Scarecrow's eyes widened as he turned to look at Penguin Man, who rolled his eyes and tugged hard on his shirt. Scarecrow saw the surgical scar there.
Did he shove the fear gas concentrated capsule directly into his body?
Scarecrow, with his specialized knowledge, imdiately realized what the consequences of this action might be. The effect could potentially be ten to twenty tis that of oral intake.
Not only the explosion speed, the fear gas inhaled from the outside, no matter how concentrated, would only affect people's minds. At its worst, it will throw people into a state of extre chaos, making them indiscriminately attack others.
But a high concentration fear venom directly injected into the lungs has the potential to completely burn a person's brain in a fraction of a second, leaving them either completely idiotic or a vegetative being with no ability to act. It is essentially a modern lobotomy.
Suddenly, Scarecrow looked at Batman with a hint of horror in his eyes.
Wait a minute, who is the villain here? Who is the supercriminal? Who is the mastermind behind the fear gas calamity?!
"That's nonsense." Batman comnted.
"Ah, here we go again." Peter raised his hands and then let them fall again, shaking his head sowhat annoyedly. "Yes, Penguin Man read out the script on the big screen. I added that part myself, but it did a better job distracting the Scarecrow, didn't it?"
"It will lead him to believe that you would definitely go after Penguin Man first, thus lowering his guard. He will then consider heading to the Stagg Group's airship to arrest the betraying Stagg, rather than finding a place to hide. That's not too bad, is it?"
Peter walked out from behind Batman again and stood in front of Jason's cage, saying, "Sorry, I didn't an to fabricate news of your death either. But after that, everything I said to you was fed by Batman, so don't bla ."
Jason stared at him in disbelief.
"There's nothing hard to understand about it. If you hadn't collapsed from anger and emotion, how would you be here? You can't expect Batman to search the whole city for you, can you?"
"From what I know, he's not an ineffective person, and you should know him better than I do, right?"
Jason's chest began to heave non-stop, the rage accompanying his breaths almost taking shape.
But the root of anger has always been fear.
To Batman's surprise, Jason did not rush forward to question him as he had in the past.
He was angry, but he sat motionlessly where he was.
Batman was concerned about Jason's every abnormal behavior, so he took a small step forward.
The three people in the cage collectively took a step back.
Jason had already retreated to the corner of the cage with nowhere left to hide, stiffly pressing his back completely against the wall.
When he looked up at Batman, Batman was surprised to see a clear, uncharacteristic terror in his eyes, as well as a plea born of the will to survive.
Like finding a vulnerable crack in a thorny stone, Batman wondered, is he afraid of ?
Was he actually thinking, is he only now starting to fear ?
Is he only now starting to feel fear?
If so, where did his unprovoked rage co from before?
If not, how long and deep.has his fear been? And how many tis has he been deeply disappointed with his lack of perception?
Batman rembered the line written on the wall: "I once trusted you so much."
That was perhaps not a mont of rage, but an echo of long-term disappointnt.
"So that's it," Peter started again, "You two started fighting, Batman didn't struggle to subdue you both, you passed out, and Batman brought you straight back here."
Then Peter turned and walked to the desk behind him, saying, "Of course, there is the most difficult problem of the Joker to solve, but that doesn't really seem to be much of a problem."
Peter turned his head, using his acute Spider-sense to gaze towards where Batman had seen the illusion of the Joker, and said, "I have a way to attain magic energy to revive you, but with magic, one can never be sure."
"Maybe in your experints, any revived version of you from patients infected by the Joker virus are you. But what if a new body is revived into the Joker, and furthermore, revived by magic, would that new Joker still be you?"
"We might end up having two Jokers." Peter sighed and said, "Even though you are within Batman, I'm afraid you can only watch the other Jokers play gas with Batman."
"Or perhaps... you make Batman not want to play gas anymore."
The voice coming from Professor Shearer's earpiece overlapped with Peter's own voice, clearly only the Joker who understands Batman best could punctuate this paper perfectly.
Peter stared into the void where the Joker's illusion was, repeating Professor Shearer's deep tone.
"You may have noticed, during the tis you guys weren't paying attention to Batman, he has changed a lot, and these are profound, principled changes."
"Where did these changes co from?"
This question almost imdiately drew the attention of all those present, including Batman himself.
"A father lost his child." Peter dropped his shoulders, saying with an slightly mournful tone, "This is a great misfortune for any emotional creature."
"And this tragedy has not been promptly comforted and redied." Peter looked at Jason and said, "Every street, every house, every ti he looks at the empty monitor screens, they're all like disheartening blades, carving a wound into his soul."
"In this year's ti, his soul was completely shattered, and then reassembled. What survived is still Batman, but it's a completely new him."
"You, Joker, are the one who facilitated all of this, but in this story you're just a despicable supporting character. It was not the disaster you caused that shaped the new Batman, but his familial bonds and love."
"It was his intense love for Jason that carved him to pieces, and the remaining hope that Jason was still alive, which allowed him to reshape himself with his great love."
Batman felt strangled by these words.
Then those words wanted to burst forth from his cold, stiff body. He never thought that one day he would willingly bleed and cry, feeling warmth amidst this.
Batman unconsciously opened the cage door in front of Jason, looking at him as an injured child, and picked him up from the ground.
Behind Batman, Peter was staring at the void in front of him, as though he could really see the Joker, his face in an unbelievable frenzy.
Then, without needing any guidance from Professor Shearer, Spider Man spoke his heart.
"In this near-desperate catastrophe, the recreated Batman will deeply realize how important his intense familial bonds and great love play a role in his life."
"The reborn Batman will understand what he absolutely cannot lose and thus let go of such trivialities like you, like them, discarding you, forgetting you."
"In this greatest cody of Batman's life, he is the real protagonist. Past, present, future, you probably will never be able to direct a play that makes him happier than he is now."
Batman heard the Joker's enraged yelling from behind him, but he didn't even have the inclination to turn around.
And when that moist tear from Jason's face finally landed on his hand, dawn broke.
The world regained its profuse colours, leaving only a few strokes of fireless ashes and the stubborn bones left after the fire of karma had burnt out.
There was a father, and a son. With no emotional void left to fill, there was no Joker left to jeer in this void.
There was a knight, and another knight. Without the unattainable windmill giant, there was no deceitfully evil court jester on the absurd stage.
Dawn broke.
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