The story takes place nearly a year after The Killing Joke. It is revealed that Batman spared the Joker's life. Meanwhile, Batman has been absent from Gotham, leaving Barbara Gordon to handle everything, in the sense that Barbara conducts research on the criminal underworld as Oracle while Nightwing takes care of Batman's duties. One day, Barbara meets a rape victim and, being a victim herself, promises justice for her. She tracks down the rapist and, instead of sending him to jail, makes his life a living hell through psychological torture and manipulation of his allies. The rapist eventually kills himself.

Jim Gordon, Barbara's father, learns of her actions and is ashamed of her. Before she can redeem herself in her father's eyes, the rapist's love interest kills Jim Gordon in revenge. Devastated, Barbara tracks down her father's murderer and kills her too. Now with a taste for villainy, Barbara sets her sights on the Joker.

To bring back Batman to Gotham and draw out the Joker, Barbara seeks a trump card she can use against Batman. She digs up dirt on Alfred, the one person Batman wholly trusts and doesn't have a contingency plan for. Barbara strikes a deal with the inmates of Arkham Asylum to play to her bidding, with the promise that she will get rid of Batman.

Once the stage is set, Barbara calls in Batman. The Joker comes out of hiding as expected and plans for his next crime. The inmates of Arkham Asylum subtly manipulate the Joker into making his plan. The Joker eventually figures out that he is being manipulated but changes his mind if it means Barbara will descend further into villainy. Batman, meanwhile, learns of the Joker's plot and discovers that the Joker has set up a suicide mission for himself, which Batman refuses to go through.

Barbara uses her trump card and turns Batman against Alfred. Now with an ally gone, Barbara indirectly encourages him into going after the Joker. Batman and the Joker have an epic fight, and Batman ultimately kills the Joker. The Joker has one last laugh and reveals that Barbara was behind everything. Batman is now outed as a murderer, and the entire GCPD is against him. The Batcave has been compromised, and the rest of the supervillains, including Harley Quinn, now lead a team against Batman to take him down. Barbara has fully descended into villainy, and the story ends.

Notes to explain plot inconsistencies:

- The story focuses on Barbara’s origin as Oracle, set in the period of Batman’s absence. We will look into her life from multiple perspectives, like Alfred, Dick Grayson, Jim Gordon, the rape victim, and finally, Barbara’s internal thoughts. While she manages to be on friendly terms with everyone, she has become noticeably more reserved compared to her time as Batgirl, and prefers to be by herself as Oracle. It is during her free time that she delves deeper into the criminal network and discovers its darkest secrets. Over time, it will be shown that Oracle also discovers that Batman has inspired some of his villains, like The Riddler (The Batman 2022 version), Anarky, and more. She finds out that it is only after Batman came into the scene that vigilantism became a major crime. So, naturally she comes to believe that Batman causes more harm to Gotham, and that he must be taken down.

- Oracle has knowledge of Batman's willpower and knows he won't easily succumb, so she needs him to be in a vulnerable state, hence she digs up dirt on Alfred. Oracle's manipulation skills stem from her training by Batman, her prodigious intellect, and her knowledge of Gotham's criminals (Jim’s ties to the police).

- Initially, Batman will be shown in a calm and relaxed state of mind after his return to Gotham. It is only as the story progresses that he becomes dangerous, due to Barbara’s exploitation of his PTSD following the events of The Killing Joke.

- To manipulate Batman further, Oracle brainwashes him with subliminal messaging, which she learns from Scarecrow. The subliminal messaging ensures that Batman grows more aggressive than usual over the course of the story, which will explain Batman’s increasingly reckless actions as his arc progresses

- The way Barbara ruins the rapist’s life is simple enough. She figures that the rapist is a crackhead. So, she just destroys his stash of drugs. Moreover, she tricks the rapist’s dealers that he is a snitch, so no one sells drugs to him. As for the love interest, that problem just takes care of itself since the rapist would engage in self-destructive behaviour and break ties. Soon enough, the rapist suffers from withdrawal symptoms. Barbara visits the rapist to goad, and leaves him to suffer. Shortly after, the rapist calls his girlfriend, tells that he always loved her, and reveals to her that Barbara is behind his misery. After that, he kills himself. His love interest then takes her revenge on Barbara, by tracking down Barbara’s close ones, like her father, her co-workers, and plans to kill them one-by-one.

- The rapist's love interest is also a crackhead, and her actions are not well thought out, leading her to target someone high-ranking like Jim Gordon.

- In the Joker’s plot, it will be revealed that he has been surreptitiously planting shreds of evidence against Batman for the GCPD to turn against him. The Joker creates a story which convinces the GCPD that the Batman is an insane masochistic mastermind who gets a kick out of fighting criminals and gaining the upper hand. So, he makes it look like Batman has been working with the criminals to make him look like a hero in the eyes of Gotham. For this purpose, the Joker also meets with Carmine Falcone, tortures him, and indoctrinates him into believing that he has been funding for Batman’s resources. (Actual Plan)

- The Joker also creates another fake story to distract Batman. The story goes like this: The Joker approached Scarecrow to create a new toxin for him. Scarecrow instead gets an idea of his own and plans to betray Joker. Joker catches on and they get into a fight. Scarecrow uses one of his experimental toxins on Joker, which contaminates Joker’s blood and Joker finds out he’ll be dying soon. So, Joker finds out Scarecrow’s plot of using Ace Chemicals as his base to attack Gotham. For this purpose, Joker intends to destroy Ace Chemicals, but he also wants to bring in Batman so that all 3 of them go out in a blaze of glory (Red Herring).

- The GCPD has a new commissioner in the form of Loeb, following Jim Gordon’s death. Since Harvey resents Batman, he gladly buys Joker’s set-up story, and leads the GCPD against Batman at the end of the story.

- Oracle's disillusionment with Gotham and her sense of justice, stemming from the events of The Killing Joke, leads her to resent Batman. She wants to use Batman to kill Joker and thereby avenge her trauma while also exposing the limitations of Batman's methods.

- The other inmates in Arkham Asylum manipulate Joker by using his love for chaos against him. Everyone knows about Joker's psychotic tendencies, so they use it against him. But the Joker quickly figures out the manipulation, and that Barbara is behind it. He plays along since he is satisfied that Barbara has been corrupted due to his actions and is now willing to take down Batman, with a plan which could cause Batman an irrevocable damages.

- It will be shown that Alfred is growing incredibly critical of Batman’s crusade, especially in the light of The Killing Joke. So, Alfred believes that Batman should need a break from Gotham. For this purpose, he approaches one of Batman’s old flame, Vicki Vale, who knows his alter ego. Vicki Vale cooks up a story that Riddler is plotting something outside of Gotham, and enlists Batman’s help. So, Batman leaves Gotham with Vicki. This is the dirt that Barbara digs up on Alfred, and uses it to convince Bruce that Alfred can’t be trusted, and he is forced to let go of Alfred.

- After cutting ties with Alfred, Batman as usual decides to focus on his mission, so he goes after Scarecrow to warn him of Joker’s plans. Scarecrow reveals that he never talked with Joker and was instead working with Carmine Falcone, who cheated him and didn’t provide the resources Scarecrow asked for.

- Now Batman goes after Falcone, who at this point, believes that he has been funding Batman. Batman realizes that Joker sent him off on a wild goose chase. So, he confronts Joker in the end.