readsfreenovel Chapter 319 Don't Mess with Batman
Chapter 319 Don't Mess with Batman
Chapter 319 Don't Mess with Batman
"Code name 42, Golden Vanguard".
Although he didn't understand what Batman's strange prompt meant, Tony reported the phrase to him the moment the new loop started.
Batman's expression immediately changed.
The so-called "Golden Vanguard," Michael Jon Carter, is the quarterback of Gotham University. He has an eccentric personality that is almost on par with Tony Stark, and his exaggerated pursuit of fame and fortune makes many people in the Justice League resent him.
Many people thought he was irresponsible and idle, and Batman thought so too, but in the end he learned that the mission of the Golden Vanguard was not just that.
How did Batman know that?
This is just like how he immediately realized Tony was trapped in a loop; it's simply a basic skill of a detective.
Golden Vanguard is a person who travels from the future to the past, using technology that can interfere with the flow of time to become a so-called superhero, and he himself becomes part of something similar to the Ouroboros loop.
Of course, his story is not important here.
Most importantly, Batman never told Iron Man anything about the Gold Vanguard.
Now that Iron Man has suddenly brought it up, aside from the fact that he can read minds (if Tony really could, he would definitely show it off immediately and use this ability to pick up girls), there is only one possibility that Batman can think of.
Batman pulled out a pocket watch and noticed that the second hand was abnormally twitching back and forth at two points in time: one tens of seconds in the future, and the other several seconds in the past.
"I wanted to ask that last time." Having no suitable solution for the moment, Tony simply moved closer, watching Batman fiddle with the object in his hand:
"What is this thing?"
"A piece of spoils seized from the enemy, something that was hard to put to use, unexpectedly proved useful in the current situation."
Batman adjusted his pocket watch to its proper position, nearly a minute later: "Goodbye, Tony."
With a thud, Tony watched helplessly as Batman vanished right before his eyes: "What the—"
Before Tony could finish speaking in Tibetan, a black hand landed on his shoulder: "Let's begin, starting with the detonation time of that missile."
Batman suddenly appeared behind Tony, almost at the same spot where he had seen through the loop and spoken to Tony in the last loop.
Holy crap!
Tony was not only shocked by Batman's unpredictable appearances, but also found the way he appeared to be somewhat eerie and frightening.
Especially the other person's demeanor and tone of voice; it was clear that this was not the Batman who knew nothing before.
"It's me, the one who asked you to tell the next person who calls me 'Code Name 42, Golden Vanguard'."
"I know, but doesn't this seem a bit unscientific?"
Tony knew that talking about science at this time was a bit ridiculous, but the two of them were in a strange spacetime paradox. If they were not careful, the conflict at the level of causal logic might collapse the entire world.
Batman's performance undoubtedly surpassed that brief one-minute loop, inheriting the memories from the previous timeline. The question is, how did he do it?
"Simple, I send myself back to before you started speaking, and then the next time I send myself back to after I left, a simple ouroboros loop, a paradox built on paradox."
While this kind of thing is bizarre, it's something that Batman is either very familiar with or quite used to:
"After this minute ends, I will travel back to one minute ago, and that version of myself will then travel back to the 'present,' which is his future. Tony, each time you cycle through, remember to remind me 'Code Name 42, Golden Vanguard,' and the next 'me' will understand."
Batman, who has entangled his own existence in a paradox, still appears calm and collected, preparing to seize every brief few tens of seconds of the loop from this moment on:
"Focus on this: although time is theoretically infinite, none of us know if this cycle will ever end."
Now that things have come to this, the survival of the entire universe, along with their own, is tied to this cycle. Batman and Iron Man can no longer worry about the causal paradoxes that this dual-track time loop might bring.
Right now, they need to deal with the missile that is about to fall and explode. Having an extra smart person will naturally make things much easier.
Especially when this "smart person" also had a thorough understanding of all the parameters of the Amozzo core—
"So, that missile is also derived from the technology of the Amozzo core? Have you tried cryogenics?"
When it comes to something, Batman's mind races with ideas:
"Chaotic magic? No way, neither of us has that ability; weaknesses when using copying abilities? Hard to trigger."
3
Click~
After another cycle, with Batman helping to share the burden of thinking, his thoughts became much clearer, allowing him to carefully summarize his previous dozens of failures.
It would have been better if they hadn't summarized it; this very act of summarizing led Tony to discover something unusual about Batman:
"No, just as you realized I was entering the loop, my propulsion system malfunctioned and crashed, which allowed you to successfully stop me. But I believe the Iron Man suit never fails for no reason! You..."
There's only one truth: Batman, that treacherous villain, had planted a backdoor in his suit sometime during the war, and Tony himself was completely unaware of it!
"Now is not the time to dwell on this. See you in a bit."
Batman interrupted Tony's impending "friendly greeting," using the remaining time to list the desired calculation results in the terminal at Stark Tower, and entered the next loop.
Kami~
The bomb arrived as predicted.
"Code Name 42, Golden Vanguard—No, you have to explain how you hacked into my armor today!"
Even as the next loop begins, Tony, still seething with anger, doesn't forget to settle old scores with Batman: "I thought we were partners!"
There is no rule in this world that says you can't be wary of your partners.
Batman continued inputting the previous results into the terminal for a new round of calculations: "You know you'd do the same thing, you just haven't had the chance yet!"
"I'm not like you! I..."
Kami~
Next cycle.
"Code name 42, Golden Vanguard, let me tell you—I never do anything like stabbing someone in the back!"
"What happened here?"
After the cyborg Iron Man finished reporting the missile attack, he was immediately confused. From his perspective, he only saw Tony suddenly attack Batman and start accusing the latter.
"None of your business!"
Tony rolled his eyes at his parallel universe counterpart, stopping the other from wasting his time, and continued to unleash his emotions on Batman without regard for anything else:
"Can't someone like you trust someone just this once?"
The cyborg Tony lacked the accumulated memories from the time loop, so what he saw were just snippets of a long storyline, making any interaction meaningless.
Batman noted down the calculation results on the terminal, glanced at the time, and left only one sentence:
See you next time.
"I---"
Click~
Next cycle.
"Code Name 42, Golden Vanguard, let me tell you."
Interrupted, Tony took a breather during the reset, gathered his thoughts, and prepared to give Batman a thorough dressing-down in the new loop. However, in this new loop, Batman simply threw a calculation result in his face:
"This is the result of my distrust of my teammates, you're welcome."
Tony picked up the terminal, and the projection screen was filled with code. Even for Tony, it would take a long time to figure out the specific function of this code group. Every line of code here was designed to infiltrate the core of Amodra and expose a permanently dormant vulnerability within it, thereby temporarily disabling Amodra's internal functions.
From the very beginning, Batman had countermeasures against the Amozzo Core that Tony possessed.
Having figured it all out, Tony smiled with relief: "You really are—"
He didn't know whether to praise Batman or call him a bastard.
Kami~
Next cycle.
Tony, who was about to give Batman his code name, suddenly stopped giving it.
He has memorized the code, and even without Batman, he should be able to disable the missile's internal system and prevent it from detonating in a short time.
So, should we—
Suddenly, Tony broke out in a cold sweat and yelled at Batman, "Code 42, Vanguard Gold!"
The two Batmen teleported away, disappearing and reappearing almost simultaneously.
This time, Tony wasn't bothered by Batman hacking into his suit's system. Instead, he grabbed Batman's cape strap and yelled:
"Damn it, you're a complete lunatic!"
Although both of them are trapped in a cycle of memories, they are fundamentally different.
If we compare the two people's time loops to a circle, Tony's circle is infinitely rolling, while he himself is just a fixed point outside the circle, and each loop will experience the entire circle.
Batman's current situation is more like jumping within a circle, with one new Batman and one old Batman at the beginning and end. After each cycle, the oldest Batman will jump from the end to the beginning and be retained, while the new one will replace the other slightly older Batman.
In other words, if the cycle were to repeat twenty times, then at least nineteen Batmen would be annihilated into the void, and one would be trapped in their future.
"Don't you understand?"
Looking at Batman, who remained indifferent to the accusations, Tony wondered if the man even realized the seriousness of the situation.
"You are actively and repeatedly killing yourself!"
"They never even existed, so how can they be dead?"
This isn't the first time Batman has experienced something like this; he knows the consequences of such choices far better than Iron Man. But the fact that he always manages to reach the next loop is enough.
"Besides, we had no other choice. I would have made the same choice in any situation. At least the problem is solved now."
"You're really crazy."
Tony felt a chill run down his spine. He imported the code into his armor, soared into the sky, and before leaving, he didn't forget to leave a message in Jarvis's memo:
"Jarvis, remind me not to mess with Batman again!"