Watchtower, Two Hours Earlier

  The conference room felt smaller than usual despite its size. Superman sat at the large oval table with his hands clenched so tightly that the reinforced metal beneath his fingers had started to dent.

  Wonder Woman stood beside him with one hand on his shoulder, offering silent support. Around the table sat Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Cyborg, Shazam Green Arrow and Black Canary.

  Batman was the only one absent. Everyone knew why.

  Clark had just returned from Avalon twenty minutes ago. The trip had been necessary but painful—leaving Faora unconscious in Hippolyta's care while Hera worked to counteract the Kryptonite poisoning. Before that, he'd taken Martha to Metropolis General, watching helplessly as doctors worked to repair the damage Mockingbird had inflicted. The carved smile. The trauma.

  His mother. His unborn child. Both nearly killed because he hadn't been fast enough.

  "Clark," Diana said quietly. Her voice was gentle but firm. "Don't worry. Faora is safe. My mother and Aunt Hera will take care of her. My dad will make sure she is safe."

  Clark finally looked up. His eyes were haunted. "I was almost too late, Diana. Another few seconds and..." He couldn't finish the sentence. "Mom's face... What he did to her face. The doctors said they can reconstruct it after Bruce sent blank cheque, but the psychological trauma...."

  "Your mother is a strong woman, Clark." Arthur said from across the table. The King of Atlantis had seen his share of horror in the deep oceans, but even he looked disturbed by what Clark had described. "She raised you. That takes a special kind of strength."

  "He's right," Barry added. The Flash was vibrating his legs slightly, a nervous habit when he was trying to process something upsetting. "Your mom is tough. She'll get through this."

  Clark nodded but didn't look up. "I should have been faster."

  "None of us saw this coming," Hal said. "You did your best to protect them."

  Clark nodded but didn't look convinced. The image of Martha's blood-soaked face, her mouth carved into that grotesque smile, kept replaying in his mind. And his lover Faora—strong and proud Faora—reduced to a helpless woman by Kryptonite poisoning while that thing wearing Dick Grayson's face tried to murder their child. Even now it was spreading through her body, very different from regular Kryptonite.

  Hal Jordan leaned forward, his Green Lantern ring glowing softly with his emotional state. "Okay, so let's focus on what we can do. The Joker somehow got reality-warping powers that makes him even more dangerous than usual. How do we stop him?"

  "That's the problem," J'onn J'onzz said. The Martian Manhunter's red eyes were troubled, his usually calm demeanor shaken.

  "The energy signature I detected from Batman's recording is unlike anything in my experience. It registers as fifth-dimensional at minimum, possibly higher. The psychic resonance alone suggests power on a cosmic scale."

  Victor Stone had multiple holographic displays floating around his head and hands, his cybernetic components interfacing directly with the Watchtower's analysis systems. Numbers and diagrams scrolled past faster than human eyes could follow.

  "I've been running continuous analysis on the reality distortions we detected earlier," Victor said. "The Mother Box has been going crazy since this started. It keeps throwing up warnings I've never seen before. Whatever power source the Joker accessed, it's actively rewriting fundamental physics across multiple locations simultaneously."

  "Multiple locations?" Diana asked.

  "At least a dozen confirmed," Victor confirmed. "Gotham is the epicenter, but there are smaller distortions appearing in other cities. New York, London, Tokyo, Paris. They're growing slowly but steadily. Like a seed sprouting to become a tree."

  Billy shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Despite having the wisdom of Solomon, he was still a kid in many ways, and this situation was way above his usual comfort level. "So what does that mean for us? Can we even fight someone with that kind of power?"

  "I've faced reality warpers before," Barry said. "But this feels different. Bigger. Like the difference between a campfire and the sun."

  "Because it is bigger," came a new voice from the doorway.

  Everyone turned as Batman entered. His cape was torn in several places. His cowl sat slightly askew on his head. Dried blood stained his gauntlets and parts of his armor. Alfred Pennyworth followed two steps behind, looking haggard and decades older than he had that morning.

  "Bruce, Alfred." Clark stood immediately, the metal table groaning as he pushed away from it. "How's Dick?"

  Diana was surprised. "It's rare to see you up here Alfred."

  Alred bowed politely despite his uncomfortable posture. "I wish I could be back in my home preparing afternoon tea miss Diana, but it was rather imperative to evacuate Gotham." Diana raised an eyebrow hearing him.

  Batman's jaw clenched behind his cowl. When he spoke, his voice was completely flat, the tone he used when burying emotions too painful to acknowledge. "I have contained him in a reinforced cell. Sedated with enough tranquilizers to drop an elephant. Still laughing."

  The room fell silent.

  Alfred stepped forward, his usually impeccable composure cracking. "Master Dick's neural patterns are completely rewritten. The toxin didn't just affect his brain chemistry, it fundamentally altered who he is at a neurological level."

  Diana's hand tightened on Clark's shoulder. Hal's ring flared brighter. Barry stopped vibrating entirely. J'onn's eyes closed briefly in empathy, he understood loss of self better than most.

  Batman moved to the head of the table with mechanical precision. "But that's not why we are here. We have a significantly larger problem."

  He pulled up a holographic display from the Watchtower's systems. The image showed what initially looked like an aerial view of a carnival or circus. Bright colors, attractions, crowds of people.

  But something was wrong.

  The colors were too bright. Garish reds and yellows and purples that hurt to look at directly. The attractions were twisted, bent at impossible angles. And the people... they didn't look or feel happy despite the smiles.

  Diana leaned closer, her warrior's instincts screaming warnings. "What am I looking at?"

  "Gotham City," Batman said simply. "As of one hour ago."

  The room erupted in shocked exclamations. Batman raised one hand for silence and zoomed out the image.

  The "carnival" wasn't contained to one location. It was spreading across the entire city like a disease.

  What had once been skyscrapers were now twisted into carnival attractions. A bank transformed into a funhouse, an office building into a hall of mirrors, a hospital into a horror maze. The streets had become winding paths through an impossible circus. And throughout it all, thousands upon thousands of people were trapped.

  Batman pulled up individual surveillance feeds.

  One screen showed a man strapped to a carousel horse. His mouth was stretched impossibly wide in a rictus grin. Tears streamed down his face. His jaw had dislocated from the strain of forced laughter. But he kept spinning, round and round, unable to stop or look away as the world blurred around him.

  Another feed showed a woman in what looked like a hall of mirrors. But her reflections had come alive. They were chasing her, grabbing at her, pulling her hair. She ran and ran, her feet bleeding, her voice hoarse from screaming. But the screams came out as laughter. Hysterical, broken laughter that didn't match the terror in her eyes.

  A third showed a group of children, couldn't have been older than ten, on a roller coaster. But this coaster didn't follow normal physics. It looped through impossible dimensions, twisting the riders' bodies in ways that should have killed them.

  They stretched and compressed, their forms distorting as they passed through spatial anomalies. And they were laughing. All of them laughing while their eyes showed nothing but horror and fear.

  "Dear God," Arthur breathed. Even he, who had witnessed the horrors of the deep ocean where sunlight never reached, looked sick.

  Barry's face had gone completely white. "How... how many people?"

  "Gotham's population is approximately eight million," Batman said. His voice remained that terrible monotone, like he was reading a weather report instead of describing hell on earth.

  "Not all of them have been affected yet. The transformation is spreading outward from Arkham Asylum at roughly three miles per hour. I believe Joker is making it slow in purpose. Some people escaped before the perimeter closed. Athena helped evacuate several thousand through portals before the reality distortions became too severe. But the majority..." He didn't finish the sentence.

  Diana stood abruptly, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. "You said some escaped. Does that mean..." She emphasized the word carefully. "Did everyone have a chance to escape?"

  Bruce's shoulders sagged slightly, the first crack in his emotional armor. "Athena is currently at the Batcave , maintaining a protective barrier against the reality distortions. She created a safe zone that allowed us to evacuate anyone who could reach the Cave in time. She also opened portals to allow people near the perimeter to escape.

  But the transformation happened rather quick and without warning. Most people were inside the affected zone before they realized what was happening."

  He pulled up a timeline. "First distortions detected at 14:47. Full reality collapse of central Gotham by 15:12. That's twenty-five minutes from first warning to complete transformation. Not nearly enough time for a proper evacuation. And even Watchtower can't detect it. It's only visible with human eyes. I have shifted Mockingbird to a different location. If Joker could sense him, he could get to these people."

  He deliberately didn't call the thing in his containment cell "Dick Grayson." Nobody pushed him on it. They all understood.

  J'onn stood, his usually serene expression troubled. "Batman, this scale of reality manipulation... the energy expenditure alone should be impossible. You said the Joker made a new 'friend' who gave him power. Do we have any identification on this entity?"

  Batman pulled up another set of displays—complex energy signatures, mathematical equations, analysis reports. "Based on the nature of the reality warping and the specific energy frequencies, I believe we're dealing with a fifth-dimensional imp. I have the booklet given by my mentor that records some dangerous beings to avoid, it was there.

  There aren't many beings with that kind of power. My working theory is that the Joker somehow tricked this entity into granting him a portion of their power, then..." He highlighted a specific energy spike on the graph. "Then he took more. Significantly more. Making him nigh omnipotent."

  Victor's eyes widened as he processed the data streaming into his cybernetic brain. His expression shifted from concerned to horrified. "Wait, these readings can't be right. If I'm interpreting this correctly—" He pulled up his own analysis, cross-referencing with Batman's data. "The Joker didn't just receive a fraction of fifth-dimensional power. These numbers suggest he... he stole almost all of it."

  "Almost 99 times stronger," Batman confirmed. "Leaving the original entity with barely enough power to maintain existence."

  Clark's hands clenched harder. The table beneath his fingers crumpled like paper. "Then we go to Gotham. We find him. We stop him. Right now. I'll make him pay."

  "It's not that simple..." Batman started to say.

  "Don't tell me you are going to say we can't kill him, Bruce? Even after what he has done?" Clark growled.

  Diana had a tense expression. "If it was any other villain, I would agree with containment. But Joker has proven that it doesn't work on him."

  Bruce closed as his eyes and began to speak, "I... am not going to argue moral codes. Every fibre of my being is telling me to kill him in the most brutal way possible. But that's not the impulse we should focus on. Our priority is rescue first, then justice.."

  He was cut off as every screen in the Watchtower suddenly activated simultaneously.

  The main viewscreen. The holographic projectors. The status displays. Cyborg's internal screens. Even the reflective surfaces in the room began showing the same image.

  The lights dimmed. The air grew heavy. Reality itself seemed to twitch, like the universe had stumbled.

  On every display, from the smallest monitor to the massive main viewscreen that usually showed Earth's orbit, appeared the same figure. It was being projected not just here, but all over the world, in every location and language.

  Emperor Joker sat on an impossible throne in a room that hurt to look at. His outfit shifted constantly between royal robes and a jester's costume, sometimes appearing as both simultaneously. His face paint was perfect and his smile stretched beyond what human facial muscles should allow. His eyes swirled with colors that didn't exist in normal space.

  Behind him, visible through the distorted reality, floated a crystal prison. Inside was a shriveled figure in purple, barely recognizable as Mxyzptlk, the fifth-dimensional imp. He looked desiccated, hollow, like something had drained almost everything that made him real.

  "Helloooooo world!" Emperor Joker's voice didn't just come from the speakers. It echoed from the air itself, from the walls, from inside their heads. "This is your Emperor speaking! Man that sounds catchy! Anyway, I hope you've been enjoying the show so far!"

  The heroes immediately sprang into action. Hal raised his ring, creating constructs to block the transmission. Victor's hands flew across holographic keyboards, attempting to hack the systems and shut down the broadcast. J'onn reached out telepathically to sever the connection.

  Nothing worked.

  The screens couldn't be turned off. The transmission couldn't be blocked. It was being broadcast not through technology or telepathy, but through reality itself.

  "Oh, you people must be thinking I'm insane, right?" Emperor Joker's tone shifted. His smile remained impossibly wide, but his eyes went cold and focused.

  "That the heroes will stop me again like they always do. That your pretty little society will go back to what you call 'normal' while you folks continue living in your own collective madness and pretend it's civilization. That's a very bad joke. It's not funny at all."

  He leaned forward, his face filling every screen. "So let me show you how the world truly is. That your illusions about being civil, your precious moral codes, your... justice—" He spat the word like it was poison, like it personally offended him. "—all of it is meaningless. Just another setup waiting for a punchline. And I'm about to deliver that punchline."

  He snapped his fingers.

  Reality bent to his will.

  Through the Watchtower's reinforced windows, designed to withstand meteorite impacts and energy weapons, they could see Earth below. And they watched in helpless horror as it began to change.

  The transformation spread from Gotham like a plague, like cancer, like reality itself was being infected by madness.

  Buildings across the globe twisted into impossible shapes. In New York, skyscrapers bent into corkscrews. In Tokyo, apartments folded in on themselves like origami. In London, entire city blocks rearranged themselves into maze patterns.

  The oceans started changing colors; not natural blues and greens, but shades that had no names. Purple oceans. Orange seas. Waters that were somehow both liquid and solid simultaneously.

  The sky stopped following weather patterns and started cycling through emotions instead. Happy yellow sunshine gave way to angry red storms, which shifted to melancholy blue fog, which transformed into manic green lightning.

  Gravity became optional in random locations. Cars and people floated upward in some areas while being crushed to the ground in others. Physics stopped being a law and became more of a suggestion.

  Time stuttered. In some places, seconds lasted hours. In others, days passed in moments. Some areas were caught in loops, experiencing the same minute over and over.

  And everywhere, people were laughing.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Not joyful laughter. Not amused laughter. Forced, hysterical, agonized laughter as reality itself became the joke and they were the unwilling punchline.

  In New York, the Statue of Liberty suddenly came alive. She stepped off her pedestal and began dancing a jerky, unnatural jig while crying tears of molten copper that burned anyone they touched. The tourists who'd been visiting were now part of the show, forced to dance along with her even as they were squashed under her feet.

  In Paris, the Eiffel Tower bent itself into a pretzel shape and began playing music. A discordant, maddening symphony that drove everyone who heard it to laughter-inducing hysteria.

  In Tokyo, the buildings grew mouths. Actual, working mouths with teeth and tongues. They laughed along with the citizens trapped inside them, the sound magnified by their steel and concrete throats.

  In London, Big Ben's clock face transformed into a giant spinning wheel. Whatever time it landed on determined your fate. Three o'clock meant you aged three hours. Twelve o'clock meant you experienced the same moment twelve times. Midnight meant you ceased to exist for exactly sixty seconds before reality remembered you.

  A bridge in London was stuck in a time loop where it kept being destroyed and rebuilt while a familiar melody was heard in children's voice.

  "London bridge is falling down,

  Falling down, falling down

  London bridge is falling down

  My fair lady"

  "No," Clark breathed, pressing his hands against the window. His fingerprints left dents in the reinforced material. "This can't be happening!"

  Diana moved immediately toward the teleporter station. "We need to get down there. Now. We have to stop this by any means."

  She activated the teleporter controls. The system powered up, energy gathering for transport,

  And immediately shut down. Every light went dark. Every system went offline.

  "What the hell!" Victor rushed to the main console, his cybernetic components interfacing desperately with the Watchtower's network. "The teleporter's been completely locked out. I can't access any of the transportation systems. Boom Tube generators, shuttle bay doors, emergency escape pods, everything's sealed!"

  A shimmering barrier suddenly appeared around the entire Watchtower. It was visible as a soap-bubble film of impossible colors that shifted and changed as they looked at it. The barrier seemed to exist in more dimensions than their eyes could properly process.

  Hal immediately created a massive battering ram construct; pure willpower given form, designed to shatter reinforced steel. He slammed it against the barrier with all the power his ring could channel.

  The construct shattered like glass on impact. The barrier didn't even ripple.

  "The barrier is composed of extra-dimensional energy," J'onn said, his telepathic senses probing the obstruction. His face tightened with concentration, then paled. "It exists in more spatial dimensions than we can access. We're... we're trapped."

  On the screens, Emperor Joker waggled his finger in exaggerated disapproval, like a parent scolding naughty children. "Uh uh uh, it's rude to leave before the show is over! You guys get front row seats to the biggest entertainment event in universal history and try leave before the finale?! You should be grateful! I even arranged comfortable viewing positions! No need to thank me, your suffering is thanks enough!"

  Beside him on the broadcast, Harley Quinn giggled and twirled. "They're such party poopers, puddin'! Don't they know it's super rude to bail on a performance? Especially when you worked so hard on it!"

  Clark's eyes started glowing red. Heat vision built behind his eyes, enough concentrated energy to melt through almost anything. He fired at full power directly at the barrier.

  The twin beams struck the shimmering surface and simply... stopped. Just stopped, like they'd hit something that existed beyond the concept of physical interaction.

  Diana drew her sword. Her original blade reforged by her brother Alphonse, capable of cutting through almost anything in existence. She struck the barrier with all her considerable strength, with three thousand years of combat expertise channeled into a perfect strike.

  The impact created shockwaves that rattled the entire Watchtower. Equipment shook. Loose objects fell from tables. The sound was deafening.

  The barrier didn't even crack.

  Barry vibrated his molecules at the precise frequency designed to phase through solid matter—a technique he'd perfected over years. He launched himself at the barrier at super-speed.

  He slammed into it like he'd hit a brick wall and bounced back, stunned and disoriented.

  Victor opened a Boom Tube, channeling the Mother Box's power to create a portal directly through the barrier. The portal formed a swirling vortex of energy, and immediately collapsed.

  The Mother Box shrieked warnings directly into Victor's cybernetic brain, flooding his consciousness with alarm signals. Danger. Unknown. Cannot process. System failure.

  Arthur struck the barrier with his trident—a weapon that commanded the seas themselves.

  J'onn tried to phase through it in his Martian form. Shazam called down lightning from the ancient gods. Hal created constructs of every conceivable shape and size. trying to find any weakness in the barrier's structure.

  Nothing worked.

  They were trapped. Helpless. Forced to watch as the world below descended into a nightmare that laughed.

  Emperor Joker stood up from his throne with exaggerated grace, adjusting his constantly-shifting robes like a king preparing for court. "Now then, I believe it's time for me to properly introduce myself to my captive audience! Can't have a performance without meeting the performers!"

  Reality twisted.

  One moment the Watchtower was empty except for the League. The next, Emperor Joker was standing right there with them watching the screens like a kid watching his favorite cartoon show.

  The heroes immediately shifted into combat positions. Years of training and experience took over, overriding the shock and fear.

  Clark and Diana moved to the front, the team's heaviest hitters, their best chance in a straight fight. Hal created an array of weapon constructs, surrounding Emperor Joker from multiple angles. Victor armed every offensive system in his cybernetic body. J'onn prepared his telepathy, ready to strike at the mind. Arthur gripped his trident in a defensive stance. Barry vibrated, ready to strike at super-speed. Shazam's hands crackled with lightning from ancient gods.

  Batman stood perfectly still at the back, his detective's mind racing, analyzing every detail, looking for the weakness that every enemy had. There had to be something. There was always something.

  Emperor Joker surveyed them with amusement, his too-wide smile somehow growing even wider. "Oh, how adorable! Look at you all, standing there like you can actually do something! It's like watching ants prepare for war against a boot!"

  He giggled, a sound that was somehow more disturbing than his laugh. "Please, please, by all means, entertain me! I love a good warm-up act!"

  Clark moved first.

  He crossed the distance at super-speed—fast enough that normal human eyes couldn't track the movement, fast enough to create sonic booms in his wake. His fist was aimed directly at Emperor Joker's face, channeling enough force to shatter planets, to punch through stars.

  Emperor Joker caught the punch with one finger.

  Just one finger. Placed casually against Clark's fist like he was stopping a child's playful push.

  Clark's eyes widened in shock. He pushed harder, channeling every ounce of his Kryptonian strength—the strength that can move planets, had held back tectonic plates, had caught falling satellites.

  Emperor Joker's finger didn't budge. Didn't even tremble.

  "Is that it?" Emperor Joker asked, tilting his head while his other hand scratched his ear. "I thought the Man of Steel would hit harder. Even my daddy's belt hit harder. This is disappointing!"

  "My turn!" He flicked his finger forward.

  Clark flew backward like he'd been hit by a meteor. He crashed through three reinforced walls—each designed to withstand high-caliber weapons, before finally stopping in the observation deck. The impact would have instantly killed anyone without invulnerability.

  Diana charged immediately, not giving Emperor Joker time to recover. Her sword was raised high, divine power channeling through the blessed blade, years of Amazonian combat training flowing into a strike designed to kill gods.

  Emperor Joker caught the blade between his teeth.

  Diana stumbled, her momentum stopped completely. Emperor Joker's teeth shouldn't have been able to stop the sword. Nothing should have been able to stop that sword.

  "Mm," Emperor Joker said around the blade. "Tastes like justice. Bit bland for my taste. Needs more chaos, more uncertainty, more flavor."

  He bit down.

  The god-forged metal blessed by Olympian deities, tempered in divine forges, shattered like cheap glass.

  Before Diana could process the impossibility, her own Lasso of Truth unwound from her hip and wrapped around her body. The lasso that compelled truth, that couldn't be escaped, bound her completely.

  "There we go! Much better!" Emperor Joker said cheerfully. "Really brings out your eyes!"

  Hal's ring blazed emerald as he created a massive construct cage around Emperor Joker, reinforced with geometric patterns designed to contain even the most powerful entities. The Green Lantern Corps had used similar constructs to imprison rogue aliens.

  Emperor Joker looked at the glowing green prison with interest, like a child examining a new toy. "Oh, pretty! Is this supposed to do something specific?"

  He poked the construct with one finger.

  It popped like a soap bubble.

  Hal's ring flickered once, then went completely dark. The emerald glow that had been a constant part of his life for years just... stopped.

  Hal stared at his hand in shock, at the powerless ring that had never failed him before.

  Hank made his move. If physical attacks wouldn't work, perhaps a mental assault would succeed. He was one of the most powerful telepaths in the universe. He'd faced and defeated mental threats that could shatter lesser minds.

  He dove into Emperor Joker's consciousness, unleashing a psychic assault designed to overwhelm, to incapacitate, to shut down higher brain functions.

  Emperor Joker's mind was... horrifying.

  It was infinite. Contradictory. Every thought existed in all possible states simultaneously. Sanity and insanity weren't opposites in his mind—they were the same thing, overlapping, interweaving, creating patterns that made no sense and perfect sense at the same time.

  hank recoiled immediately, his mental defenses shattering like glass against the impossible architecture of Emperor Joker's consciousness. Blood streamed from his nose. His eyes lost focus.

  "Oh, that wasn't very nice," Emperor Joker said, shaking his finger in disapproval. "Peeking into someone's head without permission? Tsk tsk tsk. Very rude. Let me return the favor!"

  He snapped his fingers.

  Hank screamed in pain. His worst fears manifested directly in his mind with the force of reality. Mars burning, not the memory, but the actual experience happening again and again. His family dying in flames, calling out for him, blaming him for not saving them. The the fire everywhere, consuming everything, burning away everything he loved.

  He collapsed, unconscious before he hit the ground, his mind unable to process the torture.

  Barry didn't hesitate. He tapped into the Speed Force and attacked. Hundreds of punches per second from every conceivable angle simultaneously. The air around Emperor Joker ignited from the sheer friction. The temperature spiked to thousands of degrees.

  Emperor Joker yawned.

  Barry found himself frozen. Not physically—he could still perceive everything, could still think. But time around him had stopped. He was trapped in a single nanosecond, unable to move forward or backward through the timeline.

  "Sorry, speedster," Emperor Joker said. "But I control when 'now' happens. You're stuck in a moment, and you can't get out of it. Very fitting, don't you think?"

  Another snap of his fingers. Barry crashed to the floor as time resumed but his momentum was completely negated. He gasped for air, disoriented and helpless.

  "SHAZAM!" Billy Batson shouted, calling down the lightning of the gods.

  The magical lightning struck, and bounced back.

  It reflected off Emperor Joker like light off a mirror and hit Billy directly. He transformed back into a twelve-year-old boy and collapsed unconscious.

  Arthur charged with his trident raised, calling on his Atlantean strength and rage. Emperor Joker snapped his fingers. The trident transformed into a rubber chicken. Arthur stared at it in disbelief before a casual backhand sent him flying into a wall.

  Victor fired every weapon system in his body—plasma cannons, sonic disruptors, EMP bursts. Emperor Joker snapped his fingers and all of Victor's tech went haywire, shocking him into forced shutdown.

  In less than minutes, the Justice League, Earth's mightiest defenders—had been completely defeated.

  Emperor Joker dusted off his hands like he'd just finished a minor chore. "Well, that was disappointing! I expected more from Earth's Mightiest Heroes! Is this really the best this planet has to offer? The hype was seriously exaggerated!"

  Only Batman remained standing, and Diana bound by her own lasso.

  Emperor Joker walked over to Diana, circling her like a predator examining prey. His movements were exaggerated, theatrical, but underneath was genuine menace.

  "Now then, Wonder Woman. You're going to be very important to my final joke. The punchline, if you will!"

  Diana glared at him with pure defiance. "What do you want, clown?"

  "Oh, it's not about what I want from you," Emperor Joker said. He reached out and tapped her forehead with one finger. "Gosh, pretty women can be narcisisstic."

  Diana felt something enter her body. Foreign. Wrong. Like a splinter driven into her soul. She tried to fight it off, but bound by her own lasso, she couldn't.

  "What did you do?" she demanded through gritted teeth.

  "I planted a little surprise inside you!" Emperor Joker giggled with genuine delight. "A cure, actually! The only thing in all of existence that can reverse what I'm doing to the world! Isn't that generous of me? I'm basically a philanthropist!"

  Batman's eyes narrowed behind his cowl. "What's the catch?"

  "Oh Batsy, always so suspicious! Can't you just accept a gift?" Emperor Joker spun to face him, his smile somehow growing even wider.

  "But yes, there is a tiny, teeny, microscopic little catch. The cure can only be extracted one way, by killing her and literally ripping it out of her corpse!"

  He walked back to Diana's bound form. "And there's only one person I want to make that choice. So you, my dear Princess, are going to call daddy dearest and give him an ultimatum he can't ignore!"

  Diana's eyes widened with understanding and horror. "You're targeting my father."

  "Ding ding ding! Smart girl! Takes after daddy!" Emperor Joker clapped his hands together. "See, I've heard so much about the great Edward Elric. The god-slayer. The man who killed thousands of gods without hesitation to protect humans. I want to see what happens when he has to choose between his principles and his daughter!"

  He spread his arms wide, addressing the room like a showman on stage. "Billions of lives across the world! Every single person slowly being driven genuinely, irreversibly insane by my carnival of chaos! The transformation is irreversible through conventional means—they'll be broken beyond any hope of recovery! OR—" He pointed dramatically at Diana. "He kills his precious daughter, extracts the cure from her corpse, and saves everyone else!"

  Batman's fists clenched so hard his gauntlets creaked. "You've gone too far this time, Joker. I don't care what it takes—"

  "Oh, but you do care!" Emperor Joker interrupted. "That's the beauty of it! You care so much about your moral code, about not crossing that line! And now you get to watch while Edward decides if HE cares more about his code than billions of lives!"

  He started laughing—genuine, delighted laughter. "Either Edward proves he's just another monster willing to sacrifice family for the 'greater good,' or he lets billions suffer and proves that all his heroic posturing is meaningless when it really matters! Either way, I win! Either way, the joke's on him!"

  Bruce started to move forward, rage finally breaking through his control, when Emperor Joker snapped his fingers.

  Batman froze in place mid-step, unable to move anything except his eyes. Paralyzed.

  "Ah ah ah, Batsy. You don't get to interfere. This is between me and him. You're just audience."

  Emperor Joker walked over to Diana. "Now then, Princess, be a good girl and call your daddy. Tell him his little girl needs help. Tell him the clock is ticking."

  Diana spat at him. The saliva hit his cheek. "Go to hell."

  Emperor Joker wiped it off casually. "Been there, actually. Visited last week. Demons makes decent drinks but the ambiance is terrible. Way too much fire, not nearly enough whimsy. The demons have no sense of humor." He snapped his fingers.

  Pain lanced through Diana's body. Not physical pain, something worse. The cure inside her activated, spreading through her system like poison, like acid in her veins.

  She gritted her teeth, refusing to scream, but couldn't completely suppress the groan of agony.

  "Every hour you don't call him, the cure spreads more," Emperor Joker explained cheerfully.

  "Eventually it'll kill you anyway—probably in about six hours. So really, you're just choosing whether billions die with you or your daddy gets to make the hard choice. Clock's ticking! Tick tock, tick tock!"

  Diana gasped through the pain, sweat beading on her forehead.

  Emperor Joker turned to address the frozen, defeated Justice League. "Oh, and before I forget—Mockingbird is still out there! Still playing his game! He's going to finish his job and kill Superman's baby mama and that little parasite in her belly! So Supes will have to choose between helping his friends stop me or saving his family! More choices! More suffering! More entertainment!"

  Clark paled in fear. He was stuck between two impossible decisions,

  He started laughing, spinning in place. "Everyone gets to make impossible choices! Everyone gets to see that their precious morals mean nothing when reality itself is the punchline! This is the greatest show in the universe!"

  He raised his hand, preparing to start killing the unconscious heroes one by one until Edward showed up.

  Suddenly, reality distorted inside the watchtower. The cold space became colder, causing frost to appear on the metal.

  The air bent. Space folded. Three presences appeared simultaneously, not traveling through space but simply deciding they should be there.

  Edward stood in the center, his eyes blazing white with power that made the air shimmer and crack. The killing intent radiating from him was so pure, so focused, that it made breathing difficult.

  Beside him, Lucifer Morningstar spread his wings—pristine white and glowing with the light of Creation itself.

  On Edward's other side, Olethros manifested as pure Destruction, reality crumbling and reforming around him.

  Diana smiled through the pain, relief washing over her face. "Father! You're here! Joker put something inside me, it can save everyone!"

  Edward softened his expression and spoke, "Don't worry honey, everything will be alright."

  Lucifer grinned devilishly. "I heard some bad reviews about hell just now. As a self respecting devil, I can't slide that by now."

  Emperor Joker's smile faltered for the first time. His eyes widened. His cosmic awareness showed him exactly what had just arrived, and for the first time since stealing Mxyzptlk's power, he felt genuine fear.

  "Oh," he said quietly. "Oh, that's not fair at all."

  Edward's voice was cold as the void between stars. "You threatened my daughters."

  Emperor Joker looked between the three beings, and realized he had made a catastrophic miscalculation.

  "That's cheating!" he protested weakly, his voice actually trembling.