Driving through the streets of Gotham like Dominic Toretto was fun, sure.
But driving through them was ten times better when you were sitting behind the controls of a high-tech armored monster packed with enough hidden gadgets and heavy weapons to punch through a frontline, never mind some pathetic police barricade.
The Batmobile’s engine didn’t roar.
It growled.
A deep, guttural vibration resonated somewhere around my chest.
The legendary suit also played a major role in my elevated mood.
My emotions were muted by my undead nature, but the adrenaline from the sheer insanity of the situation was doing its job.
Heavy Kevlar hugged my body tightly, while the cape spread across the seat behind me.
I am Batman.
Batman who is dead.
MUAHAHAHAHA!
The stupid thought kept looping through my head, sounding like something straight out of a cheap comic book.
I allowed myself a crooked grin as I smoothly threw the vehicle into another sharp turn, completely ignoring the screaming sirens and the voices booming from the loudspeakers of the dozen police cruisers chasing me.
Feat Completed: Create Chaos on the Streets of Gotham.
Reward: 1 Silver Ticket.
Silver.
Probably just for the sheer fact that I’d created this circus while driving a stolen Batmobile and wearing a stolen Batsuit.
A System notification flashed at the edge of my vision, conveniently reminding me that I still had another Gold Ticket sitting in my bottomless inventory, earned earlier for breaking into the Batcave.
Without slowing down, I kept one hand on the controls and mentally materialized the Ticket.
Then I activated it.
Name: Taekwondo
Type: Skill
Rarity: Rare
Description:
You are a skilled practitioner of Taekwondo, a dynamic Korean martial art specializing in speed, agility, and powerful kicks.
The style combines high, spinning, and jumping attacks with rapid footwork, allowing you to inflict devastating damage.
With sufficient mastery, you can reinforce your strikes with internal energy, Ki.
“A skill!”
“Finally!”
So whining actually worked?!
I practically celebrated internally as I reread the description.
A martial art focused on the legs.
Perfect.
“Now I’ll be able to kick people’s doors down even more dramatically and efficiently!”
“ATTENTION, DRIVER OF THE UNIDENTIFIED VEHICLE!”
“STOP IMMEDIATELY!”
“I REPEAT, SHUT OFF THE ENGINE AND STOP!”
“OTHERWISE, WE WILL BE FORCED TO TAKE EXTREME MEASURES!”
The distorted voice of the lead patrol car came through the speakers.
The Batmobile’s built-in audio system helpfully transmitted everything happening outside in crystal-clear detail while filtering out unnecessary noise.
I felt around the futuristic dashboard until my fingers found the external communications switch.
I pressed it.
“I am Batman!”
I roared into the microphone.
The Batmobile’s external speakers amplified my voice several times over, transforming it into a thunderous, distorted synthetic growl that rolled across the entire avenue.
“And Batman never stops!”
Immediately after delivering that epic but completely meaningless declaration, I slammed the accelerator all the way down.
The massive vehicle launched forward like a cannonball.
I didn’t even bother braking at the main entrance.
The Batmobile hit the wide marble staircase at full speed, climbed it without slowing, and smashed straight through the enormous panoramic windows of Wayne Enterprises.
The massive first-floor lobby greeted me with screaming, exploding glass, and complete panic.
I hit the brakes, sending the vehicle into a controlled skid across the polished granite floor.
The Batmobile came to a perfect stop in the center of the lobby without hitting or seriously injuring a single person.
My objective was chaos, not pointless slaughter of innocent extras.
While security guards and late-arriving employees stood in a state of complete shock, coughing and wiping construction dust from their eyes, the cockpit doors hissed open.
I slipped out like a black shadow.
People scattered in every direction when a two-meter-tall man wearing a Batman costume, with half of his pale, corpse-like face exposed, sprinted toward the elevators.
The crowd scattered like a school of frightened fish.
Top floor.
The most important corporate executives always sit at the very top, right?
That’s basically a law of the genre.
I calmly stepped into an empty elevator and pressed the highest button, which was illuminated in gold.
Soft, relaxing jazz music began playing.
The contrast with the screaming sirens outside was magnificent.
“Yep.
I was right.”
I nodded approvingly to myself.
Twenty seconds later, after the elevator shot upward at high speed, the doors silently opened.
A spacious reception hall flooded with light appeared before me.
Expensive wood.
A panoramic view of Gotham.
Behind the reception desk sat a secretary who looked like she was about to die of fright.
Straight ahead stood a massive door with a simple plaque:
Lucius Fox
CEO
“I have an appointment.”
I confidently announced this to the terrified woman without slowing down.
Confidence is everything in this business.
Audacity is the second-best thing you can have, even when you don’t actually have an appointment.
Feat Completed: Meet Lucius Fox for the First Time.
Reward: 1 Bronze Ticket.
“Oh.”
“The System actually considers him important enough to be worth something.”
“How amusing.”
“So he’s not just background furniture in this universe.”
I pushed open the door.
This time, I didn’t kick it down.
The elegant surroundings were apparently having some kind of cultural influence on me.
I entered the luxurious office.
Behind a massive desk sat a slim Black man in his sixties.
He was impeccably dressed.
Despite the fact that someone had just driven a tank through the bottom of his building, he wasn’t hiding beneath his desk or frantically calling the police.
He sat upright, fingers interlaced, calmly watching me.
The security department had obviously already informed him about my spectacular arrival.
“Mr.
Kirkman, I presume.”
Lucius spoke in a calm, completely fearless voice as his eyes scanned the Batman costume covering my body.
“No.”
I smirked.
“Batman.”
I crossed the distance to his desk in two long strides and pulled a Batarang from my utility belt.
The cold, sharpened metal settled directly against Fox’s carotid artery.
Lucius didn’t even flinch.
He merely raised his chin slightly.
I had no intention of killing or harming the old man.
He wasn’t my enemy.
My objective was a spectacle, not pointless casualties.
“Stand up.”
“And don’t make any sudden movements, Lucius.”
“I need you for the picture.”
I ordered him.
I positioned the man in front of me as a human shield, pressing the Batarang against his neck.
In this simple but highly convincing arrangement, we left the office, returned to the elevator, and headed back down toward the first floor.
Feat Completed: Take a Key Figure Hostage, Lucius Fox.
Reward: 1 Silver Ticket.
Another pleasant bonus for the collection.
Experience had proven something very useful:
When the mountain refuses to come to Muhammad, Muhammad simply grabs the mountain by the collar and drags it over.
The Gacha apparently rewarded that kind of initiative generously.
And the entire spectacle of stealing the Batmobile and taking hostages had one purpose.
I wanted to flush the real Batman out of hiding.
The elevator doors opened on the first floor.
They were already waiting for me.
The lobby was packed with people, most of them GCPD officers pointing guns directly at me.
Red laser sights danced across my armor.
Judging by that, a tactical response team had already been deployed outside.
“CLEAR THE AREA!”
“PUT THE WEAPON DOWN!”
“RELEASE THE HOSTAGE!”
The cops shouted over one another.
I ignored every single one of them.
Holding the confused but dignified Lucius Fox in front of me, I slowly walked through the parting crowd toward the exit.
I stepped over broken glass and moved slightly to the left, toward the one surviving revolving door.
Once I stepped outside into the fresh air, I mentally whistled.
Even more police.
Armored vehicles.
A helicopter.
Where the hell does Gotham get this bloated police force?
In the comics and TV shows, Jim Gordon is always complaining about budget cuts and understaffing.
And here we’ve got a full military parade.
This isn’t a police department.
It’s an arms expo.
“All right.”
“The spotlight’s on me.”
“Time to announce my demands for Mr.
Fox’s release.”
Unfortunately, my passionate speech never happened.
Before I could even open my mouth, a deafening crack exploded high above us, like thunder.
The sound barrier had been broken.
The air compressed.
A blue-and-red blur dropped onto the asphalt between me and the police barricade, sending dust and debris flying.
Superman.
His landing was gentle, but the hidden power radiating from him was so immense that several officers instinctively stepped backward.
Clark Kent was holding someone under the arms.
Batman.
Thomas Wayne looked like he’d been dragged here against his will.
That explained where the old man had been.
It did absolutely nothing to explain the bizarre relationship between these two.
“You two make such a wonderful couple.”
“I have to say, it’s adorable.”
I couldn’t resist the sarcastic comment as Clark carefully lowered the grim-faced Thomas onto the asphalt like he was carrying a priceless vase.
“I’ll take it from here.”
The Bat-man muttered darkly, adjusting his cape and responding to Clark’s unspoken question.
Superman gave me a complicated look.
Anger over his exposed identity.
Exhaustion.
And some strange warning I couldn’t quite decipher.
“Fly away, little bluebird.”
I waved at him with the hand not holding the Batarang.
“Don’t interfere with the family drama.”
“Two Batmen in one place might overload your brain.”
Superman didn’t comment.
He simply vanished.
The air cracked again, and the blurred blue figure disappeared into the gray-blue sky.
I managed to follow the movement.
With enormous difficulty, pushing my enhanced undead senses to their absolute limit, I could track him.
That meant he wasn’t currently moving at anything remotely resembling light speed or some other ridiculous number.
Of course, that assumes Clark wasn’t deliberately holding back.
I immediately corrected myself.
My attention returned to Batman, standing roughly ten meters away.
“Kirkman.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
Thomas’s voice was low and gravelly.
His tense eyes never left the sharpened edge of the Batarang resting against his personal CEO’s neck.
Interesting.
He deliberately refused Superman’s help.
Thomas had just been given the perfect opportunity to let the strongest being on Earth handle me.
Instead, he’d chosen to face me personally.
That meant one thing.
He had something to prove.
“What’s wrong, old man?”
I grinned beneath the cowl.
“Worried about your favorite executive?”
Lucius made an unintelligible noise against my Kevlar glove.
I suspected it was the word:
“Idiot.”
“Don’t make a mistake, Kirkman.”
Thomas’s low, rumbling voice cut through the noise of the crowd, police radios, and shouting reporters.
“You still have a chance to walk away.”
“Release Fox.”
“Surrender.”
“And we’ll write this off as a post-traumatic episode after your encounter with Joker.”
“The court will take your emotional state into consideration.”
He lies as naturally as he breathes.
The man’s righteousness is actually making my teeth hurt.
I wasn’t remotely surprised.
I pressed my back more firmly against the glass revolving doors of Wayne Tower and slightly adjusted the angle of the Batarang against Fox’s throat.
“Post-traumatic shock?”
I burst into genuine, booming laughter.
“Are we talking about the same Joker who somehow managed to magically disappear from Arkham’s supposedly impenetrable cell three hours after your pet Superman put him there?”
Batman had no answer.
His jaw simply tightened.
I’d hit a vulnerable spot.
“Of course, I wasn’t expecting a coherent answer from a hypocrite!”
I deliberately raised my voice.
This time, I wasn’t speaking to Thomas.
I was speaking to the police.
The reporters’ cameras.
The helicopters.
And the civilians packed behind the police vehicles.
“Gotham!”
“Look at him!”
“Does this old man really look capable of protecting you?”
“You need a new Dark Knight!”
“You need someone young!”
“Someone efficient!”
“So vote for me in the next Bat-election!”
“My campaign is extremely simple.”
“I promise to find and kill the Joker!”
“And, as an added bonus, I can rid this rotten, corruption-infested city of…”
“Kirkman!”
“Shut your mouth!”
Batman roared.
He took one sharp step forward.
“What do you want?”
“Specifically.”
“Oh!”
“There we go.”
“We’ve finally reached the good part.”
“Negotiations!”
I flashed a wide grin beneath the mask.
“I’ll release Mr.
Fox completely unharmed if Wayne Enterprises publicly agrees to a few modest demands!”
Thomas immediately tensed.
I could almost hear the armor creaking.
Naturally, he expected the worst.
He probably thought I was about to expose his identity in front of dozens of television cameras.
Or reveal everything dirty involving his son.
High above us, hidden beyond the clouds, my enhanced vision caught a tiny red dot.
Superman was hovering in the stratosphere, monitoring the situation from above.
Too early.
I’m not exposing Thomas yet.
That grumpy bastard still has work to do for the Gacha.
And I need him alive long enough to generate more content.
My desire for absolute chaos reluctantly retreated.
The police barricade suddenly shifted.
Officers respectfully moved aside, allowing a stocky man in his fifties to walk through.
Classic beige trench coat.
Thick-framed glasses.
A large mustache.
And the expression of a man who had seen so much shit in his life that another costumed lunatic barely registered as an inconvenience.
He stopped beside Batman, taking advantage of my tactical pause.
I was, admittedly, only stalling for time and enjoying Thomas’s discomfort.
“James Gordon.”
“Commissioner of the GCPD.”
His voice was calm and exhausted.
His hands disappeared into the pockets of his coat.
“What are your demands?” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“Move the blade away from the artery and let Mr.
Fox speak.”
“He can answer on behalf of the company.”
Feat Completed: Meet James Gordon for the First Time.
Reward: 1 Bronze Ticket.
Yep.
Definitely Gordon.
The real, canon mustache and everything.
Finally.
And I’ve been here less than a day.
I mentally checked another achievement off my invisible list.
“My demands are extremely simple and humanitarian, Commissioner.”
I lowered the hand covering Lucius’s mouth, allowing him to speak if he wanted.
“First!”
“As the new symbol of justice, I demand that Wayne Enterprises immediately stop exploiting cheap child labor in its factories throughout developing countries!”
Naturally, I didn’t give a damn about some hypothetical children in developing nations.
I’d personally spent plenty of my previous lives as one of those exploited children, working in mines and quarries.
I knew exactly how that world worked.
I’d long since lost any illusions or sentimental compassion about it.
And it wasn’t necessarily that bad if you knew how to steal food, run fast, and form gangs of children.
At least not in modern worlds like this one.
The statement was pure bluff.
“We do not exploit children!”
Fox immediately protested, his voice filled with deep corporate outrage.
He didn’t even seem bothered by the fact that he was still being held hostage.
“All of our primary assembly lines are located either in the United States or Western Europe!”
“In developing countries, manufacturing high-precision medical equipment and most of our components is currently both irrelevant and economically unviable!”
“I have absolutely no idea which trash newspaper you got this child-labor nonsense from!”
“I believe you.”
I casually shrugged.
“That’ll do.”
At least now I understand where the Batcave got that ridiculously advanced surgical capsule.
Thomas, being a proper Batman, quietly appropriated the best toys his own company had to offer.
Although I seriously doubt they manufacture absolutely every microchip in Europe.
But this demand was only for warming up and distracting everyone.
My real demand is…
“Then let’s move on to the second and final demand!”
I paused dramatically.
I made sure every news helicopter had its cameras pointed directly at us.
The police held their breath.
Everyone was taking me seriously.
And why wouldn’t they?
I’m Batman!
“I demand a kiss from Barbara Gordon!”
The widest, friendliest smile my undead physiology could possibly produce spread across my half-exposed face.
I directed it straight toward my future father-in-law…
Ahem.
Commissioner James Gordon.
The effect was strange.
Gordon immediately went pale.
He instinctively stepped backward as if I’d punched him in the stomach.
But what happened to Batman was completely beyond logical explanation.
What the hell is wrong with Thomas?
I couldn’t ignore the enormous elephant standing in the middle of the street.
Wayne froze.
Not simply froze.
He became a statue.
The air around him seemed to crack under the sheer level of irrational tension.
His breathing became ragged.
His fists clenched so hard that the seams of his gloves began to creak.
He stared at me as though I’d just ripped open his chest and spat directly into his soul.
Behind the white lenses of his mask, his eyes contained such a primal mixture of terror, guilt, and uncontrolled rage that, for a brief moment, even I felt uncomfortable.
“Th-that…”
“That is impossible!”
Commissioner Gordon finally managed to recover himself.
His voice trembled.
“Barbara…”
“She…”
“Smart, beautiful, brilliant hacker, red hair.”
“Yeah, I know all that.”
I waved my free hand dismissively, ignoring the father’s protests.
“And that’s exactly why she won’t refuse one innocent kiss from someone as charming as me!”
“Gentlemen, allow me to remind you that the life of Wayne Enterprises’ CEO, and therefore a significant portion of Gotham’s economy, depends on this tiny romantic gesture!”
For emphasis, I pressed the Batarang slightly harder against Fox’s neck.
A tiny bead of blood appeared against his dark skin.
“As her father, I declare that you are a sick—”
And yet, why is Thomas THIS tense?
My mind raced as I analyzed the elder Wayne’s reaction.
He looks like I just asked to kiss a corpse.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a single Trait or Skill related to emotional perception.
Maybe he’s secretly in love with Barbara himself?
No.
That’s fucking ridiculous.
Nobody managed to hear what Gordon intended to say as a father.
Because somewhere a few blocks away, the sky suddenly lit up with a poisonous orange flash.
One second later, the entire street shook from an enormous explosion.
The shockwave rolled through the avenue, rattling the surviving windows and forcing police officers to duck.
Thick black smoke began rising above the rooftops of Old Gotham.
Fucking Joker!
Why now?!
I was this close to winning the negotiation!
I clicked my tongue in frustration.
And if I’d still had the Happy Romantic Trait in my active slot, this ridiculous kiss demand probably would have worked thanks to the System’s luck.
Barbara would have rolled around the corner.
Everything would have fallen into place.
But…
I’d burned my happy future myself in exchange for combat stats.
Now fate, explosions, and basic logic were all conspiring against our hypothetical romance.
Feat Completed: Make Completely Idiotic and Inappropriate Demands During a Hostage Situation.
Reward: 1 Bronze Ticket.
Even the System is mocking my love life!
What the hell did I do to deserve this?!
“All right.”
“Your time is up.”
I sighed dramatically.
I removed the Batarang from Fox’s throat and gave the old man a light but powerful shove, sending him directly into the startled arms of Batman.
Thomas caught his CEO.
But his insane stare remained fixed on me.
“As the true Batman, I cannot ignore that explosion.”
“I have to go save this city from cheap clown theatrics.”
I gave a theatrical two-finger salute.
“We’ll discuss your daughter next time, Jim.”
“Give her my regards.”
“James.”
Gordon automatically corrected me.
His mind was still struggling to process the fact that the hostage had actually been released.
“Oh, come on.”
“Don’t be so formal.”
“We aren’t strangers anymore.”
I waved at him cheerfully.
“You can just call me Charlie.”
Before the commissioner or Batman could say anything, or issue an order to open fire, I redirected the remaining stored kinetic energy directly into the muscles of my legs.
A sharp inhale.
Breathing Technique activated.
My undead heart, stimulated by oxygen, began beating faster.
The concrete beneath my boots cracked.
I launched myself dozens of meters into the air in one enormous, inhuman jump.
The police barricade passed beneath me.
I landed effortlessly on the ledge of the nearest low rooftop.
My cape billowed behind me like the wings of a bat.
Of course, I would have loved to dramatically summon Archangel and fly comfortably toward the explosion.
Unfortunately, Superman was probably still somewhere in the stratosphere with his X-ray vision.
Showing off toys he could potentially break would be stupid.
I’d have to cross the rooftops on foot.
This time, I’m definitely killing you, laughing piece of shit.
I made the promise coldly to myself as I sprinted toward the rising column of black smoke.