The TBM shuddered violently, coughing thick black smoke as its engines wheezed their final breaths.
Joker smacked the control panel with the flat of his hand.
"Come on, sweetheart… just a little deeper. Daddy needs to make an entrance under the Kremlin!"
The machine groaned… rattled… then died with a weak metallic sputter.
Joker blinked once.
Twice.
Then punched the console hard enough to send a hollow clang through the tunnel.
"Useless oversized can-opener!" he groaned theatrically. With a loud sigh he slapped the emergency release and hopped out of the TBM, dusting off his coat as if stepping out of a taxi.
The tunnel ahead was still incomplete—hundreds of meters short of the Kremlin's outer foundation.
"I guess this works too!" he chirped brightly.
He strolled to the metal container he'd dragged along, popped it open, and revealed the nuclear warhead nestled inside,wires, trigger circuits, and arming mechanisms tangled around each other. He hummed a circus tune as he lifted the warhead and placed it neatly in the center of the floor.
Then he pulled out a pair of reading glasses, perched them on his nose, and unfolded a small paper with the arming sequence.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The display on the arming module flickered from UNARMED to ARMED.
"Perfect~" Joker whispered, sliding the module back into the casing and closing the lid with a satisfied click.
He then rose to his feet.
"Give it up, Joker. Hand over the warheads."
Joker froze.
Slowly and delicately, he lifted his hands and turned around, face stretching into a manic grin.
"Baaaatsy! You made it! I was worried you got stuck in traffic!"
"Step away from the warhead," Cyborg warned, his arm shifting into a charged white-noise cannon.
"Ooooh,spooky," Joker mocked, wiggling his fingers. "But… no."
He moved fast and pulled out a pistol then pulled the trigger.
Batman dove aside, batarang sliced through the air with a whistle and struck Joker's wrist, sending the gun clattering away as Joker yelped and shook his hand violently.
"Ow! Rude!"
Cyborg fired.
The blast hit Joker in the chest,sending him flying backwards, slammed into the TBM's metal hull, and slid down into a heap, groaning.
Batman was already on him. He grabbed Joker by the lapels, yanking him up to eye level.
Cyborg moved to the warhead, scanners and tools activating as his systems went to work disabling it.
"What are you planning, Joker?" Batman growled. "Where are the other warheads?"
Joker cackled through the pain, his grin splitting wide like a cracked mask.
"Oooh, Batsy… I'm planning the biggest joke yet. One with a few boom-booms… sprinkled around there and there!"
He burst into wild, uncontrolled laughter.
Batman cut off Joker's laughter with a sharp punch to the face and a knee to the stomach, then yanked him close again.
"I'll ask again. Where. Are. They?" Batman demanded.
Joker spat out a spray of blood, his grin smeared and bloody. "Gosh, Batsy… you've really become impatient. Telling you now would ruin the surprise of our little reunion," he crooned.
Batman raised his fist again, but a sudden beep from Joker's watch made him pause.
"Ding, ding, ding! Time's up, Batman. Time for the surprise," Joker said, cackling wildly.
"All League members! Brace for an explosion!" Batman shouted into the comms.
Far above, Superman, still scanning the city from the clouds, hovered in place, bracing for impact. Flash skidded to a halt mid-stride, ready to respond and save as many as he could the moment it began. Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, stationed in the U.S., froze as well, awaiting the inevitable.
Jump City
The early morning sun bathed Jump City in a brilliant yellow glow. Commuters hustled along the streets, street vendors arranged their carts, and angry drivers honked and cursed in traffic.
Screams suddenly erupted from Jump City Academy as students and staff fled in panic. Moments later, a massive explosion tore through the school, the blast expanding rapidly outward. Skyscrapers buckled and melted in an instant; vehicles were shredded, and people were reduced to dust within milliseconds. The shockwave roared outward, flattening buildings, crushing cars, and annihilating everything in its path.
Far from the city,tens of kilometers away
In a dense, tranquil forest, the morning peace shattered as a colossal explosion erupted, sending plumes of smoke and debris into the sky.
Meanwhile with Wonder Woman and Green Lantern.
A distant plume of smoke rose into the early morning sky, staining the horizon in ominous shades of gray and orange. Diana's eyes widened in realization.
"That… that's Jump City," she whispered, her voice trembling with horror.
"Jesus Christ," Hal muttered beside her, eyes tracking the rising column. but before he could say more, Diana shattered the sound barrier, racing toward the mushroom cloud with unrelenting speed.
"Diana, wait!" Hal shouted, pushing himself forward, struggling to keep up as the city below blurred into a haze of smoke and fire.
Meanwhile, in Moscow
Batman's fist slammed into Joker's face for the tenth time. Blood ran freely across the clown's features, his left eye swollen shut, but the laughter never ceased.
"Batman, stop! If you keep this up, you might actually kill him. Don't do something you'll regret,we can't let him off easily by killing him," Cyborg cautioned, stepping closer.
Batman hovered his fist, then brought it down sharply,this time punching the ground beside Joker's head rather than the clown himself. as Joker gurgled blood.
"Same old Batsy," Joker rasped, spitting blood. "You haven't changed a bit all these years I was behind bars and that somehow comforts me."
Batman yanked him upright, towering over the broken man. "This has always been about me and you. Why involve the lives of millions?"
"You're right, Batsy. It has always been about us," Joker replied, his grin twisted even through the blood. "But this time? This time it wasn't… in all our encounters, I realized I always lose, and you never seem to appreciate the effort I put into our little games. So when I escaped…I thought I'd get kinky and play it differently on a different difficulty. Make your caped pals chase ghosts while the fireworks went off in Jump City. And, it was easy… as strangling a day-old infant. Hahahahaha!"
Batman froze.
Joker's words… the gloating, the sadistic satisfaction, the way he said "in Jump City"…
Something clicked. A terrible, sinking realization slid into place as he realized who goes to school there.
"You were targeting him."
Joker's grin widened, stretching across his blood-smeared face.
"Ohoooo… there he goes. Sharp as ever, Batsy."
Batman's eyes narrowed into slits. "Is this about Harley? Retribution? Revenge?"
Joker leaned forward
"Revenge? Oh, Batsy, don't insult me." His voice dropped into a raspy whisper. "its more than that"
Batman's stomach tightened. "What did you do?"
Joker clapped his hands, delighted.
"Well, when I got out last night,I did a little digging. Found myself elbow-deep in some delicious military files."
He giggled.
"And guess what I found? ANOTHER god walking among us. Stronger than Supes. And when someone poked that god…" His single eye went wide with childlike awe. "It flattened Belle Reve like a kicked anthill!"
Joker spread his arms as far as the shackles allowed.
"So I thought… what would happen if I poke harder? What if someone uses a bigger stick this time?"
He tapped his temple repeatedly.
"So I did just that, Batsy. Now I'm waiting for the hornets to come out and sting everyone TO DEATH, OF COURSE! HAHAHAHAHA!"
Batman's voice dropped to a deadly whisper.
"He'll kill you, Joker. And that will be the end of it."
Joker leaned back, unbothered, giggling uncontrollably.
"Ohh, Bats… Bats… you think it will end there?"
His deranged laugh echoed off the walls with triumph.
"It looks like this time,the joke is on you.Hahahahahahahaha!"
END OF CHAPTER
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