Chapter 4973: Advance York, Advance (IX)

Thinking of this, Shiler casually asked, "Has Deadpool joined the Revival Alliance?"

"Who?"

"Deadpool."

"Oh, him. He and that mercenary cousin of his are having a blast outside; he didn't participate in the war at all. Later we wanted to make him a hired external contractor, but he wouldn't do it either." Carter shook his head. "But the specifics are only known by HR; we're still a bit..."

Just as he said this, Shiler's phone rang. He picked it up and saw it was Peter, so he knew there was probably a problem at the school. Then again, Bruce is already fighting people; how could there not be problems?

"Professor, could you trouble yourself to come over?" Peter said. "There might be some situation here that needs you to mediate."

"Alright, I'll be right there." Shiler said. Actually, when Peter left, Shiler had already prepared to go, because he knew he'd have to make this trip sooner or later.

Earth-0 is very similar to the universe he's in; even when Batman first debuted, he wasn't that strong. Shiler's universe is like a Dark Multiverse version of Earth-0.

In fact, it's true. The superheroes of their universe aren't considered high-tier in the Multiverse; without various external buffs, they'd probably be mid-to-low tier. Take Clark — among Supermen, he's not considered a heavy hitter; Diana is the same. Bruce can only reign supreme because he's empowered by the forces of Darkness and Light, and even then, in the games he still frequently gets beaten by Arkham Batman.

If forced to say, probably only Joker's power level is the highest. Shiler goes without saying; Jack can drive a truck across the Dreaming; the other villains are also a cut above other universes. As long as Bruce is still Batman, he has to politely greet the dogshit ELO mechanism set by God.

Earth-0 is also lucky. After becoming the Fusion Universe, the whole Earth's power level was raised a notch; crises inside the universe basically don't need DC's heroes to act — old Earth-616 is all at full power, which counts as a kind of veterans leading newcomers.

Among them, Captain America and Iron Man get along well with Spider-Man and taught him a lot. Don't look at Iron Man being an evil version; both are rich kids, he actually gets along well with Bruce, and precisely because of that, Bruce not sticking with them made him that angry.

Upon arriving at the school, they saw Iron Man floating in mid-air. Carter's eyes went wide and he hurriedly grabbed the radio: "Anquan Force, Anquan Force! My god, did you see the sky above Forward York University?! He'll cause a panic!!!"

In fact, Iron Man wouldn't just cause a panic — he already had caused one. All students and teachers were running out; the motorcade of several people was nearly scattered by the stampede.

The fact is, whether it's Gotham or New York, the civilians of these two cities are experts at running. Someone joked that New York's ordinary people are spawned in, but actually, since its founding, this city has always had superheroes and supervillains fighting; those who can stay here are all confident and capable of escaping. If you really don't want to mix with superheroes, why not go to the West Coast? California's economy isn't bad, and the climate is better than New York's.

The people here are all on maximum alert; at the slightest sign, they run for their lives. The superheroes just finished a Civil War a few days ago, and Iron Man comes flying aggressively over a university — one look and you know he's here to pick a fight; even people in wheelchairs would shake their wheels smoking to run.

It's precisely because they run fast that Carter didn't have to find people to evacuate. Before long, the university town was emptied, and at this time Natasha also arrived, her expression looking like she wanted to shoot Iron Man in mid-air right then.

Worse news than Iron Man floating above was that he dove down. The group also quickly drove their cars in; just as they arrived, they saw Peter with a Spider-Man in his left hand and an Iron Man in his right, pinning them both down hard.

Of course, he wasn't really pressing them down with his hands, but with energy. The salary Shiler gave him, he doesn't usually use much, but right now his energy looked even more ample than Doctor Strange's; neither Spider-Man nor Iron Man was a match for him.

But he only took relatively limited restraint measures — just pinning the two of them to the ground, and didn't take any further action. Seeing the Revival Alliance people arrive, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry, quickly take the two of them away." Peter clearly couldn't take it anymore.

"Don't rush." Natasha's face was cold; she strode over. "First explain what happened. Why did the two of them start fighting?"

"Of course it's still because of that old mess." Peter looked helpless. "Tony got a bee in his bonnet again and insisted on arguing with Bruce. And Bruce just had a conflict with a classmate and was also fuming, so they started fighting."

Natasha gave a cold snort, glanced at the two men, and waved a hand: "Cuff them!"

The men in black behind her walked over. They held a special kind of shackles, flashing with lightning, the patterns engraved on them clearly Asgardian make.

Shiler looked at Thor. Thor nodded and said, "These are shackles I gave them, imbued with the power of the Nine Realms, specifically for restraining superheroes. Anyone wearing these shackles has their superpowers restricted."

Judging by this, Thor's control over the Nine Realms is indeed very strong, even much stronger than Brainiac. At least Brainiac has no coercive power over superheroes; he and superheroes can only be called mutual oversight.

Both were cuffed, but not taken away; instead, right at Gotham University they found a place to have the two face each other for mediation.

This is also a Revival Alliance rule: once superheroes have a conflict, they must immediately talk it out face-to-face, and cannot each go home to stew, then gather factions and start a civil war.

Marvel has more experience in this regard. Back when they had a civil war over the Registration Act, they were actually manipulated; the two sides never reconciled accounts, which led to the war.

So now it's stipulated: whatever needs to be said must be said face-to-face; you can't just walk away and then settle scores later. And it's best to mediate on the spot, because once you put them in a vehicle and transport them somewhere, it's easy for information to leak, causing panic.

If ordinary civilians panic, they might demand trials for this one, attacks on that one; public opinion only increases pressure. And their peers — other superheroes — if they panic, they'll start forming cliques and picking sides. Maybe the two have no real grievance, but with everyone egging them on, they get crowned emperor.

Another rule: mediation cannot have only the two parties present. First, there must be an enforcer present, who must possess the absolute force to knock down both sides simultaneously; basically Thor always plays the enforcer, and he arrives on call.

Just having an enforcer's violent means isn't enough; there must also be a mediator, and this mediator must be very skilled at mediation, able to deeply understand both sides' thoughts and bridge the conflict between them.

Usually this role is played by Professor X or Martian Manhunter; both are telepaths and good at mediation, and most importantly, they're cautious and won't escalate conflicts. If they're not available, the preference leans toward emotionally stable immortals, like Wonder Woman Diana.

And this time Peter asked Shiler without a second thought, and no one objected to this decision. In their view, Shiler is also a telepath, and a suspected immortal, and this Shiler doesn't look like that money-grubbing Shiler; asking him to step in should be fine.

The mediation venue was chosen as the Grand Auditorium, mainly because the space is large enough to completely separate the two; otherwise keeping them pinned down like that is tiring. Shiler looked at Iron Man on the right first: "Affirmative side, state your case."

"I just don't understand," Iron Man said. "You all think I'm evil, right? Even if I did the right thing in the previous Civil War, you still wouldn't change your minds."

Thor opened his mouth to speak; Natasha gave him a look. Thor looked at Shiler. Usually during mediation, the mediator comforts first, then reasons.

But Shiler just stared into Iron Man's eyes and asked, "Are you truly prepared to become a real superhero?"

Iron Man was struck dumb. He really hadn't expected Shiler to ask this; all his prepared defenses had nowhere to go, because he found he couldn't give that affirmative answer.

"What you did in your original universe isn't that important; the good you've done in this universe isn't unrecognized either. But the key is whether you have the determination to keep doing good like a real superhero — that's all they're worried about."

"Following your whims is always easy, but restraining yourself, staying constantly clear-headed and vigilant, upholding a heart of justice is forever difficult. Think from another angle: their insistence that you're evil might just be because they don't want to put that pressure on you, because ultimately, no one has an obligation to be a superhero."

Peter wanted to speak again; Carter signaled with his eyes for him not to. Shiler continued: "Them not expecting anything from you isn't entirely bad. They don't count on you, so you naturally don't have to take responsibility, don't have to sacrifice yourself in the coming dangerous events to save someone. Isn't that a good thing for you? Ask yourself, Tony, which part of you is protesting?"

Iron Man's cuffed hands tightened, fingertips nearly digging into his palms; he pressed his lips tightly together. Shiler kept looking at him and said, "Is it your talent? Is it your gift?"

"No one here recognizes your evil talent, which means if you don't do good, no one will recognize your talent. Only talent used to save the world like a superhero will be seen and recognized."

"On one hand, you lack the determination to be a superhero; you don't feel you can always save the world like this time. On the other hand, you're unwilling to let your full heart of talent go unseen, unpraised, unlauded."

"Unwilling to abide by moral codes, yet wanting reputation matching your talent. Many serial killers think like you — they feel evil talent should also be seen by the world, so they desperately create a big case to attract the world's attention."

Peter's expression changed. Iron Man immediately retorted, "I didn't! If that were true, I wouldn't have brought in the Three Great Empires, solved the universe's problems, stopped Darkseid."

"You repeatedly emphasize this, not because you think everyone says you did a bad job on this, or that they really deny all your achievements due to stereotypes. You just want to prove you're important, then go control something."

Shiler paused, then said, "But I don't think this is a control freak issue. You're just afraid."

"Afraid of what?" Spider-Man spoke up. "Do you think we'll kill him? Or is he guilty, worried he'll be put on trial for his past deeds?"

Iron Man was about to speak again; Shiler stopped him and said, "No. How would a person like him feel guilty? He feels what he did before was just helping humanity gain a better future; he never felt he did wrong."

Iron Man's mouth opened; Shiler was speaking his lines.

"What he's truly afraid of..." Shiler turned to look at Thor. "Is this newly ascended god. He's too powerful, able to control everything, including the arrogant Iron Man."

"Enough!" Iron Man's voice trembled slightly.

But Shiler continued: "Yet all of you act so friendly toward Thor, as if you've painlessly accepted such an omnipotent god pressing down on your heads, taking no precautions, not considering the possibility of his fall, even unwilling to discuss any topic about safeguarding against Thor."

"He feels you're controlled, completely brainwashed. He's now living in a giant script, and he must find the flaw in this script to escape this false world. That's why he acts so aggressively — he feels only this can break the puppet master's bottom line and force them to reveal themselves."

The others were stunned for a moment, then looked at each other, all looking somewhat helpless.