That night, after personally entrusting everyone in New York who had any connection to him with their respective tasks, Batman stood alone on Bat Island.
He wasn't at ease leaving, but the longer he delayed, the greater the danger Norman Osborn faced in New Mexico.
He had to set out immediately.
The first Batwing he had built in this world had already completed its pre-flight sequence. The vector nozzles glowed with faint flames, and the Oracle AI was fully loaded.
The prototype didn't have a proper cargo bay in the traditional sense. Batman had modified the fighter's internal structure to a certain degree so that its underbelly could meet his needs.
Inside that underbelly now lay quietly: one Batcycle, and three objects resembling cryogenic hibernation pods.
In addition, Batman had prepared a device roughly the size of a desktop printer. It could emit a composite spectrum wave capable of briefly controlling—on a mental level—monsters born from gamma radiation.
This was an optimized version of the hasty gamma-device program overwrite he had performed inside the Osborn Industries tower while fighting the Hulk.
Given that the Hulk had retained his rationality at the time, and Batman's only goal had been to restrain both him and Professor Lizard, the device had managed to control him for less than ten seconds. Batman estimated that, once activated now, this machine would buy him no more than five seconds at best.
The device had cost him roughly three million dollars. Like the Batwing itself, the Batcycle, and those three hibernation-pod-like objects, it was a one-use tool.
To deal with what might be a large number of Hydra soldiers, Batman had also crafted a firearm that simply did not exist in this world: a gun capable of firing short but extremely powerful laser pulses that could disable enemy weapons on the spot. He named it the "Disruptor."
On top of that, he had manufactured—almost as an afterthought—various gadgets that would never see use in New York: the sonic bat-password device, bat-micro mines, and more.
Smoke bombs originally converted from Green Goblin explosives had been upgraded into intense flash-smoke grenades; standard flashbangs were now vertigo-inducing dazzlers; the Batcycle carried a massive EMP warhead.
Some of his batarangs had been upgraded into high-frequency oscillating batarangs and gel-bomb batarangs—the former for remote detonation against possible gamma monsters, the latter for remote restraint against ordinary soldiers.
Even the batsuit he wore was no longer the first Arkham suit he had built. He had replaced it with a new one that eliminated most internal electronics and carried no Oracle AI.
The only electronic components remaining in the new suit were packed with cyber viruses; the moment Batman infiltrated the gamma bomb research facility, they would immediately hack into the base's comms, radar, and partial fire-control systems.
Beyond that, the suit's greatest feature was a radiation-resistant layer that would prevent Batman himself from undergoing any gamma-induced changes.
There were also bat-drones for aerial reconnaissance, and spider-like micro-robots so small they could crawl through pipes and crevices.
After the previous tranquilizer formula had proven ineffective against both the Hulk and Professor Lizard, Batman had upgraded it again. This time it was no longer an aerosol; instead, it was stored in collapsible syringes hidden in his utility belt. Each dose was enough to drop a blue whale and tipped with diamond drill bits.
He had prepared hundreds of variations of the web-fluid formula. Upgraded and pre-mixed, the fluid was now compressed into capsules for instant reloading and swapping.
The combined web-shooter/grapnel gun—now called the Bat-Claw—had been relocated from the outer forearms (where he needed freedom to block attacks) to the pulse points on his wrists.
Batman had not deliberately tried to differentiate himself from the way Peter Parker once fired webbing as "Spider-Man." He simply believed Peter's method was worth learning from.
Of course, Batman didn't need to press his palm with his fingers; there were no sensors in his palms. He relied instead on muscle control far beyond that of ordinary men to trigger or withhold the fluid.
For the trip to New Mexico, one final item remained.
Batman glanced at the tube of pale-green viscous liquid in his hand.
He had never forgotten his original reason for bringing Dr. Banner back to South Brother Island.
Besides keeping Banner's potential rampages under personal control and having him collaborate with Doctor Octavius on nuclear fusion research, the most important goal had been to have this gamma-radiation expert create an antidote for Norman Osborn—so Batman wouldn't have to waste too much of his own effort studying gamma rays himself. (Chapter 65)
The antidote in the tube had taken Banner only two days to produce.
Not because he was that much of a genius, but because this version could only temporarily suppress the Super Soldier Serum-derived power inside Norman Osborn's body.
According to Banner, he would need to physically examine Norman—conduct a full, detailed battery of tests and analyses—before he could prescribe a true cure.
Best-case scenario: Norman is cured and waits in Ravencroft Institute for the day he walks free.
Worst-case scenario: like Banner himself, Norman spends the rest of his life searching for a permanent cure that never comes, forced to make peace with the monster inside.
None of that was Batman's primary concern right now. Even though he had contingency plans for both outcomes, they sat at the very bottom of his priority list.
All told, preparing for New Mexico had cost him over eighty million dollars.
But it still wasn't time to leave. One thing remained unfinished.
"Robin."
Shwick!
Venom's head instantly popped out from behind Batman's cowl, long tongue already reaching to lick the Dark Knight's exposed chin—only to be blocked by a single raised palm.
Venom settled for noisily sucking on Batman's gloved fingertip instead, voice dripping with delight.
"Daddy, are we leaving now?"
"Yes," Batman replied. "While you were inside my body these past days, you found many memories you couldn't access, correct?"
"Huh? Yeah…?" Venom tilted its head in confusion, not understanding why Batman was suddenly asking. "Daddy, it wasn't like this before."
Batman didn't move a muscle. He had already determined Venom wasn't lying.
Besides continuously training his body—bringing his baseline strength past fifty tons—he had also been secretly training his various personas and upgrading his memory palace as a defense against Venom.
The "memory palace" in his mind wasn't actually shaped like a palace; it was just a concept.
The instant Venom finished speaking, it suddenly found its body being forcibly dragged back inside Batman. Its vision plunged into absolute darkness.
"Daddy? Daddy! Save me!"
Venom had no idea what was happening. It could only cry out helplessly into the infinite dark, desperately trying to claw its way back out of Batman's body.
This time it failed. It could no longer sense where Batman's body even was. Its own form felt weightless, incorporeal—just a fragment of memory drifting in the void.
After an unknown stretch of time, earth-shaking hammering thundered through the darkness.
Venom tried to shrink back, but it couldn't even locate its own head. It could only curl into a terrified ball.
After another unknowable duration, the darkness abruptly changed.
A colossal fireball filled the void, blazing fiercely. Venom screamed when it realized that was the sun.
The apocalyptic hammering came from within the sun. Through the haze of terror, Venom dimly saw a golden figure with a flowing cape, horns like a ram, pounding again and again with a hammer upon a suit of pitch-black armor—forging it into existence.
Crack!
Before Venom could process the sight, the sun vanished. A massive bolt of golden lightning tore through the darkness, chasing a red blur that sprinted impossibly fast. At the very end of the void waited that same black armor.
Then Venom found itself at the bottom of the ocean, crushed by pressure from all sides. A golden-bearded man wielding a trident whipped the seas into a vortex—at its heart, again, that black armor.
It saw the towering majesty of Mount Olympus. It saw endless streams of data in an electronic world. It saw green light streaking across the cosmos.
"Where… where am I…?"
Venom was on the verge of breaking. It hadn't known what "crying" was before, but now it sobbed in abject terror at each successive extreme.
"Daddy, save me!"
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