Chapter 2022: Knight's Horror Night (VI)
A glimmer of light gradually appeared in front of his eyes, slowly expanding into a hazy halo. His eyelids opened and closed several times, and a familiar face appeared in Batman's vision.
Hearing the sound of familiar equipment operating and the faint sound of water drops, Batman finally came back to his senses.
"...Dick?" The voice was too dry.
The young man in front of him took off his mask, leaned down and got very close to Batman. Batman turned his head away. Nightwing shook his head and said, "Thank you for remembering my name, Batman, how do you feel?"
"What happened to me?"
"A shocking chemical plant explosion." Nightwing said while packing up the medical equipment on the tray, "It's a miracle that you are still alive."
"Why are you here?"
"I don't think you want me to come back to help, but the fact is that if I don't stop the riots in Gotham City, Blüdhaven will not have a few days of peace."
"How did you find me?"
"Put aside your problem, Mr. Batman, you are not in a good condition to talk too much now, drink some water first."
Nightwing poured some water for Batman, he helped Batman up, Batman looked down and saw that his clothes on his abdomen were all bloody, it seemed that some broken building fragments had cut open his abdominal cavity.
"There is a very strange phenomenon." Nightwing touched his lips and said, "Did you inject yourself with some strange medicine?"
"What happened?"
"It's not an exaggeration to say it's a miracle. You should have been injured much more seriously than this, and didn't you notice? Your wound is healing at a speed visible to the naked eye, and I didn't even have time to clean your wound."
Batman looked down at his wound again, and then he suddenly realized that the wound didn't hurt at all.
"I...Where's Alfred?"
"He'll be here soon. I was planning to make your wound look nicer to prevent him from being scared, but now it seems unnecessary. Come on, take the monitoring equipment, and then I'm going to do my thing."
"Where are you going?"
"Tim just called me and said that you and the prophet disappeared together. When I received this call, I witnessed the explosion. I knew it must be related to you two."
"But I only found you at the scene of the explosion, not Barbara. I guess she is likely to go to find her father."
Batman slowly closed his eyes and said, "Find her, protect her, go."
I don't know how long his consciousness was silent, a familiar fragrance awakened Batman. In his dream, he saw a plate of soft pancakes, the kind he ate most often, and when he woke up, he found that the source of the fragrance was placed on the nursing table next to the bed.
"Eat something, sir." Alfred was packing things aside.
Batman looked down again and was surprised to find that the wound on his abdomen had healed to the point where only a shallow scar remained. After hesitating for a while, he finally said:
"I think something might be wrong with me, Alfred."
"What's wrong?"
Batman paused and said, "I was infected by some virus, and then I was affected by the poison gas."
Batman looked down at his wound and said, "The previous host of this virus had such an amazing healing ability, so I think this may be a sign of deterioration. I don't know how long it will take for the virus to control my brain."
"Don't worry too much." Alfred handed the food to Batman and said, "At least we are still here, and we can always do something, right?"
Batman almost wolfed down the food and drank two cups of hot tea. At this time, he was even able to sit up from the bed and walk smoothly.
"You're right, Alfred. I have something I must do, and I have to do it now."
"Be careful, sir."
When the shadow landed on the roof again, the rain had become much lighter, but without the sound of rain, Gotham City was frighteningly quiet.
Batman had just checked the people who fell on the street. They were all unconscious due to an unknown toxin. It didn't look like fear gas, but Scarecrow must know what was going on.
Batman took a deep breath and wanted to turn on the positioning device to see where the radiation peak of the satellite positioning was, but some kind of anxiety rose in his heart, an indescribable strong desire prompted him to get on the Batmobile as quickly as possible and rush in one direction.
Ding-Ding-Ding-
When the alarm sounded, Scarecrow suddenly turned his head and opened the curtains. He saw the Batmobile approaching here at a very fast speed.
"What happened? Didn't the explosion hurt him? How come they caught up with us so quickly?"
"You, and you, stay behind to cover us, and the rest of you follow me, hurry up! We have to find that idiot Stagg and restart my cloud explosion plan, hurry up!"
The Arkham Knight, who was standing by the door with his arms folded, snorted coldly and said, "Coward."
The Scarecrow glared at him coldly, but did not refute, because the plan was that Scarecrow would take the hostage to contain Batman, and Arkham Knight would go to find Stagg.
But the hostage ran away in his hands. Without the hostage, Scarecrow did not dare to face the possibly crazy Batman head-on, so he could only ask the Arkham Knight to stay, and then they would go to find Stagg together.
Fortunately, Stagg Building was not far away. Scarecrow snorted coldly when he boarded the military vehicle with his men. The people he left behind were enough to cause some trouble for Batman. It would not be so easy to catch up with him next time.
Then in less than ten minutes, Scarecrow was found again.
Abandoning four or five men to contain Batman again, Scarecrow began to move to the next safe house, which was the Chinatown attic where Poison Ivy was once imprisoned.
And he stayed here for less than ten minutes, and the Batmobile appeared at the end of the street again.
Scarecrow was about to collapse. He didn't know how Batman could locate his position so quickly and rush over regardless of everything.
And Peter returned to the Batcave and released the three FBI agents in the Batcave prison.
"Hello, I'm Peter Parker. I'm sorry that the welcoming process is a bit thrilling, but we have to do it."
"The welcoming process?!" The helicopter pilot raised his voice and said, "You mean letting a lunatic driving a flying car and wearing a tights shoot at us?!"
"I've said it before, this is a necessary procedure. You can't see me unless he catches you."
"Oh my God! Everyone here is crazy!"
"Don't talk too much, take this thing to Ms. Waller, your plane should be in the back cabin, leave now."
The three agents looked at each other, and then looked at the things Peter handed over, and found that it was really the identification equipment and code of the military vehicle.
They nodded to Peter and walked out of the room quickly. Peter said to them on the way to the helicopter parking place: "The fact is that someone stole the military equipment, but the military is not stupid. They may have discovered it."
"As long as the military leaders are not stupid, they will definitely not allow such things to be made public, so you'd better be careful."
The agents nodded to Peter. When the helicopter's rotors turned, Peter stood on the ground and waved to them.
Then he returned to the Batcomputer as quickly as possible to call the prophet Barbara. After finding that no one answered, Peter waved to Poison Ivy and said, "We have to go to the prophet's base to use her system."
Poison Ivy was too lazy to ask him what he was going to do. Anyway, following Peter was the only choice now. Otherwise, if she was caught by Batman alone, she would definitely not have a good time. With Peter here, if they were caught together, she might be able to escape while Peter was being beaten.
Peter used the Batcomputer to crack part of the information of the prophet system satellite and locate the location of the clock tower. The two drove there as quickly as possible.
After arriving at the clock tower, Peter did not choose to hack into the security door again, but pried the door open with his bare hands.
Passing through the gap of the security door, Peter found that there was no sign of damage inside. It was obvious that Barbara left on her own. Judging from the previous phone call, she should have gone to save her father. Peter started the computer, successfully entered the prophet system, and began to look for phone numbers in it.
Soon he locked a number, and after the call was connected, a steady male voice came from the other side.
"Hello, I'm Peter Parker. You don't need to know who I am, but I have bad news for you now."
"You should have heard about the accident in Gotham City. Unfortunately, the terrorist Scarecrow has stolen the access to military equipment and is now driving military vehicles and using military satellites to swagger around Gotham City."
"Yes, Gotham City's energy has been cut off, and no one can spread the news, but unfortunately, the all-pervasive FBI sent an armed helicopter to land in Gotham."
"Batman provided them with identification equipment and unique codes carried by military vehicles, and perhaps more. Now the agents have taken off, and Amanda Waller will get the evidence in an hour."
"Don't think about killing people to silence them. As long as the equipment is still in the hands of terrorists in Gotham, Waller can send people to get evidence at any time. You know how stubborn and paranoid she is."
"If you have any countermeasures, it's best to execute them before the plane lands. This is all I can remind you. Goodbye."
After hanging up the phone, Peter breathed a sigh of relief.
"I really don't understand you more and more." Poison Ivy said.
Unexpectedly, Peter's expression finally became serious, as if his plan had just begun.
Peter put on his jacket again and said to Poison Ivy: "Come and help quickly, we have to move all the residents of Wayne Manor and a large area around here."
Poison Ivy looked confused.
Although she didn't know what Peter was going to do, Poison Ivy still helped with all her heart. The vines were very useful, and more importantly, people who were anesthetized by plant toxins had no ability to resist, so it was easier to move than to move objects.
Peter drove the car, and Poison Ivy, who was standing on the roof of the car, operated the vines, moving every living thing in every house out and stuffing it into the car, and then changing to another car after stuffing one car, and even dug out the plants and moved them away.
In about forty minutes, a large area of the manor area around Wayne Manor was completely cleared, leaving only houses and land.
Standing in an underground parking lot full of trucks at least three miles away from here, Peter looked at Poison Ivy and said, "Just stay here. No matter what you see, don't go out. I'll be back to meet you soon."
After saying that, Peter left. Poison Ivy always felt something was wrong. She walked to the edge of the underground parking lot and watched Peter disappear into the distance.
Just as she turned around and wanted to go back underground, she saw a few black spots appearing on the gray skyline, flying towards Gotham with a thick smoke trail.
Those were dozens of missiles without any markings.
"I will end you with my own hands, Batman."
The neon lights of Chinatown reflected on the black and gray metal armor of Arkham Knight, making him look like a warrior covered in thousands of miles of light, while Batman opposite him stood in the still heavy rain and fog, and some terrible desire made him look like an old evil ghost.
"Take off your mask." Batman said.
"Take off yours first, don't you dare?"
"Where is the Scarecrow?"
"Aren't you here..."
Batman could no longer hear the voice of Arkham Knight, and he saw the face of the Joker in the reflection of the metal armor.
"You don't dare, of course you don't dare, Batman." The Joker said to him with a smile: "Didn't you see the scene after the identity was exposed in the picture affected by the fear gas? Or..."
Zi——
Batman was awakened, and the moment the sharp sound rang out, the two turned their heads to look at the sky at the same time.
Missiles, more missiles, countless missiles, are flying towards this dark city with a breath of destruction.
Batman's communicator rang.
"...Penguin! I have intercepted the communication between Penguin and the military! They want to destroy the evidence..."
Batman heard Peter's voice in the communicator out of breath and gradually becoming weak.
"They found me and kidnapped me according to the monitoring signal, but I ran out halfway. I am now activating the anti-missile equipment in the Batcave. Give me permission... Batman..."
Batman immediately pressed the button, but then Peter's slightly painful voice came.
"No... It's too late, there's no time to intercept... I activated the bait... The bait in the Batcave..."
Batman was stunned for a moment, then shouted into the communicator: "No!! Peter! The navigation location of the bait system is the Batcave! You can't..."
"I know... But this is probably the way with the least loss..."
"Peter! Don't!!... Peter!!!!"
Beep-beep--
The missiles that flew over the head suddenly turned and flew towards one point.
Boom!!!
Looking at the mushroom cloud rising in the distance, Batman was completely frozen. He lowered his arms and stood there blankly.
In the hazy dark vision, the Joker appeared in front of him, grinning and saying.
"I told you, look, you've killed another child, one after another, how many more are there?"
The Joker's blood-red mouth became clearer and clearer, and the figure was already as real as a substance. Batman reached out to grab it, without realizing that he was already standing on the edge of the roof.
Or maybe he actually found out, but he didn't care anymore - this night really should end.
"Batman, this is our fate, come on, come on..."
The Joker's whisper was like the last requiem, one step, one step after another, there was no way forward.
Suddenly, the piercing communicator alarm sounded, and Batman woke up suddenly.
"Batman... Batman! I'm fine! Poison Ivy got me out! But I'm sorry, your manor may be destroyed, and your bat cave, but fortunately the rich people around here seem to have run away long ago, and no one was injured."
"Oh, Alfred, you're fine too! Great, Batman, we're all---!"
Batman hung up the call, turned around and slapped the Joker in the face.
Then he turned around and stared at the Arkham Knight who was rushing over.
Arkham Knight braked suddenly, then instinctively took two steps back and stretched out his hands.
"No, you can't..."
Snap! Bang! Click!
"Ugh!!!!!!!"
Arkham Knight: Blood Rage