The black Bat armor sealed around Lex in seconds, and he launched himself into the sky.
Nearby, Ci Yun found herself staring upward, mouth open, watching him disappear into the clouds.
Axel caught the expression on her face and walked over with a grin. Without warning, he reached out and shoved a finger into her open mouth, poking at the back of her throat.
"Ugh?!"
Ci Yun snapped back immediately. After a violent retch, she wheeled on him with fury in her eyes.
"What is wrong with you?!"
Selina stepped in before Axel could say anything.
"Ha, my Mister always looks like he's one step away from disaster. But the longer you know him, the more you realize that when something actually matters, there's nobody steadier." She grabbed Ci Yun's wrist as she spoke, her hand climbing naturally from wrist to shoulder, arm curling around the girl's waist as she steered her forward. "I'm Selina Kyle. And you?"
"Ju Ci Yun."
Ci Yun frowned and tried to pull away, then stopped mid-shrug as something clicked.
"Wait. You're... Selina?"
"That's right. Surprised? I'm fairly well known, though the reputation got a lot more colorful after I got tangled up with that scoundrel Axel." Selina laughed and kept walking, towing Ci Yun along despite the halfhearted resistance. She turned her head and called back, "Darling, I'm taking this delicate little thing to get cleaned up. Haino and Harley are yours. Their heads are both a mess, which, honestly, is your doing. Also," she added, voice dropping into something conspiratorial, "Ci Yun looks like she hasn't been corrupted yet. You don't mind if I get to her first, do you? Just a taste."
Axel rolled his eyes and pointed at Ci Yun, who had spun around with an expression of genuine alarm.
"If you're going to say something like that, maybe don't say it directly in front of her. Look at the girl's face." He waved cheerfully at Ci Yun from across the yard. "The famous witch, actually flustered. Rare sight."
From the direction of the castle gates, the Enchantress, who had just stepped outside, slowed down. She rubbed her face and shouted across the distance.
"Excuse me? I will admit Wonder Woman put me on edge, but I don't wear it on my face. Do I actually look scared right now?"
"I wasn't talking about you," Selina cut in without looking at her. She waved Enchantress over. "Come here, help me get this girl into the bathroom. She seems to have a strong objection to bathing with company."
"I bathe alone, Ms. Selina. That is not negotiable."
Ci Yun stated this firmly and broke free from Selina's grip, only to be immediately caught by Enchantress. The two of them steered her inside before she could manage another protest.
Once they were gone, Axel shook his head with a quiet laugh and tossed the unconscious Haino toward Harley, who caught her with a wide, bright smile. The smile had something of the Joker in it, sharper than it should have been, though without the makeup it just looked unsettling rather than theatrical.
Harley gripped Haino by the shoulders and shook her hard until her eyes cracked open. Then she looked at the dazed girl and spoke to Axel without turning around.
"Harley, Harley. Why always Harley? If you had any taste, you'd call me Queen."
"Harley," Axel said again.
Harley let it go. She stepped up to Haino and peeled back her eyelids to examine her pupils, then straightened and crossed her arms.
"Here's my professional assessment. I'm a psychiatrist, Wraith. A real one. And I know exactly what I am and what's happened to me. Mad Hatter did damage, yes, but not all of it was bad. Some of what I found in my own head I actually like. The difference is that a part of Harleen Quinzel is still in here, keeping some kind of order. There are still limits. Still choices."
She looked at Haino.
"This one is different. There's nothing left holding the walls up. She's not damaged, she's rebuilt. Completely. Whoever she was before you, Wraith, that person is gone. What's left exists entirely around you. You could ask her anything right now and she'd comply without hesitation." Harley smiled without warmth. "Whatever you did to this girl shattered twenty years of identity in one shot. I genuinely want to know what that felt like."
She pulled open Haino's eye again and studied the slightly dilated pupil.
"Look at that. Just being near you does it. She's completely hooked. So what do I call her? Your shadow? Your echo? Something poetic, I think."
Harley tilted Haino's head back, pried her lips apart, and peered inside. Then she shook her head.
"Teeth aren't even stained. This girl has barely lived."
She tossed Haino back and Axel caught her without thinking. He looked at Haino's face for a moment, then sighed.
"If I wanted someone completely compliant, I'd buy a mannequin. At least those don't make you feel guilty. Look at her. That expression." He grimaced. "A woman with nothing left in her eyes is not something I want around me. I'd rather put her out of it."
Haino, who had been drifting in and out of consciousness, focused at the words. Something in them seemed to give her direction. She raised her right hand and drove it toward her own eye.
Axel watched her do it. He didn't stop her.
She gouged out the eye, dropped it to the ground, and immediately reached for her own throat.
At that point, Axel knocked her unconscious with a flat tap to the back of the head.
He stood there a moment, looking down at her.
"Before Gotham, I had never encountered women like this. Not once." He picked her up and walked to where the eyeball had landed. "This city does something to people. Everyone here is off in some direction. The ones who seem normal are just waiting for the right trigger."
He crouched, picked up both eyeballs, still trailing optic nerve, and held them up as he looked out across the yard.
"Zatanna. You available?"
"For you? Always. But make it quick, my show starts soon."
Zatanna came around the side of the building dressed in her stage clothes, top hat included, magic staff in hand. She stopped in front of Axel, swept the hat off in a formal bow, then replaced it and looked at the situation without visible reaction.
"You know I'm serious about performing," she said, gesturing lightly with one hand as a soft shimmer passed over Haino. The eyeballs lifted from Axel's palm, drifted back into the empty sockets, and sealed themselves in place. "Stage magic is a family tradition. My father built his career on it. I intend to build mine."
Axel watched Haino's face as the tissue knit together.
"I never said you couldn't perform."
"I know. I'm asking for a few days to scout. Gotham has bars, a few circuses, and I've heard there are some genuinely unusual people living in the sewer system. A real circus needs real freaks, a strong acrobatic troupe, animal handlers, a magician worth watching, and a clown with actual range." She straightened her jacket. "When I open, you're coming to the first show."
"First show," Axel agreed. "I'll be there."
Zatanna gave him a wide smile and walked off with a bounce in her step. It was her first time building something like this from the ground up, and she was clearly already planning it in her head.
Harley watched her go, hands on hips.
"She has the right instinct. Gotham is perfect for a circus. Half the population qualifies as a freak act, and there are more Joker types walking the street than you'd find in any actual asylum." She laughed. "Not that that's a bad thing."
"You know what, you might be the least crazy person I've met all week," Axel said. He held up a hand and she slapped it.
Harley kept hold of his hand after the high-five and used it to pull herself up beside him.
"Speaking of sanity, I need a favor, Wraith. I've made a mess for myself out here. If you don't back me up, the cops are going to drag me in, and not to Arkham, which is the only place I'm willing to go. I have standards." She positioned herself in his line of sight. "Arkham is mine. I run it. Even after everything Mad Hatter did, I run it. I need it back."
She guided his hand into a sharp smack across her hip and gave him a firm look.
"I learn from things. I'm not easy to trick twice, and nobody gets inside my head anymore because I've already made it completely uninhabitable for outsiders. Send me back. I'll handle whoever's taken my spot, and I'll do it in a way that makes an impression."
Buzz.
A low, growing hum from the east pulled both their heads up.
The Batplane came in low and steady, towing a small spacecraft beneath it on a cable, angling toward the private underground flight tunnel built into the back of the property. Lex, still in the armor, dropped from altitude and landed on top of the spacecraft, riding it down as the Batplane guided it in. The whole assembly descended smoothly into the tunnel, and a minute later Clark and Bruce came up the ramp from below.
Clark spotted Axel and looked genuinely surprised.
"You're back already? I figured you'd be out longer."
"Nothing held my attention for long. One interesting encounter, then I was done." Axel looked past him at the tunnel entrance. "So. That's the ship. You're really doing this Human Federation thing?"
"Decided," Clark said, nodding with the kind of certainty that only he could pull off without sounding naive. "And our first standing priority within the Federation is keeping a reasonable check on you, specifically. The man with the highest documented potential for global destruction." He put a hand on Axel's arm and gave him an earnest look. "What you've been lately is fine. Loud, occasionally alarming, but manageable. If we can just be close enough to pull you back when you eventually decide to do something genuinely irreversible, that's a good use of my life."
Axel stared at him.
"Clark."
"Yes?"
"That might be the most insulting compliment anyone has ever paid me."
Clark grinned and they walked together toward the spacecraft. Bruce drifted alongside them, studying the hull.
"You're certain this is the ship that brought you here," Bruce said. It wasn't quite a question.
"Positive. I was an infant when it launched, so no, I didn't fly it myself. That's why I have both of you." Clark pressed his hand flat against the hull near the seam of the hatch. "I'm not useless with machines, Bruce. Don't let the farmboy thing fool you. Between the three of us, we figure out how it runs, what it can do, and specifically whether it still has the capability that matters most, the range. Crossing light-years."
He gripped the hatch seam and pulled it open with one steady motion.
The three of them stepped inside, into a cabin that smelled of stale atmosphere and old composite materials, untouched for more than two decades.
Moments later, through the curved hull, a pale blue light began to glow.
Axel stood in the yard and watched it.
To him, the ship looked less like a piece of machinery and more like a lighthouse beam turned sideways, broadcasting across distances he couldn't fully picture. A signal cutting through the dark between stars, still reaching, still calling.
Calling whatever else was out there.