Chapter 11 The Joke Is On You Part 2

I honestly didn't get it. That inmate blamed Chris for the death of his brother. One of Frank D'amico's men. He was the stupid bastard that got two kitchen knives thrown into his chest by Hit Girl.

So why did he just watch as Chris bled out and fell onto the stone floor? Apparently, the last thing he ever saw was the smiling face of his killer. It wouldn't have surprised me if he regretted setting up his only friend, Kick-Ass.

Well, too bad. Chris D'amico died and Red Mist is now more. But I had other concerns.

Black Mask with other mobsters were thrown into a truck. I stood on top of the truck and poured in gasoline from an open vent on the roof.

"It's been fun," I laughed. "AHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!"

I lit a lighter. Dropped it through the vent and then jumped off the armoured truck as the gasoline started to burn.

I couldn't see it, of course. But I knew the fire had burned the flesh off their bodies. Black Mask musta looked like Ghost Rider when his head gets coverd in flames.

The police and Commissioner Gordon found the burned up bodies inside of the truck. Oddly enough, they didn't think it was my handiwork because they didn't find any Joker cards.

Oops. Oh well, no one's perfect!

Well, time to move on. Two-Face is dead. Shego is dead. Tara is still in Arkham – but then I found out she was dead too now, killed in the same riot that claimed Red Mist. Guess there's just one last piece of unfinished business.

So I made my way to the Wayne manor, where Kim and Tim and Jim were staying. Straightaway I knew something was wrong. I mean yeah, the rich are paranoid, even more so than the rest of us – but Bruce Wayne had protected his place a little too well for just a millionaire playboy. I took me too long to get close enough to be able to scope the place out properly.

"UHHH! UHHHH! BRUCE! HARDER!" I heard a female voice scream from the master bedroom. Hmm, looked like somebody was getting lucky.

"Selina..." Oh yeah, Mr. Wayne, let's hear you pleasure your whore, now, shall we?

"YOU STOP NOW, AND I'LL KILL YOU!" this 'Selina' person screamed. I couldn't help grinning; looks like Brucie-boy had landed himself a woman who was a real wildcat in bed.

Still, that didn't help me in my objective in locating KP, she wasn't anywhere in the house that I could pick up with my surveillance gear. Time to haul up stakes and track her down.

As it turned out, Kim and Monique were sitting on the couch watching a movie. DING DONG!

Monique got up from the couch to answer the doorbell. She opened the door, only to see that Ron Stoppable was still alive.

"Monique, who is it?" Kim asked behind her back. Then good old Kim gets a better look at who's at the door. "Oh my God, Ron - you're alive?"

"Yeah. Can I come in?" I asked. Monique finally got over her shock and let me come in.

"What the fuck, Ron?" yelled Kim as I came inside. "Where have you been all this time?"

"Yeah. I mean, everyone believed you were dead, dude," said Monique. She hugged me but Kim is obviously still pissed at me for making everyone think I'm dead.

"KP, you're not happy to see me? I'm offended, Kim."

Kim slapped me in the face. "You had me thinking you were dead, damn you!"

"And you shouldn't have done that." BAM! I punched Kim in the face, knocking her down.

Then I took out the Magnum revolver from under my red hoodie. BLAM! BLAM! I shot Monique two times; one in the chest, and other to her head.

I'm not ashamed to admit I enjoyed blowing her brains out. It didn't mean much in the overall scheme of things; it was just a minor bit of pleasure, like unexpectedly treating yourself to an ice cream in the late afternoon. But still, I enjoyed it. Especially the part where the blood went splat all over the wall, before dropping onto the carpet.

Kim wiped the blood from her mouth, looking as if she can't believe what she just witnessed. "You motherfucker!" she shouted at me in hysterics. I sighed.

"Don't hate me because she's dead, just like all the others - you should hate yourself, Kim. You brought this all on yourself, fooling around with Monkey that night."

I took off the 'Ron' face mask and tossed it aside. It gave me a thrill to see Kim jerk back in horror after seeing my new look. At long last, she knew the truth – and damn, but I liked what I was seeing.

"What, there's something on wrong with my face?" I said in a mocking voice.

"Ron, you...you're the Joker? All this time, it was YOU?" she whispered.

"Yes...I'm the Joker. Took you long enough to get it, KP. I was going to let Monique live, y'know. It wasn't worth my time to kill her. But you blew it by coming here today. Big time."

"Why, Ron? Why do all...this?" Kim pleaded with me.

Okay, this was officially ceasing to be fun. "Why? Because the people like you are the ones who made me what I am today," I said with a snarl. "I came to your house that night to find you cheating on me with Josh, and well...one thing just led to another," I said with a big smile.

"By killing people, Ron?"

"Why not? I just want to see the world burn. And I'm a man of my word. Say good night, Kimmie. It's been real." BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

I fired at her three times. Kim just hit the carpet, bleeding out. I left just in time before Batman and Nightwing got there.

The way I heard it later, Batman checked on Kim before he got her out of there. Nightwing saw Monique's body, and he knew that there was nothing he could do for her apart from calling the local meat wagon.

But that was when Nightwing picked up the Ron mask. It was my first, last and only mistake; I'd left them a clue to investigate. Despite KP ending up a vegetable, Batman had enough clues to link Ron Stopabble with the Joker.

"YOU BITCH!" I yelled angrily, as Hit Girl took me down from the rear. She and Kick-Ass had gotten lucky after Batman and Catwoman had put the word out who the Joker really was.

"So, you're that loser Ron Stoppable?" Hit Girl asked. I wanted to smash that smirk off her face, I swear...

"Ron Stoppable is dead, ask anyone. I'm the Joker now," I told her, struggling to get my traitorous arms to move and toss some Joker venom her way. But I was frozen solid, and for the first time EVER, completely helpless.

"Well, Mr. Joker. I'd say the joke's on you – the only place you're going now is Arkham," Kick-Ass told me.

"Unless you want me to do to you what I did to Two-Face? You've made too many enemies lately, I doubt you'd last long before the guards found you having hanged yourself in your cell," Hit Girl smirked.

Well, that did it. Time for the last joke, if you know what I mean.

"Come closer," I whispered to both of them. "I have a confession to make, and my voice is going. Whatever you did to me, I don't think I have much longer..."

Kick-Ass looked confused. "That shouldn't have happened! What kind of weirdo are you?"

"Weirdo? I'm the Joker, Kick-Ass," I whispered. Finally, they both leaned in and I knew I finally had the opportunity to do what I had to do.

Namely, use my last emergency weapon. Modified Joker venom in a false tooth; venom that was deadly even to me. Not that I cared anymore; everyone I'd hated was dead now. Case closed. Vengeance delivered.

I bit down on the false tooth, and blew my last poison breath at the two heroes who had taken me down, but not out.

I had the satisfaction of seeing and hearing both Kick-Ass and Hit Girl succumb to the Joker venom, before I succumbed to it myself.

I guess the Last Joke really was on me, after all.

The End