Utter Madness

"You have my word." Twilight Sparkle put her hoof over her heart and looked solemnly at Rarity. "Losing a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend." She nodded quickly. Despite the weirdness of the person she'd learned it from, it was sound advice, and she'd taken it to heart. She opened her mouth to speak again.

"FOREVEEEER." Pinkie Pie burst out of the sponge bucket by her leg and glared daggers at Twilight. Rarity didn't seem to notice, having long since tuned out the pink pony's strangeness.


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"Oh Pinkie Pie… You are so random! And yet, you still follow a set of rules. True, they play fast and loose with the physics of your world, but you do still have them. You come out of left field, spout something strange but true, and disappear again, only to reappear in the next frame doing something nearly completely different. It's as if you're… more enlightened than the average pony."

Two men in clown masks looked at eachother, then at the back of the purple-suited clown standing in front of the electronics store window. They shook their heads and bit their lips, knowing better than to interrupt the Joker when he began a monologue.

"Well you could say enlightened," the Joker began as he turned to pace in front of the window. "But then you'd be all serene and sermons and serenity, not like what you are." He turned and fixed a yellow eye on the masked goons with him. "What do you think, gentlemen? Is our pretty pink pony enlightened, or just crazy?"

They swallowed and looked at anything but their boss. "Uhh… well…"

"Well, come on. Let's hear it." The Joker folded his arms and turned to face them squarely.

"Well, ya see boss, it's like this… We uh, we don't actually watch My Little Pony." The first slowly raised his briefcase in front of his face.

Joker turned to the second, who'd been scooting behind a nearby car. "Well, what about you? Surely you must have seen an episode or two. What's your take on Pinkie Pie, hmm?"

The goon clown sweated profusely behind his mask and tugged his collar open. "Uh, b-boss? It's, uh, fo-for little girls, ya know? We ai-ain't exactly little girls…"

Both goons cringed as Joker's eyebrow drifted higher on his corpse-white forehead. "Hmmm… I suppose it is a bit much to expect two such hardened criminals as yourselves to enjoy the wonders of magical technicolor ponies." He shrugged and turned around. "Oh well, night is young and all that. Plenty of time to educate you both." He chuckled and put his hands on his hips. "But you know, Mrs. Faust really has done a bang-up job on this; her and all those wonderful people who work for her!"

"Yeah but… it's still for little girls, right?" The first, suddenly realizing his mistake, crouched down behind his briefcase.

Joker barely acknowledged him, instead watching the ponies on the TV screen in front of him prance around with an enigmatic smile on his face. "True, but I remember the first time I watched this show. I laughed so hard I was nearly sick! But no one was hurt, and nothing was broken. Not one iota of suffering went into dragging a laugh out of me. I, dare I say it, I even 'd'awwwed' once or twice." He spun on his heel and fixed his thugs with a beaming grin. "Think of it! A show so wonderfully innocent and pure, so beautifully sweet without falling into saccharine, that it gets a laugh even out of me!"

The two mooks peeked out from behind their hiding places and looked at eachother, then at the ponies on the screen. "They are pretty cute, heh," said the second. "Especially the yellow one."

Joker looked over his shoulder. "Fluttershy, you mean? My friends, though it pains me to say it, I would almost give up crime, give up chasing Batman, even give up my purple suit just to see her smile." He sighed and turned his face to the overcast sky, a look of pure joy on his cracked and weathered face.

The first raised a hand. "So… we ain't gonna knock over that ban—AAAGH!" A ragged cry of pain tore from his lungs as a knife embedded itself in his hand, pinning it to the briefcase.

"I said 'ALMOST'! Now get up and get the van moving again! And you!" he spun on the second goon as the first scrambled to comply. "I see you making eyes at Fluttershy again; I'll make you wish you'd never been born!" He kicked at him until he started moving, then looked over his shoulder.

"Those wonderful cartoon ponies… Ah! I see what it is now, Pinkie is enlightened! Enlightened to the fact that she's a cartoon! Hah! Why didn't I think of that sooner?" He shoved his hands into his pockets and whistled as he strolled into the waiting van.


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High above, on a roof overlooking the electronics store, a shadowy figure glared down at the Joker's van as it sped away. Rubber creaked as his brows knotted. The figure took a step backward and tugged his night-black cape around him, covering the stylized bat symbol on his chest.

"Now I know The Joker's crazy," growled Batman. He reached into a pocket of his belt and curled his hand around a small piece of purple plastic. He raised it to his stubbled cheek and nuzzled it lightly, the other hand slowly petting its mane.

"Everypony knows Twilight Sparkle is the best."