Special inspiration for some of the dialogue in the chapter comes from the Killing Joke and from the Dark Knight. Please Leave a Review!

Alone.

That was what he was.

Alone.

Never in his life had he been so completely cut off from the rest of the world. The pain was his only companion, the only thing he had that was always with him; that and a new sensation, a sensation that chilled him to the bone.

Doubt.

Doubt complimented the pain and the creeping exhaustion that came and went, adding to the devastation that was slowly being wrought to Robin's mind. Like one of Poison Ivy's strangling weeds doubt slowly but persistently wrapped itself around Robin's mind and squeezed, crushing the life from his sanity. The Joker had planted the seeds when he had claimed that Robin was an expendable minion in Batman's war on crime, easily ignored and forgotten in comparison to the Dark Knight's never ending campaign.

That was the thing about The Joker. He loved to toy with his opponents. He would only crush them outright if circumstances demanded that he absolutely had to, but if he had the time and the patience to do so he preferred the slow, more personal approach. Slowly taking someone apart piece by piece, showing them his twisted view of life, the universe, and everything. All he needed to do to begin the process was to say a few well-placed words. Nothing long winded, nothing magnanimous. Just a few well-placed words.

It was beginning to work.

The Joker returned to the "laboratory" as he had so quaintly named the torture chamber. Leaning against a bank of computers the Joker began to whistle a tune, a tune that a small part of Robin's mind recognized to be the Looney Tunes theme song. The disconnect was surreal to say the least. Here was Robin, writhing in agony as the electrical shocks fried his nervous system, and the Joker was whistling a merry tune while tapping his fingers on the electrical control lever, as if he were casually pondering to himself whether or not to shut the switch off.

Inevitably The Joker did indeed turn the switch off. The relief was instantaneous, but Robin dreaded whatever was to come next. The Joker regarded him for a while, watching as Robin began once more to struggle against the restraints.

"Why do you keep struggling?" The Joker asked. He moved closer to the operating table and tapped on the restraint holding Robin's left arm. "Those straps were designed to restrain some of the strongest kooks in Arkham short of Bane, and no offense kid, but you aren't exactly the most impressive nutcase to be held here."

"I'm not crazy." Robin panted. His lungs felt as though they were on fire, as if he had run a twenty mile marathon. And yet he felt compelled to try and refute The Joker when he spoke. That was his first mistake. Rule #1 with the Joker was simple; if he starts to talk you block him out. The Joker's greatest weapon was his voice. He was a master at getting under his opponents skin and getting on their nerves, manipulating and unsettling even the hardest of people. By actually engaging in a conversation with him in circumstances like these Robin was practically handing the Joker a key into Robin's mind. But the serums and the shocks, combined with sheer exhaustion had worn the Boy Wonder down, causing certain aspects of his training to be forgotten.

"Everyone in the world is crazy." The Joker easily responded. "Some people are just better at hiding it." He began to circle around the table, hands clasped behind his back, that stupid smile still plastered to his face. How Robin wanted to smack that grin off of his face.

"Yes, everyone in the world is crazy…" The Joker repeated, this time slower and more deliberate. "…but some people are just a little better at hiding it. They pretend to be polite and nice to one another, creating this lie that we call society. Those disgusting twits who call themselves normal, you know the type I'm sure. The annoyingly honest, sickeningly average fool who works a 9 to 5 job for a meager paycheck so that he can support his sweetheart back home. How pathetic. Guys like him you see are not like us. They delude themselves into believing that people like us, you and me and Batman that is, are anomalies. That we are a minority of troublemakers, and that mankind is fundamentally good. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

The Joker doubled over at this point, grasping at his chest as he continued to cackle on for a good five minutes. Evidently he found this last idea, the idea concerning human nature, to be highly amusing.

"But you and I know better. You and I have both seen humanity unleashed to its darkest potential. On the streets of Gotham and in the halls of power we have seen what humanity becomes when left to the shadows. When the chips are down and they are desperate enough, these "civilized" men and women would eat each other to survive. Left on their own without society's rules and social pressures to conform the average person would turn out just like me."

He stared at Robin intensely, grabbing Robin by the shoulders and shaking the stupor from his eyes.

"Don't you see? That's the joke. Our society is all just one demented gag, a lie meant to keep the reality of humanity subjugated. We are animals Robin, animals that evolved in the darkest wilds due to our savagery and our willingness to do whatever is necessary to survive. Society imposes these restraints on us because the weak were scared by all of the pointless brutality that life had to offer. People got scared, don't you see? Every person who has ever lived has looked into the abyss that was themselves, and what they saw scared the living daylights out of them."

The Joker shook his head and let go of Robin's shoulders, chuckling at the perceived folly that was humanity.

"The truth hurts Robin my boy, it hurts more than any torture imaginable. Physical injuries heal with time, but there are some things, some truths that, once learned, can never be unlearned. On mankind's part it wasn't for a lack of trying. Every living person has seen or heard the truth in one form or another during the span of their inconsequential lives, but most chose to ignore it, choosing instead to believe and act out the lie. It's more comfortable and reassuring to them that way. They constructed in their minds these imaginary ideas like justice and purpose. They are really quaint little ideas, but they are illusions created in order to inflate self-worth and give people a feeling that their lives actually matter."

"Life does matter. The world doesn't work the way you say it does." Robin interrupted. The Joker, displeased with the interruption reached out and pulled down on the lever. For five minutes the electrical current surged through Robin's body. Having assured that Robin would not interrupt him again the Joker continued.

"Tell me Robin, do you have any idea how many times we came close to World War III due to a flock of geese being misinterpreted as Soviet missiles showing up on a computer screen? Do you even know what really triggered the last world war? An argument over how many telegraph polls Germany owed its War Department creditors. Telegraph Polls! Don't you get it? Don't you understand? If there was any actual justice or purpose in the world most conflicts would never have happened and all of the guilty people would have been punished. Twelve million people were murdered by the Nazi's in the concentration camps, and nearly twenty million were killed when old Joe Stalin was around and kicking. They were men, women, and children from all walks of life being worked to death, and for what? The average Joe on the street would say because the Nazi's hated the Jews, but why did they hate the Jews? Why does anyone hate anyone? There is no reason. Any excuses that college professors or historians come up with are nothing more than flimsy justifications used to distract from the real, horrifying truth. Hate needs no reason. Hate has no inherent purpose. They did what they did because they could and because they wanted to! These terrible events have no natural rhyme or reason to them that justify their existence. They just happen."

The Joker's eyes seemed to glow as they stared at Robin's mask. "There is no inherent purpose in this universe. There is no cosmic plan, no higher reason save for that which we impose upon ourselves. Now if Batman were here he would say that Justice gives its own purpose. But there is no justice. Justice, like all of the laws that make up modern society, is a sham. Criminals walk the streets and avoid jail all the time. "Innocent" people get killed and abused all the time. If there was any real justice in this world the guilty would never get away with their crimes and the innocent would always triumph. But that isn't how it works. The good die young, so they say."

The Joker pointed at Robin, wearing an earnest expression. "So I ask again, why do you struggle? There is no point to all of this suffering in this nightmare we call life, there is only us and what we make of it."

And then the Joker said something that hurt Robin more than any torture.

"You and I are very similar to one another." That, above all else, made Robin furious.

"We are NOTHING alike!" He bellowed.

With a practiced right hook the Joker punched Robin square in the face, breaking cartilage and causing Robin to taste crimson blood as it began to fill his mouth.

"As Two Face would say we are two sides of the same coin." The Joker said, shaking his right hand in order to ease the discomfort punching someone caused.

"I may not know who you are beneath the mask boy but I know, based on the way you walk and talk that something happened to you. I wonder what happened. Did daddy get killed by the mob? Did your brother get carved up by some mugger? Something like that I bet. Something like that."

The Joker took a few steps back, his eyes beginning to glaze over, seeing something that Robin could not see. His voice became quieter, almost confused, his face contorted in concentration as if he was trying to solve a rather difficult riddle.

"Something like that happened to me…" He stood their silently, just staring into space, as if he were trying to remember something that had long been forgotten.

"I…I don't quite remember what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way." He stared down at his right hand. "Sometimes another." He stared now at his left hand.

For a moment there was silence as The Joker contemplated something. And then, as quickly as it had left the manic smile returned. "If I'm going to have a past I prefer it to be multiple choice HA HA HA!"

Gone as quick as it had come, the introspection was replaced by the old psychotic gleam that The Joker was most well known for.

"My point is that, like you something happened to me that caused me to go out into the world and make my mark. Like you I realized that the justice system and society itself, as symbolized by Gotham City was broken beyond all repair and that the law was a joke, incapable of deterring the more bizarre personalities who call this city home. Like you I found a particular joy in inflicting pain and misery upon those who opposed me, and like you I found myself in the company of like minded companions. The fact that we defy social conventions by wearing such different outfits is another comparison. The only difference between you and I is this; I accept the world for what it is. I go with the flow, realizing and appreciating the nature of life as it is on this planet. But you won't admit it. You have to pretend that life makes sense. You try your hardest to etch out some meaning in this world, to divine some sort of purpose or sense of accomplishment."

The Joker spat on the ground in contempt.

"God you all make me sick! Why can't you see the funny side? Do you really think that you have made a difference? Do you honestly believe that you can really change things? You can't. You can't wipe out crime. You can't stamp out corruption. You can't change human nature. All that you have managed to accomplish is applying a bandage to a wound that requires major surgery. You can't hold back the tide. You can't fix this, you can't fix it because it was never broken in the first place. All that you consider to be wrong and evil is perfectly natural. This is the way it was meant to be."

The Joker turned to leave, pulling down on the lever as left.

The pain returned as worse as it had ever been, but above his own screams Robin heard The Joker say something as he left.

"You may think me a monster, but I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of everyone else."