I slammed the door to my car as I got out and headed into the entrance of Joker's hideout. After that interesting and informing session with Andromeda, I realized I needed to speak with Joker/
As I walked in the door two of the Joker's goons stepped in front of me with ak-47 in their hands, but lowered when they saw it was only me.
"Sorry Doc. Come on in." The taller of the two said; Happy was his name.
"Where's Joker? I need to speak with him." I asked as I walked in.
They were holed up in a rundown house near the Strip. It would be difficult for the police to find them here. The grass looked like it hadn't been cut in years. And the hedges looked like they could use a trim just as badly.
"He's in his office." Happy told me, pointing down a hallway to the right. I nodded and walked over to a door that had the Joker's insignia carved into it. And written all across the door was the word "HA" and the infamous Joker smile.
The door was closed, so I tentatively knocked.
"What?" Joker barked out, unhappy that someone interrupting whatever he was doing.
I opened the door and walked in. The office wasn't too shabby looking. An oak desk was stationed right in the middle of the room. A bureau stood in the far corner on the opposite side of the room. A warm fire was going in the fireplace. Joker had his feet propped up on the desk and was looking intently at a map.
"Ah, Dr. Crane. How's Arkham?" Joker asked sitting up straight, a smile had broken out over his painted face.
"Arkham's great. I actually wanted to talk to you about a patient I'm seeing." I told him, sitting in the leather bound chair across from him.
"And who is this, ah, patient of your's, hmmm?"
I slid Andromeda's file over to him and he picked it up.
"Her name's Andromeda Corvinus and I think she'll prove to be somewhat of an asset to you."
He flicked through Andromeda's file nonchalantly, stopping every couple of pages to skim through the writing, but an interested gleam swam in his dark eyes as he read.
"She's schizophrenic?" He asked thoughtfully, his smile getting bigger.
"She's a sadomasochist paranoid schizophrenic. And on top of that, she has dissociative identity disorder." I explained to him, tapping the file in his hands.
"Why do you think she'll be, ah, an asset to me?" He asked me, anger coming into his voice, thinking that I was telling him that he needed someone to help him be destructive.
"She knows how to make bombs; she can shoot someone from 700 feet away and hit them perfectly in the middle of their forehead; and well, she adores you." I told him. His smile grew bigger and he leant back in his seat and propped his feet back up on the desk, his hands clasped together in his lap.
He laughed. "Hehehahahahahoho! She adores me?"
I smiled in spite of myself. "Yeah."
He continued smiling and said, "I'll have my goons get her out later. Right now we have business to attend to."
I sat up straighter and nodded as we started going over the plan.
CHAPTER FOUR: I've been thinking about her.
I sighed and slumped down on the couch. Why was she suddenly all I could think about? I hadn't seen her since I was eight, and then she was being put in Arkham for murdering her parents. She wasn't even my type, but who was to say what my type really was. She'd been on my mind for a week now, I was even dreaming about her.
Alfred came into the room carrying a silver tray with food on it. I sat up as he placed it on the table in front of me.
"Hey Alfred, do you remember Andromeda?" I asked him, with more confidence than I felt. He looked up at me and nodded his head.
"Yes Master Wayne, I remember her. It's a shame what happened to her. She was such a lovely girl. Why do ask?" He replied with a small smile. I grimaced and blew out a mouthful of air.
"I can't get her off of my mind." I said honestly. It was hard to lie to Alfred, what with him being my caring guardian since I was little.
He tentatively sat down beside me on the couch and placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Could it be because of this?" He grabbed the remote to the TV and turned it to a breaking news story on the news channel.
"...I repeat patient number six, six, two, three, or someone you may remember from the past, Andromeda Corvinus, Has recently escaped from Arkham Asylum. We do not have any confirmations of how this has come, but she was last seen being carried out of Arkham by none other than Kyle Hikaru, notorious mass murderer and previously seen with the Joker. We don't know if Kyle is still working for the Joker at this time. Many of you may remember that Andromeda was placed into Arkham when she was just eight years old, for the murder of her parents..." Alfred shut the TV off and I sat stunned into silence.
She had escaped from Arkham?
I stood up and started for the door leading to my room. "Thank you, Alfred. Cancel my date with Angie. I'm going out tonight." I told him, shrugging past the door and down the hall.
CHAPTER FIVE: The Escape
I sighed and leant back against the padded walls. The padded walls with the blood all over them. I was bored and it was even more boring without being able to play my usual mind games with Dr. Crane. He was such an interesting man. How could a sane man take pleasure in talking to psychopaths with no real intention of ever giving him answers? I had no idea.
"Do you ever think of anything other than Dr. Crane, Joker, blowing things up, and killing people?" Valora asked, determined to figure out my motives behind my thoughts. I scrunched my face up with thought and banged my palm against my forehead, mimicking Valora's usual thought process.
"No." I said finally, laughing maniacally as she cursed at me in Italian. Sadly she knows the language and I don't. It's incredible what she knows and I don't and vice versa.
I got silent for a minute, no thinking and everything and then as Valora had started snoozing from the lack of attention. I did it...
"EXPLOSION!" I screamed in an ear-drum piercing shriek. Valora woke up with a start and had she been on a bed and not in my mind, she would have fell from the bed with no intention of doing so.
I face-palmed and giggled, scratching my thumbnail at the dried blood on my walls. Most people call me crazy, I call it Mentally Awesome! Yeah, I'm a boss. Just kidding you guys, just kidding.
"Andromeda, I'll kill you. Oh snaps and bubbles! Someone's coming for you. And it's not your psychiatrist." Valora exclaimed.
I slipped quietly behind the door and could distinctly hear a set of footsteps, they were heavy, and so I had assumed they were coming from a male. Approximately six foot five weighing in at about 285 max. Baby blue eyes and dark brown hair that was kept neatly cut. He had a British accent, but wasn't from Great Britain, he was actually from Wales. Don't ask me how I know all of this from hearing his footsteps. It's just a gift I've always had since I was really little.
I stepped away from the door just as someone unlocked it and slung it inward. The guy was exactly as I had described, except his eyes were more of a cobalt blue than a baby blue. He stepped into the room and grabbed my wrist and jerked me out of the room. He drug me behind him as he traipsed into the hallway and started going down the corridor. I yanked my hand free from his and tried to run down the hall, but a gun was pointed at the back of my head, forcing me to stay.
"Not going to run free now, are you Princess?" A voice I recognized as the Joker said to me. I turned around and smiled a pleased smile. It was him and not my imagination.
Joker smiled that vicious smile of his and jerked the gun to the dark haired Brit and shot him in the head. I watched with amusement.
"If you wanted me all to yourself, you could have just asked." I told him, smirking. He raised an eyebrow but smiled nonetheless.
"Oooh, someone's being a flirt today, now aren't we?" Valora asked slightly intrigued by my current situation.
I turned my head and whispered feverly, not wanting the Joker to hear that I was talking to myself. "I am not being a flirt. I'm just being sincere. And maybe he does want me to his self. Who knows?"
"Hehehahahahoho!" The Joker laughed out suddenly making me turn around and look at him with an angry face.
"Are we leaving, or are you going to sit there and laugh all day?" I spat at him, with more venom in my voice than was necessary.
He narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice, "Touché. You're the one talking to yourself."
He looked me up and down with an intense glare and then raised his gun up to my forehead. I stared at him, not afraid of what he was going to do.
He laughed at me and then...