Chapter 17 Problematic Teenagers Staying Out All Night: Who Are You Saying Is American Te...?

"Young Master Thomas, where have you been today?"

Thomas was cornered in the garage by Alfred.

"I have work to do, and I also have something to do tomorrow night, so I won't be coming back."

Thomas's work was, of course, work too. He finished his Wayne Group job early and let his driver go home ahead of time. As dusk fell, he flew off to "help" the Romans' three children. Immediately afterwards, he relentlessly tracked a hapless member of the Owl Court, leaving a listening device and a tracking device on him. Afterward, he returned to his office, changed back into his suit, and modified the surveillance footage…

After all that commotion, Thomas's time to get off work and go home was delayed until late at night, so he had to drive back to Wayne Manor by himself.

"Honestly, when you hadn't come back by nine o'clock at night, I thought you had finally made friends on Earth, young master Thomas."

“I didn’t expect you to have such unrealistic fantasies about my social desires, Alfred,” Thomas replied. “Besides, I’ve never made any alien friends.”

"Good heavens, were you just making a joke?"

“No, I’m telling the truth.” Thomas took off his coat and tried to walk around Alfred upstairs to go back to bed.

“Alright, ‘honest’ young Master Thomas. But you’ve overlooked the most important question.”

Alfred nimbly blocked the stairwell and asked Thomas seriously, "Excuse me, do you have a driver's license?"

Thomas paused to think for a moment, then answered carefully, "Yes."

Thomas had just gotten his primary driver's license before Bruce left. Although he only took the test to kill time, to find an excuse to get away from the mentally challenged, yelling teenagers and the mentally challenged teenagers who could only yell, and to decline all kinds of social activities among his classmates, since he didn't need to cultivate these connections.

“Excuse my bluntness, but a beginner’s license holder cannot drive alone; they must be accompanied by someone until they obtain a full license,” Alfred retorted, displeased. “Do you even remember the traffic laws in the United States?”

“I remember, Alfred.” Thomas squinted his eyes. “I would love to recite it to you, but by the time I’m done, it will be time for me to go to work, so I need to go to sleep now.”

“Driving while fatigued,” Alfred said, looking at him disapprovingly. “A serious violation of traffic regulations.”

"Okay, I'll remember to sleep in the office next time." Thomas yawned as he walked upstairs.

This body isn't used to staying up late yet; a teenager's body is naturally prone to sleepiness.

“You could just call me and ask me to come drive you, young master Thomas,” Alfred persisted, following Thomas relentlessly.

“I believe that I called you here because you were driving while fatigued, and you were driving while fatigued twice, just like I drove back by myself. Both times you violated traffic regulations.”

“Older people are generally more energetic than younger people,” Alfred retorted. “I suppose you’ve recently entered a belated adolescence, so you’ve devoted yourself to arguing with all the creatures that live in Wayne Manor, haven’t you?”

Having a large family brings various difficulties.

Just like Thomas now, who has been walking for a long time but still hasn't reached his room, and can only endure Alfred's verbal "attacks".

“I’m sorry, Alfred, your words are ambiguous. Bruce doesn’t reside at Wayne Manor regularly these days, and I clearly have no interest in arguing with a bat. And…”

Thomas adjusted his voice slightly.

"So even you don't remember my age?" Thomas walked ahead, feigning misery with a blank expression. "I'm only a teenager, a typical American teen."

“I’m sorry, young master Thomas,” Alfred apologized, but his tone was devoid of remorse. “Perhaps the old man’s memory is failing, but I vaguely remember you telling me to treat you according to your ‘mental age,’ so you now believe that your mental age is like that of a typical American teenager, is that right?”

Whose "mental age is like that of a typical American teenager"? Me? That's such a vulgar insult.

"Thank you, Alfred, goodnight," Thomas stammered as he went upstairs, then pounced on his bed and fell fast asleep.

Alfred sighed and finally turned off the bedroom light.

-

The next day, Thomas, who had been busy all day, had to work all night again.

He dealt with that utterly unlucky Court of Owls member, put on his mask, and swaggered into the Court of Owls' underground headquarters.

The wiretapping revealed that yesterday's agreement in the Owl Court was to have Claws capture the audacious Thomas Wayne, who had severely disrupted Gotham City's order...

This resulted in Thomas being harassed by Claws quite a bit during his workday, but Thomas won this round completely, completing it without taking any damage, and without even having to wear the Night Owl armor.

Quantum starters, aren't they amazing?

Thomas knew that Claws were immune to many things, but obviously, they weren't immune to teleportation, and that was enough.

So, tonight Thomas has chosen to personally visit the Owl Court. He's truly a very sensible owl, choosing to deliver the goods himself to minimize the damage to his talons.

Honestly, the current situation is quite interesting.

The room was in complete chaos.

Several hot-tempered members of the Court of Owls stood up and angrily denounced Claw's incompetence; while a few people around Thomas were clearly flustered, fidgeting and whispering about why Claw had failed and what Thomas Wayne's trump card was...

Thomas listened with great interest to their discussion about himself. In just a short while, he had gradually transformed from an ordinary human into a cyborg, a vampire, a ghost... and some other bizarre and strange things.

Clearly, their most trusted tool was the claws, and the news that the claws had failed one after another threw them into a panic.

Just as they were beginning to speculate whether Thomas was some kind of superhuman or alien, the Chief Justice of the Court of Owls finally began to organize discipline.

Clearly, he held great prestige—of course, the fact that the Court of Owls was generally a motley crew did not diminish the fact that the Supreme Court Justice, who stood at the pinnacle of power in Gotham, was a man of exceptional talent.

The surrounding discussion immediately ceased, and only his voice could be heard in the hall.

"You mean Thomas Wayne and those Claws just vanished into thin air?"

"yes."

As soon as Claw finished speaking, the hall became restless again.

"Don't make wild guesses," the Supreme Court judge interrupted them. "We all know that the Wayne family consists of only mortals, and we know that better than anyone else."

“But didn’t he survive that car accident, Your Honor?” A court member tried to prove that Thomas was not human. “This is one of only two blunders since the establishment of the court, and I think we should treat him more carefully.”

“We are the masters of Gotham,” another court member shouted angrily at him. “We must tear him to pieces…”

That's enough.

The Supreme Court judge's authoritative voice rang out, and the argument between the two came to a halt.

He asked again, "Have our informants seen anything?"

"Thomas Wayne is doing as usual today, and he has completed all his work. No one has noticed anything unusual."

"His office only had claw marks, not even a trace of blood."

“In fact,” stepped a court member who was also wearing a hawk mask but whose clothes were clearly less expensive than the others, “we have just discovered that over the past month, the surveillance footage in Venta has been extensively modified and cannot be restored, including the court’s hidden cameras.”

This caused another uproar.

"You mean Thomas Wayne knew about our existence all along, and even knew the location of the hidden cameras?"

This is no small matter; a guy who is not afraid of claws and has been an enemy of the court for generations has learned of the court's existence.

The chattering was incessant, and this time even the Supreme Court could not control the situation.

Someone seized the opportunity to try and recruit Thomas into the Court of Owls, but someone immediately retorted: "Damn it, you idiot! What are the chances that Thomas Wayne doesn't know we killed his ancestors? We have to kill him!"

The court members spoke in a flurry of panic, everything was in chaos, but Thomas suddenly had a brilliant idea.

He watched as the Court of Owls ultimately voted to remain inactive and observe Thomas's movements, then took advantage of the chaos to install tracking devices on every Court of Owls member he could reach but could not identify.

These frightened owls, who had no appetite for the exquisite dinner, were easily taken advantage of by Thomas.

This even includes that Supreme Court Justice.

-

The next day, news of Thomas Wayne's attack and serious injury spread throughout Gotham.

Witness Lucius Fox declined to comment, while the GCPD claimed they had not received any 911 calls from Wayne Group today.

Wayne Enterprises is doing everything it can to suppress the news. But even so, some people have still managed to find out a little bit of the truth.

The killer was dressed in a strange silver-gray outfit, moved mysteriously, and possessed immense strength, tearing apart sheet metal as easily as paper.

Sometime later, he hid in Thomas Wayne's office, seized the opportunity to stab Thomas, and didn't linger, quickly withdrawing after the successful strike. Lucius, who happened to be delivering documents, saw his back.

Thomas himself was still seriously injured, and at his insistence, he was sent to one of his secret properties to recuperate, where even Alfred did not know where he was.

Most of Wayne Enterprises' executives were overjoyed, while Alfred and Bruce were worried and could only bother Lucius, the only one who knew a little bit about the situation.

Lucius knew nothing about the incident either. All he knew was that the man who stabbed Thomas was dressed in gray and had two pointed objects on his head. He then quickly disappeared from the room.

He didn't know where Thomas went, only that after a simple bandage from the family doctor, they were all forced to leave, with the claim that there was a secret passage in the chairman's office and that he needed to move there alone.

Then he really disappeared.

That evening, as the members of the Court of Owls entered the hall with more or less relaxed moods, they were greeted by a strange man dressed in silver-gray/owl armor standing in the judge's seat...

And the judge's corpse at the feet of the eccentric.

A note from the author:

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While playing the Mad Hatter side quest in Arkham Knight, I kept thinking while flipping through the book why I couldn't just kick him in the nose.

The Quantum Starter is the teleportation gun from Two Earths Crisis. Night Owl is like throwing the Claws into another universe (I don't know why it's called the Quantum Starter, or what the original English name is).