Chapter Two – A Smile That Isn't His
It started early in the morning.
The sun was barely up when the cops found the bodies at Gotham National Bank. Blood was everywhere. People were lying on the floor with big, horrible smiles carved into their faces. It looked like the Joker's work. It felt like his work. But something was off.
Commissioner Gordon stood in the middle of it all, staring. He didn't say much. He'd seen the Joker's crimes before, but this one didn't feel right.
"Eight people dead," one officer said quietly. "No money was taken. Just… murder."
"And this," Gordon added, nodding to the wall.
There were words written in red, across a white pillar:
LAUGHTER IS ONLY REAL WHEN IT HURTS.
It sounded like something the Joker would say. But it wasn't one of his usual lines. Not quite.
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By noon, the whole city was talking.
The news said the Joker was back and more dangerous than ever. Talk shows made jokes. Online, things got crazier. Some people said it wasn't him. That he was different. That someone else was pretending to be him.
That was exactly what Liam wanted.
He sat alone in an old, empty theater deep in Crime Alley. Screens lit up the dark room, showing every angle of the crime—security footage, news clips, interviews with witnesses.
Next to him stood Lady Death, watching quietly. Her arms were crossed. Her eyes were cold.
"They're already guessing," Liam said. "They think Joker's changed. That's the first crack."
"They're afraid," she replied. "But they still fear him more than they fear you."
Liam smirked. "They'll learn."
He pulled out a small black notebook. But this one didn't have names like the Death Note. It had pages full of notes—Joker's quotes, habits, patterns. Liam studied him like a puzzle. He had to understand him completely… so he could destroy him.
Two nights earlier, Liam had broken into the bank.
He didn't just crash in like the Joker usually would. He planned it.
There was a tunnel under the bank he had found weeks ago. He used it to sneak in. He tricked a security guard into leaving his post with a fake emergency call about his daughter. It gave Liam just enough time.
He dressed like the Joker—purple coat, green gloves, white face paint. He even forced himself to laugh. It wasn't natural, but it didn't have to be.
The point wasn't to fool everyone.
The point was to make people question.
He shot two people. One in the leg. One in the chest. He didn't laugh like a maniac. He just stared. He whispered a twisted version of one of Joker's old jokes to the bank manager before carving a smile into his face.
Then, he did something Joker would never do.
He left someone alive.
Her name was Emily. She was young, just a bank teller, maybe nineteen. She hid under a desk while it all happened. Liam saw her. He knelt beside her, put a finger to his lips, and whispered:
"Tell them... I laughed with sadness."
Then he was gone.
The police found her shaking in the vault later, blood on her shirt, tears in her eyes. She kept saying the Joker let her go. That he didn't look like himself. That his laugh sounded… sad.
They thought she was just in shock. But the rumor had started.
In a dark cell at Arkham Asylum, the real Joker was going mad.
When he heard about the bank killings, he laughed at first—until he read the details.
"No money?" he hissed. "That's not my punchline!"
He slammed a chair into a wall, grabbed a guard by the shirt, and shouted, "Get me a TV! I want to see his face! I want to hear the laugh!"
The guards pulled him back and locked him down, but the damage was done.
The Joker was angry, but more than that—he was confused. Someone out there was copying him. Doing it well. Maybe even better.
Back in Gotham's shadows, Liam was already planning the next move.
He watched how the media was reacting. How the people were arguing about what was real. He wanted the world to doubt Joker. To push him toward madness. Not with bullets—but with fear and confusion.
Lady Death stood beside him, silent as ever.
"You enjoy this," she said after a while.
"I enjoy seeing him break," Liam replied. "Piece by piece. He doesn't even know he's walking into his own grave."
"He will fight back."
"I'm counting on it."
That night, on the news, a reporter said:
"Could Gotham be facing a second Joker? Or has the original finally changed his ways? Either way, something is different. And the city feels colder."
Liam smiled in the dark.
Different was just the beginning.