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Zontik flopped down on his bed contentedly after a day spent wandering around Zontopia. Things had been going well. Ever since the prison riot, he'd been trying to interact more with the population of Zontopia, which had had good results; unlike the clones, they were generally nice to him and didn't treat him like their punching bag or someone who was at the bottom of the pecking order. It felt nice to be respected and listened to. And these people didn't even know that he was The Great Zontik, they just thought he was a regular guy. Maybe the problem lay with the other clones and not with him. He'd been thinking of having a serious talk with Halberd about the way he'd been treating the Zontopians. Maybe he could talk with the clones about the way they treated him at the Congress of Rulers tomorrow?
… No. Spade and Waru were much too terrifying, Romeo was unlikely to take him seriously, and the diamonds were nowhere to be seen. Maybe he should just keep his mouth shut.
His musing was interrupted by a knock at the door. He got up and opened it to find a messenger from Kuromaku standing in front of him, standing next to a large box.
"Greetings. Comrade Kuromaku has sent you a gift."
"A gift? For me? Aww, that's so nice!"
The messenger scuttled past him into the room and unboxed the present, a large television, which she started setting up. Zontik grabbed his stationery and wrote out a polite thank you note to his king, thanking him for the delightful surprise.
The messenger soon finished setting up the equipment, and Zontik bade her farewell, sending the note with her and asking her to send Kuromaku his regards. This would be a nice way to relax. Zontik turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels, when suddenly, it turned all static. He moved closer to it to adjust the antenna when suddenly, the screen turned black. His reflection stared back at him, and suddenly, it broke into a wide grin.
"AAAHHHH!" Zontik screamed, stumbling backwards and falling over onto the bed.
"Hello, jack of clubs," the reflection continued. "Would you like to make a deal with me?"
"Wh-what kind of deal?" Zontik replied nervously.
"I can give you anything you want, for a price…"
"Oh, like in a store?"
"What the - ... actually, sure, let's go with that."
"In that case, could you help me talk to the other clones? I don't think they've been treating me very well, and I wanted to be a little firmer with them, but I don't think I have the courage to."
"Oh, I can absolutely help you with that. Put your hand over here."
The reflection pressed its hand to the screen. Zontik put his hand to the screen at the same place. Immediately, he felt his free will being stripped away as Red Joker possessed his body.
The body's eyes shot open to reveal two-toned blue irises and its face split open into a wide grin.
Oh, this was going to be so much fun.
"Zontik" sat boredly at the Congress table. Also at the Congress were Felix (in his full dictator outfit, which nobody but Waru seemed to have an issue with), Romeo, who looked like he'd been homeless for several days, Spade, who was just sitting there menacingly, and Waru, who had been in his seat but was no longer in it, leaving everyone worried about what he was up to. The diamonds were nowhere to be seen as usual, and Kuromaku was running late.
After what seemed like an eternity, Kuron showed up, wheeling a TV monitor behind him.
"Apologies for the delay on Comrade Kuromaku's behalf, everyone," Kuron said, switching on the monitor. Kuromaku appeared on it.
"Greetings, everyone. Apologies for my inability to show up in person, my leg is still healing. Now let's begin the meeting. Wait, where's Waru? It's not like him to be late to these."
"I didn't think you'd be worried about Waru," Spade replied. "I thought you'd be relieved that he wasn't around."
"It's like having a large spider in your room. You're concerned when you can see it, but you're even more concerned when you can't see it so you don't know what it's doing."
As if on cue, a hand tapped Felix on the shoulder. Felix turned around and received a pie to the face, green filling splattering everywhere.
"Hehe!" came Waru's signature annoying laugh.
"Kuromaku, tase him," Felix replied.
Kuromaku obliged, zapping Waru with the stun gun that was equipped in the monitor.
"Wow, that's some fancy technology you've got there Kuromaku! Really makes me wonder how the hell you managed to invent stun guns, video phones, and long distance communication technology, but not, oh I don't know, A FUCKING WHEELCHAIR SO YOU COULD COME HERE IN PERSON?!"
The room went silent. And at this moment, Joker chose to un-possess Zontik, who abjectly clapped his hands over his mouth in horror. Joker smiled to himself mischievously, now floating invisibly in the air next to Zontik. He'd started a conflict between the clones, and now they'd be split apart, and he could conquer them each while they were divided. It would be especially nice if he could get to the spades suit, that way he could -
"... Wait, that actually felt kind of good," Zontik mumbled to himself. "Thanks, Mountain Dew-looking ass redneck cowboy!"
"Zontik, I demand an explanation. What was that outburst just now?" Kuromaku asked, his arms crossed in annoyance and his face a mixture of fury and astonishment. Zontik inhaled and then continued.
"You always talk about how you're the smart one and how you're so much better than all of us but you didn't even think of getting a wheelchair to bring yourself here. And even if you didn't, there were plenty of other options. You could have had Kuron drive you here, or you could have just made this a video call for all of us. And then you have the gall to lecture the rest of us about not making proper use of the tools we have available to us."
"I-"
"What are you going to do? Throw a book at me and tell me to shut up? Tase me? Why is the taser your answer to everything? You even gave a bunch of them to Felix while he was clearly going insane. I can't believe you didn't notice that. Even Waru noticed. So much for you being the smart guy."
"What do you mean I'm insane?" Felix asked, outraged.
"Yeah, about that. Not only are you clearly insane, but you literally just stole another country's schtick, you unoriginal hack! It's like you saw everything Waru did and treated it as your personal bucket list! Controlling the news media? Check! Arresting people for stupid reasons? Check! Stupid-looking glasses? Check! Creating a surveillance state? Check! I mean, the Warulandian national anthem even has Waru singing about how his gaze will never leave them! And you're somehow doing it worse than him, because even though Waru's an idiot, at least his country isn't in financial ruin! You're losing to a man who watches television with the express purpose of getting stupider! Though I guess at least he's smarter than Kuromaku because at least he noticed something was wrong with you! You turned into a completely different person overnight and not one person besides Waru noticed!"
"You clearly seem to have noticed it," Spade countered. "Why didn't you just bring it up earlier?"
"Because Waru even directly brought it up to Romeo, who is Felix's so-called best friend, and Romeo didn't do anything about it! Reasoning with you morons is like talking to a brick wall! And on the topic of Romeo, what the hell happened to you?"
"Yeah, that's a good question actually," Dictator Felix pointed out. "I went to visit Verona and it looked like the country had fallen because everyone including you was gone."
"This is the Congress of Rulers, not the Congress of Hobos," Waru teased. "Why are you even here?"
"Oh, let me guess," Zontik said. "He probably used up his generator since he kept using it for stupid shit instead of putting any actual effort into running the country. If he put half as much effort into being a semi-decent ruler as he did into building rollercoasters and chasing ass all the time, maybe Verona wouldn't be in ruins now."
"... Wait, that's it? After everything you said about Kuromaku and Felix, I was expecting more," Romeo said, scratching his head.
"Romeo, if I actually started roasting everything there is to roast about you, this Congress would last years. Because unlike blonde knockoff Waru, or the "smart" guy that lacks imagination to the point where his country doesn't even have a name, or the purple Hot Topic wannabe who just sits in the background aurafarming and occasionally yelling at his jack, you don't even have any positive qualities," Zontik replied coldly.
"What about Waru?"
"What about Waru? Waru is rude, unkind, thoughtless, cruel, and lazy."
"Go on, go on!" Waru said, blushing as if he'd been complimented.
"Waru has potential. For example, earlier in this very fic, he learned how to bake a proper pie just to throw it in Felix's face even though none of us can cook. He also successfully runs a dictatorship that, despite the horrible living conditions, is somehow still better than Felicia and Verona. In fact I'd say he's actually surprisingly cunning and pretty smart!"
"Hehe!"
"... But we all know he won't live up to that potential. He'll never make anything of himself. All he ever does is laze around, pull a prank or two, and demand people to talk about how awesome he is."
Waru put a finger up as if he was going to say something, but found himself coming up short on words. Zontik had a point.
"He clearly cares about us enough to show to every single one of these meetings on time instead of just skipping them like the diamonds, but he's too much of a coward to be vulnerable with his own family and admit that he enjoys our company instead of pretending he hates us."
This earned Zontik a pie to the face.
"That is a lie and you are a liar for saying that," Waru said. "I hate each and every single one of you. If you had any allergies I'd bake a pie full of stuff you were allergic to and throw it at you."
"Dante," Zontik continued. "You're a fucking bum."
Hearing his beloved sensei slandered like that, Felix jumped to his defense.
"He's not even here-" the yellow clone began, only to be shot down by Zontik.
"The fact that Dante isn't here is a testament to just how much of a bum he is," Zontik rattled off, undeterred.
"Nicole, I want to thank you for your contributions to the scientific community. Namely, finding a cure for insomnia. Because whenever I have trouble sleeping, I think of your stupid, unfunny jokes, and they put me to sleep."
"... Who the fuck is Nicole?" asked Waru.
"Does anyone know where Gabriel is? I need to send a messenger to him. I've got some stuff I want to say to him too."
"As a matter of fact I do have his location," Kuromaku responded.
"And you never told us this before so any of us could go visit him or talk to him. What a great leader," Zontik said, rolling his eyes as he started writing a strongly-worded letter to Gabriel.