No matter what the Joker thought about the evening's events, he was going to Arkham Asylum.
At least temporarily.
Jude eyed the purple-clad maniac sprawled on Harvey's blood-splattered floor and felt a twinge of concern. The Joker's threat—"don't let me find your Christmas house"—carried the weight of absolute sincerity. This wasn't theatrical villainy. This was a promise.
Unfortunately, Jude didn't have the asset points to solve the problem permanently.
The next best option would have to do.
"Hold still," Jude muttered, kneeling beside the Joker with the sword still in hand. "This is going to hurt."
"Oh goodie—" the Joker began.
Slash. Slash.
The blade severed tendons in both hands with surgical precision. The Joker's fingers spasmed, went limp. Before he could finish whatever delightful comment he'd been preparing, Jude moved to his ankles and repeated the process.
Slash. Slash.
Achilles tendons, gone.
"There." Jude stood, wiping the blade clean on what remained of his Santa coat. "That should restrict you for a while."
"Probably," he added under his breath.
"I'd advise you not to treat those injuries," Jude said louder, addressing Batman's shadow. "Otherwise he'll just escape from the asylum once he heals."
Silence.
Batman stepped forward into the moonlight streaming through the broken window, cape settling around his shoulders like liquid darkness. His white eye-slits didn't look at the Joker.
They looked at the sword in Jude's hand.
"Your swordsmanship isn't weak."
Jude glanced at his system panel, where a new entry glowed faintly: Intermediate Swordsmanship Mastery.
"About average," he said with a shrug. "I only held him off because I can heal faster than he can stab, and I've got friends who are actually competent in a fight."
Batman's jaw tightened fractionally—the only sign he'd heard the implicit criticism about his twelve-minute response time.
"Why are you in Harvey's house?"
"He sent me a letter." Jude gestured vaguely toward the stairs. "Invited me to Christmas dinner. Also mentioned he'd rented me an apartment for a year—extremely generous, honestly. I was planning to thank him properly." He paused. "I had something to do tomorrow, so I came by tonight. But Harvey and his wife weren't home yet. Only the door lock was picked."
"By the Joker," Jude added, in case that part wasn't obvious.
Batman surveyed the carnage. Collapsed walls. Window with a person-sized hole. Blood splatter patterns that would require a forensics team to catalog. Bullet holes in the ceiling. Floor gouged by crowbar impacts.
"After what happened here, you'll have to come back in a few days."
He paused.
Looked at the structural damage again.
"Maybe you won't have to come for a few weeks."
Jude shrugged philosophically. "I've got the apartment key. That'll work."
Batman apparently decided the small talk portion of the evening had concluded. He crossed to the Joker in three long strides, grabbed a fistful of green hair, and hauled the maniac upright with no particular gentleness.
The Joker dangled like a scarecrow, hands and feet useless, blood still dripping from multiple sword wounds.
He smiled anyway.
"Why did you come to Harvey's house to do this?" Batman's voice dropped to that gravelly interrogation tone that made criminals confess to crimes they hadn't even committed yet.
"HA! Why shouldn't I?" The Joker's grin widened impossibly. "If I'd found a .22 pistol or two with the serial numbers filed off, or a Halloween decoration or two—" His eyes gleamed. "—I could've killed him and turned Gotham City's Holiday Killer from psychopath back into a real one!"
Batman's grip tightened. "Harvey Dent is not the Holiday Killer."
"Hehehehe, he really isn't?"
"No," Jude interjected, because apparently his mouth operated independently of his brain. "That's not even the point. The point is there are already enough psychopathic killers in Gotham City. Even if you remove the Holiday Killer from the equation, there are still dozens of psychopaths locked up in Arkham—"
The atmosphere changed.
Suddenly, noticeably, the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Batman looked at Jude.
Jude looked at the Joker.
The Joker looked at Batman with an expression of dawning, terrible enlightenment.
"What?" Jude spread his hands defensively. "I'm not wrong. Unless he plans to take out all the inmates in Arkham—"
"Enough small talk." Batman cut him off with the kind of force usually reserved for stopping speeding trains. He was genuinely worried the Joker would take Jude's observation to heart and start planning a mass murder event.
"I'm taking him back to Arkham Asylum. Now."
Batman slung the Joker over his shoulder like a sack of psychotic potatoes and moved toward the window.
"Wait, if you're using the window, shouldn't you at least—" Jude began.
Too late.
Batman and his burden vanished into the night with a dramatic swirl of cape, leaving Jude alone in Harvey Dent's destroyed study.
"—close it behind you," Jude finished to empty air.
Cold wind whistled through the person-sized hole. Snow began drifting inside, settling on blood-stained hardwood.
Jude sighed.
"Right. First things first. Let's see how many points I have left."
The system panel materialized with its usual sardonic efficiency.
SYSTEM STATUS
Asset Points: $18,327
Skills Acquired:
Basic Driving Proficiency
Basic Firearms Proficiency (You still can't hit anything)
Intermediate English Proficiency (Upgraded from practice)
Intermediate Stealth Mastery
Intermediate Tracking Mastery
Intermediate Lockpicking Mastery
Intermediate Swordsmanship Mastery (NEW)
Advanced Wheelchair Driving Proficiency
Advanced Culinary Mastery
Items Owned:
Modified Electric Wheelchair
Demon-Repelling Pumpkin Lantern
Halloween Sans Pumpkin Head
Horn of Plenty
Double-edged Straight Sword
Hacker Two-Piece Set (Laptop + surveillance gear)
Eavesdropping Location Lighter
Jude scanned the numbers. Eighteen thousand points remaining after tonight's expenses. The master swordsmanship experience card had been expensive, but it had worked, and he'd retained intermediate proficiency afterward. Worth it.
"System," he said aloud, "help me restore this room."
SYSTEM: Initiating cleanup and restoration service
Estimated Cost: $3,000 asset points
Confirm purchase?
The price was within expectations. Jude had seen what professional cleaning crews charged in Gotham, and that was for normal messes. This qualified as a crime scene crossed with a demolition site.
"Wait—can you keep the Christmas tree?"
SYSTEM: Affirmative. Christmas tree can be preserved.
Note: Apple-shaped bombs will be replaced with normal decorations and gifts.
Revised Cost: $2,300 asset points
Confirm?
"Much better. Yes, start the cleanup."
SYSTEM: Cleanup and restoration initiated.
The effect was immediate and profoundly unsettling.
Scattered debris—chunks of wall, broken glass, splintered wood—simply vanished. Not swept away. Not moved. Erased, like someone was hitting the undo button on reality itself.
Bullet holes in the walls smoothed over, plaster reforming, paint appearing fresh and unblemished. The collapsed section of wall rebuilt itself brick by brick in reverse-time, mortar sealing, structure solidifying. The massive hole in the window frame filled with new glass that materialized from nothing, pane after pane clicking into place with soft musical tones.
Blood vanished from the hardwood floor. Gouges from the crowbar disappeared. Even the faint scorch marks from where Grundy had crashed through evaporated like morning dew.
In less than thirty seconds, Harvey Dent's study looked exactly as it had before a clown with a crowbar had redecorated.
Perfect.
"To be honest," Jude observed, "this function would be extremely useful for regular housecleaning."
He stripped off the blood-soaked Santa coat, the bedraggled Christmas hat, the torn boots—all of it went into system inventory. Five asset points purchased a cleaning service that removed every trace of blood, sweat, and Joker from his body. Another small purchase provided a fresh Christmas outfit.
Finally, he carefully packed up the Christmas tree—now decorated with normal ornaments instead of apple-shaped explosives—and stored it in inventory for transport.
After sending Grundy and Clinton back to their respective locations with appropriate thanks, the system notification finally chimed.
MISSION COMPLETE
"A Little Light of Christmas"
Status: Completed (1/1)
Rewards Issued
Basic Rewards:
Snowman Crystal Ball Music Box
Harvey Dent's Friendship
Intermediate Physical Fitness Enhancement
Save Point Forward Function (UNLOCKED)
The moment Jude acknowledged the notification, the physical enhancement activated.
"Fu—aaAAAAH!"
The scream tore from his throat before he could stop it.
Pain erupted from everywhere. Not surface pain like knife cuts or crowbar impacts. This came from inside—deep, cellular, overwhelming. His muscles spasmed and reformed. His bones ached as density increased. His organs seemed to shift and optimize, and every single one of those optimizations hurt.
It was comparable to fighting the Joker. Maybe worse. The Joker had only stabbed his outside. This was stabbing him from the inside out, every cell simultaneously tearing down and rebuilding, every system upgrading with zero anesthetic.
"Why—didn't—you—tell me—it would—HURT THIS MUCH!" Jude gasped between waves of agony.
SYSTEM: Will note for next time.
Jude no longer had breath to protest. He focused everything he had on maintaining consciousness, on not passing out, on enduring the three longest minutes of his life while his body transformed.
Gradually—finally—the pain began to ebb.
His breathing steadied. His vision cleared. The sensation of his organs rearranging themselves faded to a distant ache, then to nothing.
Jude stood slowly, testing his new body.
Fine muscle groups defined his arms and legs with lean, efficient strength. His frame felt sturdier, denser, like his bones had been reinforced with something stronger than calcium. His limbs moved with smooth power that hadn't existed before—no wasted motion, no inefficiency. His reaction speed had increased noticeably; when he dropped his pen, his hand caught it before conscious thought registered the fumble.
Even his senses felt sharper. He could hear individual snowflakes hitting the newly-restored window. Could smell the faint residue of gun smoke that the system cleaning hadn't quite eliminated. Could feel the air currents in the room with unusual clarity.
He felt terrifyingly strong.
Not Batman-level. Not superhuman.
But leagues beyond the gaunt, malnourished transmigrator who'd arrived in two months ago with seven dollars.
"Finally," Jude muttered, stretching experimentally. Everything moved smoothly, no pain, just pure functional excellence.
"I can finally get a good night's sleep."
The next morning, Harvey Dent was awakened by his wife's scream.
"Oh my God! Dear, come downstairs—come see!"
Harvey's eyes snapped open. His hand instinctively reached for the nightstand drawer where he kept—
No. Not necessary. That was Gilda's happy scream, not her terrified scream. He'd learned to distinguish between the two over the past few months.
Still, he moved quickly, descending the stairs two at a time, until he reached the front door where Gilda stood in her bathrobe, hands clasped over her mouth, staring at—
A Christmas tree.
A beautiful Christmas tree, perfectly decorated with lights and ornaments and tinsel, a golden star crowning the top. It sat on their doorstep like a magazine cover illustration of the perfect holiday.
A delivery man in a Wayne Logistics uniform stood beside it, clipboard in hand, looking remarkably unbothered by the early hour.
"Delivery for Mr. Harvey Dent," the man said cheerfully. "Sign here, please."
"Who—" Harvey blinked. "Who sent this?"
"There was a letter too." Gilda handed him an envelope, her eyes shining with delighted confusion.
Harvey took it, broke the seal, unfolded the single sheet of quality paper inside.
To Harvey Dent,
Since my previous residence burned down, I found myself without permanent housing. Living in a hotel is not a long-term solution. Yesterday I received your letter, which provided me with a place to stay. I am so grateful I cannot adequately express it in words.
I need no thanks for the kindness you have shown me. It so happens that someone gave me a Christmas tree yesterday. I have no use for it myself, so I decided to decorate it properly and give it to you as a token of my gratitude.
I must spend Christmas Day with the children, so I'm afraid I won't be able to join your family dinner tomorrow. I'm very sorry. If we have time, we can get together another day.
Your friend always,
Jude Sharp
And so, this year's Christmas in Gotham City remained a peaceful and tranquil day.
Just like every other year.
Mostly.