My World
Chap 6 – The Check Up
Xigbar casually walked through the castle, passing by the familiar faces of Organization XIII. He saw Vexen and he seemed to be busy experimenting with something, as usual, but Xigbar didn't even bother to ask what it was or if he would like to go and "check up" on the Joker. The way Xigbar saw it; he'd probably screw it up like he does everything else.
Zexion was the next person that caught Xigbar's eye. He didn't seem to be doing anything important at the moment, though he seemed to be working out some sort of crossword puzzles and riddles. Xigbar took a few steps in his direction but then shook his head before moving on again. Xigbar was a mastermind, and somewhat of a shady character in the Organization. Pairing two shady masterminds together wasn't exactly the right way to go.
Finally Xigbar stumbled upon the perfect candidate, Xaldin. He was the third member of the Organization, so his allegiance to them wasn't easily faltered, he was also a guy who was pretty kept to himself and wasn't one to get easily manipulated, not to mention if things started getting a little rough he can always pull himself out of his sticky situation with his lances. Xigbar stuck his head into the room where Xaldin wa, and found him simply working on his fighting technique. He was often found alone in the training room simply spending his hours practicing. Thinking about it, Xigbar didn't remember too fondly the last time he heard Xaldin speak without a note of boredom in his voice – he was such a stoic member of the group.
"Xaldin," Xigbar interrupted his companion's training, "Xemnas is in need of your assistance."
"What does he want me to do?" Again with that indifferent tone, sure he had no heart, but that didn't mean he had to be COMPLETELY lifeless.
"He wants you to check up on the clown, the Joker."
"Why?" Xaldin questioned.
"Just to see how he is progressing in our schemes – you know, check up on him. Make sure he isn't doing anything he isn't supposed to be doing. Xemnas said he wanted a report as soon as possible." Xaldin looked at the ground for a moment before replying.
"And how come he hasn't asked you to take care of this business?"
Xigbar smirked as he turned around and began to leave Xaldin's presence.
"That's because I told him I have better things to do than to spy on trainees." He waved a hand at Xaldin as he walked away. "Have fun on your little mission!"
Xaldin watched Xigbar till he had disappeared from sight and scoffed at him. He was always shipping out missions he saw unfit for him, beneath him. Though Xigbar wasn't particularly the brains of the operation, he did enjoy carrying out missions which were useful to the expansion of the Organization. He was definitely the group's main field man, and he knew this, and sometimes it made him a little to hubris. Xaldin shook his head; he knew eventually his cocky attitude will assist in his downfall.
Xaldin grabbed one of his lances and beckoned the others to follow him with his command of the wind. Perhaps going out to meet the new recruit wouldn't be such a waste of time; from what he heard around the castle, he's suppose to be an extremely entertaining character to watch.
The Clown Prince of Crime was sitting in his comfy decorated seat, and he once again was seen wearing his kingly robes. He sat in the darkness of the room he has been told were to be his MAIN quarters, and that he can spend his leisure time in other worlds and such but when meetings were announced he was to meet them in this god-awful color scheme of a room. Xaldin sent him messengers through Dragoon Nobodies that told him to stay put in his compartment. And curiously enough, the Nobodies were never seen by Xaldin again, but he didn't really pay their disappearance any mind.
Fortunately for the Joker, his loving accomplice Harley Quinn was able to brighten the bleak room by making him little pina coladas – with multiple colored umbrellas to amuse himself with. She was also able to procure for him a wireless TV. Unsurprisingly enough she had found the thing randomly in Wonderland and placed it on the table in the god-forsaken room to further keep him occupied.
His favorite channels were ones that showed old cartoons of Tom and Jerry and Marx Brothers re-runs. He also liked to watch the Gotham News Channel (GNC) station he had received on his TV. Whenever he switched the TV onto the news woman that constantly told of the new threats Batman had put to a halt, Harley would run over and laugh with her Puddin' about all the small time fries he was dealing with when the Joker was away. However, Harley's laughter was also tinged with home-sickness when she watched Batman fight with the more venerable criminals of Gotham such as Two-Face and Poison Ivy. Though the Joker's laugh seemed more genuine with every plan foiled by the Bat, she could see that he was feeling a little home-sick too. It was the little things he did that showed her his hidden feelings. How he laughed especially hard when either one of the members of the Rouge's gallery came up or how his eyes grew wider whenever a snip of Batman's cape and cowl came onto the screen.
When all the shows were over and all that was left were sub-par sitcoms and soap operas, the Joker turned off his TV and leaned back in his chair, taking a sip of his pina colada, and then sighing heavily.
"Oh Puddin', whats troublin' ya?" Harley said as she snuggled up against his leg.
"Waiting." His fingers caressed the handle of his cup. "I hate waiting." He sat up in his chair, "You see Harls, my fun fiascos usually entail some sort of waiting, and I've come to accept that." He pauses, "But you see, I've done my part in this game and now I'm waiting for the other side to do their part. But I'm not used to waiting THIS long."
"What are ya talkin' about? It's only been a couple a days!"
The Joker let out another sigh and took a long sip form his drink.
"Batman usually picks up my signals, my riddles, and my jokes, in a matter of minutes! But these guys," He shook his head "they're amateurs."
"Amateurs?" A voice sounded form the darkness.
The Joker's pervious demeanor soon changed to delight as he got up from his seat. He tossed his pina colada off to the side, not watching where it landed but hearing a loud SMASH as the glass hit the floor.
"My you don't waste time with knocking on the door do you?" He waved his hand around in the darkness, "Welcome to my happy home!"
Xaldin looked over at the Joker and he could see that all the rumors he had heard about him appeared to be true. He had a funny and theatrical nature to him; even his features seemed to emphasis his over the top attitude, his height and scrawny looking body loomed over him, his crazed eyes were watery and off white and riddled with veins from countless sleepless nights. He was as crazy looking as he was funny. And Xaldin would've probably chuckled at the sight of him, but the thought of someone calling him an amateur hadn't escaped his mind.
"So who were you calling an amateur?"
"Eavesdropping were you?" Joker made a face like a displeased mother, before cracking his wide and frightening smile again, "I thought that was Xigbar's job." He burst into a fit of laughter, it pierced Xaldin's ears harshly and he pulled out his lance, he hadn't intended to use it against the crazed clown, but merely show him his place. However, at the sight of it, the Joker only seemed to laugh harder.
"Clown, I do not care for your jokes, I came to see how your progress is going."
The Joker's smile reeled back till it looked more natural on his face, he sighed as he shrugged.
"Again with all the business talk! You know, all work and no play…" He chuckled.
Xaldin wasn't familiar with the catchphrase, but didn't make an effort to try and find out. Harley soon came out from the darkness, fumbling in her arms various papers and was desperately trying not to spill them all on the floor.
"Here ya go Mistah J!" She chirped as she neatly placed all the papers on the table near the TV. Afterwards she pulled herself away from the gentlemen's conversation. The Joker had watched intently as she came in and left, his smile grew wider as he watched her, and then he looked back at Xaldin.
"Well if it's work you want to talk about, then it's work we'll talk about!" He opened up all his papers, his notes were either clipped on; bent on, some were even stuck on with what looked like chewing gum. Xaldin looked at the drawings he had and the writing he did that concerned itself with the plan, but it seemed that sometimes the clown had other things on his mind and strayed from the plans. More often than not, he kept drawing a man with a cape and cowl and a bat emblem on his chest falling into various death traps. There were also pictures of various cartoon characters and designs on weaponry. He even scribbled down chemical compounds and a small hypothesis on how to concoct an air-borne version of…Smilex? Clearly the man was interested in the sciences, and probably wasn't as dumb as he looked. Vexen would have been extremely interested in his notes.
"I know," he said looking at Xaldin, who was staring intently on his pictures, "I should be the next Picasso!"
Xaldin didn't reply but found a smaller picture, lightly drawn with a pencil; it was of the girl – his henchwoman. She was smiling happily like an idiot as the Joker shoved a TNT bomb into her mouth. Though the picture was supposed to be cartoon-y ridiculousness about him wanting to destroy her, there was something oddly erotic about it as well. He wondered if the two could be going out – but he looked at the Joker again and shook his head. Simply put, he was just way too weird.
"Alright, picture time is over kid," Joker rudely grabbed all his clippings away from Xaldin. "YOU wanted to talk about business, so we're going to talk about it!"
The Joker opened up a large parchment paper with endless amounts of scribbled words on it and with more drawings of his victims and his other makeshift henchmen: Captain Hook, Jafar, and Morgana.
"Well," Joker smiled brightly as he showed him his plans. "What do ya think? Brilliant, no?"
Xaldin could hardly make out what it said.
"Probably if you took more care in writing legibly."
The Joker sighed as he took the parchment up close to Xaldin.
"Alright-y, let daddy cut up the meat for ya." He took his bony finger and began pointing at the words written. "I'm going to assume you already know about the 'making-people-feel-like-they-want-to-kill-themselves' plan, right?" He doesn't wait for a reply, "Okay so, my big important part in this is to make people…feel like they want to kill themselves! And though it may seem like such easy work for me, it isn't." He smiled at Xaldin, "Do I look like someone who wants to make people feel bad? No! I'm the jester whose only dream is to make the biggest joke known to man – so I can see all of them with happy smiling faces!" He wraps an arm around Xaldin's shoulder, "You see Xaldin my-boy," Xaldin didn't remember mentioning his name, "I want to show people the ultimate joke, to understand the ultimate punch-line! People back at home don't really get it, so obviously none of the people here would even know a good joke if it bit them in the behind!"
Xaldin pulled himself away from his grasp and pointed at the three Disney villains, "And what about them? What do they have to contribute?"
"Oh they're just your typical lackeys! You see I handled all the "higher priority" victims myself, they needed a more…personal touch!" He chuckled, "But you see now, I just need to add more to the body count and soon we'll be set!"
"So, exactly what do you plan on doing to – raise – this body count?"
"Good question!" He smiled wider, "Well, probably blow up a few largely occupied streets and buildings. Followed by hospitals and playgrounds, and to top it all off, I'll probably grab a few suckers and inject them with my own specially prepared Smilex, dump them into the river, and watch as the masses run around screaming that the water has been contaminated!" He laughs. "Whether or not I'm actually going to do all of that (and in that order) is another story."
Xaldin looked over the plans, though he had no heart and just saw this as strictly business; he didn't find anything to be particularly funny. But he decided all mad men didn't need a reason for anything, they were crazy, and that reason enough for them.
"And then," he points to a picture of Wonderland, "You guys will have your final showdown with the keyblade wielder!"
Xaldin's eyes grew a little wider, a final showdown? That wasn't part of anyone's plan!
"Sora? Exactly why would Sora be coming to Wonderland to seek a final showdown?"
The Joker laughed, "Because I'm bringing him here!" He rolled up his parchment paper and placed it on the table. "You see, every smile I personally dealt with, I left a little note to show everyone in this laugh-less cosmos that – THE JOKER IS HERE! But seeing as how the boy isn't the Bats or anything, I'm probably going to have to sit on my hands and wait for him to finally get the big picture."
"Y-you left them clues? Why would you do that?" Xaldin was becoming particularly angry; this lunatic was bringing the enemy to their front step!
"Because if there wasn't a risk in this job," Again with that ridiculous smile that Xaldin desperately wanted to rip off his face at the moment, "I wouldn't be doing it!"
Xaldin pulled out his lance and held it threateningly close to him.
"I should rip you apart!"
"Aw Xaldin! I'm hurt!" The Joker sidled away from the lance and put on a mock look of despair as he placed his hand over his chest where he heart was. "I'm hurt right here! Where it all counts."
He looked viciously back at Xaldin, "Where MY heart is. Tell me Xaldin," he chuckled as he said this, "Do you still feel it there? Your heart? I've read somewhere that when a man's arm is amputated, he can still feel it tickling – does it tickle you? Does it make you want to laugh?" He broke out into a demented laughter and Xaldin furiously lunged himself at him, the Joker quickly moved aside. For someone who didn't look to be the fighter type, the Joker certainly was a quick one.
He pushed his lance at him, but the Joker only backed up further, Xaldin then came running at him, swishing his lance to the left and right, missing by only mere centimeters. "Oo boy! Talk about a sudden attack of blind rage! I hadn't seen someone this riled up since I off'ed The Boy Blunder!" He laughed and it sounded like someone scratching nails on a chalk board closely in Xaldin's ears. "You know, with someone who has no heart you do fight with so much artificial passion! I'm starting to believe you can almost be as good an actor as I am!" Xaldin roared angrily as he brought his lance up to the Joker's chin and he finally stopped moving about, the blade had slightly cut him, and blood trickled down his white throat. However, he didn't stop laughing – even when Xaldin could've easily cut his head clean off his shoulders, he still thought it was funny.
"Stop – LAUGHING!" Xaldin yelled when suddenly off to the side he heard a voice.
"Hey you! Ya I'm talkin' to you, ya big Nobody!" Xaldin turned his head to the side to see who it was that was talking to him, and saw a foot. "Eat floor!" He was knocked down to the floor by the Joker's girl. Surprisingly enough she packed quite a punch for such a petite woman.
Xaldin quickly got up and was infuriated by the insubordination of the two clowns. He wasn't going to play games with them anymore, he started floating a few inches off the ground, he picked up his lance, and his other lances surrounded him. He headed right towards Harley, now that he was gliding in the air; he was much faster and nearly took her by surprise. However, she was able to back flip herself away just in time before he sliced into her abdomen.
"Yeesh, ya really aim to kill don't cha?" She looked down at her stomach to make sure none of her innerds were spilling out without her knowing.
Xaldin grinned as he flew towards her again, this time; a flurry of lances came zooming right at her. Having not enough time to cartwheel herself away, she gracefully, and dangerously enough, managed to jump up on top of a few lances and avoid getting seared. Xaldin had to admit he was impressed by her acrobatic skills. He was an acrobatic fighter himself. He lowered himself to the ground; he decided to resume his practice session that had been interrupted - before killing the girl. He came at her with his lance and with the end of it, roughly jabbed her in the stomach. She stammered back a few steps before rushing at him and hitting him square in the jaw. In response, he took his lance and batted her hard in the face with it and he watched her skid across the floor.
Harley tried getting herself up, but Xaldin was already standing above her and he maliciously stabbed her in the shoulder. She shrieked with pain as he twisted it into her flesh. He had hit a major artery and blood was gushing out from the wound and he grabbed another one of his lances.
"As you would say," He steadied the lance in his arm, "Game over."
Seconds before he harpooned her, the other clown's voice boomed directly behind him. "Didn't your mother ever teach you never to spear a lady?" Before Xaldin could turn around and flay the Ace of Knaves, he felt something hard and cold hit him in the back of his head, and everything went dark.
A/N:
I listen to you lovely reviewing folks and I see you guys are dabbling in your own ideas of which Joker I may be referring to in my story. Is it the 90s BTAS Joker, with Mark Hamil's voice? (Actually I do imagine Joker all the time having that voice – Mark Hamil, he IS the Joker voice lmao!) Or maybe the new The Batman Joker? Or maybe even the movie The Dark Knight Joker?
To tell you the truth – your own interpretation is as good as mine. You see, I think of the Joker not as merely as a physical thing, but more of a personality and metaphysical thing. He's an idea – more than he is a person. But, that's for a different discussion that I might delve into at the end of my tale. And when I pretty much wrap things up for you in my last and probably largely rantish A/N - you're going to see all the thinking that goes into the Joker's melodrama that I created for him and you're going to think I'm a sicko...lol!
In any case I only point out the key points to the Joker for you (his laugh his green hair his white skin etc) because these are his trademarks everything else I leave up to you.
But since you have been pulling my tail about it –
I would base my loveable Joker off of the comics – plain and simple – stick to the source material and the people will flock!
Most likely a variation from (I gave links just incase you don't know the artist's style):
Alex Ross's Joker: img60.imageshack.us/img60/8471/arjpe7.jpg
(I guess if the Joker was a real person he'd look like this lol! – Gosh he's such a hottie in these pictures – especially the one where he's smoking? I wanna do sinful things with him! Rawr!)
Brian Bolland's Joker: i33./albums/d91/CicadaStar/Inside The Cosmic Cube/KillingJoke.jpg
(If I couldn't be anymore cliché than I already am now lmao! I just love TKJ)
Jim Lee's Joker: images2.wikia./marveldc/images/thumb/2/2d/Batman614.jpg/300px-Batman614.jpg
(Okay so Loeb's Joker interpretation in the Hush series REALLY sucked – but I just LOVE Lee's work on the Joker)
And as for Harley – well either Bruce Timm (from the 90s cartoon show BTAS) or Alex Ross's Harley are good…
Well that's MY two cents on the whole bit – now to the ACTUAL story commenting.
Well just because Xaldin was pretty much knocked out – doesn't mean its score one for the Joker! Really it's more of a warning "STOP NOT TAKING ME SERIOUSLY!" kinda warning. Not to mention it was two to one, sooo…ya! Clown duo had the advantage! Oh ya and another thing – Joker's talking – he does that with Batman all the time – to get on his nerves so he could slip up and the Joker could get a few good kicks. See the Dark Knight is stoic for a reason – because he's concentrating on the misson at hand – Xaldin doesn't know that the Joker has this little tactic and thus gets riled up and performs based on passion (even artifical passion as the Joker points out) rather than on concentration.