My World
Chap 10 – Ozymandias
"I'm sorry I haven't been able to see you all for such a long time! You see I've been busy with dealing with my own things – getting my hands on heartless and Nobodies, visiting Castle Oblivion, and pretty much just staying out of trouble till the little cretins finally get the big picture!"
"I took to eating a lot of ice cream till I got brain freeze and watching a lot of the Gotham News Channel, ha, I LOVE that channel! But in any case I hope you all haven't gotten worried about me! Haven't begun to get bored with the story! Because your dear ol' uncle Joker is back and ready to bring you that oh-so-delirious grin to your face once again!"
Jafar, Morgana and Captain Hook, still dressed in their idiotic clown uniforms, looked about the black room and at each other to pin point the exact person (or persons) the Joker was directing this conversation to, but simply decided this was yet another unexplainable concept of the madman's devices.
The Joker looked down at them all sitting by the table with its little bulb providing the only source of light within the room. The weeks of waiting, which had accumulated into months, had started to get to the Joker and you could see he was itching to get something done – anything. Thus he called for a less-than-needed gang gathering where he could at least practice some entertaining form of authority over someone without having to disguise himself or without the other recipient being Harley.
Speaking of Harley, where was that girl?
"Mistah J! I got ya walkin' stick all nice and polished!" Harley emerged from somewhere in the darkness and handed over what at first glanced appeared to be a metallic cane. Ah, finally! Any longer and the show would've went to mulch! Thank her lucky stars for being on time – or a very unlucky thing would've happened to her.
The three lackeys looked at each other, from the last time they saw him he didn't need any assistance in his walking. Maybe he had gotten himself a little too bored and had done something to impair his movement. They all began to think of the ridiculous things he probably gotten him into but were soon blinded by the staff as it was brought into the light. The three pairs of eyes began to adjust to the bright light coming off the metallic sheen of the cane and they soon came to realize this wasn't any ordinary walking device.
Captain Hook was the first to take notice, "Hey, you know that looks an awful lot like – "He was then interrupted by the loud and terribly surprised voice of Jafar
"MALEFICENT'S STAFF!" For a man who often masked his fear well, it seemed his voice was now tinged with anxiousness after the unveiling of the Joker's "walking stick".
"Oh that's because it is!" He giggled; though giggling was hardly the thing you could imagine a tall, lanky, psychotic murderer to be doing.
"But-but how did you get your hands on it?" Morgana inquired.
"Well after I dealt with the old Wicked Witch of the West myself – she really couldn't put up a fight about me taking her little walking stick."
"What about the Organization? Wouldn't they have confiscated that from you?" Jafar said – he was still completely stunned that the Joker was now holding the recently deceased Maleficent's staff. A staff more powerful than his own and one he had so often dreamed of obtaining himself – but it seemed the clown had beaten him to the quick.
"What the Organization doesn't know – doesn't hurt me!" A cackle was heard this time around.
"And what have you done with it?" Captain Hook quickly interjected his own question.
"Yeesh, what is this? Twenty Questions? Look, all I did was simple High school Chemistry Silver Plating. You put the staff in one big jar, putt the silver in another jar, connect some wires here and there – and WHA-BOOM gotcha self a silver plated Maleficent staff! And it is used for a wide variety of things such as staring at this trademark, and frankly fabulous, face!" The Joker lifts the staff up to eye level and smiles at himself before giving his image a kiss, "But also it has enhanced and glamorized the fine art of poking!" He takes the staff and begins forcefully jabbing it into Harley's side.
"Quiddit would ya!" She hisses at him angrily and rubs the area he's been poking tenderly.
"Now, now Harley! No need to make a fuss!" He gives her one last good jab and she trips over herself and tumbles head first into the darkness.
The Joker watches the abyss and waits for Harley to make a sound, or some form of reaction, but she doesn't and he returns back to his audience. The full force of his smile nearly blinding them again but in disgust and wonder. He puts his staff into his now commonly worn kingly purple robes.
"Do you even know how to use the thing?" Jafar boldly asked as he watched the staff disappear from sight into the inner pockets of the clown's clothes. "I mean it would be worthless to you if you didn't know how to wield it."
The Joker let out a small trickle of what could only be assumed was laughter, but it seemed more tinged with a darker and angrier undertone.
"Can ya believe this guy?" He looks from Morgana to Hook, "Can I wield the staff? Pfft, please," He pauses a moment, smiling he sighs before nearly knocking Jafar off his seat as his white ghostly face rushed up closer to his in a viscous scowl, "OF COURSE I KNOW HOW TO USE THE DAMN THING!" He pulls himself back and watched Jafar try to regain his seating and caught sight of a small tremor quake through his body. "You watch enough Disney movies; you begin to get the hang of it." He didn't pause to wait for the laughter, he heard it in his head and he already knew they wouldn't get it.
"Now that you're all done asking the questions, I think it's about time I shared a few questions of my own with you!"
His murky green eyes swiftly turned towards Captain Hook who nearly jumped out of his seat by the shear intensity the Joker had randomly flashed him.
"So did you get it?" Pause. "Did ya get it? Did ya get it? Did ya get it?" The Joker now suddenly turned into a child waiting for his Christmas present from his parent. His large bony hands outstretched in front of the Captain, waiting for whatever "present" the clown had asked him to bring.
Captain Hook blinked at him for a moment, at loss for words, was it possible a man only a few moments ago could be as lethal as a knife to your throat was capable of acting like such a – child?
"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" Was all there needed to be said before Hook snapped back to attention, coughed and carefully pulled out a vial from his pocket.
The substance in his bottle was potent and glimmering. All around the table eyes widened and flecks of gold shined in their corneas. This was the exact stuff dreams were made of, the chemistry of sleep, the thing that all people wished they could do but were constrained by only the physical matter of things and couldn't see the magic just outside their windows.
It was pixie dust, from the most recognized pixie of them all found only in Never Never Land. It was quite easy to obtain the full vial of pixie dust from the little flying nymph, all Captain Hook had to do was perform a usual tussle with the green tight wearing Peter Pan, let Smee capture the little flying pest, and then it was all a matter of how hard you shook the girl. The Joker gleefully clapped his hands together and let his long white fingers grip the bottle savagely from Captain Hook's grasp. He looked at it once more, dazzled, before crudely putting it into his own pocket.
"Good work my dear Captain Hook-er!" Joker smiled gallantly, "And I know when good work should be rewarded!" Captain Hook felt a sudden nausea at the sound of "rewarded". And he watched nervously as the Joker dipped his hand into his pocket again, and it appeared another one of the clown's more "clownish" tendencies ensued. He pulls out a rubber chicken, a rainbow scarf, a piece of paper, and lets it all drop to the floor without a notice. He finally finds what he is looking for – a bright blue ribbon. Though it had been crumpled a little at the ends do to its compact confinement, it still held a brilliant vain blue color. He happily takes the sticker off the back of it and sticks it onto Hook's coat. He could feel the Captain tremble at his touch as he pushes his fingers onto his lapel and lingers there longer than he needed to be.
"You have now been promoted to be Number Four prostitute in all of Kazakhstan!" I mid sentence he changes the accent of his voice to something much foreign to their ears. And a shrill laugh floods out from his mouth, the others begin to chuckle, but don't really understand the reference to the joke. But fear of getting themselves into a much direr situation than not getting a joke pushes them to laugh along with him.
The Joker's laugh soon dies down, and he wipes away imaginary tears from his eyes. They highly doubted the man even knew HOW to cry. But it was his way to pull off the melodramatic and they had all gotten semi-used to his mannerisms.
"Alright-y! Moving on! So how 'bout my consolation prize Ja-Fart?"
Jafar looked sternly over his shoulder, "I've brought it, but I do have one last question I've been meaning to ask you."
The Joker rolls his eyes and yawns graciously. "You really don't know when to stop with this nonsense do you? You know curiosity killed the cat."
"But I'm not a cat." A tension crackled into the air.
"No, but you sure do have claws like one," He titters before flashing a smile. "Well go ahead then, make my millennium!"
"…What was the point of bombing the museums and the parks? How do we benefit from destroying things that could be of more use to us if we had kept them for ourselves?"
The Joker smiles broadly, but there was something contemplative in his eyes as he leans back into his royal chair and remains quiet for a long moment. The long uneasy silence that enveloped the room was deafening, they had much rather preferred a loud obnoxious Joker than a quiet one, at least when he was talking, you could get a feel for what was on his mind. Morgana and Hook both looked at Jafar, wondering if he had said something wrong, and more importantly, if he had, what was the Joker going to do to him?
"Greedy little animals, the lot of you," the Joker pulls himself out from his chair – this was the first time they had seen his unsmiling – and deadly serious - face. And they thought it more fearful and dreadful than his smiling one. As he leans in close to the three of them, the smell of expensive cologne drifts into their noses as well as sugary confections and something old and musky and rotting. He never particularly took the time to converse with all of them one on one, and preferred to be the center of attention and moving about. Now when they got up close and personal with him, they could see all the tapestry of laugh lines, small scars, and wrinkled brows. He was definitely much older than what his charisma leads most to believe, and there was something – something strangely inhuman about him in all his mortal canvas. He continued to speak, but his usual flighty and somewhat high voice sunk down to a more grave tone.
"I do it because I live for the joke, because I love it! Because I want people to GET IT!"
He laughs again, the seriousness now all but forgotten – and they all let out a small sigh of relief at the sound of his laughter (they never thought such an ear wrenching sound could be so sweet!), he seems to find the humor in everything he does even though no one else thinks it's funny.
"This reminds me of a joke I once heard…well it wasn't really a joke per say but…" He giggles.
"Canaan is devastated,
Ashkelon is fallen,
Gezer is ruined,
Yenoam is reduced to nothing,
Israel is desolate and her seed is no more,
And Palestine has become a widow for Egypt,
All the countries are unified and pacified."
He leans back into his chair once more and waits applause from his audience, waiting to hear the cheers and whoops and laughing. He sees it in his mind's eye, the roses, the adoration, and the utter recognition of one of the world's greatest jokes. But nothing comes. Not even a smirk crawls onto their feeble minded looking faces. They didn't get it – none of them ever do and that's why he always has to suffice with toxin induced smiles.
That was always the down side of comedy – you were always taking shots from people who just – don't get the joke! He sighs as he slumps over his chair and looks around the table, it's so quiet he can hear their breathing and for some odd reason he feels like choking them all to death - but he restrains himself and plays the part of merciful master, though they would never know how close he was to getting rid of them. .
"In conclusion, the morals are 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' and my all time favorite 'there is ALWAYS more than one way to skin a cat.'" He winks at Jafar, "Hopefully that answers all your questions."
Nothing is said but everything is understood and finally the clown says something. "Well, did you bring it Ja-fart?"
There were no more inquiries coming from him, and there will be no more heard from him ever again.
Jafar leaks himself into the darkness to go and retrieve what his boss had asked him to get. As the Joker waits he is slightly reminded of Batman's own little disappearing act – he does love to blend in with his dark and dismal surroundings, though the only difference between Jafar's and Batman's act was when Batman disappeared into the night…he BECAME the night. And that's why he loved him! He played his role just as well as the Joker played his.
Jafar quickly reappeared and lumbering behind him was a large metallic cage and the bars lightly glowed due to the fact that it was magically constructed to hold within its metal a replica of the power of light found within the hearts of the untainted. The cage sat on a large wooden platform with wheels that creaked as Jarfar pulled it out into view. He seemed to be having some slight difficulty trying to drag it in, but no one got up to help, and he didn't ask for any. Finally when it was within a reasonable radius the Joker jumped out from his seat and clapped his hands delightedly.
"Oh me oh my! I do declare that it is my birthday today!" He ran over to the cage and took a peek inside to find numerous amounts of heartless and Nobodies crawling all over each other to get away from the cage bars. He grinned maliciously as he watched some get stung by the light and try crawling their way through the mound only to get another fellow minion stung. It reminded him a lot of Gotham – in fact, it reminded him of every place he ever went to, people always doing what was best for themselves, regardless who they hurt in the process. "Just marvelous." He continued to stare at the squirming dark mounds.
Finally his green eyes pulled away from the mini-enclosed biosphere and looked at Jafar, "And don't think I haven't got anything to reward you with!" He rummages through his pockets again and pulls out a can of white clown grease paint. It looks like it had been open, but the Joker never needed grease paint, the white stuck onto his face WAS his skin. Perhaps he had taken it from his hench wench's belongs.
"You're now Pagliacci!" He chuckles a little before tossing the can to Jafar, he caught it in one hand but began to regret it as thoughts of contaminated face paint swam around in his thoughts. "I know, not a big promotion, you're still in the clown department, but think of it this way. At least you two look a lot like each other!" To this he lets up a heartier laugh before grabbing a hold of the cage bars and roughly pushing it aimlessly into the black abyss.
"Oh HARLEY! You little minx you! Come out and take this bad boy back to the house, kay?"
"Sure thing Mistah J!" Her voice rings from the darkness as she begins to wheel away the cage, he watches till the light glowing fades away and the Joker turns his attention back to his cronies.
"We seem to be having ourselves a good streak today!" He turns his eyes over to Morgana. "Let's hope we can keep it up."
Ever since the Joker started that round-robin game with Hook and Jafar, Morgana had been anxiously furling and unfurling her tentacles, her fingers tapping rapidly on the wooden table top. When it was finally her turn – she abruptly stopped fidgeting and looked up into the eyes of the monster. He waited patiently. She bit her lower lip and he could almost see the wheels in her mind turning, the chugging of the thought train rolling by.
"Well my dear Morgana Pheeling?"
A long pause before she had the guts (or the tactics) to respond.
"I wasn't able to get what you asked," before he could say anything she immediately began to spew her explanations, "It was too risky! Too many people were crowding around! And I think perhaps someone already saw me, so I had to leave!"
He was still smiling, and he chuckled somewhat. "Oh ho ho! You sure are a funny girl ain't ya?" He wasn't listening to it; she could already see the blood splattering across his face.
"Pl-please! I can make it up to you! I'll get you something better – something really worth your time!"
He can be merciful, but twice in one sitting – that was like lightening hitting the same place…TEN TIMES! He laughed light heartedly as he reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out a large and ridiculous looking gun and pointed it directly into her face. There was nothing said, not even Jafar and Hook made an effort to question the Harlequin of Hate. Morgana had anticipated her "friends" to come to her aid – but as precious moments flew by she knew she had to deal with this on her own. Though part of a team she was told she was in, she now knew that her petty naïveté would pay with her blood. Morgana was trembling, but she angrily looked up to the gun's wielder. She wasn't going to be snuffed out by a childish buffoon! She was of her family's blood, and was told they were superior to all beings of the sea! And why couldn't it apply to those above water as well?
"W-what are you going to do?" Her voice didn't sound as brave as she had liked it to be. "Shoot me? It's not like you can just kill me! People will be wondering!" She felt something hard a cold fall into the pit of her stomach, she definitely didn't sound as impressive as she had hoped, and it seemed more like she was begging for her life. And perhaps unconsciously she was.
"Then let them!" In the next second, there was an incredibly loud bang echoing off from the gun as he pulled the trigger with that white bony index finger of his. There was a puff of smoke coming out from the pistol, it momentarily covered the gruesome sighting Jafar and Captain Hook had already been expecting. They both shut their eyes, out of both disgust and just pure human reaction, and when they slowly opened them to witness the death of Morgana, they were STUNNED.
Morgana was still breathing, though raggedly and nearly about to faint, she intently was looking at a BANG! flag protruding out from the gun with a cross eyed look as it was only a mere inch away from her face. The Joker uproariously laughed and jabbed the flag into Morgana's nose repeatedly.
"Don't take life so seriously!" He said as he whimsically twirled the flag around. "Hopefully in death you'll be able to see the lighter side of things."
Morgana blinked with surprise, surely he must be joking?
"W-what?"
Joker pointed the gun directly into her wide opened eyes and pulled the trigger again and the BANG! flag shot out from the gun and lodged itself into Morgana's right eye and out through the back of her skull. Pieces of shattered bone, skin and brain matter flew out from the extra hole the Joker had given her. There was a loud scream of anguish, and her head hit the table top, blood began to pool around her face, as her head twitched and her hands seemed to try and grab the hole to close it up. Eventually her twitches only became slight tremors and soon enough she stopped moving all together. Her body fell limp off the chair and hit the floor. The Joker was smiling throughout the whole event, he knew his little sadistic shot would've caused for optimal pain and suffering as she hadn't been put down immediately, but lived her passing few moments as dumb, mute, and blind – considering he had blown off the part of her brain that functioned all of those human properties.
"Lesson learned kiddies!" He started by saying as the gun quietly slipped away from his hand into his pocket. Jafar and Captain Hook looked up at him, the funny thing was, they all HEARD about the cruel and unusual deaths Joker tended to favor, but had never really actually SEEN it. And now that they did, they wish they hadn't.
"In this place, I can either give you life" he flashes his green acidic colored eyes at them, "or I can take it away!" He then looks to the floor at Morgana and then directs his slightly dilating pupils at his two remaining henchmen. "And the most important lesson to be learned from this is – I am GOD here!"
A/N:
Holy crap there is A LOT goin on here. Okay starting off - Ozymandias - I'm getting Watchmen fever after watching the preview - and all those comic geeks out there who know what I'm talking about will probably get the references to this chapter. In any case, those of you who aren't comic fanatics - I'm going have to go into a little bit more of an explanation. In any case, Ozymandias - was an incredible king that ruled eygpt, another name for him that you might recall was - Ramses II.
In any case, I wanted to really stress the point that the Joker - though crazy and pretty much does whatever he likes - has a method to his madness. A certain naivete if you would like to call it. And when he talks about Canaan and what not, and his morals end up being "The road to hell is paved with good intentions", it makes sense, because the Joker's ultimate punchline is...THE WORLD SUCKS! I mean blantly put - thats what it is - that life is demented gag and there is not hope and no meaning and whatever! He thinks that part of what he's doing is actually for hte benefit of this universe - since hte worlds before didn't know about anything of hte other worlds and now he's bringing to light about them, about hte corrupt governments that they didnt see before and in their suffering and chaos - they are united. He's weird - I know - but thats how he works.
As for the blowing up buildings parts - like I said, he thinks the world is meaningless - and he likes ot break barriers, and like in V for vendetta - "things only mean something if people give it meaning". for example the mueseums - they're just paintings - but what if one day - someone blew u the Lourve - everyone would fall to their knees because of the MASSIVE meaning in what we lost in hte Mona Lisa and all the other paintings. And that thus leads us to "there is more than one way to skin a cat" - he understands that you don't necessarily have to KILL someone in order to give them suffering and pain.
Whew - that was a mouthfull! LMAO! And as always -reviews are appreciated!