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bluerosefox · 4 months

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A Fair Warning

It was only a matter of time, and a long awaited and well deserved comeuppance, when Joker tried to hurt the wrong person or people.

Not everyone was going to play his games like 'Batsy' does. Not everyone will hesitate or let him live should he put his hands on someone to hurt them. Not everyone will believe Arkham could 'fix' him, he just needed more time and help.

No.

This time Joker bit off more than he could chew when he kidnapped the newly hired Arkham psychiatrist Jasmine Fenton (and he had plans, so many plans, for her. With her mixture of Harley's mind and her looks matching Gordon's daughter would sure to cause some chaos and pain in memories) and the girl's visiting sister Danielle 'Ellie' (and did he laugh when he noticed the 'Wayne' adoptive looks the girl had, on the fun he'll have, maybe he'll beat her the way he beat the second Robin just for funzie's, it'll no doubt upset Batman) from Jasmine's apartment.

He had plans to keep the Bats guessing where he was and by the time they reach him it'll be far to late for them to save either of the two girls, he had just sent the little video he taped to the Bats and the police to get the ball rolling...

So...

So why did a shiver run down his spine for the first time in years when they both looked unafraid (it was their eyes that made him shiver, a look of already dead yet somehow alive, something he never seen before. He's seen the light fade from people's eyes before yes, he's even laughed as he watch people desperately cling onto life only for it to fade into nothing as they took a final breath but never have he seen someone, something alive yet dead at the same time before. It, their eyes, held a natural yet unnatural sense as they stared at him, stared at everything that made him Joker and it unnerved him), honestly they looked very bored, and one of them (the youngest of the two, and the one with more of the look of death than life in their eyes) said with a chill tune in their tone.

"Last chance to back out of this Freakshows Reject. You wont like what'll be waiting for you."

The tone alone was enough to send another bone deep chill down Joker's spine.

But instead of listening to his natural instincts, the deep inkling of run blaring at him, Joker merely placed a grin on his face, ignoring the strain he felt from doing so, and said as nastily as he could in order to scare the two girls (BOTH OF THEM STILL LOOKED BORED WITH HIM?!?! Not even a twitch of fear!)

"OH? And pray tell what is awaiting little ol' me hum?"

His mocking question got a wide feral grin from the smaller girl, a grin with sharp teeth and iris eyes beginning to bleed slowly from sky blue to neon green with each second he stared at her and he barely stopped himself from jumping in his spot when Jasmine answered his question.

"Your end."

-x-x-

By the time the Bats get to the warehouse Joker had taken Dr. Jasmine 'Jazz' Fenton and Danielle 'Ellie' Fenton they were prepared for anything and everything to go wrong. As much as they held the tiniest bit of hope that the two young women were still okay they knew better than to really do, this was the Joker that had them after all.

They had manged to narrow down his location much quicker than normal when they gotten Joker's first video and his little 'game' he was setting the Bats on, most locations he gave them were going to be red herrings or traps to keep them busy and it would had worked. Batman and the others would had been searching for hours for even a hint of the clue of where the Joker and his hostages were actually being kept.

It was nearly, not really, a shame all of Joker's plans went to waste when Red Hood had stumbled onto something when scooping out Jasmine's apartment with Red Robin.

You see, not only were they looking for clues at first but something about the apartment Jasmine rented seemed off, Red Robin noticed it first and called in back up encase there was more to oldest Fenton than what they could dig up (oldest daughter of Dr's. Jackson and Madeline Fenton, grew up in a small Illinois town, straight A student and a goal to become a psychologist, has two younger siblings, etc etc) and their suspension raised up more when the moment Red Hood entered the apartment and seemed to freeze for a moment.

Red Hood couldn't really explain it but he said it felt like something was... strange. Not evil bad danger strange but it felt familiar? Like he was a kid again on the streets and had walked into someone else's territory but knew the person wouldn't be too much of a hardass about it as long as he didn't stur up trouble or disrespect. A kind of... as long as you don't fuck around you won't find out feeling.

It was because of this feeling that Jason had manged to stumble across something in the room, his instincts telling him there was more to it, and they had discovered a clunky old custom PDA hidden away in a false floorboard in the office room. Thankfully Red Robin, was there in person because the old thing apparently had a rather ingenious firewall to keep others (aka Hackers) OUT but it did nothing against someone who held the main thing.

But still it took Red Robin almost frying the damn thing to get to open up, turns out the ghost and star stickers on the PDA was a rather large hint of the pass code. Once Red Robin was in the PDA he noticed some rather interesting files, one of them labeled "Gremlin Tracking" with a tiny green blob with red eyes and a green outlined star as the icons.

Curiosity taking a hold on the most curious of the Bats he opened it up, hoping it would need another password, and watched as the screen split into two maps, one was... strange, there was no land marks or anything but the star icon seemed to be right in the middle of wherever it was and the only hint of anything was the name "baby brother" and the map labeled as IR.

The other one showed an above map of Gotham, before zooming into the city, heading towards some abandoned warehouses Red Robin knew of and stopped right at one. This was the green blob icon, the short abbreviation for Gotham in the corner of the map, and the name for the icon was 'baby sister'

Red Robin immediately got onto coms to tell the others of what apparently was a tracker for Jasmine's younger siblings. Some questioned why the young woman had trackers on her siblings, though some of the others snarked back that "oh didn't know keeping trackers on each other wasn't normal. Mind if I loose the one you got on me than?"

After a quick sweep into the warehouses camera feeds, the very few up that could be accessed, done by Oracle they quickly discovered that yes the tracking on the younger girl of the two, Danielle Fenton, was correct and that was where they and Joker were at.

Despite this, Batman decided that in order to make sure Joker didn't have suspicion that they already know his actual location he made sure to send a few of the others to the fake locations.

So here they were now, staking out the warehouse where they could see a few of the Jokers goons walking around and looking for a way into the building without alerting any of them. As they talked low into coms, Robin mentioning a possible way in for Red Robin by how small it was, Red Robin hissing back a "just because you got a growth spurt doesn't mean you can poke fun at my height you little-"

"Wait!" Red Hood suddenly hissed shouted, his tone startling the rest of them and they all turned their heads to him. Batman made a quick and harsh grunt as a way to say "report."

Under his helmet Jason's eyes were wide and wild. He could feel something, something huge was on the rise, like something was out of sight but the energy of it was felt.

And if Jason could feel it from his spot, the Jokers goons all felt the same thing from the way they all dropped their weapons, turned toward the warehouse and looked ready to bolt like scared animals.

Jason opened his mouth to explain but fell silent when the feeling suddenly popped. Whatever was causing the feeling was here and like the calm before the storm he could only watch as the first drop of rain fall.

The next thing they know, was the noise and the screaming.

It was inhuman, a mixture of noise and sounds to hard to explain. The closest they could explain was a thousand voices coming in all at once mixing with radio static that kept changing volume so only few words could be even hinted at, and the angry cawing of crows along with the flapping of their wings as they took flight. The noise was so bad that many who heard it nearly ripped their coms out, or covered their ears. Thankfully it only lasted a few seconds.

Then, the air itself shifted. It felt like the coldest of winter nights and bone chilling shivers ran down their bodies for a moment. The air was suddenly that sharp cold that hurt to breathe sometimes.

The goons surrounding the warehouse fled in fear. Many scrambling to get far, far away from whatever was happening. If they felt even a fraction of what Jason could feel, he could understand. He honestly felt like a small animal cornered by a predator and there was no escape.

Then just as suddenly as it happened, everything shifted again. The noise of Gotham returned to normal, cars honking, a stray cat hissing or a dog barking, police sirens in the distance, hissing steam from a nearby factory. The air went from winter cold to a chill mid winter harbor feel now.

Once everyone registered what had just happened and not wanting to waste anymore time they bolted towards the warehouse, cautious and alert in case they needed to fight. Batman went in first, quickly making his way to the area he knew Joker would be with the Fenton sisters and wondered just what the fuck was that? Did Joker do something? Was he messing with things outside of his usual MO?!

He walked into the room and stopped.

There was nothing.

The room was in fact the room Joker had used to record his first message to them, the layout was correct and the evidence of two people who had been tied up were still there as well, ropes that weren't cut sitting on them, a lone lamp light above shining down from above no doubt to emphasize the two girls were meant to be the 'stars' of Jokers latest show. Thing was, the two weren't there despite the fact Oracle swore she could see them a few mins ago from a camera set up in the room, she would later explain that she heard the noise as well and that all her tech had glitched hard.

The only other thing in the room was, sitting innocently on one of the chairs was a green sticky note and on a tiny pillow was a tiny sickly green orb with hints of purple, white, and red swirling in it.

A note they would later read the following message written on it after carefully examining it over.

'Joker learned not to touch what is mine to protect. Sorry not sorry, but hey one less killer clown and he was warned not my fault he didn't take it seriously... The massive amount of souls wanting to rip apart the Joker's soul into nothing was quite a sight to be honest.

They were so ruthless. Best not mess with the vengeful dead am I right?

PS. I left a tiny gift for Jason Todd aka Robin Two. It's the tiniest piece of Joker's soul left over after everyone else got done. He can finish it off since he's a reverent and all, and well they need their revenge filled in order to peacefully move on later or else they'll be stuck forever in a loop of madness and revenge. So yeah. Hope he likes the gift.'

D.P.'

It took Jason less than a second after those words were spoken out to reach for the orb, ignoring the cautious and alarmed cries of the others, and could feel deep, deep, deep in his own soul the absolute pure weeping joy as he threw the orb onto the floor, the bottom shattering thus it didn't roll away and stomped hard with his reinforced boots. Crushing the broken orb into more pieces and if one listened closely they could hear the pure screaming terror that came from it.

And Jason for the first time in years felt his rage finally leave him.

#danny phantom dc #danny phantom #danny fenton #dp x dc #crossover #blue rambles #writing ideas #random idea #dpxdc #Danny is like a cryptid in this one #is he the Ghost King? Or just a very very powerful ghost that can help stabilize other ghosts into a corporal form? idk you pick #The Bats return to base only to find all data on Jazz gone #even the report on her and Danielle being kidnapped are gone #even the Joker's recording is gone #like it never happened #if they try confronting her she only smiles and says she warned him or says 'Joker who?'#The only thing they have left that's proof is the sticky note and the PDA Tim still has #when he later looks at the history and data he noticed it move #for a few mins the tracker for 'baby brother' had moved from IR to Gotham right next to 'baby sister' before returning to IR with the other #this happened right on the dot of Jason warning them to wait #I love writing the 'Joker fucked around and found out' stories tbh #any mistakes I will fix later #I still need new glasses can barely see rn

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Jupiter’s Legacy: Choreographing Superheroic Stunts

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Stunt teams are some of the hardest working people in the industry. They literally put their lives on the line just to entertain us and yet there’s so little acknowledgement of their contributions. There is no Oscar for stunt work, but there should be. Netflix’s adaptation of Jupiter’s Legacy has secured one of the industry’s hottest stunt choreographers, one who is no stranger to superhero action, Philip J. Silvera.

If you’ve read Jupiter’s Legacy already, you know Frank Quitely’s artwork leaps off the page, splattered with intense moments of sanguineous bloodshed. Quitely’s graphic style is a perfect fit for Silvera, who says he’s always been inspired by the visceral violence of films like Goodfellas and The Godfather Part II.

“My action in the past has always had a bit of a lead pipe brutality to it,” confesses Silvera with a grin. Who better to choreograph the huge superhero brawls of Jupiter’s Legacy?

School of Hard Knocks

Stunt work has always been Silvera’s destiny. “I always wanted to do stunts, since I was a kid.” Silvera’s father was a boxer who was just about to go pro, but his fortune took a bad turn after he broke his arm and leg. Nevertheless, Philip inherited his father’s fighting spirit. After starting his martial arts training in Karate, Silvera switched over to a Shaolin-based system of Chinese Kung Fu, which he studied for about 20 years.

Silvera got his first break in 1997. He was competing in a martial arts tournament in New York City when he was approached to do an off-Broadway show called Voice of the Dragon: Once Upon a Time in Chinese America. It was a groundbreaking show from maverick playwright and noted jazz composer Fred Ho. Silvera describes it as “a bit of an urban Peking opera, really a martial arts ballet.” The show demanded he play a character, do martial arts, fight, fall, and flip on stage in front of a live audience.

As Silvera got deeper into the stunt world, his training diversified to accommodate a wider variety of roles. He studied Kali stick fighting and even trained with Cecep Arif Rahman (The Raid 2, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum). Beyond his film work, Rahman is a genuine master of the Indonesian martial art called Pencak Silat. As a stunt coordinator, Silvera must keep pushing his training forward so he can meet the demands of his next project. “I just constantly want to keep learning different things and evolving.”

Silvera began officially working as a stuntman in movies and TV in 2005. You must work your way up to that director’s chair, and in the stunt industry, that means you’ve got to pay your dues and take a lot of hard knocks. By 2010, he got his first action and fight choreographer credit with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. That was followed by several coordinator roles on more video games like DC Universe Online, Batman: Arkham City, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. After an uncredited role assisting with the fight choreography in Iron Man 3, he received his first credited movie fight choreographer role for Thor: The Dark World.

Changing the Game

However, it was his work on Netflix’s Daredevil that caught the attention of both action and superhero fans. Silvera served as the Fight and Stunt Coordinator for the first two seasons of the series, and for action connoisseurs, he built a choreographic trademark for the show: the one-take fight scene. In Daredevil’s second episode, Silvera orchestrated a showstopping one-take hallway slugfest and every fan of fight choreography took notice. That scene propelled action in streaming TV to the cinematic level of big screen fight choreography. “I think most people would be surprised to hear that we designed that one-shot sequence in Daredevil in a day and a half,” Silvera says.

Silvera followed up that hallway fight with a one-take stairwell scrap in season two (an episode directed by Marc Jobst, who also directed two episodes of Jupiter’s Legacy). Hallway and stairwell fights comprise two of the three most common settings for extended fight scenes (the third being warehouse fights – there’s an innumerable amount of these in actioners because it’s just easy and cheap to find warehouse locations). Hallways serve as a device to narrow the playing field when one person must take on several opponents. The width of the hallway restricts how many adversaries can come at the hero at a time. Silvera’s Daredevil hallway fight is held in the same esteem as the epic hallway fight in Chan-wook Park’s Oldboy and is considered by many to be the greatest TV fight scene to date.

Stairway fights showcase technical expertise. The footwork must be precise because one misstep can result in a devastating ankle twist for any stunt person. Additionally, falling down stairwells isn’t easy. It requires top notch stunt people to stage safely.

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For Silvera to deliver such high-level fight choreography for the small screen was groundbreaking. Until the rise of streaming, most TV shows were more reserved with their action because it is a longer haul. A feature-length movie might contain half a dozen fight scenes, at best. An action TV series might stage that many fights in just two or three episodes, with plenty more over the course of the season. This takes an incredible toll on the stunt team, which is why many martial arts-themed TV series gas out before the season finale. This is what made Silvera’s work on Daredevil so revolutionary at the time. Now, a half decade later, many TV shows have upped their action game, but they owe a great debt to Silvera and his team. “I really enjoyed bringing Daredevil to life. Charlie Cox was amazing. That was a pleasure working with Steve DeKnight on that show.”

Since then, Silvera has tackled several super powered action icons for the silver screen, like Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate, and the Jaegers in Pacific Rim: Uprising. Silvera has fond memories of sitting down with director Tim Miller while working on Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate and setting the parameters of superpowers in combat. “It’s always that they’re really good at this, but what’s their weakness?” The audience will accept superpowers if the film stays consistent within its constructs. For Silvera, it’s about finding a new challenge in every sequence. “What I try and do is always make it super relative to the characters and then make it so that the audience can feel something when they watch it.”

Super Fights

Spanning eight episodes in Season 1, Jupiter’s Legacy allows Silvera the space to stretch his choreographic legs. “I believe the action on our show pushes the story and the characters forward, as much as it does on any of the other shows I’ve worked on in the past,” Silvera says. “And I’m super excited to see what fans think of the storytelling, the nonverbal storytelling, that happens within our action sequences.”

Non-verbal storytelling lies at the very heart of every action choreographer. The fight scenes are the climax of the story and that unspoken dialogue of conflict must rise to that or else an actioner will fail. “Nonverbal communication,” stresses Silvera, “like The Empire Strikes Back, the scene that happens between Luke and Vader.” His passion for the Star Wars franchise led him to direct “Star Wars: Scene 38 ReImagined.” It was a reworking of the first lightsaber battle we ever saw – Obi-Wan Kenobi versus Darth Vader. Silvera spliced together footage from Star Wars: A New Hope with new fight footage. Doubling for Obi-Wan was Dan Brown (Black Panther, Spider-Man: Far from Home). Vader was Richard Cetrone, who was Ben Affleck’s stunt double in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. “Both are seasoned stuntmen in this business and have been around for a while,” adds Silvera.

“Scene 38 ReImagined” was a huge success with over 33.5 million views on YouTube. “That was a bit of a test for myself, as a second unit director and a first unit director,” says Silvera. “I wanted to see if I could add the emotional content into a sequence, that you know the character’s full story from beginning to end.”

From Comics Panels to Movie Frames

Choreographing superheroes has its own unique rules. A still comic panel is one thing. Setting that action into motion is another thing altogether. While comics are akin to storyboarding, when it comes to fights, a few panels describe that action. It then becomes Silvera’s job to unravel that into a fight with a dozen or more beats.

One of his favorite examples for Jupiter’s Legacy is the “Hilltop” sequence. In the original comic, it’s a ferocious battle told over only four panels. Silvera saw that raw brutality and constantly built on that mindset with his choreography.

“Those four panels really set the tone of our show and you’ll see that in the first episode.” He’s especially proud of this Hilltop sequence, as well as many other favorites. Two more sequences that he mentions with special pride he dubs “Tokyo Alley” and “The Vault,” but Silvera won’t elaborate on those cryptic titles just yet. “I don’t want to give away too much.” Fans who’ve already read the comic can probably guess what he’s talking about. “It starts off big and it stays that way up to the very end.”

And for those fans familiar with Frank Quitely’s spectacular art, Silvera adds “We do our best to match those panels and the emotion that he puts into them. He really set the bar for us. And I think we met it.”

Superhero Boot Camp

As with many casts, most of the Jupiter’s Legacy actors have minimal background in martial arts or stunts. However, Silvera prefers it that way. “You get to figure out their characters and their movement in a different way.” He’d have ideas for them and then see something natural come out of their body language, which he would cultivate into something new and exciting.

The cast was put through vigorous training where Silvera says they all worked extremely hard. “Literally a month of bootcamp with the lead actors training every day with our fight team and fight coordinator.” The cast would come in and work on basic movements and fight drills. “And then they would ride the wire for hours because there’s a lot of flying in the show.”

As Supervising Stunt Coordinator, Silvera is quick to credit his fight and stunt rigging team. Micah Karns is the fight coordinator and Jayson Dumenigo is the 2nd Unit Stunt Coordinator and Key Rigger, a critical role for a flying superhero show. The threesome has worked together since Daredevil and teamed up again for several successive projects including Deadpool, Terminator, Pacific Rim, and Love, Death & Robots.

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“We have such a tight workflow at this point, from the years of us working together, that we know how to expedite things,” Silvera says. “We know how to keep up the pace. And we’re definitely doing seven days a week on this show.” The stunt team worked hand-in-hand with the cast for months to achieve the action that they wanted. “I’m super excited to see them and what they did come together on screen.”

The post Jupiter’s Legacy: Choreographing Superheroic Stunts appeared first on Den of Geek.

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damagedsmile · 4 years

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Drabble #11

“Alright, Joker, you know the drill - stand up, face us, arms out in front o’ you. Any other movement’ll get you a Mace facial and a shot.”

He’d been behaving very well the past few weeks and while that fact alone was odd, the orderlies were not about to take any chances with him: between the three of them and the five guards present, they all had enough accumulated experience to know trusting a patient was a sorry mistake waiting to happen.

“Sure thing, Pembroke… can I ask what’s the occasion?” Joker asked amicably as he unfurled himself and stood away from his cot, obeying Pembroke’s firmly given order.

His question was ignored as he thought it might be but he remained submissive as Pembroke entered in to the small cell with the other orderlies, the guards remaining vigilant at the door with a taser and a gun trained on him.

He let Pembroke dress him in his strained and soiled straitjacket while the other two orderlies stood by with Mace in hand, stone-faced and silent.

“Is it time for my medical again? I should warn ya, I think I’ve lost some pounds on yer shit ya call food!” Joker sniggered at them before looking in to Pembroke’s face. “Not too tight this time, huh? Human rights an’ all that jazz.”

Pembroke didn’t reply, he knew if he did the guards would think him going soft and somebody above would reconsider his station here; instead he obliged Joker’s request, the way he sometimes did. He was one of the few here who didn’t think of every patient as an animal: he knew Joker could be civil and civil meant easier to manage.

Pembroke crossed behind him very, very slowly, knowing how Joker had a tiny phobia of people standing closely behind him since that shower-room attack, and there he tightened up the remaining straps to a good hold but left him some feeling in his shoulders.

“Come on now,” Pembroke sighed then as he gently began pushing at his upper back - never, ever the lower. Joker walked slowly out in to the long corridor where the guards shoved him back in to a wheelchair, strapping his ankles in to the footrest.

As they wheeled him along the corridor and past the cells whose occupants were wailing or shouting, Joker hummed to himself softly in order to keep anxiety at bay but he went deathly silent as soon as he recognized the hallway they had just turned on to.

“No… I already been in there, I don’t need t’go back yet. Turn me around, a’ight, turn me the fuck around.”

“That was two weeks ago, asshole,” a guard grunted down at him from behind.

Joker began to struggle uselessly as he bit down on his tongue, laughing manically at his stupidity inside his skull: he ought to have known really.

The door was opened for them and they entered in to the large tiled room where at the far back a white-coat was standing ready by his control pad… and there was the chair, that horrible stupid fucking chair.

Trying to remain calm was getting increasingly hard and he couldn’t help but raise his voice. “I’m tellin’ ya, that machine’s broken! It didn’t do a damn thing last time but fuck me up for a couple o’ days! I don’t think I need another round, not yet anyway, ain’t I been good? Cut me some damn slack!”

“Oh but you have been more docile… perhaps we can improve on that?” the white-coat smiled sweetly.

“’CUZ I DIDN’T WANNA COME BACK IN HERE, YA FUCKIN’ MORON SONAVABITCH FUCKER!”

They hauled him out of the chair and held on to his wriggling form so tightly that he felt bruises beginning to bloom on him. He managed to headbutt one guard but before he could attack another, he felt a strong whack to the back of his head that made him woozy.

Grumbling as his eyes rolled around, they strapped him in to the chair firmly, not bothering to undress him for the commode built in to the seat’s bottom, and then he felt the pads being stuck on both his temples.

Then he heard the machine being warmed up behind him, a buzzing filling the air.

And he knew he had lost this battle through his own idiocy so he didn’t bother wasting energy on fighting. Instead he merely smiled dozily through the blood pumping from his nostrils.

“I won’t make it easy next time, motherfuckers… one day it’ll be one o’ yers sat here, not me.”

“Yeah, that’s if your brains still work good after this,” one of the guards laughed at him.

“Stand clear, gentlemen; we’re ready.”

“Fry his damn brains out, will you? I’ll throw you my pay-packet for this month.”

“I’m afraid not, not even if I wanted to… too many questions and that’s the type of press Arkham doesn’t need right now.”

Then there was nothing but vibrations as his bones seized up, his eyes rolled back, and his mouth went slack. Pain… pain and colors all around, flying inside of him and out through his toes. Warped memories fuzzily blared at him through the static storm in his mind - Momma smiling with a face full of bruises, a cut from a broken bottle, a string of dead flies being offered and refused as a necklace, loud laughter at him, louder laughter at them.

Pembroke looked away at last in a minor twang of guilt as Joker’s bowels broke open and filled the commode through the lower parts of his jumpsuit and straitjacket; he didn’t agree with this sort of therapy going on anywhere but the law stated different and that’s all that mattered.

He couldn’t change it the same as he couldn’t change his own nature of feeling pity towards Joker… he didn’t matter, neither of them did.

Several months and Joker was still crazy ol’ Joker - Pembroke had always known this would be the case - but if anything, the electroshock had only made him worse.

Whether that was purely psychological or just Joker playing hard-ass, he couldn’t be sure; but inside he had remained secretly pleased.

Such petty pleasure which came from a profound appreciation of the underdog and a lack of respect and joy in life made it where Pembroke could easily connect with the patients and even root for them on the sidelines… but his insight failed him the night he made his rounds on the wing where hostile patients were kept tucked away and saw Joker standing outside his cell over a guard that looked very dead.

He had never predicted this scene, not in a million years, and so he stood there open-mouthed in shock, unable to react accordingly though his brain screamed at him to sound the alarm.

Joker looked up to Pembroke with a vacant expression, seeming like he was going to attack, but instead he simply cracked a smile.

“Ya can have all the fuckin’ rules ya like in this shit-hole, Pembroke, bu’ when one o’ yers comes creepin’ in the night t’beat on patients? That’s a disaster waitin’ t’happen, huh?” And then he kicked the guard in the face so blood sprayed lazily over the floor.

“This ugly fucker didn’t think t’remove his keys… or that I was feelin’ better from the last brain-floss treatment.”

“He ain’t one of MINE - I don’t condone any of their shit,” Pembroke managed to say hoarsely but truthfully. “I made complaints against this sorta shit way back… and they just told me to shut up or I’d loose my job.”

“I don’t care ‘bout that, relax. I ain’t gunna hurt ya, Pembroke… bu’ if ya try an’ stop me, I’ll have to. Ya understand?”

Pembroke nodded unsurely. “You won’t get far, you know that, right? You won’t get outta here…”

“I don’t plan to. I jus’ want JUSTICE.”

Suddenly the guard gave a low, choking groan that made Pembroke jump in fright. “He’s alive?” he gasped at Joker.

“Ya remember what I said in that room? Remember my promise?”

Pembroke looked to Joker’s determined expression. “I won’t make it easy next time,motherfuckers”, the Clown had swore. “One day it’ll be one o’ yers sat here, not me.”

“I remember,” he nodded quietly. His hand flew to his keys automatically where the electroshock treatment room’s key hung heavily.

“Help me: gimme that key an’ walk away, Pembroke. I’ll figure out the machine myself. Nobody’d suspect ya had any part in this… I won’t tell ‘em so long as ya keep quiet. After I’ll come back here, I’ll even lock myself in!”

“They’d know it was me, Joker.”

“Let’s make it look good then, huh? I nabbed ya then him… stole yer key; simple!” Joker suggested with a grin and Pembroke knew such a story was viable, that it wouldn’t look shady; more importantly it was believable and it would make him look like a victim in all this madness.

Pembroke threw down the key just as Joker came up to him. “You got yourself ten minutes to do this before I raise the alarm… and try not to make this hurt.”

“Ssssh… I’ll be gentle…” Joker crooned at him before socking him one.

In Pembroke’s hazy vision on the cold floor, he watched Joker’s bare feet walk away, picking up the key and then the guard. Through the pain in his head and face he managed to smile to himself that for once he was being listened to… for once he had made a difference.

#drabbles #tw blood #arkham asylum

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