Chapter 12: Why so Serious?

Word Count : 9917

This was not right, none of it was. She was not meant to be in a place like this. She did not even know what kind of place she was in. Where was the Cave? Where were Superboy and the others? What happened to this place? And above all else, why was she dressed like Krieg? But she was not the only one wearing the uniform of her comrade, many others were wearing exactly the same get-up as they rushed across a barren and ash-filled landscape.

M'gann would not deny it, she was confused by all of this. Confused and a bit scared. She tried to ask someone what was going on, but her mouth refused to open, the words refused to come out. She had no control whatsoever, not even over her limbs, which moved ever onward like they had a will of their own. She was trapped, a prisoner in her own body, forced to watch the world go past her eyes like a lonely prisoner gazing out through the barred window of her cell.

But alas, even the small comfort that she was aware of what was transpiring around her proved to be a curse. For all she saw was a hellish landscape, stretching far and wide and disappearing across the ash strewn horizon. She and her unnamed companions were running as fast as they could over this blighted landscape, being constantly observed by a tall and imposing man standing in the hatch of an armored track vehicle rumbling on alongside them. While his uniform bore some semblances to Krieg's, this man's was more armored, a clear sign of higher rank.

"Keep moving! The enemy will not give you time rest and catch your breath! You slow down, you die!" he shouted at them, most likely to be heard over the roar of the engine. M'gann could not control her body, but she could feel it. Every muscle was screaming in anguish, having been working nonstop for hours on end. Every step hurt so badly for her battered legs, making her wonder how they could still be functioning. And her lungs. Dear God, her lungs felt like they were on fire, slowly being liquefied by the flames being fanned by every breath she took. All she wanted was to fall over and rest on the ground, but her body refused and pushed on.

Suddenly, one of the soldiers ahead of her stepped on something and was promptly blown to bits. Some of said bits splattered onto M'gann, who let out a terrified shriek in her mind. Her body was completely unresponsive and just ran on, uncaring of the comrade it left behind. But M'gann's body seemed to be paying more attention on where it stepped now. She wished it had not done so, for then she was forced to watch as she ran past a skeleton half buried in the mud and ash. M'gann was close to fainting from it all, and she truly felt like hurling up. That was the one instant where she was grateful that her body did not obey her mind. So she and the others ran on, heedless of their dead comrade and the long dead they were stepping over.

But M'gann suddenly lost her footing on something slippery hidden in the mud, and fell face first to the ground. A sudden flare-up of pain in her left foot made her aware that she had most likely sprained it. She wanted to cry out in pain, maybe take a moment to nurture her damaged foot. Her body did neither, and merely silently endured the pain while forcing itself back up again. A monumental effort in itself.

"Here, let me help you," someone suddenly said, right before M'gann felt a pair of hands grabbing hold of her arms and trying to help her back up. She came face to face with one of the soldiers dressed up as Krieg, kneeling next to her as he helped her. 'Thank you,' she wanted to say, to show her gratitude, but she was unable to even do that.

"Halt!" the man on the vehicle suddenly called out, bringing the whole group to a sudden stop. M'gann was eternally grateful for that, as the pain and aches had been too much for her. The urge to just let her head fall back to the ground was overwhelming in her mind, but her body still refused and simply waited for orders from the mysterious man. His footsteps were the only ones heard as he strode through their ranks until he came to a stop in front of M'gann. But his attention was not on her, but on the other soldier who helped her.

"You!" the officer, for that was what he must have been, began while pointing at the still kneeling soldier, "Get up!" the soldier did so hesitantly, knowing he was in deep trouble now after being singled out by his commander. M'gann could do nothing but watch from inside her body with dread. For some reason, she had this feeling of knowing that something bad was about to take place, as if she had seen this scene before but had forgotten the details. Her body suddenly forced itself back up on its feet, struggling to stay completely still and not reveal the shaking limbs.

"What do you think you're doing?" the officer asked in a monotone voice that was so similar to Krieg's that it sent chills down her spine.

"Sir, this man tripped on something and fell and seemed to have trouble standing back up. I was just trying to help him," the soldier answered. By now, every single one in the squad was looking on, silently and uncaringly observing what was happening.

"I gave you all a direct order to keep moving. That means that I expect you keep moving no matter what. If you're hit by a las round, you ignore it. If your lasgun is destroyed, you drop it. If your fellow soldiers fall for whatever reason, you leave them behind," the officer lectured coldly, sending further chills down M'gann's spine. That man, he sounded so similar to Krieg that if it had not been for the deeper voice, the different uniform and the taller physique, she would have thought that it truly was him.

"Bur sir, we can't just leave our comrades behind. It's wrong," the soldier protested. A tense silence followed the proclamation, with no one so much as making the slightest movement.

"Take off your gasmask, soldier," the officer suddenly ordered, catching the soldier by surprise.

"But sir, the air is toxic here. If I take off my mask, I'll die," he pointed out, fear creeping into his voice. The officer said nothing, instead he did something that made M'gann want to scream in horror. He drew a knife and cut off the air breathing tube of the soldier's gasmask. Said soldier stumbled back in chock, screaming in panic as his precious oxygen vanished and left him with the polluted death that served as this world's air.

"There will come a day when your superiors will order you and your fellow soldiers to march into a certain and gruesome death. When that day comes, it is expected out of each and every one of you to follow those orders without question, and to meet your end without fear. For each life that Krieg sacrifices on the altar of war, we pay back the debt we owe to our beloved God Emperor. And I will not tolerate anyone to bring further shame to our world by refusing to pay that debt," as the officer rambled on, the soldier had collapsed to his knees, sounding like he was being choked to death. M'gann wailed in horror as she was forced to helplessly watch someone slowly suffocate to death.

It made her sick, and brought tears to her mental eyes. That man had only sought to help her, to aid what he saw as a comrade, and for that he was punished with such a cruel death. What made it even crueler to M'gann was that there was nothing she could do. She was standing just a few feet from him, could easily reach his side in a few seconds, yet she was still powerless to do anything but watch as his life slowly faded away. As if in mockery of the guilt and sadness she felt, her body refused to shed so much as a single tear.

"You, soldier," the officer suddenly spoke again, this time staring at M'gann, "Identification number," her body immediately snapped to attention on its own accord, heedless of her wishes of helping the poor man writhing on the ground and clutching his throat.

"Sir, 769355-637566-Keled, sir!" her body answered, but it was not her own voice, but that of a boy's. But what rattled M'gann even more was that she knew who the voice belonged to. It may have sounded a few years younger, but she could easily recognize Krieg's emotionless voice anywhere. And that name, it was the same he gave them before. What was going on around here?

"I expect that you will still be able to proceed with the exercise," the officer stated coldly. 'No! I can't! I can barely stand! And I can't leave this man behind to die!' M'gann screamed at him, but she was the only one to hear her own words inside her mind, for her mouth refused to form the words.

"Yes, sir," her body instead answered. The officer said nothing more and simply returned to his earlier post atop the armored vehicle.

"Forward!" he called, and the group was off running again. But M'gann did not get far before she felt someone clutch her sprained ankle in a weak grip. Looking down in grief, she found the soldier feebly holding onto her leg, trying to say something but only producing wheezing noises from his throat. But M'gann still perfectly understood what he was trying to say to her.

Help me.

And by God did she wish she could help him. She wished she could just pick him up and carry him to safety, to do something! But alas, that was not to be, as despite how much she fought and screamed at her body, it just kicked aside the dying comrade and ran to catch up with the others. Her body never even looked back once at the supposed comrade it was leaving behind, to die in this polluted and forsaken land by himself.

And that was the moment that M'gann woke up in her bed back at the cave, sweating and hyperventilating. She swiftly rose into a sitting position in her bed, wild and frantic eye scanning her surroundings in confusion. It took her a few seconds before her mind came out of the haze and realized the truth; it had all been a dream. 'No, not a dream, a memory,' she suddenly realized to herself. As a telepath, even if she was still a novice, she knew the difference between a figment of one's imagination, and a true event stored in one's mind. But what she had witnessed had not been her memory, it had been someone else's memory.

Krieg's memory, to be specific. What she had seen must have been a past memory, accidentally gleamed from him during the 'incident'. But what she had seen, it chilled her to the bone. What manner of cruel society could Krieg have come from? And how could such a hellish place even exist? She pulled her legs up and tucked her knees under her shin, eyes locked on the far wall. Sleep would eventually claim her again, but for now, there was too much turmoil in her mind to find peace.

"Krieg, just what happened to make you like this?" she asked quietly, as if she expected him to step out of the shadows and answer her.

He thrashed violently beneath the waters, struggling with all his might to hold his breath. With all the strength he could muster he tried to reach the surface, so tantalizingly close with only half his body submerged. But alas, as he hung upside down, with his arms cuffed behind his back and chains wrapped around his ankles, he was getting nowhere. Holding his breath grew harder, as did his struggles. His lungs were on fire, and he could not hold it any longer. With a scream of panic that went unheard beneath the surface, his lungs started to be filled up with water.

Just as he thought death would embrace him, he was dragged out of the water and back into the cool night air of Los Angeles. He was left dangling in the air like a fish on a hook as he coughed up the water he accidentally swallowed. Then someone grabbed his hair in a painful grip and he came face to face with his tormentor. Or rather face to mask, as the bastard was wearing a military styled gasmask. But he had to admit, it looked pretty damn scary now, especially when one added the fearsome reputation that its wearer had garnered in the criminal underworld.

"Well, are you willing to talk now?" Krieg asked coldly.

"I've told you already, I don't know anything! You've got the wrong man!" he screamed in panic at him. Krieg was of course deaf to his words. He was denying involvement in the case, and that translated as a…

"Wrong answer," with a simple kick, the brake placed on a nearby wrench was removed and the man plummeted back under the surface until only his feet were above the water. Krieg watched dispassionately as the man struggled feebly to reach the surface again, uncaring for what he was putting the man through. Still, he needed the man alive to answer his question, so he activated the automatic wrench and lifted the man out of the water again. Krieg gave him a few seconds to spit out whatever water he may have swallowed before speaking again.

"Last chance. Either tell me what you know about these murders, or I will drop you back into the water and leave you to drown," Of course he could not carry out that threat, despite how much he wished otherwise, but the man did not need to know that tidbit of information. But apparently he still had some backbone left in him as he glared defiantly at Krieg.

"You wouldn't dare," he challenged him, trying to appear confident. A bit hard considering he was dripping wet and hanging bound and upside down.

"Watch me," Krieg stated as he walked towards the wrench, just waiting for the man to crack.

"Okay, okay! I'll talk! I'll talk!" the man suddenly screamed in panic. For some unexplained reason, Krieg felt this urge to smile at how desperate he sounded. He squashed that feeling and schooled his featured beneath the mask before turning back to his prisoner.

"Then talk," he ordered. The man was by now too terrified to disobey.

"I honestly don't know who the killer is, none of the usual killers here in Los Angeles carves Glasgow smiles on their victims' faces, but I think I know where he is. There's this abandoned candy factory on the east side of town, it used to be a hideout for whoever had the cops on their tail. But some nutcase came in a few days ago and took the place over. No one dares go within a block of that place now," he hurriedly explained. Krieg was at first silent, making no indication of whether he was satisfied with what he had heard or not.

"Thank you, your cooperation is most appreciated," he finally said before he turned around and walked away, leaving the man hanging. Needless to say, it was not something that he appreciated.

"Hey wait a minute! You can't leave me like this!" he shouted after Krieg, being thoroughly ignored by said hero. He got onto his motorcycle parked outside and was then off, heading towards the location pointed out to him. It took him around twenty minutes to reach the location. On the outside, it looked like this place had not been inhabited for well over a decade. The tire tracks, no more than a few hours old, leading inside spoke of another truth. Grabbing his shotgun and making sure it was loaded, he cautiously entered the factory.

It was deathly quiet as Krieg moved from cover to cover, eyes constantly peeled for any sign of danger. None appeared, and Krieg began to wonder if he had in fact been led on a wild goose chase. If he had been, then he knew someone who was going to regret ever being born into this world. Suddenly, he saw something. Or rather, someone. Ahead of him, in an open section of the factory, he could make out the silhouette of a person seated on a chair, back turned to him.

Aiming his shotgun at this new target, he cautiously approached him. The man did not react to his approach in the slightest, did not even make the tiniest of movement. Krieg finally stood right behind the man, yet still he did not react to his presence. Either Krieg had far greater skills at subterfuge then he first thought, or this man was the most oblivious idiot he had ever come across.

"Identify yourself," Krieg ordered, shotgun aimed at the back of his head. His question went completely unanswered as the man remained seated. There was not even so much as a flinch from him. Now, Krieg had never been a very patient person, so it came as no surprise that he quickly grew tired of being met with nothing but silence.

"I said; identify yourself," Krieg repeated, adding more force behind his words and roughly poking him in the back of his head with his shotgun. The man promptly fell out of the chair and collapsed to the floor like a puppet that got its strings cut. Krieg instantly jumped back, ready for anything. Strangely enough, nothing came, so he began to cautiously approach the unmoving man on the ground, lying face down. Once he was close enough, he flipped him over onto his back to getter a better look at him. His suspicions about hos conditions were instantly proven correct.

His throat had been sliced wide open, and the front of his clothes was drenched in blood. But there were two aspects of this murder victim that confused Krieg. First, his face. He had a Glasgow smile carved onto it. Nothing new there, the killer he had been tacking had done so to every one of his victims, but this time he a complemented it with crude face paint that Krieg guessed was supposed to mimic a clown's. The second thing off was a card stuck to his chest. Picking it up and turning it over, Krieg was greeted with a Joker card.

But before he could even begin to wonder about the meaning behind the card, a thick green gas billowed out of the vents and shrouded the whole inside of the factory. Krieg was completely unaffected by it as he looked around dully. 'Really, he's trying to kill me with gas? Does he think I wear this rebreather just for show?' he asked himself in exasperation. He never even saw the crowbar coming right at him from behind.

The team had made it a regularity to come together at the Cave to spend time with each other and get to know one another better. When they were not busy with their civilian lives or out on a mission, they would often be found spending time at their base. Of course, they were never together in full force for such times, there was always one member who never came. To quote Krieg himself when asked to participate in these team gatherings; "A waste of precious time that could be better used to patrol for crimes".

And despite their best efforts to coax Krieg to participate, he never did, so they eventually gave up and left him to do… whatever it was he was doing in Los Angeles. Because of this, none of them felt any concern or worry when they came together, only to find Krieg missing again. But today, one of their numbers was not feeling that hyped for a team get-together.

M'gann had barely had any sleep that night, her dreams plagued by horrible flashes of Krieg's memories. It left her scared and disgusted, left her with a feeling of sorrow. But most of all, it left her with a feeling of confusion. None of which she had seen corresponded with what she knew about humans and Earth. There were too many differences between Krieg's memories and what existed in real life.

"You okay Megan?" Robin suddenly asked in concern, drawing the attention of the rest of the team.

"Yes, I'm fine," M'gann tried to lie, throwing in a smile for extra effect. They were not convinced.

"Megan, you've been quiet all day long. You mostly walk at the back of our group, you hardly smile or laugh and you don't even pay attention to what we're talking about," Robin pointed out. She felt like ducking her head in shame. Should have known better than to lie to the Batman's protégé of all people.

"It's nothing, alright. Just some bad dreams lately," she tried to assure them. In truth, she did not want to discuss what she had experienced. Those were after all Krieg's memories, and it felt wrong to just reveal them to others without his consent.

"We're all friends here, Megan. If something troubles you, we want to help you," Kaldur said in that calm and polite voice of his. Megan still hesitated for a moment, but her friends' insistent and kind faces made her relent in the end.

"They…. they aren't really dreams… more like memories," she admitted. Naturally, it confused the others a bit.

"Memories? What kind of memories?" Wally asked, voicing the question that everyone present had on their minds. 'And here comes the hard part,' Megan thought to herself.

"Krieg's memories," she admitted, eyes firmly locked on the floor and refusing to meet the looks from anyone of her teammates, "I accidentally saw a few of them back just before the Mr. Twister thing, but it was too jumbled and messed up for me to make any sense of. But now, they have started appearing as dreams for me, and none of them are in any way pleasant," by now, the team's worry and confusion was mixed in what a bit of curiosity. None of them knew anything about Krieg's background, and Krieg appeared adamant about keeping them in the dark. So it was only natural that they became curious on what M'gann had seen.

"Come on, they can't be that bad, right?" Wally asked in his usual laidback attitude. That attitude promptly vanished once M'gann reluctantly told them about the few memories she had seen.

"Okay, maybe it can be that bad," he admitted. While they were all a bit shaken on what they had heard, Robin was more than a bit thoughtful.

"But it doesn't make sense. There's no military in existence with that kind of training or doctrine," he remarked.

"So, what do you suggest we do about it?" Wally asked while scratching the back of his head.

"I believe it is time we received some answer out of Krieg," Kaldur suddenly stated, gaining everyone's attention, "We looked the other way when he threatened Megan because he was our teammate, one who had helped us. But we can't function properly as a team unless we understand one another, and Krieg has been adamant against doing so. So I believe we should stop dancing around the problem and go straight to the source," there was a short moment of silence after that announcement, as they all thought it over.

"You know…" Wally began, "… I don't think Krieg's going to like us barging in asking questions he obviously don't want to answer," he may have sounded to be against the idea, but they could all see in his eyes and posture that he was backing this plan up 100%, he was just stating the obvious. Superboy just snorted at that.

"He doesn't like anything that we do," he pointed out. None of them could deny that, now that they thought about it.

"Well, what are we waiting for then?" Robin casually asked, already strolling towards the zeta tubes. The rest of the team only hesitated for a few seconds before following him.

A throbbing pain in the head. That was the first sensation that Krieg experienced when he regained consciousness. Slowly blinking his eyes as his foggy mind tried to catch up with the fact that he was in fact awake now, Krieg found the hazy outlines of some manner of room. Too damn dark to see properly, and his head was still spinning a bit too much for his liking. Out of instincts, he tried to sluggishly lift a hand to rub his eyes.

His mind finally snapped fully awake when he found that he could not raise his arm. In fact, it refused to move at all, no matter how much he tugged at it. He received exactly the same result with his other arm and both of his legs. Making a quick survey of himself with the limited light provided, he determined that he was tied to a wooden chair. Any other person might have panicked at that moment, but Krieg only felt annoyance over the situation. 'Whoever is behind this will be in for a world of pain once I get loose,' he thought to himself darkly.

As more of his senses returned, he began to see more details of his surroundings. It looked like he was still in the candy factory, as he was still surrounded by the same old junk he had seen when he entered earlier. Though there was one new addition to the décor; a wooden table filled with knives, rods, car batteries and various other strange implements that could no doubt be used to inflict pain. But even when seeing those tools, and making a good guess what there are to be used for, Krieg was still unaffected. He had endured far worse than whatever psycho he was up against could do to him.

There was only when he saw his gasmask lying on the table that he reacted in a significant way. He felt rage overcoming him as he realized that someone had the nerve to unmask him so blatantly. He was not concerned about secret identities, he was furious that someone had stolen his face! They had just crossed a line that should have never been crossed, and no punishment could possibly be too severe for the culprit now. Krieg was suddenly blinded when an overhanging light bulb was turned on.

"Ahh, so you're finally awake. I was starting to worry that I had hit you too hard," someone commented from behind him before said man stepped in front of him. He was quite a peculiar sight in Krieg's opinion. Purple suit with messy make-up smeared across his face in a poor imitation of a clown and messy green hair. On the surface, he looked completely harmless, but there were two things that told Krieg the truth. First, the Glasgow smile carved on his face, the calling card of the murdered he had been chasing for days. Second, his eyes. They told him everything he needed to know of this man.

Twin pits of endless madness and insanity, that was what it felt like looking into. But what made it far worse, was the spark of intelligence hidden behind the madness. This… man, if such a description could even be applied to what he was seeing, was a true danger, one that should be destroyed for the good of humanity.

"Who are you?" Krieg snarled out at the clown, at which point what he assumed was meant as a mock hurt look entered the clown's face.

"You mean you have never heard of me? I'm downright insulted by that," the clown admitted, right before one of the most sick and twisted smiles Krieg had ever seen spread across his face, "I would have though the bird boy would have liked to share stories about me," Krieg just raised an eyebrow at him.

"By 'bird boy', I assume you are referring to Robin here," well, that narrowed it down to Batman's rogue gallery. Now, which one among them matched the clown's apper…? Oh.

"You're the Joker," Krieg realized. From what little he knew about the madman, he was a creature whose mind had ceased to be that of a human, and instead became something far more terrifying.

"See? I knew you would recognize me eventually," the Joker stated, that same maniacal grin in place. It would have likely scared a lesser man, but Krieg was no such man.

"Though I really wished that I did not know of a person as completely insane as you," Krieg commented. And just like that, as if an on switch had been triggered, the Joker lost that smile from his face. In the amount of time it took to blink, he turned deadly serious, the smallest hints of anger shining in his sickly eyes. With twitchy moves that spoke of an unstable mind, he walked up to Krieg until he was standing mere inches away.

"No, no I'm not insane," the Joker admonished harshly, waving a knife in Krieg's face, "Do you know why? Because I make no plans, I don't try to control the world, I'm no schemer. Now, the schemers, on the other hand, they are the ones who are really insane, because they constantly try to control their little…"

"Is there a point behind your insane ramblings, or do you simply feel the need to excuse your pitiful actions to someone?" Krieg coldly interrupted him, catching the Joker completely by surprise. No one had ever dared to interrupt like that, especially when he had them restrained like this. And with good reason, because one could never know what would set this clown off. Krieg cared nothing about such trivial things, he was just growing tired of hearing this heretical lunatic spewing out his nonsense. In the end, he was rewarded with a new scar on his right cheek, along with quite a powerful punch to the face.

"Now that was very rude of you. You could have at least let me finish," the Joker scolded him.

"Why am I even here?" Krieg questioned, blatantly ignoring the Joker's earlier statement. And just like that, his anger evaporated and back was that sick and twisted smile again.

"Funny you should ask that," the Joker began as he walked over to the table, back turned to Krieg, "You see, for years I've been having my fun in Gotham with Batman. But then, out of the blue, word is spread like wildfire about a new hero in Los Angeles, one that scares many criminals as much as Batman himself. Naturally, I just had to come over for a visit and see what all the fuss was about," at this point, he turned back to face Krieg again, that sick smile still in place.

"And let me tell you, kid, you've really left an impression. You may not be as intimidating as Batman, but damn are you brutal! I've only ever seen Batman go over the top in beating the criminals in Gotham on a very bad day, but you do it every day, with every crook you come across," okay, was Krieg seriously receiving compliments from a psychopath? This was just so far outside of Krieg's area of expertise that he had no idea how to respond. So he simply settled for what came most natural to him; threatening.

"I don't know what your goal is here, but I can assure you that I will send you back to Gotham a broken and bleeding mess," sadly, such tactics had no effect on a madman like the Joker. In fact, he seemed to find something really amusing in his words, as he began giggling in what Krieg assumed would be called a 'creepy' way.

"Oh, I can assure you, that it will be you who'll be sent home a broken and bleeding mess," the Joker countered as he picked up a serrated knife from the table, "You can call this an 'endurance experiment', to see if you're as good at taking pain as you are at dishing it out," torture? That was the whole point of it? For what reason, just to test his endurance?

"You expect me to talk?" Krieg questioned coldly, obviously seeking a logical reason for this. Of course, he had failed to take one important fact into consideration; the Joker never looked for anything logical, like information.

"To be honest, kid, I just expect you to die. After you've lost your mind of course," he admitted nonchalantly before he advanced against Krieg, a truly diabolical look in his eyes, "But enough chitchat, let's get down to business,"

"Anything?" Aqualad asked worriedly as he searched the Los Angeles docks for the team's sixth member, using the mind link that Miss Martian had established.

"Nada, it's like the guy just went up in smoke," Kid Flash reported in as he raced across the city, finding nothing but unknowing civilians and the occasional mugger.

"Superboy and I haven't found anything either," Miss Martian reported in from wherever they were in the city.

"Nope, not a trace anywhere," Robin reported in after a moment of silence. They were all worried by now as to where Krieg had gone. The moment they had arrived in Los Angeles, they had headed towards his underground base, and nearly blown themselves up thanks to Krieg's homemade bombs equipped with tripwires. But alas, no one had been home, and what little they could gather from stolen police files and news clips that he had left lying around indicated he was busy tracking down a new serial killer in town. Though Robin had the nagging feeling that the killer's pattern looked hauntingly familiar to him.

Krieg's locator and commlink were soon found to be deactivated, and so the team began a citywide search for their missing teammate, hoping that it was just a case of system malfunction, and not… that other alternative that they refused to acknowledge as real. He may have been a cold hearted bastard most of the time, but he had saved their lives on past occasions. The team felt like they owed him the same courtesy. They just hoped it would not come to that.

But out of all of them, Aqualad was probably the one who was taking this the hardest. They were all teammates, and were meant to look out for each other, but Aqualad was team leader. It was his responsibility to look after the wellbeing of the entire team. As such, even though he knew it was useless to beat himself over it, Aqualad felt a measure of guilt over that their teammate was gone. He should have requested a better means of maintaining contact with each other, he should have made it a habit to contact Krieg every time he failed to arrive to a team gathering.

He tried to tell himself that there was nothing he could have done, that he could have never foreseen that something like this would happen. He tried to tell himself that over and over again. He never succeeded in convincing himself 100%. It was a flaw in his personality, to always blame himself when something went wrong under his command, but it was a flaw he would never relinquish. Such was the burden of being a leader.

"Hey, guys! I just found something!" Robin suddenly called over the mental link, and it sounded like he was amused by something.

"What?" a confused Kid Flash asked, mentally voicing the question that was on everyone's minds.

"Let's just say that Krieg is up to his usual tricks," Robin answered cryptically, with plenty of humor behind it. Confused, the rest of the team gathered where he was, at which point they had a hard time deciding whether to laugh or shake their heads. For what they found was a lowlife mob enforcer hanging upside down like a fish on a hook, face beat red from hanging like that for hours.

"Hey! Are you kids gonna stand there and gawk all day, or are you gonna let me down?" he shouted furiously, his last vestiges of fear and calmness having evaporated during his time at the docks.

"Have you by any chance seen someone about our height, wearing a greatcoat and gasmask?" Aqualad inquired, ignoring the earlier question. He already suspected that Krieg was behind this, but it never hurt to be on the safe side.

"Do I look like someone who's seen anyone lately!? I've been fucking hanging here for hours!" he screeched at them, twisting in his bindings in a vain attempt to free himself. It only caused him to comically swing back and forth. An idea suddenly struck Robin as he smirked deviously.

"Okay then, we'll just be on our merry way then, seeing as you don't know anything," he commented nonchalantly as he began herding the team away. The reaction was instantaneous.

"Wait, wait! I've seen that guy! I can tell you were he went! Just don't leave me hanging here!" he screamed in desperation. It brought the whole team to a stop as they turned back to the poor unfortunate man.

"Then where is he?" Aqualad asked. The man hesitated for a brief moment before speaking.

"I told him this new killer in town was hiding in the abandoned candy factory on the east side of town, and he went to investigate," he answered, silently hoping that the punk had been gutted by now. The team was instantly worried. Krieg had been gone for hours. Who knew what could have happened to him during that time.

"We're wasting time here. Team, move out!" Aqualad ordered, none of them feeling like objecting to him as they rushed out of the warehouse.

"Hey! What about me!?" the interrogated man shouted indignantly after them, still hanging upside down. He was thoroughly ignored by the team, or they simply did not hear him. Either way, he was left to dangle by himself yet again.

'Ignore the pain. Ignore the taunting words. Ignore everything but your devotion. Don't give him anything, let him tire himself out playing this twisted game of his,' those were Krieg's thoughts as he was seated slumped over in his chair, skin marred with scars, bruises and burns. How long the Joker had tortured him, Krieg had absolutely no idea. What he did know, was that all he had uttered since it began were simple grunts. Krieg was determined not to show weakness in front of this maniac.

Said maniac apparently took his silent defiance as a challenge, as his methods of torture had been growing worse as time wore on. The front of his clothes had been cut open, exposing his stomach and chest, which were riddled with electrical burns. His sleeves had been peeled back, and the Joker had, as he put it, "practiced his ABC" on his skin. It was an ugly mismatch of jagged words and letters carved on both his arms from fingers to elbows. Bastard had even removed his boots and played "this little piggy" with a hammer.

"That all you got?" Krieg questioned hoarsely as the Joker finished carving a smiley on his chest. It might have been a stupid thing to say, but Krieg did not care. He was most likely dead either way, so he might as well make it hard for this psychopath. And besides, he was feeling a bit lightheaded, probably caused by extensive blood loss.

"Hmmm, I must admit, kid, you've proven yourself far more resilient that I had ever expected," the Joker commented offhandedly. Krieg just sneered at him.

"If you're done now with your twisted games, can we please end this?" he questioned coldly, receiving a frown from his tormentor.

"You're no fun, kid, no sense of humor whatsoever," the Joker stated as he leaned in uncomfortably close while waving his knife in Krieg's face, "Speaking of humor, do you know how I got these scars?" the scars he was referring to was his Glasgow smile as he gestured at them with his knife. Not even waiting to hear if his unwilling audience wanted to hear the tale, he began speaking again.

"You see, I was once in the army, and I was a real stiff. Never had a sense of humor back then, and my squad mates were always telling me I needed to smile and laugh more. Well, one day, we get deployed into combat, and walked straight into an ambush," as he kept talking, his voice grew more in fervor and passion. Krieg had no idea if what he was hearing was the truth or not, but the psychopath seemed to believe it was the truth in any case.

"All but me and two others were gunned down, and we were taken prisoners. We spent weeks in captivity, barely surviving the starvation and abuse heaped upon us. However, there was one man among our captors who was especially cruel, so cruel in fact that his own comrades were terrified of him. He always liked to tell jokes, and they were so horrible that no one could possibly find them funny, but they still laughed to keep him happy," if there was one thing on this Earth that Krieg disliked more than xenos, it was raving lunatics talking nonsense. And this insane clown was purely aggravating right about now. It did not help that he was literally in Krieg's face while that knife of his was waved back and forth between them.

"But I wasn't so quick on picking up the signals, so when one day he came and told me a joke, I didn't laugh, didn't even crack a smile. Naturally, he became quite angry at me, and started beating me up. But after a while, he stopped. He looked me straight in the eyes, and said 'You shouldn't be so grumpy all the time, you should smile more'. Then he drew a knife, and stuck it in my mouth. 'I'll make you smile for the rest of your life' he said, right before he did this to me. Then, he told me another one of his jokes, and this time I laughed. I laughed because I finally understood the humor behind it, the humor that everyone else had missed,"

"Was there a point behind that uninteresting tale of yours?" Krieg questioned once he as sure that the clown was done. Once again, that manic grin of his was back in place before he turned back to the table full of torture instruments.

"You see, kid, you're just like how I was back in my younger days. And since someone came along and showed me a better way of life, I thought I should 'pay it forward' with you," he revealed as he came back with a syringe filled with a strange liquid. Before Krieg could even utter a single word, the Joker jabbed it straight into his neck. At first, nothing happened. Krieg felt no different than what he used to, and there was no extra pain.

He was about to dismiss it as having had no effect on him, when a chuckle forced its way past his lips. Then another chuckle came, and then another. It was dry and hoarse, as if it had never been used before, and Krieg attempted to control himself. It did not work, and more came out. 'What's happening? What's so damn funny? Why can't I stop laughing?' Krieg asked himself as his chuckles evolved into silent laughter. The Joker's smile was downright menacing by now.

"See? It becomes so much easier to just let go and laugh, but we're not fully down yet," he stated, right before he advanced with his knife held at the ready, "Let's put a smile on that face," Krieg just laughed even more.

It was a silent affair as the team waited outside the candy factory. Miss Martian had already gone in camouflaged to scout out the building for any possible threats. They were still waiting for her to report in.

"You think Krieg's alright? I mean, he's been gone for hours now. Anything could have happened to him," Kid Flash commented worriedly. It was a bit of a natural occurrence to find a super powered hero worrying more when a regular human was in danger. Due to their super powers, they subconsciously looked down upon those without powers, seeing them as more frail and in need of protection. They rarely even knew that they acted that way, but it was there nonetheless.

"I honestly don't know," Aqualad answered truthfully. He wanted to believe that Krieg was okay, but he could not be sure. At least he knew one thing that eased his worries for his missing comrade; Krieg was one resilient and stubborn guy. In Aqualad's knowledge, there were few things in existence that Krieg was not willing to toughen out.

"No worries, I'm sure he's fine. I mean, this is Krieg we're talking about here, the guy throws himself headfirst into any danger and comes out ready for round 2," Robin assured the speedster, even though he himself felt a twinge of worry. Not about that Krieg would not make it, but about whom the killer was. He could not fully place it, but he had the feeling that the killer was hauntingly familiar to him. There was something about him, but Robin could not place it, no matter how much he tried.

"Yo, M'gann. Found anything yet?" Robin suddenly asked over the mindlink.

"Nothing yet. I'm about to… wait, I hear something," that last bit made the whole team tense up in anticipation, "It's coming from the lower levels, and it sounds like… laughter?" the statement was spoken with a certain feeling of confusion to it, signifying that Miss Martian was quite confused about it. As a matter of fact, so were the rest of the team, save for one.

"Oh no… please not him, anyone but him," Robin quietly murmured to himself. The Glasgow smiles, the random deaths, the laughter, it all fell into place in Robin's mind. And it all pointed to one criminal.

"You okay, Rob?" Kid Flash asked in concern, having noticed his friend's sudden change in demeanor. But before Robin could give an answer to that question, a gasp of horror was heard over the mindlink.

"Oh God," Miss Martian said, a distressed tone in her voice that set the rest of the team on alert.

"Miss Martian, what's happening?" Aqualad asked in alarm, fearing that something had gone wrong. But she was too shell-shocked by what she had seen to speak, so she sent a mental picture of what had horrified her so much. What they saw made their blood turn cold with horror. None of them uttered a word, for they were all just a dumbstruck as Miss Martian for that. What they were seeing was Krieg, strapped to a chair with too many cuts to count adorning his body, with the Joker just finishing in carving a Glasgow smile on him. All the while, Krieg just laughed.

Dread and horror swept through them, as they beheld the bleeding and laughing mess that was their teammate. Then, white hot anger swept through them all. No one did that to one of them and got away with it. No one.

"Team, move in!" Aqualad ordered furiously. The team was already in motion before he had even finished his sentence.

He could not stop laughing. No matter how much he tried, he just could not stop the accursed laughter from coming out. His mind started to feel fuzzy, his wounds started to grow numb. All except the new smile he had just been given by the Joker. But he would not break, he would not yield to this madman. No matter what happened to him, he would never give the psychotic clown the satisfaction of seeing him humbled. So it was, with great amount of effort, that he forced his laughter under control just long enough to glare at the Joker and give him four words.

"Is that your best?" those were the only words he had time to utter before he devolved into fits of forced laughter again, but it had been more than enough. His words had the desired effect, as the Joker's smile fell right off his face. In fact all traces of humor disappeared from the madman at Krieg's. Now he was at his most dangerous and volatile state, when he was not amused anymore.

"Why haven't you broken yet? You should have been nothing more than a laughing mess right about now," he questioned, the barest hints of anger coloring his tone. Clearly, he was not pleased to have put so much effort into breaking Krieg, only to find that he had made no headway whatsoever. Krieg would later blame his next actions on extensive blood loss and Joker Venom as being the prime cause of it.

"Your cheap attempts at breaking me will never work, Joker. I am a Guardsman of the Death Korps of Krieg. Our sole purpose is to fight the enemies of Man and die gloriously on the field of battle. We are mentally shattered in our childhoods, to be rebuilt as the perfect soldier. We feel no fear, we feel no doubt and we feel no remorse," here, he paused to glare the Joker straight in the eye, mustering up every ounce of hatred and willpower as a testament to his words, "So you see, Joker. You cannot break my mind, because it was broken years ago,"

For once in his life, the Joker was left speechless. Never before had he encountered someone like Krieg, someone who had been tooled into being the perfect unbreakable soldier. For a short moment, the Joker did nothing, face unreadable as he simply stared at Krieg in contemplation.

"Well, in that case…" he began as he stepped forward again, knife held at the ready, "… I suppose I should just kill you now and be done with it," once again, he was back to within a few inches from Krieg, this time holding his knife at his throat. Despite painful laughs still flowing uncontrollably out of his lips, Krieg still managed to glare furiously at the clown in front of him.

"Why so serious, kid?" the Joker simply asked, that maniacal look back in his eyes.

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HIM!" someone suddenly shouted, right before the Joker was knocked away from Krieg. Before Krieg even knew what had happened, he found the team standing protectively in front of him.

"You alright, Krieg?" Aqualad asked as he tore off the binds holding Krieg in place. Robin was instantly at their side, injecting the antidote for the Joker's toxin. Why he was even carrying around the antidote in the first place was up for debate. In any case, it finally allowed Krieg to stop his infernal laughter at last.

"I still live, so that has to count for something," Krieg commented a bit groggily. His vision was beginning to darken for him, and he felt increasingly tired. Adrenaline must have run its course, and his wounds must have been taking their toll as well. He tried standing up on his own, but only ended up falling as he no longer possessed the strength to support his own weight. Would have fallen flat on his face, if not Aqualad had been close at hand to catch him.

"Krieg, can you hear me? You need to stay awake," he ordered, but Krieg barely heard him. He was slowly slipping into the blissful world of unconsciousness. He could see the whole team looking at him in alarm as his eyelids slowly began to close. His last thought before everything became dark was 'Don't just stand there, you morons! Go catch that maniac!'.

He awoke to the sound of a heart monitor's steady beeping, and the stinging smell of disinfectant. Two clear signs that he was in a hospital of sorts. That theory was further solidified when he finally mustered up the strength to crack his eyelids open, only to be forced to close them again due to the blinding white light shining down on him.

"Turn the light off," he grumbled in annoyance, forcing his eyes open again. Being better prepared this time, he kept his eyes open until they had grown used to the light. Slowly, shapes became discernible around him, and he suddenly found the entire team crowding around him with relieved looks on their faces.

"How are you feeling, Krieg?" Aqualad asked kindly, to which Krieg frowned in contemplation.

"Like I was dissected by a madman, but I will live," he answered truthfully. But he did suddenly realize that they seemed uncomfortable with looking at his face, given how their eyes constantly moved away from it. A sudden influx of memories detailing what had transpired had him weakly raising a hand to his face, ignoring the pain such a simple motion caused. His fingers slowly dragged over the cause for the team's uncomfortable looks; the Glasgow smile carved on his face.

"We're sorry we couldn't get to you in time. We tried finding you, but it just took so much time, and…" it sounded like Robin planned to keep apologizing needlessly, so Krieg just waved a dismissive hand at him.

"Irrelevant. It is nothing but a scar, hardly anything to be concerned about. Besides, it is a small price to pay to see that madman finally getting captured," but Krieg instantly felt that something was amiss, as the team suddenly refused to meet his eyes. He did not like the implication, "You did capture him, did you?"

"You were in critical condition. We had to abort the chase in order to save your life," Aqualad explained, trying to bring up a measly excuse for their failure in Krieg's opinion. His displeasure at their choice of action was made clear as he glared at Aqualad.

"You should have left me behind and caught that psychopath," he stated coldly. Did these idiots not realize just how dangerous it was to let someone like the Joker roam free?

"That's not how we do things. We would never sacrifice a life just to beat the bad guy," Robin announced. 'Idiots, the lot of them,' Krieg thought to himself.

"And yet you have just sacrificed the lives of dozens of innocents by letting him get away," he countered monotonously. It was then that Superboy spoke up for the first time.

"Don't you get it? You were about to die! Doesn't your life mean anything to you?" he questioned harshly. Krieg just gave him a flat look.

"Yes, it does mean something to me. It is a valuable commodity that I have dedicated to serve, and in the end sacrifice for mankind," he answered without an ounce of doubt or uncertainty behind his words. It visibly made the team a bit unnerved. They were all prepared to pay the ultimate price to protect the innocent, but none of them was waiting for that time with such suicidal devotion.

"So it is true then," Kid Flash spoke up suddenly, "We heard what you said to the Joker, about your past," he elaborated once he received a puzzled look from Krieg. An unreadable expression came over Krieg, hiding whatever thoughts went through his head at that moment. By now, whatever shred of good spirits that had been present in the room upon Krieg's awakening had vanished.

"Yes, it was the truth. And all that I ever plan on revealing," Krieg finally stated with finality, making it clear that he was not going to budge on the matter. The team wisely backed off, save for one.

"Do you truly believe that that's all there is to your life? Nothing but fighting for humanity until you die?" Miss Martian asked. As a kind and gentle soul, the very notion that someone would be forced to live such a bleak and hopeless life was inconceivable. But what she considered to be inhumane, Krieg considered an everyday life.

"Yes," he answered without a second thought. It had always been clear to Krieg. His destiny lied on the battlefield, dying an anonymous death to safeguard humanity. There was nothing else for him in this world. An awkward silence descended over the group, with no one apparently knowing how to break it.

"Get some rest, Krieg. We'll be back to check on you tomorrow," Aqualad finally said before he ushered the rest of the team out, leaving Krieg alone with his thoughts. Not that there were many of them at the moment. He had said what needed to be said, and that was it. There was nothing else to it. So in the end, he decided to follow the instructions of his commanding officer and drifted back to sleep.

"I don't see why you're so upset. It was just one kid, why would it matter to…?" whatever else the Joker had planned to say was stopped when Deathstroke pressed a gun inside his mouth.

"Now you listen here, clown. I'm not in the business of explaining my actions, I just state what I want. And what I want here is to make one thing clear; leave Krieg alone," he snarled out in a furious tone, for he was livid over what had happened. He had already invested time in the kid, even drawn up plans for the future, and he was not going to let some psychopath dressed up as a clown ruin them. If Krieg was found lacking along the road, then Deathstroke would kill the boy himself.

"Now, I want you to carry a message to whoever is dumb enough to go after the boy. Tell them that as of now, Krieg is off limits," were the last words of warning spoken by Deathstroke before he threw the Joker aside and left. Even after his footsteps had long since disappeared, the Joker still lay were he had been thrown, a thoughtful look on his face.

"What interest could you, a world-renowned assassin, have in a mere boy dressed up as a soldier?" he asked out loud, as if he believed the assassin to still be present and willing to answer him. But even as he said those words, he knew that he spoke wrong, for that had been no mere boy. That had been something else entirely, something that the Joker had never seen before.

Another one of his insane grins suddenly split his face. He would do what Deathstroke had told him, and stay away from the kid. Not that he feared the man or what he might do should he disobey, it was curiosity that made him comply. Curiosity on where this crazy train was heading, and he was determined to see just that.