Earth -22
Gotham City

BOOOOOOM!

There was an explosion in the burning city of Gotham.

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAA! Which one do you think it was, Batssss?" the laughing voice spoke.

"Mercy Hospital? Or maybe it was the Gotham General? It's hard to keep the chaos straight this late in the game." Joker said  standing before Batman, who was on his knees, tied and gagged at the pale
man's mercy.

"-huff huff-" was all that Batman could speak through the gag in mouth.

"Aw, come on! You have to get into the spirit of this thing to make it right!" the Joker spoke as he was cleaning his bloodied knuckles on a brown overcoat.

"The drugs are only interfering with your body, after all, not your mind. I made sure of that."

"MMMFF! MMMMFFF!" Batman tried to speak back through the gag.

"Hee.... Therre we go! Look, I know this must be very hard on you. It's hard on both of us. Do you have any idea how many charts you need to coordinate the systematic killing of an entire city?"

"I guess you wouldn't. Because that's your one line, isn't it? Killing," the Joker said.

"You and your pals, sigh, like good old Jim Gordon. Right to the end, I heard him shout it over the radio, over and over... 'BY THE BOOK! BRING HIM IN
BY THE BOOK!"

"Heh, but when I finally got to him, he understood. I saw it in his eyes... right before I dissolved them, I mean," the Joker said as he put the glasses and the overcoat on himself.

"He called for his girl last, you know, hard to hear as his jaw was melting. 'Buh, buh, buh....' I saved the pipe for you though! Still warm..

"MMMFFFFFF!" Batman moaned as he seemed to
understand what the Joker was telling him.

"JJJMMMM!"

"See, Batss, were running out of time, you and I. We need to evolve and fast, or we miss our chance. There is no 'by the book' anymore. I threw the damn thing out, BURNED IT!" The Joker said as he kicked Batman on the ground off his feet and so his body would be facing the city.

"Every story, every character, one by one. All
the cops, all the villains, looking for that breaking point."

"UNNFFF!" Batman moaned through the gag as he saw the dead bodies of his enemies, and Catwoman, and the observers could see the desperation in his eyes as he saw them. "SSSLLNNN!"

"The joke too far, it has to exist, Bats. I know it does," the Joker said pressing his foot down on Batman's side passively before kicking him again.

"Well tonight I'm going to tell it! I'LL SHOUT IT FROM THE DAMN ROOFTOPS! CAN YOU HEAR ME, BATMAN!? CAN YOU?!"

"UMMFFFF!" Batman moaned as the observers saw
movement at the other side of the street.

"Oh dear, what's this now?" the Joker said reacting to the
movement as he pulled out a handgun. "A lovely young
family coming home from the theater-
"DNNNT!" Batman moaned through the gag with his
mouth bleeding as a mother, father and their child were
shown walking towards them. "NNNNN!"
"Oh, I know what happens next," the Joker said before-

BLAM! BLAM!

Shooting both parents to the head in front of their child before kneeling to talk to the orphaned little girl.

"Don't be afraid, you don't need you mommy and daddy anymore," the Joker spoke to the little orphaned girl as he put his arm around her. "You're the first citizen of a Brand New Gotham. One made from the best of Him and the best of Me. Doesn't
that sound wonderful?"

"I.. heh.... I..." the little girl tried to speak as the Joker stepped away from her and to a growing shock of the observers, her skin begun to pale white and her face turned to an insane grin as she begun to laugh and run away. "HEEHEHHEHE HEHEHEH HEEEE!"

"HA HAH HA HA HA HAHA HAH HAHA HAHAA!
NOW! BRING THE NEXT FAMILY! AND THE NEXT!" The Joker laughed as suddenly the surrounding area was revealed to have twirling line of families being lead to the Joker and Batman by gun wielding goons. "AND KEEP THEM COMING! OUR LINE FOR HIS LINE! HAH HA HAHA HAHHAAAA!"

BLAM! BLAM!

"NNNNNN!" Batman moaned as the Joker kicked him on his stomach to force him watch as the families were brought before him, one by one, for the parents to shot and their children be turned insane by the Joker.

BLAM! BLAM!

"NN!" Batman moaned.

BLAM! BLAM!

"MMPH!" Batman moaned more.

BLAM! BLAM!

"N!" Batman moaned as the gunshots echoed into his psyche and his PTSD begun to feed his anger and turn it into strength. "JKRRRRR!"

BLAM! BLAM!

RAAAAAAAAH! the ropes snapped from around Batman arms as he freed himself.

BLAM! BLAM!

"And here we go," The Joker said gleefully as Batman ripped the gag from his mouth.

"JOKER!" Batman yelled with rage and emotional
compromise in his voice.

"NEVER!" The Joker yelled back, in a similar voice
mocking at Batman outrage before turning at the mass of people with an automatic machine gun and beginning to slaughter everyone there, including his own men. "I'm never going to stop! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAA!"

PTOOTH!

"STOP!" Batman yelled grabbling himself up into the air and landed his feet first on the Joker's chest area and begun to beat his fists at the mad man as the beatdown drew them both to the alley between buildings and out of the observers' line of sight, leaving them to only hear what was happening.

"'STOOOOOP!"

"Uhh! NO. ILL KILL-"

"STOP!"

"TLL KEEP -ugh- COMING THIS WAY NOW..!"

"STOP!"

"YOUR FAMILY -ack- NEXT! HAH HAHAHA!"

"-huff huff- NO! YOU'LL STOP!"

"NEVER! -ungh-" The Joker was heard spitting back at Batman from the alley. "HAHAHA! You still don't have the guts... DO YOU, BRUCE?! No...... HEEEE.. IT'S GOING TO BE YOU AND ME. TOGETHER FOREV-"

"STOOOOOOOOOOOIOP!" Batman yelled just-
KRAK!

Batman and the Joker had moved to from their fighting. to see a shaking Batman holding the Joker in a neck hold, with the mad man's head twisted out
to hang out of its place.

Stop...stop... stop... stop." Batman kept repeating in a shaking voice as he held the Joker's dead body and looked through the observers with soaking eyes.

..stop.. stop...stop." He said. Batman and the Joker's dead body in his hands.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHH HHH!"

Suddenly the Joker's dead body moved, releasing green gas from his mouth.

"-cough- couch- cough-" Batman coughed as the gas
reached him as he was holding the Joker's dead body and was closest to be caught breathing it in his current state. As Batman coughed trying to get the gas out of his system, he let go of the Joker's body and his uncontrollable coughing caused him to fall on his knees.

2 Days Later...

"He was dying." Bruce said. With Superman and Wonder Woman by Batman, who was standing straight with both of his hands on the railing. On
his left there was the man in a blue costume with a red cape and S-symbol on his chest, leaning to the railing with his arms. On his right, the woman wearing red, gold and blue armor with bracers and a tiara, standing on her own without needing anything to keep her balance. They were all looking down from the catwalk and looking down there as well... the sight down there was sick and twisted to look at.
The orphaned children whose parents the Joker had
murdered before infecting with poison. The were kept down there, cackling, grinning and glaring up at the people above them.

"The chemicals that made him the Joker, they were starting to eat him away from the inside," Batman spoke on the other catwalk with just his eyes flashing in the dim lighting as the rest of his face was kept in the dark by standing directly under the only lamp.

"That's what pushed him to take things so far. why he pushed me." Batman said.

"Are you alright, Bruce?" Wonder Woman asked with concern in her voice.

"If you're asking whether I'm going to slide down the
slippery slope, no," Batman said standing up with a focused posture. "I'm not sorry he's dead, Diana, but I won't give him the satisfaction of becoming what he wanted me to be."

"That's all we needed to hear, Bruce," Superman said
looking down at the infected children.

"I have spoken to S.T.A.R. Labs in Central City about taking the children in. With Arkham destroyed and GCPD in ruins, it seems the least we can do." He said he wanted to make something new out of the 'best'
of us. My trauma and his, blended together.."
Batman said  with his head lowering from his previous posture as he looked down.

"Clark, they might be beyond saving." Batman said.

"We can't believe that, Bruce," Wonder Woman said placing he hand on Batman's shoulder as moral support. "No one is beyond saving."

"I'll be administering their treatment myself, they need to deal with someone they can't hurt," Superman said fixing his posture and turned to look at Batman.

"A psychologist spoke to one of them this afternoon and she almost tried to bite her throat out." He said.

"Hah." Batman said in what seemed to be a sarcastic
chuckle.... to a serious issue, causing his friends to look at him confused. "I'm... I'm sorry, that... that wasn't funny."

The next room behind the lit door was a sparring arena. There were big robots fighting four people with seven gargoyles. They were Batman's family.

"Are you kidding me, MORE ROBOTS!?" Batgirl told Nightwing as their opponents kept on advancing. "Since when has a single training protocol
lasted THREE HOURS!?"

"Well don't look at us!" Brooklyn said.

"What I want to know, Batgirl, is what Robin did to get out of the sparring session from Hell," Nightwing told her as a large tanking robot and a smaller fast robot advanced on them.

"Nightwing! I think Bruce added a new difficulty level," Red Robin yelled from the other side of the arena. "They have never been this dangerous before- WATCH OUT!"

Batgirl barely managed to counter the smaller robot as it attacked her with cleaver knifes.

"No kidding, Red Robin. We need a new strategy,
Nightwing yelled back dodging the bigger robot's flying rocket fists. "Red Hood!?"

"Don't look at me," Red Hood yelled from his own end as the bullets from his handguns bounced out of the big robot.

"This thing is bulletproof!"

"This is Batman we're talking about!" Red Robin yelled attacking the smaller robot with a low kick and removed it's head.

"We need to shut them down manually!" Lexington said.

"Hey, Batman!?" Nightwing yelled as he jumped on the bigger robot and tore important parts from it causing it's back to explode.

BLAM!

"Appreciate you brushing up our basics, but it's been years since you brought any of us into train in the cave." No more robots spawned to the arena as Nightwing continued.

"Something's wrong. Talk to us, Bruce. We're family." Dick said.

"You're right, Dick." Bruce said.

FLASH!

The whole room flashed quickly and then the scenery changed from the training arena to a front of a large screened computer and console as Batman's voice answered to Nightwing. On the computer screen there was an x-ray of someone's head and the brain inside the skull charts, and in the front of it the four fighters standing in front of Batman who looked like he had trouble standing.

"I've been stalling, but there is no hiding from the truth," Batman spoke in a deep voice, like he was sick and confessing on his deathbed. "When I... killed the Joker, I was infected with a new strain of nanotoxin unlike anything I've seen before. It was there all along... in his heart, more virulent than anything he had ever unleased. Trapped in his
cells, harmless unless... unless...

"Unless he died," Batgirl said looking at the charts on the screen.

"Yes, Barbara," Batman said nodding his head with his eyes on the floor. "As soon as necrosis hit, the toxin was released. Just enough to infect one person at close proximity...

"It's been at work for nearly a week," Batman kept talking, "rewiring my mind to be like.... his. If the process is allowed to run it's course, I'll have the same highly ordered mind I have always had, with the moral core replaced with something evil."

"It was his last wish, that whoever killed him would
become him," Batman then said, "I confirmed this earlier tonight and called all of you here."

"The training, it wasn't for the usual villains, was it?"
Nightwing asked, obviously trying to process and accept what they had just been told. "You were making sure we were ready to fight you."

Batman didn't answer, just kept looking at the floor.

"God, Bruce. We're not going to fight you, we're going to help you!" Broadway said.

"Aye lad! We're going to make sure you survive." Hudson said.

"Okay, let's problem solve," Batgirl said trying to form a solution. "We need a prison you can't break out of until we find a cure."

"Phantom Zone?" Red Robin suggested.

"No... that won't work." Batman said in a weak voice and turned to lean towards the computer console, so he could keep standing.

"Then we find another way," Red Robin said. "Look, we were trained by the World's Greatest Detective. None of us are going to go rest until you're put to right. And if you're worried about the city, then we'll work in shifts helping them through the post-Joker chaos."

"No, Tim, you don't understand..." Batman spoke with really heavy breaths.

"Yes, we do, Bruce," Batgirl said as Red Hood flinched behind her, with his body language similar to her.

"We have all been hurt by that monster before." Jason said.

"This is just another one of the Joker's games, the last one," Nightwing said expressing his belief in him and trying to reassure his mentor. "You prepared us for this."

"I know," Batman said, now clearly as he turned his back to them to lean at the computer console with his both hands.

"That's why I brought you here."  Bruce said.

"Well, we're here to help," Red Hood said.

"No, not to help, Jason," Batman said as he was visibly shaking as he spoke. "I brought you her because the four of you would notice something was wrong with me before anyone else would...... and I'm sorry, but I can't allow that."

"Bruce?" Nightwing asked, with the same tone in Goliath as Batman seemed to turn to them again.

"What are you... what're you doing?" Dick asked.

"Something you weren't prepared for," Batman answered in the harrowing cold voice as he begun to turn around again and...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAILLLLWIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" the observing party scream as soon as they saw Batman's face, pale with an insane grin on it, as he began to shoot the Bat family.

BUDDA! BUDDA! BUDDA!
BUDDA! BUDDA! BUDDA!
BUDDA! BUDDA! BUDDA!
BUDDA! BUDDA! BUDDA!

Sound of the automatic handguns that Batman was using to gun down and kill his own family as he maniacally laughed as he did it. "HAH HAH HAH HA HAH HAH HAH HA HAH HAHA HAH HAHA HAHAH HAH HAHA HAHA HAHA HAAH!"

The scene change to the Watchtower of the JL, a
space station with a large broken table, fallen chairs and dead bodies of people in colorful costume.

"This place once was the Justice League Watchtower, Orbital satellite, floating 22 500 feet
above Earth's orbit and these people were this world's greatest heroes.

"Bruce..." The last man barely standing among the dead and the yellow S shield on the back of his cape.

The Man of Steel and once they did, they saw how bad of a condition he was. Superman was barely standing by the remains of Wonder Woman, who looked like she had been strangled by the golden rope around the neck, while Superman was bleeding from his eyes with his legs in a spread position and arms hanging towards the floor, like he couldn't keep
supporting his own weight.

"Bruce..." Superman said looking.

"I've been thinking a lot the last few days, about the man I once was," Batman's harrowingly cold voice then spoke, echoing around the room and making everyone try to locate where it was coming from. "I just walked through the Justice League trophy room, and it struck me how many weapons we have gathered over the years."

"I remember how justified bringing them here," Batman's cold voice spoke again, this time starting to jump from one place to another around the room.

"You thought they should be destroyed, but I pushed. I wanted to know how they worked."

"And I do, Superman," the cold voice said taunting the last survivor who also tried to locate it's source.

"I know how to operate Doomsday machines that could level cities in seconds." As Superman tried to find where Batman.

"They used to keep me up at night, but I couldn't
understand why," Batman's cold voice said now sounding clearer and coming from one direction.

"Now that my mind has been put right, I finally understand. It's simple."

Batman was standing there, or rather, the thing that Batman had turned into was standing there, blocking the entrance to the room. His costume and appearance had changed as well from the grey and black costume he had previously worn. Now his costume was black with the Bat-symbol in his chest being yellow, the cape and cowl as well as the boots
and gloves were dark purple, with the cape's inside yellow and on the exposed part of his face under the mask, the skin was pale white, and he was grinning like the Joker before him.

"I wanted to use them, Clark," Batman said approaching Superman maniacally. "I wanted to use each and every one of them."

"But why..." Superman asked, trying to keep his distance as the insane Batman approached him. "Why have you done this?"

"The same reason, because I want to," Batman said
pointing his finger at Superman and any of the observers were unable to recognize him as the same man they had met before. "Because I don't have to hold back anymore. Hell, I'm disappointed I only get to do this once. Can you imagine, do you have any idea, how many ways I know how to kill you!?"

"The people.... they'll see what you are," Superman
struggled to oppose his former friend.

"They'll fight back!" He said.

"They better," Batman said standing up straight and looking down on Superman with a wide grin on his face.

"What fun would it be if they didn't fight back?"

"Oh God, Clark," a woman's voice said in the room as a mother and son suddenly appeared there with them. "What has he done?!"

"Dad! My eyes....." the son yelled scared at Superman, as like him, his eyes were also bleeding. "Something's wrong with my eyes... I'm scared!"

"Why don't you pull out the old Superman magic?" Batman said leaning away from them as Superman took the mother and son to his arms. "Puff out that old chest of yours, throw a smile, tell your wife and son that it's going to be all right."

"Tell them that the good guys are going to win in the end, Batman said as his voice begun to turn even colder and more harrowing.

"I won't cheapen what I stand for," Superman said holding his wife and son close to him. 'I won't lie to my family!'

"Aww, that's okay," Batman said as there was seen movement behind him. "You can lie to mine."

That movement was coming from the infected children the Joker had infected before his death, now crawling and jumping around Batman while wearing red tunics, green gloves and boots and yellow capes, with Rs on their chests.

"Father..." one of the Robins, this one walking normally like Batman was and was visibly older than the others, said looking at the boy in Superman's arms.

"Can I play with Jon, now?" He asked.

"Just a moment, Damian," Batman said keeping the oldest Robin behind himself. "The grown-ups are talking.

"You.." Superman said even more shocked and now
disgusted. "You did this to your own son!?"

"It only took a little push, and he did it to himself. It actually gave me the idea for what I'm going to do to you," Batman said glaring at Superman and his family as he pulled a shining black rock from the back of his belt. "This is a modified strand of Black Kryptonite. When I tested it on your cousin Supergirl, she ripped her foster family apart before it's affects killed her."

"BRUCE!" Superman's wife yelled scared for her life at Batman. "You don't have to do this!"

"I know," Batman said as he then threw the black rock at her. "Lois, catch!"

"Lois, AHHH," Superman said as the rock begun to effect on him, "stand b-AAAAAAH!"

"Mom?" the boy spoke as it begun to happen to him as well. "What's happ-URGK!"

"Clark?! Jon!?" Lois was heard saying. "STAND BACK! GET BACK! AAAAHHH!'

SKKRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

"Hahaha hahaha hahah haa, it was simple really," Batman's cold voice spoke, now directly to them, "killing my world.

The scenery had changed once again from the space station to an apocalyptic wasteland of bones, bodies and ash, with the Batman's attire having changed again, now to the black overcoat over the dark
grey suit and boots with the mask now having his eyes obscured by the band of thorns, which extended as the bat ears. This evil and insane Batman was sitting on a throne made from bodies burned together along with his Robins.

"No matter what they threw at me- armies of villains, alien tyrants, the wrath of God- they were just problems to solve. One by one, methodically, with precision and blood," the evil Batman spoke to them from his throne ad looking down at them as the ground begun to shake. "Until the world was ASH under my feet, until the firmament begun to shake and the cosmic nothing swallowed everything I knew."

THOOOOM!

KRA-KA-KA-KA-KA!

The evil Batman looked around at their surroundings as the red skies begun to throw lightning bolts at the ground and take away the ground everyone was standing on as the final touches to the end of the world.

"It felt right, you know," the evil Batman said smiling comfortably as he looked down. "I had served my greater purpose, there was no lower to sink anymore.... Or was there?"

KRA-KA-KA-KA-KA!

Once again, the ground shook and then a large shadow was cast to cover the observing party before the evil Batman. As they turned around, they were faced by a large and tall being wearing a robe and a hood with ears similar to Batman's mask and the arms exposed from under the robes were skeletal thin with metal bracers on them.

"Barbatos showed me the Dark Multiverse, volatile and roiling with cosmic horror,"
the evil Batman said, having landed from his throne down to them while they haven't been watching. "It was beautiful, as I saw how small I had
been thinking. There were countless of worlds left to kill."

"And one world above them all, where Batman lived," "The Batman."

"Barbatos said I was the perfect weapon to unleash on this world to drag it kicking and screaming into the Dark, but I wouldn't do it alone," the evil Batman said as he descended
as the other evil Batmen from before stepped out from the shadows. "After all what kind of a world could stand the likes of us?"

The Dawnbreaker floated in the air with his ring glowing with the Murder Machine appearing next to him as cloud of floating nanites. Then the Devastator appeared in his large monstrosity as the hard and grey skinned tank with bone structures coming out of his body with his deep and hard breaths shaking the room's atmosphere. The Drowned was also there, showing the signs of looking happy.

Zoom!

Red Death appeared next with the use of his super speed and then there was the Batman wearing a dark blue armor, the Merciless. When they all were shown, the scenery had also changed to now show the cosmos of dark space.

"You see.. a Batman Who Laughs.." the insane Batman said, chuckling as a pair of feet bursted through the blood, "...is a Batman who ALWAYS WINS! HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HA HA HAH HAH HAAA!"