Fawkes

Prologue Pt 1: Jokes On You

It was a gloomy night when he found her.

Well, it's always a gloomy night in Gotham City. The Joker was sneaking through the shadows, down alleys that hardly anyone knew existed. It was his usual midnight stroll, finding new city hideouts, assessing Batman's weaknesses and whatnot. The rain was pattering down fairly hard upon the pavement, but Joker would stay hidden in any weather. The sound of the showers, no matter how loud, couldn't drown out the sound of the faint cries that could be heard coming from around a corner.

The Joker stopped and frowned, raising one green eyebrow and inching towards the small sounds of distress. They grew louder and louder until he whipped around the brick wall and came across a small basket sitting in a dirty puddle.

Joker tilted his head to the side as the cries continued to echo through the alley. He knelt down after looking for signs of the owner of the crying basket, and tilted it back so he could see what was inside.

A small baby, no older than a month sat inside the basket, bawling her eyes out. Joker scrunched his face up in disgust, narrowing his eyes down at the little thing. He debated leaving the little infant there, but as he looked back at her he saw an opportunity. His trademark mischievous grin melted away the previous expression of repulsion.

The perfect soldier, trained from birth, trained to hunt and kill his enemies. He needed this, a big plan, an extra body to help him do his dirty work. He'd take the child and train her to become the most vicious assassin in all of Gotham.

"Yes." The Joker cackled and held the basket towards his face, "You'll be coming home with me."

The baby stared up at Joker, and her crying subdued for a split second before returning, louder than ever as the man took her away and into the darkness.

And so the Joker took her home and handed her off to a woman who would deal with her until she was old enough to shut her mouth and learn to fight. She began at age one, already matured into a no tears zone. The Joker and his evil colleagues were extremely stern, and the first time the little girl called him dad was also the last. He tortured and hurt her if she made mistakes, and she grew up to be a deadly weapon. At age four she killed her first man, a manager that was handling quite a bit of money and whom the Joker wanted disposed of. The girl didn't know any better of course, so we mustn't blame her. All she knew was to do as she was told or she'd pay a terrible price. Of course, she paid that price anyway. Every night Joker would whip her and cut her and there was nothing she could do about it. At age seven she was a perfect soldier, a trained assassin that was quicker than a flash of lightning. No one ever saw her coming, the tiny girl that was out for blood. She kept to the shadows, but killed many people. She knew over twenty languages and could hack into any system. She was quick and smart and completely ruthless. But she was tortured and lonely and miserable too. At night she'd wonder what she ever did to deserve all this pain. She never cried, because it wasn't an option in her life anymore. She just sat on her cell bed in the dark, staring at the wall opposite and silently asking unanswerable questions until dawn came.

She grew to wonder about her real parents when she was eleven years old. She wanted to meet them. She wanted to escape. So one day, a Tuesday, she did some forbidden research during a hacking session. It took her one full minute only to find her parents, her fingers flying across the keyboard. This was a restricted section of the computer. These files were strictly confidential. She didn't care; she never got caught.

However, the Joker knew her wishes to find her parents. So she shouldn't have been surprised when a blaring alarm began to sound through the room and her computer. In a split second she cleared her history and opened her hacking files, going halfway through them before stepping away from her computer.