In a spacious and somewhat dim room, damp water droplets condense on the stone walls. Hundreds of candles are fixed on the walls at different heights. Huge silk ribbons fall from the towering ceiling and leave intertwined shadows on the ground.
A huge conference table is placed in the center of the room. At this time, several people wearing masks are sitting on both sides of the round table, watching a picture on a screen.
This is the meeting room of the Court of Owls.
The Court of Owls is a mysterious organization in DC comics. It has been active in this city since the beginning of Gotham. In some comic versions, it is described as an organization that has been maintained by the founders of Gotham or their descendants and is the king of darkness in Gotham.
Of course, there are more comic versions that design more conspiracies for this organization. For example, Gotham's Court of Owls actually belongs to the world-class Owl Council, and the Owl Council is an organization under the dark god Barbatos.
But in any case, this organization has existed in Gotham for a long time and has been manipulating this city in secret.
The members of the Court of Owls will only gather together for conspiracies about Gotham City. This time is no exception.
Of course, this was their original purpose, but now the situation is different. Or to put it another way, when they saw a huge black monster jumping out from the monitoring equipment on Claw's belt, the nature of the entire story changed completely.
And the speed and impact of this change really exceeded everyone's expectations.
During this period of change in Gotham City, the Court of Owls was not without attention. But the problem is that any organization with a parliamentary nature needs to go through a series of discussions and member statements when deciding on something. The Court of Owls is no exception. In response to recent changes in Gotham City, they need to investigate, obtain evidence, analyze and then vote.Yes, this damn evil organization is still damn rigorous and its efficiency in handling cases is much stronger than that of Gotham Police Department.
In any case, after a period of reaction, the Court of Owls finally found the behind-the-scenes black hand of this change in Gotham from the clues.
The Court of Owls is actually not worried about this change in Gotham because this city has not actually developed in a better direction. No one wants to save this city from the root. On the contrary, it has brought huge benefits to this city. This is actually in line with the interests of the Court of Owls.
What they cannot accept is that someone is more accurately manipulating and influencing this city in a darker place than they are. Once such people appear, the Court of Owls must eliminate them.
So Claw found his target, which was the seemingly unremarkable university professor Schiller Rodriguez.
Originally everything went smoothly and the Court of Owls also felt that they would continue to strangle one opponent after another in their infancy as before. But all this began to change from the appearance of that black monster.
It is not surprising that the Court of Owls installed monitoring equipment on Claw. They were originally a conspiracy organization that monitored the entire city. But they never expected that the next drama would directly shatter everyone's three views and fundamentally change the purpose of this meeting.
At this time, Schiller, who was still entangled with the Venom bat, also felt a bit tricky. The battle between symbiotes is not like what he has seen in movies before, where two giant monsters beat each other.
As a factor creature, the battle between symbiotes mostly occurs on a microscopic level, that is, they devour each other's symbiote factors. This is like changing from a one-on-one duel to a legion battle.
Schiller is not incapable of fighting this kind of battle, but he is facing a frenzied dark bat. The Venom bat doesn't care how many symbiote factors he will lose. He just attacks frantically and wants to bite more from the mist.
It's impossible to talk about tactics with such a crazy enemy. Defense will only make you lose more. So Schiller had to start attacking frantically too. The two symbiotes began to devour each other fearlessly.
This kind of battle has no fire or sound at all. Everything is shrouded in a mysterious and silent atmosphere. Visible things gradually become invisible in this crazy mutual devouring. The pulling of slime and mist makes all this look more like a battle between light and shadow. Under the silent appearance, there are screams, chaos and frenzied battles that ordinary people cannot see.
But the Court of Owls are not ordinary people. They do have some dark powers that ordinary people do not have.
Therefore, when facing this silent and noisy battle directly, the Court of Owls who have never seen symbiotes can only understand it as a higher-level mystical performance within their own worldview.
This kind of battle that occurs on an invisible level makes it easier for them to associate it with the source of some dark power. Unlike ordinary people, the Court of Owls can realize that this world is not as simple and peaceful as it seems. They know that there are more great and dark powers peering at everything in the universe.
The form of Venom Bat and Mist Schiller is really too easy to associate with some transcendent dimensional demons.
The huge black bat carries terrifying dark power. Even through the screen, you can see the huge black tide surging from Batman's dark side. Just looking at it makes people feel suffocated and fearful as if being strangled.
And Schiller, the huge sun rising from the gray mist, looks like a black hole devouring everything. Those weird and bizarre mist patterns add a solemnity full of religious ritual sacredness to the weird and absurd. It is really hard not to associate it with something.
The infinite possibilities demonstrated by the unique symbiote race make the changes of these two people look completely unpremeditated.
In fact, the Court of Owls' judgment is not wrong. The symbiote race itself was born from a cosmic demon, and the two fighting now are both outstanding among the symbiote race.
If possible, please allow Schiller to introduce a special enthusiastic netizen to the Court of Owls-
The oldest of the seventh universe, cosmic Satan, lord of the abyss, emperor in black, master of All-Black Necrosword, beheader of Skyfather group, stepfather of Gorr the God Butcher, Thor's godly friend, Thanos' headache generator, ultimate nightmare of three cosmic empires- Knull, God of Symbiotes.
Okay, although the story of Knull mentioned earlier sounds a bit weak, in fact this demon who forged All-Black Necrosword is not low in level among Marvel Universe demons and his record can also be ranked. His special descendants may not be counted as independent cosmic demons but at least they are direct relatives.
You know that in this era most famous villains have not fully debuted yet let alone those demons beyond Earth's level. But this battle between these two people seems to have suddenly skipped countless levels of power and directly changed the level of battle from street fighting to cosmic events.
Can the Court of Owls not be shocked?
So the theme of this meeting changed from whether or not to interfere with Gotham to whether or not to evacuate Gotham.
After all they were unaware of this change and didn't even know why Batman whom they had been monitoring closely suddenly became like this. They also didn't know what would be the result of this battle? Will Gotham be destroyed? Will the entire earth be destroyed?
But at least they were sure that before figuring out why Batman and this professor suddenly jumped from an ordinary person living on the ground to a cosmic demon it is best not to take any drastic actions.
And what makes them even more worried is that these two people's changes are too sudden without any warning. The Court of Owls did not find that this city was invaded by any mysterious power.
If these demons are organized and have infected many people in Gotham who knows how many such people there will be in Gotham City?
In case they send out Claw poke one and explode one poke one and explode one. By then there will be a bunch of cosmic demons stuffed in Gotham City. What can their Court of Owls play!?
If every citizen in Gotham has this combat power then Court of Owls won't even have a chance to run home crying while holding Barbatos' thigh.
Originally Schiller brought Venom to DC because he had seen Venom fill Eddie's aging bones and nervous system in comics. He thought maybe Venom could use the same method to treat Mr. Freeze's wife but before he could do so Venom ran onto Batman on his own.
Batman is not something that can be parasitized by anything. You are a stinky outsider from Marvel who wants to come to our Gotham for food?
Thinking like this, Schiller found that the offensive on the opposite side seemed to have weakened. The gray mist passed another building again. Schiller converged his figure and stood on the edge of the highest building roof and looked down.
The black bat made of slime suddenly began to fly crookedly as if he was fighting with himself and was pulled by an invisible force.
In the mind of the black bat, another battle became more intense.
Wave after wave of black tide covered the sky and the earth. Bruce's own personality consciousness was like a lone boat in a storm, shaky.
Even Bruce himself never thought that his dark side would be so terrible.
And fighting alongside him was the miserable consciousness of Venom. He still didn't understand how he had poked a hornet's nest again.
After barely resisting another wave of black tide, Bruce said to Venom: "Aren't you claiming to be an alien?!!! Why is your will so fragile?!!!"
Venom was almost angry to death. Is it my will that is fragile? Why do you humans like to create so many storms in your minds?
Extreme survival in the world of consciousness, right?
Venom was really wronged. When he first debuted, his first host was Deadpool.
Deadpool's brain is simply like being stirred by a few thousand revolutions of an eggbeater. He can grow anywhere but not his brain.
Venom swam like a butterfly in a cesspit. Although Deadpool's brain is not dangerous it is just disgusting especially disgusting.
Venom was driven crazy by him. Finally he stayed with ordinary people for a while but couldn't resist the temptation and ran onto Stark.
Stark's brain is not chaotic but this damn bad guy has an average of more than 3,000 thunderstorms in his brain every day. Tornadoes and sandstorms blow so much that he doesn't even recognize his mother. Venom's brain was almost lifted off.
At that time when Venom was shocked out of Stark's body he had a sense of relief from escaping from death.
Then he was locked in a jar for a long time and finally found an opportunity to run out. Venom was still happy because when he entered Bruce's body he found that this seemed to be a rich second generation with a good brain and his brain didn't seem to turn as fast as Stark's. Instead his brain was full of irrelevant data such as ward beds and prison cells.
Venom who yearned for a happy life thought he had happily drilled into an egg. Just as he drooled at the yolk and prepared to swallow it in one bite this egg hatched a Tyrannosaurus Rex with a click and Venom's head was almost bitten off.
From his own genetic information Venom can know that the universe is so big that humans are not the only race. Why is he so unlucky? Why did he just fall on Earth?
How can humans be so outrageous? If one day he can also write the gene bank of symbiotes he must tell all his compatriots: stay away from humans, safety first find hosts irregularly, symbiotes two lines of tears.
But grievances are grievances and complaints are complaints. The battle still has to be fought. Venom said to Bruce: "I can stimulate your emotions. You must have an extreme emotion now to suppress this dark emotion."
Thanks to Stark, Venom's logic system comes from this genius cursed by knowledge. His thinking is now very clear, even clearer than Bruce's. After all, Bruce is confused by the authorities, but Venom is very clear.
To defeat this dark emotion from the dark side, Bruce must arouse enough positive emotions.
"What are you waiting for? Let's get started." Bruce said.
"The problem is that I can't find your positive emotions!!!" Venom roared: "Where did you hide them?!! Hurry up and turn them out!!! That's our life-saving straw!!!"
Venom was hit by the black tide again and said a little collapsed: "What's there to hide!! You stupid humans!!!"
Bruce opened his mouth, he didn't know how to answer Venom's question. It sounded ridiculous, but even an alien creature that could peek into people's hearts couldn't find his positive emotions.
"You have to hurry up!" Venom's tone at this time was very similar to Stark's, obviously this genius had a great influence on him.
"Your dark emotions seem to contain some other power. Once it erupts completely, your hometown, the city where we are now, will definitely be completely destroyed! Nothing will be left!"
Bruce pursed his lips and dodged the attack of dark consciousness again.
Destroy Gotham? This may sound crazy but it makes sense.
This crazy city should have been destroyed long ago.
What is there to miss?
The face of Alfred appeared in his mind. He remembered the expression of the old butler when he sat in front of the sickbed and thought of him wiping the old phone alone in the dark living room while humming pleasant tunes.
This did not surprise Bruce. If he still had only one person in this city who had any nostalgia, it must be his butler Alfred.
If there was only one place that made him feel nostalgic, it would be Wayne Manor where Alfred was.
Soon. His memory began to blur as if he had returned to Wayne Manor. He pushed open a door like any normal morning. But what surprised him was that behind this door was Gotham's dark rainy alley.
Detective Gordon called him a tight-fitting monster for the first time. They worked together on a case, investigated and tracked down. Then the detective in a trench coat and the bat in a cape were on the roof of Gotham Police Station.
They talked about justice and talked about the future of this city. When it was already late at night, Batman turned around and left. When he returned to the manor, between the swaying yellow candlelight, an old friend was already waiting for him.
Batman and Harvey sat on the sofa and they talked about many things as if they had endless topics. They talked like good teachers and friends. Bruce was already vague about those truths he spoke but that tacit understanding between exchanges was still very clear.
Soon he shuttled through Gotham's high-rise buildings and kissed Catwoman passionately falling into a dreamy dream. Those thrown dance gauze curtains knocked over wine glasses spilled wine every gentle and crazy night those let a bat cold body temperature dyed with passionate kisses those passionate lovers who made him fascinated told him stories about jewels and castles that Batman would never be interested in, but in memory he listened very seriously but in his opinion Catwoman's eyes were brighter than the gems she described with all her vocabulary.
The sound of the pen falling on the paper rustled, and Bruce seemed to have returned to an exam scene.
He watched his classmates scratching their heads and cheeks on the exam site, perhaps feeling amazed or helpless. Then he painted murals with those people and watched the black paint flow down the wall, spontaneously forming some mysterious patterns he had never seen before, like a door to a time machine.
He passed through this door and time flew forward at a rapid pace. In his dreamlike memory, he gradually advanced to the present and then began to retreat rapidly.
All people and things returned to their original positions like a rewound movie until they returned to where a black sun rose.
He heard a familiar voice say to him: "Welcome to Gotham." Venom watched as the consciousness space began to tremble and intense light shone through some broken cracks.
He cursed secretly and quickly began to thread needles in Bruce's emotions, trying to guide these fragmented positive emotions together. A little bit of light gradually rose and then gathered into a more dazzling light ball.
The black tide's counterattack became more fierce, like black ink soaking the entire world. A black ocean began to spread in the consciousness space with surging waves covering the sky. Bruce, who had already been separated from the memory space, floated above the black tide.
Through layers of black waves, he saw that at the deepest part of this black ocean lay a curled up little boy. That was him, Bruce Wayne. Soon Schiller saw the huge bat made of mucus fall to the ground.
The mucus began to slowly recover and then all retracted into Bruce's body. Schiller jumped off the roof and stood in front of Bruce. Bruce got up from the ground or rather Venom was now controlling his body.
"How did you get out?"
"You have to ask that woman who ran into your house and stole that jar." The woman who stole the jar? Schiller thought there was only one female thief in Gotham who had this ability. Could it be Catwoman?
"I shouldn't have listened to Stark's nonsense." Schiller said: "He told me that his symbiote must live in a mansion worthy of the world's richest man's identity so he used his strange instruments to make a diamond jar and assured me that it was both beautiful and practical."
"Then I have to thank him." In an instant, black mucus erupted again but this time Venom became its original form which was a big mouth full of fangs and a bright red tongue. "How did you get on Batman?"
"Don't you think it's too slow to communicate in human ways? Don't waste my time." Venom said.
"Your tone reminds me of a very annoying guy." Venom split out a sticky tentacle and the gray mist slowly dispersed a cloud of mist. The moment the symbiote factors touched each other they exchanged countless information.
The mist in his mind said to Schiller: "…a woman with cat ears…just like that car…the necessary process of human reproduction…not allowed to see…he can't figure it out either…"
"Okay, I know…" Schiller covered his forehead, he already knew what was going on, he said: "Don't tell me the details, Bruce deserves it."
Then Venom grinned with that big mouth and said: "You can't catch me anymore! Hahahaha! I'm free!! I'm going to eat everyone's brains here!! I…"
"I said before that before considering eating, you may still have trouble to deal with…" Venom was about to answer him when he felt his consciousness suppressed again in an instant. He roared unwillingly: "No! Damn humans! Rotten people!!"
But in the end, the slime retreated back into his body. Bruce shook his head and said, "Did it work? What's going on?"
"You should ask the rice bucket inside you."
"I'm not talking about that. He's already told me who he is and what he wants to do. I mean…" Bruce covered his head in pain and said, "Why did I lose control? What's going on with those terrible negative emotions? Why…where does that darkness come from?"
"It seems you've discovered it," Schiller said. "The darkness lurking in your body is very terrifying. Although it has never lost control before, once it does, you could destroy everything."
"What is it?"
"That's Batman. Don't you know?"
"Batman? Then who am I? No…no…impossible!" Bruce covered his eyes and squatted down. He knelt on the ground in great pain and said, "Impossible…I am Batman…I am Batman…"
"You thought you had become another you, but in fact, this is just an appearance." Schiller's thoughts began to drift away.
He gradually recalled the Batman he had met in those comics. His voice also began to sound more and more ethereal.
He said: "Batman? You are somewhat different from him. Indeed, he does not blindly pursue darkness."
"He is the ultimate darkness and the ultimate light. He holds this incurable city with the ultimate darkness and then uses light to prevent the destruction that this ultimate darkness may bring." This sounded more like a sigh from Schiller. Bruce's voice was full of exhaustion.
He said: "I thought I didn't need those. I am the avenger in the night. I don't need any useless emotions that might shake my beliefs. I am not that ridiculous Bruce, that powerless, unable to save and change anything, little Bruce…" For the first time, Schiller heard such obvious trembling in his tone.
Bruce's tone had almost trembled to the point where he could not finish the last complete word, or perhaps he was unwilling to say it. This was the first time he spoke of what he had been avoiding - that night, those two gunshots, those two people lying in a pool of blood, and that powerless little boy named Bruce Wayne.
He thought that little Bruce was buried forever that night. So when he realized that he still had unrealistic fantasies about the world and the pleasant memories of the movie that night, just like that little boy, it was as if all the hatred and effort driven by hatred over the years were like self-deception and escape.
Facing the little boy who lost his parents brought Schiller more intense emotional fluctuations than facing Batman. For the first time, he no longer gave advice like a bystander, but really said like advice: "…even Gotham has daylight."
Bruce's Adam's apple moved. He took a deep breath, as if suddenly injected with some vitality. He stood up, trembling a little. The cold wind of Gotham's night blew on his bat armor, bringing tremors that no one could hear. He limped a little and slowly walked to the edge of the roof. Standing there, he saw a glimmer of light on the skyline of Gotham City. A golden line, like opening up the sky and the earth, cut through the thick darkness. Bruce had never seen Gotham's sunrise. He suddenly discovered that even in such a dark and gloomy city, at the moment when the sun rises, the light that breaks through the darkness is still a brilliant brilliance he has never seen before.
The darker it is, the more shocking the light is.
Bruce closed his eyes and slowly gathered the fingers of one hand, as if holding the light that cut through the darkness. Soon, Bruce took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The brilliance of the sun was contained in his eyes. The arc of light on the horizon left a dazzling golden color in his pupils.
No one knew that he had briefly seen the little boy lying under the black tide in his consciousness space. Until he saw him, Bruce understood that he always regarded those happy memories as rewards for his painful life.
Therefore, whenever he got a little happiness, he always wanted to repay it with ten times the pain. He was so eager to escape these happy memories, just like instinctively avoiding pain. To become Batman, he had to accept not only pain and darkness but also that he had always been that little boy.
He had been looking forward to that movie and longing for those lights. Just like that dark night many years ago, without expectation of light, there would never be a desire to merge into darkness. "Who am I?" He whispered: "Who am I?" The dawn light will not answer him, but he already has an answer in his heart. He said: "I am Bruce Wayne…"
"I am Batman…" His tone began to become gentle: "…I am, Batman."
A silent and heavy oath fell in his heart, like a heavy stele, standing tall under the scouring of the black tide. From today on, there will only be one Batman in this dark city.
He is Bruce Wayne and he is Batman. From today on, he will bear the dark power from this crazy city of Gotham and then hold a blade of light like dawn. He will stand above this living hell. The cold wind cannot penetrate his armor and the flames cannot melt his heart. He will have no rules and fear no guilt. With dawn as the boundary and dawn as the signal, he will be in darkness with his heart towards the light and always towards the light. Bruce thought he would be Gotham's dawn. He will be - Batman.
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