What Bad Thoughts Can Batman Have 94

Chapter 94: Endgame? (Subscription Request)

With a bang, Joker fell to the ground.

His pale, half-masked face was contorted and twisted under the influence of the venom, like an inflated cream cake—and now, this cream cake had been cut open, revealing dark red and bright yellow grease.

“Poison Ivy! It’s the final moment, hurry up and locate it!”

“Wait, just a moment…” Poison Ivy’s voice came through: “I’m done!”

Lucius stared intently at the many flashing dots on the screen.

“Okay, okay, okay, okay…”

He muttered to himself, then opened his eyes, slammed a fist on the launch button, and said into the comm:

“Batman, have you dealt with Joker? If there are any loose ends, you might need to…”

“I’m ready.”

Bruce Wayne told him: “In every sense of the word.”

He turned, looking at Joker sprawled out on the ground, his face bearing the aftereffects of a brutal beating:

“I lost.”

Joker said.

“But you wouldn’t kill me, woohoo.”

He sobbed, choking back tears: “Why can’t it be me?”

“You disgust me.”

Bruce Wayne said.

“Don’t act like you’re completely defeated, Joker. Do you think I don’t know what you’re all plotting?”

Joker, lying on the ground, turned his face away.

“You don’t care about Bane, you don’t care about the little squabble between him and me. All of this is just a game for you, a game you can play whenever you want, you don’t care about winning or losing.”

Bruce Wayne said:

“The only thing you care about is the game itself.

What you can’t accept is that the ‘game’ is at risk of no longer being playable.”

“For the first time in all these years, you’ve had a clear goal, Joker, that’s why I can predict you this time.”

Joker curled up on the ground.

…

…

…

Meanwhile, we shift our perspective back to the Batcave.

“If you want me involved in your little game, Joker.”

Riddler said: “That’s not gonna happen.”

He was wearing a dark yellow prison uniform adorned with question marks. Strangely, even though he was imprisoned by Batman, he still received this highly personalized attire as a favor.

“I won’t intervene in your game with the Bat. If I want to play, I’ll find him myself, and frankly—I’m not playing games anymore.”

Riddler said: “I’m retiring.”

“Pfft! Don’t lie, old Ed, please, I’m here on serious business today, don’t make me laugh.”

Joker’s face twisted into a mocking smile. He said he was laughing, and his face was indeed laughing, but it didn’t look like he was laughing at all.

Only pure malice.

Riddler fixed his gaze on Joker’s face.

He said slowly: “What do you want?”

A laughing gas grenade appeared in Joker’s hand:

“Here, I’ll make things more interesting.”

“You crazy bastard.”

Riddler quickly retreated to the side of the cell, his face contorted in disgust: “You goddamn—”

“This formula may be a bit old, the effect has weakened, but if you wait a few minutes, it’s still very powerful.”

Joker said as he tossed the gas grenade directly into Riddler’s cell through the ventilation opening above the transparent cell.

“Stop it, Joker, you crazy—cough cough!”

Green gas quickly erupted in the cell.

“Hahahahahaha! Yes, you come out yourself, that’s the point.”

Joker pressed his face tightly against the transparent glass wall: “After all, I don’t want to bring you to the party if you’re not in good shape, right?”

The green mist billowed in the room, casting Joker’s face in a hazy glow:

“You always had potential, that’s what I love most about you. No one has ever been able to push the Bat to his limit like you—”

“And besides you, no one has ever possessed the wisdom to rival the great Bat King!”

Amidst Riddler’s violent coughing, Joker shouted:

“If you don’t give him hints, he’ll never find you! Isn’t that right? You always focus on the most important game, just like me!”

“Oh, Ed! Ed. Your mind is your most dangerous weapon, you’re better than all of us in that regard. You’re the enigma master of this evil city, smarter, better, and more dangerous than Batman.”

“So—”

“Why are you wasting your life here, Ed? I really can’t bear to see you like this, I’d rather see you dead.”

Joker said: “And now you’re about to be!”

Sizzle!

The transparent glass door opened, revealing Riddler standing in the middle of the dispersed Joker gas.

“There are 46 ways to leave this cell, Joker.”

Riddler said: “And only 4 can be completed within the time limit you’ve set.”

“The simplest is to use the least strenuous force technique to strike the vulnerable part of the glass. But I chose method three.”

Joker pulled at his laughing face: “Hahaha, I knew it, I knew you hadn’t changed! You’re always one step ahead.”

“Four hours ago, I dug a hole in the wall.”

Riddler said, looking at the cell’s door warden: “I reconnected the door’s circuitry through this hole.”

Joker’s face changed slightly.

“And the tool I used to dig the wall was a teaspoon.”

That’s not reasonable.

Batman wouldn’t be stupid enough to give Riddler a teaspoon.

Joker didn’t want to hear what he had to say, he resolutely turned his head and ran away.

He took off with his long, thin legs, leaping agilely, jumping directly over the fence, and in three strides he was leaping up the steps. It was the gateway out of the Batcave, and also the entrance he had entered.

Riddler hung his head.

“Why are all the Arkham inmates mobilized to deal with Bane, but I’m the only one left in the Batcave?”

“Why isn’t Robin here, why isn’t his butler here?”

Riddler’s voice echoed behind him:

“So do you understand now? Joker?”

“For so many years, I always refused to admit that Batman was smarter than me, and I still don’t admit it now. But I have to say…”

“In some ways, Batman’s wisdom does surpass mine, for example, in his understanding of you. He said you would definitely come to confirm if the previous Joker was killed.

He said you would come to see for yourself…

He told me a lot about you… or rather, about all of you.”

滴！吱滋滋……

The noisy mechanical sound rang out, like some massive machine was running.

Joker’s fingertips brushed against the doorknob.

滴！咔呲！

Then the next second, the world turned upside down in front of Joker.

The stairs were rolled up, throwing Joker back to the ground like a wok in the mechanical sound, the ground opened up, sank, swallowing Joker like an insect sealed in amber.

With a click of the spring mechanism, the floor closed up again as if nothing had happened.

“You always think about the game, Joker.”

Riddler stood there quietly: “But there’s no game anymore. Not me, not Batman, Bane, none of us.”

“You’ve been abandoned. All along, the only one who wanted to play was you.”

“You thought it was impossible for me, as another player in the game, to cooperate with the final boss.”

“But that’s a fallacy.”

Riddler lowered his eyebrows.

The Batcomputer emitted a synthesized voice:

“Air freshener system activated… clearing residual Joker gas…”

“Done.”

It chirped:

“Have a Joker-free afternoon!”

“That righteous, once-gentle man.”

Riddler muttered.

“Along the path of danger, down the valley of death he goes.”

“…The crawling serpent, humble, slow moving…”

“…And the righteous man rages in the field…

“There lions walk!”

(The poem quoted by Riddler is from William Blake’s *The Marriage of Heaven and Hell*)

(End of Chapter)

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