What bad thoughts can Batman have?

Chapter 987 The Madly Laughing Bat of Schizophrenia, Love, and the Ghosts of the Past
"Damn it!"

The Batman Who Laughs just went all in on what he could ever hope to win in one go, and then Batman Dragon immediately turned the tables on him, giving him the biggest loss of his life.

The finger that Papetua voluntarily gave him allowed him to analyze Papetua's power of creation almost instantly. As long as he finds the total entity before Papetua, he can use this finger to unlock the total entity's seven powers—the key point is that he can bypass Papetua directly!
He was originally helpless against the Unified Body, and even if he obtained it, it would be useless. His original plan was to lure Lex Luthor of the main universe into submitting to Perpetua, and then guide Luthor to devour Martian Manhunter from behind the scenes, ultimately causing him to unlock the Unified Body and unleash all its power. This meant that in the end, if the Batman Who Laughs wanted to complete his plan, he would have to find a way to replace Luthor and become Perpetua's representative...

(Note: This is from the original Death Metal storyline. The Batman Who Laughs heard Perpetual's whispers from Barbatos long ago, and then told Les Luthor the secret of the Source Wall in order to manipulate him and control the timing of Perpetual's release. The Batman Who Laughs has always been in the shadow of Les Luthor in the main universe, and can be said to have played him like a puppet.)
Originally, this wouldn't have been difficult; he was fully confident he could kick Luther out at the crucial moment. From beginning to end, Luther was merely his double, and everything was part of the Batman Who Laughs's plan. However, due to Batman Dragon's interference, the Batman Who Laughs was forced to constantly betray and side with different monsters. This drastically reduced his chances of successfully siding with Perpetual Harvey again; Perpetual Harvey would most likely dismantle him rather than employ him.

So the Bat Who Laughs chose to take a gamble at this point; he succeeded, but he also failed.

"Hehehehehehehe... Hahahahahahaha..."

If the brain of each Laughing Bat is a bouncing circus, their manic thoughts enough to drive any telepath insane, or even blow their brains out, then in the Laughing Bat's brain it's practically a Laughing Bat convention.

The Emperor Joker was overjoyed to find himself inside the Batman Who Laughs's mind. He couldn't wait to leave Foolish Owl, even though being shoved in meant that Batman Dragon already knew about his previous possession of Foolish Owl, putting him at a disadvantage against Batman. But now, being inside the Batman Who Laughs's mind was his chance to turn the tables. He was like a grumpy kid who had lost a game and was suddenly told he'd been thrown into the loser's bracket. If he won the revival match, he could rejoin the battle royale. This unexpected turn of events made the Emperor Joker ecstatic.

Another one rushing to join this chaotic brawl is Joker, a seemingly righteous superhero who loves to laugh wildly, but dislikes nothing more than these crazy lunatics who look exactly like him but are chaotic and insane.

Laughter should bring warmth and hope, not be a synonym for chaos and evil. In the world of the Joker, laughter has always been defined as something warm. Perhaps the Joker is a copy of the Emperor Joker and the Batman Who Laughs, but what about the Joker himself?
You are the challengers!
The two rational thinkers, Foolish Owl and Night Owl, were pushed aside by the three laughing madmen in the melee, shrinking to the edge of their mental world, watching as three Ferris wheels from an amusement park not far away bounced up and spun rapidly, then collided with each other like spinning tops.

In this massive brawl of personalities, the Batman Who Laughs is dominating the other two Laughers and doesn't have time to deal with them for the time being.

The two personalities, Fool of the World and Night Owl, stared at each other in bewilderment.

“Damn it,” Night Owl said. “A personality formed from my longing for the Joker.”

He turned to look at the Foolish Owl: "The cowardly personality that split off from my schizophrenia."

He said, "I have to find a way to get out of this body."

He came to this conclusion and immediately decided to put it into practice.

In what way?

The foolish owl stopped the night owl.

Night Owl didn't want to speak, but they were essentially from the same source, so his thoughts couldn't be completely hidden from Foolish Owl.

"You want to take advantage of their conflict to seize control of this body? And then tamper with the trans-time flow?"

“Don’t worry, I won’t let you disappear,” Night Owl said. “It’s not about tampering with the Hypertime Stream. The reason you misunderstand is because I don’t actually understand what the Hypertime Stream is either. The Batman Who Laughs manipulated this body to escape to the upstream of the Hypertime Stream, and I just intend to use the power this body possesses to create a physical body in the current reality, a physical body that belongs exclusively to me, and then enter it.”

“This is tampering with the trans-timeline, and we are all one person. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking. You have no idea how to create a physical body, so your idea is to find an innocent passerby, destroy their personality to make them collapse, and then stuff your personality into them. This is essentially possession, and this is the past of the trans-timeline. If you stay here, it will definitely affect the future of the trans-timeline. This doesn’t fit the timeline!” Foolish Owl said, “No, you can’t do this.”

The owl's face darkened.

"I can."

He said in a low voice, "Listen, those three lunatics over there are fighting. We two are probably the only beings in this body who can think like normal people, so I advise you... don't meddle."

"I can't really call myself a superhero."

Then he heard the Foolish Owl say, “But your leaving alone will put me in a very passive position and increase unknown variables. No, that’s still my answer. And although the hypertime stream is chaotic, it has its own rules. If you leave this body at will and then freely possess others in the hypertime stream to change history, if I were Papetua, I would definitely use you against me… No, that would not be good for any of us.”

After saying this, Foolish Owl's face darkened, because he realized that Night Owl hadn't been oblivious to these things. Indeed, none of this was good for the other personalities, but who was it good for? Of course, it was Night Owl himself.

He escaped the predicament of being trapped in the mind of the Foolish Owl, acting as a "friend in fantasy." Not only did he gain a new physical body, but he might also be used as a pawn by Papetua. Please, he's a supervillain with no moral bottom line. The fact that he was willing to consider his Earth-3 back then already shows that he has an exceptionally high level of morality among the many owls in parallel universes and the main universe since the existence of the DC multiverse.

Now things are really messed up; lawful evil and lawful neutrality have completely failed to reach an agreement.

“I don’t want to fight you; you can’t beat me.” Night Owl pointed to the three Maniac Personalities still locked in combat beside him. The Batman Who Laughs was gradually putting the Emperor Joker and Joker on the defensive. After all, this was his home turf. Even though the Emperor Joker and Joker had absorbed Perpetual’s energy beforehand, they couldn’t possibly defeat the original personality of this body on their home turf. Not to mention the Batman Who Laughs’s endless tricks. He always guarded his mental domain with utmost vigilance, just like Batman Dragon.

Even the mental corruption of Mandrake and the Hand of the Void could never distort the free will of the Batman Who Laughs, so it would be laughable to try to take control of his body from him.

Night Owl continued, "When they decide their victor, it will be the end for both of us. That's another philosophical question. When consciousness fades away, are you sure we'll still exist? Even though you're just a personality that I split off after my mental breakdown, are you sure you really intend to die meaninglessly like this?"

Night Owl, unusually, tried to reason with his own personality, but he quickly discovered that Foolish Owl had completely inherited the Joker's stubbornness. "Enough! I am the dominant personality!"

"You'll regret this, you fool!"

It's unbelievable how he and the Joker developed such a personality. But in this situation, even if he had to hold his nose, Night Owl could only fight Foolish Owl. Given the circumstances, he could only pray that he could get rid of Foolish Owl's entanglement quickly enough, and that the three Laughing Men would take longer to determine a winner.

Normally, once the Batman Who Laughs dealt with the two uncontrollable Laughing Personalities, he could immediately eliminate the two Bat-like Personalities as well. The Batman Who Laughs would tear these Personalities to shreds, crush them into dust, and make them disappear forever from his mental world, thus completely breaking the contingency plan left by Batman Dragon. Sugarcoat, having eaten the cannonball and thrown it back, would be completely unaffected, and would continue to focus on deciphering and researching Perpetua's power, then obtain the combined entity before Perpetua, and finally complete his plan—

That's how it should have been, the script was correct, however, at this moment, Foolish Owl and Night Owl both stopped fighting, because they saw someone.

Someone neither of them expected to meet.

"Dick?!"

Dick Grayson, the eldest son of the Bat-family, is the original Robin, the superhero Nightwing, and the guardian of Bluehaven. He is Batman's first son, also Night Owl's, while Foolish Owl inherited Night Owl's memories, so he is also Foolish Owl's son.

This guy is almost the only and biggest weakness of Night Owl besides the outsider Alfred. Even when the main universe Night Owl was involved in the major event of the Crime Syndicate invading the main universe, the Earth-3 Night Owl still wanted to capture the main universe Dick Grayson to fulfill his wish to see Dick Grayson again. Stand literature belongs to this.

However, in this chaotic mental space of personality battles, a version of Dick Grayson's personality, whose origins are unknown, suddenly appeared out of nowhere, leaving both Night Owl and Foolish Owl stunned.

"What???"

The Bat Who Laughs was equally surprised. Although he was fighting with the other two Laughing Personalities, he wasn't completely blind and didn't notice Night Owl and Foolish Owl at all.

He initially thought it was a good thing that the two owls had started fighting, saving him some trouble. However, as the two bat-like personalities were fighting, a Nightwing suddenly appeared beside them, catching him completely off guard.

This isn't just a matter of personality; the problem is that things suddenly took a turn that the Batman Who Laughs couldn't understand or anticipate. Where did Nightwing's personality come from? How did he suddenly appear?
He had long known that Batman Dragon would have a backup plan. Even when he saw those four personalities emerge in front of him, the Batman Who Laughs could only deal with them calmly. Because once the opponent played a card, all he needed to do was figure out how to counter it, which was the least of his worries.

But now it's different. The other party pulled out a card, but he didn't know where that card was.

The maniac was ignoring the two maniac personalities; he was trying to figure out where Nightwing came from and what was going on.
He quickly figured it out without even having to lift a finger.

He saw Nightwing raise his head, his body suddenly riddled with holes from Uzi submachine gun fire, like a ghost that, even after becoming a demon, retains its appearance from life but still occasionally flashes with the deathly image of its final moments. Then, this deathly image vanished in an instant, as if he had never existed. The Nightwing personality returned to its completely normal self, Nightwing wearing a blue uniform and carrying two short sticks on his back.

Just like...

Just like Nightwing Dick Grayson, Batman's beloved eldest son, in the Batman Who Laughs's memories when he was still Batman. No, he's alive. He lives in the Batman Who Laughs's heart, like a ghost from the past, wandering once more in the Batman Who Laughs's world, bewildered, breathing, running, shouting, wailing.

He might shout and laugh maniacally once again.

Bruce, Bruce.

In short, it seems that Nightwing's memories are still stuck in time. He looked up blankly.

"Where am I?"

He stared blankly at the present moment.

“I… Bruce, wait, I remember now, Bruce has been controlled by the Laughter virus! I have to save him! He…”

damn it.

The Batman Who Laughs remained unmoved. He had killed his Bat-family once, and even if they were resurrected and appeared before him, he would kill them a second time without hesitation. Did Batman Dragon think this would shake his resolve? Absolutely not.

What bothered him wasn't Nightwing's appearance, but rather the fact that it proved Batman Dragon had planted a hidden trap in his mind that he hadn't noticed. What was it? He didn't know, damn it, he didn't know. It was like a thorn in his side.

In a corner of the mental space that the Batman Who Laughs could never find, the seed writhed desperately. It had just produced a created personality, but Bruce Wayne, protected at its core, remained elusive. The seed had to temporarily abandon its plan to immediately create Bruce Wayne and, as if alive, rapidly began to nurture a new humanoid form… Alfred, the old butler.

In production...

(End of this chapter)