While the Knights of Goth's Kitchen defended the Asylum from Kingpain's rampage, the Jeweled Jester was swinging away at the Purple Joker's cell with her mallet. "I'm coming, Puddin'! Just sit tight!" she called out from the other side of the glass. But given the glass was soundproof, to no avail.

Purple Joker waited as his doll hammered away at the one thing standing in the way of his freedom with great anticipation. By all accounts, he missed seeing Joan. Her pristine white face, her luscious pink hair, and her elegant, lissome figure in the skintight outfit. The leather jacket was new, but he didn't mind all that much. All this time, he was waiting for her to crack the glass just enough so he could get his voice through. And after a good amount of time, the Jester would succeed.

He would tell her as soon as she did crack through, "There's a door on the side of the cell, you D-Cupped boob! Just rip the lock off!" the Purple Joker ordered. He was back to ordering her around as before.

Joan dropped her hammer and looked to her left to see a vault-styled door with a tumbler lock similar to the entrance of the wing. "Oh…sorry Mistah PJ," she said embarrassed. Because this lock was much smaller, she simply used her super-strength to rip the metal handle off. Then she easily opened the door right after.

Joker let out a condescending sigh as he stepped out of the cell for the first time in months, followed by a sinister laugh. "Joan, my jewel encrusted beauty! It's so wonderful to see you!" He walked up to his Jester and embraced her. The purple-skinned Casanova twirled her around and dipped her down like a ballroom dance. Joan let out an excited little squeal as she was in her lover's arms again. All her pesky doubts she had about herself melted away now that she had someone else in control of her mind again.

"Missed you too, Puddin'. The things I had to do to get you out, I-," Joan started to say before she was cut off by Joker putting a finger to her mouth, shushing her.

"Don't say a word, it'll spoil the moment," Joker said with a grin, "Smile for me, I've missed it." Joker's pheromones overwhelmed Joan's senses again, and she eagerly obeyed his commands. Her smile crept across her face; wide, bright, and pearly white. She looked like a Barbie doll with how forced and fake it looked.

"Now, laugh," Joker continued. He relished being able to dominate someone again. Joan began to giggle uncontrollably. She sounded gleeful, but she was really just going through the motions of her master's desire.

Before they left, the Purple Joker was going to have one last bit of fun with his human toy, "Good girl, now kiss me like you mean it." The Jeweled Jester had no choice but to oblige. She thrust her face up against his. She shoved him up against the wall and wrapped her arms around his neck. Lips locked and tongues intertwined in a deep kiss as Quinzel's sanity was thrust all the way into the back of her mind, giving herself up to the Purple Joker.

While it felt passionate to the Joker, there wasn't any true love behind it, only the artificial obsession he had programmed into her mind. He wouldn't know authentic feelings from a hole in the wall. He was tempted to escalate things by bringing her to the bed in his cell, but he could do it to her later. Escape from this retched Asylum was to be done.

Joker pulled away with his face stained with white powder makeup and black lipstick, "Alright, my dear. You can stop, for now. It's good to know how much you missed me," he said slimily as he brushed his face off.

Joan pulled back, breathing heavily. Kissing him was always an exhilarating, druglike experience. "Missed ya more than anything, couldn't think about anything else," she assured to him as she picked her hammer up off the ground. "Let's get going, then!"

The two of them made a dash towards the door of the maximum-security wing, but someone stood in their way. Out from his cell, it was none other than Dexter Zsasz, holding onto the receiver of the telephone he was previously incapacitated with. "You ain't going nowhere, Jack! I'm gonna beat you to death with this phone, and your lady is gonna draw it on my back!" Zsasz yelled deranged.

Joker was nonplussed, "Actually, you're going to go back to your cell, and shove that phone right up your ass. All the while, you're going to sing Beyonce's "Single Ladies", understood?"

Zsasz was entranced by Joker's command, "Yes, sir…" he responded before trudging back into his cell, and the beginning words "All the Single Ladies! All the Single Ladies, followed by a high-pitched scream could be heard as the Joker and Jester fled the cell block.

Joan swooned over Joker's action, "You remembered my favorite song~!"

"Call me a romantic. Now, what's our getaway plan?" Joker asked with a smirk.

"One, you're a romantic~!" Joan complied lovingly to his first order, "Two, we just gotta get outside, we got transport via Thunderhorse back to the base!"

Joker was taken aback by what Joan had told him. "Thunderhorse? You're not talking about Loxxi's stupid little steed, are you?" he asked with slightly nervous tone. Given the last time he worked with Loxxi, and by extension Bezarro, things didn't exactly end well.

"Yuh huh! All this was Mistah L's plan! He's puttin' a whole team together with the otha baddies!" Joan answered proudly, but her smile fell when he looked at her puppeteer's expression, "What's the mattah? I thought you'd be excited." The Jester was genuinely confused.

"I'm not exactly a team player, my dear. And all things considered, I don't trust bald people," Joker commented as they reached the top of the stairs to see Kingpain going toe to toe with Caged Tiger. It had seemed that once him and Pupil came back downstairs, the indestructible man went up to bat to fight Bane for the Bat. But oddly, Blind Bat and Pupil were nowhere to be seen, as was a good portion of the vegetation around the Asylum.

Joker then pointed his indigo-shaded index towards the rampaging brute, "Especially him. Last time I trusted a man with no hair, I ended up stuck in a fishbowl in that guy's hideout. Not a very fun experience if I do say so myself."

The Jester laughed at the imagery, "I dunno, it sounds kinda cute!"

Her unprompted laughter at his own expense sent Joker into a brief but potent fury. The insecure ingrate grabbed her arm tightly and raised his other hand in a slapping position. "Never…EVER make me your punchline! I'm the only one who makes jokes here!" he snapped at her with unchecked ego in his eyes.

Joan recoiled at the threatening motion; it was something she wasn't unfamiliar with. "Sorry, sir," she replied meekly.

The Purple Joker relished seeing her subservience, "Good, glad you remember how things are supposed to work. I know you've been galivanting around without my say-so for a while. No hand to guide you, but I'm back, and you won't have to go freely for a very long time. Doesn't that sound lovely?" he asked as he let her arm go and gently caressed the side of her face.

The Jeweled Jester's fears were then overwritten, awash with his brainwashing. "Anything you say, Mistah PJ. Let's get outta here!" she said giddily before running past the two clashing titans. Purple Joker sprinted alongside his Jester; he had always been a nimble man. He ran from fights almost as well as he ran from the idea of a healthy relationship.

Luke caught a glance at the pair of fleeing clowns. Bane had punched him in the face when he looked away, but he remained in position, only sliding back a few feet. Bane shook his hand after throwing the punch. It felt as if the massive man was throwing his hands against a bronze statue.

"What the-? Is that the god damn Purple Joker?! Hey, get back here!" Luke called out before swiping across Bane's face with a clawed variant of his brass knuckles, akin to his feline namesake. Given Bane's strength, a more brutal weapon against him seemed appropriate.

"Sorry Brass Kitty, I got my real man back," Joan taunted with a wink before retreating up a stairwell. She was aiming to get back to the roof so Bezarro could pick the two of them up and take them to the Legion headquarters.

Before Luke could redirect his attention, the Joker had commanded the Tiger to "Ignore my existence!", and as if he was never there, the Caged Tiger turned his attention back to Bane.

"As much as I don't want to be a part of Loxxi's little boy band, who else did he recruit before busting me out? Who would I be working with?" Joker asked with vanity. He had gotten used to always being the top priority of anyone he interacted with. Being trapped in the Asylum made him lose a lot of his former influence, so he was a little insecure that he wasn't a top priority for Loxxi to break him out, despite the fact he didn't even want to join in the first place.

"Oh umm…well there's the Silver Kitty, that goofy diver guy with the speaker on his arm, the yellow guy with the weird mohawk on his helmet, and he just busted out the toy kid and some size-changing girl yesterday. The last one gets all big and stuff," she answered, purposefully leaving out the mention of Wesley Nygma.

The mention of Ms. Gigantic piqued Purple Joker's interest, "Size-changer, you say? I wonder if not everything needs to stay proportional, I guess I'll have to come just to find out," he mused with a sinister giggle, the sick freak. "Tell me, is anybody else coming with us? I'd rather not share the legroom on Bezarro's back."

"Umm, nope. Professor Crane was the only person he mentioned," Joan answered nervously.

"Scary? Good lad, never directly got in my way. But why? Give me the details." Joker asked, now curious for the circumstances.

"Well, you see…he was a part of the plan to bust you out," Joan answered at first, but she was compelled to elaborate, "…and he was owed a favor by Nyg-mmph," Quinzel half answered before she clapped her own mouth shut to prevent herself from saying Wesley Nygma's name.

Joker's eye twitched upon even hearing a portion of his name, "Nygma? Are you telling me that Loxxi recruited Bane's two-bit, quiz-obsessed, sorry excuse for an attorney for his team?! And before ME, no less?!" He outburst with rage.

The Purple Joker had made many enemies from his rampages through Goth's Kitchen. Blind Bat and Wilson Bane were the Top 2, but number three was Bane's retainer, now known as the Inquizitor. Any time there were territory disputes between the two kings of crime, Wesley would pull some arrangements to foil him. Whether it be some elaborate trap, an army of deaf goons, or even weirder methods.

Wesley would outsmart Joker six ways to Sunday, and make sure he knew that it was him that did it. Every time he did, Wesley would leave behind some riddle or random trivia question thematically relevant to whatever he did on a little notecard with a question mark on it. This was so common to the point of Joker just hating question marks in general.

Nonetheless, Joker had never met the man face to face, but he hated the aide's pretentiousness with a passion. And to then be superseded by him on a ploy for world domination of all things, was the greatest disrespect the Purple Joker had ever felt. He was absolutely livid at the prospect, and he had to take it out on somebody.

"Come on, sir. Please undahstand, I did everything I could to bust you outta here. The Inquizitor was just the only guy who was willing to help," she pleaded for his mercy.

"Oh, so he's got his own little stupid name now, huh? Oh, that's real rich! If I had known you were going to go crawling to him, I would've told you to jump off a bridge," Joker berated as the two of them kept heading towards the front exit.

As the two of them continued to traverse through the halls towards the main wing of the Asylum, Purple Joker would continue to disparage and insult his Jester. Neither of them paid any mind to the droves of inmates and staff collapsed on the ground from either fear or being knocked out from frenzies, nor the bloomed vegetation created by Typhoid Ivy scattered about. The Jeweled Jester was forced to listen to her master about how worthless and detrimental she was to him. And because of her conditioning, she was forced to believe it as gospel.

When they eventually arrived in the lobby, the Polar Blade was still curled up on the ground, suffering through her nightmare of losing her humanity. Joker had eventually got tired of verbally abusing Joan, ending his tirade with "But I still love you," and giving her a condescending pat on the end.

Joan was still reeling from the emotional drain she just suffered, "Does that mean we're going back to join the Legion?"

"Oh, hell yes. But I'm going to make Nygma take a long walk off a short dock, and we're gonna run things my way!" Joker asserted, not yet knowing about the vaccines against his pheromones Nygma and Crane had already supplied the rest of the Legion.

"Well, about that…" Joan said before being cut off by the Blind Bat jumping down from the ceiling rafters, gliding down with his cape. He had been waiting for them to come to this area so he could ambush them.

"Kilgrave, Quinzel, you're not getting out of here. You're both very sick, and whatever Loxxi has planned for you will only bring a greater pestilence upon this world," he forewarned between bated breath. He raised his batons, one of them half shattered after the fight with the Zsasz, and the other cracked by Bane.

"You've kept us apart for too long, Bats! We're skedaddling, and there's nothing you can do about it!" The Jeweled Jester proclaimed before she looked to Purple Joker, "You want me to handle this one, Puddin'?" she asked, raising her hammer.

Bats looked upon Joan sympathetically, "Dr. Quinzel, I don't know if you're still in there. I pray to God you are. I know it's a large ask, but please, fight his control," he pleaded to the checker-patterned pawn. But his prayers fell on deaf ears.

"Go nuts, my dear," the Purple ordered with sick glee, "I'm going to enjoy watching you crush him. Bash his head in for me."

Adrenaline rushed through Joan as his order sent her down another violent path. He charged towards the Blind Bat, ready to swing her hammer down and crush the crusader's cowled cranium. The Bat braced for impact, but he showed no fear when the mallet swung down, as he knew that it would be stopped by a jungle of vines.

Gradually descending from the ceiling was Typhoid Ivy, sitting on some nondescript stalk of a plant hanging in the rafters.

"Ivy?! What the hell are you doing, you crazy bitch?! Go shove yourself in a pot of dirt," Joker shouted out like a petulant child. But given Ivy's immunity to toxins, Joker's pheromones were ineffective on her.

Joan squirmed as Ivy's vines wrapped her up, dropping her hammer to the ground beside her. "Come on, Red! We can do this later. Bust out with us! I'm sure the Legion would kill for someone with your kinds a powers! Just let me bash his head in!" she proposed, very frustrated. Not being able to fulfill Joker's command was starting to cause her some mental anguish.

"Tempting, but sorry J.J., Maria wanted us to do this the right way." Ivy declined as she sent an extra vine to whip at the Purple Joker, knocking him to the ground. "And frankly, I'm on board with getting you very far away from this freak."

Once Luke took over fighting Bane, the Bat quickly rushed to Maria Isely's cell. He explained to the dual identities that he needed help preventing Purple Joker's escape and neutralizing Quinzel. He was aware of Maria and Ivy's disdain for the Joker, and their love for Joan. But most importantly, he respected them for all the time they spent working to reform themselves.

Once Bane cast Ivy aside near the end of his regime during some failed job, she was sent to the Asylum because of her DID. Maria didn't like Ivy's violent tendencies, and she did everything she could to keep them both in the Asylum. That way, she could serve out her sentence and eventually go straight.

Her other half would lash out a lot at first; that was why the plants in the Asylum were replaced with fakes. But over time she took advantage of the systems in the Asylum to address her relationship with her other half to come to an understanding of their shared identity. The system of Isley was at mental peace, and she wouldn't be in the position she was in had the Blind Bat not done everything he did to fix Ryker's Asylum. She was proof that everything Matthew Wayne tried to do could work. "Thanks for the assistance, Ivy. I can take it from here," the Blind Bat said with a sigh of relief.

"You know the deal, Bat. If Joker stays here to rot, we finally get to blossom," Ivy responded gruffly. An amendment to the Blind Bat's proposal was that Maria get put on a work-release program, working in the Botanical Gardens. Ivy's peaceful half always loved nature, even if only her thornier persona had the powers associated with controlling it.

"If we succeed, I'd say you'd have earned it," the Bat replied with a hint of sass as he fired his grapple towards the Joker, latching into his shirt, and yanking him towards him.

As the Purple Joker was drawn in by the retracting grapple, he fished his hand inside his prison jumpsuit. Out from inside his shirt was a toothbrush filed down into a shiv. Once he was dragged up closer, Joker took a stab at the Bat. Fortunately, the Bat simply blocked the shiv with his other baton, which coincidentally also looked like a shiv right now.

"We're going to do this dance, forever, Batsy! You need me to become the ultimate version of yourself," Joker boasted as he wildly swung his makeshift knife at the Blind Bat. "I've been with you since the beginning, and I'll be with you until the end. That's why you'll never kill me! You need me!"

In turn, the Bat either dodged or parried every strike. Without an army of mind-controlled goons or a bag of tricks to compensate, the Purple Joker was just an average man with weird looking skin. Despite this, his mind games lingered in the back of the Blind Bat's brain. They had been dueling for the better part of two decades, and neither one of them had perished. Could there have been some greater divine reason their feud persisted?

While the Blind Bat was occupied with Purple Joker, the Jeweled Jester continued to struggle against Typhoid Ivy's bindings. As she fought back against the vegetation, it slowly started to tear. Ivy couldn't hold onto her forever; she had the strength of the insane. But the more time she spent not fulfilling her orders, the more painful Joan's expression became. "Let me go, Ive! I need to do this for him. I just need to!"

"What you need is help, Joan. Everything he has done to you has left you a husk of the former woman you were. You were a psychologist for God's sake! You wanted to help people like us. There's more to you than him, isn't there?" Ivy asked, mirroring the thoughts that raced through Joan's head not half an hour ago.

"No…I need him. I can't be perfect without him," Joan tried to justify to herself. Once he was back, her mind degraded back to the subservient little toy she thought she enjoyed being. She didn't fully know how to think for herself. She didn't think there was much of a "herself" left to actually think for. But to the Jester, none of that mattered. All that mattered was the mission, the command by the Joker. Nothing mattered but what he desired. The Purple Joker's pheromones were one hell of a drug.

Drug…that was an option. The Jester pried against her vine wraps until she eventually burst out from within them. She then reached for the extra dart of fear toxin gifted to her by Mr. Scary. Yes, the most important thing she knew about her current opponent was that she was immune to toxins, but if this stuff worked on Dragon Fist, it might work on her. It was at least worth a shot.

Ivy stood up from her big stalk platform to try and rewrap Joan, but she was too fast to get a proper grip on again. But then she noticed the toxin injector in her hand. She recognized it as fear toxin, the stuff of nightmares. She knew it wouldn't work on her, but Maria wasn't a fan of being stabbed with needles. So, when the Jester lunged at Ivy to stab her, she sent up a small vine to snatch her arm, and she turned it back inject the toxin into Joan herself.

Once the yellow fluid entered the Jester's system, she collapsed. Ivy quickly caught her in a bed of leaves. But once everything was settled, Joan Quinzel saw no hallucination. There was no artificial fear. This was because all the toxin did was provide her the lucidity to realize she's been living her worst nightmare for years. Everything became crystal clear. The mental conditioning, the brainwashing, the experimental enhancements, all to make her perfect for carrying out the heinous desires of the Purple Joker. She fully realized the gravity of how far she had fallen from what she once was, and that was mortifying.

As Joan realized her nightmare, she tossed and turned in terror. She also talked in her daze, babbling on about everything that became apparent to her. Ivy just sat there and gently stroked her hair. She did everything in her power to comfort her at this time. "It's okay. This is just the first step." Ivy had no idea that this would help Joan, she just got lucky. But, if this was how she was going to help someone she cared so deeply about, so be it.


Tim had left Luke to defend against the Kingpain. He had arrived to see the general population wing's floor littered with incapacitated inmates. Among them was Dragon Fist, curled up in a fetal position among them. Richard Rand rambled on about failing the soul of the dragon and being a disgrace to O'Lao's power. His nightmare consisted of a feeling of uselessness and failure to avenge his father. He felt he was haunted by all of those he failed to live up to. Upon realizing that someone else fulfilled his duty of avenging his predecessor, Rand felt unworthy of his power.

Of course, Pupil didn't know any of this, but he noticed the empty dart sticking out of his body. He promptly plucked it right out, hoping that would help. Unfortunately, it did not. "Come on Fist, come back to me! We need you to work your magic," Tim yelled at the martial artist of fleeting consciousness.

"I'm sorry Father, I am not worthy of your legacy. The soul of the dragon is not mine to bear. Forgive me," Richard mumbled in a daze.

Tim groaned in annoyance; this was probably what Luke had to deal with when he was helping out him. "Who cares if you deserve what you have or not? You got power, but it takes strength to know how to use it. Be strong, Rich."

Rand stared at Tim, the Fear Toxin in him with system made him hallucinate the monocular boy as the red eyed dragon which supplied him his powers. "I don't think I am. What am I supposed to do if not avenge my father, O-Lao?"

"What? You can't define your life over one person, dead or alive! That's stupid!" Pupil proclaimed, starting to get frustrated. Pressure was starting to build up again, so instead of letting it fester in his mind, he was going to turn that built up stress into action.

"You raised me to be the sole defender of Kun'Lun. But I am aimless without your guidance. I am nothing…" Rand whined haplessly. Fear can really turn someone into an ineffectual, blathering wimp. Hopefully the others like him throughout the Multiverse aren't like that.

Pupil he had enough trying to talk him through it. There was a job to do, and he needed the Dragon Fist to do it. Nothing mattered then except the mission, and Tim was intent on completing to save the dozens in the Asylum. He was done being nice, "Screw it, enough platitudes. I'm doing this Luke's way." He then fired off a brief, burst of energy from his eyes; it was the equivalent of a very hard punch to the stomach.

The optic punch knocked the wind out of Rand. He took several deep breaths to recover, harnessing his chi energy just as he did before the injection. His body could focus on healing him, purifying his ailed mind and soul. Soon after, he was himself again. "Ugh, okay, thank you Pupil. That reaper's toxin sure packs a punch. What do we do now?"

Pupil sighed in relief that Dragon Fist was back to his stoic, dry self. "Follow me, you need to use your dragon hand to stop Bane. I don't know if that means kill him or not, but I'm open to either at this point. I am very tired," he admitted exhaustedly. Fighting a hoard of crazed lunatics and then your own inner demons take a lot out of you.

Richard took a deep breath and flared his fist, "Alright, let's do it."


Somehow, the Purple Joker managed to escape past the Blind Bat to make it outside. This could have happened in a myriad of ways. Joker could have forced enough of his pheromones into the Bat's system to force him into a catatonic state long enough for him to escape. Maybe he got a lucky stab in, and the Blind Bat finally passed out from blood loss. Perhaps the Purple Joker just got lucky, and something heavy fell on him. Each of these outcomes were equally likely. If the Joker's origin story was to be multiple choice, why not this?

He looked over to see that Typhoid Ivy was consoling an incapacitated Jeweled Jester; the emotional tenderness all but sickened him, "Ugh, gag me with a screwdriver."

Ivy shot a glare towards Joker, "I have half a mind to snap your neck." She then focused hard to summon all the flora she had hidden away within the lobby. Tendrils of thorny vines surrounded the Purple Joker, ready to strangle him.

Joker looked around at the vegetative weapons, letting out an amused chuckle. "You know, Ivy, Joan had always spoke so highly of the…two of you. Controlling plants, immunity to poisons, I think she said something about using pheromones to control people, yourself! I'm shocked we never had the joy of working together! We would make a hell of a power couple," he proposed with a devilish smirk.

Ivy forced the vines to ensnare Joker, "What makes you think I would ever work with you after what you've done to this poor sap?! You're a parasite, a pest to be exterminated."

Joker seemed to shimmy and squirm around in his current bindings, "Because deep down, I know you're scared. Sure, I know you think I'm a devil for molding my dear, sweet Joan into someone worth a damn, but you do almost the exact same thing!" he asserted with a chortle.

"You, my dear Ivy, are an additional force attached to an innocent, pathetic woman's mind, forcing her body to commit a series of acts of violence for personal gain! If anybody here is a parasite, it's you! Oh, the hypocrisy is just delicious!" Joker cackled with self-serving egotism. He would say anything to justify his actions, but this specific excuse did ring true for the alternate personality, at least on some level.

Ivy's vines started to loosen their grip. "No. I make her strong. I protect Mary. We're turning over a new leaf. Things are gonna be different between us," she reinforced, but with a waver to her voice.

"And for how long? Are you really just going to stay out of the driver's seat forever? Just standing aside until she needs protection? Eventually, you're going fade away into nothing, because she won't need you anymore," the Joker described with a haunting grin. He took delight in the idea of her disappearing from Maria Iseley's mind. All the while, he continued to squirm. "We both know what happened to Harvey's other half; zip, gone like a puzzle piece into a vacuum! Are you really prepared to join the dust bunnies Ms. Typhoid?"

Ivy's eyes darted around in rapid thought. She hadn't often considered the ramifications. She believed herself only existing for Maria's betterment, her own identity was a means to an end for her benefit. But if she was going to be fine without her, was she prepared to let Maria, and herself go?

Among the Purple Joker's vast power, where he shined the most was in his tact. Beneath the sinister giggles and guffaws, was a man who knew how to expertly manipulate someone without even needing his pheromones. The right words could be used to tear someone down so far, that all they see themselves as is a joke. To the Purple Joker, the human condition was the greatest joke of all.

Additionally, a good psychoanalysis gave him enough time to send out a concentrated burst of pheromones into the vines which were holding him. Typhoid Ivy's chlorokinesis was a result of manipulating pheromones as well. So, if Joker had enough time and direct contact with the vines to overpower her own, he could wrestle control of them for himself.

"Alright, I've had my fun. Plants, swat her away!" Joker commanded as the vines turned against their original master, smacking Ivy away from the incapacitated Joan.

Ivy tumbled to the ground, "What," this had never happened to her before. She was quite confused.

"Word to the wise, Guac-Face, don't let a supervillain buy time with a monolog! We can use them to our advantage, too, y'know," Joker advised as he clenched his fist, "Strap her down until I'm out of here," he ordered to the vines under his control. The tangle of vegetation slammed down, burying itself through the ground to restrain Ivy to the floor. She would try to struggle and bring more plants to her aide, but it was all in vain.

Once Ivy was down for the count, Joker looked down at the fearstriken Joan, "Oh dear, you're broken again. Well, I fixed you once, I can do it again," he lamented before lifting her up, and carrying Quinzel out of the Asylum bridal style.


Titans continued to clash as Luke Bronze and Wilson Bane continued to exchange blows. Recovering inmates watched in awe from their cells for which they couldn't currently escape from due to Lorna's metal meddling. The two giants slugged and swung at each other with gusto. Kingpain relished in a fight against a man who had actual superhuman levels of strength and durability, meanwhile Luke was rushed with adrenaline as he slashed away at the brute with his clawed gauntlets.

As Bane garnered more and more strength from the Venom, he put more and more pressure on the feline-themed combatant. His fists hit like tons of bricks, not scratching his skin, but rather forcing the Man of Bronze into the floor. "Why won't you fall, boy?!" he shouted with rage as Bane continued his onslaught.

Luke held strong, standing firm in place as he guarded and countered whenever he could. "Because I'm a goddamn hero for hire, and I get the job done no matter what," he answered through gritted teeth. He then jabbed his claws right into Bane's chest, and by hitting the perfect weak spot in his body, he drew blood.

As Bane clutched his chest, he looked at his hand to see his blood mixed with a neon green hue. But before he could get a further look, the properties of the venom sealed the gash right back up. "Ah, so even with an opening, it will seal itself up and pressure will continue to build. Thank you, Doctor Crane," he observed out loud with a satisfied grin.

"That venom, it's expanding, ain't it? Using everything in your body to replace with pure power, pure force. You're a damn bomb!" Luke exclaimed.

"Now you get it, Gatito. I shall turn this prison into a tomb, not just for myself, but for all of those who stood against me. All of the people in here before have worked for me at some point, and when I fell, they abandoned their king. Now, I take the kingdom to Hell!" Bane raised his arms and slammed Luke into the ground, leaving craters in his wake.

By now, Dragon Fist and Pupil returned to the makeshift arena created by the Kingpain's smashing. "Do you know what to do with him?" Tim asked worriedly.

Richard looked down at Tim, now also worried, "I thought you knew what to do."

"Bats told me you would've had a plan!" Pupil shouted in panic. Pressure was starting to build up within himself again. As Luke sent another slash against Bane, Tim figured out a way to stop Bane from going out with a Bang. His tactical mind raced as instead of how things could go wrong, he realized the exact path to take to make things go right.

Bane would then pick Luke up and hurl him towards Pupil and Dragon Fist like a bowling ball. "Run away, puny children! The clock is ticking!"

As Luke careened towards the two of them, Dragon Fist focused his chi, outstretching his hand forward. As the large black man touched Rand's hand,he absorbed and redirected Luke's kinetic energy to bring him to a stop, and then reverse Suplex the man so that he ended standing upright. All chi was just a change in the flow of energy, any kind of energy if channeled properly. "You're welcome, Luke," Rand said with a dry wit.

Luke looked at Rand impressed, "Damn, that was cool."

"Alright, so guys, I have a plan!" Tim announced.

"I'm good with anything at this point, whatcha got?" Richard asked.

The plan was executed as such. Bane continued to rampage, pulsing to the point where he was almost ready to explode. He targeted a fleeing Dragon Fist, until he was stopped in place by Pupil. He would then force an endless assault of optic blasts to keep him occupied. The place he was stopped was ideally the crater created by Bane repeatedly smashing Luke like a man severely angry at a Nokia cell phone.

Luke then charged in against Bane. The location of his next strike was determined by Dragon Fist. Above the spot where Pupil was blasting, he would slash against the Kingpin's chest, causing him to bleed blood and venom. And as Tim's blasts connected with Bane's body, the blood was essentially being forcibly expelled from his body. It was an absolutely gruesome sight, but Bane was indeed getting weaker.

"You think relieving such little from me at a time would stop me. I'm losing more of my own natural fluids than venom. Your fate is inevitable," Kingpain boasted as he started to pulse to the point where he was about to explode.

Right before detonation, Dragon Fist leapt upon Caged Tiger's shoulders, and sent his magic fist right into the exacerbated puncture wound, using the dragon's chi magic to serve as a chemical filter. It pushed the vital fluids inside the body while letting the volatile stuff out. Instead of a slurry of blood and super steroids, it was just the venom which drained from Bane's body. Bane tried to struggle against this, but he lost strength rapidly. Eventually, he shrunk back to the proportions of a fat and flabby slob. All the stretched-out skin left him worse off than before. But with careful implementation of chi, Wilson Bane's heart would properly beat without assistance of any venom. He would never require any of the stuff to survive anymore. But after everything he underwent, Bane was thoroughly unconscious.

Luke picked up the shrunken Bane by the scruff of his neck like a stray cat, "Phew, that was a close one. So…where do we put him?"

"Probably downstairs, if there's still a cell left to put him in," Dragon Fist answered as he looked at his fist. It was designed to be a weapon of a warrior, but he used it to be a healing tool of sorts. Perhaps there was more to what he had to offer than just a vengeful fighter.

Pupil looked to the Kingpain and chortled, he was relieved to have the pressure of an explosion averted. "You're taking the easy way out, Bane. I guess you'll be facing your entire sentence. Good plan Luke," Tim praised before looking out towards the lobby. "I should go check on Bats and the Blade. Great job, guys!"

Luke and Richard exchanged glances, "So the kid's plan was really gross, right?" Luke asked with some aversion to what just happened.

Rand nodded, "Yes, but it yielded no casualties and still succeeded in the objective. The Bat has trained his ward well," he concluded. "I'd like to think the next generation is in good hands."

Luke smiled, "You're a part of that too, Junior. And I wholeheartedly agree." He added with a playful elbowing to Rand's shoulder.

Richard then looked around at some of the rubble left behind from the fight, "I think the kid left us on clean up duty."

Luke's smile faded as he realized Rand's observation was correct, "Shit."


The Purple Joker stepped past the threshold of the Asylum doors with an elated grin plastered across his face. He took his first breath of fresh air in a long time. Joan lay dormant in his arms, still reeling from the horrifying reality check. "You know, this reminds me of the joke about two escaped inmates and a flashlight, anybody care to hear it?" he asked jovially as he looked upon his audience.

Surrounding the front of the Asylum was a fleet of twenty Goth's Kitchen Police Department, headed by Commissioner Paxton Gordon, Detective Francis "Warhead" Bullock, and surprisingly, Nightfog. While the Inquizitor had created a signal jammer and virus to shut down Sybil's computers and surveillance equipment, that didn't stop her from using her regular cell phone. Nygma was clever, but sometimes he was a bit shrotsighted. With it, she called her Police Commissioner father and her semi-retired superhero colleague to come to the scene for backup. They were at a healthy range, a twenty-yard radius away from the man with mind-control pheromones. He couldn't infect and control any of them at their current distance.

Bullock pumped and aimed a shotgun towards Joker, "I've been waiting to end this freak for years," he said eagerly.

Gordon put out his hand above the barrel of the gun, "Easy, Warhead. Don't shoot. He's got a hostage. Everyone, keep your distance!"

"Hostage?" Bullock scoffed, "Commish, are yer cataracts are getting' to ya?! That's the damn Jeweled Jester!" he protested bluntly. "Just let me blow his head off!" The gung-ho policeman was errant on ending the violet monster's life as soon as possible. But as of now, he didn't have a clean shot.

"Doctor Quinzel's been Joker's hostage for years, Bullock. Show some compassion," Nightfog asserted as he readied his escrima batons.

"Yeah, that hostage bashed my face in a year ago. Forgive me for not being too sympatico," Bullock retorted with a roll of his eyes.

"Anybody got a clear shot on him?" Gordon asked looking around at his fellow officers.

"Not at this distance, and with Quinzel, there's too much risk." Foggy answered for them. The lawyer in disguise remained antsy through it all. He had left the courthouse in a rush to help handle this issue and wanted to get this over with. As much as he didn't want to be here, he felt that if he wasn't, something terrible would happen.

Joan slowly returned to consciousness. She looked up to see the face of her lover in abject terror. For the first time in years, her mind was free. Instead of seeing the face of a man she loved, she finally saw the monster for what he truly was. "No no no no no no, get away!" she scrambled away from him in a panic, but the Purple Joker had her clutched in his arms.

"Don't worry, darling. You've been broken, but I will put you back together again. I'll make you perfect again. I'll make you mine again," he assured in a hushed, breathy voice through a gritted grin.

Quinzel squirmed in his grasp, mortified, "You made me into your puppet, your toy, you're a m-" she tried to protest until Joker put a finger to her lips.

"Hush, my dear. No more words out of you for now. Just smile and look pretty," the maroon menace politely ordered, and despite just being freed from his control, she was compelled to comply with. Joan remained conscious through it, yet she was utterly powerless to stop him.

"Alright, let's get out of here. Bezarro! Get your Horsey Ass down here!" Joker looked to the sky, trying to find Beta Ray Zero waiting to pick them up, but there was nothing. "Come on! I know you can hear me!" And despite his calls, no one came. "Joan, I thought you said you had a ride coming. You didn't lie to me, did you?!" He asked with a twitch of his eye, beginning to grow impatient.

Joan was just as confused as he was. She haplessly shook her head denying any mistruths. He told her no words, so she remained silent.

What they didn't know, was that someone else who had escaped the Asylum had found Bezarro first, and they had fled the scene almost ten minutes prior. The two clowns were on their own.

Soon after, Blind Bat and Pupil rushed to the lobby. The Bat was able to recover just enough from whatever short-term defeat the Joker had dished out just in time. They arrived in a hurry, only to see not only the Polar Blade still under the effects of the toxin, but the Joker and Jester still right outside, "No, we're too late," Tim cried out in a panic.

The Blind Bat glared at the grizzly sight, "No, the pheromones just barely can't reach the cops at that distance. But Quinzel complicates things, her heartbeat is through the roof. She's scared out of her mind, Crane's Toxin maybe," he analyzed, trying to figure out the next course of action. "We can still stop him, if we do things right."

The Purple Joker looked around at the cops holding him at gunpoint. He'd been standing behind Quinzel the whole time, using her as a human shield. "Interestingly enough, both Gordon and Bullock have very sinister halves hiding beneath them, but I guess you can say that about all of you pigs," he joked dryly as he looked down at the ground. The pheromones he excreted which couldn't reach the police had since sunken into the ground, into the grass. While he couldn't make the plants grow rapidly like Ivy, he could still control the plants via his pheromones.

Joker then maneuvered the grass to wrap around the cops' shoes to trip them, thus bringing them into range of his control. This wasn't 100% effective, but it was a rather humid day, and the grass was wet with dew. So, it was also slippery enough to cause at least some of the cops to fall over. "Perfect, now, bring the others into range and aim your weapons at yourselves!" This convoluted series of events had the domino effect of bringing all the cops and Nightfog into the range of his sphere of influence, and then they all either pointed their weapons at themselves. Each lawman present now stood on a knife's edge from suicide. None of them had the power to stop this, and with a captive audience, the Blind Bat couldn't do a thing to stop him.

The Blind Bat's heart sank as the grizzly fate became apparent. Joker was going to use the hostages to escape and bring the controlled Jester with him. With the group of cops surrounding Joker, Pupil couldn't get a clear shot with his optic blasts either. Any gap was far too narrow for Tim to hit without blasting others caught in between. He was effectively untouchable. That abominable purple beast was going to run free again, all because of his own failures as a hero.

Purple Joker cackled as he turned around to see the Blind Bat absolutely broken. "Oh my, Batsy and the Crybaby, here to see me off! I'm ever so touched! Boys, if they come any closer, pull your triggers!" he commanded to the police, much to their great terror. He then looked over at Nightfog, just standing there holding his batons toward himself. He wasn't in any real danger, "You, bonk yourself on the head," Joker ordered to remedy this predicament. Foggy proceeded to knock himself out. He ended up not providing much support at all.

"What are you doing now, Joker? What's your endgame?" the Bat called out, desperate to start formulating a counter plan.

"Who knows? Maybe I track down Loxxi and partner up with the old cue ball, maybe I go off and continue my old habits in Goth's Kitchen! All that matters is I'm going to have a good time with my love," Joker announced before he forcibly kissed the enthralled Jeweled Jester. The poor girl was absolutely disgusted for what she was forced to take part in.

"Take one last good look, Bats! Today is the last day your precious city will be the same. Goodbye Goth's Kitchen, say hello to Hell's Ham!" Joker announced. To those who heard the name, they were befuddled. But the title was an inverted name for Hell's Kitchen and Gotham.

Joker sauntered over to one of the police cars with Joan on his arm. Before, her mind was in a constant haze, a blissful ignorance to the hell she was in. But now she was awake in this living nightmare, under the Purple Joker's thumb, and she could do nothing to stop it. Purple Joker stowed Joan into the shotgun seat of the car before climbing upon the top of it for one final grandstand.


Simultaneously, Lorna had finally awoken from her toxin-induced slumber. She was still in a fog, recovering from her first ever dosage. Reality still faced some warping. She groggily stood up and drew her sword. She saw the Blind Bat and Pupil with hopeless looks on their faces. She saw the horde of police officers holding their guns at each other, the helpless civilians. Then she saw the Purple Joker standing on the car, issuing in a new world of madness.

Lorna had learned much about the Purple Joker through stories from her father. She knew how much of a monster he was. She knew what would happen if he were to escape. At first, she hesitated. Despite her bravado, she had not yet taken a life. She didn't know the kind of person she would become if she started down this path. In fact, she could figure out several ways to dispatch the Purple Joker nonlethally due to the versatility of her powers. But she knew that if he still lived, more people, including the strange harlequin lady, would suffer at his hand for years to come. She refused to be complacent in the loss of lives, this was not a nightmare, and she didn't care if she wasn't a hero.

Lorna manipulated her sword into the air with her magnesis and aimed where her weapon would fly. When she knew her aim was true, she cast it off. It sailed through the air like a noble lawn dart. The Purple Joker, Jack Kilgrave cackled and guffawed with glee as he clutched his victory once again. But right before he hopped off the car, he felt the cold steel of a blade pierce through his chest.

He looked down at the weapon, and briefly looked at his assailant across the field of police which were meant to protect him. Joker remembered briefly seeing an insignificant mewling quim of a woman on the ground, he'd completely overlooked her. They had never once interacted, and she was the one who killed him. Not Blind Bat, not Pupil, or even his Jester. Just some random woman who showed up to help that day. He was completely dissatisfied with his own demise. "That's not funny," was all Kilgrave could muster the strength to say. And then, it was over.