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They are sitting upon tiles of gold and black. Seven figures in all formed from purest of silver and shining like stars in the perpetual darkness that surrounds them. Each piece is a representation of a distinctive class of Servant, the primary seven that are supposed to be summoned in every Holy Grail War since the time of the cataclysmic disaster that had been the first. The second War was hardly any better but the Third… oh but the travesty that had occurred…

From that travesty, any War which followed in the wake of the Third would always end in disaster for though the Holy Grail would and still could grant any wish the winner desired, it was by the will of that which now clung tightly upon it like a cancer to its once glorious chalice and stained it black with decay and evil. How much evil you ask…?

Why, all the evil in the world.

So here they sit, the seven Servants of the Holy Grail War, awaiting their chance to move upon the board and play the game anew. Neither they nor their Masters ever made aware of the agonies that would meet them should they prove victorious.

There, at the front of the pack sits the coveted Saber, masters of the blade. On either side sits the remaining knight classes of Archer and Lancer, both with the weapons that begot them their namesake clutched tightly in hand. Just behind the foremost Servant was the robed figure of the Caster, an artisan of their age. Behind the magician was the wretched figures of a cloaked Assassin hiding their face behind a skulled visage and the Berserker whose madness was so feral that to wear the head of a beast made its appearance as a wild beast all the more apparent. At the rear came the Rider, clutching reins tightly in hand.

Seven in all…

There was plenty of space upon the opened board and the prize at the opposite end. From the blackness, a hand reached out…

And took ahold of a cold-blooded killer.

Yet this was by no means a shadowy figure as what defined the Class by its very name. A figure that made every wanton acts of violence and insane depravity a show for the entirety of the world to witness. A killer who struck down enemies and allies alike with little rhyme or reason—No, that wasn't right.

There was a reason.

It just wasn't as funny as the Assassin made it out to be.

From Across the Throne of Heroes

"The Laughter"

Tokiomi Tohsaka had no doubt that his Servant would readily vanquish the mockery of an Assassin that his poor pupil Kirei had the misfortune of summoning. Honestly, if it weren't for the possibility of the Grail selecting another Master in Kirei's place, Tokiomi would have insisted that the Assassin be ordered to take his own life that very night. As it was, the best that he could do was order Kirei to keep a firm leash on the clown of a Servant and keep the two of them far away from him and his family.

It wasn't that Tokiomi was afraid of the clearly deranged Servant. He was, after all, a Tohsaka and was willing to meet death head on in search of the Root, but that did not mean that he would abide by a Servant's eccentricities, particularly when they ran afoul of possibly angering Tokiomi's own Servant into a murderous rage the likes of which would take all of Tokiomi's Command Spells to stop.

So no, he wasn't afraid of the Assassin that his apprentice had summoned.

But he will be.

Oh but they all will be…

Tokiomi entered the dining room and halted at the sight that awaited him. The table was decorated with food, a dinner fit for nobility such as his family so richly deserved, and sitting there were his wife and daughter with bright, brilliant smiles on their faces.

Smiles too wide to be humanly possible and by the parlor of their skin, what welcomed them to death's arms.

And there, in his daughter's tiny arms caught in the eternal embrace of the dead, was a sign of the culprit. Once upon a time, it had been Rin's favorite doll, one that she had held above all others and would sooner die than allow even a speck of dust to befall upon its pristine face. Now, its dress had been painted haphazardly in shades of purple and black, its perfectly combed golden locks a ratty mess of green, and its lightly tanned face splattered white but for a large red line across its mouth in a macabre smile.

Something clattered on the ground. Numb to the world around him but the faces of his murdered family, Tokiomi stumbled past his dropped cane, hands reaching out. To try and dispel the illusion or to feel warm skin instead of cold flesh, anything to make the harsh reality a cruel nightmare and nothing more.

That's when he saw it.

The face.

To some, it could have been a child's rendition of the smiley face but Tokiomi knew it was not so. For no child could paint such a delighted expression on a scene of terror as this. The two letters scattered haphazardly across the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling, was done not in mockery of the crime committed. It was a signature of the perpetrator, an artist of death proclaiming their devious delight in the sinful act of murder. Tokiomi knew the crime and he whispered the name lowly at first before he screamed it to the heavens.

"ASSASSIN!"

"Tell me something, my friend. Have you ever danced with the devil under the pale moonlight? I always ask that of all my prey. I just… like the sound of it."

BANG!

The Archer was not one to take commands from a lesser man lightly. In point of fact, he had made it abundantly clear to his Summoner –never would he attribute the word "Master" to anyone, not even the gods– that suggestions, not orders, would be tolerated at best. His pride as the King of Heroes, self-entitled though it might be, would not allow him to bow his head or let his pride be bent. Yet for all the arrogance and pride that he displayed to those whom were his equals, lesser, and those exceptionally rare betters, Gilgamesh of Uruk was still a Hero.

His fury at hearing a command, backed by one of those damnable Command Seals no less, from his summoner was not vanished but it remained as a simmering smolder in the back of his mind upon witnessing what would drive a man to such a foolhardy act. Gilgamesh knew Death. It was a common sight in his time and it was his quest to impede it that made him a legend amongst the common folk of this modern era. Even those who did not know his legend knew of his name.

As a king, he had served as judge, jury, and executioner and he gladly did so again by what would be the sole command of his summoner if the man had any sense left to him after the massacre of his family.

Finding the Assassin was frightfully easy, the jester made it painfully obvious that subtly did not exist in his demented little world. Once upon a time, Gilgamesh might have made a grandstand over the kill, standing tall and high as he could above the vermin that poorly wore the title of Assassin. He would have perhaps even allowed the honor of one of his finer treasures to deliver the killing stroke, a simple but elegant beheading so the world need not see such a face any longer, but that was then.

His summoner had ordered him to not only kill Assassin but to make it as painful as possible.

Gilgamesh was more than inclined to follow the command. He had little tolerance for those who merchandised themselves in the arts of death and had none whatsoever for those who laid low the lives of children.

The warehouse that the Assassin had taken as his territory, a place that once belonged to a prominent manufacturer of toys and other such silly trifles, was pierced by a rain of steel and iron that lasted until such a time as Gilgamesh felt was necessary. The collapse of the entire structure was found suitable and he allowed the ground to be graced by his presence as he approached the one lone body amongst the field of debris.

His sneer of derision turned into a disconcerting frown. The Assassin was dead, of that there could be no doubt. The body lay with the blades still pierced through limbs and torso. They were no longer a part of his treasures for the foul blood of Assassin had no doubt stained their beauty forevermore. Yet even at a distance he could see that the Assassin's pale white face was set in a wide and unnerving grin, eyes wide open in devilish delight.

Gilgamesh heard it then. It was a quiet sound but it slowly built up in volume until the whole area was awash in the sound of laughter, but there was another sound beneath it, a faint ticking of a clock… Serpentine eyes widened and Gilgamesh vanished in a haze of golden light as the warehouse was enveloped in a massive explosion of fire. He reappeared a good distance away and watched in muted fury as explosion after explosion spread until nearly every warehouse was a burning effigy of a madman's smile.

Was this an attempt at striking back by the Assassin? Some poor hope of dealing a decisive blow back to his killer? Gilgamesh did not think the Assassin had neither the wisdom nor the time to prepare for such an event and yet there it was, his calling card in all of its hellish glory. Gilgamesh's frown deepened into a scowl as another realization came to mind.

The body had been the source of the first explosion. A dead-man's switch, a complete and utter impossibility for a Servant to utilize for what manner of Servant was there that would deal such a strike only upon death? That there was even a body at all was a distinct impossibility. A Servant may be injured and can bleed as any other mortal, but they cannot last long in the World when dealt a mortal blow, especially not to the degree that Gilgamesh had dealt.

This meant only one thing.

"Assassin is still alive." Gilgamesh growled low in his throat. The command had been a simple one. To find and to kill the Assassin as painfully as possible and to allow nothing, not even other Servants, to hinder him. That alone might have irritated Gilgamesh but something else made him truly enraged.

The Assassin had fooled him. Not long, not even for a moment some could argue, but he had been tricked nonetheless.

If ever there was one rule to abide with the likes of Gilgamesh, it was to never, not ever, make a fool out of him.

"Prepare yourself, jackal." He growled as he vanished back into the ether to begin the hunt anew. "You have made a grievous mistake this night."

Gilgamesh could not have known. No one but one darkened knight could possibly have known or had the courage to tell him the truth.

The one that had made the mistake was not the Assassin.

It was Gilgamesh.

For there, in the shadows of an alleyway was a changed Servant but there was still a clear distinction that marked him as the same, deranged Assassin. Madness gleamed in his ruby red eyes and his smile was one to put the Devil's own to shame. He chuckled a loud guffaw of delight, once pristine and perfect white teeth now yellowed and impossibly bucked, clicking together in a devilish smile.

"I guess it's true what they say. Whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you… stranger… Heheh… Hahaha... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!"

"They all said I was sick in the head. They said I needed help. Well, maybe I am a bit batty… Blame it on the BATS in my BELFRY. HAHAHA!"

The Berserker was a mad dog held tight by an extremely loose leash. Rage was all the reason he needed and there was little on this World that could swat away the bloodied fog of his madness. The face of his former king, the woman whom he had betrayed and been betrayed in kind, had brought forth a clarity to his mind as he found a reason for his misery, for his damnation, standing there before him. It was only by the order his lord that he forced himself to wait and watch in the darkness as the one whose cackling only deepened the mires of madness in the Berserker's mind spoke before the crowd of Servants.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Hobos and Tramps, Cross-eyed mosquitoes and bowlegged ants. I come before you, to stand behind you, to tell you a story I know nothing about." The white-faced Servant bowed low, one armed crossed over his chest and the other held out in a deranged bow with long, flowing sleeves brushing against the ground.

He rose to a slight hunch, arms dangling at his sides as he swayed back and forth to a tune only he could hear as he guffawed. "One bright morning in the middle of the night two dead fellows stood up to fight. They stood back-to-back, facing each other, drew their swords and shot one another."

Quick as a flash, the Assassin raised an arm, hand clutching tight upon a gun whose barrel was ridiculously long and near impossible to have hidden. He aimed it straight at Waver Velvet and before any of the Servants could react, pulled the trigger. With an excessively loud explosion of noise and smoke, a flag appeared at the end of the barrel which the Assassin waved with glee, the word BANG swinging merrily in his grasp as he laughed once more.

"If you don't believe my lie, it's true, ask the blind lady on the corner, she saw it too."

"… Is this Berserker?" whispered a confused Rider, ignorant or outright ignoring the fact that his Master had fainted and was lying in a collapsed heap on the ground with visions of his life dancing before his eyes.

He'd eventually wake up to the conclusion that his life thus far was rather boring and that the girl from his Phantasmal Beasts course back at Clock Tower, while loony as can be, was indeed flirting with him and that he really ought to learn how to reciprocate in kind.

"Berserker?" The Assassin laughed long and loudly as a golden armored Archer appeared on the scene, standing with complete and utter regality atop a lamppost. "No, this thing is an entirely different breed of mad mongrel."

"Goldilocks!" The Assassin waved excitedly up at the Servant. "Oh, how must have missed me to grace us with your presence this evening! Tell me, did you like my little surprise for you? Did your Master? It wasn't my best work you know but I do try with what little I have you know."

The Assassin demonstrated this by reaching down to the pocket of his trousers and emptying them only to feign surprise as a few items fell out including a very familiar doll. Well, familiar only to the Archer and the Berserker's Master.

"Whoops, now how did that get in there?" The Assassin did not quite frown; his wide-mouth just wasn't made for it anymore. "Oh well, it's not she'll be missing it, right Goldilocks?" He laughed.

The Archer's hands tightened their grip on his arms, golden light shining behind him as the Gates opened wide for him. "Be thankful, mongrel, that my summoner's foolishness is something that I find myself agreeing too. Your death will be a legend in its own right."

"Really?" cackled the Assassin. "And all I've done so far is blow up some buildings and bring some smiles to a mother and child! Well, if death by laughter is such a crime then call me guilty as sin! BWAHAHAHA—whoops!"

The Berserker was a blur of darkness, gauntlet covered fist crashing down into the asphalt where the Assassin had been standing. The deranged Servant twirled to a halt, lengthy sleeves swirling about his torso in a macabre resemblance to a straitjacket as he stared in surprise at the Berserker for a moment before he smiled.

"Batsy, old boy! Is that you? Oh, I knew you just couldn't keep yourself away from me for long!" He laughed.

The golden Archer frowned as the Command Seal placed upon him suddenly reacted to the Berserker's presence. He felt revulsion at having to obey the words of a mediocre mage but then again the words had been to deal with the Assassin in the most painful way possible. Besides, what better entertainment was there than to watch two mad dogs kill each other?

"Very well." The Gates of Babylon closed behind him as the Archer prepared to enjoy quite a show. "I'll allow this interference for a time, mutt but know this. Hurt him all that you want but I will be the one to put the mad mongrel down."

If the Berserker heard the Archer's words or even comprehended them, he gave no sign as he rose to his feet in a ready stance.

"Quick question!" The Assassin held up a hand in the classic stop motion. "When the clock strikes midnight, do I get a little kiss? HAHAHAHA!"

"He's sick…" Irisviel muttered to herself, a silent Saber nodding in agreement not far from her. The two started in surprise as the Assassin turned to face them for a moment, his grin even wider.

"Flattery won't save you."

"Plans, plans, plans. They always have their plans. But the problem with their plan… Is that when you take an insane person to the asylum, you're just taking him home — the very place he knows best."

For all that he wanted otherwise, Kiritsugu Emiya never once considered himself a hero. His hands were stained by innocent blood at a young age through inaction and bloodied further with actual intent when he murdered his father to stop him from continuing the horrors the man had committed elsewhere. He was eight years old.

In the aftermath of the disaster that spelled death for an entire island's population but for the son of the man who made the disaster in the first place, Kiritsugu had been taken in by a freelancer. A mercenary with questionable morals named Natalia Kaminski who never once treated the boy as anything more than an assistant, a partner at best, to the job of hunting down monsters that were once men. Through no fault of her own, he had come to see her as the mother he never had.

He was eighteen years old when he killed her.

She, the lone survivor of an entire jumbo jet filled with flesh eating ghouls and the infection spreading wasps. She had holed herself in the cockpit and intended to land the plane, sercured in the knowledge that she and Kiritsugu could find a solution together that would doom the monsters aboard and save the one life left saving aboard.

She was wrong.

And for what would be the last time for a long time to come, Kiritsugu wept as his ideals burned to ashes in front of his eyes.

Kiritsugu was not a hero of justice. He knew that he would never be. Though he did not believe in such things, he had long since come to terms that it was his fate, his destiny, to save the many by sacrificing the one. Such was what he had planned to do in this very War, by sacrificing his love, his own wife, so that the World may know peace at long last.

He had been preparing for this for a long time know, sharing a purely sexual relationship with his tool, his own trained soldier Maiya Hisau, to steel himself for the betrayal he would ultimately commit by allowing his wife to die, to be sacrificed like he had done to the man who sired him and the woman whom raised him. It was self-abuse of the highest order and easily the sorriest excuse to have for an affair that would result in a negative spiral without end but he was a damned man anyway. He could mire himself in the darkness if it meant being reunited with the shining light that awaited him in the cold forests of Germany.

His wife's most precious gift to him, to ensure that he too would not follow her on Death's coattails.

Her daughter.

His child.

Yet even to this day he remembered a time when he was innocent. A time of purity that was shared with one whom truly set him on the path towards being a hero of justice. It had begun as most dreams often do, in wrinkled pages filled with faded colors. It was a small collection, one that she did not share with anyone but him, but those few books of caped crusaders and the dastardly foes they faced were enough to plant the seed. He had even idolized one in particular for his commitment to a task that he would later grow to resent and perhaps even hate, just a tad.

For what kind of man face such monsters and refuse to slay them, to save a world of their evils and crimes? What kind of hero could stand the idea that a mad dog could be put away in a cage only to be loosed onto the world again and again? Kiritsugu put those happy times away the day of the tragedy and remembered them only with resentment but he remembered regardless and so he knew the truth behind one of the Servants.

Oh yes, he recognized a great many of the other Servants. His Saber because there could be no other to bear the title of King of Knights, no matter how odd it was for him to think of history's greatest king as being a woman. The Rider for his foolhardy boisterousness that made Kiritsugu question the validity of history proclaiming him as the King of Conquerors. The Lancer by his own Servant's surprisingly deductive reasoning, which he would never admit to feeling a bit of pride towards but was glad for the information nonetheless. He even recognized the Archer because the fool Tohsaka did not bother to hide his purchase of a fossilized snakeskin nor the large assortment of wine from the lands once called Babylon.

He recognized them but he did not claim to know them.

Not like how he knew the Assassin.

He had watched the fight with tense finger trembling tight over the trigger of his sniper rifle and released a breath he had been unknowingly holding when the Assassin was struck down. The ensuing fight between the Archer and the Berserker and the mess that swiftly followed was ignored as he radioed for Maiya to move to a different position to better strike at the Lancer's Master.

She didn't respond.

His eyes narrowing, Kiritsugu repeated his order and was horrified at the sound of laughter.

So here he was. In a half-finished building with his Servant and wife none the wiser. It had taken three days to track the Servant down, hours that he should have spent sleeping, recuperating, and strategizing but he knew better than to waste a single moment. Every second Maiya spent in the clutches of the Assassin was another second of horror and villainy of the worst sort.

For no matter how much he told himself other, there was a piece of humanity still left inside his heart and it was roaring at him even now to do what he knew was right. Maiya was a tool, a soldier that was his to command, and so it was his responsibility to find her, to save her.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! You've read about it in the papers! Now witness, before your very eyes, the most rare and tragic of nature's mistakes! I give you: the average man. Physically unremarkable, it instead possesses a deformed set of values."

He walked through the open space slowly, Contender in hand as he looked through the darkness, ignoring the Assassin's words ringing through the intercom system. The construction crew were dead, smiling in their open graves down below with their arms all posed upwards towards the topmost floor that was complete.

"Notice the hideously bloated sense of humanity's importance. Also note the club-footed social conscience and the withered optimism. It's certainly not for the squeamish, it it? Most repulsive of all, are its frail and useless notions of order and sanity."

Kiritsugu summarily ignored the tiny voice of superstition noting that it was the thirteenth floor.

"If too much weight is placed upon them… they snap. How does it live, I hear you ask? How does this poor pathetic specimen survive in today's harsh and irrational environment? I'm afraid the sad answer is, "Not very well." Hehehehe…"

A flash of lightning as the storm outside continued bade him to pause not for the sound or the light but for the figure that stood before him. It was Maiya but the sight of her almost made his grip upon his gun lax. She was strapped down to a medical table that had been raised upright, her clothes changed for those of a harlequin doll and her face covered in splotches of white tattooed upon her skin and her hair dyed with red and bottle blonde.

Her eyes were open and vacant of anything resemble her once stone-like fortitude and her mouth was wide with a toothy smile for it had been cut so by a haphazardly wield blade. She was breathing and each exhale was a hushed giggle of the deranged. Held tightly in her quivering hands were her pistols, the first and only objects that Kiritsugu had ever given to her after naming her.

"Oh I'm sorry, did you think I was talking about you?" Kiritsugu whirled, gun raised and firing into the darkness only to hear answering laughter. "Oh, but did you think I would have the game end so soon when we've only just begun to play? I had thought that he would be here with me, you know? That where I would go he would follow after me like a shadow."

Kiritsugu ignored the Assassin's echoing voice as he slowly approached Maiya, pressing a hand gently against her neck and feeling her pulse.

"You can imagine my disappointment when I realized that he was not here but just like that, I had an epiphany! If I don't have a Batman, I'll just make myself one!"

Kiritsugu paused. He dropped his hand and turned to face the darkness. He couldn't quite see him, but he knew that the Assassin was there. "I am no Batman."

"Oh but how you want to be!" The Assassin chuckled, "It took a while you know, to peel back the layers of the girl's mind. She bravely tried to fight it at first, you would've been proud I'm sure! But all too soon, the pain and the serums took their tool and the girl shared such secrets with me. You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push! Isn't that right… Harley?"

Kiritsugu's eyes widened as he heard buckles unsnapping behind him.

"Of course, Mistah J…"

He spun around just in time to receive a vicious kick to the face from Maiya, one that was strong enough to send him stumbling back and made him his grip on his Contender. She still clutched her pistols tight in her quivering hands and continued to giggle as she stood on swaying legs.

A solitary light illuminated up high in the ceiling as the Assassin approached with slowly clapping hands. "Do you get it yet, Kiritsugu? Faced with the inescapable fact that human existence is mad, random, and completely and utterly pointless, one in eight of them crack up and go stark slavering mad! But then, who can blame them? In a world as psychotic as this… any other response would be CRAZY!"

"In my dream, the world has suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, a symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out."

Father Risei Kotomine was swiftly coming to the conclusion that this Grail War was going to be a lost cause on all fronts. There was not one but two Servants about that were making no qualms about endangering, if not outright killing, the lives of any innocent that crossed their paths, his friend Tohsaka's family being amongst the first victims with the young man drinking himself slowly to death, and his son Kirei still missing in action.

As though summoned by that very thought, the priest felt a familiar presence enter the grounds of the church. He stood with his back turned to the slowly opening door so that his son would not see the shimmering of relieved tears in his eyes

"Forgive me Father for I have sinned."

Risei cleared his throat to adopt a lecturing tone to his boy when he heard it.

Laughter.

Not once in the entirety of Kirei's life had he known the boy to laugh, not even as a baby. To hear it now would have been heartwarming if not for how much it chilled the old priest's spine and grated upon his ears. He turned slowly to face his son and gaped in horror at what awaited him.

His son's hair was splattered with shades of green and was a ratted messed brushed back along his head by way of a Black Key. His face was covered in a smattering of white face paint that did little to hide the reddened scars of a smile permanently etched upon the flesh.

"Kirei…?"

The young man's laughter suddenly cut off as he seemed to take notice of the man before him. His eyes narrowed as he took in Risei, looking him up and down like he was exhibit on display. "Y'know, you remind me of my father…"

With the speed of an Executor of the Church, Kirei was upon him, one hand clutching tightly upon his father's neck and the other brandishing four Black Keys to the man's face.

"You look nervous, Father. Is it the scars? Do you want to know how I got these scars? So, I had a Servant, delightful chap whom I'm sure you're going to love meeting again, and he told me a joke. It wasn't a bad joke nor a particularly good one but you know what? I laughed anyway. Because you see, in that joke, I realized something, something that I just could not find with you, with the Church, or even with my wife and daughter. The funny side of Life. Do you see it Father? Because I see it and now, I'm always SMILING!"

Through the next gazing of the Kaleidoscope...

The Agony

OR

The Bone

Statistics:

Class: Assassin
Identity: The Joker
Basic Stats:
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Noble Phantasms: B
Strength: C
Mana: E
Endurance: B+++
Agility: C
Luck: A

Class Skills:
Independent Action: EX*
Presence Concealment: E

Personal Skills:
Battle Continuation: Unknown**
Charisma: A
Disengage: C
Expert of Many Specializations (False): A
Mental Pollution: EX

*See Embodiment: Agent of Chaos
**See Stranger: That What Doesn't Kill You…

Noble Phantasms:
Stranger: That What Doesn't Kill You…: A
The Killing Joke: Laughter of a Deranged Clown: D+
Embodiment: Agent of Chaos: E~D

Exposition:
Expert of Many Specializations (False): A
While it cannot be argued that the Joker is indeed a brilliant individual, the level of his own intellect cannot be measured in sensible standards. In layman's terms, the Joker is a mad genius whose intelligence and skills seem to come and go as is necessary for him to complete whatever goal he sets out to accomplish. As soon as the task is completed, the skill(s) appear to vanish as though they never were only to spring up again later when he requires them to. As such, the Joker receives the (False) addition to this skill as it can be argued whether or not he naturally possesses the skill or if its something his insanity suddenly provides him with.

Stranger: That What Doesn't Kill You…: A
A support Noble Phantasm in line with Hercules' God Hand insomuch that it allows the Joker to escape certain death at the last minute, no matter how he is killed. However, there are two drawbacks in this Noble Phantasm. The first is that it can only be used against an enemy once per day though it can be used once more in the same day if the Joker is fighting someone "new." The second and worst part of Stranger: That What Doesn't Kill You… is that every time the Joker is "slain," he emerges even more deranged than before to the point where he is, quite literally, an entirely different maniac than he had been before. The total number of lives/incarnations the Joker possesses has, thus far, is five.

The Killing Joke: Laughter of a Deranged Clown: D+
The infamous laughter of the Joker has reached a new pinnacle as a Noble Phantasm that inspires fear through Mental Pollution no matter the amount of Bravery the targets' possess. Should they be exposed to it for a long period of time, it can even break the target's own sanity to the point where they receive a Mental Pollution stat rank of "E" or higher, depending on the damage already done by the Joker's actions prior to using The Killing Joke…

Embodiment: Agent of Chaos: E~D
Much like Suspension of Disbelief for Experiment 626 & Y Ddraig Goch, Embodiment is not a Noble Phantasm wholly unique to the Joker though, arguably, the title of Agent of Chaos is. A form of support Noble Phantasm, Embodiment is earned when a Heroic Spirit exemplifies an ideal to such an extreme that the Heroic Spirit is a physical manifestation of a universal law. In the case of the Joker, his embodiment is that of Chaos but as he was a mere mortal man, his ranking is quite low with it fluctuating between E and D rank resulting from when he consciously makes use of being an Agent of Chaos.

Whether due to his own intrinsic nature before his ascension to the Throne or his being an Agent of Chaos, the Joker has gained an EX ranked Independent Action skill and yet this is not the true "potential" that being an Embodiment allows him to do. To put it simply, the Joker can "pull" forth whatever weapon or tool he desires from his person though there is no way that he could physically carry such devices upon his person. These devices include but are not limited to, acid spewing flowers, electrified boxing gloves, every kind of knife known to mankind and some species of alien, and an unlimited quantity of Joker Venom.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Because I know people will ask this in reviews, the Jokers that appeared in this story are as follows:

Upon Summoning: "Classic Joker" (Batman: The Brave and the Bold)

Death by Gilgamesh: "Hamill Joker" (Batman: The Animated Series)

Clash of Servants: "Fighter Joker" (The Batman cartoon series)

Face-To-Face: "Demonic Joker" (The New 52: Batman Detective Comics)