Chapter 1689

Washington, 6:30 am, temporary superhero gathering place.

This is one of the safe houses Batman has scattered all over the world. Nominally, it is the headquarters of a luxury vacation company that sells yachts and provides sea route services. Superheroes have been active here for a while, and so has Batman.

No Batman safe house is a dark and narrow dilapidated cellar. Batman has plenty of ways to get reasonable approval and build a base openly.

The vacation company that arranges routes and provides services for the rich will of course build its headquarters to be large and luxurious. There is a vacation hotel here that is not open to the public and only accepts private appointments, consisting of an activity building and a conference building. On the surface, it provides privacy protection for the rich who come here for consultation, but in fact, it is just to cover up the activities of superheroes.

When Superman walked out of the room, he wasn't even wearing his uniform. That hair, which was always neatly combed back, had several strands resting on his forehead at this moment, and several strands sticking up at the back of his head. Superman didn't even want to use his superpowers to smooth them out.

He instinctively reached into the kangaroo-like pocket in front of his hoodie, took out those black-rimmed glasses, and wanted to put them on his face, then remembered that he was in a superhero base, not in a reporter's apartment in Metropolis.

He sighed softly, brushed his hair casually, put the glasses back in his pocket, walked toward the washroom, and then met Wonder Woman, who also had messy black hair, face to face.

"God, this is the ten-thousandth time I've sworn this year that we shouldn't have drunk so much last night." Wonder Woman took a deep breath, tapped her temples with the heels of her palms, and said, "Letting yourself get drunk is really a very bad habit. It's really very, very..."

"Good morning, Diana." Superman greeted very politely. He tried hard to open his eyes and said, "It's not that alcohol has any harm to us, but are you sure we are this drunk because Batman didn't drug the wine?"

Wonder Woman waved her hand vigorously and said, "Don't tell ghost stories early in the morning. Isn't he strange enough lately?"

"It won't be stranger than the two of you blocking the washroom door."

A black shadow appeared silently. Of course, Batman should appear like this. Superman looked back at him somewhat confusedly. Of course, Batman should also be wearing a full Batman suit at 5:30 in the morning, with no wrinkles on his cape, and even every Batarang polished to a shine.

"Seriously, Batman, why do you think that you treating us to a drink won't be interpreted by us as you having other motives? Do you think we only have a seven-second memory?" Superman narrowed his eyes and said somewhat dissatisfied.

"I just hope you stop those ridiculous guesses, even if it's by getting drunk."

Wonder Woman raised her hand in a somewhat collapsed manner, then let it slide down forcefully, and said, "How can you expect us not to guess? Your hometown, your little treasure, Cat Getan, which others usually roar like rock stars just by approaching you, is now almost beaten into ruins. And you, you've spent a week in our base!"

"I've said it many times, Batman, if there is really any difficulty that cannot be solved, I can..."

"There is no difficulty that cannot be solved."

"Oh, of course you do." Superman shook his head, not wanting to discuss this issue anymore. He walked into the washroom and said, "I think things that can make Batman leave Cat Getan are much more important than investigating Darkseid."

"You should drink some more."

Wonder Woman gathered her hair, turned and walked a few steps, stayed a little further from the washroom door to show her gentlemanly spirit, then crossed her arms and leaned against the wall and said, "You didn't replace whiskey with ginger juice yesterday. What exactly is wrong? Batman?"

Batman pulled the corners of his mouth down, revealing a very classic expression of "although on the surface it looks like I don't want to explain, actually it's very difficult for me to explain."

Obviously, no one in this world except Batman could read such a complex expression on another person's face. So Wonder Woman shook her head, turned and walked toward the stairs, and said, "Okay, that's it. Forget it if you don't want to say."

She didn't have any hope that Batman would explain, and she had never considered that there was really one thing in this world that was very difficult for Batman to explain—his biological father and mother were busy throwing missiles at each other's heads in his Cat Getan, his children were busy throwing missiles at everyone else's heads in his Cat Getan, and the main reason he couldn't throw missiles at their heads was that his arch-nemesis was waiting in his home to watch his joke.

Batman cared about Cat Getan, but he cared more about the Joker.

After some consideration, Batman decided to leave his city temporarily. But this wasn't entirely because the thousands of threads there couldn't be cleared up, and he himself needed some time to accept the fact that his future life might be a bit too fulfilling. Part of it was also because of Darkseid, who had been eyeing him covetously.

Batman was sure that Darkseid must have some special means to detect the equation in his hands. During this period, Green Lantern Hal frequently provided him with news, saying that the Green Lantern Corps had detected anomalies in the universe, which was very likely that some evil existence had set its sights on Earth again. And Batman knew that was Darkseid.

Schiller provided him with some news about Darkseid, but it was more like his personal speculation. Although this was the case, it was still useful, at least letting Batman know that his next opponent was very likely an alien monarch, and like all tyrants, he would not stop until he achieved his goal.

So, Batman had been staying in the base for the past week. He was trying to parse some mysterious cosmic signals provided by the Green Lantern Corps, which were considered to be the precursor to Darkseid mobilizing his army to besiege Earth.

But of course, Wonder Woman and Superman would be confused by this, because they also saw the current situation of Cat Getan from the news. The FBI spokesperson said they would no longer ignore this city. Both of them understood that this kind of statement could be called a provocation to Batman, and Batman would not tolerate this.

But Batman tolerated it.

This made the two of them really unable to suppress their curiosity. Even if they knew Batman couldn't provide more explanations, they still couldn't help but frequently beat around the bush, wanting to know what made Batman change his nature.

Of course, this frequent probing and questioning didn't bring back the real answer, but it did bring back Batman's generous wine—cases of high-quality Scotch malt whiskey. They drank until they collapsed last night.

Superman, who came out of the washroom, finally cleared up his somewhat chaotic thoughts. He came to the activity room, threw himself into the sofa, looked at Batman standing in the corner, and said, "Oh, I'm really sorry, but thank you for the wine, no matter what you added to it."

"I didn't add anything to it."

"Then it must be the pressure we've been under lately that made us drunk." Wonder Woman reached out and brushed her long hair back, half-leaning and half-sitting on the windowsill, and said, "Ever since you found us to work on preventing some crazy alien monarch, I've felt unusually tired."

"Because we were originally taking the initiative to fight crime in our own territories, but now we have to stay together to passively guard against alien invasion of Earth." Superman rubbed his forehead and continued, "We don't know when the disaster will come, we can only interpret the signals over and over again. This kind of tense waiting is much more tiring than throwing punches."

Superman recalled the scene when Batman found him again. Of course, they knew each other before, but when Batman suggested they should find more help, Superman realized the problem wasn't simple.

Intuition from his super-brain told him that the so-called Darkseid invasion of Earth should have a purpose other than simply destroying humanity, but he didn't think about it in detail. Anyway, no matter what the purpose was, he definitely had to stop it.

The second person to join wasn't Wonder Woman, but Green Lantern. But Superman guessed that this should be Batman's targeted measure. After all, the Green Lantern Corps was very active in the universe. If you want to keep an eye on an alien monarch, Hal was the best choice.

And then of course was The Flash, who was also an old friend of Batman. Immediately after was Wonder Woman, and finally Aquaman. However, Aquaman didn't live here now. No matter how luxurious the hotel bathtub was, it couldn't compare to the ocean.

Although they already had so many helpers, there had been no significant progress in this matter so far. Darkseid was mobilizing troops, but before he really attacked anyone, even the Green Lantern Corps couldn't do anything about him. But this put considerable pressure on these superheroes.

Hal constantly received signals from the Green Lantern Corps. It seemed that Darkseid was assembling troops, and some dangerous actions had already entered the evaluation process of the Green Lantern Corps. But Batman couldn't have any hope for these dangerous elements flashing green light.

"Let's talk about your work." At this time, Wonder Woman decisively changed the subject, no longer entangled in the reason why Batman stayed here. She said, "You said you tried to hack into Apokolips's signal terminal before. Any progress?"

"I intercepted a part of the communication channel, but I haven't heard Darkseid's voice. What can be determined is that his generals are mobilizing troops from the marginal star sector. If they really come, this will be a hard battle."

"Don't tell me you really plan to just stand here without making some preparations in advance."

"I am making preparations by standing here."

Superman frowned, and Wonder Woman also stared at Batman and said, "Stop selling secrets. You don't have to tell us your entire plan in detail, but you have to give us a direction so we can cooperate."

"We lack the necessary force to stop Darkseid's army outside Earth, or if we do, we might lose the help of the Green Lantern Corps. Only when they truly descend on Earth are we the legitimate victims."

"But we can't sacrifice Earth..."

"We cannot sacrifice Earth."

Batman nodded along, Wonder Woman and Superman both stared at him, not knowing what his contradictory statement was trying to express. And Batman just sighed in his heart and said.

"But we can sacrifice Cat Getan."

And then added a sentence in his heart.

"... if there is anything left in Cat Getan that can be sacrificed now."