Chapter 158: Late

"You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water."

- Rabindranath Tagore

...

At the same time, in the middle of the grassy field at Gotham City Stadium.

Robin punched the Thief-Signal, finally putting an end to the whole incident... or did he?

It's not clear if it was completely over, but there seemed to be no more issues.

"Um, Chief... What just happened?"

Outside the perimeter, the GCPD guards, who Phantom Thief's electric shock had knocked out, slowly woke up and looked at Commissioner Gordon with a confused expression.

As Phantom Thief said, the strength of the electric shock wasn't that strong, and they only passed out for a few minutes before regaining consciousness.

"Phantom Thief has escaped."

Jim said it expressionlessly.

"What!"

Over a dozen young guards quickly got up from the ground and looked around.

They saw that the Bat-Signal was gone and had been replaced by a small spotlight that someone had broken down. They were looking confused.

"Chief, what... what's going on here? Did the Phantom Thief escape? Did he really steal the Bat-Signal?"

"What else could it be? Did the Bat-Signal grow legs and run away by itself?"

Jim retorted sarcastically.

"Commissioner Gordon, take down the perimeter. We need to search the scene carefully. I still can't believe that the Phantom Thief could have taken something as heavy as the Bat-Signal. He must have left behind some clues."

Bruce Wayne walked over and said so solemnly.

"Yes, Mr. Wayne and I were thinking the same thing, if Phantom Thief really managed to carry away several tons of the Bat-Signal on his own, then everything we thought we knew about him has been wrong."

Jim nodded and then comforted the guards, who had just regained consciousness.

"How are you feeling? Are you able to move your body normally?"

"I feel fine, Chief; it's like I just woke up from a nap, and I'm not in any pain at all."

The guards replied after moving their bodies a bit.

"Are you sure? Don't push yourselves."

Jim continued.

"We are sure, Chief, our bodies are really okay."

One of the guards assured

"Great, then come with me now to remove the perimeter."

With that, Jim led a dozen officers to remove the perimeter surrounding the center of the field.

"How are you doing, Robin?"

After the perimeter was taken down, Jim and the officers started a thorough search. On the other hand, Bruce Wayne approached Robin and asked him quietly.

"I'm fine, Mr. Wayne. You know, I'm usually quite optimistic."

Robin replied with a faint smile.

"In fact, Phantom Thief's actions this time got me a little too emotional. Whether it was the way he used words or the way he changed from the Bat-Signal to the Thief-Signal, it made me feel things I couldn't control. I even broke that signal."

Robin confessed.

"But I'm much calmer now. After what happened today, I might need to change how I understand Phantom Thief."

Listening to Robin's words, Bruce reached out and patted his shoulder, saying, "I believe you'll catch him one day."

"Thank you, and I will."

Robin replied.

"What are you two talking about?"

Jim walked over and asked.

"Not much; we're just talking about what happened when the Bat-Signal was covered by smoke a moment ago."

Bruce replied casually.

Whoosh!

Just then, a piercing sound came from the sky.

Suddenly, a strange vehicle that looked like a Batwing landed very quickly on the grass of the sports stadium, catching everyone's attention immediately.

"That's... the Batwing !"

The citizens who had planned to leave stopped in their tracks when they saw this scene.

In Gotham, there's only one person who can pilot that aircraft!

"Oh my goodness, Batman is here, but why? The Phantom Thief has already successfully stolen the gem and left. Why is he coming now?"

"You ask me, but based on my understanding of Batman, he was probably dealing with a supervillain who was even more dangerous, but now he's free."

"It makes sense. Since Robin is here, it's normal for Batman to handle other supervillains. Oh my God! Why does Gotham have so many supervillains?"

The audience began discussing Batman.

As they suspected, the person flying the Batwing was indeed Batman.

After the Batwing landed on the lawn, the cabin door opened automatically.

A muscular man wearing a black suit with a developed physique walked out, and it was Batman.

He walked slowly toward Robin.

"Why did you come? Didn't you say you had other things to deal with today?"

Robin asked with surprise and doubt when seeing Batman's arrival.

"Mr. Wayne, Commissioner Gordon, I need manpower, a lot of manpower."

Robin asked Batman a question, but Batman didn't answer him. Instead, he spoke to Jim and Bruce. As usual, he spoke in a straightforward and hoarse voice.

"What do you need manpower for?"

Jim and Bruce asked simultaneously.

"To dig a hole,"

Batman uttered a word.

"This is very important for figuring out where Phantom Thief is. He placed the Bat-Signal about five meters underground in the middle of the field."

Hearing this, Jim and Bruce's expressions instantly changed, and they quickly went to gather people to start digging.

Even without any questions, it seemed like anything Batman said was unquestionable.

"Now it's just the two of us here. You must tell me what's going on. Why are you here now? How did you know the Bat-Signal was underground?"

Robin asked with a stern expression.

"I used a sonar detector to locate the Bat-Signal's position."

Batman replied.

"At first, I thought the Phantom Thief would escape from the sky, so I piloted the Batwing to set up an ambush above in advance to avoid arousing his suspicion..."

"You lied to me when you said you would deal with something else today. Instead, you had Lucius disguised as Bruce Wayne. Because Phantom Thief knows Bruce is Batman and Robin didn't know Batman was coming, Phantom Thief would think Batman wouldn't care about a small-time thief like him and wouldn't realize that you blocked his escape route."

Robin continued speaking and followed Batman's explanation.

Without waiting for Batman to finish, Robin continued speaking. Batman didn't say anything, but he seemed to agree with what Robin said.

"But it seems your ambush plan didn't work,"

Robin ended.

"I underestimated the Phantom Thief, and his ability to plan exceeded my expectations. I underestimated him. His plan... is quite interesting."

Batman said it with a small squint in his eyes.

...

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