Godfather Owl: Guardian of Batman [119]

A-Train hesitated but ultimately chose not to lash out.

Whether what he was seeing was real or not, he decided it was safer to assume it was all an illusion.

Bruce observed A-Train’s behavior with growing suspicion.

From what Huey had described, the dagger’s influence plunged people into madness, amplifying their darkest impulses.

Yet A-Train, who had been revived by the dagger, seemed anything but crazed.

If anything, he looked more timid than ever.

The “Bruce” standing before A-Train was, of course, a decoy conjured by the Empty Mirage Spell.

There was no way Bruce would get so close to A-Train until he was certain the dagger was under control.

The spell was also an experiment.

The dagger could nullify magic, meaning A-Train shouldn’t fall for the illusion at all.

But he had.

Bruce’s mind raced. Could it mean the dagger was no longer with A-Train?

He wasn’t ready to jump to conclusions and decided he needed more information.

“A-Train, I’m genuinely curious—how exactly did you come back to life?”

Bruce’s tone turned deliberate. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But remember, if I could kill you once, I can do it again. As many times as I want.”

Kill me as many times as he wants?!

A-Train felt like he was staring at the devil himself.

Even Homelander, for all his bullying, had never outright killed him.

But Bruce? Bruce had killed him—and was fully capable of doing it again.

“I swear, I don’t know how it happened!” A-Train stammered, his voice trembling. “One moment I was dead, and the next… I wasn’t! That’s it!”

“You’re still not being honest,” Bruce sighed. “A-Train, if you’d just tell me the truth, I’d be more inclined to treat you fairly.”

Fair treatment?

To A-Train, that probably meant fair torture.

The memory of the night he “died” remained seared into his mind—a pain so profound it made him want to spill everything, even his deepest secrets.

“I really don’t know!” A-Train exclaimed, panicking. “But I’ll tell you this: ever since I came back, my heart condition has been cured!”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. Heart condition?

This guy had heart problems and still pushed himself to run at super-speed every day? Was he trying to die faster?

“Well then, we should have a little chat.”

Bruce stopped walking and pointed to a café across the street.

“Let’s go in there. You can grab a bite to eat—I’ve heard your stomach growling this whole time.”

A-Train quickly agreed, his hunger overriding his fear.

As a speedster, A-Train required far more calories than the average person—at least 30,000 a day—to keep functioning.

Normally, he was never without a milkshake or a cupcake in hand.

After talking with Bruce for so long, he was ravenous.

“Thanks,” A-Train muttered, bowing his head slightly. “You’re the most down-to-earth billionaire I’ve ever met.”

“What makes you think I’m paying?” Bruce replied, raising an eyebrow. “You’re an adult. Why would a kid cover your bill?”

—

A mountain of cupcakes sat in front of A-Train, who devoured them ravenously.

Despite his obvious fear, he didn’t let it get in the way of eating.

Across from him, Bruce sat empty-handed.

“Not to your taste?” A-Train asked between bites. “This place is a favorite of mine—the food’s really good.”

Bruce shook his head. After all, a mirage didn’t eat.

To everyone else in the café, A-Train looked like a lunatic, sitting alone and talking to thin air.

Eventually, A-Train finished his meal, leaned back, and patted his stomach, looking much more relaxed.

“I’ve made peace with it,” he declared. “You’re scarier than Homelander, kid. Whatever you want to know, just ask.”

“Glad to see you’ve found your optimism,” Bruce said, twirling the Supreme Wand lazily in his hand.

“Don’t worry. I only kill people who truly deserve it.”

“It was my mistake!” A-Train immediately apologized, his tone frantic. “I shouldn’t have tried to get my hands on your inheritance. But you have to believe me—Homelander was the one who put me up to it! I’m not interested in your money!”

Bruce chuckled dryly, saying nothing.

“Okay, maybe a little interested,” A-Train admitted, desperate to defend himself. “But if I’d known what you were capable of, I’d never have gone after you in the first place!”

“Enough with the lies,” Bruce said flatly. “Let’s focus on your resurrection. Did you notice any changes in your body afterward?”

A-Train paused, thinking.

“Not much changed,” he admitted. “But my heart condition’s gone. Now I can run as much as I want.”

He spoke almost wistfully, as though sharing a long-held grievance.

“You don’t know how—”

“I know,” Bruce interrupted. “Your glory days are behind you. To stay relevant, you started using performance enhancers. I know all about it.”

A-Train froze, his face pale.

“Mind reading?” he whispered, horrified. “You can do that?”

“Something like that,” Bruce said vaguely.

In truth, he did know Legilimency, but it wasn’t a skill he often relied on.

For individuals with strong wills or superpowers, mind reading was rarely effective.

And Bruce had always been one for theatrics.

Interrogation felt incomplete without some good old-fashioned intimidation.

“Wait a second!” A-Train suddenly blurted. “If you can read minds, why bother scaring me to get answers?”

“For fun,” Bruce replied.

“You—”

A-Train was left speechless, resigned to his fate.

“Fine, you win,” he sighed. “It’s not like lying would help anyway. You’d just kill me if I said something that didn’t match what I was thinking.”

Bruce smirked. A-Train wasn’t entirely wrong.

“By the way,” Bruce said, “since your body seems fine, what about your memory? Have you experienced any gaps?”

The question made A-Train’s expression darken.

Now that Bruce mentioned it…

“There was something strange,” A-Train admitted hesitantly. “The night Translucent died, there’s a chunk of time I can’t remember at all.”

He clammed up immediately after saying this, a horrifying thought crossing his mind.

Bruce raised an eyebrow, gesturing to A-Train’s half-finished milkshake.

“Take your time,” he said. “Let’s discuss what kind of unresolved grudge you might have had with Translucent.”

—

What A-Train reluctantly revealed shocked Bruce.

Homelander’s into that? Bruce thought, bewildered. Who knew he liked watching… this?

“I didn’t hate Translucent that much,” A-Train said, his voice low. “But in that moment, I just felt… humiliated.”

His shame was palpable, his voice barely above a whisper for fear others might overhear.

Bruce quickly pieced it together. A-Train’s humiliation must have been amplified to the point where he lost control and acted out.

Fortunately for him, he hadn’t lost his mind completely. Otherwise, he might’ve gone after Homelander for revenge.

He still had enough self-preservation to pick an easier target.

“You’re sure it wasn’t you?” Bruce asked, watching A-Train closely.

“It wasn’t me!” A-Train insisted. “Translucent’s skin is carbon-based, harder than diamonds. Even if I dragged him at super-speed for miles, I couldn’t have killed him.

“Someone else must’ve done it—I just don’t have that kind of power!”

Bruce shook his head slowly.

“You could’ve drowned him,” Bruce suggested. “And framed The Deep in the process. Wouldn’t that be convenient?”

Of course, Translucent hadn’t drowned. He’d been hacked to pieces, a feat achievable only with the dagger Bruce sought.

A-Train knew this too, but the gaps in his memory left him unable to refute Bruce’s insinuation.

“It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!” he repeated desperately.

Bruce didn’t respond, his thoughts consumed by the dagger.

If his theory was correct, the dagger continually sought out new hosts, amplifying their darkest impulses to drive them to kill.

Afterward, it erased the host’s memory of the act, leaving them unaware they had even committed murder.

“This just got complicated,” Bruce thought, his mind racing. The dagger’s whereabouts are a complete mystery now. And if Barbatos sent it here, it must have a target.

It can’t be me—he wants me alive.

So who is Barbatos trying to kill—

Bruce’s real body froze as a realization hit him. His gaze snapped to Katoom.

The Owl was curled into a ball, mock-crying theatrically.

“Oh no! I’m doomed!” Katoom whimpered, his voice trembling with fake despair. “I haven’t even completed my grand plans, and now I’m going to die!”

“Cut the act,” Bruce said, rolling his eyes and cutting off the melodrama.

But now, he was almost certain. The dagger had to be made of Nth Metal, imbued with some sort of divine energy by Barbatos.

Otherwise, how could a simple weapon kill the Demon King Owl himself?

“Don’t worry, Katoom,” Bruce said casually. “You’ll always live on in my heart.”

At the café, A-Train had polished off his meal and answered all of Bruce’s questions.

“Can I go now?” A-Train asked, wiping his mouth nervously. “I’m innocent. You can’t just kill me!”

“I don’t plan to kill you—yet,” Bruce replied evenly. “But your hands aren’t exactly clean, are they? You’ve got a lot of blood to atone for.”

A-Train fell silent, unable to muster a defense. After a moment of thought, he asked cautiously, “How do I do that?”

“Start by doing something a hero is supposed to do.”

Bruce pulled out his phone and displayed a news article about a massive fire trapping countless people.

“Save everyone in that building. That’ll be your first step. And I’ll be going with you—to keep an eye on you.”

A-Train squinted at the location in the article and frowned.

“That’s hundreds of kilometers away. I can get there no problem, but how are you supposed to come along?”

Bruce smirked.

“A-Train, I hear you’re fast enough to pull a train,” he said.

“Run faster!”

On a long stretch of highway, A-Train sprinted at full speed, a rope tied around his body connecting him to a pickup truck trailing behind.

The vehicle was moving so fast it left nothing but a blur in its wake.

A-Train gritted his teeth, his legs pumping furiously.

Strangely, the act of pulling the truck stirred something deep in his memory—an almost nostalgic feeling.

Standing in the truck’s bed, Bruce shouted over the roaring wind, “Faster! If you waste time, I’ll make you regret it!”