Chapter 1757 S: Apocalypse Major Event (Twenty-Four) _1
Jack arrived not in his usual truck driver outfit but rather in his signature deep purple suit, with a green tie featuring a whirlpool design. Along with his green hair and exaggerated lipstick, he carried the vibe of a famous comedian.
Barbara did shrink back upon seeing him, but she didn't freeze up like a statue, as she did at the beginning. Jack promptly sat down on a single-seat sofa, smiled at everyone, and took a big gulp of the tea Alfred handed him, only to be scalded and hold back the urge to spit it out.
Strange elbowed Shiller and asked, "Who is this guy? His taste in ties is terrible."
Shiller glanced subtly at Strange's tie. Somehow the man had come up with money for a handcrafted Paisley pattern gemstone blue tie which, combined with a sharp black suit, screamed of arrogant conceit.
Strange, one leg draped over the other, surveyed Shiller's outfit. A black three-piece suit with no standout features and a dark red tie that barely differed from the black. He tsked, "Didn't realize your suit taste was so conservative."
"You're dressed like you've brought all of Manhattan with you. That's why you were held up for two extra hours." Shiller retorted without any reservation.
Seeing Bruce and Barbara snickering, Strange cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "You're a lot more sarcastic than the Shiller I used to know."
After awhile, Constantine and Zatanna arrived. Constantine, for once, was in a suit and had even cleaned up his unruly hair and beard. Zatanna was in a deep blue dress.
Gordon feigned astonishment, "Good God, I feel like I'm going to be swept out of the room. Is there some important dinner party today?"
"Certainly not, just his pretentious invitation to us." Constantine pointed to Bruce and added, "Us poor folks were worried there might be some tradition here where you get kicked out by the butler if you're not in formal attire, so we dressed up a bit."
"I assure you, there is no such custom." Alfred led them to sit down on the sofa.
Bruce spread cheese on his cracker as he spoke, "But I also assure you, you definitely can't handle my butler."
Today, he just wore a common shirt, linen suit pants, and plaid Oxford shoes – lending him a bit of an old money, scholarly air.
"Who else is coming?" asked Constantine.
"Hey, am I late?" A voice sounded from behind them. Turning around, they found Harvey Dent, also sharply dressed, but in his case, a casual navy-blue houndstooth suit.
After scanning everyone's attire, he looked down at his own and Bruce shook his head, remarking, "It seems each of us has our own interpretation of today's gathering."
"I thought it was just a casual afternoon tea among friends." Harvey took a seat on the sofa, adding, "I even made sure to change out of the overly serious black suit I wore to court."
"Good thing you did." Shiller clinked glasses with him, sharing a joke.
After drinking some warming tea, Alfred brought in the whisky, glasses, and lemon juice for cocktail mixing, replacing the tea craving. It was a rare treat not to have sweet wine or champagne.
"Seems like we're going to end up drunk tonight." Gordon lifted the whisky bottle, as expected, a brand costing half a month's wage in one gulp.
Bruce pierced a slice of lemon with a cork screw while Harvey poured salt onto a piece of paper and opened the cap on the sugar syrup. Alfred set an ice bucket next to the coffee table and put a piece of clear ice into each glass.
Shiller tasted the cheese and nuts on the soda crackers before Alfred added more dried fruits and nuts to the plate along with some mint, thyme, and chili seeds from Mexico.
"Those who seek stimulation might prefer this way of drinking." Alfred introduced with a smile, "It's like using a lemon."
"Leave me out of it." Constantine tasted a tiny bit of chilli seeds, which promptly turned his face red, forcing him to chug several gulps of cold water.
"So, what are we doing today?" Zatanna fiddled with a mint leaf and asked, "Aren't the aliens invading over there now? How far along are they? Has any city fallen yet?"
Bruce handed the cocktail he had just made to Shiller, snapped his fingers towards the wall by the fireplace, and Little Bruce and the others soon appeared on the screen.
"Good, this is the information on Apocalypse Star that I found in the spaceship database, the invasion of Apocalypse Star, the battle meeting has started."
Zatanna dropped her cracker in surprise and stared at the screen, "Did I hear wrong? He said invade Earth, right?"
"What's happened?" Constantine also looked bewildered. He blinked and inspected the familiar faces on the screen, "Did the aliens take on their appearance to infiltrate Earth?"
The only two who weren't surprised were Bruce and Shiller. Both were leisurely sipping their drinks, arousing the curiosity of the others.
Strange squinted at Shiller, "It's as if you knew already. Don't tell me it was you…"
"Stop speculating. I'm nothing like the Shiller you know." Shiller replied calmly, without batting an eye.
Constantine then turned to Bruce, "I can't help but feel that you have something to do with the development up to this point…"
"Don't overthink it. After leaving the Magic Academy, I just went to sleep. Besides, with the whole cosmos in between, what could I possibly do?"
Jack hummed twice, took a sip of his drink from his cup and said, "The two of you have exactly the same method of lying, only telling the truth, but only a portion of it."
"How about we play a game?" Jack smiled, stretched his arms over his head, and suggested, "Guess how they each influenced the other universe. We guess the answer, and you tell us how close we are. If we hit a correct point, you drink; if not, we drink."
"A game of deduction?" Barbara leaned forward with some interest, but stiffened and pulled back when she realized it was suggested by Joker.
"You can communicate with one of them." Strange said while looking at Shiller.
"That's correct, but it's too vague." Shiller took a sip of his wine despite his words.
Zatanna looked at Strange with curiosity and asked, "How did you figure that out?"
"I just made the most conservative guess." Strange leaned back in his chair and replied, "After all, don't I know him well? No matter which Shiller he is, he just needs to open his mouth to fully influence the situation."
"Then guess who I influenced?"
Strange tapped on the armrest of the chair. He was not stupid and deduced from the previous clues, "It should be one of the girls. Before you left my universe, you shifted your focus to the female heroes, I guess...Helen? You have a good relationship with her."
"Wrong, drink." Shiller replied with a smile.
"Then I guess Aisha." Zatanna raised her hand, she glanced at Bruce and said, "Earlier I heard Bruce say, you were his daughter's private tutor"
"Exhaustive enumeration doesn't count." Jack rolled his eyes as if sighing for Zatanna's IQ. Shiller also nodded and said, "If we keep guessing this way, the game won't last long. You have to think differently. For example, if Stephen guesses the person, then others should guess the method."
Zatanna showed a troubled expression, she thought for a moment and said, "Though it's difficult to communicate across a universe, I think you could find a way. So, I guess you probably used magic to communicate with someone, telling them what to do?"
"Wrong again, drink."
That's when Bruce looked up and asked, "Can we guess each other?"
Before Jack could say anything, Shiller said, "When asking this question, don't have 'I already know everything' written all over your face, otherwise I would say 'absolutely not'."
Bruce lowered his head, sighed, shook his head and took a sip of wine. Then continued to stare at the screen.
No one else had more clues. Shiller influencing others with his speech style gave some leads. But what Bruce would do was a complete mystery; as stated earlier, the current Bruce was too trendy.
Shiller covered his mouth with his glass to hide his smile. The excitement from the difficult student finally graduating seemed to have passed. Therefore, all that was left was a competition between Batman and Joker.
Let's see how much more there is to this excellent graduate of his, Shiller thought, taking a sip of his drink.
"The recognition code of this small escort ship should still be in the Apocalypse Star defense security system. If nothing goes wrong, we should be able to enter the Apocalypse Star Port without any obstruction. But the issues come later. None of us possess the ability to shapeshift, even if we did, we wouldn't be able to cover so many people."
Little Bruce frowned, looking at the map in the data library and said, "The moment they realize that the spaceship is unmanned, they might notice that the entire fleet has lost contact. They may also guess that we infiltrated secretly. The time from them being blissfully ignorant to discovering us, is our golden time for infiltration."
"Do we have a map of the star port?" Damian asked, looking at the data on the screen, "If we can get a map, then I should be able to concoct a perfect infiltration route."
"We only have an approximate outline, even if we had a structural map, we wouldn't be able to determine the locations and sequence of the security personnel patrols."
"A strong break-through?" Helen suggested.
"No way; the star port has sufficient automated defense measures. At least twenty fleets, much stronger than Weiman's, are stationed inside."
"In other words, the journey from the star port to the star is the most dangerous." Harley said thoughtfully, "But we entirely don't need to fly from the star port to the star, I propose we use old methods."
"Have a free ride?"
"As long as we're fast enough." Harley pointed at the appearance of the Apocalypse Star and said, "The independent star port of this star is not far from the star itself, and the comings and goings are all small ships, not all are passenger ships, there are also cargo ships. We just need to sneak into the cargo ships' warehouse, as long as we move quickly, there should be no problem."
"Speaking of which, why didn't the designer of this star build the star port farther away from the star?" Helen asked quite puzzled, "Doesn't that lose the buffer meanings of the star port?"
"I guess they don't have a designer at all." Stark said, looking at the bunch of information through Harley's eyes.
Stark stared at the rapidly approaching spaceship and continued.
"If you want to sneak in, naturally you have to make a big commotion elsewhere. Jarvis, tell the girl that there must be an emergency landing device for the star port on the star. Find it and pull down the star port!"