!"
"Oh man, this is just like the time you butt-dialed for Thai. And not the yummy curried kind!" Ledger's Joker gagged at the memory. "But I'll admit, a Deus Ex Machina is probably gonna be far more pleasant than that kinda Thai."
"What the fuck's a Deus Ex Machina!" Bruce Wayne said in confusion because unlike the other Bruce Waynes he was several brains short of the title of World's Worst Detective, to say nothing of the Greatest. "Why do you keep sayi"
He was cut off by the sound of a wall being crashed through and the A-Team Theme blaring at maximum volume. Bruce Wayne's eyes widened in fear and he wet himself as a tank rolled through. The tank proceeded to shoot a cream pie into Bruce Wayne's face with a big SPLAT.
The tank's hatch popped open, revealing another Joker. This Joker's fashion was decidedly bright and old-fashioned, and beneath his painted white face was what was clearly an unshaven mustache.
"Hola, youngsters! I see I've arrived just in time to save you from a real tight jiffy!" Cesar Romero's Joker greeted his successors. He threw chattering teeth at the three Jokers which cut them loose from their bonds.
"I'd never thought I'd say this, Cesar, but man, I am fucking glad to see you!" Heath Ledger's Joker said as he brushed himself off. The two other Jokers wearily nodded.
Cesar Romero's Joker tsk'ed. He bitch-slapped Heath Ledger's Joker with a comically oversized Joker Fish and then held out a big jar filled with pennies and dimes and quarters, but not common cents.
"Now, now, what did I tell you about language?"
Heath Ledger's Joker sighed and dropped a few Washingtons into the swear jar. As he did, Cesar Romero's Joker grabbed him by the hand and let a joy buzzer rip. "GGGZZZZZZMPTMLLTTPMTH!" Heath Ledger's Joker vibrated like a Mexican Jumping Bean as Romero Joker sent a Pikachu-esque current of electricity through him.
"Hee hee hoo hoo! Isn't this all good fun!" Cesar Romero's Joker chuckled. "You boys oughtta take a break from all that murder and mayhem you get up to… try a day of nothing but good old fashioned pranking instead. It could do wonders for the wellness of your soul."
"What the fuck is this!" Bruce Wayne, wiping pie cream off his face, stormed in front of the new Joker. Then decked him in the breadbasket. "Do you know how much calories and fat are in cream fucking pie! A fucking lot!"
Bruce Wayne grabbed Romero's Joker by the lapels and began shaking him.
"Did you know how hard I worked to shape my body into a perfect revenger's form? I will not let some clown undo that all with sweet tasty but unhealthy cream pies!" Bruce Wayne readied to punch Romero's Joker in the face only for the 60s Joker to stick a bundle of plastic flowers with smiley faces drawn in the centers in his face.
"You seem like a stick in the mud, kiddo. You should try smiling… no, laughing some more." Upon saying that, Romero's Joker flicked the flowers like an on-switch, unleashing whole clouds of Joker Gas into Bruce Wayne's face.
"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-hoo-hoo-hoo-hee-haaa~!." Against his own self-control, Bruce Wayne began laughing like a hyena as his face contorted into an unnatural smile. "Hahahahahahahah-urrrrrrrrk!" Suddenly, his expression and body froze into place like his heart had exploded and he fell over dead.
Bruce Waynes, unless they happened to be played by Adam West or (shiver) George Clooney, simply weren't made to smile.
"Oh dear." Romero's Joker looked genuinely remorseful. "I didn't mean for him to die. I just wanted him to smile, he seemed like a miserable lad. Dying's not funny, it's just crass."
"Whatever. Better him than us." Ledger's Joker scoffed.
"Forgive me if I prefer a gentler class of criminality. One without so much bloodshed." Romero's Joker looked disgusted at his three compatriots, then looked down at his hands as if they were coated in blood like Lady MacBeth. He seemed truly shaken by this turn of events, as if unable to believe that it was his hands and no one else's that had done the deed. "I… I… need some time for myself."
"Whatever, man. You know where to find us when you man up." Ledger's Joker shrugged as he and the other Jokers got about to looting the place. Without a Wayne in this universe no more, the stuff in Wayne Manor was going to better use – their use. "We'll try to leave you a souvenir."
The Jokers drove triumphantly home in the customized "Ratmobile" that they jacked from Wayne's garage, with all their loot from Wayne Manor stuffed in the trunk. Forget the cure for the Coronavirus, the billions they'd made from pawning off Wayne's stuff would comfortably make their rent for maybe two months in the current American housing market.
They banged their heads along to Dragula again, reprising the moment from the second chapter.
"You know…" Leto Joker rubbed his chin. "This was kinda a disappointing, rushed resolution of that exciting cliffhanger from the last chapter."
"What do you mean?" Phoenix Joker said as he kept his eyes on the road. He was just relieved to be alive. His possible half-bro might be dead thus making his entire family dead, but it didn't really worry him, as the song went. "Oh, it don't worry me, it don't worry me…you may say my family's dead, my girlfriend's not real, and I ain't free but it don't worry me…" He sang under his breath like the tiniest of careful whispers but it didn't mesh too well with the heavy metal banging playing in the car.
"You'd think that the closest thing we got to a main antagonist in this fanfic wouldn't have been picked off so definitively before the first line break." Leto Joker sighed and hit his vape.
"It's just like those lousy Resident Evil movies." Ledger Joker interjected. "It's like, the Mad Max one spends the entire movie setting up Milla Jovovich's clone army only for the next one to blow them all up in the first five minutes. Or like, the fifth one ends with Milla Jovovich teaming up with all your favorite Resident Evil characters for the final battle. Only for the next one to be like psych, the final battle took place off-screen and oh all these real non-OC characters from the games died so they wouldn't take screentime from Milla Jovovich. Final Chapter, my ass. More like Final Piece of Shit."
"Are you kidding me? Those Resident Evil movies are fucking kickass!" Leto Joker argued. "And besides, Milla Jovovich is so fucking hot. Who needs some cosplayers on the screen when you got her?"
"Well, I ain't gonna argue with that. One genuine MILF. I'd let her hunt my trouser monster any day of the week." Ledger Joker chuckled.
"I don't like survival horror games or horror movies. They're so scary." Phoenix Joker shuddered.
"Pussy." The other two Jokers whispered in his ears. It shocked him and the vehicle swerved, crashing into a few cars. But it was okay, it was a pretty ugly ride – real opposite of pimp - and the vehicle deformation actually enhanced the décor.
The Jokers got back to their apartment as the sun was setting. Ledger Joker went to the trunk to unload their new stuff. Phoenix Joker held the Coronavirus Cure in his hands. That hadn't gone as planned, but like they say, omelets and eggs. Lemons and lemonade. Maybe this cure could go some ways to squaring their bygones with Martin Scorsese.
"Well, shit." Ledger Joker laid his eyes on a dead Englishman gagged and bound in the trunk. A couple bullet holes were in him. Ledger Joker then looked at bullet holes in the trunk that corresponded exactly to the locations on the man's corpse. "Our new butler's dead. And he got blood all over our stuff."
"Well, shit. That's gonna depreciate the value some." Leto Joker said as he hit his vape again.
"See, Jared, this is why you should be grateful we put the air holes in before we shoved you in the trunk." Ledger Joker hoisted the corpse of one Alfred Pennyworth out of the Ratmobile's trunk and tossed it onto the street alongside the bags of garbage lying out. "The boys in sanitation will know what to do."
"Or maybe we can sell him to Arby's. They'll also know what to do." Leto Joker shrugged.
"Dude, did you really just steal a joke from The Simpsons?" Ledger Joker smacked Leto Joker for that.
"Still, I say this is a job well done. Considering all that went wrong." Phoenix Joker said as he high-fived his two bros. "C'mon, let's celebrate."
The three Jokers danced up the steps to their apartment, to the tune of Feeling Good.
"Break out the Mountain Dew, pick up the Little C's! Let's watch some fucking anime and play some Smash Bros!" Leto Joker mimed shooting off two finger guns like a real gangsta.
To be concluded (?)
Trivia:
Joaquin Phoenix's Joker mains Luigi, because he sympathizes with Luigi as a fellow victim of an unjust society
Jared Leto's Joker used to main Joker from Persona 5 but now swaps between Byleth and Steve from Minecraft ironically. Probs because just like his Joker, nobody wanted them SAKURAI YOU DOODOO dick
Heath Ledger's Joker mains Meta Knight. That's all.
Jack Nicholson's Joker refuses to play Smash Bros as it's a pee pee poo poo modern video game but if he did he wouldn't main any character that was created after 1990
Cesar Romero's Joker mains Mr. Game & Watch since they're the oldest and stuff