Over the course of an entire night, Batman laid an impenetrable net across North Brother Island.
Even if Ant-Man, Hulk, Lizard, and Anti-Venom showed up all at once, Batman had prepared multiple contingency plans for each of them.
Without any delay, the moment all the arrangements were complete, Batman opened the ecological containment unit.
"Robin, come onto me." Batman's voice was low and grave.
The symbiote's properties ensured it wouldn't be infected by Earth's viruses, so Batman wasn't worried that Venom, once exposed to the air and merging with him again, would cause him to contract any virus.
"No problem, Dad."
Venom spoke in a relaxed tone, the pitch-black symbiote matter spreading rapidly, covering Batman's entire body in the blink of an eye.
"The instant Anti-Venom appears, you must immediately retreat into my body—no matter what, do not show yourself," Batman ordered. "Otherwise, I will confiscate all your chocolate."
"I-I promise I'll behave!"
Venom was startled by Batman's threat. The phenylethylamine in chocolate had already made it utterly addicted to this Earth snack, and it promised without hesitation.
Batman raised his hand, and a earthy-yellow web shot out, propelling his body into the canopy of a tree where he concealed himself.
One, two, three...
Batman silently counted the seconds in his mind.
He wasn't just waiting for Anti-Venom's arrival; he was also waiting for the moment after Venom Robin bonded with him, when the original Venom consciousness might awaken once more.
Batman had focused all his mental and physical energy; he would not allow himself to fall into that brief state of bodily rigidity again after being invaded by Venom's consciousness.
"Dad, so your name is Bruce?"
"Dad, you were a god for a while? God of Wisdom? Where's that chair? I want to sit on it and try it out."
"Dad, you have so many enemies—Joker, Scarecrow, Professor Pyg, Bane... Superman? He counts as your enemy too?"
"Don't worry, Dad—your enemies are my enemies! We can beat every last one of them!"
"So there's more than one Robin? But they don't seem to be in this world. I'm the Robin you love most, Dad."
"I want to wear that six-dimensional battle suit..."
The Venom consciousness awakening that Batman had been guarding against did not occur. Venom Robin was still the same Venom Robin—it could read Batman's memories to a certain extent but showed no sign of touching the deepest ones.
But there was one thing Batman hadn't anticipated: after bonding with him, Venom Robin seemed to have discovered a treasure trove, finding everything in Batman's mind utterly fascinating.
"Robin, stay quiet. Do not attempt to touch anything in those memories," Batman warned. "Three bars of chocolate."
Between its rampant curiosity and its craving for chocolate, Venom chose the latter without hesitation:
"Four bars!"
"Four bars it is," Batman said in a low voice.
Almost the instant the words left Batman's mouth, a towering white figure descended from the sky, crashing down with a heavy thud on the shore of North Brother Island.
Its skin was pearly and flawless, but irregular black streaks and a face of pure black destroyed the sanctity of its pearl-white sheen, giving it a decidedly sinister appearance.
Anti-Venom sensed Venom's presence. It had come.
At that moment, North Brother Island was eerily silent, broken only occasionally by the sound of small birds flapping their wings.
The instant Anti-Venom set foot on the island, it sensed something was wrong. The place was saturated with viruses—from smallpox to anthrax to Ebola, nearly every virus humans could contract was present here.
The symbiote's senses detected danger, but Anti-Venom's purification abilities gave it confidence it could handle any toxin.
"I sense Venom's presence. How could that thing still be alive?"
"It's hiding on this island, thinking..."
Anti-Venom's voice was like nails scraping across glass, but before it could finish speaking, Venom's presence flared up again on North Brother Island.
"I don't know how it survived, but it thinks the viruses on this island can threaten me? It's too naive."
Anti-Venom's mouth stretched nearly to the sides of its head. Without hesitation, it stepped from the shore into the island's interior.
"Plan A: The smallpox, anthrax, Ebola, and other viruses present on the island pose no direct threat to Anti-Venom itself."
"But it's like a room filled with dust. Every moment Anti-Venom remains on the island, it will instinctively and continuously purify the viruses in the environment."
"This creates sustained, low-intensity drain."
Venom's presence flared and vanished in an instant. Batman continuously lured Anti-Venom to roam across North Brother Island.
He wasn't worried Anti-Venom would detect the island's viruses and immediately retreat—he had already prepared contingencies for that.
For now, though, Anti-Venom pressed forward instead of retreating, so those plans were temporarily shelved.
The viruses that were lethal to humans could be purified by Anti-Venom with minimal effort, causing negligible damage to its symbiote matter.
For Batman, that was already enough.
North Brother Island was now rigged with over a hundred biological pheromone decoys created by Dr. Banner. These decoys would activate one by one according to Batman's design, continuously guiding Anti-Venom to circle the island.
The decoys appeared randomly placed, but as Batman activated them sequentially, Anti-Venom's path never overlapped with areas it had already purified.
Like a net gradually tightening, the range of the viruses shrank smaller and smaller. Anti-Venom finally moved from the island's periphery into its interior.
Along Anti-Venom's path, miniature sensors hidden in every corner collected data on Anti-Venom and transmitted it to Batman's suit.
"Plan B: Throughout the night, I deployed large quantities of artificially cultivated, highly contagious but low-lethality influenza viruses and dozens of other viruses across various zones of the island. Their harm to humans, and the burden on Anti-Venom's purification abilities, is minimal."
"This will cause Anti-Venom to lower its guard."
"But these viruses reproduce rapidly, doubling every moment. Anti-Venom will be like antivirus software suddenly facing a massive cyberattack—its processing load will skyrocket."
As Anti-Venom followed the decoys Batman had placed and stepped into the island's interior, Batman's second plan activated.
At the same time, the suit Batman had custom-built for Anti-Venom began frantically calculating the data from the sensors.
By analyzing the speed and methods Anti-Venom used to clear several different viruses on the island's periphery, Batman real-time calibrated and confirmed Anti-Venom's current purification threshold and capacity.
"If I already had nanotechnology, in theory I could directly use nano-phages to disintegrate Anti-Venom."
Batman's mask was a single one-way screen; at that moment, he was committing all the collected information to memory.
"When Anti-Venom lowers its guard and truly enters the center of the island, Plan C activates. Plan C: Ever since Connors arrived on South Brother Island, Batman has repeatedly and discreetly harvested small samples of his cellular tissue, secretly researching the 'Ouroboros Plan' targeted at him. This was a plan to counter Lizard, but cells from Lizard combined with viruses became one of the means to counter Anti-Venom. After this virus is purified by Anti-Venom, its residual genetic fragments will self-reassemble and regenerate at extreme speed, forming complete viral bodies once more—trapping Anti-Venom in an infinite loop of purification, replication, purification."
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