Chapter 2479: The Ancient and Strange Bat Family (22)

Hearing Yellow Lantern Batman's words, Shiller furrowed his brow. Tapping the ground beneath his feet with the tip of his umbrella, he said, "Explain in detail."

After a pause, Yellow Lantern Batman began to describe the situation of that day.

The background story of the comic featuring Green Lantern Batman, also known as the Dawnbreaker, apart from the oath in the localized version, seems to be a highlight, but other aspects feel like fillers, with basically no emotional entanglements like the other members of the Dark Knights. It probably just describes the story of a brat going on a killing spree in his own universe.

But there's a glaring question in the story: Little Bruce's parents died, so the Green Lantern Ring flew to him. However, from an emotional standpoint, this logic doesn't make sense because the Green Lantern Ring represents willpower.

The death of his parents was a huge blow to Little Bruce, and judging from his actions after obtaining the Green Lantern Ring, the emotions surging through him at that time were intense. To some extent, he completely lost control. How could one say his will was strong?

Of course, it's not that avenging one's parents by killing the criminal is wrong, but the Lantern ring's standards of judgment are flawed. If Little Bruce's willpower had been satisfactory, then he wouldn't have needed to wait for his parents' death to summon the ring. If it wasn't up to par, then where did the Green Lantern Ring come from?

Essentially, in that moment of his parents' death, all the other Lantern rings would have been more fitting than the Green Lantern Ring—like the red one representing anger, the purple one representing love, even the orange one representing greed, and the blue one representing compassion, all would have been more suitable than the supposed symbol of willpower that the Green Lantern is for Little Bruce's situation at that time. Yet, it was the Green Lantern that appeared.

If we were to point out a difference between the Green Lantern and the other Lantern Corps, it's probably that there are more Green Lanterns, and the threshold for obtaining a Green Lantern Ring is somewhat lower. Although the upper limits are high, the lower limits are also low.

Considering the contamination found inside the Lantern ring earlier, this particular ring must have passed through someone else's hands before reaching Little Bruce, suggesting it probably wasn't summoned according to the Lantern Corps' rules, but rather was sent by someone.

Therefore, it's conceivable that Little Bruce actually summoned a Lantern ring, only it wasn't a Green Lantern but a Yellow Lantern. The subsequent carnage Little Bruce wrought with Green Lantern energy might actually be closer to the fear-inducing setting of a Yellow Lantern.

However, there is a problem; from Yellow Lantern Batman's description, this Yellow Lantern didn't come naturally. Yet, the Yellow Lantern Ring is somewhat unique because there is a very special central figure in the Yellow Lantern Corps named Sinestro.

Sinestro was the first to discover the Green Lantern Corps' vulnerability to yellow. The reason was Parallax, the Yellow Lantern Beast trapped inside the Lantern Furnace. He released Parallax, even swallowed it, leading to a situation where Parallax fled at the sight of Sinestro, even seeking Superman's help to avoid being devoured again.

To some degree, Sinestro could influence the Yellow Lantern, and while he might not have influence over the original spectrum of energy, he could at least affect the rings. Combined with the phrase "Sinestro's authority" that Yellow Lantern Batman heard, the Yellow Lantern Ring might very well have been sent by Sinestro.

But the question is, why would Sinestro send greetings to Dr. Anatoli? When did they meet, and what is their relationship?

Two possibilities presented themselves at this point. Either the message to the doctor was simply as it appeared on the surface, Sinestro, like Mad Laugh, making his presence known to Shiller through some plan.

Or, there's another possibility, which Shiller considered more likely: Sinestro was merely repeating Mad Laugh's phrase.

Shiller didn't know much about Sinestro, but didn't think it was likely that the phrasing of Sinestro and Mad Laugh would match perfectly down to the punctuation unless it was a case of one copying the other perfectly, word for word.

Considering who appeared first, it seemed Mad Laugh was earlier, and Sinestro just repeated the phrase for some reason, which Yellow Lantern Batman happened to hear and, years later, relayed to Shiller.

Shiller thought there were two possibilities for Sinestro's action: one was that he genuinely knew Dr. Anatoli, and this act was a way to signal to Shiller that he was 'one of us.'

The other possibility was that Sinestro didn't actually know who Dr. Anatoli was but had been disgusted by Mad Laugh and, perhaps after hearing the phrase, preserved it within a ring, which Yellow Lantern Batman incidentally heard.

Shiller felt the latter was less likely because the ring isn't a recorder. Even if Sinestro felt disgusted by Mad Laugh, and Anatoli disgusted Mad Laugh—turning the enemy of his enemy into a friend—wishing to ally with Dr. Anatoli could be achieved by simply remembering the name, not by treating the ring as a recorder.

If Sinestro indeed knew Dr. Anatoli from long ago, then sending the Yellow Lantern Ring to Little Bruce at nearly the same time could be part of a scheme to counteract Mad Laugh's plan.

Looking at the outcome now, Mad Laugh's plan was to corrupt the Green Lantern Ring and then deliver it to Batman, to contaminate Batman's character. If one could foreknow this plan and initiate a countermeasure, then naturally it would make sense to send a Yellow Lantern Ring in place of the Green Lantern.

From what has happened so far, the plan both succeeded and failed. At the time, Little Bruce donned the Yellow Lantern Ring and received its power. However, for some reason, he ended up wearing the Green Lantern Ring as well, resulting in the split of Green Lantern Batman's identity.

But there really wasn't any need to investigate the specific reasons, Shiller had a hunch that he wouldn't be able to find a concrete reason anyway. Even if he looked into it, he would probably just end up with "Mad Laugh predicted your prediction, counteracting your counteraction."

Great, very much in keeping with Mad Laugh's style, Shiller thought. With this, he could be sure, although he didn't know why Mad Laugh started laying eggs everywhere, Mad Laugh probably wasn't dead and was still jumping around, still trying to stir up a big mess.

At first, Shiller thought it was just a personal vendetta between Mad Laugh and Dr. Anatoli, but now it seemed that both parties had teammates, and during the years Shiller had been in and stayed in Gotham, they were still engaged in their open and secret struggle.

Considering both possibilities, it wasn't hard to deduce that Sinestro was likely a teammate of the doctor's. To be precise, everyone from the World of Order was a natural ally; after all, who could tolerate an unexpected disaster?

Even if not from the reader's perspective of the comics, Mad Laugh's actions and his style were annoying enough, let alone for characters like Uncle Sinestro, who is both a mentor and a friend to Hal. Even the purest of villains, evil incarnate, the cruelest of the cruel, would probably not be able to stand someone constantly jumping out at the final step of your plan, saying they had foreseen everything.

It would have been tolerable if it had been just that, but Mad Laugh always had to tack on a long-winded explanation that seemed logical. However, in reality it was filled with nonsensical reasoning, trying to make it look like he hadn't made a lucky guess or that the editor had forcefully given him foresight, but rather that he had made a reasoned presumption.

So now it was left to figure out which cosmos this Sinestro associated with the doctor actually came from. While the situation in the Light Universe might be better, the Dark Universe was closer to Mad Laugh, and the potential for disgust was greater—both possibilities remained open.

At that moment, Shiller recalled a very old affair, so old that he had almost forgotten it and had to rummage through his memory archives.

It was shortly after Aisha was born, when Sinestro from Shiller's universe finally realized that his Lantern Beast had run away. He ended up chasing it to Wayne Manor and came face to face with Batman.

At that time, Bruce was still Batman, certainly the prime target of fear for the Yellow Lantern. Sinestro was completely unprepared and got absolutely taken down.

Back then, Sinestro was locked up by Batman, so Shiller went down to the basement wanting to question Sinestro about why he became the leader of the Yellow Lantern Corps ahead of time.

But Sinestro told him that he had glimpsed the dirty secret behind the Lantern Corps—that is, the Little Blue People were actually using the power of the Corps for their own selfish desires. After discovering this, Sinestro defected from the Green Lantern Corps early and became the spokesperson for Yellow Lantern.

There was a catch in Sinestro's story; he said that someone had told him the truth, but Sinestro also claimed he didn't know who this person was, and he believed that this person held a grudge against the Guardians of the Universe.

From this, Shiller deduced at the time that this person might be the First Lantern because when it came to animosity with the Little Blue People, the First Lantern definitely had a tragic history.

Moreover, it was a curious coincidence at that time, Shiller had another deduction: in theory, the First Lantern should still be imprisoned by the Little Blue People, so if he was able to inform Sinestro of the truth, it implied that he might have partially escaped.

But whether the First Lantern's escape or Sinestro becoming the leader of the Yellow Lantern Corps, neither aligned with the timeline in the comics. It was around this time that Shiller had just discovered the Laughing Egg in Bruce's psychic world, and he speculated whether there was any connection between the two.

Looking back now, it seemed he was right. There was a profound connection between the First Lantern, Sinestro, and the Laughing Egg. It was highly likely a result of the game between Dr. Anatoli and the Laughing Bat.

From the perspective of those who came after, one could deduce from the outcome that, no matter how perilous the process or how many rounds of predictions Mad Laugh concocted, in the end, both sides could be said to have fought to a draw.

The First Lantern had escaped, Sinestro had taken a stand, but at the same time, Bruce's body had been implanted with the Laughing Egg.

It's hard to say who lost out in the end. The setting for the First Lantern was actually very strong, almost on par with mutants in Marvel. Sinestro was no pushover either—someone capable of wielding a Lantern ring may just be young, but surely not an easy adversary in the future.

However, Batman was always the central point and key of the universe, and the fact that Batman's body harbored a ticking time bomb, regardless of how many powerful teammates were recruited, was likely a loss.

And the reason Shiller felt the doctor hadn't lost was because, wasn't the Laughing Egg dug up by him?

Wait, could this also be part of the doctor's plan—that his method for dealing with the Laughing Egg was to wait for him to come along and then dig them out one by one?