American comics: Today’s big news Chapter 021

“Where’s the car?”

“It exploded.”

Inside the two-door supercar, Connors said awkwardly, facing Snow X’s questioning gaze.

“It seems you’re just like those Avengers, constantly destroying your own vehicles.” Snow X suddenly understood.

But soon, she didn’t continue the topic. A mere muscle car was nothing to a superstar like her.

Looking at the supercar’s interior, she seemed to be quite knowledgeable, reaching out and performing a series of operations on the buttons, while saying:

“Do you know? This car’s shock absorption is excellent…”

As she finished speaking, the car windows became completely opaque from the outside.

There was still nearly an hour until the circus performance, and soon, in the underground parking lot, this luxurious car without a logo began to vibrate gently and rhythmically.

…

“A round of applause for the upcoming exciting performance! Taking the stage are the owners and operators of the world-renowned Grayson Circus—”

“The Flying Graysons!”

Snow X’s concert stage had been transformed into a circus stage. As the spotlights illuminated, two agile figures descended from above with the help of ropes, performing one breathtaking act after another.

Since the spotlights were always focused on the Flying Graysons, no one noticed the seeds sprouting, growing, and strengthening beneath the stage.

These plant changes were naturally related to Connors.

He was sitting in the audience below the stage with Snow X, without attracting anyone’s attention.

After a series of warm-up acts, the Flying Graysons, a couple, were about to begin their main performance, and their eight-year-old son, Dick Grayson, was also about to take the stage.

Just as Dick Grayson was about to tie the rope and join his parents on stage for their dance, a barely audible “tear” sound rang out.

The aerial rope, which had clearly been checked and confirmed to be secure before the performance, suddenly snapped at this moment, and the Grayson couple, who were in mid-air, immediately plummeted downwards.

This was ten meters above the ground; if they fell, there was only one outcome: a living death.

“No—”

Eight-year-old Dick Grayson cried out in alarm, letting out a shriek.

At this moment, inside the stadium, countless spectators also let out various exclamations of surprise. Gotham City’s famous “Flying Graysons” had always been known for their magnificent performances and had never had any safety incidents.

But precisely at this moment, it happened!

Connors sat beside Snow X, his gaze intently fixed on the performance on stage. The moment he saw the Grayson couple fall, a massive amount of plants rapidly spread, shooting out from under the stage, quickly forming a large net to try and catch them.

However, Connors’ “Green” only accounted for 1%; he could control plant growth, but he couldn’t completely disregard logic like Poison Ivy.

In other words, no matter how the plants controlled by Connors grew, their essence remained relatively fragile.

Knowing this characteristic, he had deliberately sprinkled a large number of seeds around the stage, hoping to achieve a qualitative change through a quantitative one.

But an accident quickly occurred. The Grayson couple’s bodies were still in the air, not yet falling into the plant net, when the broken rope, affected by elasticity, quickly whipped the net from an odd angle.

Splat!

Its speed was so fast that the end of the rope even produced a sonic boom.

And the plant net that Connors controlled to grow also had a large hole in the middle because of this.

Damn it!

Connors’ heart tightened. Could he still not save this couple? Could he not change the fate of this family?

Even though he had mentally prepared himself, watching the two, who were following their destined path, unable to live because of him, he couldn’t help but sigh.

With two loud thuds, the Grayson couple died on the spot, and the audience in the front row was splattered with blood.

Screaming, vomiting, fleeing.

The stadium immediately descended into chaos. Only Dick Grayson stood blankly at the high place, looking at the two corpses below, and then frantically rushed down the stairs.

The corpses that others feared were his parents. He directly threw himself onto the bodies, desperately trying to imagine the two who had fallen into eternal sleep.

“Ah… Can history that is bound to happen not be changed?” Connors sighed regretfully to himself.

Fortunately, he quickly adjusted his mindset and walked step by step from the audience to Dick Grayson’s side.

Before he could speak, a staff member who had rushed from backstage handed him a phone:

“Sir, your call. Bruce Wayne is on the line.”

On the other end of the phone, Batman was still lying on the operating table, but in front of him was a monitor showing the surveillance feed of the stadium, which had originally been used for concerts but was now set up for the circus performance.

“I’ve seen what happened,” Bruce Wayne said from the other end of the phone. “Please bring him to me. I want to adopt him.”

[Today’s Gossip: The Laughing Man Incident (Ongoing) – The Birth of Nightwing]

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…

Inside Wayne Manor, Connors and Master Wayne, who stood on the floor as if nothing had happened, stared at each other.

This silent atmosphere didn’t suit Connors’ personality, so he took the initiative to break it:

“Weren’t you crippled?”

Bruce Wayne looked at Connors expressionlessly:

“Do you really wish to see me lying on a hospital bed, on the verge of death?”

Connors didn’t answer. He was very curious how Batman, who had clearly been undergoing surgery that morning, could be standing perfectly fine in front of him just half a day later.

Seeing that Batman wouldn’t say, he simply walked around to Bruce Wayne’s back and then saw an exoskeleton-like brace supporting him.

Judging by the serial number on the brace, this was clearly not the first one, and it was quite possible that Batman had prepared this in advance for situations where his own bones broke.

Bruce Wayne turned around, unwilling to let Connors continue staring at his back, and said:

“I watched the stadium surveillance. You sprinkled seeds around the stage even before the performance began, seemingly anticipating the Graysons’ accident.”

This couldn’t be hidden from the other party, and Connors hadn’t intended to hide it, so he simply nodded in acknowledgment.

“So, what you said before you left this morning, even if I didn’t want to believe it, I have no choice but to believe it now…”

Connors continued to nod, then saw Bruce Wayne take a step back.

Immediately, the sounds of rattling and clattering echoed throughout the room, which had only been a drawing-room, as hundreds of guns of various designs pointed at Connors from all angles.

“To make me believe the lie of world destruction, so you would go and kill other innocent people, right?”

“You seem to have a strong anti-reconnaissance awareness, even putting on a complete act, creating an illusion of trying hard to save but failing.”

“Surrender, Mr. Connors.”

Bruce Wayne pulled out a rocket launcher from somewhere:

“You might be able to dodge ordinary bullets, but in such a confined room, how will you dodge large-area damage?”

Being targeted by so many guns—at least a hundred simultaneously—even if Connors possessed Master Trickery, he couldn’t help but feel his scalp tingle.

“As expected of Master Wayne, but…”

Connors, as if anticipating this, smiled and said halfway, pulling out a blinking red Bat-arang from his pocket.