Chapter 2522: The Battle for the Cape (41)

The story is a long one, but it starts with a familiar scene. One evening, after a day's work, Jason saw a super cool car parked by the street with four super cool tires. Batman also saw a super cool car parked by the street, but the car had only three super cool tires left.

For the members of the Batman Family, the story is all too well-known. Yet, in reality, neither Batman nor Jason ever spoke of it. It only came up one day when Batman mentioned it to Dick while introducing Jason. Owing to its sheer absurdity, even if boiled down to a single sentence, the tale spread far and wide through Dick's recounting.

That night wasn't all that special, really. Batman picked Jason up and let him acclimate to life at Wayne Manor for a few days before taking him to the Batcave. There, he taught Jason more professional combat skills, firearms techniques, vehicle driving, and machinery operation, along with mechanical engineering, a subject in which Jason was already quite adept.

The days of learning were busy and time flew by quickly. Batman became the main theme in Jason's life so much so that Jason soon forgot those past days.

But Batman was always busy. When Batman left alone on the pretext that Jason was too young to go out and fight crime, Jason would sometimes read by the fireplace, sleep in his room, cool off under the big tree in the garden, or daydream in the bathtub.

Then he grew up quickly, into an incredibly strong bird, until eventually, Batman almost wished he could kick him out of the nest.

The times spent in the luxury of Wayne Manor became background noise for Jason's fluctuating moods and the wallpaper in his inner dialogue. He never thought about it, but those things were always there.

Jason didn't remember having any emotions of his own before Batman picked him up. Even upon close reflection, all that came to mind was a blank slate in his brain, apart from two words that kept circling—"Stay alive."

The noises that always troubled him were those out-of-tune emotions that would pop up suddenly. These voices stemmed from the tranquility of his life, after he had come to understand the world's true nature through those books and principles, and found his own chord that could resonate.

As a child, Jason never thought he was wrong. Stealing, deceiving, robbing, doing dirty work, running errands for criminals, and being indifferent to the death of his peers were all too common in his life.

At Wayne Manor, he learned from Batman, Alfred, Dick, and those books that these actions were wrong and not just. Everyone wanted him to be a just person.

Jason disliked all the rules and discipline, but he was subtly influenced by them, or perhaps it was the consistently full stomach that provided his body with enough fervent blood, enabling him to produce ample bravery that rushed to his brain and turned him into someone who loathed evil.

Jason was the last person who should have turned out this way, for he emerged from the very criminals he abhorred. His first exposure to rules in life were Gotham's dark laws, which should have had an unimaginable impact on him and shaped his personality.

Jason became the complete opposite, even more extreme than others, not because he was unstable, but because he had been too hungry before and too full afterward. He managed to survive while hungry, so the surplus energy from being well-fed fueled an astonishing transformation.

Jason thought, that's how it was. Batman had fed him too well. Otherwise, the first emotion he should have felt after surviving the Joker shouldn't have been anger and resentment, but relief.

Like the countless nights he had spent alone in Gotham, feeling lucky and thinking to himself that what happened yesterday didn't matter, he was alive, after all.

Just imagining himself so fragile that he learned nothing from disaster and hoped only for divine intervention made Jason nauseous. Yet, he also understood that for an ordinary person, dying in the flames of anger rather than the numbness of cold is a tremendous fortune.

Then there was Spider-Man, who appeared quite feeble and hesitant. Even after acquiring immense strength, he didn't immediately declare war against evil forces. He didn't behave like a Superhero.

But perhaps the topic of heroes didn't weigh much in his life because his family was on a tight budget. With all his strength, Spider-Man couldn't work officially due to his age, and such abilities were hard to convert into a stable income.

Spider-Man indeed wasn't an ordinary person anymore, but he hadn't escaped the plight of the commoners, for he had too many attachments to abandon and become a solitary hero.

And then there was Bruce. If there were a universe where Bruce experienced a complete change, as in the dream, becoming destitute and struggling, would he accept his fate just like that?

Jason suddenly realized he would. He finally understood why the image of Batman in the dream was like that, because he had become an ordinary person, one like Peter Parker.

They might have certain strengths, but those weren't enough to pull them out from the masses. They lived among the multitude, busy with the hustle and bustle.

That meant they had to endure the pain ordinary people do, the petty trifles, the wear and tear. But it also meant they were spared the responsibilities of a Superhero.

After all, who would expect someone who has been orphaned since childhood, impoverished, lacking any special skills, and with a family to support, to take responsibility for the state of society?

It would be more reasonable to say they were victims of the current social situations. Society should hold more accountability for them, as society owes them.

Apart from the death of his parents, all of Batman's suffering stemmed from his twisted sense of responsibility. To some extent, most of Spider-Man's struggles are also entangled with the phrase, "With great power comes great responsibility."

The troubles of the wealthy can hardly outweigh the suffering of the ordinary people, yet the pain of the latter scarcely compares to the discrepancy between the sense of responsibility held by superheroes to save the world and the tragic outcomes of their effortful endeavors.

The lives of ordinary people aren't entirely about suffering, because they desire little and are easily satisfied. However, the lives of superheroes driven by a sense of responsibility consist only of the urgency they feel compelled by, the effort they put into action, the drive to go further after success, and the regret of wanting to try again following failure.

Is this really good? Jason thought. If Batman hadn't picked him up, he might still be oblivious, considering himself unlucky if kidnapped by criminals, resting for a day at home before going back to work, unable to blame anyone nor having anyone to blame.

Having finished absorbing the breeze by the river, Jason checked into a motel. Just around midnight, he felt unwell—his body was burning, his mouth parched, yet he felt cold. He was definitely running a fever.

Normally, he wasn't so fragile. He would have gotten up and bought medicine, but now Jason lay in bed, not wanting to move at all, just half-squinting at the ceiling, listening to the bellows, curses, trembling music, and drunken murmurs coming from the paper-thin walls of the motel room next door.

The television in the next room was constantly broadcasting programs, seeming to be the midnight news channel. But soon, a hurried female voice came through, "In recent child assault cases, the only surviving victim, a little girl named Vicky, told the police she had seen a monster with talons in her dreams. Up next, let's hear from a professional psychiatrist for analysis..."

Jason was feverish and confused; the information flowed through his cerebral cortex, barely lingering for a second before it disappeared.

His clenched arm gradually relaxed, and in his daze, Jason drifted off to sleep.

In an ordinary apartment building, Bruce sat on the living room floor, repairing a wheelchair. He wasn't watching the television but listened to the news being broadcasted.

Gordon's voice came from inside the house. Bruce promptly went in. He helped Gordon turn over, but Gordon didn't fall asleep as usual. Instead, he looked at Bruce and said, "Did you hear the news? A killer is harming children."

"Yes, Uncle Gordon, I heard it, and it's very unfortunate."

Gordon's face showed a pained expression. His only movable arm curled slightly, fingers grasping the sheets as he said, "Perhaps Officer Gordon..."

Bruce lowered his eyelids and said nothing. Gordon quickly changed his expression and said, "Sorry, I shouldn't talk to you about this. You have to work tomorrow. You should get some sleep."

"If you would like to make a call, Uncle Gordon, I can get you the phone, but..."

"But it won't do much good, I know." Gordon showed a numb expression on his face. He said, "I'm no longer a cop, and there are few at the Gotham Police Department who know me."

"I believe they will handle the case well." Bruce looked down and said, "We have to believe in them."

Gordon said nothing, staring blankly at the ceiling. Bruce turned and gently closed the door with a sigh of indescribable emotion.

In the Arkham Knight cosmos, Batman and Poison Ivy overcame numerous difficulties, especially the strange fog and the bizarre natural phenomena within it, finally reaching the edge of the portal.

"God, I can't even imagine what I've been through." Poison Ivy touched her forehead, mumbling as though traumatized, "Fish with metal legs, killers wearing smiley masks, spooky dolls, nuns that looked like corpses, freaks with nails on their heads..."

"Repeating all that won't do your mental health any good." Batman said calmly.

"What's happening now that's good for my mental health?!!" Poison Ivy roared.

"If we succeed, maybe there will be." Batman's tone remained even, until he saw the current state of the portal.

Batman had been here before, but given his limited understanding of magic, after the portal was closed, he couldn't find any mechanism to either restart it or destroy it completely, so he left it alone for the time being.

But now, what lay before Batman was not a portal but a hole, a hole that had appeared in the ground.