The Clown and the Bear Shield Bureau

Gotham City. In a nightclub on a quiet, out-of-the-way street, inside a venue built by hollowing out two floors, the murky air was thick with the jumbled, unpleasant reek of alcohol, cigarettes, sweat, all kinds of perfume, and the wild hormones given off by men and women writhing on the dance floor...

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The colorful drinks the servers brought out from the bar, the noisy, ear-splitting DJ music that shook the heart, and the dancers—especially the women on the raised platforms, whose movements inspired a frenzied obsession—all blended together in the dim, twisted atmosphere, allowing most of the patrons to temporarily forget the pressures they faced in their everyday lives.

They knew only to drink, sing, and make a racket as wildly as they could... They let out all their negative emotions in whatever way they thought was reasonable, lived the kind of nightlife that was all drunken revelry, and hoped they could escape the worries and sorrows of the day forever...

But that was obviously impossible!

No matter how much they let loose or how hysterical they got here, once they woke up tomorrow with hangovers, they would still have to face all the pressures and troubles of real life... They would still have to go to work and do their jobs. No matter what, alcohol couldn't change any of that.

Of course, perhaps they couldn't see that—or perhaps they had long since understood it?

So they cherished everything here in this moment, and the pleasure the surroundings brought them...

Clink!

At that moment, in a partially screened booth in the bar, a strange pair of men and women lightly tapped their glasses together. Then they leaned close and began whispering about something.

"Hey!"

"Shazam, don't we have any good bars in National City? Why did we