Not everyone who gains extraordinary powers is capable of drawing out their full potential. Even Peter Parker back in the day relied far more on raw instinct to battle, rather than systematic training.
Parker possessed a Spider-Sense, allowing him to pull off respectable feats on instinct alone, but these bottom-feeders in the engine room clearly lacked such a gift.
Aside from Bi-Beast and the Executioner, the others—like Madman and Absorbing Man—failed entirely to exert the full strength they ought to have possessed.
Perhaps because they had acquired their powers for too short a time, their application of abilities and grasp of combat timing seemed flawless on the surface, but in Batman's eyes, they were riddled with glaring vulnerabilities.
This was precisely the key to how Batman could repeatedly spot a breakthrough in the face of overwhelming odds and turn the tide of battle.
As dense white smoke blanketed the area, the trace amount of fear toxin mixed with a heavy dose of tranquilizing and anesthetic gases inside left the majority of the combatants—save for Bi-Beast—completely stripped of their ability to resist.
With the assistance of the Reflection Batwing, Batman moved like a phantom in the dark across a white purgatory, appearing unpredictably as every single surge ended with another foe dropping to the deck.
Until the only one left standing on the field was the four-meter-tall Bi-Beast.
Bi-Beast possessed zero organic organs, bones, or muscles inside his frame, having been replaced entirely by machinery. As a result, he suffered almost no adverse effects within the white smoke.
Even a guy like Absorbing Man—whose body could convert into metal yet still required air to breathe—had collapsed to the floor.
The mechanical innards within Bi-Beast did not comply with electrical circuits or standard program controls, but were governed directly by Bi-Beast's two physical heads.
Because of this, Batman had been unable to hack into Bi-Beast before the fight to turn him into an asset.
Now, having laid out every opponent except Bi-Beast, Batman manifested covertly above Bi-Beast's head, his pair of white eyes fixed on the creature's two heads.
Bi-Beast's eyes could see nothing but an endless blanket of white, yet his hearing and sense of smell remained uninhibited.
The occasional dull thuds echoing through the room naturally reached his ears as well.
Every time a sound resonated, Bi-Beast would cock his ears to listen intently before striding toward the source of the noise.
The problem was that both of Bi-Beast's heads were composed of flesh and blood; surrounded by a completely featureless white void, he became hopelessly lost.
Like a headless fly, he took two steps to the left and two steps to the right, pacing in circles within a tiny area.
At the same time, his two heads—one stacked above the other—were in constant bickering chatter, searching for a way out.
Clang!
Batman manipulated the Reflection Batwing to extend a grappling claw forged from ultra-sharp Adamantium.
Timing his moment perfectly, he dropped down from above Bi-Beast's head and delivered a swift, effortless swipe with the claw.
Plop!
Bi-Beast's top head was sliced off, dropping to the deck and rolling several times across the floor.
"It's over! I told you to listen to my directions and feel along until you hit a wall in one direction! Why didn't you listen?!" one head barked curses.
"I couldn't get my bearings! I'm only in charge of fighting—when we run into a problem, aren't you supposed to solve it?!" the other head yelled back in curse-laden defiance.
Though his heads were severed from his body, Bi-Beast's unique anatomy kept him from dying on the spot; instead, having lost all combat capacity, his two heads took to blaming each other then and there.
As the Reflection Batwing sprayed a blanket of webbing, pinning Bi-Beast's heads along with every other fallen adversary firmly to the deck;
No one remained to block Batman's path. He leaped out from the Reflection Batwing, landing directly in front of the nuclear fusion reactor.
"Alfie, how much time do we have left?" Batman asked.
"Two minutes, Master Wayne," Alfred reported.
Batman nodded, his voice deep:
"Sufficient time."
The moment Batman's words fell, a shrill voice—sounding as though a joker were being squeezed by the neck—echoed through the engine room where no one else stood upright except Batman and Venom Robin:
"No, no, no. Time is not on your side."
Through the dense white smoke, it sounded as if a ghost were speaking into the air.
Yet neither Batman, Alfred, nor Venom Robin displayed a shred of surprise.
Venom Robin had lost his orientation as well, but having once bonded with Batman, a subtle connection existed between the two.
Feeling his way over to Batman's side, he saw the Batwing latched firmly onto the nuclear fusion reactor, while a projection cast a holographic keyboard directly in front of Batman.
There was no physical monitor present, yet Batman's ten fingers blurred across the holographic keyboard as he conversed with Alfred in low tones.
As for the shrill voice echoing through the white smoke, Batman paid it no mind whatsoever.
"You want to modify Project Insight? Batman, I admit you are impressive—many times more impressive than Captain America. At least he couldn't handle the group Amora brought along.
"However, in three minutes at most, the Helicarrier will reach sufficient altitude. You cannot stop the execution of Project Insight."
The shrill voice sounded once more, yet Batman continued to ignore it.
Venom Robin, however, couldn't stand it. Opening his maw, he let out a fierce roar, his demonic eyes glaring through the surrounding blanket of white smoke as he barked in a raspy, vicious voice:
"Old geezer, shut your mouth!"
"Heh heh..." As the white smoke began to gradually dissipate, the shrill laughter reverberated through the engine room. "You are quite cunning, Batman. You are using hacking methods I have never witnessed before."
Ignoring Venom Robin, the voice carried on self-indulgently:
"But it's useless. I am a ghost dwelling within the computer systems. No matter how you try to modify—"
The shrill voice cut off abruptly, followed by a sharp, ear-splitting burst of static:
"What is this?! Who are you?! How can you enter my body?!"
Venom Robin let out a contemptuous sneer.
He knew the owner of the voice must be the entity that had previously controlled the Helicarrier's power grid; its so-called "body" was the core mainframe computer cluster of this very Helicarrier.
As for who had invaded it to make the owner of the voice scream in terror?
"He's Alfred, you bumpkin," Venom Robin mocked.
The moment the Batwing latched onto the nuclear fusion reactor, Venom Robin knew Alfred had made his move.
To deal with an invisible, intangible digital phantom, the absolute best method was to dispatch an even higher-tier phantom to eliminate him.
And Alfred happened to be that higher-tier phantom.
"You're Alfred? Why?! This is clearly my body! This is my world!" The shrill voice gradually turned frantic with terror. "Spare me! I am Doctor Arnim Zola! I can help you—"
The voice cut off abruptly. Under Alfred's relentless invasion, the digital phantom calling himself Doctor Zola dissolved rapidly, like snow met by roaring fire.
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