Okay its time for the next chapter! Now as you all dreaded I will name off all the appreciations for Favorites!
AHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA I was lying. Mostly because I don't remember who all faved me. Sorry guys but if you did thank you it's always appreciated!
Ms. MaDd: hahaha I can tell you and me are going to get along just fine. The Joker can't help that he is overly theatric I just made him that way…..actually Hollywood did….as far as the backdoor bird I couldn't stop cracking up when I was writing it. I agree it is a lovely image.
Chapter 16
Needless to say the news was all over the place most of the time. How where a bunch of criminal punks pulling something off like three bank robberies at once!? It was absurd to think anyone but the Joker could pull that off. It started out as just minor crimes that the news didn't like to bother with until they apparently showed their displeasure of being ignored.
Now any time there was a minor crime that looked to be done by, what people now called, the Jokers Circus it was top story. The Joker was terrorizing Gotham even behind bars now. Other small time criminals started volunteering for the cause just to make a little misery for others. Small time crimes were rampant in the streets. Anything from graffiti to car theft, to bank theft, to just trashing the place. In fact these three managed to make things so bad that people were demanding the Joker be let loose.
It made for good publicity for the Joker. People feared him now more than ever because they knew that no matter what the Joker ruled the streets. Batman was growing tired. He was constantly out arresting henchmen, gangs who had dreams of working with the Joker himself, and just about any scum of the earth that would do anything to get paid. Everyone he ever caught was a dead end. A majority of them had never actually met Artemis, Damian, Joey, or the Joker. They were just a bunch of kids and sick-o's looking for something crazy to do. Circus wannabe's, as they were now called, worked mostly for the attention.
The Joker ate every moment of it. It seemed that the only ones now that didn't fear him were Ivy, Selene, Jonny boy, and the lovely Harlequin he was working so hard to fall for him.
Harleen was coming closer every day to falling in love. He would sneak into her office and leave her whatever he happened to find that caught his own interest and usually the thought that followed was 'Harleen might like this'. The only time he thought of his father Marcus was when the news came on.
That was another thing. The news had become a drug for him and everyone in Arkham. Even after the big show was over they still watched for their future inmates on the news. Then today the Joker felt that they were getting a little ridiculous. Yea, he was all for mayhem and chaos, and yes he found it really funny, but he did wish he could get back out there and get some control over them. God knows, one night they may hit the wrong house, the last thing he needed was for them to be locked up in here while he was.
It was this morning at breakfast when the news reporter Tasha Bane was standing in front of a house that was wrapped up in cellophane, egged, and the windows were cookies. All over the yard had been forked. It was funny though. As far as the yard was you could see toilet paper forked into the ground in individual squares.
A horrible plan had popped in his head and he needed out of here to carry the message on. He was already pushing that line when he crept around the hospital at night. Then he thought, what the hell, I just won't come back.
Now here he was just about to open his cell again when a door came open. He backed up and sat on his bed waiting to see who it was. A nurse walked in with long hair, a long white dress, a white cloak, and a Red Cross paper hat. This wasn't unusual. It was around this time of year a lot of nurses dressed this way to stay warm. Arkham was a very cold place, and when it started getting cold outside it got a bit chilly in the hospital.
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Artemis, Joey, Damian, and a few random gangsters who wanted a chance at doing something extremely stupid snuck into Arkham. Damian and the pit bull they drug with them lead the group up stares so as to guard the halls. Joey took off to go get the Joker looking lovely in his nurse's attire. Artemis took for the evidence room with a couple of the gangsters.
Damian directed everyone to which hall they would keep an eye out. All windows were to be watched as well as entrances and exits. To make his point clear he took the safety off his gun and cocked it ready to fire. No one was going to argue with that. They all had guns but they heard horror stories about The Joker's Circus.
Joey stabbed a guard in the back and took his keys. First step of his job was already done. Next was to find the Joker. He walked down to the offices and saw his old doctors office. He opened the door curiously and saw that the Joker's case file was sitting on the desk with what looked to be sliver thin necklace that had a broken heart on it saying "Love" in cursive and a note. He picked it up curiously and read it.
"All yours harlequin
Mistah Jay"
Joey blinked a couple of times with disbelief. Not only did he have the same doctor they did but he was attempting to woo her! It was unbelievable. Joey never thought of the Joker as a romantic kind of guy. Unless this girl was digging on psychos, if that was the case she got the perfect job.
Artemis grabbed everything there that belonged to the Joker. She snatched his purple suit with his blue shirt and green vest, a variety of weapons with blades on them, and what looked to be a piece of a broken heart that had fallen out of one of the pockets. She picked it up and observed it curiously. It had the word "My" carved in elegant cursive. What was that about? She shrugged and put it back in the pocket thinking it was just another weird thing he did. She would never understand him.
She ran out the room, if things went according to plan she would meet up with Joey at the cell.
Sure enough she did. He was just about to unlock it when she came running up. He turned to see her with the cloths and plastic bag full of stuff. Joey turned back to the lock and turned it. He took the outfit from Artemis and turned toward the Joker pulling the face mask out with suit and belongings in hand. "Hey," he said, "we're going to a costume party, wanna join?"
The Joker grabbed his cloths and got out of the prison outfit. He walked out of the cell and took the lead from there. They were just about to go out the door when non other then batman jumped through a widow knocking down a few Circus wannabe's. Batman looked up and saw the Joker standing there and two of his targets. Then a huge bull dog started to attack batman. While he struggled with the dog the Joker led them through the emergency exit.
They ran all the way to the first floor when Harleen ran into them. She always came in early to do her paperwork but this was the first time she came in during a break out. She stared at the Joker and he at her. Artemis watched the two stare at each other and felt her face go a little hot. What was he staring at it was just the dumb psychiatrist they were seeing for a short while. He nudged at his arm and he looked down at her and remembered why he was there.
He took one last look at Harleen before turning to leave. Artemis looked over at her with a blank expression but Harleen could see it on her face, jealousy. She watched closely as Artemis, Damian, the Joker, and then soon Joey and a couple of the Circus wannabe's raced out the door with Batman on their tail looking to be limping. A bull dog shot right passed Batman and ran out the door.
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They all jumped in the van and it started and swerved away. The race was on! Batman closely behind them, Joey ignored traffic rules and sped his way down Gotham city hoping to lose batman. But he was more then determined to catch up. Here he had the Joker, Artemis, Damian, and Joey in one vehicle and he had this one chance to catch them.
The Joker was not dumb enough to believe they were actually going to get away. They were headed for a dead end. What where they going to do, drive though the dead end anyway? Well, maybe, they seemed to know what they were doing. It didn't really bother him one way or another. He gets away he can have some fun with Gotham, he gets caught, he can have some fun with Harleen. One way or the other looked good to him right now.
Joey saw the dead end and pushed on the gas peddle even more and drove right through the bridge. The Joker sat in the passenger seat watching batman behind them start to catch up. Was he really going to try and jump that to? Yup, he sure enough did, damn, and it was such a good idea. Joey drove through the woods in a panick, he wasn't sure where he was going or what he was doing. He felt smile creep up on his face as he drove through the maze of trees with ease and the batman was hitting several of them and falling behind. Obviously Batman's car was not thin enough to go through the scattered trees, lucky for them the van was.
Joey finally spotted the road and swerved on. He pulled over and moved into the back so the Joker could take over from there. The Joker jumped over and drove toward Gotham. This will have been the first time he took them to a hideout besides a warehouse. He drove on as the other three slept. Then something accord to him. "Uh, doll," he said, "where is, uh, Marcus?" Artemis looked up at him with sleepy eyes.
"Oh," she said yawning, "he is at our old apartment in Gotham."
"How did you manage to find him, hmm?"
"Because your mother told me," she saw laying back down with her eyes closed, "she told me a long time ago that you were told he was dead but he wasn't, he was in a maximum security prison." She was still half asleep and not even paying attention to the fact that the Joker was not watching the road and was on the wrong side, she probably didn't really care either.
"And, uh, where might she be?"
"She died," mumbled Artemis, "some years ago actually." There was a loud honking noise.
"Why did you not, uh, tell me," he snapped.
"Because I didn't think about it. It never came up so I never mentioned it. Didn't think you really cared one way or the other, but we have Marcus for you. We kept him alive so you can finish him off." The Joker had to give her that, at least she was good enough to let him have his father, but that didn't excuse the fact that he didn't hear about his mother's death every. He turned his attention back to the road and quickly swerved over causing Artemis to be slammed into the van wall and Damian squished her. Artemis groaned in response. Joey woke up and looked around to see what happened and looked over at the Joker who was laughing histerically.
He just shook his head and went back to sleep. He missed it, oh well. Artemis sat up a bit dizzy and looked over at the Joker with confusion. He just laughed at her. "Trucker drove off the road," he said. Artemis smiled a bit, to bad she missed that, she would have loved to see it. The Joker drove back to Gotham in thought that was good enough for him; he forgave her for not telling him.
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Harleen paced her office nervously. What would happen if Batman caught up with them? Would he hurt them, would he hurt the Joker? The idea pained her. Why did Artemis look at her with such hatred? Sure Artemis looked at her with dislike before, but when she saw the way Harleen and the Joker stared at each other her eyes had darkened and her face seemed somewhat shallower.
She eagerly watched the news waiting to hear news on it. She finally had to plan on see her other three patience before too long. It was getting late in the day and she wanted to watch the news at lunch instead of pulling them out one at a time. First she saw Dr. Crane, then Selene, then Ivy. Finally her and Ivy left for lunch and sat at the Arkham MOD table. They sat and watched to find out what was going on.
"Okay, and we have Tasha Bane out in front of Arkham to tell us a story with Jim Gordon, commissioner of Gotham Police Department, about the Joker escaping last night."
"Thank you Grant," she said, "Now I have commissioner Gordon with me, commissioner, tell me how you think the Joker escaped."
"Well, Tasha, I would just like to say I'm just happy to be on TV!"
"We are happy to have you!"
"Well, last night it seems that the Joker's Circus broke in, we have them on security cameras, breaking out the Joker and stealing his belongings. We believe there was someone at the hospital that morning that saw him escape but said nothing. We aren't sure who that was as their face does not show on the camera."
"You said that Batman appeared last night?"
"Yes," he said, "batman was present but we found what looks to be pieces left over from his car. We do not think he made it through the woods."
"And why not search for finger prints," asked Tasha.
"Ahaha, oh Tasha, you're too funny. Finger prints! HA! Well, if you will excuse me we need to look further into the investigation."
"And there you have it," she said, "this is Tasha Bane, signing off!"
Harleen gave a sigh of relief, he was safe for now, but how long would that last?
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Alright, sorry this is a bit late, but I'm not on a time limit saw HA!
