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Part Twelve: Chapter 66: Sidekick

One year later...

The Joker growls deeply as he stared at the screen of his laptop. Next to him is a folder that Frost brought him, still untouched. His fists clench on top of his desk in anger as he watched the news clip over and over again. He was so livid that his eyes floated in tears. Bruce had apparently found himself a new sidekick. A new Robin to take the place of the one that left him to become Nightwing. The Joker was jealous. Jealous of the new boy wonder, and the amout of time he got to spend with his Batsy. He got to work side by side with Bruce and it didn't seem fair. This...child...stole the Joker's attention.

The Joker scowls at the thought of all the training Bruce would have had to put his new toy through. Secretly, the Joker wished it was him who got to train and fight at Bruce's side. But what would the point of that be without criminals like himself to go after? Still, the Joker couldn't contain the hatred he had for this...replacement Robin. Why should he have to share his very limited time with his bat?

But then, the Joker hasn't stood face to face with Batman in a year. Now don't assume that the Joker has donned angel wings and a halo in this last year, he certainly hasn't. He's remained below the bat radar, but has been terrorizing the underworld. Recently the Joker has taken over the drug cartels of Gotham. Which wasn't so much of a big deal, but giving the Joker unlimited access to drugs might not have been the wisest decision. The Joker had learned that cocaine and methamphetamine gave him sharper and faster reflexes. It gave him added strength. It killed the pain so that he could push himself just a bit harder. And best of all, it kept him awake so that his dreams didn't haunt him.

But, on the downside, the drugs enhanced the Joker's mental instability. The bipolarity was the most prominently noticeable. The Joker could go zero to sixty in the blink of an eye. He had thoughtlessly killed dozens of his own henchmen over the last year. Some would argue that the Joker has become unpleasable. Few ever followed out his orders and got a pat on the back. They were lucky to keep their lives. But to the Joker, he was simply enforcing their loyalties to him.

In addition, if you thought that the Joker was unpredictable before, well that was nothing compared to what he's become. His behavior had become so questionably... flamboyant. He was prone to breaking out into both song and dance...like literally, singing and dancing. He acted as though life was a stage, and he, it's greatest actor. And he always remembered to smile. And if he forgot, he had several tattoos to remind him.

But the darkness inside of the Joker only grew as his habit did. Frost has witnessed his boss kill children, and on more than one occasion. Children of enemies usually, but innocent children all the same. And he did it like it was the easiest thing in the world. The Joker was finally making the press's 'monster' label into a reality. The public quickly forgot about the millions the Joker had once thrown into the wind for them to have. Now they feared him completely, too much to ever report sightings of him. But that suited the Joker just fine.

The Joker slams his fist down on his desk with a growl, his laptop bounced on its wooden surface. The Joker had had Frost run a search on this new Robin. He wanted to know who he was and where he came from. Knowing the identity of Batman made it pretty easy to figure out who his new sidekick was. The Joker's eyes fall on the folder as he drums his fingertips on it. He wanted to know, he didn't want to know, but he had to know. He pulls the folder over in front of him and flips open the cover.