Batman quickly pulled up a holographic screen, pulling up David's livestream to see where he'd gone and what he was planning. The image that appeared made his blood run cold—David wasn't anywhere in the United States anymore…
"How is this possible!" Ra's Al Ghul's voice was filled with genuine horror and disbelief, watching the stream as David walked through his secret base like he owned the entire place, like he had every right to be there.
They had moved their operations, carefully relocated to a new hidden location that should have been impossible to find, taken every precaution imaginable—yet David had just teleported directly inside like it was absolutely nothing, like their security and secrecy meant less than nothing to him.
"Oh, please, did you actually think I couldn't track you guys down? That I didn't know exactly where you were every single moment?" David asked with a lazy, dismissive tone that made it clear how little threat he considered them.
"Just wait for two more weeks, maybe less if you're unlucky—unless you and Savage do something stupid to speed up your deaths and force me to deal with you sooner." The casual way David spoke about their deaths was absolutely horrifying to Ra's Al Ghul, making him realize the true extent of what they were dealing with.
It was true—after his intense battle with Allura, something fundamental had changed in David. Now he could sense everything, perceive things on a level that seemed almost godlike, track anyone anywhere on earth.
David completely ignored Ra's Al Ghul's presence and the ninja scrambling around, instead bringing the Joker to stand before a large, eerie pool of glowing green water that bubbled and glowed with unnatural energy.
Joker was clearly confused about this pool of strange water, his eyes darting around trying to understand what he was looking at, and David was kind enough to explain exactly what it was.
"This right here is called the Lazarus Pit; it's an ancient pool with mystical properties that can bring people back from the dead, restore life to corpses, heal mortal wounds, and so on," David said in an educational tone, as if teaching a class.
"I want to do some extensive research into the nature of the soul—what it is, how it works, where it goes, all those fascinating questions. So what's a better way to study that than by killing the one thing in this world that absolutely no one gives a single damn about, bringing it back to life with this pit, studying what happens, and then repeating the entire cycle over and over again?" David asked lightly, casually, as if discussing a simple science experiment.
The words shocked Joker to his core—but before he could do anything, before he could speak or move or even think of escaping, he was shocked to suddenly realize that time itself had frozen completely around him, everything locked in place like a photograph.
Joker stood there confused, his mind racing to understand what was happening, until he noticed a goth girl standing directly in front of him, appearing from nowhere. She wore dark clothing and had an expression of genuine pity on her pale face as she looked at him.
Joker's confusion instantly evaporated, disappearing like smoke, as he seemed to instinctively and instantly know exactly who this person was without needing to be told. She had been there at the very moment he was born, present for his first breath—and she was here now for his last one, present for his final moment.
Joker slowly turned his head to look toward his own lifeless body, which lay crumpled on the ground with its neck bent at an unnatural angle, clearly broken by David's hands. Then he looked back at Death, who stood waiting patiently with her pale palm held out toward him in invitation or perhaps inevitability.
"I'm going to Hell, aren't I?" Joker asked softly, his voice stripped of all its usual bravado and madness, sounding almost childlike in its vulnerability. Death simply nodded her head slowly in confirmation, saying absolutely nothing out loud.
She wasn't the one who judged anyone's actions or decided their eternal fate—she was simply the one who acted as the bridge between one existence and the next, the guide who walked everyone across that final threshold.
So Joker descended into Hell—and oh boy, did the demons in that terrible place absolutely fall in love with the clown in ways that would make anyone's skin crawl. Joker got to experience and live through the deepest, darkest, most horrifying parts of Hell, forced to endure things so unspeakable and vile that they couldn't possibly be put into words that any human language possessed.
He was tortured in every conceivable way—physically with pain that never ended, spiritually with corruption that ate at his very essence, mentally with horrors that shattered his psyche into fragments, and even sexually in ways that violated every boundary that existed. Nothing was off-limits for the demons, no line they wouldn't cross, no degradation too far.
Joker got to see and understand what true, absolute evil was really like up close. He encountered beings who could never, ever step foot into Heaven, creatures fated for all of eternity to remain away from anything remotely good or pure or kind.
They were forced to exist in a nightmarish world where the only thing that could possibly exist was evil in its rawest, most concentrated form—where cruelty was the only currency and suffering the only language.
At first, in those early moments, Joker laughed his signature laugh, finding the whole situation darkly funny in that twisted way of his... But Joker very quickly realized, with growing horror, that these demons were ancient experts at their craft—they knew exactly how to break him down completely, how to find every crack in his armor and exploit it ruthlessly.
They somehow knew, with supernatural insight, that Joker feared being forgotten more than almost anything else, feared losing his relevance and fading into obscurity where no one spoke his name.
Joker feared a world without Batman, without his eternal dance partner and opposite, the one person who gave his existence meaning and structure.
Joker feared being the punchline of his own joke rather than the one telling it, feared being laughed at instead of being the one making others laugh.
Joker feared being ordinary, being just another face in the crowd, unremarkable and forgettable.
With so many deep-seated fears to exploit and manipulate, Joker soon found himself transformed into nothing more than a pet to the demons, a plaything for their endless amusement.
He didn't know exactly how it happened, couldn't pinpoint the precise moment when his will finally broke completely. He didn't know how long the process took—time moved strangely in Hell, stretching and contracting in ways that made no sense.
But somehow, gradually and inexorably, the demons had conditioned him perfectly to be their toy, their obedient pet who would do anything, endure anything, just to avoid being forced to live out his deepest fears in vivid, unending detail.
His primary owner? It was a demon who dressed itself as Batman, wearing that iconic cowl and cape in a cruel mockery of everything Joker had once obsessed over. Joker was utterly broken by this, reduced to a joke within Hell itself, a punchline that the demons told each other.
But luckily for Joker—or perhaps unluckily, given what was to come—after what felt like endless eons suffering in Hell's depths, he saw Death once more. This time she appeared to take him back to the world of the living, to return him to Earth.
Joker jumped desperately at the chance to leave Hell behind, running frantically toward her with wild eyes, begging her silently to quickly get him out of this nightmare.
Joker's eyes snapped open, and he found himself drowning, submerged in liquid. He flailed wildly and quickly stood up, gasping and sputtering as he rose to his feet in the pool of glowing green water.
He noticed immediately that David was sitting casually at the side of the Lazarus Pit, one eyebrow raised with interest while studying Joker's reaction carefully, taking mental notes.
"Hell wasn't a pretty place by the looks of things," David said lightly, his tone almost conversational as he observed Joker's trembling, traumatized state.
"Please, please don't send me back to Hell! I'm begging you!" Joker cried out desperately, his voice cracking with genuine terror, horrified beyond words at the mere thought of being sent back to that place of endless torment… his butt was tired, it had been stretched out far too much.
For all of his legendary craziness, all his chaos and madness and unpredictability, even he didn't want to play around with Hell anymore. He understood now, truly understood in a way he never had before. He would be different, he promised himself and anyone listening. He would be a completely different man, reformed and changed.
But to Joker's absolute horror, cutting through his desperate pleas, he suddenly saw Death appear again in the corner of his vision. She wore that same expression of deep, sorrowful pity on her pale face as before.
[A/N: Had to keep Joker suffering PG, the shit he went through was pure evil. I'm using the biblical idea of hell, by the way (Ignore that the biblical hell doesn't have Lucifer since it says he walks the earth as it's god.).
Hell would be a place absent of god, which in this case would be like the Presence. I place where people reject him shall fall, and live the rest of their lives in uncontrollable sin that can thrive and twist endlessly without limit. Lust without control, pride without limit, and so on. This is a place where the concept of good doesn't exist, a place where no words can truly be put into words to describe it and paint a clear picture, since it's a place where no good can ever exist. pure and absolute evil... Lobo managed to endure it because Lucifer wasn't there... because I don't see Lobo facing Lucifer, and laughing it off.]