What bad thoughts can Batman have?

Chapter 988 The Alfred Protocol of the Laughing Bat is in effect.

No one could figure out who this Nightwing Dick Grayson, who had appeared in the Batman Who Laughs's mental world, really was.

To put it more rationally, Nightwing should be the culmination of all of the Batman Who Laughs' memories of Dick Grayson. This personality was created entirely based on the Batman Who Laughs' memories of the real Nightwing.

The Nightwing that the Batman Who Laughs once truly possessed.

But... really?

Can we really be so sure?
Can we really be so sure that the Nightwing before us is just a phantom of the past, rather than a chance to start over?

The Bat of Laughter, who calculates everything, could you have foreseen today's scene?
The Bat of Laughter could not, but his heart was already as hard as stone.

Even when he was killing the entire bat family, he was laughing maniacally.

The distance between Bruce and the Batman Who Laughs is just a glass of water.

On that day, Bruce, who was about to be transformed, began to realize that he might not be able to stop the arrival of the Batman Who Laughs. Therefore, he tried to gather the entire Bat-family to stop him. He already had a plan to fight the Batman Who Laughs, even if the plan ended with his death. But Batman always has a plan.

He was ready; every member of the bat family would return to the bat cave, he thought. But halfway through his thought, he got up to drink a glass of water. After he finished the water, he… he was transformed.

The old Bruce Wayne vanished, and an evil personality was born within him. The history of the trans-timeline was reshaped at that moment, stretching towards an infinitely extending and terrifying future. That was the origin of the Batman Who Laughs, and the beginning of tragedy.

“No…” Nightwing Dick Grayson clutched his head as he recalled everything.

"No!"

Night Owl's heart pounded, even though he knew he was now merely a personality within the Batman Who Laughs's consciousness, without a real heart. But unlike when he was trapped in Foolish Owl's body, he was now an independent personality, no longer indistinguishable from Foolish Owl.

He could now attempt to escape. The extraordinary powers the Batman Who Laughs had borrowed from various gods and monsters could now be used by him. From the moment he saw Dick, Night Owl decided to take him with him out of the Batman Who Laughs's mental space, to regain a physical body, and to live as an independent individual in the real world.

So he immediately grabbed Nightwing, who was trying to rush up and subdue the Batman Who Laughs.

"Don't be silly, do you think you can defeat the Batman Who Laughs?"

He grabbed the other person: "Let's escape from here together. While the Bat of Laughter is too busy to deal with us, as long as we reach the edge of this spiritual world, we can temporarily take control of this body. Even a few dozen seconds is enough to find a living creature and then infuse our personality into it."

"What, no!"

His proposal was, unsurprisingly, rejected outright by Nightwing.

Night Owl felt slightly dizzy as he saw the Dick in front of him slowly overlap with the stubborn Dick in his memory.

This is Dick Grayson, who will always love himself but will never listen to himself. He is no longer the young child who used to follow behind him.

He had his own life and pursuits, his own love and goals worth fighting for. Night Owl heard Dick Grayson say, "I need your help. Whoever you are, we must stop Bruce."

The owl remained silent for a moment.

Don't you know who I am?

"You must be a superhero, or at least an anti-hero, right?"

Night Owl looked into Dick Grayson's eyes.

Yes. Perhaps not every dark multiverse experienced an Earth-3 invasion.

The Batman Who Laughs universe has never been experienced, so Nightwing has never seen Night Owl. Night Owl has never appeared in Dick's world. After many years, the old friend is not recognized in person. It seems like an old friend, but it is not him. Night Owl cannot say a word, but remains coldly silent.

The foolish owl wanted to say something.

For him, confronting the Batman Who Laughs was also his objective. But Foolish Owl was quite certain that the other would knock Dick Grayson unconscious and force him to leave with him—that was how Night Owl operated. Why was he so certain? Because Foolish Owl was Night Owl himself! They came from the same source.

"it is good."

The Foolish Owl suddenly looked at the Night Owl, and he even thought he had misheard.

The Batman Who Laughs also noticed their conversation. His heart sank. For the Batman Who Laughs, the worst-case scenario had already been achieved in a few words after Nightwing Dick Grayson appeared.

The only one who could help him restrain the Foolish Owl, Night Owl, surrendered immediately upon seeing Nightwing. In fact, The Laughing Bat didn't care about Night Owl's escape. If the other party was smart enough to leave his body, he wouldn't even bother to hunt him down. Night Owl never had a place in The Laughing Bat's plans.

He's nothing more than a ridiculous personality who suffered a mental breakdown after being defeated by Batman, lost his own body, and degenerated from the main personality into a mere spectator of the body; he's not worth mentioning at all.

Even now, with the Joker holding his nose and teaming up with the Emperor Joker, the Batman Who Laughs doesn't take him seriously. Sooner or later, he can break down each personality one by one and then tear them to shreds.

But Nightwing is different.

People like Joker or Emperor Joker are just outsiders.

But Nightwing Dick Grayson wasn't. Wait, what's different? Why did he feel such terror?
The Bat Who Laughs' eyes widened as a memory suddenly appeared in his mind. It was a memory he had actively blocked in the past, vanishing from his mind like smoke, completely unnoticed even when he instinctively killed the entire bat family.

The Batman Who Laughs finally realizes that before his complete transformation, he had devised a plan to deal with himself; every Batman prepares a plan to counter him. And interestingly, Batmen often manage to ensure that even they themselves cannot thwart this plan…

For example, Failure Insurer is an all-purpose robot created by the main universe Batman to eliminate Batman after discovering that the main universe Batman had broken the no-kill rule, in order to prevent Batman from going astray.

So...yes. Before being completely transformed, the Batman Who Laughs had prepared a plan for himself, a contingency plan in case he was transformed by the Joker virus. The plan was codenamed:

Alfred Protocol.

The Batman Who Laughs, clutching his head, didn't even have time to pay attention to the Emperor Joker and the Joker Man he had been dominating. After he stopped attacking, he finally had a moment to catch his breath. Deep in his mind, he saw, with a mixture of shock and rage, the pre-transformation Batman, Bruce Wayne, standing in front of a mirror, his face ashen, wiping away the white powder and the sharp smiley face he had somehow painted on his face with lipstick. The Batman Who Laughs recognized that makeup; it was the manifestation of his own immature, pre-transformation Batman from before his complete birth.

Then he saw the image of Batman, Bruce Wayne, put down the basin and look at himself in the mirror.

He said, enunciating each word clearly, "You will never succeed. I will defeat you because I am Batman, and Batman never fails, cannot fail."

The Batman Who Laughs felt a chill run down his spine. He gazed at his pre-transformation self through his memories, realizing he had to confront an enemy called "himself"—nothing could be more terrifying. Even more frightening was the fact that he had no prior memory of this. The pre-transformation Batman seemed to have foreseen the potentially wicked consequences of his transformation, and thus preemptively deleted these plans specifically designed to counter his transformed self from his mind. This was why the Batman Who Laughs was completely unaware of it until now.

The Batman Who Laughs... or rather, the Batman before his transformation, after realizing he couldn't resist the Joker virus, planned to gather the entire Bat-family to watch over him and subdue him at any time, and then activate the device that could implant Batman's memories.

Bruce knew that the Joker virus was causing irreversible damage to all the cells in his body, so he planned to gradually replace all the transformed cells with his own healthy cells.

The entire Bat-family will use a memory cloning machine to create a copy of their own memories within the already transformed Batman Who Laughs, and then infuse it with Batman's own memories.

Batman has attempted to create numerous clones of himself, but those clones ultimately failed due to their inability to withstand Batman's memories.

Before his transformation, Batman was unsure if he could handle it all, but he had no other choice.

The core of the Alfred Protocol is that, before his transformation, Batman was well aware that the Joker virus infection was irreversible and that the mental pollution was continuous.

Once infected with the Joker virus, the transformation towards evil is like a gushing fountain of venom, constantly polluting the clear pond of Batman. Even if one can resist the pollution with strong willpower for a time, as long as this venomous fountain continues, no matter how powerful, one cannot resist it forever.

Perhaps replacing all the cells in the body with cloned cells could solve the problem, but what if it can't?
The memory clones of the entire Bat family are meant to increase the water content of the "Batman" pond in order to slow down the contamination, while replacing all the cells in his body is an attempt to stop the poisonous spring from spreading further. However, he must consider the possibility that replacing all the cells in his body might not be effective.

Therefore, the Alfred Protocol is the ultimate answer.

Once the Bat Family's memory clone is created within his mind, the entire Alfred Protocol begins to function:

A true reverse contamination procedure.

"damn it!"

The Laughing Bat had fully recalled the meal he had prepared for himself, and his face was ashen.

If he had killed Nightwing the moment he appeared, there might have been room for maneuver, but now…

[WARNING! WARNING! The Alfred Protocol is now in effect!]

He laughed wildly, covering his head. From his perspective, a silver font that only he could see appeared below his retina, constantly updating.

[Synchronizing... The Bat Who Laughs! Warning! Error! Error! The Alfred Protocol is in effect!]

"roll!"

The Laughing Bat roared, and the Alfred Agreement vanished instantly, though it was likely only a temporary expulsion.

He charged toward Nightwing, who was not far away, only to find everyone blocking his way.

The maniacal laughter subsided slightly.

“Each of you is nothing more than a tool that Batman Dragon forcibly shoved into my body in an attempt to stop me. Batman Dragon treats you as tools, you are just weapons to be used and discarded, and you are all separate personalities, not a real person. I can give you a chance to regain your human form.”

He laughed wildly as he spoke.

He turned to look at Night Owl: "I've retrieved your complete universe from the trans-timeline. You no longer need the fake. I can resurrect your Claw Dick Grayson. Isn't that what you wanted?"

He turned to look at Joker: "A perfect world where Owl will never run amok again, and there is no Superman. Your world is not a fake; it was taken from the timeline. How about this deal? The first Lantern Man has spent his whole life trying to find the real Earth-15, but now you have the chance to find your true home and reverse your fate of death."

He spoke quickly, extending an olive branch to the Foolish Owl: "What do you want, Foolish Owl? What do you want? A fair and perfect world?"

But everyone remained silent.

"Hey, wait a minute, what about me?" the Emperor Joker said with some dissatisfaction. "I've never heard of such a thing before. If we're trying to reconcile, why can't I be one of them? Do I look like such an unapproachable person?"

The laughing bat ignored him.

Nightwing Dick Grayson took a deep breath.

“I will save you, Bruce. I will restore you to your original state. I… I can already feel it. This is the plan you devised before you were transformed, and it is now in my mind.”

The Batman Who Laughs is consumed by rage. No one can stand against the Batman Who Laughs except himself. No one understands the Batman Who Laughs, except himself. To the Batman Who Laughs, his own plans pose a far greater threat than Batman Dragon's preparations. But now he at least has one chance, if only he can end Nightwing…

They stood in a standoff for a while, then the Batman Who Laughs stepped forward, only to be blocked by everyone, even the grinning Emperor Joker.

Then they spoke in hushed tones together.

"I will never let you hurt him!"

"Good good..."

The Laughing Bat took a deep breath.

Things had completely spiraled out of his control, and perhaps he would have to pay a price... and suppress all these chaotic personalities.

Deep within his heart, the seed still glowed with light at this moment, as the Alfred Protocol was generated... Alfred suddenly opened his eyes.

(End of this chapter)