At 4 a.m., a light rain fell from the sky. The cold night wind swept through a dark, lifeless alley beside the Black Mask Club. The broken streetlight at the alley's entrance made its usual irritating creaking sound as the half-broken lampshade swayed.
It was early autumn, and the combination of the cold air and rain had made the two raincoat-wearing guards at the club's back door drowsy.
Even though their boss had ordered them to keep watch, they really didn't see the point.
"Do you think the guys at the port will succeed?"
"They will for sure. The boss has bribed several security guards and knows the inside situation. That rich brat will soon be brought here and forced to hand over his entire fortune. Wait, did you hear something?"
"Uh, no. Maybe you misheard?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
But they hadn't misheard. A common RC toy car was making its way through the ventilation ducts of the Black Mask Club, heading to the second floor.
The remote-controlled car, equipped with a camera and costing only $400, easily bypassed the club's bulletproof glass defenses and entered the duct system above the office.
Through the air vent grill, the figure of Black Mask talking on the phone came into view.
The next moment…
"Boom!"
A bundle of TNT exploded!
The shattered air ducts turned the explosion into a massive fragmentation grenade, sending deadly shrapnel everywhere with a piercing whine.
Everything happened so suddenly that Roman Sionis, the Black Mask, had no time to prepare.
Faced with the barrage of shrapnel and the roaring flames, his only instinct was to lean back, hoping his sturdy desk would shield him.
Too late!
Even with his hand-to-hand combat skills, rivaling Batman, and his unmatched marksmanship, there was no escaping unscathed from this blast.
A large chunk of galvanized metal, the size of a basin, tore through his right arm, cutting it in half. Worse, over thirty pieces of shrapnel embedded themselves in his body, nearly turning him into a sieve.
Only his exceptional physique and the Kevlar vest he was wearing kept him from dying on the spot.
His men weren't so lucky.
Of the four armed gang members, three were killed instantly, and the fourth lay dying in a pool of blood.
The explosion shattered part of Black Mask's iconic mask, revealing his handsome face. Unlike in the comics, where Batman had disfigured him, Roman was still a dashing middle-aged man.
But what Batman hadn't done, someone else had.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
A series of explosions shook the entire second floor of the Black Mask nightclub.
It wasn't just one or two bombs—an entire chain of TNT explosions rocked the place.
The blasts tore through the ceiling of the nightclub below, causing chandeliers to crash down. Flames and sparks filled the dance hall.
Fortunately, it was late, and the club was nearly empty. The few remaining guests, who had been enjoying the night, fled in terror.
Roman knew the Black Mask Club was done for.
Someone was clearly determined to wipe him out entirely.
As if things couldn't get worse, he heard commotion and the sound of gunfire from the street. Struggling to pull himself out from under his desk, he removed his belt, using his mouth and remaining hand to tighten it around his severed arm to stop the bleeding. Then he staggered to the window.
Down the street, a large group of Joker's gang members was charging in, engaging in a fierce firefight with his own men.
"The Joker Gang…" His voice was filled with venom, sounding like it came from the depths of hell.
There were easily over a hundred of them.
With his current forces, there was no way he could hold out.
Without hesitation, after stabilizing his injuries, Roman rushed to his safe, quickly grabbing the most important items before making his escape.
He stumbled through his devastated office, having to kick open the doorframe, which had been warped by the explosions.
"Is anyone still alive?" he shouted.
The only responses were a few groans of pain.
His attackers had been ruthless.
The explosions had decimated the entire second and third floors of the three-story building.
Without a second thought, Roman abandoned his gravely wounded subordinates. The garage door at the back of the club had collapsed from the blasts, so he had to escape through a side door on the back street.
Incredibly, the two guards at the back door were still alive.
"Follow me! Protect me!" he ordered.
"Uh, yes, boss!" The two gunmen were momentarily stunned but instinctively followed his orders.
The Black Mask's authority was too overwhelming. No one dared disobey unless they were certain he was truly done for.
The rain was pouring harder now, making it nearly impossible to see beyond twenty meters.
One gunman led the way, while the other helped Roman walk.
Suddenly, a thunderclap roared across the sky.
In the flash of lightning, the three men saw it—a grotesque clown face grinning at them from a sewer drain, where water was rapidly flooding in.
Time seemed to stop.
Their hearts froze.
Those yellow eyes, set against a ghostly white face, and that massive red grin painted in bright oil—this scene was beyond eerie.
"The clown—" The three men screamed in unison, instinctively pointing their guns at the drain.
But they were too slow!
A black, claw-like hand shot out of the drain like lightning, grabbing Roman's left ankle. Before anyone could react, Roman was pulled off his feet and dragged toward the sewer.
"Help me!" he screamed.
"Boss!"
Roman's body blocked their line of fire, so the gunmen couldn't shoot. They tried to grab him but missed.
Instinctively, Roman flailed with his remaining arm, but all he managed to do was claw at the muddy ground, leaving five bloody streaks with his fingers. He tore his nails off in the process but didn't notice in the panic.
The clown's grip was too strong. In just a few seconds, Roman—who stood six foot two—was dragged entirely into the sewer. Gotham's sewers were built with large openings, almost three feet wide and a foot high.
What had been designed to prevent blockages had become a horrifying trap.
The black hole, the rushing water, and the echoing screams turned the drain into a bottomless, man-eating abyss.
"Save me! Save me!"
No matter how loudly Roman screamed, the two gunmen stood frozen, paralyzed by fear. They stared at each other, their eyes filled with terror, neither daring to suggest rescuing their boss.
"Let's run!" one finally said.
"Yeah!"
Without looking back, they bolted.
But inside the sewer, Roman's nightmare wasn't over.
At first, he was just confused.
He didn't know what had grabbed him, and he struggled, but once inside the sewer, he was caught in a massive net. The thick nylon ropes made all his martial arts skills useless.
Before his eyes could adjust to the darkness, a sharp pain stabbed into the left side of his neck.
It was a metal claw.
The Joker's gang was known for making crude claw weapons out of scrap metal—sharp, rusty, and deadly.
Roman tried to fight back, swinging his elbow, but hit nothing.
The claw wasn't attached to a hand.
Another trap.
Roman finally activated his most secret weapon—mind control!
He had avoided using it against the Joker, assuming it wouldn't work on a madman. But to his surprise, his opponent was affected.
"You're not the Joker! Who are you?"
Roman hadn't expected his mental control to be so weakened by the damage to his mask. Nor had he anticipated that his opponent would have such high resistance.
The only answer he got was a crowbar, swung with deadly force.
Another thunderclap echoed through the sky.
Roman's final words were drowned out by the storm, and even if they had been heard, his fleeing subordinates were long gone.
In the faint light filtering into the sewer, the last thing Roman saw was the crowbar slicing through the air.
The "sword" came down, smashing half of Roman's skull.
The world would never see the Black Mask again.
(End of chapter.)