DC: A New Beginning-Chapter 85: Fractured Mask

The next day, Viktor drove the Batmobile.

Nightwing didn’t come over due to physical injuries and other reasons, but he still angrily complained to Viktor through the earpiece.

"So you actually know how to drive it! You didn’t even check it for more than ten seconds before driving it away!"

He mocked Nightwing’s intelligence.

"Next time, you can skip this kind of nonsense. I can even drive a spaceship."

Nightwing went silent for a few seconds after being roasted, then spoke again in a bitter tone.

"In front of the media later, please don’t say a word."

With a stylish drift, Viktor drove the Batmobile to the front of the Wayne Tower.

As a famous public figure, Bruce Wayne had to send certain signals to the public after being hospitalized, discharged, and returning to work.

He also had to give the media some kind of explanation.

The moment "Batman" got out of the car, interview media reporters from all directions thrust forward their equipment...

It was truly keeping up with the times.

Most reporters simply held a recording device similar in size to a metal lighter, nothing like the cameras and boom mics Viktor had imagined.

Following Nightwing’s expectations, Viktor said nothing afterward, pushed through the swarming reporters, and quickly walked into the Wayne Tower.

Bruce Wayne’s exclusive office on the top floor of the Wayne Building had been temporarily turned into something like a hospital room.

The desks and chairs had been moved away, leaving only a clean white bed.

Bruce had bandages wrapped around his head and was half-reclined on the hospital bed, with a very attractive nurse helping peel an orange for him.

However, Bruce had not eaten a single piece.

Even though he looked weak, Bruce still used his wealth and his charming conversation to make the nurse unknowingly eat all the orange slices herself instead of feeding them to him.

Viktor walked silently and quietly stood behind the young nurse who was still coquettishly teasing the wealthy heir.

Bruce coughed lightly.

The beautiful nurse slowly realized someone was behind her and turned around. She jumped in surprise when she saw Batman.

Apparently feeling that Gotham’s richest capitalist had her back, she patted her swaying chest, rolled her eyes, and gracefully left the room.

Afterward, Bruce Wayne and ’Batman’ silently looked at each other.

They stared at each other for five or six full seconds before a little surprise finally appeared in Bruce’s eyes.

"What else did you encounter in that world?"

Batman spoke in a low voice.

"I thought I was just coming to discuss matters regarding Thomas and Martha."

A trace of sadness flashed through Bruce’s eyes. He already learned the situation from Oracle’s report.

However, Bruice still wasn’t quite willing to accept it, or perhaps found it difficult to.

He wanted to hear it directly from Viktor’s mouth.

But now, Bruce had clearly discovered something that concerned him even more.

"You’ve changed. Someone altered you, and now my personality analysis of you has dropped by at least thirty percent."

There was a sharp light in Bruce’s eyes that completely didn’t match his weak and sickly appearance.

He didn’t like hearing people talk about how he had spent several years locked up in the past timeline.

How was he supposed to explain that?

"I can completely refuse to tell you, and if you continue asking this nonsense, I’ll leave immediately."

Bruce hadn’t expected Viktor’s way of speaking to suddenly become so harsh.

By Bruce’s sense of time, Viktor had been on Earth for less than two months, yet his personality had already changed twice.

Seeing that Viktor completely refused to discuss what happened in that other world afterward, Bruce stiffened for quite a while before slowly lying back on the soft pillow.

He turned his head to one side and stared blankly at the dark clouds outside the floor-to-ceiling window.

"That Martha from that world... why didn’t she want to come to this world?"

Since Bruce was finally willing to talk about something more normal, Viktor seriously thought back for a moment and carefully chose his words.

"It looked like she couldn’t escape the madness of the Joker inside her, and perhaps didn’t want to cause you trouble."

"In fact, the reason was that Lex Luthor from that world had poisoned her with something deadly. She was afraid of going through another life-and-death separation from you."

Then Viktor watched as Bruce clutched the bedsheet under him so hard that he tore it apart.

The ripping sound was especially sharp in the quiet room.

Viktor grimaced and continued.

"As for Thomas—I’m sorry, I never saw him from start to finish. But before Lex Luthor died at my hands, he personally said that all adult survivors in that world had been executed by him in advance."

The bedsheet on the other side was torn apart too.

Bruce closed his eyes, his fists clenched tight.

Through the trembling of his eyelids, Viktor could tell that Bruce’s eyes were moving wildly underneath.

It looked like an uncontrollable twitch. This came from an extreme kind of anger.

Viktor glanced out the window from the corner of his eye. Luckily, no red lantern ring came flying in from beyond the sky.

After all, the Martha and Thomas from the other world were theoretically just counterparts of this world.

The Flashpoint timeline wouldn’t restart with the New 52 anymore.

If it were the Bruce from the New 52 hearing the same news, Batman would probably rush to Metropolis, drag out the rebooted Lex Luthor, and beat him to death with his bare hands.

There was a very high chance of that happening.

After all, even this New New 52’s Bruce in front of him had shown the very rare case of losing control of his emotions.

What "no-kill rule"?

He could kill that damned bald man first and stick to the rule later.

Batman might be able to accept that the parents of other alternate versions of himself had met their normal end with the universe’s destruction.

But from the same world but different timelines, then to him it was basically the same person.

He was angry, very angry, but not so angry that he would attract a Red Lantern ring from the Red Lantern Corps.

That meant Bruce’s rationality remained intact.

Sure enough, after just a few seconds, Bruce opened his eyes again.

Bruce’s emotions had almost completely settled down, and he started talking with him about the real matter at hand.

"The message you passed to me through that magical girl before, I had already started making plans before I fell unconscious."

As soon as he finished speaking, a streak of red lightning burst through the door.

Reverse-Flash, who had been hiding somewhere and enjoying himself these past few days, suddenly appeared in the top-floor office of Wayne Tower.

Viktor paused in surprise and looked at Reverse-Flash.

"I thought after you resolved this incident, you’d gone back to the future?"

Reverse-Flash then skillfully crossed his arms, looking at Viktor with some amusement.

But as always, because of concerns about the timeline, Reverse-Flash kept his mouth firmly shut.

Bruce’s voice sounded quietly from behind Viktor.

"I eavesdropped on and analyzed your conversation last time. I noticed one important thing: Reverse-Flash never actually told you that only one world was involved in this war in reality."

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