The three of them quickly began to act. It turned out Joker had only gained the upper hand at first because he had caught them off guard. Even Bruce had not expected his archenemy to show up here, so they had been chased by the agents rather miserably in the beginning.
But that situation lasted only a very short time. Even with surveillance equipment that was practically a cheat code, Joker still found it difficult to withstand the combined efforts of Bruce, Lex, and Clark.
Bruce was balanced in offense and defense, Lex was unmatched in intellect, and Clark was impervious to bullets and blades. Though all three were still youthful versions of themselves and had not fully matured, their teamwork made them difficult to handle even for ordinary agents armed with powerful weapons.
Before long, the agents pursuing them were run ragged by the delays in surveillance and communications that the three exploited, and most of them were knocked unconscious.
However, shaking off the agents was not their top priority. They now had a common goal: investigating beneath the manor.
Bruce wanted to deal with Joker, Clark wanted to find the radiation source that affected him and might also affect Metropolis, and Lex wanted to find the treasure and what Schiller had left behind underground. Though their specific goals differed, their overall objective remained the same: get underground first.
But to get underground, they first had to find an entrance. It had to be on the ground floor—the first floor.
The first floor of the entire manor had a different layout from the other levels. A banquet hall stood in the center, with two doors on either side leading to the central courtyard. Yet there were also other structures on both sides, containing rooms none of them had explored.