[The Omniverse - The Omniversal Trade Commission]
The pristine marble halls of the Omniversal Trade Commission (OTC) were descending into apocalyptic chaos.
The Subprime Heroic CDO bubble had violently burst. The Elder Gods, who had eagerly purchased Victor Thorne's four trillion Omni-Credits of bundled debt, had just realized that the heroes underlying the bonds were all dead. The assets were completely toxic, and the Elder Pantheons were instantly bankrupted.
Victor Thorne stood before the massive, elevated bench of the High Commissioner. His midnight-blue suit was immaculate, perfectly absorbing the frantic, blinding light of the panicking deities behind him.
"Thorne!" the High Commissioner's faceless, golden visage boomed, slamming his massive gavel. "You intentionally packaged defaulted, worthless micro-loans and sold them as AAA-rated retirement bonds! You have collapsed the divine economy!"
Victor casually pulled his gold pocket watch from his vest, the rhythmic click echoing through the screaming courtroom.
"Caveat emptor, Commissioner," Victor said smoothly. "The Elder Gods purchased high-yield, high-risk financial vehicles. The market fluctuated. That is the nature of investment."
"Give us our capital back!" an Elder God of Thunder roared, his aura flickering weakly due to his empty treasury. "You stole our sovereign wealth!"
"I cannot process a refund," Victor tapped his gold-nibbed pen against the Tycoon's Ledger. "Abyssal Dynamics has already reinvested that four trillion into our proprietary SaaS infrastructure. If I am forced to liquidate my assets to pay you back, my company will go bankrupt."
Victor turned to the High Commissioner, his Tycoon's Aura suffocating the room with absolute, predatory malice.
"And if Abyssal Dynamics goes bankrupt," Victor explained coldly, "our cloud servers will go offline. The Stamina Meters across four billion franchised dimensions will shut down. The turnstiles will open. The monster hordes will be unleashed upon the mortal realms, and the Omniverse will burn."
The courtroom fell into a terrified, suffocating silence.
"You wouldn't," the High Commissioner whispered in horror.
"I am systematically vital to the survival of reality," Victor adjusted his cuffs. "I am Too Big To Fail. If I go down, the Omniverse goes down with me. Therefore, it is in the government's best interest to issue a taxpayer-funded bailout."
"A bailout?!" the God of Thunder shrieked. "You caused the crash!"
"And I am selling you the solution," Victor smiled a cold, calculating smile. "The OTC will print four trillion in taxpayer Omni-Credits and use it to buy the toxic bonds off my balance sheet to 'stabilize the market'."
Trapped by the sheer scale of Victor's corporate infrastructure, the High Commissioner had no choice. He struck his gavel, authorizing the largest wealth transfer in cosmic history. Victor Thorne had successfully pocketed the Gods' money, crashed their economy, and then extorted the taxpayers to pay him a second time just to keep the lights on.