In DC/Young Justice with the Omnitrix/Ultimatrix and a Chat Group

The laughter echoed through the sterile halls of Arkham Asylum, bouncing off padded walls and reinforced doors, worming its way into the minds of guards and inmates alike.

It wasn't the healthy laughter of genuine amusement, but something broken and jagged - glass shards wrapped in velvet.

In the maximum security wing, behind three separate security checkpoints and a door thick enough to withstand a small explosion, the Joker sat cross-legged on his cot, head tilted at an unnatural angle as he stared at the ceiling.

"White hair, red eyes, turns into purple crystal..." he murmured to himself, giggling softly. "Batsy's got himself a new pet project. How absolutely, positively, wonderfully fascinating."

Dr. Harleen Quinzel observed him through the reinforced glass, clipboard clutched tightly against her chest.

Even after months of sessions with the Joker, she still felt that flutter of anxiety before each encounter - a mixture of professional curiosity and primal fear.

"Mr. J," she called through the intercom, using the informal address he preferred. "It's time for our session."

The Joker's head snapped toward her with unsettling speed, his perpetual grin widening. "Ah, Dr. Quinzel! Just the person I wanted to see. Tell me, do you believe in magic?"

Harley maintained her professional demeanor despite the non-sequitur. "We're not here to discuss magic, Mr. J. I'd like to continue our conversation about the incident at Amusement Mile."

"Booooring," the Joker sang, unfolding his lanky frame from the cot and approaching the glass. "But if you insist on being so dreadfully professional... let's talk about the boy."

"The boy?" Harley asked, despite herself. This was new - the Joker typically focused his obsessive ramblings on Batman.

"The white-haired wonder! The crimson-eyed conundrum! The crystalline catastrophe!" The Joker pressed his palms against the glass, leaving smudged prints. "Wayne's ward. The one who ruined my beautiful experiment in temporal causality."

Harley made a note on her clipboard. This was the first time in months of incarceration that the Joker had shown sustained interest in Samael Morningstar - the teenager involved in his capture.

"You mean Samael Morningstar," she prompted carefully. "Bruce Wayne's ward."

"Samael," the Joker repeated, rolling the name around his mouth like a fine wine. "Such a pretentious name! Do you know what it means, Harley-girl? It's Hebrew. 'Venom of God.'

The poison of the divine. The angel of death." He giggled. "Someone had high expectations when they named that one!"

Harley made another note. "You seem particularly interested in him today. In our previous sessions, you've focused primarily on Batman."

The Joker's expression shifted subtly, something calculating replacing the manic glee for just a moment. "Batman, Batman, Batman. Always Batman. Don't you ever get tired of hearing about the big bad Bat?"

"This isn't about me, Mr. J," Harley reminded him gently. "I'm curious about your thoughts on Samael Morningstar."

The Joker pressed his face closer to the glass, his breath fogging the surface. "He looked me in the eye, you know. Not many people do that.

They look at the smile, the hair, the scars... but never the eyes. He looked right into them and do you know what he said?"

Harley shook her head, already being drawn into his narrative despite her professional training.

"He said, 'Go ahead.'" The Joker's voice dropped to a whisper. "I had a gun to a child's head, and this teenager - this boy genius with his fancy watch and red jacket - said, 'Go ahead. Shoot the child. Then the mother. Then the father. Kill them all.'"

The Joker's laughter bubbled up again, higher-pitched this time. "Can you believe it? He called my bluff! Me! The Joker! The Clown Prince of Crime!"

Harley maintained her composure, though the account disturbed her. "And how did that make you feel?"

"Feel?" The Joker repeated, as if tasting a foreign word. "It made me feel... seen." His voice took on an uncharacteristic note of sincerity.

"Do you know how rare that is, Doctor? To be truly seen? Not as a monster, not as a madman, but as a philosopher with a point to make?"

"You believe Samael understood you?" Harley asked, trying to follow his twisted logic.

"Oh, he did more than understand me," the Joker replied, his grin returning full force. "He challenged me.

He took my philosophy and turned it inside out. 'If life has no meaning, then neither does death,'" he quoted. "'If everything is a joke, then so is your threat.'"

The Joker pushed away from the glass suddenly, pacing his cell with frenetic energy. "Don't you see? He's like a dark mirror of Batsy! The Bat is all brooding silence and moral certainty.

But this boy - this Samael - he's something else. He speaks my language but argues the opposite conclusion. He acknowledges the absurdity but insists on meaning anyway!"

Harley watched him pace, recognizing the dangerous intensity building in his movements. "So you're interested in him because he engaged with your worldview?"

"Interested?" The Joker stopped abruptly, head tilted at that unnatural angle again. "Oh, Harley-girl, 'interested' doesn't begin to cover it. He's the most exciting thing to happen to Gotham since the Bat himself!"

He leapt suddenly onto his cot, arms spread wide in theatrical gesture. "Think about it! Batman is my perfect opposite - order to my chaos, night to my day, straight man to my punchline.

But this boy? He's something new entirely. He sees the joke and refuses to laugh! He acknowledges the meaninglessness and insists on creating meaning anyway!"

The Joker's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "And that's not even mentioning the crystal trick. One minute - flesh and blood.

The next - living amethyst absorbing enough energy to level a city block. Tell me that's not the most delicious twist you've ever heard!"

Harley made several rapid notes, recognizing the dangerous fixation forming in real time. "Mr. J, I'm concerned that you're developing an unhealthy obsession with this young man."

"Unhealthy?" The Joker cackled. "Doctor, everything about me is unhealthy! It's my brand!" He hopped down from the cot and approached the glass again.

"But you're missing the bigger picture. The boy isn't just interesting on his own - it's what he represents in the grand cosmic joke that is my relationship with Batman."

"And what does he represent?" Harley asked, despite knowing she was feeding into his delusion.

The Joker's smile widened impossibly. "Escalation, dear doctor. Beautiful, perfect escalation. First, it was just me and the Bat - a simple comedy duo.

Then came the sidekick - the colorful little bird he has collected. But this one? This one is different. This one has power. Real power."

He pressed his forehead against the glass, his voice dropping to a whisper again. "The Bat has always had rules. Limits. Lines he won't cross. But this boy? I looked in his eyes when he told me to shoot those hostages.

There was something there - something cold and calculating that went beyond Batman's moral code. Something that might, under the right circumstances, be willing to do what Batman never would."

The Joker pushed away from the glass again, spinning in a gleeful circle. "Don't you see? He's the next evolution in our little game! Batman won't kill me, no matter what I do. It's the foundation of our relationship.

But this boy? This Samael? He might. He might become like me! And that possibility - that beautiful, terrifying possibility - changes everything!"

Harley felt a chill run down her spine. The Joker's obsession with Batman had always been dangerous, but this new fixation on Samael Morningstar represented something potentially more volatile.

The teenager had somehow inserted himself into the Joker's primary psychological narrative - the eternal dance with Batman.

"Mr. J, I think we should focus on-"

"Did you know," the Joker interrupted, his tone suddenly conversational, "that I've been keeping track of our crystal boy since my unfortunate incarceration?

My sources tell me he's been busy. Training with the junior justice brigade. Helping the clone boy fly. Making googly eyes at the Commissioner's daughter."

Harley stiffened. "Mr. J, I don't think-"

"Oh, and the most delicious part?" The Joker continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Batman is letting him do it all.

The same Batman who micromanages his little bird's every move is giving Crystal Boy remarkable freedom. Isn't that interesting?"

The Joker's insights were disturbingly accurate for someone supposedly isolated in Arkham's maximum security wing. Harley made a mental note to report this apparent information leak to security.

"Our time is almost up for today," she said, trying to regain control of the session. "Is there anything else you'd like to discuss before we conclude?"

The Joker's smile turned almost gentle - which was somehow more disturbing than his manic grin. "Just one tiny thing, Doctor. A little message for when you inevitably report this conversation to the proper authorities."

He leaned close to the glass, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Tell them that the next time the boy and I meet - and oh, we will meet again - it won't be about time travel or dimensional doorways or any of that scientific mumbo-jumbo.

No, no, no. It'll be much more... personal."

The Joker pulled back, his expression suddenly serious. "Because he did something no one else has ever done, not even the Bat. He saw through me. And that, dear doctor, is simply unacceptable."

With that, he turned away, returning to his cot and resuming his contemplation of the ceiling as if the session had never happened.

Dr. Quinzel gathered her notes, trying to maintain her professional demeanor despite the unease coiling in her stomach.

As she signaled the guard to let her out, she couldn't shake the feeling that something fundamental had shifted in the Joker's psychosis - a new obsession forming alongside his fixation on Batman, potentially even more dangerous because of its novelty.

Later that evening, after filing her official report, Harleen sat alone in her apartment, reviewing her notes from the session. The Joker's words echoed in her mind: "He saw through me. And that is simply unacceptable."

She circled the phrase several times, then wrote in the margin: "Possible new fixation - SM represents threat to J's self-narrative?

First person to 'see through' his philosophical justifications?"

Beneath this, she added: "Recommend immediate notification to GCPD and B. Wayne re: potential targeting of ward upon escape."

Harleen hesitated, pen hovering over the paper, before adding one final note: "J. appears to view SM as potential 'evolution' in his relationship with Batman - someone who might like him - do what Batman won't (kill J.?). 

Disturbing indication that J. may be planning to force confrontation specifically to test this theory."

She closed her notebook with a sigh.

Tomorrow she would file the additional warnings through official channels, but experience had taught her that Arkham's bureaucracy moved slowly.

Perhaps too slowly, given the calculating look she'd seen in the Joker's eyes.

In his cell, long after lights out, the Joker lay awake, staring at the ceiling with unblinking eyes.

His mind replayed the confrontation at Amusement Mile - not the failure of his device or Batman's intervention, but that singular moment when a white-haired, red-eyed boy had looked him in the eye and said,

"Go ahead."

Most people, when faced with the Joker's chaos, responded with fear, anger, or moral outrage. Batman responded with stoic determination and unbreakable principles.

But this boy... this Samael... had done something different.

He'd acknowledged the absurdity of existence that formed the core of the Joker's worldview, but then pivoted to an entirely different conclusion.

"If life truly has no meaning, then neither does death. If everything is a joke, then so is your threat."

The words had burrowed into the Joker's mind like parasites, multiplying and spreading in the months since his incarceration.

They represented something he rarely encountered - a genuine philosophical challenge to his nihilistic perspective.

Batman opposed the Joker's methods but never truly engaged with his worldview. He simply rejected it outright, clinging to his moral code like a security blanket.

But Samael had stepped onto the Joker's philosophical playground, accepted the basic premise, and then twisted it into something else entirely.

It was... intriguing. Infuriating. Delightful.

The Joker giggled softly in the darkness.

"Samael, Samael, Samael," the Joker whispered to the darkness. "The venom of God. The poison of the divine. What a perfectly pretentious name for a perfectly fascinating boy."

He rolled onto his side, fingers drumming a restless rhythm against the thin mattress.

The boy's transformation had been remarkable - flesh and blood one moment, living crystal the next.

Such power, contained in such a young vessel. And under Batman's wing, no less.

That was the most delicious irony of all. Batman, with his rigid moral code and endless rules, now mentoring a being of potentially limitless power - a being who had demonstrated a philosophical flexibility that Batman himself lacked.

The Joker's mind raced with possibilities. What would happen if that power could be turned? Not controlled - no, that was too pedestrian, too predictable. But influenced? Challenged? Pushed to its limits?

What would Batman do if his newest protégé crossed the line he himself would never cross? How would he reconcile his moral absolutism with the actions of someone under his protection?

And most tantalizingly of all - what would it take to push the boy to that point?

To make him abandon the careful control he'd demonstrated and embrace the cold calculation the Joker had glimpsed behind those crimson eyes?

"A test," the Joker murmured to himself. "Yes, a beautiful, perfect test. Not of his powers - those are just the wrapping paper. A test of his philosophy. His worldview. His limits."

The Joker rolled onto his back again, spreading his arms wide as if embracing the darkness. Batman had been tested countless times and had never broken his one rule.

But this boy... this Samael... was an unknown quantity. A wild card in the greatest game the Joker had ever played.

"Next time," he promised the empty cell, his voice barely a whisper, "we'll see what you're really made of, Crystal Boy.

Not just when you're saving hostages or stopping doomsday devices. No, no, no. We'll see what happens when I target something - or someone - you actually care about."

The Joker's laughter bubbled up again, soft at first, then growing in volume until it echoed through the maximum security wing,

seeping through reinforced doors and padded walls, worming its way into the minds of guards and inmates alike.

In the darkness of his cell, the Clown Prince of Crime began to plan his next masterpiece - a performance crafted specifically for an audience of two: the Bat and his newest, most fascinating protégé.

The game was evolving, and the Joker couldn't wait to play the next round.

Two days later, Dr. Arkham reviewed Harleen Quinzel's report with a deep frown creasing his forehead.

The Joker's new fixation on Samael Morningstar was concerning, particularly given the teenager's connection to Bruce Wayne - one of Arkham Asylum's most generous benefactors.

"Double the security on the Joker's cell," he instructed the head of security. "And restrict his visitor and phone privileges. I want his mail screened three times before it goes out."

"Yes, sir," the security chief replied. "Though I should mention, we found this in his cell during the last inspection." He placed a small notebook on Dr. Arkham's desk. "It appears to contain... research."

Dr. Arkham opened the notebook cautiously. Inside, in the Joker's distinctive handwriting, were newspaper clippings, hand-drawn diagrams, and extensive notes about Samael Morningstar -

his appearance at Gotham Academy, his connection to Wayne, his research at GSI, and most disturbingly, detailed observations about his transformation abilities.

One page contained a crude but recognizable sketch of what appeared to be Barbara Gordon, with the words "leverage point?" written beside it.

Dr. Arkham closed the notebook with a grimace. "Contact Commissioner Gordon and Bruce Wayne immediately.

And alert Batman through the usual channels. They need to know about this development."

As the security chief left to carry out his instructions, Dr. Arkham stared at the closed notebook.

The Joker's obsession with Batman had been a constant, predictable factor in managing his incarceration.

This new fixation represented an unknown variable - and in Arkham Asylum, unknown variables inevitably led to disaster.

He could only hope the warnings would reach the appropriate parties before the Joker found a way to implement whatever twisted plan was forming in his fractured mind.

Because the Joker always found a way, eventually. It was simply a matter of time.

------------------------------

(Author note: Yeah... Mr. J has decided that he found a new toy to play with.

But is Samael a toy we must wonder that can be played with?

Will we finally see Samael rip out the Joker's throat?

Do tell me what you think will happen and I hope to see you all later,

Bye!)