"A spider?" Livewire shouted, recoiling as he crushed the small intruder that had scurried across his cell floor. He kicked off his shoe in a panic, sending it flying across the room, then exhaled in shaky relief. The spider had almost crawled up his leg. Just the thought of it made his skin crawl.
He turned toward the guards outside, ready to shout, but his head suddenly felt light. Disoriented, he stumbled back onto the bed, blinking hard, fighting to stay awake.
He didn't want to fall asleep, not with the idea of the spider in the room. But it was no use. Within moments, he was out cold.
A few seconds later, the shoe that had crushed the spider began to shake. Slowly, the mangled body beneath it twitched—then moved, pushing the shoe aside.
The crushed spider was none other than Omen. Just before the shoe landed, he had used a power inherited from the Martian Womanhunter, altering Livewire's mind so that he would fall asleep the moment Omen died.
He wasn't even sure if the original Martian Womanhunter could do that, but it didn't matter. Omen mastered every ability he gained instantly, without the need for training or understanding.
And now, moving silently through the shadows of Belle Reve, he crept from one cell block to the next. Letting each metahuman kill him one after another, then moving on to the next.
Omen quickly collected all the powers he needed, which, by his standards, was more than enough. After all, Billie Numerous was locked away here. His ability to create copies of himself would be incredibly useful.
Omen also made a key observation. The metahuman powers he absorbed were being nullified inside the cells—most likely due to the facility's suppression systems. But powers tied to Diana and the Martian weren't affected. That… was something he would definitely remember.
Anyway, Omen phased out of the prison and immediately used Livewire's power to take control of the entire system—unlocking every cell and setting every prisoner free.
The moment he heard the chaos erupt behind him, he smirked… and vanished. He had someone else to find. The Joker.
She created him—and now, she had to pay for it. Finding her wasn't difficult. With Martian powers, Omen could scan the minds of nearly everyone in Gotham. In seconds, he picked up on that unmistakable chaotic presence.
He shot across the city, phasing through buildings and streets until he arrived behind her. She was sitting lazily in front of a TV, flipping through channels with zero interest. Clearly bored. And how could she not be? Batwoman hadn't come out to play in months.
"What are you watching?" Omen asked with a light smile, his tone casual and unbothered.
The Joker jumped at the voice, glancing toward the wall—only for her eyes to widen when she saw him standing there, calm and unshaken. She blinked, rubbed her eyes once, and when he remained, her face lit up with a grin of pure delight.
"You're really alive!" she cheered, throwing her arms up like a child reunited with a favorite toy.
Omen didn't respond right away, caught off guard by her reaction. This was the same clown who had killed him, and now she was overjoyed to see him breathing again? The contradiction tugged at something in the back of his mind, but he didn't bother untangling it.
Instead, he slipped into her mind.
To most, the Joker's thoughts were unreadable, fractured, volatile, a maze of broken logic and unfiltered chaos. Even the Martian would find nothing but noise.
But to Omen, the disarray felt strangely familiar, as if the madness fit into some hidden rhythm only he could hear. It didn't confuse him. It made sense.
"How are you alive? I was sure you had bleed out and die," the Joker said, circling him with curious eyes as she examined Omen from head to toe, poking lightly at his shoulder as if testing to see if he'd vanish.
Once she was certain he was real, truly standing there before her, she broke into laughter, that loud, chaotic kind that only she could make sound genuine.
Omen didn't flinch. He simply stared back at her, his expression unreadable, the silence between them stretching longer than it needed to.
For so long, he had believed the Joker was the one responsible for everything—his transformation, his madness, the monster he had become. But as he walked through her memories, searching for confirmation, the truth settled in quietly and without resistance.
She hadn't turned him into anything.
The Joker had seen something familiar in him from the very beginning, and she hadn't tried to change or shape him, because she already understood what he was.
And in the end, it wasn't even she who killed him. It was her sidekick.
"Why do you care so much about me?" Omen asked after a long silence, his voice quieter than before, almost uncertain. He couldn't wrap his mind around it. Why would anyone care about him?
"Why?" the Joker repeated, her grin fading slightly as she caught the expression in his eyes—distant, layered with confusion, and something close to pain.
She paused, really looking at him for the first time in that moment. And without saying another word, she let out a sigh and dropped into a nearby chair, leaning back slowly as she gathered her thoughts.
"I care for you because we are the same. Right now, you reject yourself because society says it's wrong. Deep down, you're fighting against your true nature, convincing yourself it's something evil… but it's just a bad joke," she said, locking eyes with him.
Omen didn't speak, but the conflict in his expression was obvious. Seeing it clearly, the Joker stepped closer and gently held his face in her hands, her touch surprisingly gentle.
"You're not the monster, society is. People out there pretend they aren't monsters, but when the chips are down, those same civilized people will tear each other apart. They hide their nature behind routines, jobs, families, smiling faces, all to fit into the illusion they choose to live in."
She leaned in slightly, her tone quiet but cutting. "But we broke free from that illusion."
Omen's eyes slowly widened as her words sank in.
"Money? A chain that traps them inside their illusion. Family, work, a home, food—these are all chains, carefully crafted to keep people from ever breaking free," the Joker said, her voice calm but laced with something darker. "Are we crazy for wanting to laugh? No… we're just being ourselves."
Her grin widened, eyes gleaming with malice. "One day, I'll hold up a mirror to their faces and show them the truth—we're not so different. Every single one of them has a little crazy inside."
"You have big dreams… I'd like to see it," Omen replied, his expression shifting slowly as a smile began to form—one that mirrored hers.
She was right. Everyone has a little crazy in them. They just hide it, bury it deep, because the world tells them it's wrong. And so they live in the illusion… the one everyone calls normal.
There was no helping Omen. This wasn't some corruption or outside influence, this was who he truly was.
Maybe when the Joker's former sidekick killed him, a bit of that madness had passed over. But even if some part of it had been inherited, Omen knew the truth,that part, the insanity, was something he had under control.
What wasn't under control… was the desire. The urge to see others suffer.
"Just the two of us, we can do it together." The Joker said softly Omen nodded, but as he did, he paused in surprise when the Joker leaned in and kissed him.