Edward Nygma’s base, better known to the average Gotham resident by his alias, the Riddler, was a fortified bunker heavily modified to satisfy his paranoid needs.
It was hidden directly beneath one of Central Gotham’s respectable residential neighborhoods.
The air was dry and cool, filled with the low, monotonous hum of powerful cooling systems.
Dozens of monitors covered the walls, displaying endless streams of data, algorithms, and footage from cameras throughout the city.
Everywhere, arranged in mathematically perfect order alongside the chaotic scribblings covering countless whiteboards, were puzzles, code-breaking devices, and blueprints.
A casual observer could easily mistake the place for the underground headquarters of an eccentric billionaire programmer rather than the lair of one of the most dangerous metahuman criminals on the East Coast.
And right now, inside this sterile temple of intellect, an absolutely disgusting farce was unfolding.
“And then,” the Joker spread his arms theatrically, only to suddenly grimace in pain when his one remaining healthy eye drifted toward his left forearm.
Where his hand had been only a few hours ago, there was now a tightly wrapped, blood-soaked bandage.
The clown nervously twitched the stump before continuing in an artificially high-pitched voice.
“There’ll be one enormous, earth-shattering BOOM!”
He stood in front of the central whiteboard, which was covered in crooked, frantic lines that, with some effort, could be recognized as a map of Gotham.
A short distance away, a thin man in his forties sat motionless in a deep leather chair.
His long, greasy, mouse-brown hair hung over an exhausted face covered in deep scars.
Dr.
Jonathan Crane was still wearing Arkham’s oversized striped patient pajamas, complete with the institutional initials D-7 printed across the chest.
The looks Scarecrow occasionally threw at the scribbled board revealed a volatile mixture of professional irritation and cold detachment.
Fortunately, he had enough common sense not to comment on the clown’s ramblings.
A third person was present in the bunker.
A tall man in his thirties sat with an almost unnaturally straight posture.
His short hair was perfectly groomed, every strand in place.
Cold, calculating eyes stared at the Joker through the lenses of his thin-framed glasses.
Edward Nygma wore an immaculate dark-green tuxedo, complemented by a bright, acid-green bow tie.
The contrast between his obsessive neatness and the smoke-covered, bloodstained, mutilated clown was almost painful to look at.
“Bruce,” Nygma began in a calm, deliberately displeased tone, folding his arms across his chest.
He stopped for only a fraction of a second when he saw the Joker’s expression instantly twist.
“DON’T CALL ME THAT!”
The clown screamed hysterically, his voice breaking into a shriek.
With his healthy right hand, he snatched a thick marker from the magnetic shelf and hurled it at the Riddler’s head with inhuman fury.
Nygma didn’t even blink.
He smoothly shifted his body a couple of inches to the side with irritating elegance.
The black marker whistled past him and bounced off a server rack.
A faintly condescending smile appeared on Edward’s face.
“From your…
once brilliant intellect, I honestly expected something more than a simple one-time demolition of Gotham’s bridges,” Nygma continued calmly, but with a sharp edge to every word.
Each syllable had been carefully chosen to sting.
He was deliberately attacking the fact that Bruce Wayne’s brilliant tactical mind had drowned in a vat of chemicals, leaving behind nothing but a cheap pyromaniac.
“It’s vulgar.
There’s no mystery to it.
No elegance.”
“Actually…” The Joker abruptly snatched a red marker from the shelf.
With furious determination, he began circling the bridges on the map for what appeared to be the third time, leaving thick, squeaking marks across the board.
“I’m blowing up ALL of them.
There are twenty of them!”
His nervous, bubbling laughter filled the room.
“This will be the biggest and most spectacular terrorist attack in history!”
He nervously licked a bead of sweat from his lip.
“And that’s only the first act of our show!
While Gotham’s police are running around in circles collecting chunks of concrete, Scarecrow…”
“Ridiculous,” Nygma cut in coldly.
He looked at the clown the way a scientist might look at a defective laboratory mouse, completely ignoring the bloodshot glare aimed at him.
“I wasted resources and broke you out of Arkham for this?
For a loud explosion followed by some chemical circus whose creativity is stuck at the level of a street gang?”
He shook his head and casually dodged another red marker flying toward him.
“You’re ridiculous!
You’re a bore!”
The Joker shrieked and kicked the whiteboard stand, making it wobble dangerously.
“I handed you a finished plan on a silver platter!”
He spread his arms dramatically.
“How to plunge Gotham into absolute anarchy!”
“How to create true, primordial CHAOS!”
“How…”
“But you forgot our primary objective during your little manic episode,” Nygma reminded him, carefully emphasizing each word as he stepped closer.
The Joker froze.
His shoulders sagged heavily.
The eyebrow beneath his remaining eye twitched.
“Forty-Two,” the clown hissed.
Pure, concentrated hatred mixed with the wounded resentment of a spoiled child whose favorite toy had been taken away.
“Correct.
Charles Kirkman.”
Nygma nodded as he adjusted his cufflinks.
“Our only equation that actually needs solving.”
“He’ll definitely take the bait when I make my triumphant return!”
The Joker’s face twisted into another grotesque, fanatical smile.
He leaned forward, staring directly into the Riddler’s eyes.
“It just needs to be loud!”
“And meaningful!”
“The only person who’s going to fall for this primitive plan is Batman,” Nygma scoffed contemptuously.
“And considering the scale you’re proposing, there’s a hundred percent chance you’ll attract the Justice League.”
“Superman will show up, and your little show will be over before it even begins.”
“That isn’t the kind of chaos we need.”
“We need surgical precision if we’re going to trap Kirkman.”
“Oh, of course!”
The Joker took a sudden, jerky step forward until he was almost nose-to-nose with Nygma.
He reeked of medication, dried blood, and madness.
“So when it comes to stomping a creator’s ego into the dirt, we’re first in line!”
“But when it comes to offering a viable alternative?”
“Come on, Eddie!”
“Impress me!”
“Otherwise…”
The Joker’s voice suddenly dropped into a hoarse, sinister whisper completely devoid of his usual theatrics.
“…nothing will save you from what I’ll do to your brain and body.”
“The alternative is to act…
more elegantly.”
Nygma didn’t flinch.
Without taking his eyes off the Joker’s single eye, he reached toward the nearest table and picked up a scrambled Rubik’s Cube.
His long, slender fingers moved with inhuman speed.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Within seconds, using precise, mechanical movements, he solved the puzzle and carefully placed it back on the table with the green side facing upward.
“That’s precisely why I took the liberty of expanding our modest professional staff.”
The moment he finished speaking, the bunker’s massive steel pressure door began sliding open with a deep hydraulic hiss.
A figure stepped inside, forced to duck his head so he wouldn’t hit the doorway.
Nearly three meters of solid, rolling muscle.
His face was concealed behind a solid black mask bearing a distinctive white skull pattern.
Thick, glowing, poisonous-green veins and tubes pulsed across his enormous arms, neck, and torso, pumping Venomthrough his body.
The air inside the bunker seemed to grow tighter simply because he was there.
The Joker slowly turned his head.
His mouth fell open.
Then his dry, barking laughter once again echoed throughout the bunker.
“Ohhh, old friends are getting back together!”
The clown giggled, completely unimpressed by the newcomer’s size.
He tilted his head mockingly as he stared at the giant.
“My spine still aches whenever the weather changes, Bane!”
“This has gone way too far, Thomas!”
Barbara’s furious voice, trembling with tension, echoed through the cold stone vaults of the Batcave.
There was no response.
The rhythmic, dry tapping of keyboard keys didn’t stop for even a second.
Barbara gripped the armrests of her wheelchair more tightly and leaned forward, as if she could somehow break through the wall of silence through sheer force of will.
“You allowed the Riddler to free the Joker and Scarecrow!”
“Do you even hear yourself?”
“What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“Why does Arkham even exist if you knew an escape was being planned and deliberately allowed it to happen?”
Thomas Wayne sat at the terminal of the Batcave’s main supercomputer, bathed in the ghostly pale light of the enormous monitor.
After emergency surgery inside the medical capsule, he was feeling considerably better.
His broken ribs had been stabilized, his torn wounds closed with surgical staples, and he could already move around freely.
But instead of resting, he continued analyzing data with almost manic determination, without even turning his head toward Barbara.
“The Joker’s unpredictability works in our favor,” he explained in an even, almost mechanical tone.
There wasn’t a trace of doubt in his voice.
“While Kirkman is distracted by him, I gain time.”
“I need to prepare the appropriate countermeasures.”
At his command, the enormous monitor displayed an updated dossier on Charles Kirkman.
Barbara watched as the list of his abilities continued growing.
Thomas was adding new information every few minutes, extracting fragments of data from countless security cameras, satellite images, and the statements of Arkham’s unfortunate guards.
Kinetic energy absorption.
Manipulation of object shadows.
Anomalously high level of knowledge regarding hidden structures.
Trans-spatial summoning of heavy equipment, military fighter of unknown classification.
Beside the abilities, Thomas had already constructed his own theories regarding Kirkman’s weaknesses.
Vulnerability to thermal attacks, confirmed by the explosion in Arkham.
Possible vulnerability to elemental and holy damage, based on Clark’s observations regarding the subject’s necrotic physiology.
Thomas paused for a moment.
Then he entered a new line under Criminal Record.
Murder of Waylon Jones, Killer Croc.
“He did this world a favor by putting that cannibal down,” Barbara muttered unhappily as she looked at the newly added entry.
“And since we’re talking about favors…
let’s get back to the Joker.”
“I still refuse to understand what you’re thinking!”
“The Joker’s unpredictability isn’t a tactical tool, Thomas.”
“It always goes hand in hand with mass terror and innocent deaths!”
“You unleashed a rabid dog to distract a wolf!”
This time, the keyboard stopped clicking.
The man slowly turned toward her.
His face, carved into deep shadows by the screens, carried an expression of heavy, condescending judgment.
The look of a patriarch disappointed in a foolish child.
Barbara had grown accustomed to that look over the last two years.
But right now, in this exact moment, staring at the hard line of his lips and the gray at his temples, she reached a crystal-clear, ice-cold realization.
Enough.
“I was wrong?”
Her voice became quieter, the hysterical edge disappearing from it.
But her green eyes stubbornly met Batman’s narrowed gaze.
“If Kirkman had killed the Joker in the arena, then just like with Croc, the world would simply be a better, cleaner place.”
“But your actions…”
“Don’t start,” the man hissed irritably through clenched teeth as he turned back toward the monitors.
“Don’t start what, Thomas?”
Barbara rolled closer.
The electric motors of her wheelchair sounded unnaturally loud in the cavernous silence.
“Don’t start putting pressure on your obvious, sick bias?”
“Don’t start pointing out that your disgusting softness toward that creature has already torn our family apart?”
She understood that she was walking onto thin ice.
She knew that she was driving a dirty, rusted knife straight into Thomas Wayne’s most painful, bleeding wound.
But she couldn’t stop anymore.
“You pushed Dick away!”
“You turned Jason into an enemy!”
“You turned Tim into a vegetable!”
Barbara left the final thought unspoken.
“And now, when someone has finally appeared in Gotham who’s actually willing to correct your mistakes, someone who’s willing to cut out this tumor, you’re ready to violate every single one of your precious principles just to kill that man!”
“He isn’t a man,” Thomas automatically corrected her.
The stunned man clenched his fists so tightly that the leather of his gloves creaked.
“He’s a monster.”
“An animated corpse, Barbara.”
“An unnatural abomination.”
“A creature that, in the long run, is far worse and more dangerous than the Joker.”
“I don’t give a damn.”
Barbara leaned back in her wheelchair, feeling a strange, bitter sense of relief spreading through her.
“Then I’m on the side of the monster.”
“The corpse.”
“The creature.”
Thomas sighed heavily.
His shoulders dropped.
He quickly realized where she was going with this.
“You want to leave?”
There was a contemptuous smirk in his voice.
“Give up?”
“Join the traitors Todd and Grayson?”
“Well, thank God your brain still works properly in at least one area,” Barbara snorted as she turned her wheelchair around.
“Yes, Thomas.”
“I’m sick to death of all this shit.”
“Your paranoia bordering on schizophrenia.”
“Your hypocrisy.”
“And most importantly, your absolute refusal to see what’s right in front of you.”
“That Joker…”
“That’s Bruce…”
“DON’T SAY THAT NAME!”
Thomas’s roar tore through the silence of the cave.
He shot to his feet so violently that his chair rolled backward.
His face twisted with pain and rage.
His eyes burned wildly in the darkness.
Barbara froze.
Her heart skipped a beat.
But she only clenched her jaw harder.
“Yes…”
“That’s exactly why I’m leaving this place.”
“There is no Batman here anymore.”
Without saying another word, Thomas slowly sat back down.
He stared at the monitor again, making his indifference toward her departure perfectly clear.
Barbara meanwhile rolled toward the massive steel doors of the elevator.
She stopped.
Then slowly turned her head and looked at the broad back of the man in dark armor.
Her reflection in the polished metal of the elevator doors revealed a complicated mixture of old resentment, burning anger, and…
Something else.
Something frighteningly similar to the desperate madness that had lingered in this cave for so long that it had begun poisoning her as well.
She couldn’t simply leave.
She couldn’t leave all the city’s keys in his hands, knowing he’d use the full power of Alfred to protect his insane son.
“Although, you know what, Thomas…”
Barbara spoke in an unnaturally calm, almost ringing voice as she reached toward the panel and pressed the elevator call button.
“I said I’m on Kirkman’s side…”
“I don’t think I need to explain that revealing the location of this base to anyone wouldn’t exactly be a good idea,” Thomas said coldly without turning around.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
“Nor would attempting to join him.”
“Of course.”
Barbara nodded.
“I know your security protocols far too well.”
A faint, broken smile appeared on her lips.
The elevator doors slid open with a quiet hiss.
“That’s exactly why…”
She took a deep breath.
“Alfred.”
“Protocol Nyx.”
“Authorization code: Nine-Seven-Two-Six.”
“Execute immediately.”
The words came out in a rapid, memorized stream.
Without wasting another second, she shoved the wheelchair’s joystick forward and rolled into the elevator, frantically pressing the button to close the doors.
At that exact moment, the main terminal screen in front of Thomas flashed and flooded with crimson light.
Lines of cascading data deletion began racing across every monitor in the cave.
Protocol Nyx.
Complete and irreversible deletion of all Oracle databases.
Surveillance servers offline.
AI systems locked.
She was blinding him.
The instant Thomas heard the word Nyx, his instincts reacted faster than his mind.
He launched himself forward.
Ignoring the pain shooting through his chest from his recently stabilized ribs, Batman crossed the distance to the elevator in several enormous strides.
The doors were already closing when his fingers forced themselves between them.
With a horrible metallic screech, he pried the doors back open.
He stepped inside.
“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO, YOU IDIOT?!”
His voice broke into an animalistic roar.
Barbara pressed herself against the back of her wheelchair.
Thomas towered over her like the Angel of Death.
His eyes were bloodshot.
Burst blood vessels made his gaze look completely insane.
His unmasked face was twisted by primal, uncontrollable rage.
There was nothing human left in his expression.
His large, calloused hands seemed to move on their own as they reached toward her throat.
“I fixed…
all our mis…”
Barbara’s words dissolved into a strangled cough as his steel grip closed around her pale neck, cutting off her oxygen.
He lifted her straight out of the wheelchair.
Her legs hung uselessly beneath her.
Her fingers desperately clawed at his forearms, trying to pry open the deadly grip.
But despite the fact that the man she’d once considered her mentor was methodically and brutally killing her inside the cramped elevator…
Her expression remained terrifyingly calm.
She looked at him with absolute certainty in her final conviction.
Almost as though she pitied him.
And that calmness drove Thomas insane.
It shattered the last of his psychological restraints.
“You fool!”
“Idiot!”
“Traitorous bitch!”
He roared the words, spittle flying from his mouth.
With every shout, his fingers tightened.
Crushing cartilage.
He no longer saw Barbara Gordon in front of him.
He saw an enemy.
Someone who had taken away the tools he needed to save his son.
At some point, Barbara’s green eyes rolled upward, exposing the whites.
Her face turned blue-gray.
Her lips darkened.
The frantic movements of her hands weakened until they became little more than feeble twitches.
The pulse beneath his fingers slowed into a faint, dying rhythm.
But he didn’t stop.
He kept squeezing.
Pouring all his hatred into that grip.
Hatred for the city.
For the Joker.
For Kirkman.
For his own fate.
Only two minutes later, when the body in his hands finally went completely limp, becoming a lifeless puppet with her neck twisted at an unnatural angle, did he finally exhale heavily through his teeth.
The rage vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.
It left behind only a cold, hollow emptiness.
Thomas released his fingers.
Barbara’s body dropped heavily onto the elevator floor, becoming tangled in the wheels of her wheelchair.
The man staggered backward until his back hit the cold wall of the elevator.
Slowly, he raised his trembling hands and stared at them with empty, unfocused eyes.
There was no blood on his black gloves.
But he could see it clearly.
Then he looked down at the dead girl at his feet.
Then back at his hands.
The silence of the Batcave was deafening.
Behind the elevator shaft, the red screens displaying the destruction of his databases flickered mockingly.
“W-what…”
“What have I done…”
Thomas whispered the words so quietly they were almost inaudible.
His lips trembled.
Then a quiet, nervous, broken laugh escaped him.
It gradually grew into desperate, barking laughter.
Batman laughed.