[Integrated/Crossover DC/Marvel] Why Did the World End Again? - Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Greedy Believers

If someone disturbed you at 6:30 AM after you’d been in a deep sleep for less than two hours and told you they had blown up your house, how would you feel?

Batman desperately wanted to shove a piece of green kryptonite into Clark’s skull, then pry open his cranium to see if it was filled with a brain or just water. He wondered what kind of barrier existed between an alien’s brain and a human’s was it a strange information error? Why was it that he understood every word the man said, yet when put together, they didn’t sound like human speech?

“Have you been hit by a magic spell again?”

Hearing Batman’s skepticism, Superman shook his head.

“B, last night Alice and I entered the game world. Many, many terrible things happened. I can’t explain it all in a moment. Can we go to the Justice League Hall first and analyze it there?”

“Could you at least let me put on the Batsuit first?”

Bruce spoke with a face of frozen indifference. Clark looked down and finally realized that in his extreme haste, he had carried Bruce into the sky while the man was still in his pajamas.

Bruce, clad in silk pajamas and crossing his arms, looked cold.

“You’d better pray no one photographed us like this. I have no desire to be on the Gotham headlines today.”

At the Justice League, Alice was pacing by the computer. She urgently needed to find a superhero partner to tell them about what she had witnessed because it was truly important!!!

Alice looked around anxiously, then looked back down at the information on the screen, until two familiar figures appeared. One was Superman, who had been a largely useless “accessory” during last night’s trial, and the other was Batman, who looked even grumpier and more serious than usual.

“You’re finally here!”

Alice nearly jumped with joy. She quickly turned the computer around to face them. Batman, still carrying some “wake-up crankiness” and a general distaste for work, stared coldly at the screen displaying the failed clearance and the locked key character. He fell into deep thought.

Superman covered his face. He roughly understood why it was locked; perhaps they hadn’t played a large enough role, failed to help Lisol Wayne retake Gotham, or missed some other objective.

“You two broke the game? What happened last night?”

Hearing Batman’s interrogation, Alice lowered her head, not daring to make a sound. What did she do last night? She spent the whole time happily “rowing the boat” (slacking off)…

Superman also lowered his head. He had made many mistakes. Error number one: entering the game without achieving a good ending. Error number two: waking Batman at 6:00 AM. Error number three: not letting the man put on his suit first…

Watching them both bow their heads, Batman sighed. They were getting more unreliable by the second.

“Then start by telling me exactly what you experienced last night.”

At this, the two finally had plenty to say. First, the plot summary:

The Speedrun Version: The Bat-family is essentially wiped out. The Joker rules Gotham. The Justice League is finished. The Daily Planet has been blown to the sky.

The Joker kidnapped Alfred. The Bat family went to the rescue. The League of Assassins snatched Damian. Tim was attacked by the Owls involving the Court of Owls. Then, Lisol Wayne accidentally killed the Joker, which led to the deaths of Dick and Alfred. Batman vanished; Red Hood went into exile.

“Napier” appeared and ruled Gotham. While Lisol Wayne claimed to be waiting for Batman’s return, Superman discovered the corpses of the entire Bat-family at Wayne Manor. Justice was gone. The Daily Planet headlines read “Superman is Dead.” Lisol claimed the entire Justice League was finished.

Hearing this, Batman closed his eyes. Everything was worse than he imagined. Combined with what Jason had said that Bruce had killed him Batman began to deduce various terrifying scenarios. Everything in the world must follow logic.

The deaths of Dick and Alfred might have a trace to follow because they were tied to the Joker. But would Tim really die so easily at the hands of the Court of Owls? And then the Court just… vanished?

Batman never trusted the Court of Owls. He had long heard of them; the “Owls” didn’t eat pests, they only stole food from the mouths of other birds. They were a group of parasites growing in Gotham, a self-styled mysterious organization of the elite that was actually just a group of lunatics in a self-congratulatory circle-jerk, trying to exploit the Wayne fortune and concocting disgusting schemes like Lincoln March.

“Continue.”

“Lisol said there was a Bat-base at the Daily Planet containing important things. We went there, opened a safe, and found a note with a smiley face. I suspect the Joker left it. Immediately after, Gotham was blown up.”

After listening to Superman, Batman fell silent. A Joker note in a safe that triggers a bomb it sounded exactly like a Joker trick. But it also puzzled him. If it were his own self in that world, he would never have left such a dangerous thing behind unless…

The “Dream-Bruce” had already guessed the future and decided to take Gotham down with him.

“There was someone in the water.”

Alice’s sudden sentence made both men look at her in confusion. Superman was baffled; he had been with Alice the entire time. He knew there was water, of course, but he hadn’t seen anything in it.

“The bridge from Gotham to Metropolis was destroyed. Superman and I went by boat. While on the boat, I saw a person in the water, but I couldn’t see who it was because of the rain… Before we left, Lisol Wayne said something strange: ‘Don’t let anyone know your real name.’ I saw that woman in the water and got scared…”

“Lisol said that?”

At these words, Batman’s mind began to brainstorm. What she said wasn’t entirely false. A name is the shortest curse in the world; many mages can lock onto you and use magic just by knowing your name or part of your identity. So that part was fine. But looking at the two people hanging their heads, a thousand-foot wave rose in Batman’s heart. Please don’t tell me these two exposed their real names!

Alice felt awkward. She felt it wasn’t her fault; she didn’t expose her own name. Superman had called her name. But luckily it was only the first part, so it should be fine, right? She hoped Batman wouldn’t be angry…

“Um… Superman shouted my name once. After that person heard it, they disappeared for no reason. After that, I kept hearing people calling my name and saying something about ‘coming home’.”

Superman covered his head. It was over. Now it was his turn for the spotlight. Combined with the massive collateral damage he had caused last time, Clark realized he was finished today. The lectures and the scolding were unavoidable. He hoped the pain would end soon. He made a mental note: from now on, he’d use multiple codenames whenever he went out…

Hearing this, Batman had a “just as I thought” expression. Fortunately, only the first name was exposed, not the full name. With caution, it could be managed. He would need to check with Zatanna later to see if there were other side effects.

“Now, open the computer and check the other characters.”

After hearing what happened, Batman wanted to see how the character locking worked whether only Lisol Wayne was locked, or if it was like a ban where everything was frozen.

Alice clicked the computer. The only good news was that other characters could still interact normally.

“The other characters are still normal.”

“Go grind the others then. See if you can unlock new plots for someone else.”

Alice controlled the character “Little Mary” to walk around the apartment, eventually stopping at the door of Thea Weeks and Aurora. Annabelle was shown to be obsessed with experiments and refused to leave her room, so Alice came here.

Thea Weeks opened the door. After some shallow daily interaction scenes, Alice dumped all the items she had gathered from daily check-ins onto him, regardless of whether he liked them or not. Fortunately, she managed to unlock the first star.

After the star was unlocked, Superman stared intently at “Thea Weeks.” He hoped that surname had absolutely nothing to do with what he was imagining.

Unlocking Character: Thea Weeks – 1-Star Plot: The Fall of God.

The screen went black again, but a blood-red S appeared in the void. Seeing this familiar symbol, Superman’s brow furrowed tightly.

The red logo became the vivid background, and white, jumping text slowly appeared.

“People often say in the Bible that Jesus suffered and was reincarnated; that Eve and Adam ate the fruit and were expelled from Paradise. But no one has ever told the people: is the so-called ‘God’ in the Bible truly unchanging? Do they not have their own desires? Or rather, if one day God truly falls, what should people do? Prop up a new deity? Or become gods themselves…”

The screen showed rolling, endless yellow sands. This planet had become so strange. High-rise machines were plunged deep into the earth. More and more strange mechanical creatures appeared, filling the entire screen. A human girl walked timidly in the middle of the road, facing the judgment of these strange alien beings. She accidentally tripped and cried out a simple fall, yet it seemed she had committed a celestial crime. Her features began to distort, and numerous robots swarmed around her.

“Error. Error. Purge. Purge.”

The girl’s figure gradually vanished. In the crowd, there were many other silent, head-bowed humans who do nothing but walk. Everyone looked like a locked-up prisoner; no one talked, and no one walked together everyone was solitary. A figure walked through the desert: it was Thea Weeks. He looked incredibly thin, wearing a strange collar around his neck. He struggled through the desert sands and finally collapsed until a hand reached out to him. It was Superman…

“Metropolis is truly a strange place. People always look up at the sky, and when that red cape appears, they break into laughter and joy. It all seems so beautiful. But it seems the people’s ‘respect’ for God turned into endless madness. And can the so-called God carry these greedy desires? No one knows. Finally, one day, he broke…”

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