A Laugh In The Dark Ch10
After Jace got back to his feet he brushed himself off and began speaking again, glancing at Joker over his shoulder. "Three times I've ran into you. And all three times I end up flat on the ground with you sitting on top of me. Why is that exactly?" But Joker wasn't listening to him. Halfway through his sentence Joker turned suddenly glancing up and locking gazes with Batman. "Damn it, no matter how well concealed I am he never fails to spot me. I'm going to have to question him about that sixth since of his sometime." Batman thought as the vamp finally notices Joker's lack of attention and follows his gaze up. Spotting Batman himself, Batman watched in silent inner amusement as the vamps expression goes from curious to nervous and down right terrified as he looks between him and Joker. Apparently stories of the battles fought between the Caped Crusader and the Clown Prince are well known to him.
Getting fed up with this staring game with Joker, in a split decision Batman jumped from the shadowy perch atop the building and glided to the street below. Landing with a soft thud of boots, Batman then walked towards the two, his eyes never leaving the Joker. Stopping a, more or less, safe six feet away before he final spoke. "What are you doing off Arkham Island Joker?" keeping his tone flat as if he weren't really all that interested in receiving an answer. In fact he wasn't expecting much of an answer, the Joker was a great one for avoiding the topic and giving only half truths and riddles.
Surprisingly though the Joker did answer, with a quick twirl backwards he placed the vamp between them. "Ah, come on Batsy," he whines peaking out at Batman from under the Jace's left arm. "Ya know me. I'm looking for laughs and giggles and…" he paused before jabbing the vamp in the side with his finger adding. "…HIM! I haven't maimed or killed anyone today. Scouts honor Batsy." he says holding up three fingers to his forehead in a mock scout salute. "I've been a good boy, honest!" Lowering his hand back to his side he began to giggle as he continued to look at Batman from his place under Jace's arm.
Jace, all the while, merely rolled his eyes in irritation at Joker for being put in the middle and spoke with an equally irritated and even sarcastic tone. "Yeah, that's COMPLETELY believable." Which promptly earned him a jab to the side by Joker followed by "Shut up you." from an annoyed Joker. Which oddly enough was fallowed by "If you don't stop doing that I'm going to cut off that finger and lodge it permanently up your nose." by a equally annoyed vamp, earning a slightly shocked expression from Joker. This little exchange damn near caused Batman to laugh out loud. The thought of someone actually being able to match, or damn near best the Joker at witty quips so easily was, in a word, amusing.
That is, until he heard the words Joker spoke next. It started out as a laugh, a long, loud, completely Joker laugh that seemed to shake every inch of his being and even vibrate down to Batman's very core. Batman hadn't heard a laugh like THAT since around four months ago when they had last fought. At that time Joker had been trying to blow up what remained of a hospital, a widely used child daycare, an apartment building, and even the last remaining large police station all at the same time.
A few moments later Joker was able to steady himself, more or less, and stepping towards Jace, as he had stumbled backwards do to the laughter, wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pointed at Batman. "You'd better watch out Batsy, there's a new bat themed goodie goodie in town. And this one HAS a since of humor!" he said cheerfully now pointing at the vamp. "I'm liking him way more than you already." saying this last bit in a slightly lower tone.
This, for some reason, pissed Batman off. He wasn't sure why exactly, maybe it was the thought of as Joker put it 'Bat Themed' competition. Or the fact that Jace seemed to get along so well with the psychotic clown, and seemed to feel comfortable to be around the madman. Or maybe…It was jealousy? "Jealousy? What the hell have I got to be jealous about?" He questioned himself mentally, absently glaring at the vamp. "You know what." the Bruce side of his mind responded. "Your jealous of them, both of them. We've wanted the Joker, despite all his crimes, for god knows how long. And this creature flies in on the scene and steals him away."
There's a slight pause in the Bruce half's rant long enough for Batman to speak aloud, cutting Joker off mid giggle. "Fine. Jace. The Joker is YOUR problem now. I'll have nothing more to do with him." Fighting hard to keep the emotion out of his voice, as well as his expression and body language, Batman turned and made a beeline for the nearest dark ally. Shooting a grappling line to the roof of the same building he had jumped off, he ascended back to its upper shadows where Bruce voice resumed speaking. "On the other hand…we're jealous of Joker also. Because he seems to have captured the eye of the creature we find equally as irresistible as the madman himself. How could that deranged clown win over the ravishing vamp Jace where both Bruce and Batman seemed to have failed?" Sighing at Bruce's incredibly unhelpful playboy take on the situation, Batman watched in silence as Joker and Jace both headed gloomily back in the direction of Arkham. After a while of following the two in silence, Batman decided to start heading back towards the Batmobile once they had started across the bridge to Arkham.
The night was pretty quiet after that. For a while at least. About an hour after the Joker and Jace run in Batman decided to call it quits on the patrol, only having caught a hand full of petty criminals and vandals. Batman had just disarmed and climbed into the Batmobile when something fell directly in front of it with a sickening 'THUD'. Startled Batman froze, but only for a few seconds before he was leaping back out of the car and rounding the front. It took him a few seconds for it to register what exactly it was he was looking at. From the outside it looked like an ordinary trash bag, and anyone ordinary person would have just left it as it WAS an ordinary trash bag. But Batman was no ordinary person, he could tell just at a glance that something wasn't quite right with it. Kneeling cautiously beside the bag he pulled a Baterang from his belt and gingerly cut the bag open.
The smell was the first thing to hit him. A sort of sickly sweet and metallic smell. Like rotten meat and pennies. The smell made his stomach turn and he bit back the urge to vomit. He had a pretty good idea what was inside that bag, and he really didn't want to see it. No, didn't want to, HAD to. Had to see the body, to find out exactly how the person was killed to know which villain he was dealing with. Each villain had there own signature ways to kill. Joker has his Joker Juice and assorted bombs and props, Catwoman had her claws and deadly aim with a whip, The Riddler had his riddles and killer mind games, The Scarecrow had his Fear Toxin, and Poison Ivy had her deadly plants.
Carefully pealing back the thin layer of the bag Batman was confronted with the half rotted corps of a woman. The woman appeared to be fairly young and at one time had been beautiful. The body was laying on its side and from what he could see so far no visible physical damage had been done to this side of the body. Gently taking hold of the bodies shoulder he rolled her over to her back. The sight that greeted him there on her chest made his stomach turn violently but he was still able to fight back the want to vomit. The woman's chest had been violently ripped into. Where her heart had been now lay a gaping bloody and torn hole about the size of his fist. The heart itself was missing and in its place was a playing card.
Reaching out to pick it up, Batman hesitated a few seconds before his fingers gripped the cards edge. Lifting it up so that the sides didn't touch the sides of the ragged hole, Batman flipped it over to its front. The card was an Ace of Hearts, with the hearts that lay in each of the four corners burned off. He then flipped the card over again and studied its back. In the very middle of the card was a beautifully detailed black fox with bright red eyes. "Heartless…" He muttered, the name rolling off his tongue dripping with hate. Heartless, was a new addition to the already large number of psychopathic madmen and murderers to Gotham. The madman had a sick obsession with cutting the hearts out of young, innocent, attractive women and EATING them whole.
His real name is Blaze Moonshadow, a twisted man obsessed with immortality, and oddly enough, foxes. He believes he can gain immortality by eating the hearts of his victims and has a strange ability to summon to fox like phantom creatures. Roughly six foot, one hundred eighty five pounds, blue eyed male with silver/grey shoulder length hair, and from what reports have claimed at least thirty three in age. Batman managed to capture the cannibalistic madman once, which was how he knew what he knew about him, which in truth, beside his name and description wasn't much. His past was a total mystery to the Batman. And he hated not knowing all the details about his enemies. "I guess he's just like the Joker in that sense. After all this time no one has yet found any truth to his origins." he murmured aloud as he phoned Oracle to tell her what he found and where the police should pick it up. Then he shot a grappling line and ascended to the nearest roof top. "Looks like this night is far from over." Batman muttered to himself as he set out in search of Heartless.