The domineering CEO bat

The mask factory was brightly lit.

Black Mask's lieutenant stood on a pile of wooden crates, spittle flying as he fed his men empty promises.

"Once we wreck Gotham's economy, Mr. Roman will put every one of you in an uptown mansion, right next door to Bruce Wayne!"

The villains in Gotham all made the same empty promises.

Before anyone could take a bite of that pie in the sky, the steel-framed glass overhead exploded.

Crash!

Countless shards of glass rained down, accompanied by a black reaper.

When Batman landed, his knee crushed one unlucky bastard's rib cage.

He barreled through the crowd like a war machine that needed no lubrication.

Dull cracks of breaking bones rose one after another throughout the factory, setting teeth on edge.

Hidden atop a tall smokestack across from the factory, Chen Mo held a secondhand pair of binoculars he had picked up at a street stall, half an energy bar hard enough to serve as a crowbar stuffed in his mouth.

"Tsk, tsk. Those punches, that power delivery. Professional."

As he chewed, Chen Mo furiously took notes in his mental notebook.

"That shoulder throw with the knee strike-I'll have to find a utility pole to practice on later."

Right now, he relied entirely on his tremendous spider strength to brute-force his fights, figuring out technique on his own.

Sure, enough strength could send anything flying, but he always felt he lacked a little of that elite-player swagger.

Just as Batman was about to finish everyone off, something suddenly changed.

On the factory's second-floor platform, the lids of several large crates sprang open, revealing a row of oddly shaped horns.

They were modified industrial sonic cannons.

Bzzzz!

A burst of high-frequency noise erupted, and Chen Mo felt as though thousands of sewing needles had stabbed his eardrums at once.

He nearly dropped the binoculars.

At the center of the factory, Batman visibly faltered, dropping painfully to one knee with his hands pressed against the sides of his cowl.

For someone with senses as keen as his, this high-frequency noise was practically an attack on his soul.

Dozens of elite thugs closed in with vicious grins, their alloy steel pipes gleaming coldly.

Chen Mo sighed and stuffed the rest of his energy bar into his pocket.

"Tch, wouldn't let me come clean up the battlefield, huh? So, are you going to say thank you in a minute, Bats?"

He leaped, tracing an arc through the air.

His webbing stuck precisely to a beam above the factory.

The moment Chen Mo swung inside, he casually fired two clumps of webbing in midair, plugging up the sonic cannons' power lines.

Crackle!

Sparks flew, and the brain-splitting noise cut off abruptly.

Several goons about to slip out the back door for reinforcements had no time to react before they felt their collars tighten.

Chen Mo hung upside down from the doorframe, holding a burly man in each hand like two chickens awaiting slaughter.

"Want to leave? Not a chance. Not through a door, not through a window."

He flung both hands outward, and webbing streamed out like tentacles, instantly wrapping the men into giant cocoons and hanging them neatly from the lintel.

"Beautiful."

Chen Mo spoke to himself, adding a few more shots of webbing to seal every exit in the factory tight.

With the sonic cannons no longer suppressing him, Batman instantly switched from "weakened" to "berserk mode."

He rose, swept his cape aside, and became a black blur.

In less than three minutes, the thugs who had been clamoring about living in mansions were all on the floor seeing stars.

Black Mask's lieutenant fared even worse. He had barely tried to draw the dagger hidden in his sleeve before the recovered Batman caught him with a backward twist.

Crack.

Both arms bent at grotesque angles.

Ignoring the screams from the floor, Batman went straight to a safe at the back of the office.

He took an electronic decoder from his belt, and in under ten seconds, the safe door popped open.

There was no money inside, only a thick ledger.

Batman flipped through a few pages, his white eye lenses narrowing slightly.

Chen Mo lowered himself upside down from the shadows, stopping directly in front of Batman.

"First things first: I saved you back there, so say thank you. Now."

Batman closed the ledger, his voice cold enough to shed ice.

"What gives you the right to interfere with my operation?"

Chen Mo rolled his eyes, though his mask hid it.

"Your operation? Did you file a patrol application with city hall? This factory is a public area, man. Stop acting like it's your backyard."

"It's dangerous here."

"You're clearly not as good in a fight as I am. What just happened proved it."

Batman fell silent for a second.

"So you dealt with those men?"

Chen Mo dusted off his hands, looking smug.

"Six at the back door, hanging upside down, all in a neat row. Neater than the clothes hanging in your Batcave."

"Everything here is under control now. You can leave."

With that, Batman turned and headed outside, showing no intention of sharing the ledger's contents.

"Hey, hold on!"

Chen Mo followed a couple of steps behind him.

"So, that car of yours-"

Batman stopped and turned his head.

"Just putting this out there," Chen Mo said, raising both hands with a sincere expression. "Such a big car, such a cool design-isn't driving it alone every time a bit of a waste of resources? Ever heard of saving energy and cutting emissions? Gotham's air quality is bad enough already."

Batman said nothing. He pressed the remote on his gauntlet.

Outside the factory, the sharply angular armored Batmobile glided silently across the open ground toward them.

Its canopy slowly opened.

The interior was laid bare: densely packed control panels, weapon systems, and a tactical computer.

And, right in the middle, a single narrow driver's seat.

No passenger seat.

No back row.

Not even somewhere to put takeout.

The very concept of a "passenger" had never entered this car's design philosophy.

Chen Mo leaned over to look at the seat, then looked at Batman's expressionless face.

Batman still said nothing.

He did not even look at Chen Mo's reaction, merely pressing the remote again with his thumb.

The door stopped firmly in its fully open position, as though demonstrating to Chen Mo: see, there really isn't room.

"...Fine. You win."

Chen Mo cast a reluctant glance at the incredibly cool-looking Batmobile, considering the chances that Batman would agree if he suggested walking home and leaving the car for him to drive.

Yeah, zero.

Another awkward silence followed.

"So you're making a scene here," Batman finally said, his tone as level as though he were reading a weather forecast, "because you didn't get a ride in the Batmobile."

Chen Mo took a deep breath.

Then another.

He raised a hand in a "stop right there" gesture.

"Enough. I've seriously had it with the way you Gotham people talk. Especially you."

Chen Mo circled Batman, clicking his tongue.

"You say half a sentence, then crush people with the other half. You know what that line you just said would sound like paired with a shot of you standing in the rain with your back turned?"

Batman's jawline did not move an inch.

"Like one of those webnovel male leads who says, 'Woman, you've successfully caught my attention.'"

Chen Mo gestured as he complained.

"That whole 'everything is under control, I won't explain, figure it out yourself' thing. It's sleazy, Bats. Seriously sleazy."

"Either say a little more and explain things properly, or stop taking potshots in that 'I saw through everything long ago' tone. Pick one. Is it that hard?"

"Can do."

Batman delivered the two words succinctly.

"..."

Chen Mo waited three seconds.

"That's it? Just 'can do'?"

Batman had already turned and climbed into the cockpit.

"Wait!" Chen Mo hurried after him. "Do you mean you can say more, or you can stop talking? Did you actually pick one just now? Make yourself clear!"

Vroom!

The Batmobile's deep, savage engine roar answered him.

Just before the canopy closed, Batman turned his head and glanced at him.

No "stay safe."

No "good work."

Certainly no "thank you."

He merely gave him a look carrying a mocking hint of "see, I said two more words."

Chen Mo classified that look as mockery.

The door closed, and the Batmobile vanished into the night like a streak of black lightning.

Chen Mo stood where he was and gave the receding taillights a thumbs-up.

"Fine. You've got personality."

Muttering to himself, he fired a strand of webbing and swung onto the rooftop opposite.

"Next time, I'm bringing a little stool and strapping it to your roof."

He thought for a moment, then added another remark.

"Heavy as an iron weight... domineering CEO bat freak... wait, I think he actually is a CEO..."

The night breeze was a little chilly against Chen Mo's patched suit.

He swung between the high-rises, still turning that ledger over in his mind.

Black Mask, Falcone, Maroni.

Gotham sure was lively.

Just then, the hairs on the back of Chen Mo's head suddenly stood on end.

Spider-Sense!

Someone was following him.

And they were an expert.

Using the shadows cast by Gotham's complex architecture, his pursuer had almost merged with the darkness, his breathing frighteningly slow.

Chen Mo sneered inwardly.

Playing stealth games with me? I'm a man who can sense vibrations in the air.

He did not turn around. Instead, he sped up, weaving rapidly between several abandoned clock towers.

Finally, he deliberately leaped into a dead-end alley.

The alley was piled with stinking trash cans, with a solid wall at the end.

His pursuer was clearly patient. Rather than reveal himself immediately, he lurked silently in the shadows at the alley entrance.

The assassin Shadow tightened his grip on his high-frequency dagger.

Black Mask had paid a hefty sum to hire him specifically to deal with those "disobedient little nuisances."

And given the choice between chasing the Batmobile and chasing the little bug leisurely swinging above the rooftops, the assassin had easily chosen the latter.

The latter looked easier to catch than the former.

From his perspective, the red-and-blue freak had already run out of places to go.

Like a gecko, Shadow slipped noiselessly into the alley.

But the alley was empty.

Aside from a few still-smoking trash cans, there was not a trace of anyone.

Where did he go?

Alarmed, Shadow instinctively looked up.

An enormous, faintly glowing web descended from above!

"Got you, little mouse."

Chen Mo's voice sounded behind him.

Shadow reacted extremely quickly, slashing backward in an attempt to cut through the web.

But to his horror, the webbing was absurdly tough. His blade actually threw off sparks as it scraped across it.

Before he could change his move, Chen Mo's fist slammed into the back of his head.

Shadow's vision went black, and he was stuck straight onto an advertising board on the wall.

The billboard featured a plump burger, and Shadow was stuck right in the middle of it, like an extra patty.

Chen Mo appeared upside down in front of him, holding a note written in marker.

He slapped the note onto the assassin's forehead.

There were no threats on the note, just a drawing of a cartoon turtle.

Chen Mo dusted off his hands and disappeared from the rooftop.

Less than five minutes later, a few pigeons landed on the wall at the mouth of the alley.

One eye on each pigeon flickered with a faint red glow as they stared unblinkingly at the assassin stuck to the wall.