Batman's only response to the Joker was to fling another plate.
This time, he aimed for the gun in the Joker's hand.
At the moment, Batman had no equipment on him. He needed to even the odds first—only then would he have a chance to take him down.
"Oh-ho, your aim's gotten worse, Bats!"
A plate was still just a plate—not a Batarang. The Joker dodged it effortlessly and couldn't resist adding a taunt:
"Thinking of switching careers to circus juggling?"
He casually fired another shot into the air. Panic erupted as the guests finally fled the scene completely.
Batman seized the moment, moving forward, using overturned tables and scattered furniture as cover to close the distance.
Five steps away, the gun is fast. Within five steps, the gun is both fast and accurate.
But for someone of Batman's martial mastery, firearms weren't as lethal as they seemed.
The man holding the gun wasn't Deadshot or Deathstroke.
Batman was confident he could evade the Joker's second-rate aim.
In the end, he was almost certain he'd win this confrontation.
"That really hurts, you know—you still don't trust my shooting skills."
The Joker had already seen through Batman's plan. Annoyed, he still had to admit he wasn't the kind of marksman who could reliably hit a prepared Batman.
He covered his face with one hand, raising the gun with the other. The Smith & Wesson Model 5946 in his grip aimed toward Batman—then shifted slightly to the right.
"But luckily, I don't actually need to hit you."
"You think that little kitty can dodge this one, Batsy?"
He had found a better target.
Catwoman.
Batman didn't even need to look back. He already knew who had arrived.
Ignoring his warning, Selina had followed him out of curiosity—and now, faced with the dark barrel of a gun, she froze completely.
Her mind, overwhelmed with fear, went blank. Instinctively, she clung to the only lifeline she could think of:
"Help me, Bruce!"
Batman clearly remembered telling her not to follow him—but she insisted on coming anyway and ended up getting in his way.
He was certain that this version of Catwoman didn't possess the same level of skill as the one he knew. There was no way she could dodge that shot.
"Ohhh, you hear that? This is going to be fun!"
The Joker's excitement surged. His finger tightened on the trigger, his voice turning manic:
"You'd better be ready, Bats—because I've been just dying to tear everything you love apart all over again!"
"Oh… wait, no, no, no—almost forgot the formalities. Shouldn't I… deliver a joke first? A little punchline before the bang!"
Right before the bullet was fired, the Joker's emotions settled again, because he had come up with another dull, terrible joke—just as he always did.
"Now what was it they say… ah yes."
"Curiosity killed the cat..."
Then, without hesitation, he delivered the punchline.
Bang!
Batman hurled a wine bottle at the Joker the instant the trigger was pulled. It flew through the air—but before it could hit, Catwoman was already struck.
The bullet tore into her abdomen. She collapsed instantly, clutching her side.
The Joker didn't have time to dodge this time—the bottle smashed into him, knocking the gun from his hand.
"You bastard!"
Batman exploded forward with unprecedented speed, like a storm unleashed, clearing every obstacle between them in an instant.
One of the greatest martial artists in human history, Batman at this range was unstoppable—armed or not.
He seized the Joker by the throat and slammed him to the ground.
"Why do you still exist?!"
"Hahahaha! Why do I exist? Maybe because someone desperately wants me to keep the jokes coming!"
The Joker laughed wildly.
"What do you think of this one? Feeling familiar?"
"Robin, Batgirl, Catwoman…"
"Hahahaha! The useless little bat couldn't save any of them!"
Thud!
Batman said nothing. He stopped questioning.
Instead, he slammed the Joker's head hard against the floor with a dull, brutal impact.
"This farce ends now."
The Joker's words were meant to provoke him.
And they worked.
One hand pinned the Joker down.
The other came down in a relentless barrage of punches—again and again—splattering blood, crushing flesh.
Each strike unleashed the darkness buried deep within him.
At that moment, violence was no longer a means to an end—
It had become the end itself.
Batman's line had long since been corssed. In his rage, he no longer cared whether he crossed that line again.
"Stop, Bruce!"
A voice from the side snapped him out of his violent frenzy. A slender, nimble hand grabbed the edge of his sleeve.
"Selina?!"
Bruce came to his senses as if waking from a dream. He released the Joker—who was already barely recognizable—and looked at Selina in disbelief, reaching toward her waist to check the wound.
"I saw that bullet hit you!"
Though still shaken with fear, Selina hesitated for a moment before taking Bruce's bloodstained hands in hers.
Everything about him tonight felt wrong—his presence, his eyes—nothing like the indulgent, reckless Bruce Wayne she knew.
"Because of this."
Selina pulled out a small, flat piece of metal from her waist. It shimmered with a golden glow—it had been what stopped the bullet.
"Do you remember my eighteenth birthday? Martha and Thomas both gave me gifts for my coming of age. But you spent the entire day at a club and completely forgot. The next day, when I chased you down for it, you just handed me this random piece of metal to brush me off."
"I... I..."
Batman didn't know how to respond. Of course he didn't remember—he wasn't this world's Bruce Wayne.
But from the fragments of memories that had surfaced in his mind, this absolutely sounded like something that version of Bruce would do.
And yet, this girl—who cared so deeply for Bruce Wayne—had kept this seemingly worthless metal fragment with her all this time, never letting it leave her side...
So Batman's judgment of that Bruce hadn't been wrong at all. He truly was a complete bastard, a disgrace.
"Of course you don't know, Bruce."
Selina looked at him differently now. Once something is seen clearly, the filters created by affection disappear. And now she could finally understand what was happening tonight.
"You know me and Alfred. You are Bruce… but not the Bruce I know. Am I right?"
Batman's silence was answer enough.
"I've never seen this thing glow before. Here—take it."
Selina handed him the glowing golden fragment.
"You've been searching for something all night. Maybe this is it?"
It was a fragment of the Helmet of Fate—the very thing Joey had urgently told him to find over an hour ago.
Batman carefully took the fragment.
But as one question was resolved, another immediately surfaced.
If the fragment had been with Selina all along—right by his side—then why had his memory started to change when he left the manor?
What exactly within Wayne Manor had been protecting his mind from being overwritten?
---
At the same time, deep within a guest room in Wayne Manor—
Because Bruce Wayne preferred not to be disturbed during certain… activities, this room was far from the main hall and well soundproofed.
As a result, Joey and Diana had no idea about the chaos unfolding at the party.
At that moment, Diana was seated over Joey, leaning down after finishing what she was doing, her strong yet graceful upper body pressing lightly against his chest.
Joey lay on the bed beneath her, his hands tightly bound to the headboard with rope, unable to move.
Taking advantage of the brief pause, Joey gave the rope a small tug.
"So… can I be freed now, Your Majesty?"
"Of course not."
Diana rested against his chest, idly tracing the faint scars across it with her fingers.
Each of those scars—less than two centimeters long—was, as he had said, from shrapnel during a battlefield explosion. Marks of how he had narrowly escaped death.
She traced them one by one, counting them to pass the time, waiting for him to recover—until suddenly, she felt something sharp beneath her fingers.
Metal.
And blood.
"Ahhhhhh!!!"
The dim room was suddenly flooded with golden light, accompanied by Joey's cry of pain.
As Batman retrieved the fragment, Joey began to change.
From every scar across his body, sharp golden metal fragments burst outward—including the two on his face.
Blood poured from his wounds as intense pain overwhelmed him. He writhed uncontrollably on the bed, shouting.
Thankfully, the restraints from their earlier game kept him in place—otherwise, he would have been thrashing wildly with metal shards embedded all over him.
Diana, pressed close against him, was also pierced by the sudden fragments. Their blood mingled once more.
The divine power of the Helmet of Fate awakened something within them both—something already tied to divinity.
Their memories returned.
Joey's scars were never from a missile.
They were from the Helmet of Fate.
During the struggle earlier, the helmet had shattered, unleashing a violent explosion of divine energy.
Batman had been shielded by Martha, spared the initial physical blast.
Joey had not been so fortunate.
The fragments scattered like shrapnel, embedding themselves into his body and face, leaving dozens of wounds.
Before he could recover, the out-of-control divine energy swept across everything—pulling all four of them, Gotham City, and even the entire Earth into its influence.
That power was never meant to be contained.
It had the ability to define destiny itself—to rewrite cause and effect.
And in the end, the aftermath of that explosion reshaped reality entirely—
Creating a new world… molded by the desires of those present.