Chapter 28

The static crackle of the Joker's suit radio was cut by the Riddler's voice: "The bird's in the cage! Phase two!" The Clown Prince of Crime froze for a split second, his unnaturally wide grin stretching ear to ear, baring yellowed teeth. "Oh, here comes the tasty part!" he shrieked, clapping his hands and bouncing in place. "Start the engines, ladies and gents! Our little intermission's over! ONWARD TO THE BIG SHOW!"

A convoy of ten heavy trucks, like armored beetles, roared to life, smashing through the checkpoint gate of Floravita Industries' secret base. Rear doors flung open, unleashing a flood of… metal. Forty massive exosuits, gleaming dully under emergency lights, moved with heavy, relentless precision—like steel goliaths. Leading them were three distinct silhouettes:

- Scarecrow: His suit, painted a sickly purple, sported a helmet with crazed, spinning LED eyes emitting psychedelic light. From speakers, an incessant whisper mixed with a child's wail.

- Joker: A venomous green suit with a glowing purple grin across the chest plate. Each step triggered a recorded burst of hysterical laughter.

- Two-Face: Armor split perfectly down the middle—one side polished metal, the other charred and cracked, with a helmet mask blending a kind face into a cruel one.

"Luthor, darling, your toys are just DIVINE!" the Joker squealed into the radio as his suit marched through the first volleys of security fire. Bullets ricocheted off the armor like peas off a wall. Rifle bursts gave way to the hum of combat drones, but their lasers only left black scorch marks on the metal. "What's that, kiddos? Done playing? Now it's OUR TURN!"

The three leaders raised their arms in sync. Forearm-mounted emitters flared blood-red. Thin, white-hot beams shot forward, slicing through the massive steel gates of the main bunker like a knife through butter. Metal melted, dripping onto the concrete in fiery globs. The air reeked of scorched steel and the ozone tang of death.

Then she appeared in the molten gateway. The real Power Girl. Her white suit pristine, eyes blazing with cold fury. "ENOUGH!" her voice thundered, shaking the air.

She surged forward like white lightning, aiming to rip the heads off the snakes. Her fist rocketed toward the Joker… but his suit jerked aside with inhuman speed! The blow hit air. The same happened with Scarecrow and Two-Face. Ultra-sensitive cameras and servos anticipated threats, moving the wearers faster than they could react. Artificial reflexes.

"Hee-hee! Pretty quick, huh?" the Joker cackled, dodging another strike.

Power Girl gritted her teeth. She accelerated, turning from lightning to an invisible whirlwind. Her hand clamped onto the Joker's green suit, crumpling the metal like foil, yanking him out… only to reveal a terrified, painted face of a random clown henchman under the helmet.

"SURPRISE!" the real Joker howled from another suit. "Did you really think I'd jump into the fray first?"

The ground shook. From the shadow of a truck stepped Metallo. His massive, fully mechanized frame radiated cold power. A red eye-sensor in his chest locked onto Power Girl. "You're all so useless," his metallic voice grated with contempt. "Your one job was to lure her, and you botched it. I planned to take Ivy while you clowns bumbled… but since you're good for nothing…" He stepped forward, a faint, ominous green glow of kryptonite pulsing from his chest. "…I'll handle her myself."

Power Girl flinched, feeling the familiar weakness. Metallo charged, his blows heavy, calculated, tailored to her weakened state. He parried expertly, forcing close combat where his metallic might and radiation gave him the edge.

Meanwhile, another nightmare unfolded. Pamela's vines, controlled from deep within the bunker, tried to ensnare the rank-and-file robots. But their armor was too tough, their servos too strong. The metal giants tore through enhanced tendrils like cobwebs, advancing steadily toward the gates, methodically reducing fortifications to rubble under laser fire. Thirty-nine steel titans were unstoppable.

Alex watched the chaos not from the bunker but from a high vantage point on a nearby half-ruined building. His face was stone. Seeing Metallo pin Power Girl and the robots nearing the breach, he clicked his tongue. "Alright. My turn."

He took a deep breath. And activated his second.

The world froze. Battle sounds morphed into a low, droning hum. Bullets hung in the air like amber insects. Flames from molten metal solidified into bizarre tongues. Drones hovered motionless. The rank-and-file robots moved with excruciating slowness, as if through molasses. Slightly faster was Metallo, his mechanisms straining to accelerate. Only Power Girl, slowed by kryptonite and time's crawl, still moved with relative speed—a white phantom in a frozen hell.

Alex stepped into the epicenter. The air burned his skin, dense as lead. Each step demanded inhuman effort. His ordinary clothes—a sturdy tactical suit—began tearing at the seams, unable to withstand the monstrous strain of his muscles and friction against air that felt like concrete in his perception. Fabric ripped, exposing bulging veins on his arms and neck. He approached Metallo. The robot's red sensor, operating on different principles, swiveled to track him. But its metal body couldn't match his perception. The faint kryptonite glow from its chest enveloped him, but Alex felt only a faint chill, like a draft. Kryptonian tech… it creates vulnerabilities. I'm a natural anomaly. Raw power, untainted by their "enhancements."

He raised his right hand. Muscles swelled, tendons creaked under unbearable strain. In his mind, a triumphant soundtrack blared—ONE PUNCH! Three! Two! One! Kill shot!—a hymn to overwhelming force. The air resisted, thick as concrete. But Alex channeled all his will, rage, and the might of his temporal anomaly into one perfect strike.

He swung his fist upward, angled to send the energy skyward.

The acceleration ended.

Reality collapsed with the sound of the END OF THE WORLD. BOOOM!!!

Not just thunder. It was the strike of a divine hammer on the world's anvil. The sonic boom, from a punch thousands of times faster than sound, ravaged the district. Windows within a kilometer exploded, showering streets with glass rain. Nearby mercenaries bled from ears and noses, flung to the ground like ragdolls. Dust and debris surged into a massive mushroom cloud.

At the epicenter… only Metallo's mangled legs remained, embedded in the asphalt. Everything above his waist was gone. Vaporized. Obliterated into microscopic dust by the monstrous kinetic energy, directed skyward.

Power Girl crouched, shielding her face from the shockwave and flying debris. As the dust settled, she stared at Alex. Her eyes, wider than ever, held pure, unfiltered shock. He'd just done something only a raging Superman or Doomsday could match.

Alex, pale, hands trembling despite his efforts to hide it, winked at her. His voice was hoarse, spent: "My… battery's dead. Your turn… don't let anyone escape."

That was enough. The fury from the deception, the hostage nightmare, the sheer audacity of this attack—it all erupted. Power Girl shot into the air. Without Metallo's kryptonite, she was unstoppable. The once-invincible robots became heaps of crumbling metal under her crushing blows. She grabbed them, crumpled them, hurled them into each other, snapped their laser emitters. Pamela's vines, bolstered by her ally, ensnared the remnants, trying to preserve the tech… but the suits' self-destruct systems triggered. A series of quiet but effective internal explosions turned Luthor's costly exosuits into smoldering scrap. His tech wouldn't fall into enemy hands.

An hour later, Alex stood on a moonlit, soot-stained plaza before the ravaged bunker. Kneeling before him, under the guns of Floravita's security and Power Girl's unwavering gaze, were the captives:

- The Joker (the real one, no suit).

- Scarecrow (his sack mask torn off, face pale and twisted with rage).

- Two-Face (his scarred half twitching in a nervous tic).

- The Riddler (dragged in after an hour—Alex had ordered a sweep of all buildings around the power plant; Nigma, unprepared for defeat, had no escape plan, a fatal mistake).

- Penguin (in a crumpled tailcoat, monocle lost, breathing heavily).

Bane had vanished. Thirty-seven henchmen were bound, awaiting their fate.

The Joker threw back his head, cackling hysterically. "Ha-ha-ha! Magnificent! A MASTERPIECE! So what?" He sneered at Alex. "Gonna finish us off? Won't work! See, I'm the Joker! My death… it's gotta be a SPECTACLE! A tragedy! It's gotta be HIM! The Dark Knight! My eternal dance partner! You… you're just an extra. A second-rate killer. You don't have the RIGHT!"

He spotted Harley behind Alex, holding a bloodied baseball bat. "Harley! Sweetheart! My girl!" he cooed, switching to a saccharine tone. "Here to save me? Good girl! Come on, bash this smug punk! Free your Puddin'!"

Harley tilted her head, her eyes glinting with mock sorrow. "Sure thing, Puddin'…" she whispered, feigning obedience. She raised the bat, aiming at Alex… then, at the last second, her arm whipped with uncanny precision. The bat whistled past Alex's shoulder and SLAMMED into the Joker's face with a wet crunch.

"Oops!" Harley gasped theatrically, eyes wide. "Missed! How awkward!"

The Joker collapsed, blood gushing from his nose and shattered mouth. He spat out a tooth fragment, staring at Harley with unthinkable betrayal and rage. "You… you… HOW DARE YOU?!" he rasped.

"Take it like this, old man!" Harley snapped, then, before anyone could react, leaned in and kissed Alex on the cheek—loudly, ostentatiously. "Mmm, hero!"

Alex slowly wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, his gaze icy. "Smells like NTR," he remarked dryly, eyeing the writhing, humiliated Joker. Then his eyes slid across the five villains. "But this isn't about the Joker's fetishes. It's about you. Pathetic, worthless scum. Disappointed in the world? In yourselves? So you decided you had the right to poison everyone else's lives? Burn, maim, break?"

He stepped forward, his voice dropping from loud to quiet—yet all the more terrifying. Each word fell like a stone into a grave.

"I'm not Batman. I don't have his doubts. His naive faith in a system that grinds you up and spits you back out like clockwork beasts to torment the innocent again. I don't have his rules. I won't send you to Arkham—that mockery of a prison. I won't hand you to the police, where some corrupt spider in the web always sets you free." He stopped, his shadow falling over the Joker. "I am your sentence. Final. No appeals. No delays."

He spun to the Joker, pointing like a dagger.

"You," his voice rang with contempt, "babbled that your death is a spectacle for Batman? That only he gets the final chord? Well…" Alex snatched a heavy service pistol from a nearby guard's holster. Cold metal pressed against the Joker's temple. The clown's crazed eyes, always full of chaos and mockery, reflected raw, animalistic fear for the first time. Not a game. Not a show. Death. "Let's test your theory."

BAM.

The shot was sharp, final. The Joker's body jerked like a puppet with cut strings, collapsing backward. His eyes were empty. A crimson pool spread across the gray concrete, blending with his purple suit.

Alex shifted the barrel to Scarecrow, unwavering.

"And you, Jonathan Crane," his voice dripped with bitter disgust, "betrayed the very essence of fear. A psychologist, meant to heal minds, you turned them into lab rats, hammering nightmares into them until they tore apart from within. You played God over their psyche, treating fear as clay for your filthy sculptures. You devoured people alive with their own phobias."

BAM.

The former professor's body crumpled like an empty sack beside the clown, his face frozen in a mask of sudden, too-late realization.

The barrel moved to the Riddler.

"You, Edward Nigma," Alex spoke with near-regret, but no pity—just cold fact, "thought you were smarter than everyone. Built your 'genius' plans like chess games, using living people as pawns. You despised chaos but created it, hiding behind logic's facade. You crossed every line. Kidnapping innocents, turning them into monsters for your trap…" Alex shook his head. "It'd be fun to dismantle your schemes piece by piece, watch your arrogant mind crack… but no. You're not worth even that game."

BAM.

The Riddler fell, his broken glasses landing in his own blood. His gaze, furious from defeat a second ago, turned glassy.

The gun aimed at Two-Face.

"Harvey Dent…" Alex's voice held only contempt. "You're just pathetic. Torn by your demons so much you couldn't even pick a side of pure evil. You betrayed everyone—yourself, Gotham, your allies. Your 'struggle' is a pitiful parody, your coin a crutch for a weakling too spineless to own his choices. A faceless, spineless nobody."

BAM.

Two-Face fell, his cursed coin untouched. His scarred half melted into the dark asphalt.

Last was the Penguin.

"Oswald Cobblepot," Alex glanced at him, then at the bodies around. "You wanted to be king of the underworld? You bet on the wrong horse. Aligned with those who see Gotham as a dumpster for their ambitions. Betrayed even the shred of honor a man like you could've had." He waved the pistol at the corpses. "This… is the consequence. The finale of your sorry play."

BAM.

Penguin collapsed, his poison-tipped cane rolling away, a useless symbol of his ended reign.

The silence after the final shot was deafening. Alex tossed the smoking pistol to the guard's feet. His hand didn't tremble. The air smelled of gunpowder, blood, and the end of a long, dark era.

The silence was broken only by the crackle of fires and distant sirens. Alex stood amidst the ruins and smoke. Above, on a ledge of a half-destroyed building across the plaza, a figure stood motionless in the shadow of a stone gargoyle. A cape blended with the night, only the white slits of his cowl faintly reflecting the firelight. Batman. He'd seen it all. Seen bullets fall like rain. Seen Alex deliver judgment. Seen him execute it—cold, methodical, irreversible.

A gloved hand clenched into a fist. Not to throw a batarang. Just… clenched. He could've intervened. Stopped the execution. He had seconds. But he hadn't moved. His thoughts, usually sharp as his blades, fluttered like panicked birds in a cage. How many lives were saved today? How many has he saved and improved these months? And what have I done? How many villains did Arkham not save but spawn? The Joker… always came back. Always. His laughter echoed in Bruce's ears—mocking his principles, his faith in the system, the very idea of redemption. Was my war a delusion? A beacon drawing bigger monsters? Did I protect the city… or just feed its madness?

His gaze dropped to the still body in the purple suit, the blood pooling black in the moonlight. The Joker wouldn't return. No more laughter. No more victims. Final.

Batman turned away. He scanned the plaza one last time—the dead villains, Alex standing amid the wreckage, Power Girl watching him. The city he swore to protect had found a new guardian. With different methods. A different sense of justice.

"Looks like Gotham doesn't need Batman anymore," he whispered into the night, his words heavy with bitterness, exhaustion, and… a strange, painful relief. He stepped back into the shadow and vanished silently, like a ghost, yielding to a new era.

Power Girl didn't move. Didn't speak against it. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes held not judgment but… understanding. Grim, heavy, but understanding. She'd seen their atrocities. Knew Arkham was just a pit stop for them.

She approached Alex. Looked him dead in the eyes. Her voice was low, each word dropping like a weight:

"Alex…" She pointed to where Metallo stood an hour ago. "…that wasn't just strength. That was… some next-level bullshit. What. Was. That?"

Alex closed his eyes, sensing the serious talk was just beginning. Explaining "one second" of Superman would be far harder than killing five supervillains.

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Fragment on Recruiting Clayface:

A day before the final clash with the League of Evil, Alex didn't head to the armory or checkpoint. He went to Gotham's most desolate spot—a forsaken clay quarry on the city's edge. There, among dried mud lakes and crumbling shacks, dwelt chaos incarnate in clay—Clayface. Alex found him in a vast hangar, alone, rehearsing a tragic monologue, shifting from Hamlet to King Kong.

"Fine display of passion," Alex commented, stepping from the shadows, his voice echoing off rusted walls. "But does your genius languish in this… clay prison? Do you hear applause? See headlines?"

Clayface froze, his fluid face locking into a mask of surprise, then wary interest. "Applause? Headlines?" His voice gurgled like mud. "Clayface is a GREAT artist! But the world… it's blind! They see only a monster! Only destruction!"

"The world's blind," Alex agreed, stepping closer. "Because you're on the wrong stage. You've forgotten the modern tool." He pulled out a phone, its bright screen lighting his face in the dark hangar. "This is the global audience—billions of eyes ready to see your talent. Every transformation, every role, live."

He opened OnlyFans, showing vibrant profiles, subscriptions, revenue figures. "Imagine: Clayface Premium. A world-class chameleon. Today, a perfect Wonder Woman; tomorrow, a gothic anime neko-girl; the day after, a surreal Dalí masterpiece. No limits! No boundaries! Your talent will be recognized. And paid. Generously."

Clayface's "eyes" (or their hollows) blazed with ravenous hunger for fame. "Everyone…? I can be… everyone? They'll see me? Love me? Pay me?!"

"Exactly," Alex nodded, seizing the moment. "Two conditions. One: no parodies of Harley Quinn, Pamela Isley, or Kara Zor-El. Their images are taken. Two: Floravita Industries becomes your exclusive sponsor. We fund costumes—or rather, form references—shoot locations, promotion. You're our star. Our unique project."

Clayface froze, his clay brain feverishly weighing eternal obscurity in the quarry against global fame and wealth. The choice was obvious for a being defined by change and recognition.

"YES!" he roared, his form surging upward in a triumphant pose. "Clayface AGREES! The stage awaits! The world awaits! WHERE'S THE CONTRACT?! WHERE'S THE CAMERA?! I already see my first look—'Wonder Woman in clay negligée'! A MASTERPIECE!"

Alex didn't offer a pen but extended his hand. "Deal's sealed with a handshake. Welcome to the team, star. Tomorrow, you debut on the main stage against the Joker. You'll play Power Girl."

Clayface gurgled joyfully, his clay paw gripping Alex's hand with bone-crushing enthusiasm. Thus was born Gotham's strangest alliance: a strategist buying chaos with the promise of OnlyFans immortality, and a clay god finally finding his adoring audience. The next day, reveling in the anticipation of future fame, he took Bane's blow in the power plant, launching his path to internet eternity.