Chapter 2024: Knight's Nightmare Night (Part 3)

The moonlight tonight is exceptionally bright. Under that huge pale moon, Wei En Tower stands like a giant standing at the end of the sky when the sky is broken.

The lights of the financial port in the distance gradually go out. After the lights representing the prosperous side of the city fade away, only countless flashing police lights and cold neon remain.

Tap, tap, tap.

The footsteps and the sound of the pointer turning gradually overlap. Barbara was startled, turned her head, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that red figure.

She turned back to type on the keyboard and asked without looking back, "You told him we won't have reinforcements, right?"

Then she sighed to herself and said, "But who doesn't have a naive time? I just hope he can keep this innocence until tomorrow morning."

Robin's expression was very complicated. He stood in the room looking at Barbara and said, "Didn't you listen to that phone call of his?"

"I don't need any more annoying things." Barbara's tone was still flat, only a trace of irritability more than usual, which was rare calmness under such circumstances.

Robin sighed and said nothing. He turned his head and saw the photo of Barbara and Nightwing on the bookshelf.

Barbara continued to operate the computer and said, "Batman has already obtained the fear gas sample. He should have brought it back to the Batcave. I'm not sure Peter Parker has the ability to study it. I want to go back and see. What do you think?"

"He found another assistant for that kid named Peter." Robin hugged his arms and said, "Or rather, he found a trouble for him."

In the Batcave, Poison Ivy looked at Peter Parker and shook her head gently: "Don't count on me to cooperate with you again. After Batman leaves, we will break up."

"I'm afraid you have to cooperate, lady. You know you can't leave easily." Peter said while observing the test tube.

"The security facilities in the Batcave are indeed very strict, but I..."

Swish!

A shiny Batarang shaved off a lock of red hair from Poison Ivy's temple. Poison Ivy slowly turned her eyes to one side and saw a thin thread emitting faint light floating slightly under the light.

Poison Ivy reached out, and several vines on the floor grew toward Peter at high speed. Peter jumped to the side, stood on the wall, and climbed to the ceiling like a spider, his movements so fast that Poison Ivy didn't even have time to look up.

The next second, a black shadow fell behind her, and an arm had already strangled Poison Ivy's neck. Poison Ivy bit Peter's arm, her saliva poisonous, and it was a deadly poison.

"Plant toxin?"

Peter retracted his hand, looked at the wound on his arm that was darkening rapidly, and frowned. Poison Ivy raised her chin slightly and said, "You let me go, and I'll give you the antidote."

"I'm afraid it's not needed." Peter called his symbiote in his heart, and the symbiote factor quickly filtered out the toxin.

Peter took a test tube from the side and let that drop of plant toxin drip into the test tube. Poison Ivy widened her eyes slightly. She beckoned, and that drop of toxin returned to her body.

"Interesting little guy." Poison Ivy raised her eyebrows at Peter and said, "Perhaps Batman told you that I am immune to fear toxin, so he hoped you could study me and find the formula to crack the fear gas, which is why he brought me here."

"But I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. The method I use to be immune to fear toxin cannot be explained by science. It's useless for you to keep me here."

"I'm not here to study you." Peter shook his head and said, "Nor do I need the information you have. I just hope you can make a deal with me."

"Why should I make a deal with you?"

"Because you have already come here, which means you agreed to my deal. Otherwise, you should be in prison now, I mean the Batcave's prison, which would be more troublesome."

"It seems Batman found a powerful assistant this time. Did he mention to you the fate of his previous Robins?"

"I don't care about that." Peter stepped forward and said, "I asked Batman to bring you here because I saw your information in the Batcomputer's database, so I could call out the name of the plant toxin."

Poison Ivy frowned. She understood less and less what this young man wanted to do. Peter came to Poison Ivy and looked into her eyes and said, "I just found the playback video of Scarecrow's declaration."

"So what?"

"He said this city will be destroyed in 24 hours."

"He's an idiot, but he can indeed do it." Poison Ivy turned her head to one side and said, "Fortunately, plants are not affected by his toxin. I don't care how he wants to do it."

"I think 24 hours is too long."

Poison Ivy looked at Peter in confusion.

"I plan to destroy Cat Getan in two hours. This requires your help."

Poison Ivy widened her eyes.

"Peter, have you studied the composition of the poison?" Batman, who was still speeding on the road in the Batmobile, pressed the communication button and asked.

"I have some clues, Batman. In addition, I have made a gas mask. Robin will bring it to you. It can only partially prevent fear gas, so that you won't fall into panic immediately, and it also delays the onset of fear gas in your body, but it cannot be completely immune, so you still have to be careful."

"Regarding fear gas, I found that its essence is actually a kind of brainwave radiation. The frequency and wavelength of this radiation are extremely special, and the most special thing is that a certain peak value can be monitored by human ordinary telecommunication instruments."

Batman frowned slightly, then said, "That is to say, we can track this signal and find the place where the fear gas is most dense."

"Exactly, Batman, but this signal is extremely unstable and widely distributed. If you hope to use the power of satellites, then I am very sure that the transmission power of your antenna is not enough."

"I will go to adjust them. Once I finish, you start the monitoring device and tell me the result."

"Yes, I will stay in the Batcave until you bring me good news. Goodbye, Batman."

Peter hung up the phone and walked upstairs with Poison Ivy. The lights in the stairwell of Wei En Tower lit up one by one until they reached the top floor.

Poison Ivy looked left and right, then said, "This is the Cat Getan Weather Control Center. What exactly are you trying to do?"

Peter searched left and right, passed through a power distribution room, came to the equipment control center, and then passed through the hall and came to a door.

He took out the Batcomputer he carried with him, dismantled the electronic lock control device of the big door, and started hacking. After about ten minutes, the door was opened.

What came into view was a huge spherical device with continuous eddies surging inside. It looked like some kind of water purification equipment.

Poison Ivy had never been to this place either. She walked in slowly, looked at the device, and said, "Sometimes I really don't know if Batman is a savior or a demon who destroys the world. This thing looks like it can destroy the whole Cat Getan City."

"Slightly humble." Peter clearly knew more than her. He said, "It's almost the entire state of New Jersey. What's inside is not water, but a special particle stream that can adjust the composition in the air to achieve the effect of controlling the weather."

"Once the particle stream becomes disordered and causes an explosion, the state of New Jersey will encounter a huge tsunami, and at least tens of millions of people will die."

"And you now intend to start this machine."

"Not only that, I hope you can add the prepared plant toxin to it."

Poison Ivy was completely stunned. She stared at Peter and said, "Actually, you are Clayface in disguise, right?... You know this will make Batman go crazy, I don't want to die with you!"

"I said it's prepared plant toxin, which you can control, right?" Peter didn't retreat at all. He looked at Poison Ivy and said, "Increase the anesthetic ingredients in it to ensure they are harmless to the human body, and I will be responsible for controlling the dosage."

"You intend to anesthetize all Cat Getan people?!!"

"Except Batman, I gave him a gas mask."

Poison Ivy looked at Peter with a stiff expression and said, "How exactly did you deceive Batman? How could he hire you as an assistant?"

"Don't ask so much, this is the only feasible method now." Peter turned to look at the weather controller and said, "Scarecrow is preparing to let the fear gas spread throughout the city within 24 hours, thereby destroying Cat Getan City, so we have to be faster than him."

"As long as there are no hostages, the time limit for this game is no longer 24 hours, and if they are not prepared, it will be dawn in half an hour."

Poison Ivy shook her head and stepped back two steps and said, "I won't accompany you to do this, you madman, you don't..."

Swish!

Several shiny spider silks brushed past her ears, bringing up flying hair. In Poison Ivy's pupils, which were enlarged due to fear, Peter's figure reaching out was reflected.

"I'm ready to confess." Barbara's voice echoed in the room of the clock tower. She put her hands on her legs and said in a low tone, "I can't keep hiding it from James forever. This is not fair to him."

"But not now." Robin stepped forward and said, "We are facing unprecedented challenges, and you know this will cause a rift between Commissioner Gordon and Batman."

"You're wrong. This is the best opportunity. Neither of them is a person who doesn't care about the overall situation. Under the pressure of the crisis, they will temporarily join hands. After that, no matter how big the contradiction is, it will be easier to reconcile."

"You think things too simply." Robin sighed and said, "You think you are the only tragedy? Gordon's sad and disappointed expression will make Batman suffer another blow."

"But I have to do this."

The whistling wind couldn't pass into the well-insulated glass inside the Batmobile, making this space the quietest place in the world. But sometimes quietness is not all good.

Batman saw the Joker's face in the rearview mirror. The Joker smiled at him again and said, "Are there new victims again? Another young, immature, and naive child, how many more of him are you going to bury?"

Zzz—

Batman slammed on the brakes, and the Batmobile stopped at the first place where the antenna needed to be adjusted. He pushed open the car door, then turned to look at the Joker in the rearview mirror and said, "You are just my illusion. You are the most miserable person."

After saying that, he walked toward the studio.

Just when Batman adjusted the first antenna, the device on the arm armor sent a signal, showing that someone had violently cracked the electronic lock control device of the Wei En Tower Weather Control Center.

Batman pressed the button on his arm and found that there was no trace of entry or exit in the Batcave, and then turned to the clock tower and places that the Eye in the Sky system could monitor, and found no abnormality.

Could it be that Scarecrow made a move?

No, that chemistry professor didn't have the ability to hack into Wei En Tower's security system. That requires very superb hacking skills, even Barbara might not be able to do it.

Scarecrow had other helpers. Batman's mood became heavier. He was not sure if Scarecrow's helper could start the Cat Getan weather control device.

According to common sense, it shouldn't be possible. That thing is very complicated, not something that can trigger an explosion by pressing a button. Scientists who can understand the parameter table can be counted on one hand. Except for Batman, no one in Cat Getan can do it.

Batman touched the gas mask on his face lightly. He could feel that this was modified from the Bat-suit. I hope this can play a certain role, at least so that the hallucinations don't appear so frequently, because he must highly concentrate his attention to turn the tide before dawn.

Suddenly, a faint airflow passed through the crack of the studio window, and Batman smelled a different breath.

He put down what was in his hand and stood up, looking out the window, and the rain outside was getting heavier.

The wind whistled, thunder and lightning flashed, and in the unstoppable thick darkness, one figure after another fell down.

In the bright windows nearby, on the streets further away, until the distant horizon—Cat Getan people kept falling down, like wheat seedlings falling in the storm, broken driftwood in the waves.

Batman felt confused. At this moment, he even felt fear.

And then, invincible anger rose from his heart. He was not afraid of any game rules set by super-criminals, because he was Batman.

But if he followed the rules and the super-criminals didn't, then their doomsday would come.

The Joker appeared again on the reflection of the window glass, but Batman didn't care anymore.

He rushed into the rainy night.

Suddenly, the noise of a helicopter came from afar. Batman looked up and saw an armed helicopter with the FBI emblem just flying over the bridge of Cat Getan City. ===== CHAPTER 2025 =====