Volume 4: The Last Day Chapter 20: Those who only plot are not ambitious people
The Demon Lizard Chariot that had fallen into the sea finally got rid of the ice and began to float.
Batgirl, holding her head which was so hot that it felt like it was boiling, weakly jumped out of the driver's seat and threw her flying claws towards the sea in front, and with great difficulty pulled Jason to her side.
But at this moment, she was suffering from terrible pain in her brain and could not even complete this action. She shook her wrist and fell on the armor of the Demon Lizard Tank. The healing injection in her hand also slipped into the floating sea water next to her.
"No."
Barbara looked at the two barrels floating on the water in the distance and groaned in pain:
"Someone help me..."
Perhaps Batgirl's prayers were really heard by something, because at the moment she tried to get up, the healing injection that had sunk into the sea was lifted up from underwater by a strange tentacle hand covered with white keratin and barnacles.
A twisted shadow moved quickly in the water, and with another hand, Jason Todd, who was sinking into the water, was pushed onto the armor of the Demon Lizard Tank floating on the sea.
Barbara looked into the water.
A familiar weather-beaten face, a few gold teeth in his mouth and an old hat on his head could be vaguely seen across the water, but his body had been twisted into a half-monster appearance, just like the captain he was now.
"Captain Barbossa..."
Barbara called out.
The twisted shadow underwater waved goodbye to her without looking back, then disappeared into the cold, murky water.
Batgirl pulled over Barrel Two, whose body temperature was frighteningly low, and took out the injection made from the life-saving potion mixed with unicorn blood that Mason gave her and stabbed it into Jason's neck, then put him into the driver's seat of the lizard chariot.
The tank's thrusters are undergoing self-inspection and repair. As a technological weapon of the future, it has a complete biological monitoring and protection system, in which the seriously injured Ertan will be treated and maintained.
With Mason's magic potion, he can still be saved as long as his head is not chopped off. At worst, we can send the two barrels to Judy, replace his body with some prosthetics, and he will be a brave man again in no time.
"Old Germany, we have to go back. Send us over. The sea water is getting warmer. This world can't hold on any longer."
Barbara climbed back into the cockpit with difficulty.
She grabbed a bag of ice and placed it on her burning forehead to physically cool down her frontal lobe. In this situation, she didn't dare to connect to the magic lizard's consciousness console again. Fortunately, there was still an experienced driver AI operating in this tank that was dismantled by Bizarro.
And at the moment when this thing was struggling to start, a hand covered with cracks suddenly clasped the scandium alloy reactive armor of the Demon Lizard Tank.
Then a guy with a knife in his back climbed onto the roof with difficulty.
The movement was immediately captured by the tank's external surveillance. The moment Barbara saw the miserable zombie superman crawling up, she grabbed the Mox shotgun at hand.
She glanced at the unconscious Ertong beside her, gritted her teeth, and shouted to the in-car AI:
"Self-destruction program activated! Delaman, shoot our two missiles out and kill this guy at the same time!"
"Calm down! Passenger No. 4, the target seems to be talking!"
The intelligent AI Delaman prevented Barbara's somewhat extreme reaction. It activated the sound collection module, allowing the weak voice of the zombie Superman lying on the back of the tank to be transmitted into the cockpit.
What the guy said was:
"Help... the weak enemy brought the monster... I slept... kill me..."
"Is this a provocation? So stubborn?"
Barbara's teeth were rubbing sparks, but Delaman explained:
"Passenger No. 1 said before that all the behaviors and thoughts of this life form are upside down. Therefore, this program guesses that what he really wants to express is that he hopes we can save him?"
——
"Your team members are really good. You have defeated all the fourth-ranked superhumans in the Cleaner Sequence. It seems that Team K is not just a C-rank team.
I think I understand why old Norman insisted that I stop by and talk to you."
In the ruins of the city hall at the highest point of Virginia City, which was completely covered by the uncontrolled tide, Tony Stark, sitting on a lame chair in the dim area, stared at the Fenrir armor in front of him.
To be precise, it was Mason who was staring at him in the cockpit when the armor was opened.
The giant power armor in front of this guy raised his fists.
On his left arm was an enlarged caliber freezing gun, and on his right arm was an EMP jammer composed of an electromagnetic circle. Four high-energy particle shoulder cannons popped out from his silver-gray armor shoulders and constantly moved back and forth to aim at various important positions on his body.
If he made the slightest movement, Mason would use the last 5% of his energy to launch a fatal attack on him.
At the foot of Fenrir's armor was a storage box of a red nano-blood-edged armor that had been dismantled to the point that only the wreckage remained. It looked like a high-tech suitcase with a very classic red and gold paint job.
This thing is Mason's "trophy".
He had no intention of returning or handing this thing over to anyone.
"Are you going to remain silent like this? Are you going to kill me with your eyes?"
Mason's silence soon annoyed Tony Stark. He crossed his legs on the lame chair, raised his left arm and looked at a watch-like instrument in front of him, and said rudely:
"The impact is accelerating. This world is only fifteen minutes away from final collapse. Conservatively speaking, we both need to set aside ten minutes to deal with each other's personal affairs. So we only have five minutes left to chat.
Do you want me to tell you some details about the Doomsday War more than three years ago to prove my identity?"
"No need! I believe you are from Norman's side, otherwise I would not be the first one to suffer."
Mason narrowed his eyes and asked:
"What position do you hold in the superior organization of the Star Society? And why did you enter here as a conqueror... Wait, there is no need to answer the second question.
Are you here to pick up Old J?
Have you guys connected with Quint? That's pretty fast."
“Two mistakes!”
Tony Stark in front of Mason stroked his coquettish beard, raised two fingers and said:
"First of all, I am not in the superior organization of the Star Society. I work in their sister organization, a place called 'Fox Nest', which is a gathering place for the best and most talented researchers in the parallel world.
'Fox Nest' is responsible for collecting various speculations about the doomsday impact in various parallel worlds and improving and verifying them, in an attempt to restore the principles and truth of this impact.
This also leads to your second mistake.
I don't come here as a 'conqueror', Mason.
I am here as a frontline researcher.
The topic I am currently in charge of is to collect the laws of various imbalances of cosmological constants caused by the collision of two parallel planes when an impact occurs, so as to reversely infer whether it is possible to create an instrument that can withstand such an impact.
For this impact event, I have selected 248 target objects to collect experimental data. At this moment, my 24 detectors are rotating around the two colliding worlds to collect various data.
So theoretically speaking, it is not me who entered your battlefield, but you who entered my testing ground."
“It sounds amazing.”
Mason began to believe what the guy in front of him said. He raised his eyebrows and said:
“So, is this actually possible?”
"sure!
With the help of the advanced or unique technologies that the good dogs of the Star Society have recovered for us from various worlds, I am fully confident that I can fully collect all kinds of data when the worlds collide.
It’s not difficult at all.”
Tony Stark snapped his fingers and said:
"Even you can do it. It only takes a while to familiarize yourself with it and you can design a similar instrument. In fact, I think this job can be done by tying a dog next to a computer."
“No, no, no, I’m not talking about your act of collecting data.”
Mason corrected:
"I'm talking about your experimental idea. Designing an instrument to resist the collision of two worlds. Is this really feasible?"
"Uh, this."
Iron Man curled his lips, spread his hands and said frankly:
"Of course not."
"ha?"
Mason was stunned, and then he heard the guy in front of him say in a long voice that sounded like he deserved a beating:
“If I could do this, I would have solved the impact incident from the root long ago. How could I have the spare time to come here and chat with a little guy like you?
This research topic was originally set up to conceal my identity and to obtain funding in order to support old Norman's actions in his hometown.
This project is very popular and will not be suspected. If you throw a brick in the whole fox nest and kill ten scientific researchers, at least six of them are engaged in similar projects.
Three of the remaining four were still mysterious magicians who tried to use magical means to achieve this goal.
The last one is a complete psychopath."
Iron Man snorted, shook his head and said:
"But it's not that simple. This matter is much more troublesome than you think. The Fox Nest was established before the Stars Society and swallowed up countless resources, but so far it has not produced anything.
I have to tragically admit that our work at this point is nothing more than a bunch of puns.”
"No way?"
Mason said in surprise:
"Countless geniuses from countless worlds gathered together to study for more than 20 years. It's impossible that they can't come up with even one answer, right?"
"No, on the bright side, we do have the answer."
Tony rubbed his forehead and explained:
"The bad part is, we have too many fucking answers.
There are no less than 150 mathematical model hypotheses of impact events in Fox Nest's database. The worst thing is that each of them can be confirmed from some direction.
This means that every one of those wild and even contradictory ideas is correct..."
“This is impossible!”
Mason immediately shook his head and said:
"I can understand that a problem has multiple solutions, but this kind of thing..."
“The simpler the problem, the more solutions it has.”
Tony Stark stood up and walked out of the shadows with his hands behind his back. He looked up at Mason as the earth shook and said:
"This shows that the truth behind the impact is not as complicated as we thought. There is no conspiracy, no scary villain. Maybe the entire parallel world system is too old and is undergoing self-destruction.
Just as every universe will eventually enter heat death, every life will eventually die.
If you get too old, you have to die once.
Of course, this is not what I want to discuss with you in the remaining two minutes. Frankly speaking, it is a bit too difficult for you to consider this matter at your research level.
I'm just giving you a message from Norman, Mason."
"Click"
The control cabin of the Fenrir armor popped open, and Mason, wearing the Isu armor, jumped out of it. He faced Tony Stark and said:
"I just met him before, less than 24 hours ago, and since he asked you to bring a message to me, it means there are some things he can't say to my face.
Is there someone watching him?"
"Not yet, but he doesn't want to arouse suspicion from his 'new friends'."
Iron Man shrugged and said:
“Although it sounds troublesome, Norman was able to hide under the nose of the Star Society for three years because of this kind of caution and good communication. Your Quint Society is indeed not simple.
With your help, we have contacted them in various aspects, and they have initially taken over our system and incorporated our intelligence network into theirs.
They are quite efficient, seem to have strong execution capabilities, and are very welcoming to new friends.
The only problem is that they have taken over our intelligence system and demanded that we stop all covert searches and sabotage operations against the Conclave.
The reason is that they are afraid that we will be exposed.
But to be honest, this behavior makes me question their motives.”
Hearing this, Mason raised his eyes and said quietly:
"We really can't check everything. What if we find something embarrassing? I roughly understood what old Norman meant. He also began to suspect Quint would do it.
It's exactly what I thought.
I now feel more and more that perhaps the Quint Society is just a group of "reformists" rather than the "opposition" we originally thought. They hope to take over and transform the Star Society, rather than completely overthrow and disband it as I want. "
"Yes, that's what I mean. You are indeed a smart person."
Tony nodded happily, looked at Mason, and said:
“That’s what Norman wanted me to tell you.
He is not happy with the situation, so he plans to continue to be friends with you.
Because he knows that you really want to overturn the dark ages created by the Star Society, and that is also the purpose of him and the rest of us.
Norman Osborn knows that you doubt his sincerity. He has no intention of proving it. He just guessed the difficulty of your operation, so he entrusted me to help you when you are about to be wiped out.
His meaning was clear.
He doesn't expect or expect you to trust us, but when you are in despair, you can at least count on us to pull you out of the quagmire. In many cases, this is actually the basis for in-depth cooperation between the two sides. "
"No, I don't know what you think, but I know old Norman did all this just to stay in power."
Mason bluntly debunked this claim, saying:
"That ambitious man couldn't make a name for himself in the Star Club, so he placed his hopes on the Quint Club. Now he finds that the Quint Club is just the same, but he is not willing to be just an executor.
He wants him, not anyone else, to take over the Star Society, and he thinks he can do a better job than the current Zerg.
Tony, do you believe in Norman Osborn? Or let me ask you a question I asked Norman, why did you stay in the Fox Nest for more than three years? "
“Many people died, but I am still alive.”
Tony Stark stretched his neck and said:
"So the unfinished business of those who died should be shouldered by those of us who are still alive. I lost a lot that night three years ago, almost all of my best friends.
I didn't like Steve, he was pretty much my opposite, but I was sorry and angry about his death.
Listen!
I'm not interested in what Norman really thinks, I don't give a f*ck what he wants to do! I just know that working with him will get me one step closer to my goal.
I might as well be honest with you, Mason.
My friends and I are almost finding the world coordinates of the 'superior organization', and the 'evil heart' that is encrypted layer by layer is about to be exposed to us.
Then……"
The Iron Man in front of him showed a ferocious smile, which was fleeting. Then he adjusted his collar in a gentle tone and said to Mason with a wink:
"You know, my friends and I will deal with them the same way they deal with other worlds! Now give me an answer, Mason, are you going to follow your superiors and continue to hang out with Quint?
Or will you stand with Norman and us?"
Faced with this question, Mason shrugged and said:
"Why do I have to choose one? Why can't I have both?"
"Um?"
Tony Stark glanced at him in surprise, and Mason didn't hide anything. He said:
"The foundation of the Star Society's existence is the World Gate. If you want to destroy this organization, you must first break the gate and kill the devil guarding the gate.
So, you see, we both have our own things to do.
You have to secretly search for the world where the 'superior organization' is located, and I am here to take care of the World Gate issue. We all need a place where we can meet and temporarily give us shelter.
Why do you have to choose this time to start your own business?
And my superiors...
He is also someone you can win over. Leave this to me. Also, when you take your friends to ignite the world where the 'superior organization' is and burn the instigator of everything to ashes, don't forget to call me along."
Mason shrugged and said:
“I really don’t want to miss that good show.”
"Okay, I'll just consider you our friend for now, Mason."
Tony Stark took a deep look at the young man in front of him, then he patted Mason on the shoulder and said:
"But if you want to join our 'party', you and your people have to be a little more powerful. The girl in your team has the data consciousness that controls Bizarro trapped in the component in her brain. This is not a safe option.
Arnim Zola, who sees Bizarro as a perfect body and has been hiding in the mindless superhuman mind to manipulate him, is a dangerous opponent. You'd better put his data consciousness into a more secure prison.
Now, take your men and leave, Mason, there is nothing to see on this world that will be sacrificed to the dark stars.
My experiment has to continue.
Although I'm trying to defraud funds, the consequences of not being able to produce anything will be terrible. I don't want to be executed by those guys in the name of "wasting resources."
Especially when I know they are capable of doing this.”
Iron Man snapped his fingers, and a new battle suit quickly appeared on his body. This unfocused guy admired the surprised expression on Mason's face at this moment.
He squinted his eyes and said with a cheerful tone:
"Also, you don't really think that destroying a suit of armor means you have defeated the famous Iron Man, right? To achieve this goal, you still have to work harder, C-level personnel ."
