Chapter 2493: Battle for the Cloak (12)

"What in the world happened? Jason," Barbara asked with a frown, "Are you okay? Do you remember what happened before you passed out?"

"The two of us found the master switch for the protective device, but since it was a huge machine, we decided to take its core back to the Batcave. We were halfway through when he just passed out," Robin said.

"I think he must be too tired," Nightwing said. "I've seen him wandering around Gotham several times in the middle of the night without sleeping. That's the downside of staying up late."

"Shut up!" the Arkham Knight roared, his voice so loud that it startled everyone around.

Barbara clearly noticed something was off with Jason, and she stopped Nightwing and Robin who wanted to continue questioning him. Instead, she softened her tone as much as possible, using feminine qualities to express her non-threatening stance.

"Don't be afraid, Jason, you're at home now, we're all here with you, and we won't let you get hurt," she said.

The Arkham Knight waved his hand vigorously. He knew Barbara was mistaking his behavior for a trauma disorder acting up, but that wasn't actually the case at all. He took a deep breath, accepted the glass of water passed to him by Alfred, and gulped down a large amount before speaking.

"It's not that, not my problem. It's Batman, Batman is in trouble—he's been seriously injured and is now completely trapped."

"How could you know what's happening to Batman?"

The Arkham Knight sighed and finally said, "Last night, a strange extraterrestrial creature made its way into my body, calling itself a 'symbiont.'"

"And there's one in Batman as well, they're parent and offspring, able to sense each other's condition and even communicate through a special neural medium."

"The one inside me said it couldn't sense the symbiont inside Batman anymore. I guessed he must be trapped, but now the signal is coming through because the one inside Batman, in order to repair his body, has nearly exhausted all its energy."

Everyone drew a sharp breath. Robin looked at the Arkham Knight and said, "You mean Batman's injuries are so severe that even this extraterrestrial creature can't heal him."

"It's barely managing as it is," the Arkham Knight recalled the sights he had seen and said, "The healing of the wounds has become very slow, but new injuries are still being added. It seems his enemy doesn't want to kill him, just to torture him."

By the end, the Arkham Knight had no strength left, his body beginning to tremble uncontrollably; clearly, his trauma disorder wasn't completely without trace.

Nightwing immediately pushed him down onto the bed, using half of his body to pin his shoulders, while Robin quickly brought a sedative. Barbara injected it into the Arkham Knight.

After the convulsions stopped, the eyes beneath Jason's mask had lost all their brilliance.

Suddenly, Nightwing was thrown off as the Arkham Knight sat up abruptly, muttering to himself like a wandering soul, "I have to save him, I have to save him."

"Calm down, Jason," Barbara said. Though she too was immersed in sorrow over Batman's plight, she added, "What we need to do now is to protect Gotham for Batman, then we can work on rescuing him. Otherwise, what's the point if Batman comes back and Gotham is in ruins?"

The Arkham Knight wasn't listening at all; he just pushed past Robin, who was trying to stop him, and staggered out the door. Robin followed him, asking, "Where are you going?"

"Washington, he's in Washington!"

The three people in the room exchanged glances. Nightwing said, "We can't let him leave like this; he's in the middle of an episode."

Barbara took a deep breath and said, "Weren't things getting better? Aside from that one issue when he was on medication, he completely recovered, and the doctor even said he could stop taking it."

"That's how mental illness is," Robin said. "Even if he seemed fully recovered for a while, any new stress can cause problems again. We have to stop him, I'll go."

Barbara and Nightwing both hesitated to speak. They both understood that although on the surface it seemed Jason had gotten over his issues with the newer Robins, it was uncertain if he might revert to his old ways under stress.

While they were discussing this, the younger Robins walked in. They had seen the Arkham Knight rush out in a hurry, thinking there was some emergency and came up to check.

When they heard about the Arkham Knight's condition, none of them were in a rush to follow him. Instead, they said, "We don't think Batman is the kind of father who could just watch his child suffer without doing anything. He wasn't like that in the past and he won't be now."

"Jason's past tragedy was probably just an accident, but this situation is clearly different," Tim said. "Didn't Batman consider how much pain Jason would feel if he discovered his current state? If he knew, why would he send the signal back?"

"Even if he wanted to let Jason know, he would have contacted him through the symbiont right from the start, not wait till now and have to show how much pain he's in. That's not something Batman would do."

The three people in the room suddenly realized the truth; they had been so caught up in Jason's condition that they forgot to consider Batman's perspective on the matter.

Arkham Knight was already the most mentally fragile among them. Although he had almost fully recovered before, not much time had passed—less than a year of stability. If he were to be stimulated again at this time, it wouldn't just be a waste of all previous efforts but a complete catastrophe.

Batman certainly knew this. He felt guilty for Jason's past experiences and would have undoubtedly done everything in his power to prevent any information from reaching Jason and causing further distress. Perhaps this could also explain why the Symbiont normally could communicate, but Jason had been unable to receive any signals. It was very likely that Batman was blocking them unilaterally.

Surely, something unexpected must have occurred. They all suspected that, perhaps, Batman really couldn't hold on any longer, leading to a flaw in his defense and making it impossible to block the Symbiont's signals any longer, giving the enemy an opportunity to exploit.

"They just want to deceive Jason into going there," Barbara's tone began to tremble uncontrollably. "They want to use Jason to threaten Batman, to do it once again."

"Then we need to bring him back quickly," Dick said. "His mental state is unstable. Whether or not Batman could be saved is another matter, but there's a high chance he might hurt himself, or even if he gets injured, Batman would be distracted, making it even harder for both to escape."

"Don't rush," Jason said. "Batman is the bait they're using to lure the Arkham Knight, but we can simply eat the bait without getting hooked."

"What do you mean?"

"What we need most now is Batman's location. If the enemy can send out a signal, there must be an output port, and it's very likely to be not far from Batman's location."

"If they want the Arkham Knight to take the bait, they have to give him that location, otherwise where would he go? And if they want to break Batman's will by killing Jason in front of him, they might even bring Jason directly to Batman."

"You mean..."

"Switch places." Jason said with a smile.

"But when they bring him in front of Batman, they'll certainly subdue him, and the hood will be taken off. How could we masquerade as him?"

"Why do we have to masquerade as him? Isn't the real one right here?"

Soon, the Red Hood from the Prime Universe appeared in the room. After a brief fight, Nightwing still pinned him down, and Jason removed his hood.

"Are all of you insane? Isn't there a ready-made maskless one right here? Why do you need to see my face?! Give me back my hood!" Red Hood roared furiously.

"Hmm, the features seem a bit different," Robin said, looking at Barbara for her opinion and adding, "He's also missing some scars on the face."

"Scars are easy to deal with, some makeup will do, but he does look younger, and there's something different about the eyes."

"Enough," Jason interrupted. "Besides you all, who has really taken a close look at Jason of this universe? The enemy probably hasn't seen him much either. Jason, that'll have to do."

Red Hood finally struggled free and said: "You're not seriously thinking of having me replace the Jason of this universe, are you? That's utterly preposterous!"

"What, you don't dare?"

"He could fight with Batman all night, but could I?" Red Hood admitted bluntly. "If he couldn't do it, what use would I be?"

"But he's currently mentally compromised," Dick said. "We're not sending you to fight them; just stay lucid, transmit the location coordinates back, and stall for as long as possible."

"Don't worry, we have a spacecraft. We'll be above your heads in less than 5 seconds once we get the location," Jason said snapping his fingers. "The Freeze Gun's ammo is also in ample supply, able to instantly freeze everything within a kilometer. Even if you're down to your last breath, you won't be killed."

"But that Fifth-dimensional being is a problem," Barbara immediately pointed out. "He's not on the same dimension as us, and the attacks we have here might not work against him. We'll still have to find a way to drive him off first."

"About that, I've actually got a bit of an idea," Jason said. "I asked around in the Doujie System group many times, and finally, someone replied. It was Superman from some universe. He said he's encountered a Fifth-dimensional being before, but it wasn't called Bat Mite, rather Mr. Mxyzptlk."

"The method to deal with this guy is quite simple: just make him say his own name backwards, and he'll be banished to the Fifth-dimensional space and won't be able to return for a while. I guess the name that guy who looked like a Batman puppet come to life mentioned also meant the same thing."

"But how are we supposed to know the name of that Fifth-dimensional Demon?"

"We'll probably have to ask his master about that," Jason said. "Since King Robin is behind this, King Robin definitely knows his name, but we can't tip them off too early. We'll need to make him say it without realizing."

"It seems you've already got a plan."

"Of course, we can do it this way..."