Emerald Bird Street Clinic.
Baia lightly knocked on the closed clinic door, but there was no response.
But since the clue hinted at coming here, there was no reason to leave empty-handed. That meant they had to figure out another way in. Looking at the three unreliable individuals piled up on the overloaded wheelchair, Baia felt exhausted.
Locksmith check, 28/41.
Baia took off her brooch and fiddled with the door lock. With a click, the door opened.
Damian looked somewhat shocked: "Why are you so proficient at picking locks?"
"Just a hobby," Baia modestly replied.
Pushing open the door, a foul smell permeated the small clinic. Baia sniffed lightly and immediately felt the urge to vomit. For Damian, this smell was all too familiar.
The smell of death.
A person slowly rose behind the reception desk, their skin gray and eyes dull. With a vacant stare, they looked at Baia and Damian.
"Welcome," the man seemed unfazed by Baia and Damian breaking in.
Baia conducted a medical examination on the man who appeared like a zombie and found that, for some reason, he was on the verge of death, with almost no chance of survival.
"Do you have any sobering medicine here?" While Baia observed the man, Damian conducted a straightforward investigation, but his low investigation points led to failure, so he had to ask directly.
"Damian got lucky and judged whether there was any sobering medicine here," Tim said.
29/30, successful.
Baia successfully obtained the sobering medicine and administered it to the trio of unreliable individuals. The medication would take some time to take effect, so she decided to assess the man's situation herself.
"Have there been any strange patients recently?"
"What's the point?" The doctor seemed absent-minded for a moment, then suddenly laughed gloomily. "It's all ending soon... People are no longer like people, but aren't they all living well? Except for those who are chosen?"
"What chosen?"
The doctor ignored her and curled up behind the reception desk again.
Just as Damian was about to react, they heard the faint sound of dice rolling. Turning around, they saw Bruce's mesmerizing eyes had regained clarity, Dick was muttering complaints about his bones being crushed, and Jason, who was at the bottom, was overturned.
"Let's find a quiet place to discuss," Bruce glanced at the doctor behind the counter and said to Baia.
Baia nodded.
The desolate backyard of the clinic.
"There's no one here, we can communicate normally," Dick said with a sigh of relief after conducting an investigation.
Baia handed over the file bag containing Erika's documents to Bruce. After quickly skimming through it, Bruce frowned, but then relaxed: "It says here that the missing people have all had contact with a gang leader named Varendin, who is involved in small-scale smuggling in Gotham Harbor. He's well-off but not a big shot, and he's... a lieutenant under Falcone."
"Smuggling, mysterious light, Gotham Harbor," Baia summarized, "I think we already have a clear idea of what enemy we're facing."
The Starlight. A type of incorporeal energy creature from beyond the distant universe. They looked like a beautiful aurora, and during their juvenile stage, they absorbed the life force of nearby organisms. Those affected by them would experience mutations and mental abnormalities, with mutations being more pronounced in animals.
This beautiful creature would instinctively make people want to get closer, only to die in agony.
"But our characters still don't know. And besides, we're completely powerless against this thing; it's immune to physical attacks," Damian said.
"We may not be able to handle it, but did you forget something?" Dick asked. Just when Bruce mentioned "Falcone," he suddenly remembered.
Everyone turned to look at him.
"This is Gotham 15 years ago," he emphasized the place name. "If this is Gotham, we'll not only encounter monsters but also..."
"The newly emerged Batman," Jason muttered.
Dick turned to Bruce with a half-smile, "If we encounter you from 15 years ago, would we even need persuasion?"
There was a twitch at the corner of Bruce's mouth, and he said reluctantly, "No, it's too risky in case of failure."
Tim interjected, "I can also tell you directly that if you want to use persuasion on Batman, you'll need an extremely difficult check and also roll dice secretly against Batman's will."
That basically ruled out the idea. It was well known that Batman's will was infinite.
"But wait, if it's so difficult," Jason pointed at Damian, "how did he get here? If Talia can do it, there's no reason why Bruce himself can't, right?"
"Jason Todd," Damian's tone was icy, "I swear by the name of the Allfather, I will kill you within three days."
"Okay, let's stop here," Bruce closed his eyes to calm himself. "I would never use persuasion on myself."
"Instead of that, it's more likely for Damili to become the first Robin directly, isn't it? Bruce won't be able to resist seeing him," Baia suggested.
"We don't need to go that far," the first Robin protested. "We just need to attract Batman's attention and get him to help deal with the Starlight."
In theory, Batman should already be aware of what's going on here. If it were the current Bruce, he would have noticed something was wrong on the day of the abnormality. But a fledgling Bruce? Not necessarily.
"Let's summarize the current information. First, all the missing people have met Varendin, so the appearance of the Starlight must be related to him. Let's investigate his residence; we might find more clues. Another clue is the victim. The only victim who was found dead after disappearing is named Windsor Penny, and she also has connections with Varendin. Her body is still in the GCPD morgue."
"Or we can split up," Baia suggested. "Once the Starlight matures, it will leave Earth, and the whole neighborhood will die. It doesn't seem like we have much time left. By the way, who here speaks Spanish?"
"I speak a little," Jason said.
"I'll do it, my Spanish is at 60," Dick spoke up.
Since having a foreign language skill at 60 allows for fluent conversation, there was no need for a check. Tim directly told everyone the contents of the phone call Damian overheard.
Erika was saying goodbye to her family. She felt "something was wrong with herself recently" and wanted to figure out what was happening, saying "it's all ending soon."
"Erika has been in contact with the Starlight for much longer than us; she must have been influenced," Baia analyzed. "In other words, she's going to seek death. We need to find the location of the Starlight's juvenile form quickly."
"It's probably at Varendin's stronghold," Jason added. "There aren't many NPCs around right now. Let's go back to the clinic and see; there might be information about the address there." Damian looked up at the sky.
"It's getting dark."
"To be honest, I don't want to face the family directly in the middle of the night," Jason said. "Shall we go catch the Bat first?"
This sentence was basically a death sentence for Erika, but going straight to face the monster was also a choice of death.
"In that case, Damian and I will go to the GCPD morgue to check the body's condition and see if we can analyze what happened," Bruce pondered with his chin in one hand. Because he had become female, there was no sense of oppression, and with those big eyes and long eyelashes, he looked quite cute. "The rest of you go back to Gotham Harbor and see if you can find any clues. Gotham Harbor is a smuggling center in Gotham. If 'I' were to appear in the plot, there's a high probability it would be there."
Encountering Batman would reduce the likelihood of encountering danger by a lot, which is why Bruce sent the others to Gotham Harbor.
"We don't have much time left, so let's go with this plan," Jason had no objections.
After they finished their discussion, they went straight back to the clinic. Jason (Physique) persuaded the doctor, who was already half dead, to find the medical records for the past month and managed to locate Varendin's address on them. Surprisingly, the victim, Windsor Penny, had also filled out an address, which was intriguing.
The group split up as planned.
The idea of stealing the Batmobile's tires came from Jason, but he was just casually mentioning it.
"You also have 60 points in mechanical repair?" Jason exclaimed, "Why? What are you aiming for?"
Baia calmly put down the wrench, having already dismantled half of the Batmobile's tires; all eight screws had been removed. "Bruce will definitely allocate skill points to scouting. I guess either you or Damian must have put points into combat and shooting. Since Dick's identity is a writer, he should have a high level of library use. I mainly focused on medicine and first aid, and the rest... it doesn't hurt to have diverse skills."
"You'd better stop now," Tim said. "Guess who's coming?"
It was the sound of a cape lightly fluttering in the air. If they weren't familiar with Batman, this sound would have been drowned out by the sound of waves. But Dick and Jason had fought alongside Batman countless times.
Dick turned his head immediately.
A fist the size of a sandbag flew towards his face.
They went straight into combat mode.
"Young and arrogant Bruce is really scary. He doesn't even talk before hitting someone! Tim, quick! I need to dodge and make a jump, flipping onto the top of the container!" Dick exclaimed urgently.
"My jump is at 80, steady!" Dick thought.
Jump check: 88/80, failure.
Dick was punched by Batman and slammed into the wall.
"Batman's full-force damage is 1d6+1d4..." Tim said.
1d6+1d4, meaning rolling a six-sided die and a four-sided die, then adding the results together. In other words, Batman's punch could deal 4+6=10 damage.
"But I only have a total of 9 health points!" Dick said meekly.
"But because he restrained his strength, he only caused 1d4=3 damage," Tim added, "and since you faced the fear of Gotham and were beaten by it, you also need to pass a sanity check of 1d3."
"I disagree!" Dick protested loudly. "I'm a paranormal fiction writer who lives in Gotham and teeters on the edge of death every day. How could I be scared by Batman? I should be very excited right now! Besides, I need to make another dodge!"
"...That's reluctantly reasonable, then we won't use the sanity check."
Seeing that the first attack didn't subdue Dick, Batman attacked again.
"My dodge is also 80, steady!" Dick closed his eyes.
98/80, critical failure. Batman's punch dealt the full 4 damage.
"Now make a will check," Tim sighed.
28/45, Dick remained resolutely conscious, only hating himself for not passing out yet.
"How can you dodge facing the old man?" Jason eagerly stepped forward. "Let's go fist to fist!"
Baia stopped him in time.
Batman chose to attack Dick because Baia was a delicate girl, and Jason was a disabled person sitting in a wheelchair.
"Oh my god, Bruce!" Baia shouted, and Batman halted.
"You overplayed it, Baia," Tim's tone was very disapproving. "You don't know Batman's identity."
"I wasn't shouting at Batman," Baia argued logically. "In extreme fear, I called out my father's name, but it just happened to be the same as Batman's."
Tim: "...That's far-fetched."
"Who are you?" Batman's voice through the voice changer was deep and rough. He was now wearing his earliest uniform—sometimes Dick wore it for him during his night patrols. "What do you want?"
"We just wanted to get your attention," Baia raised her hands, the wrench still in her right hand for removing tires, "We need your help. People have been dying around here lately! Haven't you noticed?"
"You just called for Bruce," Batman approached her, his imposing figure towering over Baia, "Why?"
"My dad's name is Bruce," Baia blinked, "I call him when I'm scared."
Batman: ...
Baia laid out what they had found in their investigation. Of course, she didn't mention the possibility of haunting by a juvenile Starlight that was absorbing people's life force, just that Varendin might have smuggled some kind of radioactive toxin.
"...I'll take care of it," Batman said solemnly.
"There's no time," Baia said, "From recent signs, I'm worried this radiation will only get stronger. Soon, the entire neighborhood could be dead."
Batman looked at her steadily for a moment. "Understood. I'll handle it today. From now on, this matter has nothing to do with you. Leave Gotham."
"Okay," Jason said.
Baia turned back in confusion, and Jason gave her a reassuring look.
"After all, the old man won't play with you no matter what," Jason explained after the Batmobile left. "Just play along."
In opposing Batman, the Little Birds were all equally adept.
Although medical treatment took some time, a first aid treatment wouldn't have saved Dick anyway. Now, the person sitting in the wheelchair was him—it turned out that stealing the tires was a good idea after all. Jason pushed him, mainly out of guilt, since stealing the tires was ultimately his idea.
He hadn't expected Dick to be the one to suffer the consequences.
...In reality, he didn't think the old Bat's punches were that painful to endure.
Jason thought guiltily.