"Sire, we have received word from Gotham."

The Demon's Head stirred in his seat, eyelids sliding open to reveal steely blue eyes. Rolling his eyes to a side, he saw Ubu standing at his side, a walkie-talkie in his hand being offered to him.

Cooly gazing at his right-hand man, Ra's al Ghul took the receiver and held it before him. For the first time in quite some time, he was unsure of what he was about to hear. It was rare that any of his subordinates requested his presence to inform him of their progress. In fact, most were content on sending word to him through messengers, the belief they were unworthy to speak to him in any manner encouraging such behavior.

That is to say they weren't entirely wrong in that belief.

Pressing the talk button, Ra's ordered, "Speak."

The voice of the Detective came through the receiver, slightly distorted by the static. "The pit has been secured and sealed."

A thin smile appeared on his ancient face, still youthful to all who laid eyes on him. This was not what he would refer to as news that required his due diligence. A task such as this was not difficult in its implementation. "Then proceed to your next objective, Detective," he spoke, his voice devoid of emotion, a small spark of irritation effectively masked.

"Negative, there was a breach in security that needs to be taken care of."

The Demon raised an eyebrow as he stared at the device dispassionately. That was in stark contrast to the hint of curiosity he also felt. Who was so brave and foolish to think they could infiltrate the ranks of his Fangs? Even more pressing was how they managed to slip by the Detective. There had been extremely few mishaps on the dark-clad man's watch that when they occurred they were more amusements than serious faults. This was not an amusement. "How has this happened?"

"Subject led a force of three to four hundred attackers. While they occupied the outside guard, the subject found the hidden path and confronted me just before the pit entrance. He has since fled back to Gotham."

That really caught Ra's attention. This was certainly surprising, especially since the intruder managed to evade capture by his current favored pawn. This was incredibly unlike him. "Are you sure the pit is secured?" he pressed urgently.

"Affirmative. I have investigated the site and the subject completely ignored it. He was more interested in me."

That was no cause for concern then. "Dispatch a unit to eliminated the intruder and continue on with your primary objective, Detective," he ordered. "They are of no consequence."

"Negative."

Ra's stopped as he processed that response. Someone was disobeying his direct order? Jaw tightening, he gripped the walkie-talkie tightly as he said sternly, "You have your orders, Detective; I suggest you followed them through."

Instead of the affirmative he expected, the Detective answered, "This breach occurred under my watch and I will be the one to rectify it. I will accept whatever punishment you deem fit upon my return, but I will fulfill my obligation to you. Detective over and out."

And with that, the call ended. There was a brief silence as the Demon's Head regarded the walkie-talkie, unsure if that conversation had really happened. Of course, Ubu could not contain his rage as he spat out, "Blasphemous! I will drag that dog back here so he can beg for a swift death!"

The corner of Ra's mouth twitched upward. "That will be unnecessary, Ubu." Out of the corner of his eye, he amusedly noted the flabbergasted look on his manservant's face. Ignoring it, he held out the communication device to him, to which Ubu removed from his hand.

Still, Ubu was not ready to let this drop. "But Master, the dog has disobeyed a direct order. He must be punished!"

"All in due time, Ubu," the man said, pressing his palms together in front of his face as his fingers steepled. "It has been quite some time since someone showed such steel in my presence. I would like to observe where this act of impudence goes. If the Detective succeeds, then I may be inclined to overlook this infraction; if he fails, however, he will receive swift punishment."

A twinkle appeared in his eye, the ghost of a smile appearing on his face. He would most definitely watch this pawn intently. He was proving to be quite useful and, dare he say, ambitious. It would seem his daughter had chosen wisely.

Now it was time to see just how wisely.

The Medbay was in use again, only this time Hawkgirl and the Martian Manhunter were the occupants. A steady flow of IV fluids and sedatives were keeping them hydrated and unconscious for the time being. In the meantime, quick action was needed.

The moment Zatanna had returned to the cave she had instantly went to the Batcomputer and brought up the Joker Venom antidote formula. Thankfully Flash had returned mere seconds later with his unconscious load and immediately put the antidote into production. There were some parts that would naturally take longer than others, but Flash could do everything else in seconds that would've taken...well, much longer.

Of course, Stewart wasn't happy when he saw the formula hovering on the computer screen. "Are you telling me there was an antidote the entire time?" he demanded angrily. "What about all those people out there?" he then gestured wildly in the direction of the construction site. "You left them out there to die!"

Zatanna whipped her head around to glare at him, unshed tears welling up around her eyes. "You think I don't know that?!" she shouted back just as heatedly. "It makes me sick to my stomach to do that, but the only way those people could be saved was if a batch of this stuff was made and ready for use. Problem is no one's made any of this in three years, not in the quantity you told me you needed. So unless you wanted to play God so badly and chose who lived and died, then get off my back!"

"Both of you, calm down," Superman intervened. "It was a bad situation with only bad choices to be made. The only thing we can do right now is get a supply going and be ready for the next outbreak."

Lantern still didn't look pleased, but at least he wasn't harping on her. "I still say we could've tried to save some of them," he groused

Zatanna glared at him but chose to not respond to that; it just wasn't worth the effort. Faintly, she was starting to see how Bruce felt about this stuff. That brought up a new question: "What the heck was Joker Venom doing out there anyways?"

That caused Superman and Green Lantern to look at her questioningly. "Joker Venom?" the Kryptonian repeated as if those words were just too ludicrous to be next to each other.

That was when Diana joined the conversation, standing on the other side of the magician. "This is not the first time you've mentioned that name. What is it?"

"A very nasty poison," the shorter woman answered tightly. "The Joker exposed an entire crowd to it when he was running around. It killed everyone exposed to it in minutes."

"How big of a crowd are we talking about," Lantern asked gruffly.

"Five hundred plus."

That caught his attention. "You have to be joking."

Zatanna turned her head to give him a look. "I wouldn't use that word if I were you. You just watched a bunch of people laugh themselves to death."

Lantern grimaced before he finally chilled just a bit. "Okay, I get it," he finally acknowledged, perhaps the closest thing to an apology the dark-haired woman was going to get.

The magician didn't soften her glare a bit. He deserved as much for being a jerk. "The question still stands though: how did it get out there? There's only so many places a person could find that stuff, much less make it."

"The Jokerz," he responded. "It was like several of them had bombs straps to them. I saw this one Joker detonate them when I confronted him." He shook his head. "Guy was completely off his rocker too."

"What did he look like?"

"White face, green hair." Lantern paused as he frowned as he tried to recall more. "These red lips."

Zatanna felt the blood in her face drain out as she paled. No, no way. No, no, no, this was not happening. Jerking around, the dark-haired woman saw one of the nearby stalagmites and threw her hand towards it, "Ecomeb rekoj," she commanded.

In a burst of smoke, the stalagmite vanished, only to reappear in a life-size image of the Joker, grinning face, groomed green hair, and purple suit. It was just like the way he looked when he had taken over her show at the Jezebel.

The three heroes stared at the figure, Superman and Diana blankly as Stewart studied it. "That's close," he admitted before raising his hand, a soft green light shining out from his ring. An image of a man with stringy hair, scar markings on his face, and a trench coat appeared next to Zatanna's magically created statue, albeit with a green cast to him. Hesitantly, the magician approached the two figures, giving the Lantern's creation a thorough look-over. Aside from the hair and scarring, they both shared the same evil eyes, long sharp nose, and lips.

Zatanna's hands began to tremble. There was no mistaking it, that was most definitely that scumball. She had hoped and prayed he had gone down in flames with Bruce, but apparently Hell wanted nothing to do with the maniac and spat him back out.

One thing was clear though: they were going to need a lot more antidote.

"Hsinav," she chanted with a wave, her Joker disappearing in a cloud of smoke to return to its original rocky form. Spinning back around, the magician walked back to the computer, a look of determination on her face. If Joker was back, then she would see him behind bars before this night was over.

Allowing his own Joker to fade away, Stewart crossed his arms over his chest before he said, "There was also another thing. When the others and I got to the construction site, the Jokerz were in a brawl with the Society of Assassins."

That caused Superman and Diana to snap their heads over to look at him. "What were they doing there?" Diana demanded.

"No idea," he answered with a shrug. "We weren't able to investigate because of that Joker Venom. I want to go back to the site for further investigation."

Superman nodded. "I'll go with you. Until we know what's going on, it's best we go in pairs."

Stewart returned the nod with one of his own. "Agreed."

"It would be best if you waited," Diana interjected. "There may be more of this Joker Venom there, so you should take some of the antidote with you when it's ready. There's no telling how long this gas will take to dissipate and you may be exposed."

"Good idea."

Suddenly, the Batcomputer lit up with red light, an alarm blaring throughout the cave, causing Zatanna to jump where she stood, wide eyes staring with alarm. All heads not belonging to her snapped over to the screen, a red whirlwind suddenly racing up and coming to a stop next to them.

"What the heck is that?!" Flash exclaimed as he stared with the others at the computer.

Zatanna's fingers danced over the keyboard until a window appeared. It was a grid of Gotham, large red dots appearing throughout the northern part of the city. With a frown, the dark-haired woman responded, "A lot of fires," her voice questioning. When a couple more dots appeared, her frown deepened. "Hang on a second," she said as she began typing again.

This time another window appeared, this of real time footage in the city. The view was from a traffic camera, so the majority of the sight was of the street. Switching through a couple other cameras, it was a stroke of luck that she found a camera captured the sight a building next to the intersection suddenly becoming consumed with light before exploding with flames.

"Fires my ass," Stewart declared. "Those are bombs!"

Eyes widening, Zatanna went back to the Gotham grid, looking at where all the dots were. Couple that with the news of the Joker's return and it didn't take her long at all to figure out what was going on. "Joker's attacking the city again," she said. "He's trying to burn it down again and he's definitely not taking his time again."

"The construction site can wait," Superman spoke up, hands balling up into fists. "We're going to have to stop this before the entire city is destroyed."

Well, Lois was back in Gotham again. Sad to say it hadn't changed all that much since her last visit and that was a little disappointing. Just because she had moved away didn't mean she wanted to see her old stomping grounds go to crap.

Faintly, the reporter wondered why she bothered coming back to this dump. That thought was immediately answered by her reason for being here: Perry White. Okay, okay, so she volunteered for this gig out of some sort of misplaced loyalty. It was just much easier to blame her boss.

With her luggage lying on the floor, the dark-haired woman laid back on her bed. She was staying in one of the better hotels in the city, which she immediately compared to her old apartment and came to the conclusion that this was a hell of a lot nicer. It certainly helped that she was paid better since she joined the Daily Planet, so she could afford a nicer hotel.

Lois sighed. Perhaps she had jumped the gun a little coming to Gotham so earlier. The anniversary thing wasn't for another couple of days, which left her too much time to reminisce and reflect on how different everything was, at least when in contrast to her life in Metropolis. Damn Bruce for dying so that she had to make this trip every year.

And just as sudden as she had that thought, she immediately took it back. It hadn't been his fault for what happened and despite their interactions, she felt she needed to at least pay some respect to the man. It was the least she could do for him saving her that one time. If she was honest with herself, and she tended to be to a brutal level, she'd keep coming here until Gotham either rotted away, or she couldn't physically make the trip. Damn loyalty.

It was because of these deep thoughts that Lois wasn't completely disturbed by a low rumbling off in the distance. Lois had thought it odd, but guessed some idiot had fired off some fireworks within the city limits. Another rumbling, this one much closer, made her start to rethink that, even looking to the large glass door that led to the balcony with a look of curiosity. In fact, she could've swore she felt her bed shake.

That was when the rumbling became a deafening eruption, the sight of a nearby building exploding into flames. In an instant, Lois shot out of her bed and was tearing open her balcony door. Faintly she thought that any sane person would've dove for cover instead of charging for a better look. Maybe Jimmy was onto something with calling her crazy.

That was a thought for another time. Standing on her balcony, Lois stared at the sight of the burning building, soon greeted with another building exploding off in the distance, followed by another and then another.

Dear God, terrorists were attacking!

And what a scoop she had on her hands! Bolting back into her room, Lois tore into her luggage, pulling out her tape recorder and a small pad of paper and pen. She paused for a moment to wonder about her sanity that she was even considering going out to report on the explosions, not to mention Gotham's infamous nightlife of criminals.

...better take her mace too.

"HAAAA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!"

Oh, it was glorious, beautiful, stupendous! Joker had forgotten what it was like to blow a building into smithereens. The glow that emerged from the building soon bursting out with flames before that thunderous roar of the blast echoed out was truly magical. Oh, he was definitely not going to forget to do this on New Years.

In the distance, sirens began wailing, probably from the fire brigade. The cops would be scrambling around like they always did and the ambulances, oh the ambulances, they'd be stuffed full of crying, burning, dying people. It was like a symphony to his ears and he was ready to conduct his masterpiece.

Hopefully, Batsy was somewhere out there, running himself ragged as he tried to save every person he could, not that he would. Huff and puff all he wanted, not even he had Bat-Breath strong enough to put out these fires. Of course, that raised the question of what Batsy had been even eating to get that kind of funk, but hey, who was he to judge?

Holding his hand out, Joker called out, "Oh Sammy, be a doll and get me my microphone. It's time I address my adoring public."

A mike was slapped firmly onto his hand, and Joker wrapped his bony digits around it. "There you go, Boss," Sammy grunted. What a nice guy. Ignoring the thug, Joker admired his handiwork for a moment, getting lost in the beauty of the dancing flames. No wonder arsonists played with matches.

However, it was time to move to the next phase. The first wave was over and it was time for intermission.

Hey, he could be a nice guy when he wanted to be.

The Detective felt an odd sense of deja vu. Standing on the corner of a building, he looked out over the city, various buildings selected at random engulfed in flames. He had only just arrived at his present location when the first explosion went off. One by one, a new explosion rang out into the night, lighting up the landscape with orange and red, thick black clouds of smoke reaching up to the heavens.

And then, just as sudden as they had started, they stopped. A headcount told him fifteen buildings had been destroyed, along with the countless number of lives that had perished. The pure randomness made it difficult for the black-clad man to find a pattern. There were a few high-rises that had been lit up, which were then followed by warehouses over by the docks, and then some office buildings in the business district. If mass casualties were Joker's endgame, then some of the buildings he had destroyed left something to be desired. Property damage had been his next line of thinking, only to see some bombs goes off in what appeared to be lower income neighborhoods.

It honestly looked as if it had been a scatter shot of places that had been chosen for this attack. That's where the Detective ended his line of thinking; it was the only thing that made sense. Joker was just simply blowing up whatever he wanted without much forethought.

For some reason, he wasn't surprised by that.

However, it remained the psychotic clown was somewhere out here. Even as some white clouds began to raise into the air, a sign that the fire department was beginning to put out the blazes, the black-clad man couldn't help but think about his confrontation with the madman. After his words at the construction site, the Detective knew Joker would be admiring his work, rejoicing in the insanity of it all. It was just a matter of finding the right vantage point.

"Ehem, hem, hem, ohhh Batsy! Yoohoo!"

Speak of the devil…

"I know you're out there, probably doing good-doer things, but listen up! This is important! If I know you—and believe me, I do—you're trying to save as many people as you can, even if they're horribly burning alive. Now, if I were you, I'd drop that extra crispy corpse—preferably off the side of a building, but hey, that's just my preference. Anyways...where was I? Oh right! Drop your dead weight and come catch me! Just like old times, am I right?"

Well, that was the plan, not that the Detective was taking any suggestions. The only problem was that Gotham was a big city and Joker could be just about anywhere. The moment he had heard the clown's voice, he had tried figuring it out where it was coming from, only to find a loudspeaker on the corner of a building. Considering that it was bolted to the building's wall with wires trailing down to the street and headed right for a powerline pole, the Detective surmised that the device had been there for awhile. So that meant the Joker had hijacked it for his uses, most likely with his own frequency.

All that meant was that he still had no lead as to where the psycho was. However, that was all about to change when Joker began speaking again.

"Now, I know it has been awhile, and since I'm such a nice guy, I decided to give you some help! Keep your ears open and eyes peeled; I can only do this once."

A flash of light off to his left caught the Detective's attention, followed by the roar of several explosions going off one after the other. Jerking his head, the black-clad man caught the tail end as multiple buildings burst into flames, a choking cloud of smoke billowing high into the air. Unexpectedly, he felt anger at the sight of it. He wasn't sure as to why.

Fortunately, that irrational feeling didn't cloud his more logical side. Staring at the fires, he began to see they formed some sort of...line. No, lines, as in multiple. One was horizontal while two were diagonal to the first. He needed a better view to be sure.

Reaching to his belt, the Detective pulled out a gun, an arrow head sticking out of its barrel. Turning to his right, he immediately saw a much taller building next to the one he stood on. Raising his grapple, he fired the arrow at it, a cable twirling behind it until the arrow punctured stone. Tightening his grasp on the gun and then bringing his other hand to make sure his grip was secure, he then hit the retraction button, the cable going taunt before he was hauled up into the air, wind shrieking by his ears. Reaching the end of the line, the Detective released his hold on the gun and used his momentum to carry himself higher still until he flew over the edge of the building, his flight peeking and then dropping him down to land on the roof. Kneeling down, the black-clad man reached for his discarded gun and grabbed it, yanking it out of the stone wall and retrieving it.

Standing back up, the Detective looked towards the group of bombings, eyes narrowing as he saw what he suspected: an arrow of burning buildings pointing him the way he should go. If that's what Joker wanted him to do, then he would do it. It was obvious the crazed man wanted his attention and the Detective was not a person to refuse such a blatant invitation.

Never disappoint the host, even if it was a megalomaniac.