Chapter 43: Fierce Battle? Indeed.
How did things turn out this way?
Dick lay on the cold floor, his eyes lifeless, barely clothed, looking utterly ravaged.
His battle armor was already tattered beyond recognition, offering no concealment of his muscles. His exposed skin was covered in bruises, as if he had just been through a fierce battle.
Cough... there's no difference.
He got into a fight with Allen, who had lost his temper, and then somehow they ended up kissing. He couldn't control himself and...
Cough cough.
Dick silently reflected for a moment, then reached out to touch the cool, silky scales on Allen's back.
Who is he? What is he doing here? Wasn't he supposed to be here to thwart Lex Luthor's plot? Why does it seem like the tone has suddenly shifted to some inappropriate content for children?
A whimpering sound came from Dick's neck; Allen, clearly grumpy from being woken up, was trying to wake up.
Allen's legs transformed into a tail, which coiled tightly around Dick's waist, almost strangling him.
Dick's mind drifted back to those two long, powerful legs from last night... Stop, stop, he couldn't think about it anymore, or he would lose control again!
Dick gave the snake's tail a hard push, but it wouldn't budge.
Then, because it felt so good, he couldn't resist touching it a couple more times.
It feels cool, like jade.
Allen tightened his grip on his tail and began to whine impatiently.
The tip of its tail pattered on the floor.
Dick's Pain Mask.
He could only lean over and kiss the still-conscious Allen: "Baby, I really can't breathe. You don't want to only see my corpse tomorrow, do you?"
Allen's eyes gradually regained their clarity after a period of confusion.
He looked up and surveyed his surroundings.
The laboratory, which should have been full of technological flair, now resembles a post-war wasteland. Various glass test tubes and reagents are scattered all over the floor. The huge monster in the center of the laboratory has vanished. The computer used to analyze experimental data seems to have been split in two by some huge, long object, with circuit boards and chips exposed, presumably beyond repair.
Dick touched his nose.
They were quite intense last night.
Under Dick's increasingly viscous gaze, Allen gently twitched his tail and said, "If you become a corpse, I'll eat you. You know snakes can swallow prey several times their own size in one gulp, right?"
After saying that, he opened his mouth threateningly and spat out the snake's tongue in front of Dick.
Dick recalled the scene from last night when Allen almost swallowed him whole. Discarding some of the inappropriate parts, he forcibly pulled his wandering reason back into his muddled mind.
He touched the teeth marks on his neck with lingering fear: "No, no, no, I don't want to see you with your mouth wide open!"
He wasn't going to watch his mutated boyfriend's bizarre eating process again for the time being.
Allen snorted: "Of course, I'm turning into this to mislead Luther... What he wants is powerful combat ability. Am I supposed to turn into a cat and tell him that my ability is to mutate all Earthlings into furry creatures?"
Dick looked at his dangerous and wicked boyfriend, silently concealing his desire to do it again.
Then he had to consider—
Ah... Allen means he can turn into a cat, right?
Hmm... where are the cat ears?
Allen shoved Dick away, who was grinning foolishly for no apparent reason, and was secretly regretting his irrationality last night and his back, which ached as if he had undergone thousands of CPRs.
Luther's prediction was partly correct; his fusion with the alien monster wasn't smooth sailing. It was inherently a struggle of wills, and as a human fighting against a monster, it was easy for him to lose himself.
However… thanks to the psychological master Hannibal Lecter and the unreliable detective Constantine, their magic and psychological suggestion did have some effect.
His body belongs to him, and of course he won't let anyone take it away.
Last night, a terrible war broke out in his conscious world. After the war, the monster fell into a deep sleep within his body, and he himself was finally in control.
He deliberately acted irrationally in front of Luther, and creating those mutated humans like a contagious disease was also intentional on his part.
But this will all be over soon.
“Is that not allowed?” Dick hugged Allen from behind. “I want a green-eyed cat, the kind I can just slip into my pocket and take with me. Or the other way around, I can crawl into your pocket.”
Allen: ...
"And it seems like we're having an affair right now." After confirming that Allen was safe and sound and that everything outside was going according to Allen's plan, Dick finally reverted to his optimistic self. "Hmm... if I remember correctly, this is the lab Lex Luthor built for you, right? He won't see us, will he?"
Ugh... It feels creepy. He doesn't want Luther to be part of their game.
Allen glanced at Dick, then, as if struck by a sudden thought, gave Dick a malicious smile: "Luthor can't control this place, but..."
"But what?" Dick's heart jumped.
“But you would never want to know where we are.” Allen pulled out a lab coat from somewhere, loosely put it on, and then casually handed one to Dick.
Dick took the white coat from Allen, then looked at his pants and shirt, which had been torn to shreds by his super-strong boyfriend's tail the night before. After a long silence, he decided to put on his combat boots.
He nonchalantly showed off his great physique and the most shapely buttocks among superheroes in front of Allen, and asked curiously, "Tell me, where exactly are we? It can't be in Matthew's house... If that's the case, I think I can crawl under your cold snake tail and kill myself right now. It's better than being beaten to death by Matthew with a stick."
Allen blinked: "Ah... Matthew!"
He almost forgot.
Dick looked at Allen with a puzzled expression.
Allen sighed. "Alright, let's put this question aside for now. You'll have a chance to find out later. Let's go find Matthew first."
Dick: !!
"No way?! Matthew is really here?!"
It's true, of course.
Allen led Dick through the long, dark tunnel until they finally arrived at a huge stone gate.
Dick stared at the reversed triple helix markings on the stone door and asked the question he had wanted to ask for a long time: "Why did Luther have to build such a bizarre laboratory? I thought he was a modern man."
"This is the same question you just asked me," Allen replied calmly. "You can continue to guess where we are."
Before Dick could answer, Allen had already placed his palm on the stone door.
The door slowly opened, and Dick felt he could smell the sea breeze and the forest. Only now did he suddenly realize that in that dark laboratory, his nose had been filled with the strange smell of formaldehyde and rotting lilies.
But he didn't feel uncomfortable. When he was with Allen, he seemed to have gotten used to the smell.
As Dick walked through the stone gate, he suddenly felt something disappear from him. He turned back to look at the gate, only to find that it had blended into the surrounding walls and was no longer visible.
"Bang—bang bang—"
In a daze, he seemed to hear a slow heartbeat coming from the wall. As they moved away, the faint heartbeat gradually disappeared from his ears.
Dick didn't realize what was happening until Allen pulled him to stand in front of another familiar door.
"This is not..."
Allen nodded: "I deliberately asked Lesker Luther to build the lab here. Without his knowledge, I had already connected the two places."
Beneath the lighthouse built by Luthor lies the secret base that Allen built for himself. Dick knew about this, but he didn't expect that Lex Luthor was completely unaware of it.
“That’s because he doesn’t have absolute control over the lighthouse and Triskell,” Allen said. “He underestimated me. He didn’t think I could control Triskell. He was planning to wait until I and Triskell had a showdown, and then he would reap the benefits.”
Dick's heart tightened: "But do you really have it under control? Allen, I'm worried..."
Allen knew what Dick was worried about, but he wasn't going to explain too much. He just smiled and said, "That drug. If you feel I'm out of control at any point, give me the injection."
Dick's hand trembled slightly.
He always carried the potion that Allen gave him with him, and Allen even gave him the drug formula without reservation.
"I……"
Allen said rationally, "I know that if I really lose control, you will make the right decision. Don't worry, that drug is only for me and won't cause any other harm."
Dick was now speechless.
After a long while, he suddenly asked, "Why...why would you be willing to do this?"
He knew very well that Allen was always wary of everyone, and even Harry didn't have his complete trust.
Allen's personality dictates that he cannot trust others, and such a person generally would not entrust his life to the control of others.
“…It was Emily who told me.” After a moment’s hesitation, Alan said softly, “Mom said that maybe one day my reason and emotions will conflict, and she said I could try to trust my emotions and temporarily abandon my reason.”
Dick thought to himself, but Emily certainly never said that you could put your life in someone else's hands.
Allen looked at his palm and said, "Actually, I've always looked forward to death because this world holds no novelty for me. Even Emily's death was something I expected. She was too tired. I knew she would choose that path, and I understand and respect it."
Dick felt as if a giant hand was gripping his heart tightly.
“Do you know how unbearable boredom can be?” Allen continued. “Studying genes is interesting, but that interest doesn’t last me more than a year; magic is fun, but once you discover the essence of magic, it becomes boring. I don’t understand humanity’s pursuit of life, and I don’t understand the value of living without purpose.”
"So I went to the emergency room. I wanted to find the reasons why people were trying to live. At one point I thought I had failed again because what I saw was not the will to live, but a lifeless atmosphere."
Allen's mind raced across the faces of those he had once saved. Some were indifferent, others filled with despair; the health that ordinary people possessed was a luxury that money couldn't buy for those who walked into the emergency room. Yet, seeing so many of them could lead to numbness, until he saw Dick working tirelessly for everyone he had ever met.
Regardless of who the other party was, Dick never seemed to consider giving up.
Allen said in his suicide attempt, "I'm willing to accept your decision. Occasionally, I also want to take a risk."
Dick couldn't help but hug Allen tightly, looking intently into those green eyes: "...Maybe I can make you never be bored again. When it's all over, shall we go on vacation together? I'll take you skydiving, bungee jumping, we'll do all the fun things, and we'll change things up as soon as you lose interest. I'll take you to collect all the alien bones. Don't you want to know how many species there are in this world? When you're tired of all that, we'll go to the Dark Dimension, where there will be even bigger surprises."
Allen raised an eyebrow: "Hmm... I'll think about it, but I'll need someone's permission first."
Allen placed his hand on the door, his fingerprint scanned, and the laboratory door opened with a click.
Inside the room, Matthew, his face contorted with rage, forced a twisted smile.
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