"This is *so*, not my style", I say to the voices inside my head. They laugh.

That's the trick. They *always* laugh.

It's their gimmick, you know. *Our* gimmick. Laughs. And jokes, of course; you can't be the Joker without a certain sense of humor, can you? Tut, tut. You have to show proper respect for archetypes. And that's what I am: the mad trickster god of Gotham City. I am their Prometheus, giving them the fire of Chaos, whether they like it or not.

And chemicals; we should not forget the chemicals. *Never* forget the chemicals. We are made of that stuff after all. Where would we be without proper applied chemistry?

I know where I was: in the dumps. Believe me, you know nothing of hell until you have seen, no, _felt_ your life just die in front of your eyes. Until you understand, in a stupid moment of precocious enlightenment, that the Universe is a joke made by a half-drunk God.

"A doctor, his wife and Zorro enter an alley. The woman says 'Isn't this dangerous, Thomas?', but the man answers 'Oh, no, we have Zorro to protect us'. So everybody laughs, until a fucking perp comes out of nowhere and he has a *gun*."

Hehe. A gun.

It's not a bad joke, not at all. For years I laughed histerically at the mere sight of pearls. Or blood. Or alleys.

Drugs helped me out of it. Coke, LSD, amphetamines, the works. And after that I applied my own little grey puddle to the field of "internally applied chemistry", until I came up with something... special. Enhances the reflexes. Gives you more speed. Turns your mind into overdrive. Makes you feel better than a flea in a convention of Chewbacca lookalikes. Makes you stop wanting to die. In fact, it puts a positive smile in your face!

So what if it also makes you a little... violent? This _is_ a violent society after all. I am just a well-adjusted citizen. You gotta be crazy to act sane around here!

I hear the door open. My prey has come. I almost never choose them; they are usually guilty of being near me when I am in a festive mood. But this one is special. This one _owes_ me. Frankly, I don't feel like joking any more. I am almost... grim.

That would send my reputation down the figurative drain, but I don't think rumor will spread from here. Except to a few really good mediums.

"C'mon, honey, just let me open the door and we will... WHAT THE FUCK?!"

He draws a weapon, but he is SLOW. I guess he wasn't planning on mugging anybody in his apartment. Motherfucker should have known: I'm no longer six, and the city is my alley now. I have time to pick my target.

BANG.

Off with his balls. The blonde screams. I don't care about her.

BANG.

Off with her head.

Now the man is raising his gun, even as he his literally bleeding himself all over the floor.

I shook my head. This is definitely boring. But it needed to be done, and I'm not the slacker I always look like. There is a little responsible fella under my green hair, you know? So I leave pleasure for another night and simply blow his head.

BANG.

Two minutes later I'm out of the apartment, having fulfilled the first and last serious thing I intend to do in my life. I've avenged my parents.

All the lights are off when I enter Wayne Manor.

.finit.