Bang!
The gunshot pierced the tranquil night sky. A sniper bullet came whistling through the air. Blood splattered on the wall. The man slowly fell. Before dying, he twisted his neck, as if trying to see where the killer was.
Jason and Tim hurried through the narrow street, glancing back at the sewer entrance. Both had frost clinging to their hair and eyebrows.
"Those cultists are really something," Jason said, panting, "They're holding meetings in just their shirts in sub-zero temperatures. My God, they're the real Yetis!"
Tim was also leaning against the wall, breathing heavily. "The low temperature affects cardiac and pulmonary functions. They must be exerting more physical strength to maintain body heat. If we hadn't eaten a big meal earlier, we'd be frozen stiff by now."
About two hours ago, they had arrived near the Austin residence. Barry had already found something suspicious in the sewer behind the Austin house: a manhole cover had been tampered with under a streetlight not far from their backyard. Although the cameras didn't capture anything, this was obviously off.
So, they went down and started searching in the sewer. At first, things went smoothly, and they quickly found suspicious footprints and signs of activity. Following the trail, they unknowingly edged deeper. When they arrived at an area not on the maps, likely a tunnel made by the cultists, the temperature approached freezing.
Barry ran out and brought them some clothes. But the problem was that moving around in heavy clothes was extremely inconvenient. These cultists seemed like rats, digging tunnels that were narrow and small. The two of them weren't thin to begin with, and with cotton clothes on, it was even harder to move forward.
They put on some heating pads and layered thermal wear inside, continuing down. By the time they reached a place that looked like the cultists' meeting room, the temperature had dropped to well below freezing.
More shocking was when they kicked open the door, and the cultists seemed to have evolved, holding a meeting in pajamas inside an abandoned cold storage.
These guys all had guns and seemed particularly deranged, perhaps drunk, and some even had superpowers. Jason and Tim only had two pistols and stood no chance against so many people, so they had to quickly run out.
The cultists chased after them. The two fled to the surface. Fortunately, they had sniper support outside, and with more space to move, their combat skills came into play, efficiently taking down five or six cultists.
Jason stepped forward to check the cultist with the blown-off head. It was an ordinary-looking woman, like a department store clerk or a restaurant waitress, with nothing special to see.
However, Jason was certain she wasn't ordinary. For one, she moved effortlessly in such cold, which required some skill; secondly, she had some combat skills, even if not as good as his, and neglected to guard against snipers, she was clearly trained.
"These people are not just a disorganized crowd." Tim found it odd as well, checking two others they took down, then said, "I thought they were just those 'Underground Rebels' who gather to talk big."
"Such people can't pull off a child kidnapping," Jason shook his head. "This must be organized crime, but their average level is indeed too high. They must have been preparing for a long time."
Just then, noise erupted from the street ahead. The two ran over quickly, finding Batman, Pamela, and Shivana rushing into Austin's house.
Jason and Tim rushed in as well. They then saw Paul Austin's father holding a knife to his son's neck, taking him hostage.
"Don't come closer!" He was visibly nervous but not fearful, more like seething with rage. "You damned bastards! You ruined my life! If it weren't for that damned Brainiac invading Earth, my investment return would be 2000%! You ruined everything!!!"
The room fell silent; no one responded, and the atmosphere cooled. Clearly, it was because the people present were not ignorant of financial matters; quite the opposite, they were too knowledgeable, which made his outburst shockingly impactful. The newcomers were at a loss for words.
Not comforting him might provoke him to harm the child; comforting seemed to defy common sense. Even from his words, it was impossible to fabricate a lie like "you still have hope, you will succeed."
"Put down the weapon," Primary Universe Batman said, "Don't resist needlessly."
Nice, Tim thought, even Primary Universe Batman abandoned reasoning and emotions, opting for direct threats. This guy surely has no hope.
"You don't understand anything! I was about to succeed! I would be Earth's savior!!!"
And Jason looked at Paul. From the first glance, Jason knew he was a typical Gotham child, a reflection of his younger self. Who's holding whom hostage wasn't certain.
"Dad," Paul suddenly said, "my Halloween candy is still on the table."
The words were odd, but Paul's father hesitated momentarily. Then he dragged Paul toward the table, which, conveniently, was next to the window.
Bang!
Paul's father slowly fell. Paul's eyes were fixed on the candy basket on the table. Tim walked over, reached to touch the candy, and found a sphere at the bottom.
"What's this?" Tim queried, narrowing his eyes.
"Alien device," Paul replied. "The people who kidnapped me and my father used these devices. My dad is terribly afraid of dying; he didn't really want a mutual destruction, even in the last moment, he only thought of escaping. So he would definitely try to grab this device."
"Good kid," Jason said, "Have you seen this device?"
"Yeah, the kidnappers showed it to me and wanted me to help them set it up. But I threw it into the water."
Jason understood. Paul must have had suspicions about his father for a long time. When he was kidnapped, he saw this sphere from the kidnappers, and when he was rescued, he saw the exact same one from his father. He realized his biological father and the kidnappers were in cahoots. So, he betrayed him without hesitation.
However, how he managed to fool the kidnappers into giving him such an important device is a topic worth exploring. But after all, this is Gotham. He once managed to pry off the Batmobile's tire with his bare hands. This boy fooling a kidnapper is not really that surprising.
"Then why didn't he take the device in the first place?" Pamela asked.
"Because he's an idiot," Paul clearly stopped pretending and said, "He thought it was magical, but was afraid of its radiation, so he put it in my candy, wanting me to be the guinea pig."
Despite anthropomorphism being rampant in Gotham, this one was indeed a rare breed. Jason patted Paul on the shoulder, then asked, "What about your mother?"
"He killed her and buried her in the backyard."
Jason originally wanted to ask him what he planned to do next, but then he suddenly realized that it's socialized care now. With his parents gone, Brainiac would take care of him and even assign him a job in the future. Losing such parents was actually a good thing.
Soon, the police came, first dealt with the father's corpse, then dug up the mother's remains, and took Paul for psychological treatment. Meanwhile, more people went to the cultists' gathering site.
Two hours later, Gordon emerged from a manhole, sighed, and said to Jason and the group around the streetlamp, "It's an abandoned cold storage, a masterpiece from the Twelve Families. Due to the planning issues of Gotham's renovation project, it was abandoned. There's actually a direct entrance two blocks away, but it was converted to another store long ago. The path they're taking now has many places they cleared themselves, which is why we couldn't find it."
"What about those cultists?"
"Most were caught at the intersection. They also didn't know the underground structure very well and didn't know where the other exits were. They ran into dead ends and were basically all captured."
"How could they stay in such a low-temperature area for so long?"
"They have superpower users among them. It's also possible they are cyborgs, but the specifics need a postmortem," Gordon said, "It's the police's business now. You've worked hard, please go home."
They all nodded. It had been a busy day, and they were indeed a bit tired. They planned to head home individually, but upon checking, they found out they all seemed to live at Wayne Manor, so they returned together.
However, as soon as they got back, they heard intense alarm sounds, followed by a completely wrecked laboratory, and a missing Mother Box.
"Oh my God!!" Shivana shouted in despair, "I told you this thing can't just be left here like this!!! And Brainiac's security system, what kind of security system does he have!!!"
Those who arrived upon hearing the news all had grim faces, except Pamela, who glanced at the Primary Universe Batman. But Primary Universe Batman usually had a poker face, and Pamela couldn't discern anything from it.
Then, their phones rang simultaneously. Upon picking up their phones, they saw Brainiac's software activate, the entire interface turning red.
Not just their phones, but the phones of everyone in all the major cities on the East Coast turned red with an urgent notification - "A critical experimental base of the human race has been violently invaded, suspected to be the work of alien invaders, Earth is entering Level 2 alert status! All citizens, please follow the guidelines..."
"It's a lockdown!" Pamela shouted, "Quick!"
Then Primary Universe Batman watched them quickly run out one by one. Jason went to the gate of Wayne Manor, somehow producing a remote control, lowering the iron gate, and even a vault-like security door. Likewise, the windows were shut, turning Wayne Manor into a sealed secret room instantly.
And before the windows closed, Primary Universe Batman saw that outside, all notified people, though shocked, were all calmly entering the nearest buildings. Those buildings also sealed their doors and windows, and in a blink, the entire city became a ghost town.
Primary Universe Batman walked down from upstairs, watching those checking supplies, and said, "I have only one question—how are you all so proficient?"
"If your universe also fought a solar system war for more than a year, you would be this proficient too," Tim stacked the medical kits, then said, "We had just barely recovered from wartime status, and now we're back into global lockdown status again."
"Ah, wait, it wasn't just a year," Tim shrugged, "It probably lasted for hundreds of years."
A question mark slowly appeared above Primary Universe Batman's head. "I assume you're using some exaggerative rhetoric..."
"I'm not," Tim smiled at him.
Then Primary Universe Batman remembered his alien identity and said, "That alien invader doesn't refer to me, does it?"
"No." Brainiac replied, "If it were you, the alert level wouldn't just be Level 2."