Late at night, in Hell's Kitchen.
Unlike the quiet inside Parker Industries in the Brooklyn industrial zone, where Batman was currently staying,
and unlike the blaring sirens of police cars in other parts of Manhattan, where Hell's Kitchen was located,
here, on a football field, garbage was strewn everywhere, weeds grew rampant, and sewage and excrement could be seen all over the place.
At that moment, there was a buzzing sound, and more than three hundred gang members with various criminal records had gathered here.
Their crimes included, but were not limited to, murder, arson, robbery, theft, and fraud... They came from different places: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and even beyond New York and the United States.
Hell's Kitchen itself was a slum in Manhattan; immigration, ethnic conflicts, and poverty led to an extremely high crime rate here. More than three hundred people with criminal records weren't even the entirety of Hell's Kitchen's criminal element.
They all answered to the former Kingpin, forming a relatively core part of Kingpin's gang, apart from his original driver Walker, intelligence specialist Scorpion Mike, chief assassin Bullseye Lester, and engineer and inventor Shulman.
But now, they had been summoned here by Black Cat. This young lady, who had recently gained Kingpin's trust, was stepping on Bullseye Lester as she watched the people below discussing something in low voices.
Kingpin had been sent to the police, and his gang members had planned to return to their respective small groups and gangs. But Black Cat's summons left these people somewhat bewildered.
Black Cat looked at this chaotic group, disoriented without Kingpin. She knew she couldn't let them scatter throughout Hell's Kitchen; she had to organize them as Batman had said, then let the police round them up.
However, she couldn't do that tonight. The detention cells in various Manhattan precincts were almost full, with criminals lining up to surrender in batches.
The police were unable to spare any more effort to arrest these guys from Hell's Kitchen tonight, so Black Cat had to stabilize them first.
"Look at your disheartened faces. Kingpin is with the police, but he had long anticipated his current predicament; he'll get out sooner or later. Before then, I'll take over the gang in his place."
Black Cat said, using Kingpin's name to intimidate them, doing her best to bluff this group of people with criminal records:
"Bullseye wanted to leave the gang, which is why he ended up in this state."
She lifted her foot from Bullseye's body and stomped down hard again. CRACK!
One of Bullseye's ribs was broken by Black Cat's stomp.
"Ugh!"
Bullseye was jolted awake by Black Cat's kick, and he instinctively tried to let out a cry, but the towel stuffed in his mouth by Black Cat firmly blocked it, allowing only faint whimpers to escape.
"Anyone who wants to leave can speak up now."
CRACK!
Another rib was broken, the fractured bone piercing his internal organs. Bullseye's eyes turned bloodshot from congestion, but bound by both spider silk and ropes, he couldn't resist, watching helplessly as Black Cat stomped down a third time.
This time, she stomped on Bullseye's palm.
Each time Black Cat stomped, the gathered gang members couldn't help but feel a pang of fear. Their eyes flickered, not daring to look directly at Black Cat.
Black Cat showed no mercy. Bullseye Lester was the direct murderer of her father, the Cat Burglar. If she didn't need him to intimidate these gang members, Black Cat would have already killed him.
However, judging by the force of her stomps, Bullseye, even if he survived, would become a vegetable, spending the rest of his life confined to a hospital bed.
"If no one speaks, I'll assume no one is leaving, alright?" Black Cat kicked Bullseye aside with her last stomp. "Don't cause me any trouble during this period, or Kingpin won't let you off when he gets out of jail."
Black Cat used Bullseye Lester to scare away those who wanted to take the opportunity to leave the gang, as if that would erase their criminal past, while also continuing to bluff with Kingpin's name.
With these two preparations, the members of Kingpin's gang indeed did not leave; one by one, they became as obedient as lambs.
"What a pity."
Even after dismissing these people, Black Cat sighed with some regret.
She had expected someone to step forward and object, so she could defeat them with her strength and once again suppress the group.
Black Cat felt somewhat outmatched against the chief assassin Bullseye, but dealing with these ordinary people was more than enough. It was a shame they didn't give her the chance.
"Perhaps I should find a way to improve my strength, at least acquire some medium-to-long-range attack methods. Otherwise, I'll be quite passive when facing enemies like Bullseye again."
"Batman can't always come to my rescue."
Back in Kingpin's sixteen-story building, Black Cat sat in Kingpin's chair, hand on her forehead, deep in thought.
Bullseye Lester was lying motionless on the floor nearby... "Project Pegasus, a top-tier scientific research project led by S.H.I.E.L.D., with the U.S. Air Force and NASA participating, focused on researching the Tesseract."
"The project originated from the Tesseract salvaged from the North Pole by Tony's father, Howard Stark."
"This project directly led to the rapid development of U.S. technology; S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier was built thanks to this project."
Within Parker Industries in the Brooklyn industrial zone, Batman was still using paper and pen to research subsequent plans.
This was the project he was most focused on. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s research direction for the Tesseract was energy, but Batman's future research direction for it would be its potential "teleportation" ability.
Red Skull and Captain America both went missing, and Batman highly suspected the Tesseract might possess such an ability.
The most crucial point was that, according to information investigated from within S.H.I.E.L.D., the research base for Project Pegasus was located in the Adirondack Mountains in New York.
Before Parker Industries developed into Parker Group, Batman could even try to infiltrate it under a disguised identity to get close to the Tesseract.
"The final S.W.O.R.D. project was established based on Project Pegasus. According to the data, aliens also exist in this world, and the current Director Nick Fury had contact with them before becoming Director."
"Last year, in 2005, after Nick Fury became Director, he established the S.W.O.R.D. project, with a research direction of interstellar threat monitoring and response to extraterrestrial threats."
"However, the current research progress is still at the space flight stage."
Unlike Project Goliath, which was temporarily inaccessible, the subsequent Project Pegasus and S.W.O.R.D. project clearly indicated the existence of aliens in this world.
In a sense, Batman, whose soul did not belong here, could also be considered an "alien."
"I need to calculate the underlying physical rules and mathematical structures of this world to determine if this world and my original world are within the same physical framework."
"And based on this, to judge whether I am on a different planet in the same universe, or in a parallel world of a different universe."
Lighting a flame again, he burned all the written papers to ashes. Batman then gathered the ashes and, after leaving Parker Industries, dumped them into the sewer.
It was already faintly light. Batman bought a copy of the Daily Bugle and sat in a taxi, reading it as he headed toward Osborn Manor.
He was going to visit Harry Osborn as Peter Parker.
Having gone through the collapse of his family's corporation and his father Norman's murder and imprisonment—two events enough to break an ordinary person—Batman had to visit him to prevent Harry from developing any psychological issues.
Gotham had too many super villains born from family upheavals; Batman did not want New York to gain another one.
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