Not enough hands

Why did this guy, who looked like bad news from the outset, seem so familiar with "Bat-Man"? He even called him intimate nicknames like "darling" and "little bat"?

"Uncle Joker?"

Miaomiao rolled the name around in her mouth, and her Perception kept sounding warnings.

This "Uncle Joker" was definitely no good. But if he wasn't joking, had he really taken hostages and demanded that "Bat-Man" come find him?

If she understood correctly, and Bruce was "Bat-Man," then this guy was clearly stirring up trouble to target Bruce!

Little Merfolk couldn't sit still anymore.

She closed her eyes and sensed her surroundings. Sure enough, neither Bruce nor Damian was at Wayne Manor, but there were familiar presences in the Batcave underground.

With a flick of her tail, Miaomiao swam straight down the water passage into the Underground Cavern, poking her head out of the diverted underground river.

Sure enough, Alfred was there. Tim, dressed in a bright red, skintight uniform and a long cape, sat in front of that bank of screens, typing furiously.

"Batman, the Joker Gang has taken control of the Gotham Television Station. I've detected explosives planted in four locations, but I can't be sure there aren't more we haven't found. Worse still..."

Tim's brow furrowed deeply, his voice low.

"We're getting signals requesting Batman's help from several other locations. Arkham just sent word that, besides Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Muscle Man, Killer Croc, and others have also escaped."

[Clearly, this is a premeditated crime spree.]

Miaomiao heard Damian's voice over the communicator, but its tone was unfamiliar, as though he were speaking with someone else's voice.

[We'll find a way. I'll deal with Joker.]

Bruce's voice was the same, turning hoarse and deep, like a dried fish baked in the sun on a beach.

It sounded awful.

Miaomiao thought, Bruce's normal voice is much nicer to listen to.

[We don't have enough people.] A female voice Miaomiao had never heard came through. [The distress calls are spread too far apart. There's no way we can go through them one by one.]

"You're right, Oracle. I need to go help."

As he spoke, Tim quickly checked his equipment, put on his domino mask, and prepared to head out.

"Alfred, I'm leaving things here to you."

"Rest assured, Master Tim."

They turned around and met a pair of innocent, bewildered eyes tinged with resentment.

"Miaomiao, you..."

"You're all doing something together, and you're leaving me out."

Miaomiao felt hurt. Hadn't they agreed to be a family? Why did everyone else have special clothes and a second name, while she had neither? And if everyone was taking part in this nighttime family activity, why was she the only one being left out? Was she not good enough?

With time running short, Tim couldn't stop to comfort the dejected Little Merfolk. He could only give Miaomiao a reason she couldn't argue with-

"Miaomiao, it's not that we don't want to take you. Your appearance is just too distinctive. There's no way to hide your identity."

With such a huge, glittering blue-purple tail, how could anyone fail to notice her unless they were blind?

Besides, although Gotham City was an island city crisscrossed with waterways, getting around the city in her merfolk form still wouldn't be as convenient for Miaomiao as moving through water.

Against his better judgment, Tim could only "promise" Little Merfolk, "If we have a mission out at sea next time, we'll definitely bring you along."

With that, Tim hurried onto his motorcycle and sped off to provide support at the scene.

Meanwhile, Alfred looked at Miaomiao, who was still pouting unhappily, and quietly stepped forward to smooth things over for the others. "Miss Miaomiao, I'm sorry we've upset you. Protecting Gotham is Batman and the Robins' duty. Although it is a duty they imposed upon themselves, having taken on that responsibility, they ought to do their best to fulfill it. They're simply worried about you and want to protect you."

"Oh, yes," Alfred said, as though something had just occurred to him. "I've made a new flavor of cookies. Would you like to try some?"

Alfred deliberately adopted a lighter tone, hoping to distract the girl. But the girl whose eyes always lit up at the mention of food was unmoved by the same old trick this time.

Whenever she thought of the whole family going out to do something together without her, Miaomiao couldn't suppress the hurt welling up inside.

In the sea, everyone hunted and played together. Miaomiao understood that land humans and the Merfolk had different customs, but she couldn't accept being the only one excluded.

Besides, if you wanted to protect someone, shouldn't you teach her how to hunt, help her grow, and let her learn to stand on her own? How did concealment and deception count as protection?

The more she thought about it, the angrier she grew. Unwilling to take it out on the kindly old butler, Miaomiao flipped over, flicked her tail, and dived into the underground river.

The old butler's expression remained calm. "Oh, dear."

This scene certainly felt familiar. Wouldn't you agree, Master Bruce?

Sure enough, the Batcomputer immediately issued an alert, detecting Miaomiao swimming out of the underground river's outlet and into Gotham Bay.

[Alfred?]

"Does this scene look familiar to you, sir?" The unflappable Butler Batman sat in front of the computer screens, taking over Red Robin's intelligence support duties while still finding time to tease his employer. "You seem to go through this every time you adopt a child."

Clad in his Batsuit, Bruce had no answer. He had always wanted to protect his children as best he could and keep them away from these dangers.

But perhaps some sort of law of attraction really did exist. Every one of his children, adopted or biological, regardless of gender, nationality, temperament, or methods, had ultimately taken the same path as him.

Even his second son, Jason, who had fallen out with him over certain events and now operated as "Red Hood," preying on criminals, was, Bruce firmly believed, saving Gotham in a different way from his own.

But Miaomiao...

She was still a little different from the others...

He had reached the Gotham Television Station. Bruce could only set everything else aside for now, slip into his Batman mindset, and focus on the trouble before him.

Joker was no small-time crook he could brush aside.

Just as Batman prepared to match wits and strength with Joker, Miaomiao had already swum into Gotham's waterways.

She had no map of Gotham's waterway network, but instinctively gleaned a great deal of information from the speed and direction of the currents.

Go find Bruce?

No.

She was only acting a little impulsively because she felt hurt. She wasn't stupid, and she certainly wasn't trying to cause trouble.

From the conversation earlier and the information revealed on television, it was clear that plenty of bad guys were causing trouble all over the place. Bruce was concentrating on dealing with that ugly fellow called Joker, and Damian and Tim were helping, but they still didn't have enough people.

In particular, Tim had mentioned "explosives."

Hmm, not enough people, huh?

Then I just won't look for people~

Miaomiao opened her mouth and released a sound wave beyond the range of human hearing. Bolstered by the Merfolk's innate gift, it spread through the seawater at tremendous speed.