What bad thoughts can Batman have?

Chapter 844: A mere nobody should die for the future of the multiverse (Part )

Master Chao introduced his identity, then he turned and looked at Barry Allen, the Flash before the crisis.

Barry couldn't stop looking at the unconscious pre-Crisis Batman Bruce Wayne on the ground, and then he heard the Master Chao say:

"Speaking of you, you are Barry Allen, the Flash of Earth-1."

The Flash felt a throbbing in his heart, which made him realize that the other party didn't know him at all before today. The reason why he could accurately tell such information was because...

"Wow, what is that, telepathy?"

"Yes, although it is difficult to keep up with your speedy thinking, Barry your thought process is incredibly fast under the enhancement of the Speed ​​Force. It will be an interesting challenge to catch up with him."

The Flash Barry grinned. The other party's attitude seemed a little...

What should he say, condescendingly?

"Yeah, nice to be a 'fun challenge'," Barry said.

"Oh no offense you are a parahuman and my abilities are just superior to yours in every way."

Mage Chao said: "Once again this is not boasting, just stating a fact, this battle between us will only be one-sided."

"Hmm..." Barry hummed softly.

"But I admit that my attitude is indeed a bit arrogant, but I completely respect you. You are the Flash. You have proven to be a hero, brave and determined, talented, selfless, and in your timeline, you saved the world."

This strange feeling appeared in the wizard Chao, who was high and mighty, yet extremely sincere.

A strange attitude that was a mixture of arrogance and sincerity, which made Barry feel a little uncomfortable, but he didn't know how to refute it, so he was tongue-tied.

Oh, Barry, Barry.

Young Barry lived in the Golden Age before the Crisis on Infinite Earths. In Gotham City during the Golden Age, even robbery was a serious crime.

Barry hadn't seen much like it.

"I have no intention of fighting you. Under other circumstances, you would be a welcome ally and friend." Mage Chao made the following summary.

"But if we fight, will you win?" asked the Flash.

"This is an obvious fact."

"What will happen if we don't fight?"

"Our cities will be swallowed up, our cities will be destroyed?"

"Yes, these seem to be cruel rules."

The Flash, Barry, is forced to divert his attention from the other party's arrogant attitude.

"So this entity has constructed some kind of moral dilemma for us. If we refuse to fight, both cities will perish...if we fight...it's pointless, and one side will die?"

"Yes, a simple moral dilemma that breaks the neo-Malthusian theory, world-weary... This guy might be advocating eugenics." Mage Superman said: "Survival of the fittest, this kind of speech is not only mean but also stupid."

(Note: Neo-Malthusianism advocates limiting population growth through birth control.)
"He means that the strongest must survive..." Flash Barry held his head: "What the hell, what kind of Darwin is this? What's the point?"

"The victors survive the test, and the fate of millions of people is decided in an unprecedented, unparalleled, and unmatched battle."

"Battle? Millions of people?" Flash Barry looked up: "You mean--"

“We can’t be the only ones stuck in this situation.”

"Or maybe this is just a game to play with people's hearts." Master Superman heard the voice of Flash Barry, but the voice did not come from Barry standing in front of him.

Someone stood behind him and spoke to him by imitating Barry's voice, which temporarily distracted the wizard Superman -

It was enough to make Batman, who had just been lying on the ground, jump up and slam a kryptonite dagger into the back of the wizard Superman!

"Oh, my goodness."

Although the incident happened suddenly, the Flash quickly cooperated with his old friend.

He punched Master Superman in the face so fast that it was like a bomb exploded in his face.

"Wait, Bruce—"

He said to Batman, but Batman, who knew his old friend best, convinced Flash Barry with the fastest words.

"He could very well be the man behind this, he could very well be the entity. His statement that he is the Superman of Earth-9 is just one-sided."

"but……"

"Perhaps the Superman of Earth-9 is that entity, for all intents and purposes."

The Flash Barry's thinking was gradually led astray by Batman.

Barry: Stay~

"And he just claimed that he was far superior to you. That was just a casual remark. A way to stop the fight, a way to make you lose without self-defense."

"All the possibilities you mentioned are wrong."

Wizard Superman floated up from the ground, and some kind of purple and pink magical energy lifted him up from the ground.

Batman stepped back and stood next to the Flash.

"He might say that, he might be whatever he claims to be. Maybe he's a robed opponent, barely any different from us, but saying he can beat us effortlessly, knock us out psychologically, ensuring an easy win. Back off, Barry."

Batman's nonsense isn't just intended to convince Barry, he's also distracting Superman and leading him into a trap where he's forced to prove himself.

When Master Superman pulled out the kryptonite dagger stuck in his shoulder, the building under his feet exploded. From the smoke, two pre-set electric shock device wires flew out and hung on Master Superman's body.

Then, visibly, lightning struck the body of Master Superman through the wires.

"Ah ah ah ah..."

While Master Superman was screaming from the electric shock, Batman grabbed Barry's shoulders and said, "Take me away, quickly."

"But……"

"The battle is on, Barry."

Barry finally chose to listen to his old friend, and in just a moment, with the help of the speed force, they reached the other end of the city at a fast speed.

The whole process didn't even take a second.

"Huh... I had deliberately let him catch me so I could steal some of his information... but he was too strong, and if what he said was true..."

Bruce Wayne's face was gloomy.

"What? So is what he said true or not?"

Barry Allen stood next to him, a question mark on his forehead.

"Okay, it's true." But Barry wasn't stupid, and he quickly realized it.

"Oh, damn, but we're already fighting."

"Whether it was out of arrogance or malice, from the moment he knocked me down, he was already an opponent we needed to defeat," corrected the pre-Crisis Batman.

"But are we going to fight him like this? We..."

Before the Flash could say anything more, the wall behind them broke open, and the wizard Superman, who was covered in a purple energy shield, flew out with a magic wand in his hand:
"You can't do that."

"Attack formation, Barry." Batman floated backwards like a big bat, and the Flash dodged his body and attacked the wizard Superman.

One punch!
The Flash was hit right on the purple shield, and he was running around it at speeds that humans couldn't react to in time. The energy beams shot from the wizard Superman's wand couldn't catch up with the Flash's speed.

Another punch!
The fist pierced through the purple shield and knocked the Mage Superman flying.

"Stop, please!" But the next moment, the Wizard Superman pressed his temples, and telepathy entangled the Flash's brain.

This caused him to fall.

"Aaaaaahhh, get out of my head! Damn it, this is just like Grodd!"

Gorilla Grodd, another villain who uses telepathy.

"I said that……"

Batman leaps onto Superman's temple from behind and cuffs his hands with a pair of kryptonite cuffs.

The Wizard Superman did not resist and was pinned to the ground by Batman.

"Oh, damn, my head." The Flash sat up from the ground holding his head, and then he walked over.

"What should we do with this guy?"

"If what you said is true, how do you solve the problem of only one of the two cities surviving?"

"It's simple. You two need to die. Then I can mix the ordinary people from both cities together and protect them in my city."

Flash and Batman looked at each other.

"You don't understand that the key to the victory or defeat of this battle is not the ordinary people in the city, but the man behind the scenes who wants us to fight each other and die. When we can't resist him, the two of you die..."

Mage Superman said: "It is the only way to protect the two cities."

"Lock it up," said the Flash. "We'll find a way."

But Batman took a step back.

"Oh, damn," he said.

In an instant, a bright purple light appeared on the body of Mage Superman.

He destroyed the kryptonite shackles that bound him in an instant, and then he stretched out his hand, and the Flash Barry screamed and fell to the ground.

Batman just reached for his universal belt and was knocked away in an instant, falling on the edge of the building like a broken sack.

A ball of purple energy climbed up his body and held him tightly.

Batman before the Crisis had never seen a Superman who knew magic, and he suffered a great loss.

The French Superman stood up from the ground, picked up his wand, and then controlled the influence on Barry the Flash.

"You forced me to use telekinesis to stop your neural activity. I'm stopping your neurons from protruding and burning, just to make you stop attacking... I don't want to do that."

Wizard Superman said, his eyes glowing white.

"I don't want to see my city destroyed, nor do I want to see your city destroyed. I don't want to fight you... Someone has to sacrifice."

“Ahhhhhhh, you far surpass my performance—” The Flash Barry screamed: “This…you are absolutely right, no boasting—”

"Ugh!"

Master Superman stopped attacking and walked up to the gasping Barry.

His eyes were complicated.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to give in or end this game. But I'm much stronger than you. Only I have a better chance of keeping everyone in the two cities alive... Don't you realize it yet? With the closure of the dome, time has started flowing again, and everyone can die again."

"There must be someone strong enough to protect them." The Wizard Superman said, "I can't let millions of people die just to save the lives of the two of you."

He paused, then said, "It sounds like a person who is afraid of death and wants to sacrifice others to prolong his own life. I know, but I have no choice.

From a purely rational point of view, the stronger me is, the more successful I am in protecting this city than you are. Do you accept this point of view? This is a fact. Unless you prove it to me... uh."

Wizard Superman was suddenly stunned because he found that Batman, who had just been knocked away by him, had disappeared.

"He can't do this." Mage Superman shook his head.

Then he turned his head and looked at Barry the Flash.

"I won't hurt you, and I don't want to hurt you. I'm just proving the facts to you. I..."

He was about to continue persuading the Flash, but suddenly froze.

"Wait a minute. There's something inside of you."

"what?"

"Barry the speed of your thought process makes you difficult to read, but it is much more than that. Now that I have fully connected your mind to mine, I can see that you are very shaky and blurry."

"What do you mean?"

"Your flow of time is disrupted."

"We all do."

"No, not like you. My city and I and this city are also separated from our world, but you... you have been disconnected from all multiverse timelines."

There was a look of horror on Superman's face, and Barry didn't understand what it meant.

"Considering your outdated ideas, you are thinking of the Speed ​​Force, but this concept can only be known by your successors, and..."

Suddenly, things started to become incoherent.

Barry was very confused: "What... my successor? How could I be confused?"

A purple light flew out of Flash Paris' heart and turned into something.

"What is this, your inner image?"

Superman asked.

"The cosmic treadmill," Barry answered him.

"A time travel device, and this, who is this?"

"Iris."

"Your beloved exists in the 20th century, and you've wanted to return to him for a long time. Your trip to Gotham was pure bad luck. What is this?"

"Wait, Anti-Monitor." Master Superman suddenly realized what he said silently.

Then he witnessed the Flash being reduced to ashes.

"Your destiny is not here, and neither is his. I'm sorry to tell you that in the 30th century you were involved in some extra-temporal crime, and now we have discovered a crisis beyond our control."

Master Superman's voice was trembling and he held his forehead.

"You are the only one gifted with the ability to travel through time, and you must be alive because you are able to stop the antimatter cannon."

(Note: The Flash Barry Allen's sacrifice to destroy the antimatter cannon is an important prerequisite for the victory of the Infinite Earth Crisis, no less than the sacrifice of Supergirl Kara! But if Barry dies here now and is killed by the Master Chao, the super time stream will usher in a new collapse.)
"Damn it, you're going to die."

"But now you have to survive, so you may die eventually."

"what?"

"I mean."

Superman lowered his eyes.

"You're more important than me, so damn it."

"it's me."

(End of this chapter)