2226 Side Story: Fantasy Journey 67
Luke tapped the ground twice with the metal pipe and said, "Everybody, go home early today. Didn't you hear this guy say that they've put a ton of explosives in the mall? You'll die if you keep running around."
Everybody looked at each other in bewilderment.
A few seconds later, a middle-aged man who was dressed similar to Luke strode out and bowed deeply. "Thank you, sir. You saved me twice. How should I address you?"
Luke waved the metal pipe. "I'm just an ordinary laborer."
Stumped for a moment, the middle-aged man bowed again. "My apologies – you do need to protect your identity. Thank you again, sir."
With that, he strode out.
He could only speak like this because Luke was dressed like him, which gave him a sense of familiarity.
If it were Batman, the middle-aged man would be afraid of getting close and dirtying the bigshot's armor.
After being in life-threatening danger twice in a row, he didn't want to take any more risks, and what Luke had mentioned was even more dangerous.
The man had heard of TNT before. He didn't know exactly how powerful a ton was, but it definitely wouldn't be just one building that blew up.
Compared with this chaotic commercial district, the residential apartments were undoubtedly much safer.
Few people in Gotham were complete idiots. Even those at the bottom had street smarts that had kept them alive until now.
It was one thing for the law not to punish the masses, but it was very easy to be targeted as a large group by supervillains. This was a plot cliche – it was just that most people had never experienced it for themselves.
Now… everyone here had experienced it for themselves, and twice, for many of them.
With the middle-aged man taking the lead, and given what Luke had said, more and more people started to leave the building.
Most of them went around Luke. After all, he had just used a pipe to knock out a dozen armed criminals.
But some of the more emotional or thick-skinned guys ran over to thank him — like a certain person from the group of nerds.
'Black Widow' Lawser was excited. "Thank you for saving us. You saved us twice. We were really lucky…"
Luke glanced at him but didn't say anything.
His friends weren't as bold. They were walking out, but could only stop and wait for him.
A guy in a fish suit was clutching a half-naked figurine that was 40 centimeters tall as he murmured with tears on his face, "Honey, don't die."
With Luke's eyesight, he could see a huge hole in the figurine — from between the legs and all the way up to the top of the head.
Hm, your wife died a tragic death! Luke couldn't help but mock inwardly.
'Black Widow' Lawser, whose wife had been taken from him earlier on, had long scurried away the bolster behind him, for fear of losing this last bit of comfort.
Still, he was excited. "But I think you need a codename, to intimidate the enemy and promote yourself…"
Luke glanced at the metal pipe in his right hand and wondered if he should use it to shut this chatterbox up.
In any case, these guys were technically thieves. They were all light red in color, and he wouldn't lose credit points even if they were beaten up.
He had accumulated a lot of experience fighting thieves.
Lawser suddenly felt a little threatened for some reason. Still, he was inspired. "So, how about Crowbar Man?"
Luke slowly raised the steel pipe. "Is this a crowbar?"
The sense of danger increased, and Lawser swallowed. "Sorry, doesn't seem like it. Goodbye." He then ran off.
But when he reached the entrance, he thought of a new name. "I got it. You can be — Stick Man!"
Not only that, he even urged his nerd companions to say, "Thank you, Stick Man."
Luke, who had already walked into the darkness of the building, paused. He held himself back, and finally didn't throw out the 'stick' in his hand to hit someone. How was that better than Crowbar Man?!
…
What Zsasz didn't know was that Luke had been monitoring his group since the beginning.
The drones had captured the entire process of the Penguin sending the explosives to the Joker and of the explosives being placed in various locations around the city.
After Master Wayne knocked out the Joker, who was in charge of the overall situation, nobody knew how many explosives there were and when they would explode.
The real danger was the bombs which the criminals carried on them.
But Luke could take all the bombs back when he dealt with the criminals.
Some innocent people might be caught up in the process, but not too many.
Getting rid of these supervillains in one go in exchange for a bright future was a better choice.
Luke wasn't a saint; it was impossible to eliminate evil without sacrifices.
He wouldn't ask someone to sacrifice themselves, but he could only apologize to the people who got caught up in things.
The best way to not make mistakes in the world was to not do anything.
If you didn't do anything, the mistakes would be someone else's to make.
Of course, Luke couldn't live his days as a slacker. The best he could do was minimize casualties of the innocent.
He checked the time. His plane would arrive in an hour. He had to speed up.
Throwing Zsasz into Space 2, Luke disappeared into the darkness.
…
On the first floor of a building, the Scarecrow was leaning against a pillar and urging impatiently, "Idiots, hurry and move the canisters in. If we're any later, we won't have anything to do tonight."
The criminals in pig masks simply looked at each other and didn't say anything, but they did pick up their pace.
They knew before the mission tonight that they were just helping out a bunch of lunatics.
As long as their own lives weren't threatened, the lunatics could do whatever they wanted.
Tomorrow, after the intermediary confirmed that they hadn't slacked off, the remaining 50% of their reward would be transferred to their secret accounts.
So, for the sake of money, these lunatics could be the boss, and the criminals just needed to do their job.
Despite his pushing, the Scarecrow wasn't in a hurry.
It had been less than an hour since the show started. Furthermore, those idiots only knew how to use their fists and feet or guns to do things.
The truth was that less than 10% of people were involved in the current chaos, which was too inefficient.
Only a genius like him could think to use this tall building in the city center to launch his 'Fear Toxin' in densely populated areas throughout the city.
At that time, whether it was the blue-collar, white-collar or middle-class people at the bottom, they would all f*cking get high! Thinking that, the Scarecrow couldn't help but laugh under his strange scarecrow mask, which had a crooked and terrifying smile on it.
The only problem with the plan was the danger of transporting the toxic gas.
In order to ensure that the Joker would get him out of Arkham, the Scarecrow hadn't been able to make any preparations in advance, and the fear toxin was stored in secret locations.
After the chaos started, and it was confirmed that neither Superman nor Batman had the energy to pay attention to him, the canisters of toxic gas were brought over.
What he needed to do now was install the canister launchers which the criminals had brought with them and detonate the canisters in the air two to three hundred meters away.
At that time, the toxic gas would spread to cover the residential areas below.
