Shouldn't have gone alone.

Brittany Andrew had been inspired by the influx of vagrants to be a superhero. She had no powers, so she went to her skills, as modest as they were, to fight crime. She called herself the Acro-Brat, something she was trying to 'take back' from her older brother. Along with the green and purple color scheme of her costume, it served as her signature.

That color scheme, which the Joker noticed on her first outing, was why the sixteen-year-old Brian Andrew had a burlap sack puled off of his head in the wet, cold of this lonely back alley. Brian was much worse for wear. Either the Joker or one of his goons had worked the boy over with a blunt object, or several.

"Consider, consider yourself lucky. Last time I took out my displeasure about someone on their loved one, well it didn't. go. well. When I took it out on this. man's. wife., she got a bullet to the brain while she tried to defend a bunch of crying infants. When I took it out on this. boy's. mother., she was beaten to death with a crowbar while he watched before he got blown to smithereens. When I took it out on this. man's. daughter., she was crippled for life to prove a point to daddy. Let's see what happens to you-hohohohohehehahahahahaaaaaa!"

Brian was silenced with duct tape that wrapped around and around his head, across skin and over hair. He was bound in rope. His gray t-shirt and bluejeans were both stained with splattered blood. His blond hair was tossed all about, either due to his own fashion or the trauma he endured.

The Ace of Knaves for his part was dressed traditionally. His suit was purple, his vest was orange, and his dress shirt was green. He wore a purple bolo tie. Tying the tie together was a International Symbol of Access in an oval instead of a square and offset by purple instead of blue. A bat symbol had been superimposed over the wheel.

"You may be wondering, why? Why, oh why, are we out in the open like this.", he began as he handed his suit jacket to an underling and put a brass knuckle over his fingers. The knuckle spelled out his own name in metal except for the O which was a piece of amethyst cut in such a way to ensure maximum hurt. "I like fresh air. Heheh! Plus, the idea that dear sister can stop over and see."

"Heeeeehehehehehahahahahaaaaaaaaahahahaha!"

WACK! WOMP! WHUNK!

"I need a Biggie poster. Woowoowooheheheha!" KRRSHK! KRRSHK! KRRSHK! Eventually the boy stopped moving. The Joker held his hand up and his underling placed a knife in the madman's hand. He carved a Glasgow grin into the tenderized meat that was left of the victim's face. He knew she was there. He knew it long before she could have realized. When you're a mouse being hunted by a barn owl, everything else sounds like a jet engine. "Heheh! Well, that was fun. Who's up for some Thai food?"

"Aha-aha-ahahahahahaha! While nothing repeated, it does rhyme. Did you know, little Lian Nguyen-Harper that we met where I'm from? It's true! There the circumstances were a little bit different. You see, I had found a fireman and I got enraged by the audacity that man had to be called a fireman and to then not actually be on fire. Hehehehahaha! You said to me there something much like you are saying now."

The Clown Prince of Crime whetted his lips with his tongue. "We talked a lot actually. We talked about your brother. Mmmm. Did mommy mention him here? Because my Lian had no idea. Your mommy had a baby with a man who was once considered beneath a gorilla who loved a disembodied brain and a Frenchman who liked like he was being pushed through a birth canal." Sure, she would not understand all of that but he wasn't about to dumb himself down for an infant.

"We talked about your daddy," he chuckled hard, "Speedy."

"We talked about how little he cared about anyone around him when he put those needles in his veins. We talked about how this means that he will abandon you at the drop of a hat! Just like he abandoned Hawkgirl, Huntress, Grace Choi, Donna Troy, and your mommy."

"There  was some talk about Uncle J — the other Uncle J. The one who used to be Batman's catamite. Wahahahahahahaha! Even the Batman abandoned him. BATMAN! The man who spends his time punching guys who think they're book characters!"

"So enough about her and them. Let's talk about you. Woo-woo-woo!"