togophonebook Chapter 190 Do I even have a bottom line?
Chapter 190 Do I even have a bottom line?
Chapter 190 Do I even have a bottom line?
"I absolutely disagree!"
Dr. Silas Stone was the first person in the room to realize what his son Victor had said.
His once gentle voice was now laced with a terrifying rage: "I am your father, you must obey me! Listen carefully, Victor Stone, you have an obligation to obey me! You are still a child! Unless I am dead, I will never allow... uh..."
But before he could finish speaking, his strong son raised his fist, the size of a sandbag, and began to pound it repeatedly on the back of his head.
"Ouch!"
His voice stopped abruptly, and he collapsed limply to the ground.
Victor reached out and caught his father in his arms, then gently set him down.
Shazam, standing nearby, was speechless.
"Oh, you..."
"I've wanted to do that for a long time."
The burly young Black man deliberately spat on the ground in a vulgar manner, uttering profanities as he vented his inner fear.
He gently leaned his father against the instrument.
"Back in rugby, you know... there are always some idiot teammates who get carried away after games and start bloody fights," he explained to Shazam. "So, as captain, that was my little secret for keeping my team from getting suspended for fighting."
Victor looked down at his elderly father, who was fast asleep like a baby. He murmured softly, his voice so faint it was almost inaudible, "Dad never knew I could do these things..."
But he quickly stood up.
"But none of that matters anymore."
He turned around, his face contorted with malice, and grabbed the mother box from the instrument. Then he grabbed the lab assistant next to him by the neck and yelled, "I demand you activate this damn mother box and then fucking send all these monsters back home!"
Dr. Stone's white assistant looked like a chick next to the tall, black young man. As he was lifted up, he kicked and screamed, "Dr. Stone will kill me when he wakes up..."
"If you don't do as I say, I'll kill you right now..." Victor blurted out instinctively, then immediately realized that this wouldn't force the other party to comply.
"Enough, listen up. Whether you activate it or not, I'm going to charge in. You can't stop me. If you don't activate it, I'll be torn to shreds by these monsters, and then I'll have died for nothing. You make the decision."
Boom!
A loud, muffled thud.
The heavy-duty gate emitted a series of teeth-grinding sounds.
This thing is nearly 75 millimeters thick, which definitely exceeds the armor thickness of most active tanks.
But now the steel is being devoured by the Parademons outside like biscuits.
Cyborg held the Mother Box to his chest and began warming up, as if he wasn't going to his death, but rather to participate in a new competition and return in glory as usual.
Boom!
"Seriously, man, are you really going to charge into those monster hordes with this thing in your hand?"
Shazam glanced left at the gate that was constantly emitting loud noises and the sound of metal being chewed, and right at Victor, who was doing warm-up exercises with a serious expression.
"And then let this broken box open a portal in that horde of monsters, sucking you and them all in?"
Shazam said somewhat sullenly, "But wouldn't you just get sucked to the other side of the door like that? You'd basically be dead."
"Yes."
As he answered him, Victor Stone bent down and mimicked a football player getting ready to start a race.
The sounds from the other side of the sluice gate grew louder and closer. With a deafening roar, the gate suddenly underwent a massive deformation.
"But, but you're doing this..."
Shazam stood dumbfounded next to Victor Stone, who was already ready, with an idiotic expression that looked like his brain CPU had been burned out, and his intelligence had stopped responding.
He turned to look at Batman standing beside him:
"Bat, say something!"
Chen Tao remained silent.
Not only is Shazam's CPU overclocked, but his CPU is also being used non-stop—
In the literal sense, he was constantly using it. At this moment, although he still looked like a normal human being on the surface, his brain had actually become the Batmobile's onboard computer.
With the aid of nanobots synchronized with Broken Bat, he was frantically calculating the possible future events that would occur if Cyborg were lost.
Shazam saw that Batman didn't speak, and then looked at Victor Stone's bent-over body.
With a loud thud, the heavy-duty brake deformed even more violently.
The young Shazam made up his mind.
"Okay, damn it."
He reached out to snatch the mother box from Victor's arms, but because he didn't use superhuman speed, Victor, known as a rugby player, easily dodged the ordinary grab.
"What are you doing?"
"I...I'll go. I'll solve this problem." The young Shazam said somewhat haltingly, "I can fly! I'm a superhero! Maybe I can escape the portal's pull, so no one has to sacrifice themselves."
"Similarly, it's very likely you can't either." But he was quickly interrupted by Victor: "Precisely because you're a superhero, you can't sacrifice yourself in such a meaningless place."
The young Black man stared ahead, his gaze growing increasingly resolute.
"I know what you superheroes are supposed to do. Fight villains, defeat enemies from outer space, and protect our planet. I know, I know everything."
"You are capable of doing far more than I am. You are more important to this world than I am."
He glanced longingly at his father lying beside him: "Even if it's going to be exhausting, the first one to be exhausted won't be you, buddy. It'll be me, the useless me."
Chen Tao, who was listening nearby, suddenly slapped his forehead.
The more he listened, the more he felt something was wrong.
Oh no, this kid's life dream is not affirmed, and then the facts prove his father's statement that "a football player is meaningless in front of a superpowered person" to be true.
He's now using a two-pronged approach, which immediately caused Qian to become withdrawn, his Dao heart to collapse, and he developed self-destructive tendencies.
This self-destructive tendency, combined with his innate heroism, catalyzed his fear of death, which was overcome on the spot without the slightest hesitation—unlike Shazam next to him, who was almost dying of agonizing over whether or not to sacrifice himself.
"But...but you have family," Shazam stammered. "You can't die, you still have your father."
He spoke a little more fluently:
"But I am an orphan."
"No one will care if I die, so I should go."
Despite saying that, Shazam still didn't have the courage to use his superpowers to take the Mother Box from Cyborg.
He was just a kid in his early teens. After his clear but foolish mind finally began to understand the situation, how could he not be afraid?
"It's okay, you know what? I'm a rugby player. They say my arms are like cannons. I can throw the Mother Box like a rugby ball right into the middle of those monsters and then open the portal. That way, I might have a chance to escape."
Victor seemed to be comforting Shazam, but also to comfort himself.
"That's the advantage of being a rugby player," he said. "My training and all my professional skills come in handy. They... they're not meaningless."
"But...but...you're Victory (Victor Stone's nickname on the football field). So many people chant your name like a tidal wave. If you die here, then there will be no more..."
Victor suddenly realized that only fans who had watched his games would know the nickname Victory.
He had heard others call his name like that countless times before, and he was already incredibly used to being addressed that way. But at this moment, in this situation, in the last few dozen seconds before he was about to die, hearing that familiar name suddenly gave him a feeling that he could die without regrets.
"Hey, do me a favor, okay?" he said. "Could you cheer me on from behind when I'm charging later? Like you guys do on the football field."
He raised his arms and symbolically shouted twice:
"Victory! Victory!"
He saw a look of reluctance in Shazam's eyes. He lowered his arm.
"Please, please help me with this, I'm begging you."
He said.
This was both a request and a reason for Shazan not to go in his place.
Victor Stone's eyes sparkled, as if burning with light and fire, radiating an unprecedented vitality, just like when he was a few years old and ran out of his father's laboratory to see a rugby ball for the first time in the square.
Passionate and sincere, so exhilarating.
Shazam turned his face away, feeling somewhat ashamed of his cowardice.
"cough!"
Chen Tao coughed, and just as he was about to say something, he was interrupted by Victor Stone.
"Enough! Batman, anyone here can be sacrificed, but you can't. You can't do this to such a trivial matter in such a ridiculous way."
He said, "You know, you've been fighting crime in Gotham for so many years, I practically grew up listening to your urban legends."
He said sincerely, "The Earth needs you, Batman, humanity needs you, but they don't need Victor Stone. But I think you'll remember me, won't you? You'll remember Victor Stone. Right now, today."
Boom boom boom!
Squeak squeak squeak—
The banging of the Parademons on the door outside grew faster and louder, and Victor's speech quickened accordingly:
"You're more important than me, Batman. You shouldn't be taking this risk. I can solve this, maybe I can survive."
"Victor!" The lab assistant, sweating profusely, found a rope nearby and handed it to the future Cyborg.
"Maybe, just maybe you can rely on him; we can pull you back!"
He said, "But with a suction force capable of drawing away Parademons, even with it... Oh well, never mind these ominous things..."
He paused, then said, "You must survive!"
Boom!
The heavy gate finally gave way.
First, streaks of red heat spread from the center of the massive iron gate outwards, followed by several loud thuds, and then it collapsed with a deafening roar.
Victor Stone tensed his muscles.
And Chen Tao...
They are still undecided.
The high-speed bullets were already synchronized with him, the azure mask climbed over his chin, and a biofield unfolded from his body, allowing him to open it at any time, thus snatching the Mother Box from Cyborg at a speed beyond the limits of human reaction, and then letting the puppet composed of Clayface and nanobots carry it away.
But he didn't do that.
He weighed the options repeatedly in his mind.
Should we really do this? Is it possible that this is the true moment of Cyborg's birth? Will my intrusion actually interrupt his birth?
He was lost in thought, feeling his CPU overheating, when he revealed a wise look in his eyes.
Ah, maybe I can save Cyborg, and then find an opportunity to break his limbs so his dad can remodel them? Maybe that would be more convenient.
As soon as the idea came to mind, Chen Tao immediately shook his head violently.
Good heavens, what am I thinking? This beastly behavior has completely crossed the line of human decency. Wait, do I even have a concept of decency?
Shazam gritted his teeth.
Judging by superhuman reaction limits, Victor Stone's speed is indeed very slow, slow enough for him to have enough time to think.
In short, Shazam's head is a complete mess right now.
He glanced at Batman, but showed absolutely no intention of going up to save the person.
Damn it, Batman!
Damn it, me!
call!
I would never...
The young man gritted his teeth and finally made up his mind.
Within a tenth of a second, lightning crackled from his body, piercing the air and emitting a faint burnt smell.
Half a second later, the Mother Box left Victor Stone's running hand. Even though Victor Stone was one of the best rugby players on the planet, he still couldn't stop the superhuman speed.
A second later, Shazam charged toward the horde of Parademons roaring as they rushed into the room. He had made up his mind; he was prepared for the worst.
Then he heard a sigh, a soft, gentle sigh.
"Oh, I'm such a fool. I'm devastated."
He saw Batman, his form swirling with the wind, blocking his path. Batman moved with lightning speed, as if he had anticipated it. Before he could react, Batman, just as he had predicted, split open—
It truly shattered; half of his body detached from him, transforming into a figure made of mud. It took the Mother Box that Batman had snatched and thrown to him, and charged directly at the roaring Parademons.
The monsters bared their teeth and hands, seemingly trying to stop him, but the figure shattered into dust in mid-air, carrying the Mother Box like a whirlwind over the monsters' obstruction and rushing directly into their midst.
Buzzing...
With a deafening roar, Shazam saw Batman standing in front of them all.
He heard the large bat sigh again, repeating what it had said:
"Oh, I'm such a fool."
He said.
Do I have any bottom line?
Then he asked and answered his own question.
"Obviously, I do. It's so annoying."
Yay, it's today's pee! (Strikes hard on her butt)
(End of this chapter)