The Joker slowly squinted his eyes. But this time, he didn't hesitate and sprinted towards the parking lot exit. As soon as he hid behind a tree, he heard the "whoosh whoosh whoosh" of a gunfight behind him. That Big Beard somehow pulled out a gun and started shooting at Shiller.
The Joker cursed and looked around. Just outside the parking lot, right behind Big Beard's right rear, he spotted a fire hydrant. He hurriedly ran over, took out a small knife from his pocket, and pried at the hydrant's gap, causing water to gush in one direction and hit Big Beard squarely in the back.
The powerful water flow made him stagger. The next second, the Joker saw blood splatter from Big Beard's head. Shiller holstered his gun and walked over. The Joker whistled and shouted, "Nice shooting."
"Better than Batman."
The Joker's face immediately fell.
"You know something, don't you?" The Joker tried to inquire from Shiller.
"Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. Get a job quick."
The Joker's eyes twirled a bit, then he said, "Yes, I really should find a job, preferably something beneficial for flood relief. I heard another me from a different universe is driving a truck; that's a decent gig. I'm planning to visit a truck company, what do you think?"
"No way," Shiller said, "You want to steal a truck? Dream on!"
"I wouldn't steal," the Joker sneered, "When Gotham floods and many truck drivers can't work, but there's a lot of supplies waiting to be transported. The mob isn't as reasonable as ordinary businesses, the truck company's boss will be desperate and will beg me to drive."
"Do you have a license?"
"What a coincidence! After hearing my counterpart went to drive a truck, I went and got my commercial driver's license too, just three months ago." The Joker waved the booklet in his hand.
Shiller snatched the booklet effortlessly, tucked it into his pocket, then calmly said to the Joker, "Now you don't have one."
The Joker was practically shocked by his shamelessness, but looking at Shiller's gun in hand, he swallowed his words after holding his breath and said, "You know it doesn't matter, as long as I know how to drive."
"Are you forcing me to break your leg?"
"I can heal myself," the Joker said smugly, "You better not think of blowing my head off. Although I won't die, if I'm incapacitated, the tasks Batman assigned to us can't be completed."
"Do you insist on driving a truck?"
"I think it's a pretty good job," the Joker shrugged, "High pay, flexible hours, can also help with flood relief. I might even become a disaster relief hero, the mob will thank me too..."
"Hold on," Shiller gestured for him to stop talking. He leaned against a nearby lamppost and closed his eyes. After just a blink of an eye, the Joker suddenly noticed a white truck parked on the opposite side of the street.
Was that truck there originally? The Joker couldn't be sure. He immediately realized his memory and consciousness might have been altered in some way. Could this have something to do with Shiller's untimely actions?
Shiller walked over to the white truck, opened the door, and sat in the passenger seat, then waved at him, "Come over here!"
The Joker walked to the driver's seat, opened the door, and climbed in. As soon as he sat in the seat, he couldn't help but frown slightly.
Not because it was uncomfortable, but because it was too comfortable. Specifically, this seat adjustment was entirely customized for him.
He instinctively placed his hand on the steering wheel, only to see the wheel start glowing. To be precise, the entire truck was emitting a faint glow now.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"This is your counterpart's truck," Shiller said while holstering his gun, "Just drove in from the Kingdom of Dreams."
The Joker was somewhat surprised but quickly realized a more important question, he said, "So you deliberately didn't let me touch the truck. What's wrong with the truck?"
"No time to explain, hurry up and drive. They're probably moving sandbags over by the pier; they could use you, go quickly."
The Joker wanted to say more, but seeing Shiller close his eyes again, pretending to nap, with a posture indicating he didn't want to talk, he had no choice but to sneer, started the truck.
Although this truck was glowing, driving it was no different from a regular truck, with no special functions. Even though the Joker had a license, he wasn't very skilled, and he had to slowly turn out.
He had just driven the truck onto the main road when a black Honda suddenly accelerated from the right and overtook his truck, then quickly swerved to block the front.
The Joker slightly squinted his eyes. Today everyone seems to be against him, do they really think he's a meek pushover?
The Joker didn't even brake, instead, he speeded up. Just as the black Honda in front braked hard, trying to intentionally cause a rear-end collision, the white truck he was driving crashed straight into it.
The Joker was already in a defensive posture because even a big truck hitting a small car would have some impact. But at the moment of contact, the white truck suddenly shimmered with magical light, the body became intangible, turning into a transparent ghost, passing through the small car. After losing contact with the small car, it returned to being solid.
The Joker raised his eyebrow again. Apparently, his counterpart has some tricks up his sleeve. Since that's the case, there's no need for him to drive carefully; he just floored the gas and went for it.
In the office of the Gotham Police Department, Gordon shook hands with his colleagues from the State Police and said, "If it weren't for the hurricane making landfall, I wouldn't have troubled you. But there's just over an hour left until the heavy rain, and I'm afraid we don't have time to entertain you, we need to head to the pier first."
The counterpart waved his hand and said, "No worries, it's rare for you to ask me for help, old classmate. Really wonder what could have you stumped..."
His counterpart's tone was filled with admiration. Gordon is a legend in the police world; just staying in this messed-up city for decades is enough to earn the respect of all officers.
Gordon felt quite emotional after hearing what was said. He actually has many old classmates, most of whom are either sheriffs or chiefs in police departments across various states and cities. Gordon usually won't ask them for help easily, but generally, as long as he asks, even if the other party knows what Gotham is like, they would still come.
You could say that in a nation rife with guns, being a police officer in any city is quite noble.
And hearing his old classmate mention this matter, Gordon also felt a bit distressed. Although Barbara caught a slip of the electronic lifeform, in the realm of the internet, she couldn't deal with it at all, and could even be said to be powerless.
Furthermore, Primary Universe Batman intended to build a magical defense network once he obtained the Power of Seven Lanterns, then no electronic lifeform would have anywhere to hide. But he suddenly changed his plan, choosing to go to Mount Olympus, making Barbara completely overwhelmed.
Currently, his main focus is on protecting the Batcave and the police station, with countless firewalls being swiftly cracked. Barbara hasn't rested for 12 hours straight, just struggling to deal with the electronic lifeform. Gordon has to keep the world's disasters outside.
The two of them reminisced about past events as they walked out of the police station. But before they even got into the police car, Gordon received a call.
"What did you say? Someone's speeding in Central Ring? Isn't it those teenagers again? What?! A truck is speeding?!! Ghost truck???"
Gordon couldn't help but curse into the phone, "El, are you drunk or half-asleep? Where did you get a ghost truck from?!"
But as the police car slowly drove onto Central Ring Road, Gordon was utterly dumbfounded. A huge white truck was speeding at a rate far beyond the city speed limit.
The key thing is, it's the evening rush hour in Gotham now. Although the forecasted hurricane landing means there aren't as many cars, at least every five to sixty meters there's still a vehicle. Yet that truck treated these obstacles as if they didn't exist, speeding along its way.
Gordon also realized that this truck seemed not to hit anything. He was initially thinking, since it's a ghost truck and it won't crash into anyone, it can just speed away. But as he accelerated to catch up to the truck and saw the driver's green hair, he suddenly sounded his horn.
Beep beep——!!!
"Joker! What the hell are you doing!!!" Gordon shouted into the radio, "Stop the car!!"
"What am I doing? I'm working my ass off!" Joker's sinister voice came through the radio channel, "I'm heading to the docks to move sandbags!"
Gordon was completely bewildered. When he saw Shiller in the passenger seat, he was quite shocked and said, "You even abducted Detective Rodriguez?! You're completely nuts!"
"What do you mean I abducted him?!" Joker said rather indignantly, "Batman instructed him to yank us out of Arkham Asylum. If it weren't for this damn guy, I'd be eating dinner in the canteen right now!"
"Oh, you're not having dinner? Then I...Joker, you'd better not be plotting some scheme!" Gordon felt a bit disoriented, because usually when he encounters such truck drivers on the road, he'd exchange pleasantries and hand over some food and water. It's quite awkward now with Joker driving a truck.
"Enough talking, hand over the sandwiches if you have any!" Joker said while turning the steering wheel, "There's a lot to do tonight, you can't expect me to be hungry till dawn, can you?"
"Who knows what you're up to? Maybe your truck is full of explosives. I need to see you genuinely working before I hand over sandwiches!" Gordon said, feeling himself very ridiculous. Joker could never be genuinely working, could he? How could he possibly eat his sandwiches? Unless he cut them into bat shapes!
Joker ignored him and continued driving ahead. Although the truck was large, it was not slow and actually reached the docks earlier than the police car.
While finding a spot to park, Joker suddenly noticed a Battleworld message notification. He opened the Battleworld interface and found that the group, silent for two weeks, was suddenly flooded with messages.
"What the hell is Batman doing?! He pulled me out from the Joker Gang base and threw me onto Saturn!"
"The Batman of my universe might be crazy. He said he wants to launch a spaceship to send me to New Genesis Star. Has he decided to evict the madmen from Earth finally?"
"Can anyone tell me what the Lamp hero is? Why does Batman want me to summon the Yellow Lantern Ring?"
"What's Apocalypse Star? Who's Darkseid?"
"What's up with Mount Olympus? Is Batman asking me to enter the Netherworld Gate a 'literary version' way of saying 'go to hell'?"
"You guys were harassed by Batman too? Is there any justice left? When will it be Joker's turn to be harassed by Batman?"
"He damn sent me 200 messages at 2:30 in the morning explaining Zeus and his whole bunch of illegitimate children! The cursed rich man, I have to clock in at 8 am tomorrow!!!"
"Does anyone know what's going on?! @Pale Knight, stop hiding, you have a good relationship with Batman, go and ask them what's going on!"
"Sorry, I'm wrapping things up at Mount Olympus. Batmen are gathering energy to establish a magical defense network."
"What does that have to do with us?! We don't get magic!"
"Maybe because Batman can't stand idle folks."
"Makes no sense, it wasn't like this before..."
"Surely one Batman started the whole thing!"
"Yep, someone must've started it; maybe it's that classic poker face! @Joker1111, it must be Batman from your universe that did it!"
Main Universe's Joker, seeing the group chat full of mentions of himself, slammed shut the Battleworld interface.
"What's wrong?" asked Shiller, who got out of the car a step slower than Joker.
"Nothing," Joker rubbed his hands and said, "Where are the sandbags? I'm getting impatient!"