The chill of the ancient stone seeped through Batman's armored boots, a damp, cloying cold that had nothing to do with the planet's atmosphere. This world—Targon Secundus—hung in the void like a forgotten specter, a whisper on the void-winds, a graveyard of forgotten faith. Batman had come chasing the impossible: an encryption signal buried in First Legion code, older than the Imperium itself, encoded with a resonance that suggested not only advanced gene-data, but something far worse. The signal pulsed from this ruin like a heartbeat. If the Joker had accessed it, if he had begun to use it… the consequences could fracture more than minds.
The Night Shrine's descent was behind him, the toxic winds and warp-tainted storms weathered. Now, within the bones of a forgotten fortress, the psychic static clawed at his mind. The Imperium's records were as fractured as the shattered aquilas littered across the vast, cyclopean structures. These weren't just ruins—they were mausoleums, built with a grim grandeur that spoke of a power and a certainty now lost to the galaxy.
Batman moved through a cavernous hall, the air thick with the scent of ozone and something older, metallic and ritualistic, like blood dried on ancient stone. Ornate carvings—winged swords piercing serpents, halos melting into thorned crowns—covered every surface. The script, archaic High Gothic bordering on alien, whispered of betrayal and redemption, cycles unending. It resonated deeply. Oaths sworn and broken. Legacies twisted.
Caliban. The name floated unbidden through his thoughts like a ghost. The lost homeworld of the Dark Angels. Forests and knights. Heresy and ruin. But this… this felt different. This felt older, a cradle predating even their fall. A place of primal myth.
He activated his cowl's magnoculars. The lenses swept across a colossal bas-relief: a robed figure standing before a swirling vortex, one hand extended in either command or surrender. Above him, a broken moon bled light. The image shifted—not physically, but psychically. The robed figure twisted in agony as the vortex consumed him. Primal fear radiated from the stone.
Then: movement.
Batman's head snapped around, his cape flowing like shadow. His Wraithbone-reinforced suit—woven with illusion-threads by Cegorach's artisans—flickered as it countered the ambient psychic energy. His internal HUD glowed faintly, working overtime to filter noise from threat.
He advanced, his pace silent, tactical. The ruin wasn't just steeped in history. It was soaked in Warp residue, psychic trauma crystallized into reality. This wasn't simply an ancient fortress. It was a wound.
He entered a vast, domed chamber. Its ceiling vanished into darkness. At its center: a pedestal, long empty. Around it, mosaics depicting armored knights—unmistakably Astartes—facing amorphous horrors. This place once held a relic. A key. Perhaps the source of the signal. Perhaps bait.
Then, the whispers began.
They were faint at first. Like leaves on glass. Then: voices.
"Master Bruce?"
Clear. Impossible. A child's voice, innocent and trembling. Robin.
Batman froze. Logic screamed impossibility. Yet the voice grew closer, laced with loneliness.
"Are you in there? It's… so dark."
He drew a blade—not a conventional knife, but a Cegorachian edge capable of disrupting Warp manifestations. His suit's sensors found nothing. No heat. No movement. No life.
"Show yourself."
From the dust and gloom, a figure emerged. Robin—or something that wore his skin. The familiar red-and-green uniform was soaked in iridescent ichor. The mask sagged over hollow sockets. Its limbs were too long. Joints wrong. It moved with broken intent.
"You always leave me behind," it whimpered. "You never want me to come on your little adventures."
The thing lunged. Wild. Desperate. Not trained—driven. Batman sidestepped, the claws scraping against ceramite and bone-fiber armor. Sparks and shrieks.
"You are not Robin."
"But I am!" the thing screamed, its form glitching, struggling to maintain shape. "You made me! Just like you made… him."
A new figure shambled into view.
Alfred.
Or a horror wrapped in Alfred's shell. His suit was torn, fused with blackened bone. His face twisted in agony. His eyes burned green.
"I tried to warn you, Master Bruce," the creature rasped, dragging an obsidian blade leaking warp-fluid. "This place… it's not for you. Go home. To your cave."
He struck. Batman deflected, bones jarring from the unnatural force. This Alfred fought like something possessed.
"You think these puppets can stop me?" Batman growled, countering with ruthless precision. The illusion-Robin came again, screeching. Batman moved, cape flaring, every strike calculated. But even illusions could wear you down if sustained by the Warp.
These weren't just hallucinations. They were constructed by Joker's mind, empowered by the Warp's boundless malice. Joker had tapped into the world's memory—and Batman's. The ruin remembered. And now, it played the memories back, twisted into mockeries.
"You can't escape your past," Alfred rasped, blocking a blow. "It always catches up."
"My past is my strength."
Batman surged forward, raining down a storm of strikes. Alfred staggered. Robin screamed. Batman caught the illusion-child by the neck.
"You are not Robin."
He crushed the illusion in a brutal twist.
Robin dissolved into glittering dust. Alfred howled, a final gurgle of static and soul before evaporating into nothing. The room stilled. The whispering stopped.
Batman stood alone. Armor cracked. Mind frayed. But unbroken.
His cowl's readings stabilized. The ambient psychic pressure receded. The pedestal—empty still—hummed with the faint signal. First Legion encryption. Still active. Still calling.
Joker had tried to break him with guilt. With memory. But it hadn't worked. It never worked.
"These are your games, Joker," he muttered, eyes hard. "But I'm not here to play. I'm here to end it."
The darkness around him thickened. The ruin stretched into deeper vaults, deeper echoes.
He adjusted his cape and moved forward, the Wraithbone threads of his suit shimmering in defiance. The signal was still strong. The secrets of the Dark Angels were still buried.
And the Joker… was still watching.
As Batman delved deeper into the ancient, sealed vault beneath the ruined fortress of Targon Secundus, the air thickened with psychic residue and suppressed memories. The signal—the one encoded in the ancient dialects of the First Legion—had led him here, past spectral illusions and haunting confrontations with the ghosts of his past. Now, only silence reigned. Heavy, anticipatory silence.
What lay before him was no mere tomb. It was a maze of logic puzzles, encoded riddles, and symbol-locked mechanisms—clearly constructed by minds as disciplined as his own. Traps designed not to keep people out, but to test the worth of those who would enter. Keys he'd recovered from fragmented relics around the vault's perimeter now slotted into mechanisms with satisfying precision. Each door that opened brought with it an increase in the psychic pressure, as if some buried consciousness stirred in its sleep.
Eventually, he stepped into the heart of the sanctum.
There, at the center of a vast chamber rimmed with runic pillars and suspended glyphs, lay a stasis coffin. It floated, cradled in a matrix of humming suppression fields. Dark Angels heraldry marked its surface—winged swords, the broken crescent of Caliban, and the lion rampant. Psychic inhibitor runes encircled the chamber, still active after ten thousand years. The air shimmered with restrained energy.
Batman approached slowly, analyzing the stasis matrix through his cowl. The design was pre-Heresy. Integrated into the coffin's outer frame was an ancient interface—something not unlike a console, but built for psychically attuned command. He brushed his fingers across it.
Something reacted.
The hum of the stasis field shifted, and a surge of pressure struck the chamber like a silent thunderclap. The field dimmed momentarily. From within the coffin, eyes opened.
"Who dares… disturb my slumber?" The voice echoed, reverberating through both air and thought.
Batman stepped back instinctively but held his ground.
"I am Batman," he said firmly. "And I've come in search of answers."
From the stasis field emerged a silhouette—a towering figure clad in dark, ancient power armor, regal and radiant even through centuries of sleep. The lion insignia on his pauldron glowed faintly.
The figure's eyes locked onto Batman with unsettling clarity. Though disoriented, he radiated command and presence. "You walk in shadow, yet your mind is clear. You carry the burden of a thousand ghosts. What world is this?"
"This is Targon Secundus," Batman replied. "A lost world on the edge of the Eye of Terror. I traced a First Legion encryption signal here… and found you."
There was a pause. Then, the figure stepped out from the cradle of the coffin, his movement regal, his presence unshakable.
"I am Lion El'Jonson," he said, voice firming. "Primarch of the Dark Angels."
Batman, ever composed, gave a subtle nod. "Then I was right. This signal wasn't just a memory. It was a warning."
The Lion studied him. "And you… are no Astartes. Not even of this galaxy."
"I've fought many kinds of monsters," Batman replied. "But what I'm chasing now isn't a man. He's something twisted. He calls himself the Joker."
The Lion's expression darkened. "That name… I felt it in my sleep. A ripple in the Warp. A laughter that mocks causality. He is not just a man, then?"
"No. He's become something more. A creature of Chaos. A mirror of the Warp itself."
The Lion turned his gaze to the chamber's glyphs. "Then you understand. The Warp doesn't simply create monsters. It reflects them. He is not an invader. He is your world's scream for release, given form."
Batman's jaw tightened. "Then how do I fight that?"
"You already are," the Lion said quietly. "But you must understand—true strength against Chaos comes not from vengeance, nor hatred. It comes from will. You must master your own shadow, for he will use it against you."
Before more could be said, the vault's walls shuddered. Warning glyphs pulsed.
"Proximity breach," Batman muttered. "Joker found a way in."
The Lion stepped forward, calm and unyielding. "Then go. This place is a relic of my past. You still have a future to defend."
"But you?"
"I will rest again. Until the Imperium truly calls. This was not yet my hour."
Batman gave a nod of respect. "Thank you. For the clarity."
As the Lion stepped back into the stasis field, the matrix reignited, and silence returned. The coffin sealed itself once more with a psionic pulse.
Batman turned and raced back through the logic maze, each puzzle resetting in his wake. The signal had been more than a warning—it was a trial. A crucible.
When he reached the outer chamber, the vault was no longer quiet. Explosions and corrupted laughter echoed through the halls. Joker had breached the threshold.
Drawing upon the Lion's words, Batman reengaged the suit's shadow-phase systems, activating stealth and psychic dampening. He stepped into the fray.
In the battle that followed—one of the most savage he had faced since arriving in this galaxy—Batman confronted a warped parody of his own fears. The Joker, swollen with warp energy, reshaped reality around him. Each minion, each illusion, was designed to exploit his doubt. But the Lion's insight remained his anchor.
He fought not with rage, but resolve. He dismantled the chaos not with brute force, but with precision. He defeated the Joker—this version of him—by tearing down the constructs of his madness with a mind sharpened by discipline and shaped by purpose.
When it ended, Batman stood bloodied, armor scored, cape torn—but unbroken. The Joker lay silent in the dust, his essence dissipating into the warp-touched wind.
The signal was gone. The vault sealed behind him. But a deeper truth remained.
In silence, Batman looked to the stars above Targon Secundus. The Lion's words echoed still:
"You must master your own shadow… or he will."
Batman descended into the gloom once more, his path long, his battle eternal. But within him burned something rarer than strength or cunning.
Purpose.
And perhaps, just perhaps… hope.