A retired magician raises a bucket daily

The fragrance of the flowers gradually became stronger as Merlin approached, and this familiar smell made Reed's mind briefly flash the scene of flowers everywhere in the dream.

"Ah, it was in the car before..." Reid remembered that he had slept for a while on the way back to Gotham from the metropolis. At that time, he seemed to have made a brief memory Dream.

"Do you remember what I told you then?" Merlin asked him.

The magician honestly shook his head.

"It's unreliable," the white-haired Heroic Spirit rubbed his hair and sighed, and then added, "It's not about you, it's about that fellow Alaya."

Merlin patted his face, "Forget it, let me say it again!"

He looked around the people present, his eyes stayed on Batman for a few more seconds, and said with a smile, "Anyway, everyone here is someone who can be trusted."

Everyone looked at him with a bit of vigilance. Batman, Red Robin and Jason are out of habit. The truth is always found by oneself; Reed is thinking about what Bruce Wayne he saw just now The reason, as for Tony...that beautiful kid is right, he is an ordinary person now, and it is already very troublesome for ordinary people to deal with a crazy Captain America, and he doesn't want to mess with the second one. Crazy heroic spirits.

"Ah, is the task of saving the world already so difficult?" Meng Meng tilted her head in distress, pulled out a chair and sat down, and said seriously, "Brother Merlin is going to tell a story, don't you all want to hear it? "

Adults present: "..."

"Merlin is the one..." The only Red Robin who has not yet reached the legal age of majority raised his hand and asked in a low voice, "The great magician in "Legend of King Arthur", the guide of King Arthur By?"

"So I'm still famous on the other side of the ocean," Merlin smiled gently.

I just recently listened to a musical.Tim doesn't say it, he doesn't really want to explain to B where he got the time to go to the musical, and he doesn't want to tell him that he went with Connor.

"That's right, it's me. It seems a little brash to say that, but I am indeed called her mentor by the world."

"Her?" Jason thought he had misheard.

"King Arthur is a girl," Merlin laughed out loud, "Although she is a girl, she is also the red dragon of Britain, like... um, you guys call it 'multiverse', right? In different universes Your counterparts could be other genders too, so don't be surprised. Being a wise king has never been about gender."

"Okay, let's stop talking about it." Merlin clapped his hands.

Reed only felt a flower in front of his eyes, and the light-colored petals flew past his eyes, and they left the space they were in. Surrounded by a boundless plain, there were gorgeous flowers blooming.

"What I'm going to say next is about the existence of this world." Half-Nightmare cleared his throat and stared at Batman calmly, "Don't worry, this is just a dream, and we're still staying in the original world." local."

"Why should we trust you?" Batman asked in a deep voice.

Merlin scratched his cheeks a few times, "Oh, what a difficult person to deal with, um, how should I put it - I am a hybrid of nightmares and humans, and I am a species that feeds on dreams, so the boundary of time will change when I come here. It’s blurry, in your terms, I’m the kind of creature that can live forever.”

"Interfering with the operation of human society is not attractive to me. Rather, I appreciate the 'results' left by human beings. I don't want to see the end of human beings right now." Merlin sat on a stone , holding a small light-colored flower between her fingers.

"At least not now, under such circumstances."

"So what's going on now?" Reed asked.

"It's too long to explain clearly. Sit down. Big brothers like you will be under pressure." Merlin raised a hand, and the ground under their feet moved, and the rhizomes of the flowers grew and intertwined, turning into a flower. He put a rattan chair and pressed the person on the chair.

The surrounding environment is so dreamlike in "Alice in Wonderland" that Reed always feels disillusioned when he looks up and sees Batman sitting in front of him.

Jason held his hand beside him, and the warmth of his palm gave him a sense of stability in this illusory space, allowing him to concentrate and listen to Merlin's narration.

"A long time ago, there was a girl who had no name and no parents. She was born in the heart of the earth, that is, under the soil, in the magma." The petals fluttered and fell with the breeze, floating in the air. Dancing and converging into a silhouette of a girl.

Half Nightmare's tone was flat. After all, he is not a human being himself. He can only imitate human emotions, but he never understands the heaviness contained in it: "She is very talented in magic, but people in the town hate her. , regarded her as a sign of bad luck, said she was a witch, captured her and burned her at the stake."

A cluster of flames ignited from under the petals, devouring the light-colored petals bit by bit.

"The smoke blinded the girl's eyes. When she couldn't see the world, she saw something deeper. She saw the end of the world, which is beyond the universe, where the creator is. A black dragon She devoured a universe in one bite. The girl had a premonition that this world would also have such an outcome in the near future. She was very sad, and this sadness was not for herself. Stones fell on her, and she still grieved for them, for she knew that only where there is evil can there be good. Death is something beyond good and evil, and it cannot create anything, Also worthless."

The petals that had been burned by the flames emitted a faint light, as if they were resisting extinction, but the cluster of fire shot up high and devoured all the petals.

"The girl's body was burned to ashes, the crowd cheered, a strong wind blew from the distant sky, and the dust and dust of the wreckage wrapped in her body went to the distance. The wind in spring, summer, autumn and winter never stopped. The joy of seeing the wreath given to her by the child, the joy of seeing the nightingale bringing roses in summer, the joy of tasting the first sweet fruit in autumn, and the warmth of sharing the same quilt with wandering strangers in winter. Those happy emotions support the last part of the magic power in her body, going to every corner of the world."

The flame subsided, and the petals turned into dots of starlight, which spread out in the middle and fluttered down.

"It was a magic about concealment, she hid this planet, this universe."

"It sounds like a fairy tale," Tony said.

"Indeed," Merlin nodded, "Just treat this as a fairy tale."

"That black giant dragon is called Barbatos. I hope you will never meet him, but... Now there is a hole in the wall of origin, and the power that shelters this universe has begun to dissipate," Merlin said with his finger Tapped lightly on my wand, "I 'observed' the world in Avalon, and foresaw what will happen in the future. This Holy Grail will be the fuse for everything. Hell is reversed, demons are rampant in the world, human beings It won't last long."

"This world is bad enough." Tony said suddenly in the silence, "When is it not like hell?"

Known as the greatest magician, he looked at him softly with lavender eyes, "When your heart is beating for 'good', then it's not hell, and there are no good people in hell."

Tony was stunned, with his hands attached to his chest, he touched his own reactor, and it was because of the existence of this device that his heart could continue to beat.

Iron Man thought, if one day, when he got to the same situation as the fairy tale just now, he would sacrifice his life, he must not be the one who saves the world.

"So you are not actually a heroic spirit." Reed said, he realized the contradiction in Merlin's words - Merlin is still alive, he exists in this world and cannot be summoned.

"The Heroic Spirit I summoned at the beginning wasn't you, right?"

"Oh, I was discovered. I thought I was successful in concealment." Merlin shook his head, "But I am indeed your follower now, and we are connected, although there are some loopholes Well, Alaya can still do something useful sometimes."

"In my foresight, that heroic spirit has done some great things, so let's try to see if I can replace him." Merlin said, "After all, I came here to prevent those things from happening. , If one day all human beings die, I will be very lonely."

"It wouldn't go so smoothly, but you," Merlin bent down and moved closer to Reed, "It's so strange, you have Avalon's blessing on you, I can feel it, although it's very faint, but it really blesses you .”

"That's..." Reed was stunned for a few seconds, remembering that it was what Cerelia left on his cheek before he left, "A fairy lady I met before."

"It's elves, they are very picky creatures," Merlin said in a long voice, recalling the scene when he was beaten by beautiful elves in Avalon, trembled, and patted Reed: "Not bad luck."

"So what should we do next?" Jason held Reed's shoulder with a sullen face, pulled him back a little bit, and put his finger on the magician's shoulder, "The Holy Grail has not been linked until now. There was no shadow."

Merlin smiled and sat back, "When the time comes, the Holy Grail will naturally appear."

He tapped the ground with his wand, and the surrounding scene disappeared, and they returned to the bat cave in a daze.

Merlin was still sitting on the computer chair, "The last one is missing now."

Bruce seemed to realize something, the back of his hand was burning, his hand under the black glove clenched into a fist.

They saw the summoning circle appear for the second time in the Batcave.

When Bruce noticed the figure appearing in the light, he suddenly had a bad premonition in his heart.When the white light dissipated, there was a man who was very familiar to everyone standing in the open space. His eyes were tired, he was wearing a suit that fit his figure, but his face was unhealthily pale, and his hair was not neatly combed behind his forehead. Instead, a little messy hair fell on the forehead.

His blue eyes glanced at Merlin, but quickly looked away.

"Bruce Wayne, here you are called." He was like a dull puppet, and his shoulders were not as straight as the Batman standing in front of him, but had a kind of old and decadent attitude, "You too... ..."

He paused for a few seconds before continuing: "You are also Bruce Wayne."

Tony was the first to react. He put on sunglasses, and looked suspiciously back and forth between the two. Jarvis began to share based on the data.

He has no interest in probing the identities of others, especially the masked vigilantes, more often because they show their feet in some places, so that Tony finds out their identities, but Batman... It never occurred to him to connect the two men.

Tony Stark asked the black lacquer next to him in disbelief, "Are you Bruce Wayne? That--Wayne?!"

Heck, the two people he hated the most in Gotham were actually one person.

Bruce ignored Tony, he looked at the other self in front of him with a complicated expression, and the instinct of the world's number one detective told him that something was wrong.

But he couldn't tell where the weirdness was.After all, that was him too, only Bruce Wayne knew himself best.

Heroic Spirit was walking in the direction of Batman, but halfway saw Jason standing next to Reed, who was about to hide himself in the shadows.His steps stopped and his lips trembled.

"Jason..."

He sighed, "...my boy."

"...What?" Jason said inexplicably. He thought it would be a very rare thing to meet Captain America, who was brainwashed by Hydra, and Merlin, the great magician in King Arthur's legend, within a few hours. The thing is, though, two Bruce Wayne?

Twice the jerk.

Jason felt that it was very embarrassing for him not to be unable to stay here.

It's just that the old man doesn't look very...not quite Batman.

Before he could figure out why, Yingling Bruce had already walked in front of him.

"What do you want to do?" Jason asked warily.

Bruce didn't speak, he hugged Jason silently.

Jason froze in that embrace, he blinked a few times, feeling his body stiff.

The arms lifted a little, then froze in the air again, like an unfinished hug.

This is the first time you hug me.Jason thought.