If not for Batman's intervention, the Lizard had intended to bite this Red Tyrannosaurus to death as well.
"And after it's healed? What do you plan to do? Just hand this Tyrannosaurus over to that little girl?" the Lizard asked. He was crouched on all fours, looking up at Batman.
"That is exactly what I am considering," Batman replied.
He wouldn't break his promise to the young girl, Lunella, but handing over a Tyrannosaurus Rex with telepathic abilities to a child didn't sit well with Batman's usual way of doing things.
The Lizard lay on the ground with a composed air, watching the chin exposed beneath Batman's mask. Although he couldn't see a specific expression, the Lizard could imagine that Batman was likely nursing a massive headache over this situation.
Batman had considered installing something like a restrictive ankle monitor on the Red Tyrannosaurus, similar to what Norman Osborn might do. However, at the thought of Reed Richards—and the young but already brilliant Lunella—Batman strongly suspected that any inhibitor he placed on the beast would be dismantled by them the very next day.
Unlike Norman Osborn, they didn't have a son or leverage held in Batman's hands; they would feel no psychological burden whatsoever in removing a limiter installed by Batman.
Batman had also considered putting the Tyrannosaurus through a degree of training, domesticating it before handing it over to Lunella. But that required time, and time was the one thing Batman lacked most right now.
In his mind, Batman shot down several methods that would allow him to give the Tyrannosaurus to Lunella without letting it run rampant. Failing to find a perfect solution in the short term, Batman turned his gaze back to the Lizard.
"Professor, what is your status?"
Unlike his state before entering the Primitive World—where he was short-tempered with a murderous glint in his golden, vertical pupils—the Lizard was now sprawled lazily on the ground, looking very much like a large crocodile basking in the sun.
"Excellent," the Lizard said, flicking his tail and accidentally knocking over a small tree with a diameter of over twenty centimeters.
Amidst the crunching sound of the tree falling, the Lizard glanced back at it. With a sweep of his tail, he sent the broken trunk flying into the distance. A few seconds later, a heavy splash echoed from the East River hundreds of meters away.
"Are you able to return to your original form?" Batman asked.
"I can," the Lizard replied. "But I'm not a Druid from some story; when I change back, I won't have a stitch of clothing on me."
Batman studied the Lizard's body, covered in dark green scales, but said nothing.
The Lizard didn't speak either, returning to his composed posture as if waiting for Batman to take the lead. But one minute passed, then two, and Batman remained lost in his own plans, leaving the Lizard hanging.
Finally, the Lizard couldn't take it anymore. He pushed himself up, shifting from all fours to a bipedal stance, standing side-by-side with Batman in front of the Red Tyrannosaurus.
"Have you forgotten something?" the Lizard asked.
Batman looked at him. "Perhaps."
"I can control reptilian creatures. Naturally, I can control this thing too," the Lizard said, pointing a foreclaw at the prone Red Tyrannosaurus.
Batman continued to watch the Lizard without speaking, waiting for him to elaborate.
"This fellow," the Lizard pointed to the giant Tyrannosaurus that had long since died, "the horns on its head allowed it to exert telepathic power, even suppressing me and preventing me from controlling other dinosaurs."
His claws then shifted back to the Red Tyrannosaurus. "But this unlucky bastard..."
The Red Tyrannosaurus snorted through its nose, looking feebly at the Lizard's razor-sharp claws.
"Its horns are gone. That means the situation is reversed. It's my turn to control it," the Lizard stated.
"How certain are you?" Batman asked.
"One hundred percent." A look of confidence appeared on the Lizard's scaled face.
Batman nodded and stepped back to watch the Lizard work.
With a wave of the Lizard's hand, a rustling sound emerged from the East River. Snakes, turtles, lizards, and all manner of reptilian life converged, forming a line and crawling into the mouth of the Red Tyrannosaurus.
Once nearly a hundred kilograms of reptiles had disappeared into its maw, the Lizard spread his claws. "There. Done."
"Done?" Batman looked at the Lizard with a skeptical gaze.
"That's right. Let it fill its stomach and recover its condition first. We'll take the next step tomorrow," the Lizard said as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"You..." Batman hesitated for a moment. "Are you playing a role similar to a 'Queen Ant'?"
A Queen Ant can secrete specific pheromones to inhibit the development of worker ants' ovaries. Seeing the Lizard's supreme confidence and recalling how he had previously used pheromones to evolve those reptiles, Batman quickly reached this conclusion.
"Oh?" The Lizard looked surprised. "I thought I'd let you guess for a while."
Batman shook his head. "It was just a hypothesis."
The Lizard used his tail to prop himself up, essentially "sitting" on it. He looked like he wanted to cross his legs, but his reptilian physiology wouldn't allow it.
"I just used pheromones to influence its body to direct most of its energy toward digesting the food in its stomach. Once it's mostly digested, that energy will be redirected to heal itself. You don't even need to take it specifically to South Brother Island for treatment."
Batman wasn't concerned with how to heal the Red Tyrannosaurus; he was concerned with how the Lizard would maintain control over it.
"If its horns grow back in the future, will you still be able to control it? Or will it go back to suppressing you?"
"That scenario is virtually impossible," the Lizard said, winking at Batman. "On a pheromonal level, my status is now its father."
Batman: "..."
The Hulk, Robin, Batman, and the Lizard had all returned to either Bat Island or South Brother Island.
But in Manhattan, the impact of the dinosaur invasion was far from over.
George Stacy stood in the holding area of the Manhattan Police Department, feeling a rhythmic throb of pain in his head. For the first time, his station wasn't housing criminals, but seventy or eighty primitive people who had followed the dinosaurs through the portal from the Primitive World into the modern era.
"&... % ¥!"
These primitives were shouting things that Commissioner George Stacy couldn't understand. His assistant, Ogle, stepped forward with a nightstick and tapped on the iron bars, regardless of whether they understood him or not.
"Quiet!"
Perhaps the nightstick had an effect, because the primitives... started rioting even harder.
The cacophony of gibberish nearly took the roof off the Manhattan precinct. Just as Commissioner Stacy was clutching his jaw, feeling a toothache coming on—
Thump! Thump!
Heavy footsteps echoed from outside the station, approaching step by step until the newcomer stood beside the bewildered Commissioner Stacy.
"I am Agent Garrett of SHIELD, and also the Black Knight of the Whitman family, a lineage dating back to the era of King Arthur."
The newcomer was none other than Garrett—the Black Knight who had been seen riding a winged horse and wielding a scepter while the dinosaurs were running wild in the streets.
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