Chapter 66: I believe you.

What on earth is this!
Even if I starve to death, even if I die inside a dream, I will never touch a single bite of you fujoshi's food!!
Gale sat grinding his teeth in front of the computer for ten minutes. Ten minutes later, he looked left and right to make sure the Lord of Dreams was not lurking in the dark to spy on his actions, then, with a racing heart and flushed cheeks, he slowly moved his mouse toward the R-rated fanfiction titled "The Lord of Destiny x Express Bullet Kryptonian Batman."
This wasn't because it had the most comprehensive tags and an indescribable attraction for people with bizarre kinks... but rather because Gale had never heard of a Kryptonian Batman, and his intuition told him this character deserved serious attention!
Yet even with such a legitimate reason, Gale couldn't help but think: If I click on this kind of fanfiction and read it to the end, what will others think of me? Even if I denounce the author's perverted writing while reading, even if absolutely no one will ever know I read such a piece, a person cannot deceive his own heart! How would the pure Gale of the past look at the present me?!
Just like that, struggling, suffering, and interrogating himself, Gale kept a stiff face and clicked the mouse with the stealthy, transparently guilty posture of an adolescent teenager reading dirty books under the covers.
He even did the redundant thing of opening his browser's incognito mode and turning the computer screen brightness down to its lowest setting.
Then a line of bright red text appeared on the webpage:
User detected as underage; unable to view this article.
Would you like to enable Teen Mode?
...Ah!! How could this happen!
Even with his dark skin tone, it was obvious at this moment that Gale's face was completely red. He squirmed uncomfortably in place, thinking, I've already clicked it, am I really going to stop at Teen Mode?
I, your father, am going to read it anyway!
Why bother trying to cover it up!
Would you like to enable Teen Mode?
Yes!
The harmonized mysterious article finally slowly lifted its veil before Gale. It read:
The Lord of Destiny was in the xxxxx manor, the master of the manor was xxxxxing...
Gale: ...
Utterly dissolute, utterly dissolute!
Why are these two getting down to it right from the very beginning?! Is there really no foreplay or plot at all?!
Fujoshi! You don't consider the feelings of readers who want to understand the plot through porn without plot at all!!
Gale put on the mask of agony as he sat in front of the computer, feeling like he had lost all worldly desires.
A few minutes later, he hollowly scrolled the mouse wheel and clicked on a fanfiction above that seemed a little less stimulating. The synopsis stated the pairing was the Lord of Destiny and some Universe A Superman, but they got a bad ending.
Gale prepared himself mentally and dived into reading... Five minutes later, the tip of his nose turned red as well, and he almost shed a few tears—my heart hurts, stinging as if someone had blindsided me. Fujoshi!! Why didn't you use complete tags?! This clearly contains the plot of a main character dying a miserable death, how can you summarize it with a simple bad ending?
Five minutes later, Gale, having clicked on the third fanfiction: Fujoshi oh ah ah ah look at what you are writing! You've gone so wildly out of character that even the protagonist's son can't fucking recognize that's his dad!! Please write some wholesome romantic plots!
Then came the fourth, fifth, sixth...
By the tenth piece, Gale closed the webpage with sheer, mighty willpower and fell into deep thought.
First, after reading ten pieces of fanfiction, apart from getting to know ten Supermen with different flavors and unknown levels of characterization accuracy, Gale had gained zero useful intelligence.
Secondly, he could at least confirm one thing—Elijah in the comics should currently be with one or more Supermen from parallel universes, otherwise no matter how great fanfiction authors were, they couldn't conjure settings out of thin air. The details of events in reality might differ somewhat from the comics, but the core development wouldn't be too far off.
That being the case, would the native Superman know any other information?
Lost in thought, the dream woke up. Gale got zero rest and only felt exhausted in both body and mind, especially mentally, as if he had just been run over by a four-horse carriage, possessing a gritty, disheveled kind of aesthetic. Trying his best not to think about those fanfictions whose artistic value outweighed their practical utility (perhaps excluding the nighttime hours of adults), he hesitated for a moment before taking out his phone and sending a text message to Superman:
"Any news about my dad?"
Superman's phone number was also something he had obtained recently while searching for Elijah's whereabouts. After the message sent successfully, Gale noticed the time displayed on the screen was two in the morning, when normal people should be sleeping.
A wave of annoyance instantly welled up inside him, and he rubbed his forehead, which was still aching from hitting the wall, and sighed. Gale didn't expect a reply from Superman and planned to catch a bit more sleep before waking up in the morning, but unexpectedly, just a few seconds later, Superman replied: "Sorry, not yet."
Huh?
Gale instinctively typed a few lines, then deleted them all. Perhaps due to the aftereffects of the fanfiction, Gale suddenly had a question on this quiet night: Was Superman treating him a little too well?
After Elijah and Ophelia went missing, Batman and Black Lightning only left Gale with reassurances before going to focus on the investigation itself, whereas Superman had gone out of his way to visit him, and almost every time Gale sent a message, the other party responded immediately...
A universe-renowned superhero wouldn't just hang around chat apps with nothing to do all day, would he?
In the long night before dawn, what was the sleepless Kryptonian waiting for?
Unawares, Gale found himself typing a line of text into the chat box: "I really want to make them come back."
...He worried about and missed his missing father and sister far more than he cared about those shifting standpoints and goals that could change at any moment.
Sent.
"Dad trusted you a lot, Superman, so I also want to believe you can find him."
Sent.
"Perhaps to 'Destiny,' this is a story belonging to you."
Yet would destiny care if there were people in this universe waiting outside the story?
Sent.
Read.
Read.
Read.
But Superman did not reply.
The uniformed Man of Steel curled one leg, sitting atop the iconic Daily Planet building on the peak of that huge globe sculpture, turning his head to gaze far into the distant, pale-bellied horizon. His right hand holding the phone and his arm rested on his knee; the chat interface on the screen showed that the last read message Superman had sent to Elijah Esposito was three days ago.
...Dawn had broken.
Yet where had his own destiny gone?
**
The master of the manor drove, with Elijah sitting in the passenger seat, and the two of them were heading toward the border between Gotham, ruled by Omega, and the Kingdom of El. Along the way, Elijah studied the strange, stitched-together map for a long time before finally asking, unable to help himself: "What on earth happened to this universe?"
The Kryptonian Batman shrugged: "When I arrived, there was neither the Kingdom of El nor that fog. To be honest, before they appeared, Omega's world was on the verge of collapse. The death of Superman 117 was broadcast live to the whole world, and ever since his death, order everywhere fell into complete chaos. People refused to believe the result, plunging into madness, hating all supervillains including Luthor. Later, this out-of-control rage poured over onto other superheroes, and then their own kind... I can't even use the word 'war' to describe the turmoil that lasted for several years; it was an unquestionable apocalypse where nearly everyone with the ability to maintain order perished."
"Just because of Superman's death?"
"I wouldn't put it that way, but it's undeniable that Superman's death was the beginning of the end."
Elijah couldn't help but form a thought: It was indeed necessary for the Lord of Destiny to monitor the Supermen of various universes. At least as a powerful and representative individual, whether he lived or died, it would have a major impact on the parallel universes.
Yet Superman wasn't the only one capable of this—"What's going on with Omega?"
"He's a Batman who survived but went mad," the master of the manor replied calmly. "I've read a few records; ordinary people in this world crippled him physically and mentally. He was once severely injured and barely managed to survive, but he no longer held any hope for human nature, so he intended to use the Anti-Life Equation to control all life on Earth.
"When I came to this universe, there were hardly any people left on the surface, and the only surviving city was Gotham, ruled by Omega. I landed at Wayne Manor and immediately came into intense conflict with Omega. Because I carried the Batcave with me, Omega scanned the Superman corpses—Superman projections—stored inside, and he was shocked by me."
Elijah: "..."
Very well, the Lord of Destiny and the Kryptonian Batman had used their bizarre operations to open the eyes of a black-and-tan parallel universe Batman.
What is this feeling of losing face across stellar boundaries?
"And then you guys shook hands and made peace?"
The master of the manor denied it: "Then he started beating me even harder."
Elijah: "..."
His speechless mood streamed deeply from his eyes. The master of the manor sitting beside him sensed it, smiling as he explained: "I wasn't just taking a one-sided beating—not for a long time now. In the first few years, I lacked experience, but later on, I was both Batman and a Kryptonian. I understand the Batman of parallel universes just as I understand myself, so even Omega couldn't take advantage of me. It wasn't until he discovered that force wasn't working that we finally shook hands and made peace. I stayed at Wayne Manor to do my own record-keeping and didn't interfere with his tyranny at all, while Omega watched over me while continuing his dictatorial rule."
What a bizarre description—a city with two Batmans, neither of whom was entirely normal.
What would other parallel universe Batmans who dutifully and diligently fought crime think of this?
Elijah almost felt unable to face the Bruce Wayne he knew, who led a peaceful life and only wanted to buy out Asian supermarkets. He shook these messy associations out of his mind and said solemnly, "So, Omega knows we're going to the border."
"He has definitely figured it out by now," the master of the manor nodded and said. "He hasn't been able to do anything to me these past few days, so I must have become the number one most dangerous person on his list. It's just that a few weeks ago, the Kingdom of El and the fog-shrouded storm zone appeared out of thin air, occupying the no-man's-land outside Gotham. No one knows why fusion occurred between universes; Omega suspected a conspiracy and was busy dispatching UFOs to that ancient medieval kingdom..."
UFOs invading the Middle Ages!
The master of the manor still wore a straight face as he spoke these absurd details. He possessed a unique, deadpan humor somewhere between Batman and Superman.
Elijah didn't even feel any pressure chatting with him—perhaps because the master of the manor both spoke the language of the Book of Destiny and broke character less than Elijah in awkward moments. Clearly, if Elijah hadn't been an important subject to him, the master of the manor would never have seemed so talkative.