Xcalibur Xc
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[Shazam] Ch: 10 [Fawcett Countdown]
🕑 Added 2025-05-28 12:38:34 +0000 UTC[BLACK SITE: LEVEL 7 – SECURE MILITARY INTERROGATION FACILITY]
[LOCATION: CLASSIFIED]
It was a regular interrogation cell. A single metal table sat between them. Chains rattled as Joker adjusted in his seat, arms cuffed, legs shackled to the floor. The lights buzzed overhead with a hum that could drive a sane man mad or comfort the insane.
Across from him sat Amanda Waller. That cold, expressionless face could make most criminals shit.
But not him.
Never him.
He was smiling.
His mouth was split with that familiar, crusted grin. One eye was swollen shut from the Peacemaker takedown. His hands twitched occasionally, like they missed holding something sharp.
Behind a one-way glass, Peacemaker and Bloodsport watched in silence. Well, one of them was silent.
Peacemaker leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
"I give it ten minutes before she makes him piss himself."
Bloodsport didn’t answer.
"Five if she cut off his balls," Peacemaker added.
[Inside]
“So,” Waller said, tapping the screen. “Let’s talk about explosives.”
Joker leaned back until the chair creaked.
“Oh, I love explosions. Big ones. Loud ones. The kind that leave teeth in neighboring zip codes.” He giggled, then licked his lips. “You got a favorite, Wallsy? I bet you're a C4 gal. Classy, controllable. Not too flashy.”
Waller didn't blink.
“We intercepted chatter two weeks ago about a weapons convoy hijacked en route to a secure military depot in Arizona. Classified cargo. Stolen from under our nose.”
“Ohh, yes, I heard about that,” Joker said, eyes gleaming. “Tragic. A real whoopsy-daisy on national defense’s part.”
“You stole it.”
“Did I?” He leaned in, chains rattling. “Me? Lil’ old me? I mean, you’d need a serious plan. Satellite blind zones. Corrupt officers. Diversion convoys. Exploding goats. And maybe a trained dolphin, depending on the route. That’s a lot of work, Amanda.”
“You hijacked a military truck moving RDX, HMX, Tetryl, and enough TNT to flatten half a city. You disappeared it without leaving a single trail.”
Joker’s grin widened. “Magic.”
Waller’s tone hardened.
“Where is it?”
Joker giggled.
“No, no, no, you’re skipping ahead. That’s not how we play this game. This is foreplay, Mandy. You don’t just walk in, tie me up, and ask where I’m hiding my toys, unless you are into one of those kinky foreplay. Hehehehe!”
She leaned forward, her face cold as ice.
“I know what you are. I know how you work. You don’t steal that kind of firepower unless you have a plan.”
"Do I look like a guy with a plan?"
Waller’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes. You do. You just don’t follow one.”
Joker burst out laughing, loud and wheezy, like a car crash in slow motion. The kind of laugh that filled up the room and squeezed the air out of it.
“Oh-ho-ho! That’s rich! You get me, Amanda! You really, really get me!” He slammed his cuffs on the table like it was the punchline to a joke only he could hear.
Behind the glass, Peacemaker tilted his head. “Is he flirting with her?”
Bloodsport didn’t move.
“I think he’s flirting with her.”
Inside the room, Joker was calm enough to wipe a trickle of blood from his lip with his tongue. “See, here’s the thing, Wallsy. You got your B-listers out there, always planning. Blueprints, schedules, PowerPoints. I mean, have you seen Riddler’s murder board? It’s like a TED Talk hosted by a serial killer.”
He leaned forward with a rare, serious expression.
“But me? I don’t plan. I simply act on impulse. That’s what makes it beautiful. You people spend millions trying to predict threats. Building algorithms. Running scenarios. But you can’t predict chaos, Amanda. Chaos doesn’t tick in neat little boxes.”
Waller didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.
Joker’s voice curled around the room like smoke.
“You’re scared of that, aren’t you? That no matter how many cameras you wire, how many files you flag, I’ll still slit your throat in the one second your system hiccups. Not because I want to kill you, oh no, that’s too easy, but because it’s funny. Because you’d never see it coming.”
Waller stood slowly. Her chair scraped the floor like a blade dragged across tile. Joker watched her, head tilted, smile unwavering.
“Okay,” she said. “You want to play games?” She walked to the door and pressed a button on the wall. “Bring in the boys.”
A mechanical buzz, a click, and the door opened. Peacemaker strolled in first, cracking his knuckles, followed by Bloodsport. Joker’s smile didn’t fade, but his eyes flickered.
Waller left.
“Ohhh,” he sang. “Daddy’s home. And he brought his angrier boyfriend.”
Peacemaker walked right up to him and slammed both fists onto the table. “You think this is funny?”
“Yes,” Joker whispered, grinning. “This part especially.”
Waller stepped aside, folding her arms. “You’ve had your time to talk. Now they’ll get their turn.”
Peacemaker moved behind Joker, yanked his head back by the hair. Joker winced, but his grin stayed.
“Got a message from that convoy’s driver,” Peacemaker said, leaning down. “He’s blind in one eye now. Half a jaw. Lost three ribs and pisses in a bag.” He grabbed a baton from his belt, flicked it out. “Said the guy who did it, laughed the whole time.”
“Sounds like a hoot,” Joker said through clenched teeth.
The baton cracked down on his ribs.
THWACK.
Joker wheezed, breath caught somewhere between a laugh and a scream.
Bloodsport didn’t say a word. He walked to the side table, rolled up a canvas kit, and started laying out tools. Scalpels. Pliers. A bone saw. Something that looked like a dentist’s drill and smelled like burnt copper.
“Oooooh. Now that’s new. Floyd 2.0’s got an upgrade. What’s next? Teeth-pulling? Nail stuff? Maybe we skip to flaying?” Joker said, still laughing.
Bloodsport walked over, calm as a surgeon, and knelt beside him.
“No. We're going to start small.”
He grabbed Joker’s hand, cuffed tight. “Just need one finger.”
Joker blinked. “Middle one, I assume?”
Bloodsport didn’t answer. He twisted. A pop cracked through the room as Joker’s pinky dislocated.
"Hehehehe! Aaahahahaha!" Joker's laughter echoed in that tiny cell.
Peacemaker smirked. “You’re not gonna last long. You know that, right?”
Joker shivered with delight. “Oh, I don’t last at anything. I’m more of a… climax-and-run kind of guy.”
CRACK. Another finger. Joker laughed again, louder.
Peacemaker slammed the baton on his face.
Bloodsport spoke. “We’re not here to beat you. We’re here to break you.” He leaned in close to Joker’s ear. “There’s a difference.”
Joker chuckled weakly, blood leaking down his chin.
“You ever thought maybe I want to break? Maybe I’m trying to see how far it goes before even you start enjoying this.”
Peacemaker stepped in. “Enough of the foreplay.”
He pulled out a military-grade shock collar and strapped it around Joker’s neck. Joker’s eyes went wide for a second.
“What’s the safe word?” he rasped.
Peacemaker grinned. “There isn’t one.”
He hit the button.
Z-ZZZT.
Joker convulsed, the table shaking beneath him. His laugh turned to a gargling howl.
Bloodsport grabbed a scalpel.
Waller’s voice came over the intercom. “You’ve got five minutes. Then I want a location. Or pieces.”
[5 minutes later]
Peacemaker’s patience snapped.
With a growl, he drew his sidearm and shoved the barrel against Joker’s forehead. Blood dripped from Joker’s nose, lip, ears.
“Tell me where the bombs are,” Peacemaker said through clenched teeth. “Or I paint this wall with your skull. Then I'll rip out your balls and shove them down your neck.”
Joker wheezed. His voice came out thin and cracked, like a bad signal through a busted speaker.
“…what time is it?”
Bloodsport paused mid-reach. Peacemaker stiffened.
“The hell did you say?” Peacemaker asked.
Joker coughed, a bubble of blood bursting at the corner of his mouth. His tongue licked it clean with unsettling care.
“I said…” He chuckled, spitting red across the table. “What time is it?”
Bloodsport looked at the wall clock. “Eleven-oh-seven.”
Joker smiled through broken teeth.
“Ohhh. Good. Right on schedule.”
He leaned back, as much as his chains allowed, and tilted his head toward the ceiling.
“You boys ever try mixing HMX with a dash of VX nerve agent and a slow-burn RDX casing? No? Fun stuff. Quiet at first. Then boom... nerve melt, lung collapse, and everybody within a city block turns to twitching jelly. Then depending on the wind and weather, it'll spread like a freakin' plague.”
Bloodsport moved first. “Where?!”
Joker’s laugh was low now. A rasp.
“Fawcett City,” he whispered. “Downtown. Library. School. Hospital. Pizza shop. Maybe a petting zoo if we’re lucky.”
Peacemaker grabbed his collar. “WHERE IN FAWCETT?”
“There are twenty,” Joker hissed. “Twenty lovely little parcels. Spread all over town. All synced. All counting down.”
His voice cracked into a singsong hum.
“One hour left, boys. Give or take traffic.”
Then, he turned his gaze toward the one-way glass. He couldn’t see her, but he knew Waller was there. He smiled, soft and slow.
“Tick. Tock. Mandy.”
BOOM.
The walls trembled.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
The lights flickered.
An alarm wailed to life, red beacons flashing across the hallway outside. Joker’s head snapped back as he let out a sound that could only be described as pure madness.
“AAAH–HA! HAAA! HAAA! HAHAAAAAA!
AAAA–HAHAHAHAHAHA–AAAAAAA!
HOOOHOOOOO!
OHHHHH THIS IS TOO GOOD!”
Blood poured from his mouth, but he didn’t stop. His whole body shook with glee.
Peacemaker backed off, staring.
Bloodsport cursed under his breath and bolted for the door.
Joker's laughter bounced off the steel walls like shrapnel.
“Let’s see how good your task force really is, Wally!” he shrieked. “Let’s see how many little meat puppets you can save before they all go pop pop pop!”
He leaned forward, face split by a grin not even pain could kill. Then he spat out a broken tooth with a tracker.
“Round two,” he whispered. “FIGHT.”
...
Red warning lights. Sirens. Somewhere down the corridor, a secondary explosion shook the floor.
Amanda Waller didn’t flinch.
She walked toward her escape route. One hand was already at her earpiece. The other tapped a biometric panel beside a thick security door. It hissed open, revealing a concealed corridor leading deeper underground.
“Bloodsport,” she said into the comm. “Package the Joker. You’re moving to Site Echo. Secure him under Level 10 lockdown. Blackout cell. No sound. No light. No one in or out without my approval.”
Bloodsport’s voice crackled back. “Roger that.”
He was already yanking Joker out of the chair, shoving a needle full of sedative into his neck. Joker’s grin twitched as he slumped.
“Oooh… site to site. Feels like a field trip…”
Bloodsport tightened the restraints and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of rot. “Shut up.”
Waller tapped again.
“Peacemaker.”
“I’m here.”
“Forget the clown. We’ve got a breach team in the facility. No one unauthorized gets out. You lead Task Force X. Contain it. Neutralize intruders. Capture whoever’s calling the shots.”
“Copy. Kill first, ask questions while reloading.”
“Make it fast. We’ve got bombs in play.”
...
[WALLER’S SECURE ROOM – MOMENTS LATER]
The heavy blast doors sealed behind her. Waller slid into the command chair and started the computer. She tapped a few keys, then slammed a red button.
[SECURE JUSTICE CONFERENCE CALL – ENCRYPTED]
Waller wanted to contact the Justice Society too, but they weren't on good terms with each other, and she didn't want them to tear apart the city with their unconventional means.
Three faces appeared on screen.
SUPERMAN: Standing on a rooftop.
BATMAN: In the Batcave.
FLASH: Eating pizza on a rooftop.
Waller didn’t waste time.
“We have an incident. Joker planted twenty bombs across Fawcett City. Nerve agent combined with HMX, RDX, and possibly VX. Coordinated. Timed. Detonations have already started. He said the bombs are synced.”
Batman leaned in. “Casualty risk?”
“If they go off? Tens of thousands.”
Flash cut in, voice distorted by motion. “I can cover the city in under ten seconds if I know what I’m looking for.”
Batman was already typing. “Joker likes symbolism, look for clusters near landmarks or places with emotional resonance.”
Superman’s gaze lifted. “I’ll start with the hospitals. If even one bomb goes off, it’s a massacre.”
"Joker said this is round 2," Waller said, looking at Batman. "Which means he prepared more... There could be more explosives out there. Gotham, Metropolis, Bludhaven... It could be anywhere out there. You know Joker better than anyone. You know how he works. Stop Joker's plan. Batman."
...
[Batcave]
Batman had already informed the remaining members of the Justice League and was going through the satellite feeds. There's only one person who knows everything about Joker and his plans.
Harley Quinn.
Comments
Calvin Ellis
❤️Thank you for this moment.❤️
CkLance
Enjoying this one
