DC: My Name Is Not Billy Batson [New]

"Hey! I know you're here. Why are you ignoring me?"

Dane's thoughts were interrupted by Harleen's voice. Floating above the isolated woman, he pondered what to do with her.

"You're in here, aren't you?"

The moment Dane's spirit stepped into the isolation chamber, Harleen immediately sensed his presence. Her sharp perception caught Dane off guard, surprising him enough to make him circle around her, studying her closely.

Harleen, as if aware of his unseen gaze, suddenly recoiled. Her previously defiant demeanor dissolved into something vulnerable. She curled up into a ball, pressing herself into a corner of the room.

"Get away from me… Stay away… Get out, get out!" she muttered, rocking slightly.

Dane leaned closer, listening intently. It seemed her normal personality was wrestling for control. His curiosity about her inner world deepened. Without hesitation, he cast a spell, letting his spirit delve straight into Harleen Quinzel's mind.

Inside, her inner world unfolded—a bleak, gray landscape, like an old, worn film with a dark, oppressive filter. The atmosphere was lifeless, devoid of hope, and unsettlingly gloomy.

Dane recognized the place immediately: Arkham Asylum. But this was not Arkham in its usual state. This was Arkham during the massacre—Jason's slaughter.

The hallway labeled "253" stretched out before him. Corpses lined the rooms and corridors, each bearing the telltale marks of single, efficient gunshots. Blood flowed freely, pooling into small rivers that wove along the tiled floors.

The crimson rivers reflected everything with uncanny clarity, creating eerie, mirror-like surfaces.

Dane walked along the bloodied paths, leaving no trace of his presence, and then he heard it—a voice emanating from one of the rooms.

"Your life is as worthless as your name, clown. Why don't you just die already?"

Dane paused mid-step. The voice was disturbingly familiar, yet he hesitated to confirm its owner.

Curiosity drove him forward. He turned a corner and found the source. It really was him. Dane froze.

In the room where he'd killed the Joker, another "Dane" stood—or, more accurately, floated. The doppelgänger hovered in mid-air, gazing down at a figure bound to a chair.

But the figure wasn't the Joker. It was Harleen—or perhaps Harley Quinn. She was dressed in her familiar chaotic attire, complete with red-and-blue-highlighted pigtails. Despite her wild expression, fear lingered in her eyes as she stared up at the floating "Dane."

Dane's real self watched the scene with a blank expression, silently scrutinizing the imposter before him.

He wore the same red, tight-fitting suit as Dane, but his cloak was also red—drenched in blood that dripped ominously onto the floor.

The hood of the cloak was pulled over his head, shrouding his face in shadow, leaving only his eyes visible. They glowed with an eerie, unnatural light, piercing through the darkness as they fixated on the "clown" in front of him.

The scene was disturbingly familiar to Dane, a near-perfect mirror of that fateful night—save for the underworld-like filter, the missing Batman, and the replacement of the Red Hood with this blood-drenched figure.

In an instant, Dane pieced everything together. Faced with the Joker's oppressive personality, Harleen Quinzel had spawned a new identity: Harley Quinn. This persona, reckless and chaotic, was her way of countering the Joker's mental infection.

But Harley wasn't as powerful as the Joker. Desperate for a way to fight back, she did the unthinkable—she probed into the Joker's memories, searching for a weapon.

Among the sea of the Joker's madness and chaos, she found a single memory: a man the Joker had encountered only once.

But it was this man who had killed the Joker with cold precision, showing neither hesitation nor mercy.

The Joker loathed him, but even in his hatred, he could do nothing. Thinking she had found her answer, Harley released the memory of that man into her inner world, hoping he could vanquish the Joker's presence.

Her gamble worked—the man destroyed the Joker's personality the moment he emerged.

But Harley had made a grave mistake. In unleashing that man, she had also unleashed her worst nightmare.

"There's always a fish that slips through the net," Dane muttered, realizing Harley's error.

Harley Quinn, though born from the Joker's infection, retained a sliver of his manic nature. This trait was enough to fool the blood-cloaked man into seeing her as the Joker.

And so, he hunted her mercilessly. The memory of that night with the Joker repeated endlessly, with Harley cast as the unfortunate target. Time after time, she played the role of the "ugly little clown" and was killed by the blood-cloaked man who descended from the sky.

By now, Harley had lost count of how many times she had "died."

Though the deaths weren't real, the agony of each one was. The vivid pain etched itself into her mind, a torment worse than death.

Through this cycle of slaughter, Harley had developed an ingrained fear of the blood-cloaked man, whose image she now knew as the "shazam"—a figure of pure cruelty and ruthlessness.

The man stared down at her, his voice cold and venomous.

"Why won't you just die already, Joker? How much of my time are you planning to waste?"

Harley forced a wry grin onto her face, despite the terror clawing at her insides.

"Aw, what's the rush, darling? It's not polite to hurry a lady—it's not exactly endearing, you know."

"I admire your stubbornness, but I'm done with this game," the Shazam growled.

"So, do me a favor and die already!"

lightning crackled around him, coalescing into a spear in his hand.

"Honestly, darling," Harley quipped, defiant, "you really should get more creative with your killing methods. This one's getting a bit old."

She forced a smile, a fragile facade to shield her from the torment of yet another "death."

Just as she braced herself for the inevitable strike, a new voice interrupted the scene.

"So, what do you think of this trick?"

the shazam froze, His eyes widened as he looked down in disbelief. A bloodied hand had erupted from his chest, piercing him from behind. He struggled to turn his head, desperate to see who had killed him.

The bloody fist suddenly crackled with blazing white thunder, surging up and down the imposter's body like a wildfire. The energy consumed him entirely, charring flesh to blackened bones within seconds.

Dane stood unwavering as the remains crumbled before him. With a casual wave of his hand, he sent the imposter's charred skeleton crashing against the wall, shattering it into nothing but soot and ashes.

"Looks like you've been misleading me, Harley Quinn."

His tone was sharp, biting. The term " Harley Quinn" lingered in the air, heavy with implication.

Harley Quinn —a term rooted in traditional burlesque theater, referring to mischievous, colorful figures draped in diamond-patterned costumes. It was a fitting name, as it also doubled as a synonym for "clown."

Before Gotham's infamous super-criminal Joker redefined the term, "Joker" had held a simpler meaning—more tied to the playful wild card in a deck of poker than to the sinister circus imagery he cultivated. But Joker had warped the word, embedding it with his own brand of terror.

He didn't just bring fear—he made the city wear his mark.

Harley Quinn, Dane realized, was yet another victim of that dark legacy. A fragment of that haunting imprint remained within her, even as her identity continued to transform.

He could sense it—Harleen Quinzel, the brilliant mind once rooted in logic and academia, was barely clinging to her individuality. The brief flickers of Harleen that surfaced were nothing more than a temporary echo.

The punishment of the shazam, the fiery execution of the imposter, had driven one truth into sharp relief: the real Harleen Quinzel and Harley Quinn had already merged irreversibly. The fracture between their identities was gone.

But more importantly, they didn't want to resist.

Harley Quinn—the new, reborn Harley Quinn—was embracing her transformation, shedding the remnants of Harleen's hesitation.

And Dane stood as a witness to her rebirth, his expression unreadable as the echoes of thunder faded into silence.