Chapter 2188: Battle of Two Cities! (Fifty-Two)

The atmosphere in the Batcave was a bit serious.

All the Robins stood in a row, and Batman paced in front of them. Everyone's eyes followed Batman's steps, and some looked at each other, winking and betting on when Batman would stop.

Batman's sword-like gaze stayed on Red Hood's face. Red Hood stood up a little straighter, but still looked sloppy.

Then his eyes swept over Nightwing and Red Robin on the right, as well as the small Robin standing beside them.

"I want to know what's going on."

The big screen behind Batman showed photos of the war-torn New City, and even a scene of Red Hood flying across the sky in a Batplane.

"You didn't lock the Batplane!" But Red Hood got the chance, he immediately raised his voice and said, and then shut up in Batman's murderous eyes.

"The situation is a bit complicated..." Nightwing said.

"... Very complicated." Dick said.

"But it's not very serious!" Red Hood said.

"... Not serious." Jason added.

"It's actually very easy to explain." Red Robin said.

"Very good..." Tim looked at Red Robin.

Batman's serious eyes also fell on him, and the message conveyed by his eyes was "You dare to talk nonsense and see."

"Ahem..." Red Robin cleared his throat, turned his eyes away, and rolled his eyes.

"The madman in Arkham did it!"

"Pa pa pa pa pa pa", loud applause rang out in the Batcave, Red Hood and Jason high-fived, Nightwing and Dick shook hands, Red Robin and Tim nodded to each other.

Batman narrowed his eyes.

"That's it." Red Robin spread his hands, shrugged and said, "If you don't believe me, go to Arkham Asylum and see, everyone in there has run away."

"You didn't lock Arkham Asylum!" Red Hood raised his voice again, and then shut up under Batman's gaze.

Everyone could see that Batman was not in a good mood at this time, but they were not worried, because they still had the last trump card - calling the Waynes.

"Oh!" Red Robin suddenly screamed, even startling Batman.

He turned to look at Dick and said, "Dick, have you done your French homework?! Thomas will be home at five!"

Dick just opened his mouth to speak, and was elbowed by Jason. His tongue immediately bent, and he said as if he had suddenly realized something: "Oh - I have to go back to do my homework!"

After saying that, Dick turned and ran. Batman wanted to call him, but was met with Alfred's murderous gaze.

"I haven't finished my homework either!" Jason followed closely, pushing Dick's back, and the two ran out of the Batcave one after the other.

"I have a book club to attend at four o'clock." Tim said tactfully, "Today's theme is the Sherlock Holmes Detective Collection, I am very interested..."

Batman waved his hand, and Tim ran out too.

"Uh... I... I also have French homework." Nightwing dragged out a long tone.

"How do you say ballet in French?" Batman asked.

"Oh--!" Nightwing helplessly lowered his arms.

"Well... me too..." Red Robin said tentatively.

"What's Holmes' name?"

"... John?"

Batman showed a disapproving look.

"Well, that novel is ridiculous. The greatest detective actually fell off a cliff! So stupid!" Red Robin sighed, and then he added: "Although you often jump off a cliff with the Joker, almost every day..."

Nightwing looked at Batman's increasingly unfriendly eyes and pulled Red Robin's arm to stop him.

"Speaking of the Joker..." Red Robin's eyes turned again, and he changed the subject and said: "He should be the main force to create chaos, right? Why not ask him?"

Batman frowned slightly.

Although he knew that the three unlucky kids in front of him were eager to go out and make trouble, they wanted to dive into the mess below and swim three hundred laps, but what Red Robin said was not unreasonable.

As soon as he returned to Gotham, Batman checked the status of Arkham Asylum, and all the lunatics ran out.

No one would believe that they had nothing to do with the war below. Batman could even imagine how they created chaos and deliberately sabotaged the huge new city.

Especially the Joker.

Batman thought that it was not surprising for other lunatics to create a few terrorist cases, but to stir up chaos in the whole city in such a short time, I am afraid that only the source of chaos, the Joker, could do it.

Batman retracted his thoughts and said to several people: "Watch Damian and wait for me to come back." He knew that they would not obey, but this was not for them, but for Alfred who was standing at the door.

Sure enough, when Batman went out sideways, he heard Alfred blocking the three people behind him and sincerely suggested that they eat the cookies, drink a cup of hot tea, and wait for Thomas and Martha to go home.

Regardless of the wailing behind him, Batman shook his cape and walked out the door.

In fact, he suspected that the battle between the other Batman he invited and the Joker caused all this, so he had to go down to find these two people and then find a way to reverse the situation.

Arriving at the hangar of the Batfighter, Batman boarded the plane and floated down like a fallen leaf over the new city.

Batman operated the positioning system and soon found the Joker - he was being chased by someone and was running away in a hurry.

Batman immediately chased after him, and finally found the Joker, who was panting against the wall at the end of a ruined street.

The Batfighter landed, and Batman moved towards the Joker vigilantly. He knew that the saying "seeing is believing" did not apply to the Joker. Everything he saw might be what the Joker let him see, including his current weak state.

Heart rate, breathing rate, body tremor amplitude - no flaws, but this is the Joker, Batman thought.

"Batman?!"

The Joker saw Batman approaching silently through his peripheral vision, and at the moment he exclaimed, Batman suddenly exerted force and sprinted in his direction.

It was obviously another Batman-style "asking about the situation", first subduing, beating half to death, and then asking about the situation.

The Joker ran away.

"Stop! Joker! You destroyed this city!!"

"Open your eyes and look. Is it me who destroyed the city?!" Joker ran and roared: "My house was blown up! My hostage ran away! I was chased by a group of agents for three streets! I was hit by six rocket launchers!!!"

"Don't try to quibble! Joker!" Batman's attitude was very firm.

He moved flexibly in the ruins of the city, and the Joker was almost there.

The Joker was not good at running, and his physical strength was exhausted. His injuries were not fully healed, and his feet slipped and fell into the rubble.

But he did not get up and continue running as Batman expected, but stiffened for a moment and then relaxed his whole body, sighed, and lay down where he fell.

Ten minutes later, in the special care ward of Arkham Asylum in New City, the Joker grabbed the railing with both hands and smiled at Batman.

"You idiot - I never use the word stupid to describe you, Batman, but you did make a stupid enough decision this time! I am not destroying the city, I am saving it!! And saving you and me!!!"

Batman turned a deaf ear to him. He just stood half a meter away from the cell door and looked at the Joker coldly and asked: "Tell me what happened in this city."

"You don't need to ask me, you don't need to." The Joker shook his head and stepped back a few steps. He shrugged and stood in the narrow cell and said: "Because all this has nothing to do with me at all!"

"So how did this city become like this?"

"I've already said that you shouldn't ask me." The Joker turned around and sat on the narrow single bed and said, "Okay, great detective, I want to tell you that you will come back, because if you go to the city to investigate now, all the clues will tell you that it was one of my plans that caused a series of chain reactions, which eventually led to all this."

"But if you really take this as a conclusion, then you are a complete idiot." The Joker bared his teeth, but he was not laughing, so he looked particularly cruel. He said, "You have to go all out, Batman, this time our opponent is extraordinary, you will come back to find me."

Www◆ TTkan◆ o

After that, no matter what Batman said, the Joker just remained silent, and he was obviously upset about what the Joker said, so he almost immediately returned to the Batcave to prepare equipment and start investigating.

The Sky City Gotham only appeared after the fusion of the two cities, but Batman has a way to get all the clues from the fusion of the two cities to the present.

When did the chaos start?

In a broad sense, of course, from the moment the two cities merged, although most people acted calm, the fundamental conflict of interests caused the turbulent undercurrent to sweep freely under the calm sea surface until it became the huge waves at this moment.

Batman divided the period from the fusion of the two cities to the present into three time periods: the early stage of fusion, the Cold War period, and the hot war period.

Then he began to sort out all the clues in the three time periods, trying to find the key clues that led to the development of things to this point.

In the early stage of fusion, all forces were divided into two factions, the Gotham faction and the New York faction. Most of them were fighting for the top position of the pyramid after the fusion of the cities. All conflicts broke out over the question of who was the boss.

The conflicts during this period mainly broke out in the middle and upper classes. This group of people was the group that needed to go further the most. They knew that reshuffling meant a rare opportunity to rise, so they started to stir up at the first time.

This period lasted for a short time. When this group of people found out how to get the most benefits for themselves, the Cold War broke out.

They each elected their own representatives and began a series of games. At first, it was just negotiations and interest exchanges, then it developed into intelligence wars, assassination wars, and finally into local hot wars.

The full-scale hot war broke out just a few days ago, but what puzzled Batman the most was that from the first two time periods, conflicts and fights mainly broke out in the upper half of the pyramid, and most of them were wars among the upper class.

Until the outbreak of the hot war, everything was in line with the law, but when the hot war broke out, the nature of this chaos changed completely, from the open and covert struggles of the upper class to a complete exchange of fire at the bottom, which was not normal.

No ruler would want to get a ruin. They engaged in a cold war just to gain benefits. What they gave out in exchange was not their own resources, so why not do it?

But if all the people fight with real weapons, the buildings will be destroyed, the streets will be damaged, and people will be unable to work. No one will be able to make money, the city will completely lose order, and power will have no meaning. This is the worst result for the rulers.

In other words, they are not the culprits of the hot war.

At this time, Batman thought of two things that happened before the hot war that were enough to affect the situation - the arrival of Sky Island Gotham and the arrival of Schiller's student Bruce Wayne.