Chapter 2446: The Struggle of Bats (19)_1

Harley and her companions finally met the boss of the Flame Gang; her name was Cindy, a rebellious-looking teenage girl with the ability to control flames.

Surprisingly, her location was not in a house but a school in Paris, as could be seen from the text on the notice board and the books in the office—it was a middle school.

After entering the school, they found it to be not as heavily guarded as the path they had come from; it was very quiet, even peaceful and beautiful.

When they arrived, Cindy was sleeping on a desk. Harley had to wake her up and nearly got her eyebrows singed by sudden flames.

As Cindy stood up, Harley could see clearly that this girl was about her age, with black hair, and her angry expression made her seem very irate.

"Rude intruders!" she shouted.

"Cool it," Harley shrugged and said, "We just want to figure out what all this is about, and if you're not willing to tell us, we might have to resort to some violence."

Before Cindy could speak, Barry stepped forward and put his hand on Harley's shoulder, saying, "Don't talk like that, Harley. Maybe we don't have to understand David to save him."

The rebellious girl called Cindy pursed her lips, looking reluctant, but under the crowd's gaze, she still said, "If you want to save someone, then go take a look inside the castle. The boss of the X-Alliance has already gone over there; I don't have the answers you want."

"Who are you?" Batman asked.

"I'm Cindy. If you're asking who I am in reality, I'm one of David's middle school classmates."

"His first love?"

"Certainly not." Cindy rolled her eyes and said, "David's never been in love because he's a little outcast that gets pushed around."

"School bullying?"

"Not exactly," Cindy sighed, turned around to sit on the desk, swinging her legs and said, "He was mentally unstable, always speaking nonsense, and almost everyone knew he was a mutant. Here, mutants are hugely unwelcome, many times more so than in America."

"You must have encountered Susan on your way here, right? The little girl who can manipulate emotions, she's actually David's classmate too..."

Charles narrowed his eyes and said, "Impossible, that girl looked no older than a third grader."

"Don't forget this is his Psychic_Battlefield. We are just figments of his imagination; what we look like depends wholly on his subjective view. In his mind, Susan is just a childish kid because she once led the whole class in playing a prank on David."

"In David's eyes, Susan is a child who can stir and explode his emotions, so she gained that ability."

"So what about you? What is your relationship with her?"

"We're friends. To be precise, I was her best friend in middle school. To get back at Susan, I used a lighter to set her coat on fire, eliciting a terrible scream from her."

"So your power is Pyro control?"

"Something like that." Cindy cast her eyes down and said, "You must have come from that guy who looks a lot like David, didn't you? What did he tell you?"

"He said the person in the castle calling himself David is not really David."

Cindy scoffed without saying anything, and Batman further inquired, "Do you know who that person calling himself the Master of Trauma is?"

"Just like his name," Cindy responded, "he's David's most primal trauma."

"What is that?"

Cindy shook her head without answering and before Batman could press further, she said, "Things are not as simple as you think. But if you really want to solve the problem, just go take a look at the castle."

The conversation with Cindy ended there; afterward, no matter how much they asked, Cindy was unwilling to tell them more, even when they threatened to use force, and they were merely ejected from the school.

"You can tell Cindy has an ambiguous attitude towards us intruders," Batwoman said. "It seems she doesn't welcome us but still hopes we can solve the problem."

"She has a weird passivity," Harley judged. "Like the Master of Trauma, since they recruited so many people and established these two organizations, they must intend to do something. But we haven't encountered much attack or resistance coming here. After we found them, they didn't give us long speeches about their philosophy as real organization leaders would. They should have done that."

Batwoman turned her head to look at Batman next to her, who frowned slightly, clearly deep in thought.

Soon after, Batman spoke up: "Have any of you noticed your thoughts slowing down?"

Everyone paused, taken aback, with Batwoman admitting first, "It seems there is something like that. Every few seconds, my mind goes blank, and it's been happening since a while ago."

Charles looked around and said, "It might be bandwidth issues, but if Spider Man has already left, that's not possible. Wait a minute, what's that?"

All eyes followed his gaze, and there in the distant skyline was a figure floating in the air. Upon seeing the figure, Batman sighed and said, "Now we know why there are delays."

It was Superman.

Clark landed, incredulously looking at White Can and said, "I might have seen wrong."

"What did you see?"

"Batman."

"There's another Batman here?"

"That's not the point, the main thing is... Batwoman."

"Huh?"

Batwoman sighed, stretched out a hand, retracted two fingers, then gradually retracted the remaining three, "Three, two, one..."

With a bang, a figure landed, and as the dust settled, what first appeared was the bright red cloak.

"What the hell?" Clark zoomed over to Batwoman's side, then zoomed to the other side, sizing up Batwoman from left to right, up and down.

Batwoman rolled her eyes imperceptibly and said, "That's why I call him the Kryptonian Search Dog..."

"Hello." Batman spoke up, trying to stop Clark from continuing his circles around Batwoman, but clearly, Clark was utterly shocked by the sight of Batwoman, buzzing around her non-stop as if he had ADHD.

"Superman!" Batman had to raise his voice.

Then Clark finally stopped and, for a moment when he saw Batman beside him, he revealed an obviously guilty expression.

And everyone around wanted to ask, what the hell are you feeling guilty about.

"Uh, hello, Batman, I mean... I didn't realize you were here too, how have you been lately?"

"Not bad." Batman's reply sounded serious yet dismissive, he asked, "Where did you come from?"

"Over there." Clark pointed in the direction they came from.

Even White Can started to sigh now, he had to add, "Their universe's Alfred died, and a monster took his place, contaminating Batman and erasing his emotions. Now Batman is in a newly made mechanical body, but his mental issues are unresolved, so he currently has no combat ability."

No sooner had White Can finished speaking when bangs and thuds came from afar, the ground shook and two massive figures appeared behind the group – two Tyrannosaurus Rexes.

Following them was the Time Manipulator, who said upon landing, "I know you want to go to the castle, but you can't leave the city by normal means, I can take you there."

And the female Tyrannosaurus Rex snuggled up against the Bat Tyrant Dragon with her head, and the Bat Tyrant Dragon sighed.

Clark found the coloring of the dinosaur somewhat familiar, and his eyes widened the moment the Bat Tyrant Dragon spoke.

"You should be more gentlemanly toward this lady." A voice came through as the Batmonster Vehicle turned its wheels, tilting its non-existent mouth.

Clark suddenly turned his head to look at it, his eyeballs almost popping out of their sockets.

But the Bat Tyrant Dragon was focused on another figure, that of Doomsday Batman standing behind Helen. He lowered his head, nosed closer to smell him, and said, "You remind me of an annoying guy."

"This isn't the time for that." Batman, dressed in red tights, interjected: "We need to figure out how to leave the city, and find the guy who calls himself David."

Upon seeing him, the Time Manipulator quickly approached and asked, "Did you see the monster in the stream of time? What's with that? I've never seen anything like it."

The Flash Batman didn't respond to him.

Barry let out a deep sigh, "I'm sorry, but it's something we brought here. It's a Speedster, a God of Death from our universe, able to move within the Divine Speed."

"Divine Speed? Is that something related to the time stream?"

"It's hard to explain." Barry spread his hands out.

It seemed everyone had arrived. Batman looked around and had already begun to sigh without withdrawing his gaze.

The reason was simple; all around were bizarre shapes and forms.

Looking at a Batman who resembled The Flash, a Batman with Doomsday spikes, Batwoman, a Tyrannosaurus Rex Batman, an off-road vehicle Batman, a Batman who looked like Spider Man, Mechanical Batman...

It was as if he was the only genuine Batman left in the world.

However, regardless, Batman was still executing his plan as precisely as possible, and the first step of the plan was to resolve the current lag issue.

Batman turned and patted Clark on the shoulder, then said to him, "You came from over there, right?"

Clark, not understanding, nodded.

"Then go back where you came from." Batman said.

Clark's eyes immediately widened, his face showing hurt, and before Batman could say more, he began to object, "I admit I'm curious about Batwoman, but I've not said she's stronger than you, I've never thought that, I just..."

"You're hogging most of the bandwidth by yourself," Batman said. "Right now, we're all lagging. If you don't leave, no one else can move properly."

Seeing Clark still confused, Charles had to explain. Even though he was part of the human race, and had plenty of psychic energy, that didn't mean he had enough bandwidth. It was already miraculous to accommodate a Superman and so many Batmans. Now someone still wanted to squeeze in, causing them all to lag together.

After understanding all this, Clark couldn't help but cast his glance toward Mechanical Batman.

"Don't worry, Big Guy, we'll take good care of him." Harley waved her hand at Clark, "If all goes well, I'll personally take him to Doctor Schiller. You just need to leave an address for the bill."

Clark reluctantly left, and after he did, the last Batman finally arrived – it was the one Peter brought back, wearing the helmet of Ares, the God of War. It had been those two who were squeezing in all along.