Dr. Otto had chosen not to report what was happening on South Brother Island to Batman at this moment because, as early as the dinosaur invasion, he already knew that four Gamma monsters lay dormant inside the Batcave.
Rather than just appearing as a projection and using his words to entice them into leaving with him, Dr. Otto firmly believed that Loki's actual target was most likely those dormant Gamma monsters.
However, the movements on South Brother Island had always been under Batman's absolute control. Even without Dr. Otto speaking up, Batman had already known the moment it happened.
Matching Dr. Otto's assessment, Batman also believed that Loki's target was the Gamma monsters.
Therefore, carrying Black Widow along while relying on long-distance leaps and glides, Batman headed straight for the Manhattan City Hall Batcave without a single moment of hesitation.
Dropping Black Widow off on a random skyscraper, Batman unleashed his full speed. Clad in his Gargoyle Batsuit, he practically transformed into a blurry shadow of interwoven black-purple and eerie blue as he charged toward Manhattan.
Thud!
When Batman finally arrived at the City Hall Batcave, the projection of Loki present here was currently pressing his hand against the massive head of the Leader, Samuel Sterns, muttering incantations under his breath.
"Hmm? You're even faster than I imagined." Seeing Batman's arrival, Loki behaved entirely as if he were the master of the Batcave.
He stood up, spreading his arms in a welcoming gesture toward Batman.
Behind him, the young Green Goblin, Harry Osborn; the Abomination, Blonsky; the Leader, Samuel Sterns; and the Red Hulk, General Ross, stood up one after another.
As they rose together, the dimly lit second underground level of the Batcave instantly became incredibly oppressive, as if plummeting straight from the mortal realm into hell.
"A pity. If you were just a moment later, these four would have been entirely at my disposal." Loki seemed completely unafraid of revealing his motives to Batman.
He shook his head and sighed, watching Batman shift his footing to adjust his positioning, as if finding it somewhat amusing:
"In the prophecies I know of, you are the second greatest obstacle to my rule over the Nine Realms. It seems the prophecies were indeed accurate."
Batman said nothing, warily watching this figure who had never shown his true face but had been pulling the strings from the shadows all along.
"From Wakanda to tonight, your paranoia always allows you to find a loophole. But now, I think I know how to deal with you." Loki's figure slowly receded.
His form passed right through General Ross, gradually dissolving into thin air:
"Deal with the trouble at hand first, Batman."
The Loki in the City Hall Batcave was shockingly yet another projection, not his true body at all.
After he vanished, Blonsky and General Ross exchanged a look. The two shared a sinister chuckle, their bodies expanding into towering, hulking statures one after the other.
Once again, they transformed into the Abomination and the Red Hulk.
Harry Osborn, the young Green Goblin, split his mouth into a grin, revealing a maw full of sharp, blackish-yellow teeth:
"We meet again, Pet... Batman."
The Leader quietly took a step back, leaning against the wall at the edge of the Batcave's second level, raising a hand to press against his own head.
Back at the New Mexico base, the Leader had already learned that his mind control was useless against Batman. Therefore, the ones he was attempting to control right now were not Batman, but the three before him.
In the blink of an eye, the Red Hulk and the Abomination were brought under his control.
However, an issue arose with Harry Osborn. After being injected with a whopping two liters of stimulants—a dosage high enough to kill an ordinary person from pure volume—Harry Osborn's persona had completely fused with the Green Goblin persona.
His mind was in such utter chaos that the Leader actually failed to control him immediately.
"Hmm? You want to control me!" The young Green Goblin's eyes flared.
Moving swiftly, he closed the distance to the Leader, slammed a heavy hand onto his head, and forced it toward the wall.
With the Green Goblin's strength, this strike should have been enough to smash the Leader's head straight into the wall.
Yet in reality, the impact merely caused the Leader's head to bump against the wall, failing to cause even the slightest injury.
"Where is my strength?" A flash of fury crossed Harry's face. He looked down at his own hands, only to be grabbed and hurled away by the Abomination and the Red Hulk, who were under the Leader's control.
Batman shifted his stance, caught the airborne Green Goblin, and set him down on the ground.
"What did you do to me? Where is my strength?" The young Green Goblin reached out to grab the collar of Batman's suit, but since the suit didn't actually have a collar, he had to settle for grabbing the cape instead.
However, Batman firmly seized his wrist, preventing him from succeeding.
By the same token, with the usual strength of the Red Hulk and the Abomination, throwing the Green Goblin just now should have whipped up a violent gale and slammed him heavily into Batman.
Yet not only had the Green Goblin's strength reverted to that of an ordinary human, but even the might of the two behemoths had significantly degraded.
They were stronger than an ordinary heavyweight, but only marginally so.
Now, even the Leader realized something was amiss. Sweeping his gaze around, he quickly discovered a faint, almost imperceptible green mist permeating the second level of the Batcave. It was precisely this green mist that was causing their strength to drain.
When Batman had locked the four Gamma monsters in the second level of the Batcave, he had long anticipated what would happen if they woke up. Consequently, this area was constantly blanketed by an aerosolized Gamma suppressant.
However, the Leader had noticed it a bit too late. By the time he realized their draining strength was caused by the Gamma suppressant, Batman had already lunged to the side of the Abomination and the Red Hulk.
Compared to these two-to-three-meter-tall giants, Batman's frame was clearly much shorter, yet the ensuing scene was bizarrely striking.
Standing between the Red Hulk and the Abomination, the relatively small Batman wrapped his arms around each of their thick necks. At the same time, he kicked away the lunging Leader. Just like that, he choked out the two titans—who were supposed to wreak absolute havoc upon waking—into unconsciousness through sheer force.
Harry Osborn, however, had no desire to watch this play out. With a sinister grin plastered across his face, he took advantage of the moment when Batman was grappling with the Abomination and the Red Hulk, leaving the vigilante with no free hands or feet to deal with him, and rapidly retreated.
With this retreat, he backed up all the way to the exit of the Batcave's second level, crossing over to the first level in just a few bounds.
This area was not blanketed by Gamma suppressants; instead, it was filled with Fear Gas.
Under the influence of the Fear Gas, the young Green Goblin hallucinated Harry Osborn sitting on a sofa on the top floor of Oscorp Tower, with his faceless wife and child sitting beside him.
But soon, Batman crashed through the window, slaughtering his wife and child right before his eyes, before tossing the severed head of his father, Norman Osborn, into Harry's lap.
In the next second, before the Green Goblin could even react, Batman removed his mask, revealing the smug, gloating face of Peter Parker.
Leaving Harry locked in a basement to keep company with corpses, Peter Parker sat in the massive penthouse office of Oscorp, immaculately dressed, looking every bit the upstanding, respectable gentleman.
That exact display of a wolf in sheep's clothing instantly turned the eyes of the watching Green Goblin completely blood-red.
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