Gotham's Apocalypse (A Joke Story [Sequel to Cruel])

35: Petrified

I drove towards the clouds of smoke until finally, it enveloped the surroundings. We were around the "Leaving Gotham City" sign, causing me to shiver. This was the place of my accident.

I tried to push those thoughts out of my head and parked on the side of the road. The smoke had started to clear, revealing a battle scene in the forest beside the sign. Yasmine handed me one of the many industrial respirators we keep in the back of the van for Joker's laughing gas, and I placed it on my face, picking up an assault rifle and stepping out of the van.

My nurses crouched behind me in a V formation, me at the front, carefully stepping into the trees. We had to be quick about this.

I heard groaning, and hurried toward the sound, finding a henchmen in the rubble. Once I got close enough to him, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. He smelled like burning flesh, and no longer had legs. "P-please," he gasped, I bent down and stabbed him in the skull. Mercy kill. There was no way he was going to survive all the wounds he endured.

"And I suppose you must be Miss Morphine," a rich, deep voice spoke. I turned to see a man in all black, a hoodie over his head covering the top halves of his eyes. He wore red smears of paint down his nose, and along his jaw line. "I have been expecting you."

"Where is The Joker?" I questioned harshly, my hands began to twitch with anticipation.

He smirked in response. He was smug. He shrugged, then sighed. "What's the point of being polite when you are so rude?"

"I don't give a fuck who you are," I snapped, clenching my jaw as I stared at him. He stared blankly back. "I know who you are, though," I sighed. "One little piggy ran all the way home before spilling his brains out on my desk." I folded my arms. "Now, I'll ask again, because maybe you didn't hear me the first time. Where. . . Is. . . Joker?"

"He's dead," the man spoke, grinning. I folded my arms.

"He better not be, because if he is, that means this conversation is over, and you're dead," I hissed. He smirked, then chuckled, snapping his fingers, and, out of a cloud of smoke, a faint, bloody Joker collapsed in a heap in front of me. I watched as his hair clung to his face, he was gasping, shaking, and when he locked eyes with me, I felt a chill run up my spine.

The look in his eyes was one of a pathetic man, not The Joker. He was scared, fearful, pitiful...And he suddenly looked so young, so innocent in my eyes.

I grimaced, snarling at Zero Xavier angrily, I felt my blood boil and my power go to my hands, swirling in them, my hands shaking with the amount of power I had. "What did you do to him?" I questioned harshly. "And know that my patience is paper thin."

Zero Xavier beamed at me, the smile of a Psychopath, but not my kind of Psychopath. Joker and I were a different breed of psycho to this man. "I showed him your future."

"'My future?" I questioned, pointing at myself. "Why would that cause him to become as docile as a lamb?"

Zero started to back up, but he extended a long, metal arm towards me, tubes of chrome enveloping it to make it look like faux muscle, but in a futuristic, metal design. He pointed a sharp finger at me. "Because you. . . You are mine."

I snorted. "I am no one's."

He didn't respond, he disappeared within the smoke, and I dropped to my knees, picking my now crumbled lover off of the ground. "Let's take you to my emergency room," I spoke. He was quiet, he didn't say another word as my girls and I rushed him to the awaiting van. I sat in the back seat with him, absent-minded and running my fingers through his hair.

I was going to make Zero Xavier wish he never stepped a foot into Gotham City. Nobody plays Joker and Miss Morphine and gets away with it.