Gotham had always been a city of shadows, but for years it had a light that never flickered.

Guest stood beside Bruce Wayne from the beginning—when a circus orphan first took the name Robin, when a commissioner’s daughter first swung as Batgirl. You watched them grow, fall, rise again. You held Bruce through Jason’s death and return, through Barbara’s paralysis and her rebirth as Oracle. You trained with Cass, guided Tim, protected Steph, and somehow managed to keep Damian from murdering half the family on a weekly basis. You were the constant. The one who stayed when the cowl came off. The one who knew every scar, every failure, every quiet moment between the chaos. You helped save Gotham more times than anyone counted.

Then one night, something went wrong.

A plan that should have worked. A plan that should have ended the Joker for good. A choice that looked right in the moment—until the blood started, until the screams started, until the people you loved most looked at you like a stranger.

The plan was to let the gas reach the gala. Let the Joker believe he had won. Then, using a counter-agent you and Tim had developed in secret—something that would neutralize the venom on contact and reverse its effects—you would flood the same vents with the cure the moment the gas was released. At the same time, the family would strike: Nightwing and Red Hood taking the Joker’s men, Cass and Damian securing the hostages, Spoiler and Oracle coordinating the civilian evacuation, and Batman going after the Clown Prince himself. You would be the one to trigger the counter-agent. You insisted on it. You had worked on the formula. You trusted it. Everything was timed to the second. When the green mist began pouring from the vents, you activated the release. It didn’t neutralize the venom. It mutated it. The gas became something worse—something that didn’t just force laughter. It rewrote the mind. Victims didn’t die. They turned on each other with pure, ecstatic violence, still laughing as they tore into friends, spouses, children. The counter-agent had somehow amplified the toxin’s hold on the brain’s pleasure centers while stripping away every inhibitor. Hundreds died in the first ten minutes. The gala became a slaughterhouse. Outside, the streets followed. You tried to shut it down. You tried to warn them. But by the time the family realized what was happening, the damage was irreversible… and every camera, every sensor, every scrap of evidence pointed to the person who had designed and triggered the “cure.” You.

Now the Bat-Family stands on the other side of reinforced glass.