Saint Ruth, USA, 1921, Hawkman and Hawkgirl are walking through a museum
Carter Hall: In Cairo, they had called me an adventurer. In Athens, they called me a philosopher. But at my small museum in the quiet American cityof St. Roch in the first decades of the 20th century, I was an archaeologist. The job itself never changed. The human story is a mystery told by a billion unreliable narratiors I have been nothing more then a detective. The mission was always the sam. To carry forward the torch of discovery and reveal the secrets hiding in the darkest shadows. The truth buried deep beneath millennia of human memory. WE had found them over many lifetimes, lurking out of sight in human history, unchanging, all-seeing. We had long heard rumors of the Rhyming Demon of Camelot. Brothers who kept secrets and mysteries. The man as old as America. The grove of ancent humanoid plants. Of sorcerers, shining knights, cavemen and phantom strangers of all stripes. None had ever thoughtto bring them together. The Immortals. I told them what I now knew. That our lives did not begin in Egypt. That they began generations earlier. The dark priest Hath-Set, he had not cast us down this path of reincarnation. He had taken our pasts away from us. He e had obbscured the truth behind the metal we wore in our wings and belts in service of something darker than any mortal could comprehend. A figured stepped from the back. His voice was like the low rumble of thunder. He spoke of the metal that changed everything, and the terrible being that it brought forth. The being from beyond all our understanding. The being that was cast out, and sought desperately to return. To tear down all that was light in the world and drag it into the dark. And the truth would hit us like lightning
A robed figure steped front, old as time itself, as he pulls out a dagger coursing with electricity
Ms. Seward (Voiced by Carrie Kenagan): Al Ghul… DO you see what I see?
Ra's: Yes, Ms. Seward, I do.
He opens a book, and electricty crackles forth, hitting them. Meanwhile, in Methana, Greece. John, with Vorse Raider out, and Batman, armed with a spear, is fighting a grypon, who has he upper hand, before a blast of fire seperates the two
Wonder Woman (Voiced by Susan Einsenburg): Enough, Amphitrion. These humans fall under the protection of Themysira
Amphitrion pads up to John… And nudges him
John: Missed ya too. Buddy.
Wonder Woman pets this beast, and it purrs
Wonder Woman: I am certain those two were about to politely ask for safe passage to your patron's temple.
John: I was going to do that next.
Wonder Woman: You should have called me, John, Bruce. This is not a part of the world any mortals should walk alone.
Batman: We promise you, Diana. We wouldn't have been here if it weren't absoultely nescessary.
John: Yeah, we're so god damned close to the answers. We need to make sense of all we've seen. We just need someone with a greater perspective. Somoene who was there when this was all set in motion.
Wonder Woman: How did you discover the entrance to this place?
Batman: I found a scroll from a death cult of smith workers buried in the alps, dating back to 200 AD. They described the treacherous path to the great forge of Hephaestus. They would throw themselves into the fire when they reached it. They would become the fuel of his creations themselves.
Wonder Woman: And that's what you wish, Bruce? Make yourself a sacrifice to the gods? There are easier ways.
Batman: Diana… I need to speak with him.
Wonder Woman opens the door
Wonder Woman: I'm sorry, Bruce… But you're too late. The gods have already abandoned earth. The had barred the gates of Olympus behind them.
They then see Loki (Voiced by Alex Ross) look over at them
Loki: Here's something I don't get. Why would they gun it and let us run rampent.
Neith (voiced by Lindsey Seidel): That's what I want to know.
Neith and the other pantheon members are also here
Wonder Woman: I shouldn't be telling any of you this. They believe a war is coming. A war that will not only shape the earth, but the cosmos themselves. A crisis that will shake the very Firmament and douse the light of creation. I can see it in all of your eyes too, the coming crisis. How would Neith know the thinking of other gods?
Bakasura (voiced by Bradford Jackson): Us demons know fear, Diana. Use your lasso if you think I'm hiding anything from you. We're not. The further we follow this mystery, the more frightened we all become. Every question leads to more questions.
John: Yeah. We hoped Hephaestus would be able to shine a light into the Darkness.
Wonder Woman: He may still. Before I came to the both of you, I had a vision. The great hound, war-form of Hephaestus, sat before me with eyes of fire and told me I would need to come here. And that I would need to give you this.
Wonder Woman unsheathes the Sunblade, and hands it and the scabbard to John
Wonder Woman: This is the Sunblade, John. It was created for Apollo at the dawn of human civilization. One of twelve weapons, created for each of the pantheon. Humans are not ment to know these weapons even exist. Let alone wield them. They were forged with the most powerful metals Hephaestus ever worked with. He called it the Eighth Metal. It is not the pure form you seek. But if you follow its light, it will guide you where you need to go.
John: The Eighth…
John takes the blade, examining it
Wonder Woman: Mark my words, John. The pantheons have given you the sun to light your way. Do not throw it away for the Darkness. And most of all, be wary of the pantheons. They have their own agendas.
John: So do I.
John sheaths it in the style of the samurai and holsters it on his belt
Batman: There's something beginning in the world, and somehow, I found myself at its center. It's as though I can hear a message calling out from the shadows, but the more I try to listen, the more it sounds like laughter
Back at the batcave, Freddy and the others are glaring at the Joker
Joker: Hehehehehehehe. Do you see the big picture yet, Freddy-boy or do I have to spell it all out for you in plain letters?
Freddy: We've listen to enough of your insanity, Joker. There isn't a single reason we should trust a god damned word you say. Just thinking about Batman locking you away down here for god knows how long.
Duke: Trust me, Freddy, GL, guys. I'm going to have a talk with Batman when he gets back.
Joker: Why so angry, Duke? Is it because you're the Also-Ran? The Not-Good-Enough-To-Get-The-Real-Job Robin? Or is it because the last time I saw you I poisoned your parents past the brink of sanity and tried to have them shot right in front of your impressionable eyes?
Duke blows a gasket
Duke: I'll… I'll fucking hurt you!
GL: Get back, Duke. You don't want to screw with that energy field
He lunges but gets shocked by the field, as Joker laughs
Joker: HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! See, I haven't had fun like this in AGES! That's how it all started you know. A bit of fun. I cut off my face and thought I'd kill his whole family. You know how it is, get rid of the kids and rekindle the romance. The old flame. But it turns out he LIKES the brat, so there I was, tumbling down into the dark of the deepest corner of the Batcave. And SPLASH! I must admit, I thought I was a goner, until I woke up in the dark, and this shimmering green metal was running all over me, stitching me back together. Putting my face back just right. And then I saw it, towering over me. A marking on the wall. Older then Gotham, older then civilization. The bat behind the bat.
It shows in sepra, the Joker, bare as can be, from behind, looking up and seeing a cave painting of a massive bat, before fast forwarding to the present
Joker: I needed to know more, and there were people, they knew… The Owls knew. That lunatic crazy quilt knew. You see? It was all a great conspiracy. The pieces planted for generations. Birds had become bats, Light had become dark, sanity has become insanity. It was coming, I could feel it in me . Even when I wasn't myself, I could still feel it in my head. An echo in the shadows calling the real me back to the surface. I'm sure you know what I mean, Duke. You must've felt it, too. You're probably feeling it now. That pesky little force field is reacting strangely to your body, don't you think?
Duke screams in pain
Freddy: You did this! I don't know how you knew-
Freddy and the others get knocked down as Joker breaks free from his prision
Joker: THEN YOU'RE NOT LISTENING! It's still in me. It's in you. It's all around us. I just needed to create a circuit to escape, and you did the job wonderfully.
Freddy: N-No… Won't let… You get free.
Bat Computer: Defense measures activating. Cutting power to sub-cave alpha. Smile protocol in effect
As the cave goes dark, Joker unsheathes his knife
Joker See? The dark is coming. HA!
Freddy: Greenie, light up the room! We can't let him get away!
GL: Damnit, I can't! Ring's still shorting out. I don't know what the hell is happening.
Joker: Oh, I know how this story is going to end, because it all happened before!
Back in the 20's, the two are seen walking through a cave, which shows a painting of a massive bat shaped figure
Cater Hall: The Immortals spoke of the tribes at the dawn of man. The arrival of the strange metal that would change everything, brought to this world by a tear in the fabric of Reality, and the demon that rose from the dark and nearly conquered us all. At first, we didn't believe. The scale of what they were telling us was too huge, too frightening. We set out to confirm their story, to find any evidence that it was all a lie. But instead, we found countless paintings on every continent, hidden in the deepest cave system. All telling the same dark story. They spoke of the Hawk Tribe, where my story had truly begun, though I did not remember it. They spoke of the betrayal by the Judas of the birds, who sided with the demon.
They see another painting of a bird getting stabbed by several batlike figures, as it shows a red sky and a throne made of skulls as a massive bat figure is seen slouching on the throne
Carter Hall: The demon who took the sigil of the great and terrible bat. The plague bringer. The scourge of mankind.
Back at the cave
Carter Hall: My wife and I, we died fighting it back from the dark when it came. Shuttering the door between its word and ours.
It shows Hath-Set ready to kill both Hawk Tribe members
Carter Hall: That was the truth Hath-Set severed us from by recreating the scene millennia later. He, the emissary of the same dark forces that nearly fell humanity before it could begin.
Back to the 20's, Carter and his wife are embracing each other, crying
Carter Hall: Birds and Bats, Forever at war. The Immortals told us the metal was cursed. It needed to be eliminated, as its power came from the same darkness that begat this great destroyer, but this strange metal. It had been so much more to us. It had brought us wonders, brought us wings, and countless lives. I knew I had to understand more. I needed to see the place from which the power came from.
It shows Challenger's Mountain, a few months prior to our heroes coming back together
Carter Hall: It took decades to build the technology we needed. We recruited adventures form around the world who shared our values, our certainty that the nature of the cosmos was benevolent. We wouldn't allow ourselves to be beaten down by the unknown. We would challenge it.
The crew walk in wearing purple spacesuits, ready for anything
Carter Hall: We would challenge it.
it show's the Dagger of Shazam
Carter Hall: The Wizard's knife gave us the power we needed to chart ore way into the darkness. We were ready to understand the true nature of things, ourselves and the worlds around us.
Shiera's hand is with Carter's
Carter Hall: I remember Shiera's hand in mine, holding tight as the switch was flipped.
The earth trembles REALLY loudly
Carter Hall: Then I remember the earth shaking as if it had been torn apart. And the screaming
Screams can be heard as fiendish imps roar out, alongside Spear Cretians and Molton Zombies, who maul everything in sight
Carter: As I stared into the darkness where Challengers Mountain once stood, I felt a chill down my spine…
It showed a massive, 3-eyed face staring right. At. Them
Carter Hall: And I saw the eyes of something great and terrible starring back at the me through the abyss. Eyes, waiting in the dark. Waiting for something. Someone.
At the Sonodran Desert, in Arizona, John cuts a hunk of rock down, looking for something
Batman: Computer, access the shadow drive. Record new audio fire. I feel like I'm running out of time. Sixty miles from the coast of greece, the Sunblade began to vibrate in reaction to an unknown source that has lead me here. To a secret bace of unknown origin deep under the Sonoran Desert, searchign for answers, and all I find are more mysteries. Send an alert to Black Lightning. I'll need the outsiders to scour the surroundings and-
Dubbilex (Voiced by Garry Mack) walks out
Dubbilex: Batman, you must turn back
Batman: Dubbilex? This is a Cadmus base?
Dubbilex: No, Batman. That is what it WAS. What it has become is far darker. The DNA Project had tracked the beings with it in their blood. And they began to activate them with a power source they did not understand.
John: What are you saying? What caused this?
Dubbilex: The metal you seek is cursed, you two. The energy in it is roiling and dark. Everything it touches, it corrupts. See for yourself the damage it has wrought.
He creates a psychic vision, but he clutches his head in pain
Dubbilex: Too… Weak… Cannot hold the psychic projection… You must turn back now, before it corrupts you two as well… I can feel its grip tightening on you both…
John: You need to tell me where this metal is. I need to see what's coming!
Dubbilex: No, red demon… Run…
He goes limp as Talia Al Ghul, Batman's former flame and mother of Damien Wayne (Voiced by Stana Katic) struts up
Talia: He fought so bravely to prevent me from taking my birthright. I almost pitty the creature. Hello, "Beloved".
Batman: It's been a long time since "Beloved." What are you doing here, Talia?
Talia: The same thing as you, I suppose. You seek something of great power, and it eludes your grasp. But nothing eludes the grasp of the demon, Bruce.
Batman: What does Ra's Al Ghul know, Talia?
Talia: At the dawn of the 20th century, my father and his ilk came together to discuss a great mystery. One of them produced a powerful dagger made from the strange metal you seek. My father spent decades trying to reacquire it. He ultimately succeeded, picking it from the ruins of a private military base in the Rocky Mountains. He supposed the right people would pay good money to tap into its power.
John: So, you've come to do your old man's bidding.
Talia: No, Johnathan. There have been secret battles to suppress the power of this metal for decades. But its power has only grown with time, tainting more and more. True war is now inevitable. My beloved knows this. He has one of the potentials living under his roof. I came for the knife to ready myself for war. It darkens day by day, its terrible power growing.
Batman: We've heard rumblings. Leviathan moving against you… The great assassin you've brought back into the fold.
Talia: You have nothing to fear from the silencer, Bruce. Nor from me.
John: Talia, what if we could offer you a trade. The eighth form of the metal for the ninth.
Talia: You would trade light for darkness? You would give me the power of a god?
John: The multiverse is at a moment of great imbalance. We help the mother of Damian, the daughter of the Demon's Head, so that should the moment come where we need to call upon her for a greater favor… Perhaps she'll answer.
Talia: Very well. They say you can hear the name of the wizard who forged the dagger when you hold it in your hand.
She gets out the Lightning Dagger and hands it to the Red Demon, who sheaths it in a thigh holster just big enough to fit it
Talia: That it carries a small piece of his great power. The power of Shazam
Meanwhile, at the darknened batcave
Freddy: We need light, dammit!
GL: I'm trying
They hear clanging and crashing as Joker destroys the Final Invention with a crowbar
Duke: Joker, show yourself!
Joker: I can't let him dig anny deeper. There's no telling what will happen next if he does. He doesn't understand how important he is, not like I do.
Freddy: What the hell is that thing?
Duke: It's some kind of machine.
GL: I don't get it, Joker. Where's the joke in all of this?
Joker: This isn't funny!
Gl: Get away from- AAAAGH!
his ring goes haywire again as Joker cracks him in the jaw with his crowbar, sending blood and teeth on the cave floor
Joker: Don't you understand?! This is what your alien bosses and Kruger's spider boss sent you here to stop. If he uses that machine, that'll be the end of everything
Duke: NO!
As Duke tackles the clown prince of crime, Lantern comes tumbling down
Joker: Oh Duke. I can see why you're so angry. You've never quite fit in here, have you? No matter how much Batman pretends you belong like the giant penny or the T-Rex, there's something different about you.
Duke cracks him right in the jaw with a right hook
Duke: Shut up!
Joker: Aren't you curious? Isn't there a part of you that wants to know why Batman picked you? Why I picked you? Did you know, at Gotham Mercy Hospital, there's an automatic flag that goes up when something unusual is detected in a blood sample? It's a kind of metal toxicity. But they really track any of the effects, because it sure as hell isn't iron. It's not even mercury. The first doctor to put that flag up, the program only gave him four characters to designate the flag, but he did the best he could. And I've seen that file for both you AND your mom. M-E-T-A.
Joker tosses his crowbar, stunning Duke
Joker: And Batman's been tracking as many of you as he can for years now. Don't you see? A whole new generation of superheroes and super-villains! The soldiers of the war that will rip the multiverse apart! Tell the computer to pull up the Meta-file sometime. You can see them all for yourself. People with that crazy metal running through their veins. You've seen what it can do in other forms. Can you IMAGINE what it does to people? What am I saying? Of COURSE you can. I know the truth, duke. I know what you are here to do. You'll let him see in the dark. That's all you are, duke. That's the role you're destined to play.
Joker unsheathes his knife and begins to push the blade into Duke's throat, hoping to hit the spinal cord
Joker: You are the signal, and I can't allow that. So I'm going to have to kill you now.
Duke kicks him, disarming him and sending Joker reeling
Duke: No… I won't let you…
He falls, screaming as Joker shakes the cobwebs out, before looking around for Duke and smirking
Joker: And the signal goes dark. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Joker turns his attention back to the final invention
Joker: And now to write the grand finale to this whole sordid tale, so we can go back to the good stuff. Bats and clowns, not bats and birds. This whole thing has gone on long enough
GL: You're damn right, Joker.
Joker: Huh?
He hears a rumbling as the Batwing flies up with Hal in the cockpit
GL: There's something you probably should've known before you knocked me into Bats' underground hangar. I'm a decorated member of the United States Air Force. Your story time is over!
Joker: No!
Freddy, who is on the opposite wing, knees Joker hard, and as the two fight, the voice of Carter Hall continues to explain the journal
Carter Hall: There was a time I believed that the world got better every time we solved one of the great mysteries. When we mastered a law of nature with our wit and our science, I felt like we were marching onward and upward. Toward the kind of utopia of science and wonder that first captured my imagination when I saw the Thanagarian ship crashing in my life as Khufu. They were scientists we would discern. We thought that they came bearing gifts and knowledge
Freddy lifts Joker up and sends him flying into Jason, who holds Joker steady as Freddy readies his claws, and slashes at his face twice
Carter Hall: Now I know the reason why they brought the Nth metal here. They came to warn us of what they KNEW was on the other side.
As Freddy goes to work on his stomach with his razor sharp claws, Joker smashes Jason with his crowbar, and smashes Freddy in the stomach with his weapon of choice, causing the dream demon to vomit blood
Carter Hall: They didn't come to help us move forward into the light. They were here to stop us in our tracks, so the universe would never fall prey to the ambitions of a small world that even milennia later can barely get past its own moon.
Jason gets up, his mask partially cracked from the force of the blow before he walks slowly forward with his hand outstretched, seizing the jester of genocide by the neck. He then plunges the blade of his machete up through the chin and skull of the pale psycho, then forces the handle up, snapping his neck backward. He rips the machete out and stabs the opponent in the abdomen, breaking their spine and several ribs. He retracts the blade after, causing the opponent to fall to the ground. Before lifting him up in a military press, before flinging him aside, causing him to tumble down
Carter Hall: This is the final entry in my journal. I believe I have found a way to penetrate the barrier of our reality and enter the dark myself.
Leatherface lands down in front of Joker, growling and revving his chainsaw before charging in like a wildman, and Joker raises his crowbar to defend himself, causing sparks to fly from the weapons
Carter Hall: I still believe, in my heart, that there is wonder and hope out there in the unknown, at the center of all this incredible power, but that hope seems more foolish with every passing day. I feel the encroaching darkness planting doubt deep in my soul
Joker disarms Leatherface of his weapon of choice and cracks the southern cannibal in the jaw, sending him spinning to the ground as Jason jumps down, before charging in with a clothsline that turns Joker inside out, and sends him sprawling down to the ground
Carter Hall: The others, even my wife, believe that the mystery is and has always been a trap. A trap dragging us into nightmares, begging us to let those nightmares free and destroy our world. And it is true. Our enemy has grown stronger the ni ever could have imagined. They keep killing my spies as I get closer to determining their plans.
Joker stabs his crowbar into Jason's leg and goes to stab at him, but the Crystal Lake Killer lifts Joker up by the throat and chokeslams him down to the ground
Carter Hall: I've done my best to avert their endgame. I am entrusting this journal, and the terrible secrets to the family that has always been most loyal to the birds . With the command to hide it unless I fail and the beast comes again. Then and only then will the journal reveal itself.
Leatherface staggers up to his chainsaw to block a strike from Joker and strikes them with his mallet before he hits the opponent first with the end of his chainsaw, then impales Joker in the chest, breaking several ribs and his sternum. While the opponent is still on the chainsaw, Leatherface uses his mallet and strikes it onto the back of his opponent's skull, completely destroying it. Finally, Leatherface stomps onto the back of the clown prince's body, driving their body deeper into the chainsaw, breaking the spine. He then pulls it out effortlessly, as Joker limps off, to the machine
Carter Hall: They know how important this is. That they must stay far from the dark and frighening truth lurking under the world, trying to force itself through.
Freddy gets up and jumps down into the melee, turning into his worm form from Dream Warriors, and chomping at his arm before flinging Joker aside and going back to normal, before dream shifting in front of him and Freddy slashes his psychotic adversary with an uppercut then stabs him in the chest with his glove. He then follows up with a sucker punch that breaks his opponent's jaw before slashing his face with his glove, shattering their skull, before doing an Irish whip right to Jason, who does an pop-up Death Valley Driver, before Hal pins him down with the Batwing
Carter Hall: I stand with my torch, facing the dark. I believe I will find something out there. A glimmer of potential. But I know that I am likely wrong. That all I will find is the darkness itself. I walk toward my end alone, so that no man could ever be foolish enough to follow.
Joker: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Freddy: What's so funny? We outnumber you 5 to one and my boys and I just beat you to a bloody pulp?
Joker: It's happening again! No matter what I do, it just keeps on coming! Everythign is going backwards, and any of you don't understand! You don't even realize that this time, I'M trying to be the good guy! A dark crisis is coming and here you are, two bright burning lights calling it forward!
Duke holds his head in anguish
Duke: Guys… Something's wrong…
Joker: I mean, COME ON! How is that NOT funny!?
Duke: It's like I can feel something getting closer…
Joker: All the pieces are connected, and the puzzle always comes together in the form of a bat!
Duke: No… NOOOOO!
A blinding light erupts from Duke, forcing Hal, Jason, Freddy and Leatherface to shield their eyes as he falls off
Freddy: Duke!
Jason lands down and catches him in a firemans carry before setting him down against some rocks
Hal: The Joker… Where did he-
Batman: Jordan, Kruger, Voorhees, Sawyer! What the hell did you four do to my cave?
Freddy: Oh great, it's ol Spooky… What did HE do to your cave?! That part was the Joker's fault, me, Oinky and Hockey Puck were busy beating him to a bloody pulp!
Batman: You let him out, Kruger? Do you have any idea-
Freddy: How many justice league bylaws you're breaking for locking up one of the most dangerous loons in the multiverse in your BASEMENT without telling anyone? Yeah, Bats, we do.
Batman: I needed him.
GL: For what? To fill every gap in this insane conspiracy theory with lies? Secret metals with incredible power shaping human history? I mean, come one! And based on what you told the league, you can't even be sure that was the real Joker!
Freddy dreamports both him and Batman to his realm, for a little private chat
Freddy: Batman, I need you to explain what the hell is going on here.
Batman: I've spent a long time putting these pieces together. Finding what I need to look back into the dark.
Katherine Kruger (voiced by Stephanie Sheh), Freddy's daughter, jumps down from a nearby catwalk
Katherine: Back?
Batman: I called it my Final Invention. It was designed to hel ensure this city would always have a batman. But before it was finished, I died at the hands of the Joker and that would've been the end of my story, if not for the metal. If not for the Dionesium, I would have lost my life, not just my memory. Ultimately, I used it the machine to reconstitute myself. But the metal was still nestled in the cracks in my skull. And when the machine activated… I saw something impossible. Impossible versions of myself, dying over and over again.
It shows various incarnations of the batman dying grusome deaths over and over again
Freddy: Jeez, that's fucked up.
Katherine: You can say that again, dad.
Batman: Nothing in the machine I built could have given me those visions. It was in the metal. This incredible, powerful metal. This metal I couldn't escape in any facet of my life. As thought it were targeting me, over and over for some unknown reason. As though it wanted me to understand it. I began to rebuild the machine from the ground up. I wanted to look inside the dark, to the source of the metal's power. I knew that once I did , it would all come together. It would all make sense.
Freddy lifts Batman into the air with his telekinesis, and moves him until he's eye to eye
Freddy: Whatever you've been doing in there caught the attention of the Entity as well as the Guardains, Batman.
Batman: And doesn't that give you and Hal pause? Why would two guys from a back water part of the multiverse doing a little bit of archaeology require interference from the essence of despair and intergalactic peacekeepers? Why does his ring, the most powerful weapon in the multiverse, cower in the face of a pure strain of this strange, impossible metal?
Freddy: Kathie, we're taking a little trip to the Batcave.
Freddy summons a boiler and the 3 head in, where GL and Duke see Katherine
Duke: So that's his kid? I see no family resemblance, though the Joker said you brought me in… To study me like some kind of experiment.
Batman: The Joker lies, Duke, I never tried to shape you. I only wanted to be there when you decided what your were going to become.
Batman gets out the lightning Dagger
Batman: This was supposed to be the end of all of this. I have the dimensional frequencey of the energy locked, and with this dagger, I have the power to see the truth at the heart of this mystery.
Duke's eyes glow
Duke: Woah… That dagger. It's doin' something to me. It's like , I can see the whole machine still together, made of light. I see where this belongs, how it all fits together. I can see where the light was. I don't know how to explain.
They see the machine, and where it was
Duke: The joker said this would happen. How could he know?
Freddy: Hal, I know this makes ya feel off and all. But the night is getting blacker every minute, and this evil is FAR out of our sight.
GL: Yeah, sweaterguy, I know my oath.
GL hands Duke a rental ring
GL: All right, kid. This duplicate ring's just a loaner, okay? And if what I've been going through today is any indication, this is going to hurt. A lot.
Duke puts the ring on
GL: You need to put all of yourself, all your willpower, into that ring, and show us what you see.
Duke, fighting through the pain, sees more artifacts
Duke: Woah, Batman. It's all here. Psycho Pirate's mask, the owl's Electrum…
Batman: Hyper-Elastic molecules. Ancient Themyscairan and Atlantean artifacts. Relics of order and chaos. Together, with your help, duke, they will show me the way.
Freddy: Whatever you see in there, Bruce, I'm telling the Entity. If this shit can affect Hal's ring, there's no telling how powerful it could be.
Batman: I understand, Freddy. And thank you.
Freddy vanishes into flames, alerting the Entity as Carter's voice can be heard again
Carter Hall: There is a feeling you get at the end of an adventure.
Batman puts the dagger into the final portal
Carter Hall: You feel it in the anxious quickening of your heart. In every tenative footstep you take. It's the fear of what you've done to bring you to that point. The knowledge that whatever mistakes you've made are yours to own from here to eternity
Batman walks up to the machine, and grips the bars
Carter Hall: It is the knowledge that there is no way back.
Batman screams in anguish as he sees into the darkness
Carter Hall: At the beginning, your story burned white hot with possibility. You felt the fire in your veins. The need to know. To explore. To understand. And more then that, the knowledge that you can chart your own course toward the greater knowledge. That you, and only you, control your destiny. But with every step forward, your story cooled and hardened. Pulling you inexorable toward a singular ending. An ending you can no longer choose. An ending that chooses you. From the journal of Carter Hall
Batman falls limp, unconcious
Duke: Bruce!
GL: Bruce, what did you see?
Batman: Darkness…
Duke: What?
Batman: I don't understand, I did everything right, but all I saw was darkness.
Meanwhiel, 3000 miles below Gotham, silloettes of the arch enemies of the Sperg Crew are seen convening. One of them (Vocied by Robert Englund) steps out from the shadows, his glasses gleaming against the lava, his coat and hat blowing in the dark wind, this was Samuel Townsend, the Nightmare of Blackhollow
Samuel: It is done. He has stared into the abyss and we have hidden what lies within.
Another one (Voiced by Clancy Brown) walks up, a wolfen figure with armor and a mask walks up with several cultists behind him, this was Don Phobos, leader of the the Neo-Makuu Crime Syndicate
Don Phobos: The final seal is broken. After all these generations, the sacrifice is at hand.
Another one (voiced by Dan Green) wearing demonic armor with a visor that looks not to dissimilar to a certain heroes glasses. This was Velhallen Beo, the monsterous dark side of Ben, son of Cetrion
Beo: Let us see them. Let us see what he SHOULD have seen, if our benefactor had not prepared him correctly.
Two more, a human with Nanites and a massive pink tounged demon (Voiced by Alistar Duncan and D.C. Douglas respectively) walk up, these were Steven Armstrong and Kamoshida
Kamoshida: The dark days are over.
Armstrong: The Dark Knights are coming!
Finally, two suited shadows walk up along side a Kytin (voiced by Garrett Hunter, Doug Bradley and Kelly Hu respective ly walk up), these were Adam Taurus, leader of the Faunus terrorist group, the White Fang, Satan, leader of the Los Diablos group and mortal enemy of God, and D'vorah, the traitorous adviser of Kotal Khan. Finally one last shadow steps front, a monsterous shadow (Voiced by Robin Atkin Downes) weilding a deadly blade, this was Zorc, the leader of the Fiend Army
Zorc: And with them, the true father of Batman.
All of them let out a ominous cackle