...........
Chapter 196: You Are Irrelevant IV
...........
But Ian was curious because there was no Darkseid in this universe, or there was, but he vanished not long ago, seemingly expecting his arrival... It made him wonder, what is the embodiment of evil planning?
"There are plenty more universes out there, so let's continue," Ian murmured, not dwelling on the subject of Darkseid for long.
Ian had many more important things to achieve, such as perfecting the staff of all things. There are still a few energies, and tweaks required for its perfection, and distant universes are the exact thing he needed to perfect it.
While Ian and Dr. Manhattan were being the monsters they are, Selina and the others were being a headache to a few individuals.
They somehow found their way into the Dark universe or multiverse. Either works because it's one entity as much as it is a collection of many things.
The Dark Multiverse is quite a complex and puzzling place. It is a shadow under the primary Multiverse, one formed by every fear and bad decision ever made or dreamt.
Worlds in the Dark Multiverse are fragile and constantly deteriorating, inevitably doomed to destruction by their own malformed construction.
"This world is so weird." Selina stated with a frown, in a bit of a bad mood, "They absolutely have no artistic tendencies, nothing for me to steal!"
Harley agreed with her, nodding, "I hate it here too! Everyone is trying to steal my kills, and it's fucking annoying! Everyone is also very boring, and it's depressing!"
There was someone else who very much agreed with the two, and she just joined the group only recently, "I so want to make this world beautiful, and worthy of existing, but it's against the plan, isn't it?"
It was Ivy as she looked thoughtful, "I saw just about a dozen plants since coming here. Tell me you want to die without telling me you want to die."
Everyone could sense the annoyance in her voice, yet despite that, Raven voiced her very different thoughts, "I disagree. It feels very cozy in here."
This depressive atmosphere felt feel nostalgic and comforting for her.
"It would make a lovely vacation home. Ian would like it." Layla agreed, and as usual, the only thing in her mind was Ian.
"Hahh, you all... Hopeless," Zatanna shook her head, feeling a bit of a headache trying to keep the group organized.
"Selina, our main task here is to steal something. Is that not enough for you, especially knowing what it is?"
Zatanna reprimanded, but didn't stop there, "As for you Harley, don't you know better? Why don't you bring good vibes to the world yourself instead of just complaining? Moreover, just kill first, and your kills won't be stolen. Sounds easy enough?"
She still didn't allow anyone to speak as she continued, "Ivy, you can adjust the world as you wish when we're done, but for now, doing so would definitely give away our location."
"It's been easier than I thought It would," Selina remarked after shrugging her shoulders. Ian thought her to always accept more charity than what's given, even if that makes no sense.
Selina lifted her left hand, hiding her left eye, and remained silent for a bit, "Yup, that BatJoker copycat is still searching all around for us, and he seems afraid?"
"How far can your cats go?" Harley asked with curiosity, and a bit of jealousy mixed in there.
"Everywhere I've been or seen." Selina let out a happy giggle, feeling proud of her choice. She chose the Force of Evolution, and Ian gladly granted it to her.
It's safe to say that it evolved her powers to some incomprehensible levels, and it's still evolving her. It's even better than Doomsday in some ways because it's constantly evolving her instead of only evolving out of necessity.
And now, she was using one of her new powers, one the group was very much relying on to survey the entire world.
She already had cat powers or feline physiology, I should say, but it evolved into something greater, almost like a cat goddess of sorts.
And she can be considered a goddess considering her control over cats. Indeed, she can control cats, communicate with cats, and even see what they see.
As of recently, however, that evolved, allowing her to conjure dark cats anywhere she's been or seen. She can conjure as many as her mind can handle.
That eliminates her weakness when it comes to controlling real cats. They need to be close to her. Her control field is only about a few cities around while for conjuration, it's unlimited.
Her dark cats were spread out throughout this world, observing many things at the same time.
"As Ian said, this world is the center of the Dark Multiverse, so we have to be careful. We were almost caught last time, and I don't want that to happen again, okay?" Zatanna stressed as she brought out a ring.
"It's been a week, yet we're only on the verge of planting the first ring. The faster we act, the quicker we can secure this place."
And she started working right away, using her magic to teleport the ring a few miles down, very deep into the ground from where she was.
She wasn't done just yet as she continued casting numerous spells to keep the ring hidden, even more spells than the ones she had cast on the group so as to not get detected.
"Three more to go," Zatanna let out a sigh of relief. Her casting was so quick that failure became an option. She had to cast quickly because, "Let's move out!"
Layla waved her hand, bringing on a cloak of darkness above them, driving them among the darkness.
Zatanna, on the other hand, went in another direction to create a distraction. It was important to remain hidden because the beings in this world can certainly kill them.
Thankfully, the concept of distractions came in with the clutch, saving them like always.
And indeed, soon, someone arrived in the area, a man adorned in completely black clothes. He looked like he belongs right in Arkham Asylum.
If that wasn't enough to land him a spot right next to the Joker in the art of insanity, he had chains revolved around his arms, falling to the ground, leaving behind clanking noises as he walked forward.
That's not the end though. He had a mask on, a spiky metallic mask completely hiding his eyes, and only showing his smiling mouth, sometimes even giggling.
"Hah... Hahaha... HAHAHA HAHAHA, THIS IS FUNNY! This is hilarious even... It's a bit boring though. I want to kill someone." His words were chaotic, switching from one mood to another, from one subject to another, and he kept true to his words.
He turned around, swinging his chains to surround one of his underlings. He pulled him towards him, and pulled more, choking the underling while looking closely into his eyes, "Your eyes are funny."
Only Joker would be so crazy and weird, but this isn't Joker, well, this person isn't only Joker. This is The Batman Who Laughs! He's Bruce Wayne from Earth -22 of the Dark Multiverse.
The Joker of this Multiverse is understandably worse than that of the primary universe. Hell, the Earth he belongs to has a minus in it, so take the normal Joker and make him worse!
The result was a very naughty Joker who did so many bad things it drove Batman near insanity to the point the latter killed Batman in rage.
He was so traumatized and angry over what the Joker had done that he grabbed the Joker and broke his neck.
Unbeknownst to Batman though, the Joker exhaled a toxin contained in his heart, which infected anyone close to him if he died. In this case, it was Batman.
Not long after that, Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood, and Red Robin were training in the Batcave and talked to Bruce about his worsening condition due to the toxin.
Though they all offered to help the Bat however they could, Batman rebutted that he didn't want any help and revealed that the real reason he called them was that he knew they would be the first to notice something was wrong with him and warn the other heroes, something he couldn't allow to happen.
And then he surprised them by doing something they were unprepared for, pull out a pair of hidden machine guns and shoot them all dead.
The Toxin drove him crazy and implanted a part of the Joker in him that would soon kill every force of good in his entire world, becoming a monstrosity almost never seen before, almost.
"Ahem," The Batman Who Laughs tidied up his clothes while giggling, "Very very naughty. How can I allow you rats to escape again?" As he spoke, he pulled out a dark metallic card.