Bang!
As the police in front opened fire first, the security personnel behind them stopped holding back and began shooting at Laughing Man.
Most fatal of all, the female teller Laughing Man had grabbed so quickly was utterly unsuitable as a hostage. She was nearly 1.8 meters tall, weighed around 75 kilograms, had visibly worked-out arms, and had been struggling from the moment Laughing Man seized her.
Laughing Man might have been Batman, but he was a gaunt Batman. In this kind of close-quarters struggle, the difference in weight class was obvious. He had already spent considerable strength trying to restrain the struggling woman, and the wound on his chest that had begun to heal split open again. The teller gathered all her strength and yanked hard, throwing Laughing Man sideways onto the ground.
A police officer fired with a bang, hitting him in the thigh. The teller hurried away after breaking free. With no hostage left, the security guards behind him had even fewer reservations about firing, raising their weapons and unleashing a burst of bullets.
Fortunately, The Batman Who Laughs still had Batman's equipment. The instant he hit the ground, the grappling hook in his hand fired out and caught on the handle of the bank's back door. The cable reeled in and sent him flying. His speed kept him from taking many bullets, while the gunfire instead destroyed the lock, allowing him to escape.
The instant he ran outside, he looked back at the crowd, intending to see whether the police were following him, only to spot Schiller standing among them and smiling at him.
With a bang, the door shut.
Laughing Man felt his heart pounding wildly. Old memories surged through his mind—at the end of a pale world, a certain figure had smiled at him