Fancy techniques get you killed faster.
That's what every street fighter in Gotham learned eventually. The flashier your moves, the shorter your lifespan. It was a lesson you could apply to yourself—or use against your enemies.
The Joker was experiencing the second interpretation firsthand.
For the first time in years, he felt something unfamiliar crawling up his spine.
Pressure.
He'd fought cold weapon experts across Gotham's blood-soaked streets. Samurai swords that sang through air. Rapiers that danced like silver snakes. Batarangs that curved impossibly around corners. Bo staffs that cracked skulls. Dual blades, bastard swords, longswords, even goddamn nunchucks wielded by overeager martial artists who'd watched too many movies.
Every fight had refined his style, sharpened his instincts, taught him how to turn chaos into advantage. His technique—if you could call it that—relied on trading injuries. Fight like a madman. Take damage to deal damage. Make opponents hesitate, make them afraid to commit fully to an attack because the Joker never hesitated, never flinched, never stopped smiling.
It worked. Most of the time, it worked beautifully.
But he'd never fought someone wielding this type of double edge straight sword before.
The one-handed straight sword moved differently than common blades—quicker thrusts, tighter circles, a fighting style built on precision rather than power. And the man holding it—this blood-soaked Santa Claus—was using it with techniques the Joker had never encountered.
Maybe Batman knew this style? But Batman never used swords. Batman just punched people until they stopped moving, which was honestly less interesting.
Still, the Joker smiled.
Always smile.
"Hehehehe! Why aren't you afraid of pain now?" He lunged forward, dagger seeking flesh. "It's okay! You can just scream if it hurts!"
The blade found its target—cut through red cotton, parted skin, carved down to bone. Jude's shoulder opened in a deep gash, blood welling up immediately.
But even as the Joker's dagger completed its arc, the sword in Jude's hand moved with serpentine speed. The tip flicked outward—thrust, twist, pull—and suddenly the Joker's waist was missing a chunk of flesh the size of a deck of cards.
Along with his belt.
The one containing canisters of laughing gas.
Oh.
The Joker didn't dodge. Dodging would mean acknowledging the wound, and acknowledging wounds was for people who cared about living. Instead, he swung his crowbar one-handed, a vicious overhead strike aimed at Jude's skull.
CLANG.
The sword intercepted, blade meeting steel with a sound like a bell. Jude blocked with his right hand while his left shot forward, grabbing the Joker's wrist, yanking him off-balance—
And then Jude rushed in.
Close quarters. Too close for the crowbar to be effective. The sword swept up in a tight arc, and the acid-spray boutonniere on the Joker's lapel came flying across the room in pieces.
The dagger found Jude's back in retaliation.
Blood sprayed.
Both combatants continued without pause.
They moved like dancers in a macabre waltz, each step choreographed in violence. The Joker struck high; Jude blocked and countered low. Blood splattered across Harvey Dent's expensive hardwood floors. The sword sang through air, removing another gadget—a playing card launcher hidden in the Joker's sleeve. The dagger opened another wound—this one across Jude's ribs.
But here was the problem the Joker had never encountered before:
His opponent healed.
Not slowly.
Immediately.
Every wound Jude took closed within seconds. The fruit candy in his mouth—still dissolving, still releasing life-restoring juice—activated the Horn of Plenty's vampiric properties. Flesh knit together. Blood stopped flowing. Even deep cuts sealed themselves with disturbing efficiency.
The injury-trading tactic that had served the Joker so well for years—the willingness to take damage to deliver worse damage—had become a liability.
Because Jude could trade injuries all night.
The Joker couldn't.
"It's not fair!" The Joker's voice pitched higher, genuine distress cracking through theatrical madness. "It's not fair! It's not FAIR!"
He spun, dagger flashing in moonlight.
"It's not fun to play like this!"
Jude didn't waste breath answering. His focus narrowed to a single point: survive and disarm. The sword moved in his hand with increasing confidence, each strike more precise than the last. His brain was adapting—learning to process pain as information rather than sensation, cataloging the Joker's patterns, finding openings.
Was this the master-level swordsmanship experience card doing its work? Or did Jude himself possess some latent combat talent buried beneath years of avoiding fights?
He didn't know.
He didn't care.
It was working.
CLANG!
The sword's crossguard hooked the crowbar's curved end, trapping it mid-swing. The Joker laughed wildly and immediately switched tactics, bringing his dagger around in a vicious backhand slash—
But Jude was already moving, already anticipating. He knew his backup was watching. Waiting.
Waiting for this.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Three shots in rapid succession.
Clinton Banner's rifle spoke from across the room, and three 7.62mm rounds found their targets with surgical precision: the Joker's crowbar hand, his shoulder, his elbow.
The crowbar clattered to the floor.
Jude pressed the advantage immediately. The sword swept in low and fast, cutting through purple fabric, severing the holster strap, sending the oversized hand cannon spinning away across blood-slicked hardwood.
Five minutes remaining on the master swordsmanship experience card.
But the fight was essentially over.
The Joker stood disarmed—literally. Belt gone, laughing gas canisters scattered. Boutonniere destroyed, acid neutralized. Playing cards depleted. Revolver out of reach. All he had left were the dagger and his bare hands, and even those were compromised by bullet wounds that actually stayed.
Jude could call Grundy back in now. Even after the sword experience expired, an injured Joker with limited weapons couldn't get past two armed teammates to reach him.
But Jude didn't give the signal yet.
Master-level swordsmanship was expensive. A temporary skill boost like this cost thousands of asset points. He needed to fight for the full duration and maybe, maybe some muscle memory would stick after the system buff expired.
"Grundy!" Jude called out, jian still tracking the Joker's movements. "Move that Christmas tree outside! Don't let him detonate it manually!"
"Solomon Grundy," came the rumbling response from beyond the broken window, "born on Monday."
The zombie had been waiting for exactly this kind of instruction. He crashed through the window frame and wrapped his massive arms around the explosive-laden Christmas tree, and bounded back out into the night like the world's most dangerous Santa's helper.
"NO!" The Joker's composure finally cracked. "No no no no NO! My Christmas tree! My fireworks Christmas tree!"
The smile vanished.
For the first time tonight, the Joker's face showed something other than manic glee. His eyes locked on Jude with an intensity that had nothing to do with madness and everything to do with fury.
"A shameless, boring, uninteresting Santa Claus!" He spat the words like poison. "Who can't even use a gun! You've ruined my entire Christmas! My fireworks! My presents!"
They clashed again—dagger against sword, desperation against technique. The blade found the soft tissue behind the Joker's knee. He stumbled, physical exhaustion finally showing in the way his shoulders sagged, the way his breathing hitched.
"What are you talking about?" Jude riposted, deflecting a wild dagger thrust. "I personally brought you a bucket of milk, a giant, and helped save your Christmas tree. You should be thanking me."
"Oh, I will definitely find a chance to thank you properly in the future!"
The promise carried weight. The Joker meant every word.
They continued their deadly dance under cold moonlight. The dagger and sword reflected silver light with each exchange, painting the room in flickering shadows and blood spray. The Joker's movements grew more frantic, more aggressive—pure attack now, no defense, all the restraint he'd shown earlier completely abandoned.
"You've never fought before!" The Joker's voice cracked with genuine confusion. "So why go to such lengths? Look at yourself—you were crying just minutes ago!"
"Anyone normal cries," Jude said, parrying a particularly vicious slash. "If someone's always laughing?"
The sword swept in, opening another cut across the Joker's forearm.
"Then they've never been happy."
"HA!" The Joker's laugh sounded almost genuine. "A boring Santa Claus thinks he understands an interesting lunatic!"
His dagger work became wild, unpredictable—pure chaos given form. The desire to inflict damage overrode everything else, technique abandoned for raw aggression.
"Hehe, hehehehe, hehehehe—" The laugh built like a crescendo. "So by that logic, if someone never laughs, it means they must have never been normal, right?"
Jude's eyebrows rose.
Something in that phrasing—the specific word choice, the implication—triggered an instinct. He glanced around the room, scanning shadows, looking for—
"You deliberately went to Maroni's first."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, low and rough as gravel. Black fabric materialized from darkness itself as Batman stepped into the moonlight streaming through the broken window.
"Lured me there, then came to Harvey's house to plant the bombs."
The Joker's grin returned full-force. "Took you long enough, Batsy!"
Jude didn't lower his sword—not with the Joker still armed—but he did shift his stance slightly to address the new arrival.
"When did you get here?" he asked.
"Just arrived." Batman's white eye-slits tracked the blood splattered across the room, calculating trajectories, assessing injuries. "He steered me to the Diamond District. Took time to realize the misdirection."
Jude let out a long, exhausted breath. The countdown timer in his HUD hit zero—master swordsmanship experience expired. His muscles suddenly felt the full weight of every movement, every block, every strike. The pain he'd been managing roared back with a vengeance.
He sat down. Hard. Right there on Harvey's blood-soaked floor.
"Twelve minutes," Jude said flatly. "It's been a full twelve minutes since I yelled the word 'Joker' loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. Isn't it time for some self-reflection?"
Silence.
Batman's jaw tightened fractionally. "You know I left other listening and locating devices on you."
"Of course. That's exactly your style." Jude's tone carried the exhaustion of someone who'd just fought a master-level combatant for ten straight minutes while being repeatedly stabbed. "Why do you think I removed the signal shield?"
The implication hung in the air: I knew you were listening. I called for help. You took twelve minutes.
At this moment, the Joker—bleeding from multiple wounds, disarmed, outmaneuvered—seemed to experience something rare.
A breakdown.
"DAMN IT!" His voice cracked, rising to a shriek. "You two are not allowed to talk!"
He pointed a shaking, blood-covered finger at Jude.
"That RED CLOWN—don't let me find your Christmas house! Otherwise, I will definitely blow you up!"