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“We've removed all the explosives, right?”
[Affirmative.]
Jaime nodded and slowly descended, following the angle of the Franklin mountains. He wiped non-existent sweat off of his armored brow, and he glanced, just once more, at the peak. He had no idea why strangely dressed punks were setting up explosives there. But those peaks overlooked the Transmountian Drive, and he was not going to risk an avalanche on unsuspecting motorists.
“And you're sure we got them all?”
[Affirmative,] Khaji Da repeated, [multiple queries will not change answer.]
“I know, I know,” Jaime said.
He was confident in the Scarab's ability, but he had been in the car with his family when they had spotted something weird above them and...
“Just. You are sure nothing is hidden?”
[Affirmative.]
Jaime let out a long sigh, waited for a break in traffic, and landed at one of the road's scenic overlook stops. He ducked behind a sheltered picnic table and allowed the armor to retreat. Now all he had to do was wait for Paco to pick him up, then they could continue on to the movies as planned.
He stood up, walked nonchalantly to the table and sat at the bench to wait. Again he sighed and ran his hand through his hair.
Except his hand didn't feel quite right. Almost as if Khaji Da had given him mittens when reforming his clothing. Confused he pulled his hand down.
Two button eyes stared back at him. Their dead gaze were half covered by lanky yarn hair. And they topped a gaping felt maw.
Jaime reeled back from the sock puppet encompassing his hand. He fell backwards off of the bench, hitting the ground with a thud.
“¡Dios mío!”
He lay on the ground holding his hand as far from his face as he could. He could hear Khaji Da chittering with laughter and tires rolling on gravel over his own murmured curses.
Then a new sound joined in, a deeper, familiar laugh.
“Dude, I though you'd be used to being touched by bugs.”
Jaime glared up at Paco standing over him. Looked at the hand he offered. And then reached up with his own, sock covered hand.
Paco let out a satisfying yelp and stumbled backwards.
Jaime then grabbed the sock with his other hand and flung it off. Halfway through it's arching motion it dissolved into nothing, like all of the Scarab's clothing did.
“Did you just get punked by the bug?” Paco asked.
Jaime pushed himself into a sitting position.
“I believe the Scarab 'punked' both of us.”
[Jaime's reaction > Paco's reaction]
Jaime's jaw dropped, he turned towards his shoulder.
“Whose side are you on anyway?”
[Brenda's]
Jaime groaned and fell backwards again, only to hit Paco's leg.
“What'd he answer?”
“Breanda.”
“Smart bug,” Paco said, pulling Jaime to his feet.
Khaji Da chittered again and Jaime pouted.
“Yeah yeah, laugh it up. How'd you find out about it anyway?”
[Paco told <me>.]
“Paco? When did he?” Jaime exclaimed, looking at his shoulder before turning towards his friend, “Why did you?”
Paco stepped into his car grinning, “Remember when Nadia made that hacker 'boot camp' for him?”
Jaime nodded, that training had been invaluable to the Scarab when they launched their attack on the Reach mother ship.
“Well I figured the little guy could use some extra motivation,” Paco stated, easing the car back onto the road.
[Goal01.txt]
[extracting … … … ]
[It was Lisa Ortiz's 9th birthday party and the entire class was invited. Little did we know that that one party, no that one clown, would change out lives.]
Jaime waved his hands in front of his face, as the projected text seemed to fill the wind shield.
“Yes, yes, I get it. But Paco, you were scared of it, not me.”
Even as Khaji Da played back both of their reactions, Paco shrugged.
“Dude, I've seen you shiver when Brenda starts describing the thing. Learned fear, my man.”
“Great,” Jaime sighed, “You taught me to be afraid of clowns.”
“Clowns are terrifying,” Paco deadpanned, “I thought you'd been to Gotham?”
Jaime rolled his eyes, “Yeah yeah.”
[The Gotham's Joker is currently located in El Paso near the Mexico boarder.]
Jaime snorted, “Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice...”
The local news started up in his mind.
Jaime blinked.
“The Joker is attacking El Paso.”
Paco snorted, “yeah right.”
Jaime reached over and turned the radio on. With the Scarab's help it only took a second to tune.
Paco listened to five words before speaking.
“You should get on that.”
“Right, I should get on that.”
Jaime didn't wait for Paco to stop the car. Instead he armored up, unbuckled, and leaped out. His wings flared, and he soared up, breaking away from Paco's car, flying back over the mountains and towards the boarder.
It wasn't hard to find the Joker on the Texas side of the boarder. He was standing on the top of a large tractor trailer which had opened it's sides to reveal a bright purple clown car and barricade. Encircling the trailer were boarder patrol and El Paso PD. They were being held at bay by suppressing fire layed down by the Joker's henchmen. Punks dressed suspiciously similar The Joker himself was standing on top laughing, while punks, dressed similarly to the ones Jaime stopped earlier laid down suppressing fire.
Jaime swooped down between the cops and Joker's goons, shield extended. He was expecting to block a verifiable hail of bullets but only two pinked off of his shield.
He looked up to see the Joker, who had turned from glaring at the shooters to face him.
“Well, well, well, it looks like someone should call an exterminator.”
Jaime snorted, he might still be bad at most banter, but bug banter was different. Everyone made a bug joke. So those he could prepare for.
“Just be glad it's only a beetle infestation not a solifuge one.”
“You better leave the jokes to the professionals kid,” Joker griped, “But then again you're leagues ahead of these sticks-in-the-mud. Which is why I'm asking you to tell them to let me cross the border.”
Jaime tilted his head, “Are you trying to flee to Mexico?”
Joker laughed, “Flee? Not I. Never would I run. I just need to take a little shopping trip. Would you believe some bigshot party poopers decided to ban my favorite brand of floor cleaner.”
He made an exaggerated wounded motion, “They reworked the formula, the fiends, and now it just doesn't get the job done.”
Jaime glanced towards his shoulder and whispered, “Why would he care about floor cleaner?”
[Conjecture, smoother floors allow for the skin of the banana to slip.]
Jaime blinked, “did you just make a joke?”
“Well, I'm not sure what the scarab said Blue Boss,”Nadia cut in over his comms, “But I'm seeing that several cleaning agents had their formula changed on suspicion that they could be used to make Joker Toxin.”
“Joker Toxin?” Jaime questioned.
“Tut tut,” Joker said, pushing his cane down, “no outside help.”
Jaime jumped as static cut him off from the beetle cave.
[The Joker's premise is faulty. <I> am still providing help]
“Not sure you count as 'outside' hermano,” Jaime whispered towards his shoulder before turning towards the Joker, “Outside help or no, I'm not going to let you go and do what you want. ”
The Joker leaned forward against the cane, “Are you sure?”
“Um yes?”
Joker jumped down from his perch, and leaned into Jaime's personal space, his nose brushing the armor covering Jaime's face.
“Because, the fact that I want to make more of my laughing gas, doesn't mean that I don't have any with me.”
Joker then leaned back and swung around, with a flourish he pointed his cane.
Jaime slowly turned to look at the people, cops, news-crew, assembled bystanders, that the Joker was pointing at. He froze. He could feel the milliseconds drag on as his heart pounded. Ever so slowly he turned back to face the Joker.
“So,” the Joker said in a deceptively sweet whisper, “are you gonna let me go or not?”
Jaime swallowed and Khaji Da spoke.
[A small yield nuclear blast would eliminate the threat]
“Dude, no,” he hissed back towards the Scarab.
“Oh, ho ho,” Joker laughed, “our baby hero thinks he can play in the big league.”
“Hold on a second,” Jaime said waving at the Joker offhandedly.
He then turned towards his shoulder and rapped on his head.
“Do you understand that radiation is going to be more dangerous than any gas he could unleash?” Jaime hissed.
[Toot]
“What?” Jaime asked.
“What?” Joker echoed.
[The gas the Joker unleashed.]
Jaime felt his jaw drop.
“Are you serious right now?” he asked.
“I'm never serious,” Joker responded, sounding offended.
Jaime tuned towards him, “I'm not talking to you, just, un momento por favor.”
[Is asking supervillians 'please' professional?]
Jaime blinked, “are you really going to lecture me about being professional? Really?”
Joker turned towards his henchmen, “Which one of you bozos broke the scrambler?”
“Your scrambler's fine,” Jaime reassured with a frustrated smile, “which is why I'm dealing with 'I just learned toilet humor' head voice all alone.”
Both of Joker's eyes opened wide. He seemed to pull popcorn out of thin air, and pushed a handful into his mouth.
“Finally an interesting do-gooder.”
[At current rate of grease consumption coronary heart disease will solve our problem in 8.35 years.]
Jaime's shoulders fell.
“I'm sure it would,” he answered flatly, “what is with you?”
[Efficiency decreases 39.3% when you are frustrated,] the Scarab answered.
Jaime pressed his lips together, “yeah, thanks for that.”
[Efficiency decreases 72.2% when you are terrified,] the Scarab continued.
“Is this?” Jaime asked turning back to look at the Joker, “Are you?”
Khaji Da didn't answer, it simply replayed his earlier reaction to the sock puppet.
“You think I'm scared of him?” Jaime said, gesturing dismissively towards the Joker, “He is nowhere near the level of that freaky birthday clown. Ok, dude?”
The Joker pouted, “Now I'm insulted, I don't like to be insulted.”
Before Jaime could respond, Joker pulled out a large hand gun, pointed it at Jaime's chest and fired. Jaime flinched for a split second before seeing the 'bang' sign waving from a pole projecting from the gun.
“Yeah,” Jaime said flatly, “now I'm terrified.”
“Sarcasm isn't real humor,” the Joker sneered, pushing the tip of the pole against Jaime's throat.
Again he pulled the trigger. The pole was launched out of the gun closing the minuscule distance to Jaime's neck in nanoseconds.
Then it pinged off of the armor on his neck, flipped end over end and fell harmlessly to the ground at their feet.
“Still terrified,” Jaime deadpanned.
[My turn]
Jaime frowned, “He barely did anything. So it is not 'your turn'.”
Joker's smile returned and he dropped the gun.
“I agree, I want ol'potty mouth head voice to have his turn.”
Jaime looked Joker in the eye, “No, you really don't.”
“Are you telling me what I want?” Joker asked, leaning back into Jaime's personal space, “because maybe I want to unleash my gas on this town?”
With a flourish of his hand Joker flipped open the top of his cane and let his fingers lightly dance over a big red button hidden underneath.
Jaime froze again. He felt his stomach flip.
[And maybe you want your spine removed through your stomach,] Khaji Da said.
“And maybe you want your spine removed through your stomach,” Blue Beetle echoed.
He moved forward in one smooth motion. His left hand reaching out and crushing Joker's hand, keeping it away from the button. His right hand curled in front of the Joker's stomach. Fingers elongated into claws resting lightly on his coat.
Khaji Da grinned.
“You know what, I changed my mind,” Joker said quickly trying in vain to pull back from them.
[Me too. Incineration by plasma cannon is much neater.]
“Me too. Incineration by plasma cannon is much neater.”
Their grin widened.
“And that could unleash the gas. Which is a bad thing,” the Joker responded quickly, his voice rising, “Right? Remember that kid?”
[He's not here any more, isn't that what you wanted?]
“He's not here any more, isn't that what you wanted?”
Joker's eyes went wide, and he licked his lips before continuing.
“I never said that. When did I say that?”
[When you threatened this city and it's citizens.]
“When you threatened this city and it's citizens.”
“I would never I …” Joker protested, waving his free hand at random.
At least it seemed random until he reached over and slammed his hand on the button.
Joker laughed.
It started loud and strong. But each second that nothing happened the laugh got weaker. Each 'Ha' waiting longer and longer to come. Until finally silence fell.
It was only then that Blue Beetle spoke. Head tilted to the side and grin firmly in place.
[You are not the only one who can scramble signals.]
“You are not the only one who can scramble signals.”
Joker glared at his henchmen.
“This stopped being funny ages ago,” he hissed.
Instantaneously they opened fire. Jaime let go of the Joker and moved between the henchmen and the civilians. Khaji Da retracted their weapons and formed a shield. Behind them the officers opened fire as well.
The noise was deafening. Smoke filled the air. Seconds seemed to stretch for hours. And Jaime knew the longer this kept up the more danger everyone around them would be in.
But moving to take one henchmen down would leave everyone behind him exposed to the others. And launching an all out attack on either them or their barricade would lead to the deaths of many of the henchmen. And it also would risk unleashing the remaining Joker Toxin.
The Joker Toxin.
“Scarab, make some laughter!”
Khaji Da chittered slowly in his head.
“No, outloud,” Jaime shouted, “Make this shield a boom-box and play the sound of laughter.”
[<I> do not understand,] the Scarab said while following the instructions and playing the sound of a person laughing .
“Slowly add more voices,” Jaime whispered.
Slowly more voices were added to the laugh-track. It replaced the sound of gunfire as combatants from both sides scrambled to get gas masks on.
“Now,” Jaime ordered, racing forward, “before they realize that they've been had.”
Khaji Da complied. And by the time everyone realized that there was not a release of Joker Toxin, all of the Joker's henchmen were out cold on the ground.
It was not a complete win though as the Joker himself was long gone. And despite having made contact with him, the Scarab's tracking seemed to glitch on the Joker's genetics. That or Joker's scrambler, like EMF fields, messed with their tracking ability.
So they searched El Paso by air and foot, had the beetle cave monitor every frequency, pulled on their connections with both the Posse and La Dama. But still they could catch no hint of the Joker.
At least until Jaime got a text message from a fellow Titan .
Joker's back in Gotham. Said the Blue Beetle was too crazy for him. Should I be concerned? ~R.R.