Body 30. The Secret of Gotham. The Sins of the Father

Merlin found Batman at the end of this labyrinth-like underground hall.

And in this not difficult process, the metal in Merlin's pocket also increased by several pieces. It seems that these immortal "sharp claws" are the strongest fighters that the court of owls can produce.

It's a pity that their weaknesses are as obvious as their strengths. As long as their flaws are caught, these dead warriors are not a threat to Merlin, who has a variety of methods of arson.

The only worrying thing is that judging from the number of sharp claws in this underground palace, the Owl Court should have produced an astonishing number of sharp claws in the past 200 years of concealment, and it cannot be ruled out that they still have " Upgraded version of the claw.

From the perspective of Gotham, without Merlin's intervention, Bruce and his Robin and son are destined to suffer an uphill battle to settle the court of owls that suddenly appeared from the darkness.

And, most importantly, until now, Merlin still doesn't know why this well-hidden court of owls suddenly started targeting Batman.

Maybe, he can get the answer from Bruce.

"Hi."

Merlin walked out of the darkness with a sword on his back. In a cage in front of him, Bruce was sitting on a chair. There were not many marks of battle on his body, no wounds, on his black combat uniform , not even obvious scratches.

He doesn't look like he's been forcibly locked up.

"It's a mess outside, what are you doing here alone?"

Bruce didn't answer.

The expression on his face was dazed and dull like Merlin had never seen before, and there was also a kind of sadness and despair intertwined, as if he had witnessed something terrifying and his sanity had been defeated.

This is very rare.

Although Merlin and Bruce haven't met in more than 10 years, from what Merlin has recently learned about Batman and Bruce's past experiences, he should not be a vulnerable person.

A weak person cannot face the Ninja Master and the Assassin Alliance.

"Hey"

Merlin stepped forward, squatting in front of Bruce, and snapped his fingers in front of Batman's eyes. He put his hand on Bruce's leg, and asked:

"What's the matter?"

"Merlin, I found out something about my parents."

Bruce was like someone who was awakened, he raised his head, looked at Merlin, and said in a daze:

"I'm fine, I just, I just don't know how to take this."

"Judging from your expression, I guess it's not a warm story."

Merlin says:

"But I want to ask, what do you know from your enemies?"

"See for yourself."

Bruce handed the USB flash drive in his hand to Merlin, and the latter took the metal thing, and took out from his pocket the laptop that he always carried with him, issued by S.H.I.E.L.D., and inserted the USB flash drive into the computer , after a brief reading, a video that has been around for some years is opened on the desktop in terms of quality.

The picture captured by the closed-circuit monitor is not very clear, but it can still be distinguished that it is a place similar to a ward.

A man in an orange jumpsuit is strapped to a white hospital bed, presumably a prisoner.

And beside him, stood a man in a doctor's robe, holding a writing board and a pen, observing the condition of the bound patient.

Everything looks normal.

After more than ten seconds, the doctor put down the pen in his hand and picked up a syringe. Amidst the screams of the prisoner's monitoring, he stabbed the syringe into the hanging bottle beside the patient.

Immediately afterwards, noisy, very unclear conversations came from the screen.

"Sir, this is my latest research. It won't kill you, but it will make you miserable. It will make you distracted. It will make you lose control. It's a terrible process. I mean, maybe. We don't need to use this."

The doctor said to the patient bound on the bed:

"Maybe, you'll tell me everything I want to know before my injection is done?"

"Damn it! Thomas, you hypocritical villain, let me go, please."

The patient screamed, wailed, and cried out weakly for help, but no one answered him.

"Thomas?"

Merlin paused the video and looked back at Bruce, who nodded silently.

"It's my father, keep watching."

With doubts, Merlin refocused on the video on the monitor. He has never met Bruce's parents, but what he learned from Bruce and Alfred, the impression of Thomas and his wife should be gentle doctors, compassionate, and the richest man in Gotham with a sense of responsibility, in this city's turbulent era , do anything to save the suffering people in the city.

They should be the classic good guys in the story.

But now, Thomas Wayne in this video seems to have deviated from that inherent image.

Merlin pressed the space bar, and the video continued playing.

"It seems that you refused? What a pity."

In the video, Thomas injected the liquid in the syringe into the vial with a regretful voice. After a few seconds, the patient who was tied up on the hospital bed began to struggle wildly. As miserable as a trapped beast.

On the side of the hospital bed, Thomas looked at his watch and recorded the time. He looked at everything in front of him indifferently until several minutes later, when the patient had completely lost his voice, he spoke again:

"Why bother? Sir, you should know that this lunatic asylum was created for people like you, and I am the attending doctor here. If I think you will still threaten Gotham, then you will never want to go out for the rest of your life. I mean, you should be smarter and say what I want."

Thomas, who had always been very polite, suddenly stretched out his hand at this moment, grabbed the mortal by the collar, and shouted to him in a growling voice:

"Damn bastard! Where did you hide all the money you stole from me? Say!"

"Thomas, that's stocks. You should know better than me. It's normal to lose and lose in the stock market. You can't make money forever!"

The sick man seemed terrified, and said in a weak, begging voice:

"I still have some money, I will pay you back, don't torture me, please."

"I want my money, my profit!"

Thomas said grimly:

"Every penny you cheated from me and promised will go back to me."

He dropped the patient and straightened his collar. At this moment, Thomas seemed to have regained that polite posture. He picked up the tablet and pen next to him and said to the patient:

"Give you two more days, sir, and I'm sure you'll make the right choice in the end. Oh, by the way, my friend Falconi was just trying to talk to your wife about the loss you made him. You and I both know that Falconi is such a violent person, so I hope you will carefully consider this matter."

"Okay, patient, today's treatment is over."

Thomas turned to leave, he waved:

"We'll see you this time tomorrow."

"no, do not want!"

"swish"

With the patient's terrified howl, the video ended at this moment.

At the end of this dark hall, both Merlin and Bruce fell into an unspeakable silence.

After more than ten seconds, Merlin hesitated and said:

"Maybe, this is what they forged. In terms of current technology, it is not difficult to forge such a thing. They want to break your sanity and let you be used by them. They know the biggest nightmare in your heart, so they specially use this Coming at you I mean, Bruce, you shouldn't trust them so easily."

"It's a little too stupid to believe the evidence presented by your enemies."

Merlin's persuasion sounded reasonable, but Bruce didn't respond immediately. Instead, he said in a deep voice:

"When I was a child, my father never let me into his study. He always went out very late and would come back in the wee hours of the morning. He was a doctor and he told me he had to treat his patients. Occasionally, he would talk to Mother quarrels."

"The Falconi family and the Wayne family are both ancient families in Gotham. When I was a child, I did see the young Falconi and my father dining together at home."

"We went to see the Zorro opera that night, and Falconi and several other ancient families invited us."

"I'm not stupid enough to believe what the court of owls said, but all of Merlin's memories, the ones I've ignored, are telling me that this video is real, and the man in the video is something my father never showed in front of my eyes. That side is also true."

Bruce closed his eyes, and said in a low voice:

"When Lars al-Ghul invaded Gotham, he told me that the beliefs I held were based on a lie that had not been exposed. He told me that the justice I did was pathetically false. "

"He's right, Merlin."

"My father was not a hero. Under the guise, hidden, was an evil spirit. He was a bad guy. He joined forces with the Falconi family to rule Gotham's underground kingdom before I was born. And I'm an idiot, I didn't get past it all."

"I was inspired by my father's spirit to fight crime, but it was all a lie. My father was a criminal, and perhaps, his death deserved it."

"I've been fighting inspired by lies, convinced I'm doing the right thing. But I"

"enough!"

A scolding interrupted Bruce's self-pity.

Merlin pulled out the USB drive from the computer, threw it on the ground, and crushed it with one foot.

He looked back at Bruce, and he said:

"You're like a bitch asking for comfort right now. Shall I give you a warm hug to get you back together?"

"That's right, you did have a hard time in the first half of your life, but that doesn't mean that other people's lives are smooth sailing. You know the story of my past, but you don't know that I'm still carrying a timer that can explode at any time. Bomb, maybe in the next second, I will be swallowed up by the roaring darkness of my soul, and I will strangle you to death with my own hands here."

Merlin stepped forward, grabbed the collar of Bruce's combat uniform, and lifted him into the air.

At the moment of being attacked, a blue spark burst out from Bruce's collar and hit Merlin's finger. The high-voltage blow made Merlin's movements stiff, but it didn't make Merlin let go.

He looked at Bruce, looked into his eyes, and said:

"It's not up to you to decide what kind of person your father is. Whether he's a criminal or a hero, those are the sins he should bear, not yours!"

"Your son is out fighting for you now, your trusted assistant is fighting for you against a horde of undead, your lover is struggling in Europe trying to revive her family business, she's surrounded by wolves, maybe the next moment you'll be there Will hear of her death, and your son will be orphaned. And you? You can help them, but you hide in the dark like a crushed jerk."

"You've got family, you've got friends, you've got career, you've got money, damn it, you're the darling of fate, you've got it all! And you want to throw it all away now, don't you, Bruce."

"If you don't wake up again, I will wake you up with my own hands. I'm not kidding!"

Bruce, who was lifted in the air, struggled. This strong man had just been shattered with the strongest pillar in his will. He needed to find another pillar to support him to move forward and continue to fulfill his great responsibilities.

He looked at Merlin, and asked in a hoarse voice:

"You have also created disasters with your own hands, you have also walked alone in the lost, and you have lived in blood, disasters and deceit for the first half of your life. Merlin, my friend, how did you survive?"

"who told you that"

Merlin replied word by word:

"I made it through?"

"boom"

Bruce was thrown on the edge of the cage. In front of his eyes, Merlin moved his fingers. He turned his back and pushed open the door of the cage in front of him. He said:

"Dreams don't come true here, only nightmares. Every night I go back to the past, and you should know that bad memories never go away, they live inside of us."

"But you still have a choice. You can be tortured by painful memories. You can also carry the sins that were born of you and move forward until you are overwhelmed."

He looks back at Bruce:

"But even if I am crushed, I will crawl to my finish line. I am going to help my poor little nephew Damian, who is being bullied by a group of undead crawling out of the grave."

"Will you come?"