Chapter 26

-Time ? Location ?-

Karen groaned as she woke up and as she looked around and noticed that she was in a circus tent of some kind and she noticed Hermione lying next to her and she quickly went over to her side and she started shaking her and said in a worried voice, "Hermione are you ok?"

Hermione groaned as she covered her face with her right hand and asked, "What happened?"

"Some kind of gas, most likely laced with the special kind of kryptonite that affects you and me," Karen responded as she looked around and she noticed 3 more people there too, also unconcious. Karen glared at them as she recognised them. They were her beloved parents and brother. And they looked like they were in a main circus tent, complete with with everything you'd imagine in a circus.

As she was helping Hermione up, they heard the groans of their guests as they got up.

"Where are we?" James Potter asked.

"Last thing I remember was maniacal laughter," Lily responded.

Sirius let out a fox whistle as he noticed the company.

"Sirius," Lily said in a motherly voice as she too noticed Karen and Hermione.

"I'm not interested anyway," Hermione responded as she tried to get her bearings back.

Sirius eyes widened as he recognised Hermione's voice and said, "Hermione Granger? Bookworm Granger?"

"Wow! You filled out," Sirius complemented and continued as he tried fixing his hair, "Who's your friend?"

"Your sister Karen," Karen replied in a deadpan tone as she looked around and noticed their was no openings in the tent.

"Impossible," Sirius replied, "My sister supposed to look more like my mother than a model on Play Witch."

"People change," was Hermione's response.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" came a voice of speakers.

"Joker!" Karen and Hermione exclaimed in unison.

"Why have you kidnapped us?" Hermione asked.

"And where is Grandma Rose?" Karen asked.

A television lowered from the ceiling lowered and was Joker on the screen with Grandma Rose tied up behind them, upside down over some kind of tank, and they couldn't see what was inside the tank, "Don't worry about her, as you can see she is perfectly safe with me."

Harley Quinn, appeared on the TV, hugging the mad clown, "Jokey Poo are you going to tell them about the game?"

"Who is the clown?" James asked to the the 2 teenaged girls.

"The most deranged criminal on the face of the planet," came Karen's response.

"You are too kind," the clown responded as he gave a bow.

"Why have you kidnapped us?" Lily asked.

"You see I'm looking for some items and it has come to my attention some meddlesome goody-to-shoes have these items locked away." Joker answered.

"Let me guess, we're the ransom," Hermione said.

Joker's face now filled the TV screen and replied, "Why of course, I've used some magical gas that Voldie guy had stored away along with certain individuals as test subjects for our little game."

The captives winced as they put the pieces together and Hermione and Karen winced as they knew now how they were knocked out, Kryptonians had no defense against magic.

"You mean Voldemort," Sirius asked.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" was the only response, "I know you 5 can easily escape the tent but if you do, dear old grandma here gets an acid dip."

Karen's and Hermione's eyes widened in horror as the tv screen changed to another camera, this one angled from above so they could see what's inside.

"The Bat should have gotten my ransom now, but don't worry as you have guests of your very own," Joker said over the speakers and soon enough holes appeared from the ground around them and sounds of moaning came from them and what came from them appeared to be zombies, "These poor souls happened to be the first volunteers of the special kind of gas that I used against you. As you can see I used to much on them, now they are hungry and they don't they love having a party! HA! HA! HA!"

The TV then turned to static as a horde of over a hundred zombies appeared from the hole and their numbers continued to grow.

-Hogwarts Headmaster's Office Time: 4:01 PM Local Time-

"What do mean Sirius is missing," Dumbledore asked inquisitively to Ronald Weasley.

"We were doing our homework in an abandoned classroom and the room suddenly filled up with gas causing us to go sleep, when I came to he was gone," Ron explained to the best of his abilities.

Dumbledore was worried first the founders artifacts are missing again, then Tom kills Snape, though now he is a soulless corpse that acts between them as they both have half of his soul, and now this. He did not show it.

Dumbledore pinched the bridge of his nose. First Snape was eaten by a crocodile man in Gotham a few weeks back, on a rumor of a possible Hogwarts Founder artifact, then Voldemort disposed of one of his more successful lifelike golems of the man, complete with actual memories, that New World Superheroine is making a mockery of him and his plans, and now his weapon against the Dark Lord is missing? Could it get any worse?

As Dumbledore dismissed the young Weasley from his office a voice from a shadowy corner of his office said, "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore."

As the aged Professor cautiously reached for his wand and he responded, "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage."

The figure stepped out of the shadow and it was a man dressed in a ridiculous bat outfit, in Albus's opinion, "My name is not important." the man said, "But we both have something in common."

The man threw a piece of paper on the Albus desk, and Albus read the paper and he knew what it was.

"So this man, this Joker has my student, as a hostage for ransom? For the Hogwarts Artifacts? Why?" Albus questioned.

"Some men just want to see the world burn," came the response.

"How many of the artifacts do you have?" Albus asked.

"Too many," came the man's reply.

Albus reread the letter and as he was reading the letter he asked, "And what do you suppose that we do?"

When Albus got no response he looked up from the letter and the man was gone and he noticed that the Sword of Gryffindor was gone too.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Back at the Joker's circus, both Karen and Hermione were hiding their powers and made it look like they were at their perceived physical limits by using their surroundings to their advantage to avoid their surroundings. Luckily for James, Sirius, and Lily, the Joker didn't take their wands to subdue the horde of the undead.

The three magic users were back to back to each other as they casted spells. Lily summoned rope to tie up a trio of zombie clowns, and said, "How many are there?"

"I don't bloody hell know," James retorted as he casted a tripping hex on a zombie dressed as the circus ring leader.

"Too many," Sirius responded as he used various objects as makeshift bludgers against the horde of the undead.

Karen snorted as she as shouted over to them as she used a balance beam for type rope walkers as a weapon to bludgeon the zombies in the head, "I wouldn't be surprised if he made a whole city for his personal army of undead!"

Lily paled as she heard that and asked with horror in her voice as she tried to keep the zombies at bay, "He wouldn't!"

"He definitely would!" came Hermione's reply. She was partially up a ladder that lead to the type rope as she was kicking the zombies off of her. "What part of the most 'deranged criminal' don't you understand!"

-Location Gotham Museum, History of Science Wing Time 12:38 P.M. Eastern Seaboard time-

Bruce Wayne was looking at a life-size model of the Wright Brothers Plane and a woman approached him wearing a full body trench coat and a hat to cover her face asked, "Do you the goods?"

Bruce reached into his suit and pulled out the Gryffindor Sword and he held it tightly.

"Good. Now where is the rest?" The woman asked.

"Not until I know the hostages are safe," came the billionaire playboy reply in a serious tone.

The woman pulled out an Iphone and showed him a video of the hostages fighting the horde of zombies, barely holding their own, and in the top right hand corner had a red dot with the word Live next to it.

"Proof enough?" the woman asked.

Before he could answer she found herself on the floor and it was revealed the person that Bruce was talking too wasn't a person at all but an android that had the appearance of a real woman, most notably of Harley Quinn.

"Took you long enough," Bruce said to the other man, who revealed to be Nightwing.

"It took Oracle longer to crack the feed than expected," came the young man's reply.

Maniacal laughter could be heard from the droid's head and it was of a man. "HA, HA, HA! The original boy blunder has joined the fun too? Will the wonders never cease?!" With that the droid's head exploded along with the phone.

"Does she have the coordinates?" Bruce asked

"Do you have to ask," smirked Nightwing.

-Streets of Gotham 10 minutes later-

Nightwing is riding his motorcycle and Batman in his batmobile and they were talking over the radio.

"According to the coordinates of the live feed they are 10 minutes outside the city limits," Nightwing said.

"This is Joker we're dealing with," Batman replied, "Nothing is as simple as it seams with him."

"I know," came the young man's reply. "I've been going against him since I was ten."

As they approached the coordinates they found themselves at an abandoned amusement park.

"This is someplace that the clown would hold up in," Nightwing commented.

"Find the hostages first," Batman ordered.

The original Dynamic Duo split up, keeping to the shadows as they searched.

Meanwhile with the five hostages, it was obvious that the three magic users were tiring as they panted heavily.

"I don't know how much longer I can go on," Lily said as she wiped sweat from her forehead.

"It definitely can't get any worse," Sirius replied.

Just than a man shaped crocodile appeared in the mess of zombies and the zombies stopped their attack and parted for the crocodile man giving him a path to the magic users.

"Now what?" James asked.

"Killer Croc," Karen said as she approached the trio of wizards, with Hermione behind her, "Once a man, now more crocodile than man. Known thief, murderer, and cannibal."

"You're bloody kidding me aren't you?" was Sirius response and Karen mearley gave him a stern look which caused him to back down.

"Food and babes," said Killer Croc as he licked his lips. "What more can a man want?"

Before anybody could answer a batarang exploded in the man's face and two familiar figures jumped down from the shadows.

"Batman!" Karen exclaimed.

"Nightwing!" Hermione shouted in joy, "His butt is cuter than the pictures made it out to be!"

Nightwing gave her a quick glance and turned his attention back to the matter at hand and Hermione blushed and whispered to Karen, "I said that outloud didn't I?"

"Yes, yes you did," Came Karen's reply with a smile on her face.

Hermione covered her face in embarrassment.

"Killer Croc," Batman said, "Where is the Joker?"

"Don't know, don't care," came noncoherent response, "I was promised food and babes and he delivered."

"When does Joker keep his word?" Nightwing asked.

"More often than you think kid. Now I can kill the bat and brat too." Killer Croc stated with slight satisfaction in his voice.

Nightwing then started the fight by throwing some batarangs at the man, which exploded in clouds of smoke in the man's face and he charged right through, the dynamic duo got out of the way while holding a net between them and Killer Croc got tangled in it as he charged right into it the two let go of it. It didn't last long though he used his crocodile like jaws to snap right through the net and used his muscles to rip the rest off of him.

Batman didn't waste a second as he managed to get a few pellets from his belt and through it at the criminal and he saw it coming as he tried to knock them away with his left arm, the pellets exploded causing his entire arm to freeze.

Killer Croc used his strength to smash the ice off of his arm by smashing his frozen arm into the ground and the ice shattered into hundreds of tiny bits. He flexed his arm as if to make sure it was alright.

"That stung," Killer Croc said with anger in his voice. He quickly closed the distance between him and the Dark Knight and he continued to chomp at the man, but unfortunately Batman was too fast for him to catch as he quickly dodged his opponent's attacks.

Killer Croc managed to bite Batman's cape and as he tried pull away from the criminal, Killer Croc managed to pull harder, Batman pushed the clip on his neck and his cape managed to remove itself from his costume causing the cape to cover Croc's face long enough for Nightwing to jump onto his back and used put his bo staff inside the man's mouth and he grabbed ahold of it on both sides and hung on as Croc tried to get the young man off his back.

Batman used the confusion long enough to inject something into Croc, with a needle, and Croc's movements became more sluggish.

"What…did…you…do…to…me," Croc asked as he now barely able to stand.

"Tranquilizer," came Batman's response, "You should be asleep for a minimum of three-and-half hours."

"You…Bastard!" Croc said before he collapsed onto the floor unconscious.

As soon as he fell unconscious the zombies head started exploding, a dozen at a time before all the zombies were headless.

"Batman, Nightwing!?" Karen stated in an alarmed voice, "Did you find my grandmother!?"

"Did you mean the elderly woman that was tied up?" Nightwing asked. "I managed to get her out of here before finding this place."

Karen and Hermione let out a sigh of relief.

"If you don't mind me asking but where are we?" James asked.

"10 minutes outside of Gotham City limits," Batman said before putting a pair of handcuffs on the man.

"What are you doing?" Lily demanded.

"You three are still wanted criminals," Nightwing responded.

A few minutes later Killer Croc was being hauled away in a special prison transport for supervillains, along with the three wizards in a separate one.

"Thank-you," Karen said as she bowed her head in appreciation. "We don't know what the Joker wants or where he is."

Batman merely gave them a scowl before leaving.

"It's ok," Nightwing responded, "The bastard clown knows how to cover his tracks.

To Be Continued…