Getting The Old Gang Back Together.

Lyra heartstrings looked at the photo that HAD been taken after graduation. After Jolly Jack was hauled away in handcuffs and a squad car, his parents disappeared and weren't even there the day it happened. Rumors circulated even to this very day that he killed them, but no evidence of it had ever been found. Everyone's smiles in their caps and gowns were forced, faked. The trauma of a classmate going off the walls insane and attempting to become an icon from the printed funny papers will do that. Her older and wiser eyes gazed back into the Polaroid ones of the smile she forced herself to make, the only other person not pictured was Bulk Biceps. Owned no doubt to the fact that he was having his stomach sutured back up. He made to the after party at Houlihan's' though, and was constantly showing off the stitches, claimed it was the kind he always dreamed of getting.

"Lyra? You okay?" It was her roommate Bon Bon, together since eight grade, they were insuperable. She walked in from the apartment kitchen a pitcher of country time and a glass of ice in hand. Lyra looked up from her scrapbook and smiled.

"Fine, just doing a little scrap booking." She flipped the year book page and since they had been printed before Jack went off the rails, his pictures were still there.

"Ugh you think they'd have edited...HIM, out of these." Bon Bon said slightly disgusted with seeing his greasy even in print looking puke green hair, and his pasty white complexion, sans the make up, Jack could pass for a Joker look alike.

"There was no time, if he had done this before the publishing they would have whited him out, but nobody suspected Jack of going crazy ON graduation day. You know it doesn't add up, look at these pics he was in." She pointed to an image of a brown haired boy with glasses and a bunch of superhero pins on his jacket, Peter Page Turner. Along with a few others like Bright Idea and Whiz Kiddo, The Canterlot High comic book club, suddenly a few things made sense. Lyra and Bon Bon took note of the books Jack was posing with, all Joker comics.

"Hey was a very social and seemed quite happy, what grounds did he have? What was his motivation?" Bon Bon asked as they looked for more pictures.

"Jack wasn't the brightest of us Bonnie, remember how on the test scores for state exams? Jack was in the bottom hundred."

"Only the One hundredth though, and it's not like the school wasn't offering students like him help. History; personal issues, or just stubbing you toe on a glass coffee table, nothing excuses him for what he did and tried to do to us." She said in a very absolute and blunt tone.

"I wan't trying to justify him I was just..." But she was interrupted by a knock at the apartment door. "Who could that be?" She said flipping the page to the prom pictures. "Remember how Rainbow Dash took over the DJ system from Vinyl and made it play Sesame Street songs for ten minutes?" Lyra said as she began to reminisce.

"Yeah...she was a prankster who knew where to draw the..." She paused when she opened the door, an old ghost from the past looking right back at her. Jack Moore still had those deep scars where he cut his own cheeks into a Joker smile; though he had no white as snow skin or the signature discoloration of that character, he still had his cackling mad laugh and sick grin. He wore a swat or some kind of riot control officer's gear, and Bon Bon found herself staring into the barrel of a Heckler & Koch FABARM FP6 shot gun. "Line?" She clucked with a gulp.

*BOOM!* The shotgun's ear shattering noise ran out in the apparentment, and Lyra was sure Bon Bon was instantly killed. She flew across the room and landed so hard on the couch that she sent it toppling over. She help her hands up to her cheeks and was certian she was blasted in half by a buckshot load.

"Well...now that the...awkwardness of Rainbow's little jest is past, how bout we kick it!" a younger Vinyl Scratch said as she finally got 'Sunny Days' to stop looping on her sound system. It was the Graduates last night at the Canterlot High gym, and though it had only been four years for some of them it felt like it had been forever. Most of them had Colleges to look forward too come the following Fall, but one was not so joyous on the occasion. A younger more world weary Jack Moore stood nursing some not at all spiked punch while everyone else took the dance floor, that strange almost horse like way a few people on the floor danced didn't amuse him.

"Jack?" A voice whispered shaking him from his sulking, he turned to see Lyra holding a hand out to him, offering a dance. "Dud you okay? you don't look so good." She said as he sipped. True, jack's face looked like it was recovering from bad sunburn; blotches of very red skin with a few bit of dead flakes peeling off in a few places, and his hair looked like a whole bottle of peroxide and bleach and nearly burned it a platinum blonde but had done a botched job at it.

"I'm fine Lyra...just...a little...misuse of Tiger Balm and an allergic reaction to hair care." He said further sulking away from her. Lyra only shrugged and helped herself to a handful of chips and some onion dip.

"If you say so..so...so...so"

She wasn't dead. Bon Bon cluthced at her lower abdomen and moaned in pain, the skin was very bruised and bleeding a bit even, but it wasn't like a wound a weapon like that would cause if it had been using live ammo. Jack cakled softly and loaded another round in his weapon. "Heh..you'd be surprised what toys you can get your hands on when you break into the security cabinet of the funny farm!" He shouted as he fired another round at the mantle. The rubber rounds the riot shot guns' chamber was loaded with where replaced with a shower of quarters, they shattered the vases and knocked over the picture frames as they bounced with a few jangles. "Heh Heh..Money shot."

Lyra stood over Bon Bon Trying to keep her calm, though the pain was intense, she was thankful the rounds weren't lethal. "Jack...after all these years...why?...why then and why now are you doing this?" She pleads looking up at him with tears in her eyes as he pulls the revolver he stole of his armed guard in her face, no chance of THAT being less lethal. She cried ready for the hands of death to claim her.

"Why does anyone do anything? what makes my path in life any different from a couple of le bows who took to each other the min nobody would say what they are hmm?'' She could hardly believe what he was saying, Jack was a grade A psycho alright, Lyra would've quick to point out their friendship wasn't like that..had she not been fearing for her life. His finger tightened around the trigger as the hammer clicked into place...and then...*HONK!* The revolver made a party noise sound as Lyra's hair was showered in confetti and mini streamers, a tiny flag with BANG! written on it popped from the barrel. "Damn...trick ammo...oh well I brought a...spare."

"What are you...AHHH!" She screamed looking down at her knee, as it make a sicking crunch and cracking sound. The pain almost blinded her but she remained conscious enough to see that...he had hit her knee with a hammer. She thought he'd shot her...but his shot gun round had gone off into the window and shattered it, glass raining down onto the street below, that round had been live. It would have blown her leg off if he had used it, though her knee may still have been broken.

"I'm throwing a class reunion Lyra...and you and your...BLECH!...Girlfriend are the first quests...you should consider it an honor....AHAHAHAH!" He said letting out a wicked Joker laugh. He then snapped a pair of riot cuff on the girls and attached them with bungee cords. He dragged them across the floor of the wreck apartment, a hijacked ambulance waiting in an alley outside, the wail of sirens closing in..."And not the hot ones either!" He said, though to Lyra and the semi unconscious Bon Bon this made no sense.

They danced together, he watched them from across the room at the snack table. A few other guys looked as well, a slow dance had sarted and here they were, Lyra Heartsrings and Bon Bon Sweetie Drops holding each other close with lovey eyes as they slow danced together. Another boy beside him snacked on some Cheetos, smiling at watching them, The only male the two had accepted into their circle, Eric Inkpots. "I tapped them...both at once." He said with a grin, "I usually don't brag about that, but it's a party and we've got so much to look forward too." Eric said as Jack only slipped a little plastic tube from his pocket and tried not to seem suspicious about it. Thw clear liquid sliding down into the cup.

He didn't know it than, but his actions didn't go unnoticed. The chaperoning Vice Principal had seen him pour, and she closed in like a shark to a wounded seal. "Maybe you do...but I.." he started but got cut off by a familiar midnight blue figure approaching.

"MR. Moore! Is that alcohol!?" Vice Principal Luna said snatching his hand from his pocket with the incriminating tube still clutching it. She inspected the tube closely as if she could scan and see what it was with her eyes. "MY office...NOW!" She took him by the ear, not caring that such actions were not condoned anymore. He was dragged off, the two of them cuddling the sides of the guy he'd been talking with the last thing he ever saw of his senior prom.