Gotham was always raining.
Batman blended into the night, standing expressionlessly on a gargoyle statue, gazing at Gotham through the curtain of rain.
This was something he did for three hundred and sixty days out of three hundred and sixty-five in a year, but today, an anomaly occurred.
Without any warning, the world around him spun like a kaleidoscope in rapid rotation, scenes flashing by in a dizzying blur before Batman's eyes like a lantern show.
Catwoman, Harley, Zatanna, Wonder Woman, Talia... moments spent with them in various settings, at different times, for a few hours or entire nights;
Judges taking bribes, bought-off psychiatric evaluators, cops who looked the other way, officials colluding with gangs;
Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Scarecrow... criminals endlessly repeating the cycle of crime, arrest, and escape.
His head throbbed with dizziness from the rapidly flashing scenes, but Batman remained unmoved, secretly heightening his vigilance.
The scenes shifted again: in a cramped, rundown apartment, an unfamiliar old man spoke to Batman in a stern tone:
"If you have the ability to help others, then you have the moral responsibility to help them. This isn't a choice—it's an obligation. With great power comes great responsibility!"
But in the blink of an eye, a gunshot rang out, and the serious old man collapsed in a pool of blood, weakly grasping Batman's hand:
"Peter..."
"Peter!"
A call pulled Batman back to reality. Though it wasn't directed at him, he instinctively looked toward the source of the voice.
It was a middle-aged man wearing a white lab coat, somewhat portly, looking at Batman with a face full of concern, his eyes filled with worry:
"Peter Parker, are you okay?"
Peter Parker?
Batman quickly scanned the middle-aged man up and down, his sharp vision allowing him to read the name on the chest badge of the white coat:
Otto Gunther Octavius.
Who is he?
Questions rose one after another in Batman's mind. When he looked down at himself, he found he wasn't wearing his Kevlar and titanium armor suit, but just an ordinary plaid shirt.
This wasn't the rainy outdoors either, but a brightly lit laboratory.
"Scarecrow's fear toxin? Or Mad Hatter's mind control?"
Batman didn't panic at suddenly finding himself in an unfamiliar environment. He quickly surveyed everything around him:
A clean, bright laboratory, with portraits of famous scientists hanging on the walls, including the one of this Otto Gunther Octavius right in front of him.
Some of the other scientists Batman recognized, like Einstein and Newton, but there were a few he'd never heard of or seen, like Bruce Banner and Hank Pym.
Various experimental apparatuses lined both sides of the lab, and at the front was a large device resembling an inverted octopus, next to a whiteboard covered in calculation formulas.
"Otto, the world-renowned nuclear physicist? Is this device a Tokamak?"
Batman ignored Dr. Octavius, rapidly making judgments in his mind, and turned his gaze to the formulas on the whiteboard.
Wayne Enterprises had once attempted to develop nuclear fusion energy to benefit Gotham.
Unlike Dr. Octavius's small-scale Tokamak device, Wayne Enterprises used a magnetic confinement fusion device, and the scientific formulas applied by the two were completely different.
After Batman halted the nuclear fusion project, he had studied it on his own for a while and was quite familiar with using a Tokamak for nuclear fusion. He noticed that aside from an inconspicuous parameter error on the whiteboard, the rest was flawless.
Though the parameter error led to a deviation in the final calculation results, the existence of the formulas themselves made Batman dismiss the possibility of being in an illusion.
Neither Scarecrow nor Mad Hatter possessed the ability to create knowledge in an illusion that they themselves didn't grasp.
"Peter, you don't seem quite right. I suggest you go home and get a good night's rest, and come back another day."
Seeing that the young man across from him hadn't responded for a while, Dr. Octavius couldn't help but frown, feeling like this guy seemed unreliable.
If it weren't for Harry Osborn, the young master of the Osborn Group, personally recommending him, Dr. Octavius would have kicked him out of the lab long ago.
Before Batman could speak, a sharp sting hit the back of his neck! It felt like being pricked by an ice-cold needle, and then that chill exploded instantly, racing down his spine and spreading throughout his body.
The surrounding world seemed to freeze and stretch in an instant, every subtle sound: the friction of clothing fabric, the slight movement of experimental equipment, even his own heartbeat—
Every sound suddenly amplified and distorted in his ears, and the chill in his heart pointed toward the Tokamak device, as if it were the source.
At that moment, a beeping alarm blared in the lab, and the pristine white lights switched to flashing red warning lights.
Dr. Octavius hurriedly turned and fiddled with the control panel next to the Tokamak device. In less than two minutes, the lab's lights returned to normal, and the alarm ceased.
"As you can see, my nuclear fusion experiment isn't successful yet. I need to recheck the experimental steps and see where it went wrong."
Dr. Octavius said with a smile to Batman, his expression showing no trace of frustration from the experiment's failure.
Experiments always involved failures; each one accumulated valuable experience for him, and Dr. Octavius wasn't discouraged by it.
"That feeling just now seemed like an instinctive reaction to some impending danger..."
Batman looked at Dr. Octavius:
"Doctor, I'd like to borrow your computer."
He didn't explain the purpose of borrowing the computer, and Dr. Octavius didn't mind. He was busy checking one by one for the cause of the earlier experiment's failure. Upon hearing Batman, he readily agreed:
"No problem."
With Dr. Octavius's approval, Batman immediately sat down at an idle computer, turned it on, and his hands flew across the keyboard.
Whether he was currently in an illusion or something else had happened, the first thing to do was gather information on his current identity. Batman promptly hacked into the local police system to query "Peter Parker"'s related data.
This included his identity information, rental information, and school information.
"This is my identity? A junior at Empire State University in New York, an orphan who's lived with Uncle Ben's family since childhood?"
Batman exited the webpage expressionlessly and cleared all records of his operations, then stood up and bid farewell to Dr. Octavius.
Based on the rental information recorded in the New York police system, Batman walked for nearly an hour before arriving at the apartment.
He locked the door, drew the curtains, and sat cross-legged in the living room with his eyes tightly closed.
During the hour-long walk, the people and buildings along the way gave Batman ninety-nine percent certainty that this wasn't an illusion, but he had to make one final attempt—meditation.
He had learned meditation from Zatanna to resist mental attacks, and it also had some effect against illusions.
Three full hours passed, the sky grew dark, and in the pitch-black apartment, Batman suddenly opened his eyes.
"It's not an illusion. But it doesn't rule out that The Flash, Barry Allen, did something, causing a chain reaction from a timeline change."
"I need to find out why my consciousness appeared in this unfamiliar young man's body and figure out a way to return to Gotham."
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