If he let loose, Batman could take down all fifty of these security guards in mere seconds.
But he wouldn't. Through rigorous training over the past few days, Batman had honed precise control over every punch and kick, keeping his strength at a level comparable to the Batman of old.
Even so, the security guards were no match for him. One by one, they were tossed aside or knocked out cold with a variety of combat techniques.
Silver Sable watched Batman with keen interest, her eyes glinting as if eager to test herself against him.
"Who are you?" she asked, her tone curious yet challenging. "Taking down seven or eight of my men barehanded? Care to go a few rounds with me?"
"No interest," Batman replied curtly, spitting out the two words with icy detachment. He leaped through the lab's security door, fired a web-line, and swung away into the distance.
Silver Sable stood rooted in place, her multifunctional utility belt cinched tightly around her slender waist, accentuating her striking figure.
"He's holding back everywhere he goes… doesn't seem like a bad guy," she mused. "Did he find out about Oscorp's human experiments through some channel and come here specifically to gather evidence?"
She made no move to stop Batman, letting him leave. Instead, she turned back to the lab, aiming her phone at the experimental subjects to snap photos for evidence.
As soon as dawn broke, Silver Sable would send all these pictures to the New York Police Department.
"Biotech facility…"
Batman had exited the underground laboratory on the second basement level but didn't leave the Oscorp Tower. Instead, he scaled the outer wall, using his webbing and wall-crawling abilities to reach the twentieth floor.
According to Peter Parker's journal, it was on the twenty-first floor, in the genetically modified spider breeding facility, that he'd been bitten.
"A biotech company would assign a unique identifier to every specimen," Batman reasoned. "I just need to find information on that specific spider and when it went missing."
If he could match the details to Peter Parker's journal, it would confirm that his abilities stemmed from genetic mutation, not human experimentation.
Whether it was a mutation or the result of experiments, Batman wanted neither. But if forced to choose, he'd prefer a genetic mutation over abilities gained at the cost of dozens of lives in horrific experiments.
One hour, two hours…
Batman searched tirelessly for three hours straight, scouring floors from the twentieth to the thirtieth, yet found no trace of information about that spider.
Night was nearly over, the horizon tinged with the pale glow of dawn, but Batman pressed on to the thirty-first floor, seemingly immune to fatigue.
"Nothing, still nothing…"
Batman tossed aside another stack of files on genetically modified spiders, his brow furrowed in frustration.
Continuing like this would likely yield nothing. He needed a different approach.
As he prepared to head to the thirty-second floor, a building directory by the staircase caught his eye.
Floors one through ten were public areas. Floors ten to twenty housed various laboratories. From the twentieth floor upward lay the core of Oscorp's biotechnology operations, extending all the way to the fifty-third floor.
From there to the sixtieth floor was the private domain of Norman Osborn, the founder and chairman of Oscorp.
Norman Osborn's chairman's office occupied more than half of the top floor—the sixtieth—sprawling across its expanse.
"The disappearance of that genetically modified spider would have been reported by low-level staff or researchers," Batman deduced. "I just need to search Norman Osborn's office or the offices of executives overseeing the spider project."
With this realization, Batman wasted no more time. He climbed the outer wall of the tower, heading straight up.
Click.
On the top floor—the sixtieth—Batman surveyed his surroundings, confirming no one was present before silently dropping through a ventilation shaft.
But before he could move, he froze.
There was someone else here—an unexpected presence: Black Cat.
The woman with long, snow-white hair, clad in a skintight suit, was kneeling in front of a cabinet in Norman Osborn's office, rummaging through its contents.
Her form-fitting black leather outfit left little to the imagination, her curves as ripe and alluring as a peach.
Due to the angle and the absence of his Batsuit's "detective mode," Batman hadn't noticed her presence before landing.
"Peter Parker's spider-sense can rapidly analyze microscopic environmental cues to warn of danger, but it's useless against someone with no hostile intent," Batman noted silently.
He watched as Black Cat rifled through the cabinet, seemingly searching for something in Norman Osborn's office, just like him.
"You seem busy," Batman said after a moment, his voice cutting through the silence as Black Cat, now crouching low to dig through the bottom drawer, froze.
A voice in the dead of night startled her, and she sprang up, looking for all the world like a thief caught red-handed—which, in truth, she was.
"Who are you?" Black Cat demanded, her hands curling into claw-like stances, ready to strike.
"And who are you?" Batman countered, standing motionless in the shadows.
"I'm Kingpin, the underground emperor of New York," she declared, her voice as menacing as she could muster. "I suggest you leave. Now."
Batman stared at this woman, someone he'd previously considered a decent ally, momentarily at a loss for words.
Perhaps it was his shadowed silhouette or the low, gravelly timbre of his voice, but something clicked for Black Cat. Her guarded stance softened, and a mix of surprise and delight crossed her face.
"Batman?"
"What are you doing here?"
Recognizing her realization, Batman stepped out of the shadows, allowing Black Cat to fully relax.
"Kingpin hired Squid to kill you. Did you know that?" she asked. "Also, I always thought you were some kind of monster. Turns out you're just human, like me?"
Black Cat studied him, shrouded in his black suit, his face completely concealed, like a ninja in the night.
"Not quite," Batman said, shaking his head slightly. "What are you doing here?"
His soul came from another world, a place entirely unlike this one.
"I heard Kingpin is one of Oscorp's shareholders," Black Cat replied, resuming her rummaging. "I wanted to see if I could find anything related to that. I don't want his gang growing any stronger. You?"
"I'm looking for data tied to Oscorp's biotech division," Batman said.
"Biotech? Like genetic engineering?" Black Cat gestured casually toward a stack of papers she'd discarded on the floor. "I think there's something over there."
Batman swiftly moved to pick up the documents. They detailed the very spider he'd been searching for—the one that had bitten Peter Parker and granted him his abilities.
The records noted the spider's disappearance and the discovery of its corpse on the exact day Peter Parker had visited Oscorp.
For reasons he couldn't fully articulate, Batman let out a heavy sigh of relief, only to tense up again immediately.
Kingpin holding a stake in a multinational corporation like Oscorp meant the crime lord had access to vast funds—a deeply troubling prospect for a criminal empire.
--
Support me & read more advance & fast update chapter on my pa-treon:
pat reon .c-om/windkaze