"Hey, catch." Spider Man handed a wrench to the figure beside him. It was Batman with a mechanical body. At this moment, the two of them were in the Batcave full of various mechanical equipment, repairing an old mecha.
"Where was I?" Mechanical Batman pretended to recall, "Oh, back then I was about 16, not much older than you. Before I set out to travel the world, Alfred asked me to visit the Caucasus Mountains..."
Spider Man listened to his story with Alfred while tightening a screw, then nodded and said, "That's nice, I also want to travel the world. Unfortunately, I don't have that much money or time. Luckily, there's Battleworld, I've already traveled through quite a few cities for free."
"Oh, where have you been?"
"The most visited place is Gotham," Spider Man said, "I even wrote a 'Gotham Travel Notes' for Prime Universe's Gotham. The book got quite popular, almost every Spider Man has read it. Honestly, I wrote it as a diary at first, didn't expect it to be so well-received."
"Turns out you're that renowned writer Spider Man." Mechanical Batman's tone carried a hint of amusement, he said, "I heard from your companions before, you're not only the first brave one to try but also provided a great manual for those who followed."
Spider Man scratched his head sheepishly and said, "It's actually nothing, there are many later works better than mine. I know you're encouraging me, but don't keep praising me like this, I might get vain and arrogant."
"In fact, your literary talent might be your least noticeable talent," Mechanical Batman said, "I didn't expect you could tinker with these mechas. Did you study this major in college?"
"Ah, no. I learned it in Stark Group's lab. You know, Iron Man has many mechas like these, I like to study them when I'm free..."
Click. The power suddenly went out. Spider Man jolted awake.
"Don't worry, it might be the lighting power that has a problem..."
"No, something's coming!" Spider Man shouted with a raised voice, "150 feet! 80 feet! 30 feet! It's here!!!"
At the last, Spider Man was almost screaming. Just as his voice fell, Mechanical Batman's body suddenly shuddered.
Spider Man jumped nearly two meters high in place, almost hitting his head on the Batcave's ceiling. After landing, he turned and looked around, quickly pulled a plug from the big machine beside him, tore it off, and connected the wire directly to Mechanical Batman's metal body.
Sizz —!!!
Violent electric light illuminated the pitch-black Batcave. The massive current that passed through in an instant is the nemesis of any mechanical body. Mechanical Batman's body directly short-circuited, stiffly fell to the ground.
Spider Man hurriedly ran to the cabinet nearby to find a backup device, hesitated for a bit, and did not directly connect it to the body. He thought for a moment, kept the backup device close to him, carried the fallen body out the main door of the Batcave, and directly tossed the body outside.
Then, with the backup device still with him, he returned to the Batcave, locked the door tightly, and all the way down to the safehouse. After entering the safehouse, he connected the backup device to a spare body.
A few minutes later, Mechanical Batman woke up again. He looked at Spider Man and said, "Is this the backup consciousness? What happened?"
"Something invaded the Batcave and directly took over your body," Spider Man said, "I sensed it, but it came too quickly, I only had time to short-circuit that body and throw it out of the Batcave, then activate your backup consciousness."
"You did great, boy." Mechanical Batman couldn't help but praise, "He probably didn't have enough time to completely devour my original consciousness. Let's go upstairs and see what's going on."
"Be careful," Spider Man said, "he must have prepared for a long time, he's coming straight for you. Why don't I go ahead and scout?"
"No, I must go up and see what he's up to." Mechanical Batman left the safehouse and headed upstairs. Spider Man had no choice but to follow him.
Soon, Mechanical Batman pulled up the surveillance at the Batcave's entrance. Just as the monitor opened, it caught the moment when the previous body swayed and stood up, then walked away like nothing happened.
"Oh my god," Spider Man couldn't help but exclaim, "he directly took your body. What is he going to do?"
Mechanical Batman shook his head, indicating he didn't know either. He said, "I need to go to Prime Universe for a meeting soon, maybe I can inform the other Batmen, they might have some ideas."
Spider Man nodded and said, "You should go to Prime Universe, heard there's a Magical Defense Network there, so the opponent won't be able to attack you. Don't wait, go quickly."
Mechanical Batman didn't linger, heading to Prime Universe at the fastest speed. He thought he arrived early enough; unexpectedly, when he reached Justice Hall, nearly all Batmen had already gathered, enthusiastically discussing.
Mechanical Batman found Primary Universe Batman among the crowd, then said: "New information, Ultron suddenly went crazy, attacked me, and seized one of my bodies."
Unexpectedly, Primary Universe Batman wasn't surprised at all, looking at him said: "It appeared in your universe too?"
"What's going on!" A sudden female voice appeared. Mechanical Batman and Primary Universe Batman turned simultaneously, saw Batwoman cursing and walking over, "Is Ultron insane?! Why did he go to activate those machines in Atlantis Ancient City?! He even stole a body of a Divine Power Puppet!"
Primary Universe Batman squinted his eyes. He certainly knew that before Atlantis sank, it was an ancient country with a splendid civilization, its technological level even reached space travel at one time. Moreover, because of some divine power, they had puppet-like robots to assist them in work, as well as some specialized combat puppets, all piled up in the ruins of the Ancient City.
Mechanical Batman quickly walked over and said, "You were attacked over there too? Even in the water?"
"Water isn't an all-powerful barrier," Batwoman said. "That cunning guy used a diversion, making us think he would directly attack the Atlantis Shield. Instead, he went to the ancient city to steal a puppet!"
"Did he succeed?"
"Sort of. Those puppets originally start with divine power, so theoretically, radio waves shouldn't control them. But the downfall of Atlantis was so sudden, many puppets buried deep underground hadn't had their cores removed, meaning they still had power. This guy found a well-preserved puppet, made a breach in the Atlantis Shield, and then escaped."
"So you faced this situation too," said Lightning Batman, folding his arms. "In my universe, Ultron bribed the Puppet Master to create a Frankenstein-like body and even steeped in the Pool of Lazarus with the Assassin's Union. Although his physical strength isn't top-notch, he can't be destroyed. I've scattered him several times, and he reassembled every time."
"In my universe too. He dug up an Ancient Titan Clan weapon from who knows where and gave himself an indestructible body. The latest Batman darts couldn't penetrate its defense."
"In my universe, it's even more outrageous. He directly stole a body studied by the Court of Owls, one person killed all those Talons. I chased him for ages and still couldn't catch him."
"You're better off than I am. In my universe, he stole Luther's Anti-Superman Weapon, an incomplete Kryptonite Robot, and its body strength is beyond high..."
The Batmen discussed amongst themselves. Primary Universe Batman hadn't uncreased his brows, taking a deep breath, he said, "Something must have caused these changes. What exactly happened?"
Suddenly he glanced into the crowd, realizing a Batman seemed to be missing among them. He opened the communication channel and messaged Arkham Batman: "Have you arrived? What's wrong?"
"Wait for me a moment." Arkham Batman replied with just a brief sentence, but Primary Universe Batman sensed a intense killing intent from it.
At this moment, Doom and Stark each stood at a corner of the wall, fully armed Arkham Batman stood in the center of the room looking at the two of them.
"You're saying, you used your most advanced technology and best materials to create a super invincible perfect biological weapon, and then let Ultron walk away with it."
"It's not that, listen to me," Stark said. "In fact, we also created a perfect magical life form and got Ultron to help ignite it to completion. Now those two eloped together."
Arkham Batman threw a dart, it nearly grazed Stark's scalp as it flew past. Doom quickly gave Stark a look and whispered, "Say less, you sound too much like a mad scientist."
"Like?!" Arkham Batman raised his voice.
"Ahem," Doom thought, "Our plan executed perfectly, the effects are quite good. We can just wait a while and see what happens."
"Wait a while? How much longer can the universe sustain?"
"That's not important," Stark said. "You have to trust us, this plan is very meticulous and precise. Moreover, science inherently requires some adventurous spirit, we can't be too rigid and old-fashioned. As a scientist, you should understand more..."
"I'm not a mad scientist like you two!" Arkham Batman regretted saying this as soon as it left his mouth. Anger had clouded his mind, now he just wanted less understanding and tolerance, more blame and reprimand.
"This is surely effective," Stark tentatively took a step forward and said, "You see, after they activated each other, they didn't stay in your universe nor caused any trouble, instead they immediately left. They must have gone to bother someone else."
"Who are 'someone else'?"
"Uh..." Stark thought for a moment and said, "Ultrons from other universes, perhaps? Even if it's other universe's superheroes, it's no big deal. Batman can surely handle it."
Arkham Batman rubbed his forehead hard. He had been wondering, this lethal and profiteering combo made up of those three garlic heads, who earned several billions in a week, what were they planning to spend it on?
It now seems, what a team, it's more like a gang! A one-stop shop for fatal plotting and reimbursement: Natasha causing accidents, Shiller extorting money, Nick organizing financial transfers, and these two mad scientists handling the fence—what a macroeconomics!
Arkham Batman gently covered his eyes with his palm, he was employing his entire wisdom to think about how to cover this matter up.
He's beginning to understand the Marvel Prime Universe's woes. Such universe-shattering events really couldn't be exposed, or else his universe wouldn't be able to get along in the Multiverse.
Of course, he wasn't saying to conceal the truth delaying progress—rather, that the process should be somewhat beautified. Arkham Batman took two steps forward, pushed Stark back against the wall, then said, "Listen, there was never a plan to create people, it was all a failed experiment, okay?"
"What?! But such a perfect body I should have naming rights..." Stark didn't finish his sentence as he saw those blue eyes burning with killing intent in the shadow of the mask.
He swallowed, promptly crossed his heart, and in a mournful tone said, "Okay, an experimental accident, it's all in God's plan, so unfortunate."
Arkham Batman couldn't help but curse in his mind: Why is everyone in this universe so... who are they taking after here?