Ti slowed. The air thickened around him, pressing against his lungs like invisible hands. For Adam, every heartbeat felt like a countdown. His instincts scread that he was walking a tightrope over a pit of knives, and one wrong word—one wrong twitch—would send him plumting into hell.
The Joker was still standing there, arm extended.
'What do I do?'
Adam knew better than to gamble on the Clown Prince of Cri's patience. The Joker wasn't just unstable—he was performatively unstable. If you hesitated too long, he'd create a new ga. A new joke. And you were the punchline.
So Adam made a split-second decision.
He collapsed.
With a slurred mumble and exaggerated sway, he let himself fall clumsily to the floor, as if the alcohol had finally won. Limbs sprawled, shirt ruffled, eyes half-lidded—he beca every drunken idiot Gotham's nightlife had ever spit out.
"S-Section Chief… I ain't drunk, dammit—just… lem write one more…" he groaned, voice thick with feigned intoxication. "You promised you'd recomnd if I broke a hundred million words. Now look at —seven or eight collections, still floppin' like a dead webnovel... Ughh… my family hasn't eaten in three months…"
He rolled around, flailing as if caught in so fever dream of failure, spewing gibberish that would confuse even a drunken poet.
It was desperate. It was humiliating.
And it was brilliant.
Because while Adam was making a fool of himself, he was also—very slowly—putting distance between himself and the Joker.
He wasn't the first in history to feign madness to survive.
Adam wasn't just acting. He was stalling. He needed space. Ti. An angle to reach the weapon holstered beneath his coat. If he could just get enough distance—just enough to draw—it would be the Joker's turn to panic.
But as he flailed on the floor like a lunatic, sothing unexpected cut through the mont.
"Ahhh! Help! Sobody help!!"
A scream.
Shrill. Distant—but close enough to jolt Adam's mind like a lightning strike.
He didn't hesitate.
In one fluid movent, he surged upright from the floor—adrenaline burning away the haze—his hand snapping to his holster. The cold steel of his sidearm t his grip like a familiar friend.
"Don't move! GCPD!" Adam barked, voice sharp and commanding.
He spun toward the sound, gun raised—ready for a hostage situation, a bomb, a clown-fueled massacre.
But there was… nothing.
Just an open window, creaking on its hinges in the wind.
No victims. No attackers. No Joker.
The spot where Gotham's nightmare had just stood was now empty. As if he'd never been there.
Adam stared at the window, heart pounding.
"Gone…?" he muttered. The hotel's top floor lood beyond the glass, high above the Gotham skyline. A fall from here was practically a death sentence. "Did he... jump?"
Unlikely. The Joker didn't die. He just disappeared, like a virus slipping through the cracks.
Before Adam could dwell on it, chaos erupted behind him.
People were screaming. Hotel guests poured out of corridors in a panicked frenzy, rushing toward the exits—and toward Adam, still holding his weapon. They recoiled as they saw the gun.
"Move! I'm with the police!" Adam shouted, flashing his badge and pushing through the surge.
Ordinarily, Adam would never have gotten involved. He wasn't the heroic type—not anymore. If sothing went wrong outside his jurisdiction, he'd usually stay as far away from it as possible.
But this was different.
The Joker had just been in the building. And when he showed up, things always escalated. This wasn't just a robbery. It wasn't even just a killing. This could be a bombing. A mass murder. A declaration of war on Gotham's sanity.
If Adam didn't act now—if he didn't take this seriously—he might not live to regret it.
"Dammit!" he cursed, running through the crowd. "This scar-faced maniac always goes big. He doesn't just rob banks—he blows up hospitals. Kills Robins. Hell, sotis he even drives Superman insane!
"And now he's here? At the Zeus Hotel? But his first cri… wasn't it the suburban ice rink? What tiline is this? What the hell is going on in this world!?"
anwhile…
Inside a lavish, gold-trimd executive suite high above the city, two of Gotham's most powerful n sat facing each other.
Maxie Zeus lounged like a deity in a tailored white robe embroidered with thunderbolts, his fingers dripping with rings shaped like Olympian sigils. Across from him, stiff and visibly annoyed, sat Bruce Wayne—billionaire, philanthropist… and sothing far more in the shadows.
"Is this why you brought here?" Bruce's tone was clipped, irritation simring just beneath the surface. "I thought we were discussing an eco-energy grid for East Gotham. A real infrastructure project. Sothing that could actually help people."
Maxie waved his hand grandly, like dismissing a servant.
"Thunder belongs to the gods, Bruce. Not to mortals begging for clean electricity. Let Protheus deal with the mortals."
He leaned forward, grinning.
"I summoned you here to share news of glory! My new project: the Olympus Hotel! The grandest monunt to divinity the world has seen! When it opens, it will make Wayne Tower look like a pauper's outhouse!"
Bruce sighed.
There it is.
Maxie Zeus wasn't just a narcissist. He was a delusional galomaniac with a fixation on Greek mythology. Every building he owned dripped with statues, columns, and frescoes. He fancied himself the reincarnation of Zeus himself. At so point, the eccentricity had spiraled into madness—and then into power. Real power.
With a high-tech electrified scepter and a private militia disguised as "centurions," Maxie ran one of Gotham's most dangerous underworld factions. He wasn't just a lunatic—he was a rich lunatic. Possibly even wealthier than Bruce himself.
And now, he wanted Gotham to worship him.
Bruce glanced at his watch, calculating the ti he'd wasted on this farce. The only reason he was here was because Wayne Enterprises had an energy project mapped for East Gotham—and the land was controlled by Maxie. Cooperation was required. Maxie's patented electrical tech was crucial to the plan.
Lucius Fox had sent word earlier that day: Maxie finally wants to talk.
So Bruce showed up—leaving behind his nightly patrols—only to find himself in a gilded ego trap.
He was just about to excuse himself when the doors burst open.
A man in a security uniform stumbled into the suite, pale and panting.
"Boss! There's a situation—sothing big! Sothing's gone wrong in the revolving restaurant!"
Bruce's eyes snapped into focus.
Maxie frowned.
The room changed.
No more talk of gods or towers.
Now it was ti to see what kind of disaster had just been born.
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