Greed waved at the original Amazing Spider-Man, and he ran over. After giving him a few instructions, Greed sent him back to call for people. Soon, The Avengers, Justice League, and the Mutants all came together. The group met in the office next door.
"How did it go? How much did we sell?" Greed asked.
"We're rich, we're rich," Iron Man was the first to grin, "The intelligence on Darkseid sold the highest. And there's more, Batman also bought a lot of intel from us. And S.H.I.E.L.D..."
The Justice League of Earth No.1 seems to have formed as well, but without Batman, only Spider-Man. And the reason they gathered was clearly not to fight crime. If you had to sum up their purpose, it's simply one thing—trading intelligence.
As the only fusion universe of the two universes, this place is a total mix. You can find every superhero and supervillain from both universes here, there's nothing they don't know.
The group from Old 616 is battle-hardened, both on Earth and off it. They know all the notable villains and are familiar with every superhero. They are the main suppliers of the intelligence Batman relies on in this war.
Everyone knows that the most important thing in devising strategies is intelligence. Without it, it's hard to design plans involving the loss of control of mutants, the destruction of Cerebro, or the assassination of Charles. After all, Batman's universe doesn't have mutants; although he might have heard of their instability, specific details such as the extent and who are unstable enough to be used require intelligence. And the intelligence providers are the mutants of the fusion universe.
Providing their own intelligence was obviously transparent; not only could they describe whose abilities and emotions are unstable, but they could also detail all sorts of minor life details. But such detailed intelligence couldn't possibly sell cheaply, and so they really ripped Batman off.
And this is also how the Justice League of Earth No.1 was formed. After all, they too needed to sell intelligence to Marvel during the war, but they were relatively young and didn't know their cosmic-level opponents well, not even fully recognizing their own folks. Seeing those next door making money from selling intelligence, could they just sit idly by?
Even Spider-Man Bruce, who wasn't too keen on getting involved, understood the principle of one rising and the other falling. In future competition, if the other side made big money while they didn't, they would surely be at a disadvantage.
They had no choice but to join forces, first exchanging intelligence internally, then exploring the universe, or interacting with more experienced counterparts from other universes, becoming intelligence brokers themselves. Coming and going, they sold quite a bit too.
As for who gave them this lousy idea of selling intelligence, it can't be said it's entirely Greed; they were already considering this, Greed was at most a distributor.
After all, stationed at the front lines, Greed could easily contact both sides' command centers, so matchmaking and telecommunications engineering were perfectly normal.
Of course, he wouldn't work for free. It's now time to distribute profits. As previously agreed upon, he would take 15% of all income. But he didn't want energy or physical goods, just Battleworld points. Both sides felt a bit of pain giving away their Battleworld points.
They collected everything and anything useful, energy, technology, items, but when it came to sharing, they could only give points. Their points were scarce and mostly given to Greed.
Greed was content; though his cut was only 15%, he bore no costs and just had to run around a bit. Additionally, the payment was in points, and with few able to massively invest, Battleworld points were relatively rare. Once Greed finished this round of earnings, another period of deflation was expected.
After settling the accounts, Greed hummed a little tune as he returned to the meeting room. He came back just in time for the administrators to announce the final results.
The meeting room suddenly quieted, and everyone listened silently, afraid of missing a word. After all, if this were an exam, now would be the time to announce the scores.
The Transcendent cleared his throat and stepped up first, "First, we'll announce the outcome of the war, followed by detailed data, including energy consumed, damage dealt, and damage sustained, for your post-war review. Alright, let's start with the results.
"From the results of the final battle, before determining the ultimate victor, everyone except Batman and Iron Man returned to Battleworld due to the energy eruption, so you wouldn't have seen the result in the first place."
The crowd understood he wasn't just making excuses for the lack of an end animation but was saying these two were the last ones standing. Thus, whoever survived until the end would be the winner.
"The program logs show that the erasure by the Infinity Gem Batman used took effect earlier and had higher authority. So, Iron Man should have been erased first."
The meeting room erupted into cheers. Stark sighed and said, "I actually had a feeling. After all, the Infinity Gem is the underlying code of the cosmos, and my modifications couldn't measure up to a System Administrator's."
The crowd patted him on the shoulder, comforting him. After all, most of the universes knew the power of the Infinity Gem, and the process through which Batman acquired it was thrilling; it was normal for it to ultimately unleash such formidable force.
But just then, the Transcendent suddenly said, "However..."
The cheers came to an abrupt halt, and everyone tensed up again, with some starting to curse, "Can you just finish saying it in one breath!"
"What's the 'however'?! Is someone else still alive?"
"Indeed," the Transcendent said, "more accurately, someone just revived at that moment in time."
Everyone was full of questions, unsure of whom he was talking about. But the Transcendent fixed his gaze on the Main Universe Constantine.
Main Universe Constantine smiled.
Then came the Death Stare of the Primary Universe Batman.
"Before the war started, I took on a task," Main Universe Constantine shrugged, saying, "Of course, under Batman's orders, I came to gather intelligence, which is the main task. But I also took on a side job, which was to help a poor little girl, who died of heart disease, create a body suitable for her. This involves using my Ash Avatar technology, and also requires a ceremony. The ceremony took a little time. Isn't it a coincidence? While you were having your final battle, little Anya finally got her body. Let's cheer for her!"
The response Constantine got was a fist the size of a sandbag from the Primary Universe Batman.
This was no damned coincidence; it was Constantine's doing. Being teammates with this guy is like a fancy way to get yourself killed. Not to mention Primary Universe Batman still sent him to do work; if he didn't pull a big one on Batman, he wouldn't be Constantine.
This guy definitely had a plan all along, otherwise, it wouldn't explain how this little girl, who only had a spirit body, registered for the war. Her own dad, Erik, probably didn't even know. Because as soon as Primary Universe Batman's fist withdrew, Erik's fist followed right after.
In order to create a suitable body for Anya, Erik had to give Constantine his daughter's spirit body for a while. As a result, this guy actually took her to sign up.
Coincidentally, this registration had no age limit this time; even Franklin and those kids could sign up, so Anya surely could too. But since Erik wasn't involved in the command, he hadn't seen the list and didn't know his daughter was on it. The command center assumed a name like Anya Lanshelle must have been registered by Erik. After all, if Reed Richards could register his newborn son, one more kid wouldn't be strange; if Erik registered his daughter, he surely had his reasons.
Little did they know, it was just Constantine who tricked her over, coaxing the little girl into registering, just to mess with Batman.
After signing up, Constantine took Anya to conduct the ceremony. The ceremony did indeed need time, but it was also to conceal Anya's existence. Until the final battle, when everyone was dead except Anya was alive, then naturally Marvel would win.
"How did you know we would all die?" the Primary Universe Batman asked.
Constantine lay sprawled on the ground, wiped a nosebleed, and then said, "If I said I could foresee it, would you believe me?"
The Primary Universe Batman couldn't exactly say he didn't believe it; Constantine was good at these god and ghost things, what if he really had prophesied it?
"Don't listen to his nonsense," Greed mercilessly exposed, "since he had nothing to lose, and could still get the pay the Mutants gave him, it's just a gamble."
The Primary Universe Batman sighed heavily. Despite all calculations, he still lost to this rotten guy.
Constantine laughed lowly, then said, "You should learn a lesson, Batman. Anyone who cooperates with me will never have a good end, don't ever count on me."
All the DC superheroes present wanted to punch him, but alas, Constantine was such a rotten person that even if you punched him, you'd be afraid he'd lick your hand. He could even stomach an octopus, is there anything he wouldn't do?
So although everyone glared at him furiously, not one dared to approach. Only to say that a person rotten to a certain extent made everyone give way to him, even including Batman. If he were born in Gotham, even Joker would run with his tail between his legs.
Such a large-scale battle ended in this somewhat ridiculous manner. But then again, there were no prizes for winning, so it's just like that.
To be fair, the ones who incited the war received their due punishment. The reputation of the Marvel Prime Universe had plummeted, let alone being a multiverse leader; even returning to their position in the future required good performance, otherwise, they'll just be on the roadside.
Ultron had it worse; he got targeted by the Mechanical Overlord Iron Man. His seemingly perfect body was like a delicious piece of meat, wanted by every electronic life form. The Central Universe's Ultron was planning to set out to find him, clearly indicating he wouldn't last long.
As for Super Body, although she was also influenced by Ultron in creation, she didn't do anything wrong. Now with the Life Equation in hand, she should be returning to the DC Multiverse to fend off unknown darkness.
As for Shiller, if you had to say, his biggest gain was not the points from selling intelligence, but the consciousness gradually emerging from the Magical Defense Network. After returning from Battleworld and passing through the Magical Defense Network, all superheroes felt something different, sensing that oddly unfamiliar gaze. Perhaps before long, Earth would birth its own consciousness.
And because of this, Greed surprisingly received an invitation from Arrogance. The letter was brief but fully in Arrogance's style:
"Autumn is coming, inviting you to spend Halloween with me. The Primary Universe Batman will be there."
Seeing the last sentence, Greed leapt up from the couch. If the Primary Universe Batman went to the universe Arrogance was in, wouldn't he find out about Brainiac's existence?!
This is one show he must watch. Here he comes!