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Chapter 164 – Madcap Mayhem
🕑 Added 2025-09-13 16:56:23 +0000 UTC
“Why are you—what are you even doing?” Beast stammered, stunned.
Super Joker licked pizza grease off his fingers, chewing noisily before answering.
“I dunno. Nobody invited me to the fight, so I figured I’d carbo-load on the sidelines. What, is it a crime to enjoy a little dinner theater? Blame your lousy airplane food.”
“But you—” Hank tried again.
“I’m not wearing an X-Men uniform, am I? And the Brotherhood doesn’t exactly do uniforms either. So while you guys were throwing cars and lightning bolts, I just crouched like a good civilian, ducked some bullets, and presto—the soldiers forgot all about me.”
He jabbed a thumb toward the crowd of rubbernecking New Yorkers lurking behind barricades and alley corners.
“You think I’m the only one hanging around? Please. This is Manhattan. Folks here don’t flinch unless a building comes down. Give it twenty years, they’ll all be livestreaming it on their phones for clout.”
Hank sighed. If he were in his human form—mild, professorial Hank McCoy—those words might have rattled him into embarrassment. But in Beast form, his instincts were simpler, sharper. He didn’t argue. He acted.
“Then I hope you’ve had your fill,” Hank growled.
He seized the green-haired lunatic by the skull and hurled him straight into a cluster of advancing soldiers.
Super Joker somersaulted like a bowling ball, knocking two troopers flat. He landed sprawled across them and peered down sheepishly.
“If I say that wasn’t on purpose, can we all just… move on?”
The answer was a rifle barrel jammed against his forehead.
“Don’t move! Get off them! Now!” a soldier barked.
Joker blinked innocently. “Buddy, those are contradictory orders. Which one would you like me to obey first?”
The man’s finger trembled on the trigger, too close, too frantic. He wasn’t aiming anymore—just jabbing the barrel at Joker’s head.
That was his mistake.
With a quick duck and twist, Super Joker slipped aside, yanked the rifle free, and spun it into his own grip. A moment later, the buttstock cracked down across the soldier’s helmet, sending him tumbling.
Joker held the rifle upside down like a baseball bat, caressing it fondly.
“Ah, see, genius move, right? The weight’s all in the back half. You flip it, the buttstock hits harder than the barrel. If you swing the other way—eh, barely tickles. Oh, sweetheart, you deserve a name. How about… Destroyer?”
The battlefield stuttered into eerie silence as he christened the weapon with disturbing tenderness. Then he grinned wide, shrieked with laughter, and waded into the soldiers like a carnival act from hell.
It was close-quarters chaos. The rifle wasn’t firing—just cracking skulls, knocking helmets askew, flattening anyone within arm’s reach. At this range, the soldiers couldn’t risk opening fire without hitting their own. Joker weaved between them, every sidestep calculated, though it looked like sheer luck carrying him untouched through the hail of bullets.
Metal clanged, men groaned, and Joker’s cackling split the night.
Of course, rifles weren’t designed to be clubs. After a half-dozen swings, Destroyer shattered, the barrel bent into a useless curl. Joker tossed it aside, leaving unconscious soldiers in his wake. He scooped up another rifle and stroked it lovingly.
“Don’t worry, baby, you’ll be Destroyer II. Stick with me longer than the first, yeah? Now—who’s next?”
The madcap dance continued, his laughter gnawing at the soldiers’ nerves far more than his blows. He didn’t kill. He didn’t even cripple. But every strike, every mocking giggle, made the soldiers feel as though they were trapped in a nightmare carnival where the rules of combat no longer applied.
Then the reinforcements arrived.
A squad in heavier gear stormed in—Special Ops, armed with electrified rifles designed to paralyze mutants. Their weapons were safe against friendly fire; the currents wouldn’t pass into their armor. They encircled Joker with military precision while the regular troops dragged the fallen out of the line of fire.
Joker rested his latest rifle across his shoulders like a baseball bat, eyes darting between the men surrounding him. Then, with exaggerated care, he lowered it into a cane, hunched over, and leered.
“Knock knock,” he crooned in that sing-song voice.
The soldiers didn’t bite.
“Fire!”
A storm of electrified rounds cracked into his body. Joker jerked violently, sparks dancing across his limbs. He convulsed and collapsed, twitching on the asphalt.
For once, he wasn’t joking. Or so it seemed.
In truth, his enhanced senses had already told him the real score: the Brotherhood, the X-Men—even Magneto himself—were all down, captured, or pinned. The Army wasn’t killing mutants tonight. They were collecting them.
So Joker played along, biting down laughter as the soldiers clamped a suppression collar around his neck.
Flat on the pavement, his body twitching, his grin wider than ever, he whispered to himself, almost giddy:
“Oh, this is gonna be good…”
He nearly whistled a tune.
