What Bad Thoughts Can Batman Have 90

## Chapter 90: Launch

“Although I didn’t initially intend to kill you, you’re just…so boring. I change personas three times before breakfast.”

The Joker said.

“You think I don’t know? Oh, Bane, you struck first. I’m heartbroken by your lack of trust.”

The Joker wiped away nonexistent tears, spreading his hands.

“Wow, you just handed me a nuclear weapon, such a beautiful big firework. You think I’d believe this fairy tale?”

“The nuclear bomb you gave me is fake. An empty firecracker, hmm~ You cunning wolf, the real thing must be tucked away somewhere.

You never intended to destroy Metropolis, did you?”

The Joker seemed a bit frantic, grabbing his hair. The green strands stretched under his forceful grip.

“It’s sacrilegious! To show someone such a big firecracker but refuse to light it, that’s fraud, fraud!

Yes, yes, you just want to be a king in a city, not a public enemy. To have a mushroom cloud rise over Metropolis would only make the government go all out to kill you, like the old days with Bin Laden. How could you be the King of Gotham peacefully then?”

“Ugh!”

The Joker dry heaved.

“I really want to puke.”

He propped his chin. “So at first I thought, well, you know.”

He spread his hand in the air, waving it wildly, like he was conducting some nonexistent orchestra.

“To help you get to the edge of victory, that would be interesting, and then throw everything back in your face.”

“I wanted to let you win over Batman carefully, seize the city, and then I’d steal it all right under your nose.”

“I prepared a death trap for you, you see, you’ll suddenly laugh out loud when you’re fighting Batman at your most intense—that’s sure to give you a lot of humorous cells!”

“Of course, this could be fatal, but it’s also possible that you might struggle to survive the worst part, and you’ll think you’ve won, that you’ve defeated Batman -”

Bruce Wayne felt a knot in his stomach. He already knew what the Joker could do.

Bane said, “Hard…hehehehe…are you?”

He could barely speak in his current state.

“Well, it was really difficult to listen in on your conversations with the mysterious person. It’s strange, I never figured out who he was, couldn’t guess at all. I think Mr. Niema would have loved this riddle, but it doesn’t matter to me.”

The Joker said: “No matter who gave you that nuke, now that you have this beauty, it has to be used, right?”

“You keep this beauty all to yourself, refusing to let others see it, shouldn’t I pull her out for everyone?”

“You…you’ve secretly gotten hold of my nuke…the nuke I hid so well, the real one?”

The Joker laughed wildly. “Bingo! That’s right, I’m going to detonate it when you’re most triumphant, most happy, at the peak of your life—I’ll just turn around and blow up Metropolis.

Then everyone will know it’s your doing, and you’ll immediately go from the rising underworld star about to take over the city to a fugitive running for your life! Happy?”

The Joker raised his hands, as if embracing the peak of his plan, then quickly pinched his nose dejectedly.

“Well, that was the original plan, you know, Bane?

Since you released me from Arkham Asylum, I’ve been investigating you. In the past few months, I’ve been trying to recreate your little water cell at Peñaduero Prison in the Gotham Amusement Park. I’ve interviewed many witnesses to try and make it a monument to your failure –”

The Joker grabbed Bane’s chin.

“Just so you can see your foreseeable dream of Gotham king shatter before your eyes!”

“I even planned to have Batman participate in the government’s first stage of attack on you, then when you were in the middle of your fight, I’d blow you both to the heavens, and let everyone see what I did to you.”

The Joker held up his corsage, letting Bane see it. “See this little fountain? It’s filled with special corrosive acid, spiked with plant-specific destruction solution and Lazarus Pit water that will make your rotting side ache.”

“If I aim it at you, it can eat through your temple and skin, then go down your head, from both sides to the middle, eating clean through your brain, drawing a perfect smile on your extraordinary brain and muscular physique.”

He whispered sadly to Bane: “You can feel it slowly shutting down, Bane. One by one, your intelligence and physical strength decreasing with time. You will feel it, you will feel pain, until the very end.”

“You’ll become my new masterpiece, dedicated to Batman!”

“This is my whole plan, my perfectly beautiful plan –”

“Batman, the nuclear missile interception system is ready.” Poison Ivy’s voice whispered in Bruce Wayne’s ear. “If nothing goes wrong, the nuke will climb upward, leave the atmosphere, and then fall back down.”

“And Poison Ivy’s plants can help us detect the trajectory of the missiles, you know, those plant pollen spores spread in the air…”

Lucius’s voice emerged from the side of the communication channel, his speech rapid. “Sorry, I’m not a plant expert, I really don’t understand the principle, but in terms of effect, she’s just like a human radar sensor, or a human plant sensor? In short, she’s more precise and has a wider coverage than all our sensors.”

“With Poison Ivy helping us pinpoint the location, we can confirm all the nuclear missile launch trajectories in a very short time. But please note, we can’t rule out the possibility of dozens of missiles launching simultaneously as a smokescreen to ensure that the real one isn’t intercepted by our interception missiles.”

He said, “If it really comes down to that, Batman, you have to do it yourself… your nanobody flies extremely fast, and is incredibly tough and agile. Just equip your head and chest with protection, and you can surpass the performance of most aircraft, break free from the atmosphere’s shackles in a short period of time –”

Lucius continued, “As long as the nuke doesn’t fall from within the atmosphere, there won’t be any risk of explosion. As long as you can slow it down before it falls, or simply detonate it in outer space, this crisis will disappear in an instant.”

Simultaneously with Lucius’s words, the Joker’s voice echoed, “Look at that, such a perfect plan, but such a perfectly beautiful plan, now ruined by an accident, I’m so heartbroken.”

The Joker said, “No more complicated, interesting plans, no more trouble.”

“I’m going to launch the nuke directly.”

(End of Chapter)

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