"Honestly, I think his plan is a bit risky, but right now it looks like Batman's already made up his mind." Superman spoke as he slowly descended from the sky.
After he landed in the crowd, he showed a sunny smile and nodded a greeting to everyone, Green Arrow included.
"I'm really glad to see everyone in a situation this bad, and that everyone's safe. And of course, you too, Oliver. What've you been up to lately? That outfit you've got on now… pretty trendy."
Clark tilted his head halfway through, thinking for a second. He remembered the word "trendy." His son Joe had been talking a lot lately about online streetwear brands, and those clothes kind of looked like Oliver's current style.
Oliver had been quite happy at first, but after hearing the latter half he was a bit helpless: "This necklace of mine? No, I'm not wearing it to pretend to be some hip-hop singer. This is a Magic Holy Artifact. Deathstroke gave it to me."
Superman nodded in sudden realization: "I see. So that means you've got some understanding of the Magic Realm now, right? Then can you tell me what exactly God's Fury is supposed to be?"
"Huh?" Oliver looked completely dumbfounded. Since when did Superman start believing in God?
Seeing the two of them talking past each other, Batman knew Superman still hadn't figured out he'd been tricked by Deathstroke last time, but now wasn't the moment to bring that up.
"Guys, focus on the present. Our situation is not optimistic."
The dark Bat cut off their small talk.
Clark rubbed the back of his head and shrugged helplessly: "All right, Batman's plan is to use the personal grudge between me and the Troublemaker to lure him to Metropolis, then use his ability to reshape reality with his thoughts to 'move' Luthor and the others right in front of us, and then we take them down."
Back when he learned from Ron that the world they were living in was laid over the Dimensions originally created by Papetua, Batman had already started drafting plans involving Dimensions.
This is actually easy enough to understand. If you think of the current Multiverse as a canvas, then the current world is like an oil painting painted over it.
A canvas isn't a one-time-use tool. Sometimes, to save on fabric, painters will scrape off the old painting and reuse the canvas for a new piece.
And some of the old master artists liked to just paint right over existing paintings. That's no secret—yeah, talking about Da Vinci.
The principle is like oil painting, but once you extend it to Cosmos-level Concepts, it stops being so simple.
Batman actually had a lot more ideas he was keeping to himself, but Superman knowing this much was enough.
The Troublemaker is one of the Five-dimensional People; he can change the world through his own thoughts. If he felt like it, turning Metropolis into Zootopia wouldn't even be a stretch.
He doesn't just run wild in the DC Multiverse; he can also head to the Marvel Universe or other worlds.
In the DC side he dresses like a yellow-shirt crewman from Star Trek, and over in Marvel he splits off a part of himself, dresses up in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles suit as some weirdo called "Incomprehensible People," basically an Out-of-Body Incarnation and alt persona.
Incomprehensible People is decent, sure, but Marvel's full of even bigger freaks. Forget TOAA; just Original Transcenders, Cleaners, Yasbees and the like are enough to crush him so hard he can't lift his head.
So he still prefers DC, and he likes Superman even more. Over in Marvel, even the most Guang Weizheng guy, Captain America, kills as soon as he throws a punch. Way too dark…
Not to mention there's Superwoman over here. Slurp…
If Batman had to think about who the strongest person he knew was, then without a doubt it'd be the Troublemaker and the bat spirit—firmly All-Powerful Cosmic Level.
Back then, the Origin Wall basically didn't exist for the Five-dimensional People; they could come and go as they pleased. Now it should be even less of a problem.
Diana folded her arms, looking at Batman seriously. This was no joke.
Batman was now planning to use the Fifth Dimension to flip Luthor's table, but that was extremely dangerous for the whole Justice League as well.
"How do you make sure the Troublemaker will listen to you?"
Batman's face didn't change: "He doesn't necessarily have to listen to me, but he'll listen to Superman. He's Clark's Arch-Enemy; they've been going at it for who knows how many years."
Superman shrugged. Just thinking of the Troublemaker gave him a headache, but he still told the truth: "He just likes pulling Pranks. He hasn't really hurt anyone. There's a game rule between us: as long as I can make him say his own name backwards, he admits defeat and puts everything back the way it was."
Diana looked over at Oliver, and Green Arrow, brow furrowed, had been thinking the whole time but didn't raise any objections.
Because once Superman and Batman are on the same page, his opinion stops mattering.
Diana, as one of the Trinity, did have some say, but right now she couldn't think of a reason to veto the plan.
"All right, since you both think it's feasible, we'll give it a try. But how do we start?" She adjusted her cloak, unsure if she should draw her sword. "I mean, how do we contact him? He's not in the same Dimension as we are."
Batman already had a plan: "We'll use the leftover power inside Star Hero. That comes from Papetua, and it's also power that Transcends Dimensions. We'll borrow that portion to amplify Ron's Mind signal, have him send out a broadcast past the Multiverse about the tragedy here, and trick the Troublemaker into coming."
Seeing Metropolis in such a state, the Troublemaker would definitely come to check if Superman was dead. As an Arch-Enemy, who'd miss Superman's funeral?
We seize that opportunity, trap him, and make him serve us like Can Luo. That's all.
After listening to the brief explanation, Oliver gave a small nod to himself in secret. He thought it was workable—dark enough, risky enough, perfectly in line with Batman's usual style. It should work.
"So once he gets here, is he really going to be fooled by what he sees?" Diana asked again. These past few days she'd gotten used to Deathstroke's habit of explaining every detail of his plans. "You think he won't see through this as an illusion? He's a Five-dimensional Person."
Barry stood off to the side, pinching his chin and constantly shifting his stance. Five-dimensional People… he seemed to remember Deathstroke mentioning them?
Batman pointed at the things Clark had just moved in, behind everyone.
"So we made a cage out of Black Diamond, specifically to imprison him." Batman pointed at that twisted cage, from which green Lightning flickered from time to time. "This used to be the one we used last time to trap Celestial Erosion. After it was damaged, only this little bit of material was left. We did our best to repair it. It can hold Ghosts and Celestial Erosion for a while, so trapping a Five-dimensional People shouldn't be a problem either."
The cage was really too small, probably not big enough to fit even a large dog, and those metal bars were warped, with gaps wide enough for a person to squeeze through.
"In the past, Black Diamond was forged in the Fire Pit of Apocalypse Star. Now that planet has already vanished." Ron also descended into the ruins with Hawk Woman and Star Hero, landing lightly on the pitch-black snow. The Mars People continued, "Unless Darkseid jumps out from somewhere to lend us a hand, we can only pray this thing, patched up with Earth methods, actually works."
The temperature around them had been adjusted to very low, because a nuclear winter was extremely cold.
Green Arrow saw a Green Lantern Hero uniform, only it wasn't his old buddy Hal, but the substitute Green Lantern John, so he asked him where Hal was.
The Black Man Green Lantern Hero crossed his arms and sighed; the situation for the few Earth Lantern Heroes was extremely difficult right now.
After the Origin Wall exploded, the Aliens considered it all the Earthlings' fault, so the grudge extended to them as well.
To maintain the relationship between the Justice League and the Guardians, and to win back Earth's allies, Hal, Kael, Caro, Gandar and the others had stayed out in the Cosmos, lobbying among the major forces.
The results... were hard to say.
"Hal went back to Oa; he's been a bit busy lately." John smiled at Green Arrow. He knew Hal and Oliver had the best relationship, so naturally there was no need to hide anything. Oliver had surely heard plenty from Hal about what those Little Blue Men were like.
Hal was already a bit talkative to begin with, and if he had just a little beer... He was a pilot, he didn't drink hard liquor, so his tolerance for alcohol was extremely low. Because of that, just a bit of beer and he'd talk so much he'd dare say anything.
Oliver got it and could only shrug, indicating there was nothing he could do to help.
Every time he went out with Hal, after a few beers, Hal would even talk about what color underwear Sinestro used to like wearing.
Still, this arrangement worked too. Hal might be the strongest Green Lantern Hero, but John was about the same. And because he had less seniority, John followed orders more, and wouldn't act on his own like Hal.
Now, aside from Steel Bone being absent, the Justice League had already assembled in full strength; you could say they were at their most powerful period.
That was enough.
"I've already sent the signal, and the weather here will make him think this is that final moment before the world's Destruction. Get ready—"
Just as Ron hadn't finished speaking, a sound like crumpling a paper ball came from the air, followed by the noise of glass shattering.
The sharp scraping sound stabbed at everyone's fragile eardrums, and the air seemed to suddenly grow thin, as if the world were a balloon that had started leaking.
"He's here!" Batman called quietly to the others, signaling everyone to prepare for battle.
Whether the Black Diamond Cage would work was still an open question.
"Whoosh!"
They saw a streak of White Light fall from the sky, drawn in by the green Lightning on the cage and poured into it. Those white lights gradually condensed into a small figure.
Short, with a potbelly, wearing a yellow one-piece outfit, and a little purple top hat on his head.
He had no hair on the top of his head; it seemed like it was only thanks to those airplane-wing-like tufts of hair on the sides of his skull that the hat didn't fall off.
It was Troublemaker.
"Well now, hello everyone."
The Little Demon immediately sensed the group hiding in the ruins and called out to them loudly in greeting.
Seeing they'd been discovered, and that Troublemaker seemed unable to get out of the cage, Batman signaled everyone to step out.
The group surrounded the cage so tightly not even water could leak through, like they were visiting some rare animal in a zoo, full of curiosity.
Troublemaker, though, was completely at ease, with no awareness of being a captive at all, as if the Justice League were the ones inside the cage and he was the one outside.
From a certain angle, he was indeed right. Trapped by the Origin Wall in the DC Multiverse, wasn't the Justice League essentially the ones in the cage?
"Wait, this is the Five-dimensional Little Demon we were talking about?" The Flash had thought it would be a big brute like Three Palaces or Neilong; he hadn't expected...
Barry stretched his leg to the edge of the cage to compare. Unbelievable—this Five-dimensional Little Demon probably had to jump to even hit his knee.
Batman sighed. "Be careful, The Flash. He's the most dangerous thing in this world."
"I know all your real names; no need to use codenames." Troublemaker chuckled in the cage, turning his palm over to show he knew everything. "And I'm not a thing, you're the thing, Bat."
Batman seemed not to hear Troublemaker's words, or rather, he simply ignored him and spoke on his own to Diana: "Looks like the Black Diamond worked. He's trapped. We can protect Metropolis from harm."
Troublemaker burst out laughing. "Hahaha, you really think so? You think a low-Dimension trinket can affect me? Then let's see if this fragile toy can protect you!"
Then Troublemaker activated his powers, and in an instant, the whole of Metropolis twisted as if it had entered a Fun House Mirror projection.