Chapter 5037

"Fate?" Shiler questioned as he pondered, his tone carrying a metallic trailing note; the air's ripples turned damp, spreading out like water waves lingering under Gotham's night rain.

The city outside was raining. As summer neared its end, this grand metropolis blended from three cities inevitably fell toward Gotham. Stone walls were soaked a black heaviness, the sky a cold leaden gray; even the sunset was red like blood, and glass moistened by water vapor actually showed a gem-like texture, refracting inexplicable light under the gloomy sky.

"Fate." An equally low and somewhat rough voice sounded. Lush red hair surged forth like blood coursing through her whole body; reddish-brown skin was covered in fine scars. Between forehead and nose bridge there was no transition at all — it slid straight down, then rose high again; brow ridges' shadows covered the entire eye sockets, yet the bright light in those green eyes broke through layers of darkness. Shiler also hadn't expected that this woman codenamed "Starfire" possessed such wild tenacity, simply like a karst rock standing on ancient land, continuously eroded for tens of millions of years.

"The day I was born, all of Tamaran called my name." Starfire's voice was like a meteor falling, carrying an ancient and desolate meaning. "'Koriand'r' in ancient Tamaranean means 'treasure'; everyone believed I would be the most outstanding and dazzling princess on this planet. I once believed so too."

"But those happy lives vanished in an instant. My home was destroyed, relatives killed, the entire planet enslaved; I was sent to an alien experimental institution, becoming the subject of countless painful experiments. And when I was at death's door, they threw me into a desolate, uninhabited prison."

"But to their disappointment, I didn't die. They tried every means, wanting to continue enslaving me — whipping, drugs, mind control; they thought they had defeated me, but no — I reclaimed my power, seized back my authority, liberated Tamaran."

"What truly fulfilled the Tamaraneans' blessing for me was my own will and power. Since then, no one doesn't know Starfire's name. Fate? Merely my defeated subordinate."

Shiler gazed at the woman before him; her face wasn't aged, could even be called very young — she indeed looked to be of the same generation as Nightwing Dick Grayson — but her temperament was more like Batman's: tenacious, stubborn, even wilder than Batman.

How to evaluate Starfire's story — simply put, if a film faithfully adapted her origin from the comics, it would be an excellent female growth epic. But success came from Xiao He, failure from Xiao He; Hollywood's leftist wave has long passed, impossible to have such a film again.

Koriand'r was born on planet Tamaran, the youngest princess of this planet's royalty. Later, Tamaran suffered alien invasion; Starfire and her sister Blackfire were both sent to an alien laboratory, subjected to inhumane alien experiments. They were infused with all kinds of energy, used as experimental vessels for energy conversion.

After enduring immense pain, Starfire gradually learned to control the energy flowing through her body; using this ability she escaped the laboratory and even saved her sister, but was captured by colonists, becoming a slave on an alien spaceship.

Yet she still didn't give up; while enduring the suffering of slave life, she trained alongside fellow slaves, honed her body, steeled her will, and ultimately led the slaves to overthrow the slavers, seize the entire ship, and kill their way back to Tamaran, finally liberating all of Tamaran.

Her feat made her famous throughout the universe; no one didn't know the name "Warrior Starfire." After liberating Tamaran, she still didn't stop; among countless galaxies and universes, she fought to liberate slaves and stop wars, until she came to Earth.

The reason she chose to reside on Earth was because she had long discovered that the origin point of countless crises in the universe is Earth. She indeed opposed powerful enemies including the Three Palace Demons here, continuing to struggle for universal safety.

It's not strange that Dick Grayson would fall in love with such a person. A person's orientation doesn't necessarily change because of the role the other plays in their life; people always repeatedly step into the same river.

Without doubt, as Batman's first Robin, Nightwing's orientation is a brave warrior who rebels against darkness. That's why he follows Batman, that's why he falls in love with Starfire. Nightwing is a bird chasing light, and a touch of light in thick, deep darkness always appears brighter.

If the Bat-Signal burned a hole in the Gothic poem of this dark city Gotham, then Starfire ignited a prairie fire in the vast tome of cosmic silence. Whether in rain sounds or radio waves, warriors' roars are deep and angry; the first startled are the flying birds.

The woman before him didn't match Shiler's preset of Starfire — could even be said to far exceed expectations. He couldn't imagine such a person would want a traditional wedding, so he had to ask: "What are your thoughts on your own wedding?"

"I want a Catholic traditional wedding." Starfire's tone was flat, without any yearning; Shiler even faintly heard a trace of anger.

"May I ask why?" Shiler asked. If a metaphor must describe the woman before him, Shiler would liken her to an active volcano; she is like those years of Earth's most frequent geological activity — torso the volcano, hair the magma, skin and scars the ash, and those things surging beneath the flesh, those turbulent emotions, like molten fire ready to erupt at any moment.

"Is there a difficulty?" Starfire didn't answer directly, but countered.

"No." Shiler answered truthfully. "Whatever kind of wedding you want, we can arrange. You can understand this as my personal curiosity; I don't think someone like you would have any special obsession with religion."

Starfire suddenly laughed; this laughter was also like magma splashing from a volcanic crater — scorching hot, but quickly turning cold and hard, even tasting of a few degrees of cold mockery.

"I don't believe in God. When my home was plundered, God didn't step forward to help me; when I was locked in a laboratory, God never looked at me; when I was sent onto a slave ship, it wasn't God who helped me defeat them."

"You're an atheist?" Shiler asked.

"No." Starfire's voice suddenly lowered; she slightly lowered her head, then rolled her eyes upward, looking at Shiler from above her eye sockets — this expression was very aggressive, like a hunter in the hunt locking onto prey, looking extremely sharp.

Shiler's gaze didn't avoid in the slightest; he also still gazed at Starfire, watching those green eyes gradually emerge from the shadows, like a giant beast sunk at the sea bottom suddenly revealing a jagged section of spine on the sea surface, grim scales gleaming with killing intent.

"No matter what I say, you'll all only think I'm spouting nonsense." Starfire also didn't withdraw her gaze; she looked at Shiler's eyes and said, "You'll want to know if an alien's antennae received some chaotic signals, or simply that I was tortured insane."

Shiler realized that although he could bluntly point out Starfire's concerns, then tell her there's no need for such worry — any words here don't count as crazy talk — it's not at all times that hitting the nail on the head achieves the best effect; he still needs some groundwork.

So he withdrew his gaze first, but not in an evasive manner — rather as if suddenly remembering something — and said: "When mentioning my past to my friends, they also always believe it was the torture I suffered during the time I was locked in a laboratory that shaped the current me."

Starfire still stared tightly at him; Shiler looked out the window, as if reminiscing: "Our experiences have similarities — merely, the pain I experienced may not be as much as yours, but this still doesn't prevent people from judging with their common sense that the suffering in those encounters made me into an overly suspicious person."

"Yearning is the furthest thing from understanding; sympathy is too. If you have an overly troubled past, people will be even more unwilling to let go than you. People always have some tears to sprinkle out — mourning for oneself is too fragile, lamenting for the world too pessimistic; scooping a handful of tears for others is the safest way, regardless of whether they actually need it."

"I'm not your friend, nor do I need to put on such a performance; even if you speak crazy words, I won't spend half an hour chatting about childhood trauma with you, expressing sympathy, then advising you to go out more."

Starfire stared at Shiler for a while, then withdrew her gaze; she leaned her body against the backrest and said: "Fate."

"Fate?" They repeated this topic once more, only the order reversed. Earlier when Shiler raised the topic of fate, Starfire said she didn't believe in fate; now she brought it up again, proving she wasn't blindly denying it, but had thought it through.

"I don't know if you've noticed, many things keep repeating." Starfire said, "Batman, Robin, Teen Titans, even those lunatics in Arkham Asylum — they're trapped, by fate, by God."

Shiler's movement froze; he paused a moment, then reached to remove his glasses, pretending it was from fatigue rubbing his eyes, then used those gray pupils to look at Starfire — like firing a gun at a pool of jade water.

"Whenever they want to do something, God toys with them." Starfire continued, "No matter how thorough their preparations, how many plans they devise, they never succeed."

"There's a legend on Tamaran: an evildoer who killed his own brothers and sisters was trapped in a cave. He wanted to go upward, find an exit, but a deity, to punish him, inverted the path beneath his feet; he thus walked all the way to the realm of death."

"In my view, many people are walking such a path. They think they're advancing, but the road underfoot has long been inverted; no matter how fast or hard they run, they only sprint toward death."

Starfire shifted her gaze, also looking at the rain outside the window: "But I know them; they're not evildoers — they're heroes, warriors... If the wrong ones aren't them, then it can only be God."