Alberto's Psychic_Battlefield was the Falcone Manor. Evans was sitting at the piano in the hall, flipping through the sheet music. The afternoon sunlight poured over him, lending him a touch of ease and warmth. But his figure was a little hazy, and from a distance he looked like an oil painting.
"Evans." Shiller called out.
The other seemed very surprised. The moment he turned his head and saw Shiller, he stood up in a fluster. Shiller strode over, looked him up and down, then said, "Your condition really is bad. Why didn't you come to me?"
"Professor, how did you end up here?" Evans asked. "Did Alberto say something to you?"
Shiller nodded lightly.
"I told him not to make such a big fuss." Evans sighed, sounding a little dejected.
"And Tim, Tim Drake," Shiller added. "Do you still remember him? You met in Italy."
"Ah, of course." Evans nodded and sat back down on the piano bench. "But Alberto didn't really like him, so we didn't see each other much afterward."
"He's very worried about you. So am I." Shiller, very unusually, spoke without reservation. "When you left Gotham, things were very stable. The two Personalities could coexist and take turns surfacing. Why is it like this now?"
"Actually Alberto is the real Falcone," Evans said. "He has a lot of things to do, and I don't want to keep holding him back. Staying in the Psychic_Battlefield and writing some pieces is pretty nice too. I lived like that for a while. But the next time I surfaced, I just felt drained every time. And then it became like this."
"Alberto also suggested I go up more often. But when I'm in control of the body, there's really nothing much for me to do. It's either concerts or art exhibitions; it feels like I'm completely wasting time."
"After we met Tim, Alberto thought he was a little dangerous and didn't agree to let me have contact with him. I had even less to do when I went out, so I haven't controlled the body in a long time."
Shiller let out a long sigh. Charles said, "He's denying his Self. For a Personality in a case of dissociative identity, once it starts to deny itself, it becomes very easy for it to disappear."
"It's not that you have nothing to do," Charles said, looking into Evans's eyes. "Is going to concerts and art exhibitions not proper business?"
Evans shook his head and said, "Definitely not. That's just entertainment to kill time. But you can't just be entertaining yourself all the time; you have to do some proper business."
"What does Alberto usually do?" Charles asked.
"He's got a ton of things. He has to manage the Falcone Family business, get involved in politics in Italy, build up Sicily, and he even has to take care of the lemon groves. It feels like twenty-four hours a day isn't enough."
"That's not how it is," Shiller said softly. "You grew up in Gotham, so you're always full of crisis awareness. But in peaceful times, there's nothing so urgent that it won't even let you sit through a single concert."
"Yeah," Evans said. "Even back when Gotham hadn't gotten better yet, we'd still go to the theater to watch operas. But I just want to help Alberto. I really can't make sense of business matters. So this is all I can do."
Shiller looked at Charles. Charles said, "It'd be best to separate the body. But before that, I need to take his Spirit Body away first and carry out a round of Healing."
"I…" Evans clearly didn't want that.
But Charles was just as clearly the sort of Doctor who didn't care whether psychiatric patients were willing or not. With a wave of his hand, Evans's figure vanished from the room. Right after that, Alberto came down from upstairs.
"I'll leave my little brother in your hands," Alberto said. "The Falcone Family owes you one. If you need anything, just say the word."
Charles nodded to him. The two of them returned to the real world. Shiller sighed and said, "Did he put up much of a fight?"
"Not too much," Charles said. "He's the type whose Sympathy overflows. I just told him that his and his brother's case has a lot of research value and might help more people. After that he didn't make much of a fuss."
"That's good." Shiller let out a small breath. Charles glanced out the window; the Fog was getting thicker and thicker. He said, "To help him nurture his Spirit Body, I can't leave this cosmos for the duration. Do you have anything to do here?"
"Under normal circumstances I'd have to go to work and grade papers. But the rainy season isn't over yet, so I can only stay home and watch TV. Do you want to join Brainiac's new game?" Shiller of course saw through him.
"Even if I go, I'm not grading your papers for you. You grade your own." Charles seemed to see right through Shiller's thoughts. "I've still got a huge stack of assignments from Mutants that I haven't graded yet. If it wasn't to escape from that, why would I come here?"
The two of them sighed in unison. If every household has a scripture that's hard to recite, then every Professor or teacher has an entire library. To escape from work—especially from grading papers—going on a killing spree in some battle dungeon or other isn't exactly unacceptable.
"Brainiac." Shiller called out.
"Got it, I'll put you on the player list," Brainiac said.
"Any restrictions in the rules?" Charles asked. "Like no Mind Reading Technique or Cerebro…"
"No such restriction," Brainiac said. "Everyone can use all of their abilities. However, mind power user who use Mind Reading need to be especially careful. Because I've secured sponsorship from Nyarlathotep."
Charles frowned slightly. Outer Gods really are the perfect counter to mind power users—if you read them wrong, it's like punching your own brain in the face.
"I think we might be short on firepower…" Charles' gaze fell on Ethan. He wasn't very familiar with Ethan, but it was obvious Ethan could fight better than the two of them.
"You guys need to get me a gun," Ethan said. "Preferably a big one. Otherwise at least a semi-automatic handgun, no revolvers."
"I'll do my best," Shiller said. "Or we can just stay in the house. As long as they can't break in, we're fine."
"Your estimate of the difficulty might be a little too optimistic," Charles looked out the window and said. "If they don't limit powers, you can imagine how strong the Monsters will get."
Shiller shook his head and walked to the back of the house, coming back with an umbrella. Since it was folded, you could only see some patterns on the surface, not what they were exactly. Shiller placed the umbrella in front of the door. The instant he opened it, the Fog visibly scattered, and the space around them even trembled a little.
"Wait a second!!!" Brainiac started screaming again. "You can't use the Life Equation or the Anti-Life Equation, I didn't do compatibility testing!!!"
Shiller sighed and had no choice but to fold the umbrella back up. The Fog finally stabilized. Shiller thought for a moment and said, "I'll go invite Chief Gordon over first. Otherwise we might not even be able to hold this house."
"Hello, and welcome to the Fog Realm." A voice sounded in the Robins' ears. Red hood warily pressed his hand against the gun at his waist.
"Brainiac?" Red Robin clearly knew more. He'd had a lot of dealings with this cosmos's Tim and knew their Gotham had already been taken over by Brainiac. Even though it sounded ridiculous, they still decided to adapt to local rules.
"Yes, sir," Brainiac said. "You have now entered the Fog Realm System and are currently in the loading phase. The base module has finished loading. Please choose the base you will be stationed in. If there's anything you don't understand, you can ask me."
"What the hell?" Red hood was still a bit lost.
The last time the Robins came to this cosmos, they were all pretty young—just a bunch of teenagers. Nightwing hadn't been away from home for long, Red Robin had just started the job, and Red hood had only just come back; they lacked experience and capability in a lot of things.
After all these years, they'd trained under Batman and become seasoned warriors. This time they came back, they wanted this damned cosmos to see what the Batman Family was really capable of.
Turns out they'd powered up, but this Gotham seemed to have powered up too. It was like they used to go out with wooden sticks to smack little crawfish, then went home and somehow dinged a whole level, and now they're hauling machine guns to fight Gundams—not exactly an improvement.
Brainiac gave a brief introduction to his game System. It quickly hooked the Robins. The Batcave actually has its own realistic training System, but it basically only serves the Batman Family and has quite a few limitations, so you can't really go wild with it.
They hadn't expected this evil AI to have built a realistic instance that can replicate an entire city, and it even doesn't limit powers or gear. Doesn't that mean you can simulate every disaster that could happen in Gotham here and run defense drills against it?
The Robins exchanged looks and immediately understood the value of this System. No wonder Batman agreed to let them come play. They'd wanted to come several times before, but Batman refused, insisting that getting tangled up with the Nameless Bat was a bad idea. The Robins had no real way to argue back.
"Who else is in the game?" Red hood asked excitedly. "Batman from this cosmos?"
He hadn't forgotten that the first time they came to Gotham, they were welcomed by Bruce—who directly led them right to Joker's face.
"There is no Batman here," Brainiac said. "But there are quite a few others—besides people from this Great World, there are also people from the neighboring world. You'll encounter them in the upcoming missions. For now, you can start choosing your base."
"Then we'll pick Wayne… oh, wait. We can't choose Wayne Manor anymore, right? Because of the Robins from this cosmos…"
"You can choose Wayne Manor," Brainiac said. "Currently that base has not been claimed by any players. Confirm selection?"
"Hold up, hold up." Red Robin hurriedly stopped them. "Why didn't the Robins of this cosmos choose Wayne Manor? Does that mean there's some issue with it? Where did they go?"
"They have their own base," Brainiac replied. "There is no danger inside any of the bases. Only the layout and attached facilities differ."
"But this cosmos doesn't have a Batcave, right?" Red Robin asked. He'd heard from this cosmos's Tim that Bruce hadn't had time to build the Batcave yet.
Nightwing was concerned about something else. "They have their own base—did they split off? Become a new Superhero organization?"
"Not necessarily a Superhero organization," Brainiac replied.
The Robins all thought he meant that the Robins might not have actually founded an independent organization, but in fact the emphasis in Brainiac's sentence was on "Superhero." Unfortunately, he's Electronic Life, and he rarely adds stress when he talks.
"Then let's pick Wayne Manor," Red hood said. "No matter what, we've lived there; we're familiar with the terrain. If we pick somewhere else, it'll be harder to set up defenses."
"Works for me," Red Robin said thoughtfully. "Wayne Manor's location is pretty decent. It's not in the center, but not too remote either. The only pity is the terrain is too flat. If it were halfway up a hill, that'd be perfect."
"The hilly area of Gotham in this cosmos is in the north," Brainiac said. "It used to be a cluster zone for Mob estates, and there are bases available there as well. Want to check them out?"
"Better not," Red Robin shook his head and said. "I can pretty much guess what kind of people would choose that area. I don't want a Mob Boss for a neighbor."