"Wait, why are we running?!" Diana asked while running and looking back, "We're not so weak as to lose to a Tyrannosaurus Rex, right?"
"But he's Batman!!" Clark exclaimed in despair, "How could we possibly beat a Bat Tyrant Rex... I mean, Tyrannosaurus Bat-Man? No, is it Tyrant Bat? Er... Bat Tyrant Dragon???"
"I like that last one," Bruce, flying in the battlesuit the group had earlier crafted, replied from behind the two, "Bat Tyrant Dragon does sound cool!"
"Cool nothing! Don't tell me this is a Batman who's lived from prehistoric times till now, because then I'm definitely turning tail and running!" Clark yelled.
"How did he survive the mass extinction?" Diana was also amazed, but if Batman had lived through it as a dinosaur, how could Mount Olympus possibly still exist?
The three flew on, with the Bat Tyrant Dragon in hot pursuit, until Diana snapped back to her senses and yelled, "Stop running! Keep going and we'll enter the city; let's deal with him here, or the houses will get smashed!"
Clark finally came to his senses from the mental shock, executing an emergency stop mid-air followed by an agile roll to turn back around, still looking dazed as he floated there.
Seeing them stop, the Bat Tyrant Dragon also slowed down, bowing his massive body, bringing his large head closer to inspect the three tiny humans below, and asked in a deep voice, "Who are you? What brings you here?"
"Uh, in other universes, I'm usually called Wonder Woman, this here is Superman, and this one you should know very well." Diana pointed at Bruce and said, "Batman, also Bruce Wayne."
The Bat Tyrant Dragon seemed to be stunned, not by their identities but by the man standing before him. He lowered his gigantic head further, looked at Bruce with big eyes, and asked, "What do they call you?"
"Bruce Wayne," Bruce said nonchalantly, "Is that something unusual to you? Oh, I get it... Dinosaurs don't have names?"
The Bat Tyrant Dragon sighed deeply, "I am also Batman, and I haven't lived from prehistoric times till now."
"So is this your new machine invention? Batman." Clark was still trying to make the most reasonable deduction, "Why not meet us in person? We mean no harm, we..."
"This is my actual body," the Bat Tyrant Dragon said, "During an experiment, the Batcave collapsed, and I was trapped under the ruins, with almost no chance of survival."
"At the last moment, I uploaded my consciousness to the mechanical Tyrannosaurus Rex closest to me, and so I became the Bat Tyrant Dragon."
"See, I told you that's the best title," Bruce cheered.
"And you..." The Bat Tyrant Dragon squinted his eyes at Bruce, his face pondering, then said, "Are you the Apostle of the Great Lord? You're younger than I imagined."
"You might as well say he looks like an uneducated, dissolute teenager," Diana sighed and complained to Bruce, "If you're going to play this religious recruitment game, you should dress the part; what kind of divine envoy comes down in a hoodie?"
"That's just our team style," Bruce said with his hands in his pockets, shrugging, "Why so serious?"
With that, the Bat Tyrant Dragon shivered violently, while Bruce acted as if nothing had happened, and said, "You must've received the email I sent you, right? Did you check the employment terms on it?"
"Of course, but I am not sure what you mean by the employment assessment..."
"Don't worry too much about that," Bruce said, "It's just a simple little test, definitely within your capabilities."
"You call this definitely within my capabilities??!!!" The Bat Tyrant Dragon roared in the comm channel, "Where did you find a Tyrannosaurus Rex that can manipulate time???"
After his roar, he looked towards his opponent, a smaller golden female Tyrannosaurus Rex, surrounded by many clock-like discs floating around her body. If one of the discs replaced her head, the Tyrannosaurus Rex could adjust the hands on them at will, including pausing, rewinding, and fast-forwarding time.
The Bat Tyrant Dragon let out another roar, with miniature armor hidden between the folds of skin on either side of his body unfolding, as if he had wings.
He stomped his feet again, shattering the ground around him, the rising dust temporarily obscuring the Tyrannosaurus Rex's vision. But when visibility cleared again, the Bat Tyrant Dragon, using the balancing organs on either side of his body, lashed his tail violently toward his opponent.
This blow was massive and powerful, the sound of the air being split was crystal clear, but just as that tail, thicker than a large tree, was about to hit the female Tyrannosaurus Rex, the disc on her head suddenly stopped.
Within several hundred meters, time had paused, and the female Tyrannosaurus Rex walked calmly out of the attacking range of the tail, shaking her head with an air of mockery on her face.
Yet she seemed very interested in the Bat Tyrant Dragon, and taking advantage of the time stop's effect, she lazily walked over to him, sniffing his head, then his shoulders with her nose.
"What's going on with those two?" Gwen Spiderman, who had just arrived, asked in confusion, "Weren't they fighting? Why has one stopped moving, and the other..."
"Cole Norton is also a time ability user," the Time Manipulator said, "She manipulates time in a more direct way than I do."
"How did she appear?" Shadow Spider-man was more concerned about this,
"She used to be David's alarm clock," the Time Manipulator explained, "A gift from Ms. Harrell for David's 10th birthday, from a popular toy store in Paris."
"She was a dinosaur toy that could be set the night before, wake you up with a song the next morning, and dance off the bedside table onto the floor."
"Actually, she has her own name, Penny Wick, but David doesn't seem to remember it. In his memory, this little Dinosaur alarm clock is only known as Chronodon—so that's what her name became, Cole Norton."
"That's really magical," Gwen Spiderman exclaimed. "It appears we've been too isolated in our view of his personality. Turns out every personality has a reason to show up."
"I get all that," Miles said. "But what's the deal with that black and white Dinosaur? Surely they're not a couple of lovey-dovey toys, right?"
"That's probably not one of David's personalities," the Time Manipulator shook his head. "He looks more like the guy in red we saw earlier."
"Please don't tell me he's also a Batman."
"Looks like he is indeed a Batman," Clark, observing all this through the Battleworld System, said. "Your charm is lethal not just to men and women but apparently Dinosaur too."
"Honestly," Diana said, stroking her chin. "There are a few complete Dinosaur skeletons on Paradise Island. From my aesthetic standpoint, the Bat Tyrant Dragon really does seem like a rather handsome and strong male Dinosaur."
"Too bad they still can't escape those tiny short arms," Clark spread his hands. "What if he gets an itch on his back? And is he supposed to throw Batman darts with those little short arms?"
"You better not say that in front of him, or you might get bitten," Diana said as she looked at Bruce. "Where to next?"
"To find another member of our team."
"God help us, let's hope it's not another Dinosaur."
"You seem to have something against these reptiles," Diana turned and said to Clark.
"I just can't help but make fun of them, but then I think about it being Batman and feel that I shouldn't. Yet, I want to make fun of them, which is wrong..."
"Let's get serious, boy," Diana said to Bruce. "Otherwise, your good friend here is going to be strangled by his own moral compass."
"Don't worry, this one's dead serious," Bruce snapped his fingers. "Let's go, to our next destination."
This time, after stepping through the portal, they arrived in what seemed like a highly advanced world, mainly because the place they landed looked like Metropolis, though the two Metropolis natives present couldn't be sure.
What appeared before them were trains racing in the sky, various convenient flying devices, high-tech buildings reaching into the clouds, floating Sky Islands, and patrolling Robots.
Even stranger, these things seemed a bit chaotic; for example, the aerial trains were not following predetermined routes but were controlled by apparently panicked, flustered pilots, and there were far more people lamenting on the ground for the still airborne devices than those successfully flying them.
"What's going on with them?" Diana asked, puzzled as she walked down the street. "They seem to possess these devices but don't know how to operate them, which is impossible. The Human race invents some equipment, learns to use it, and then passes down the knowledge—that's how you develop. How could they invent something they can't use?"
"Unless they didn't invent it," Bruce said, his gaze resting on a small flying device that was stuck between a sign and a building, looking utterly wrecked, with a component hanging by a wire underneath.
A flash of laser light in Clark's eyes severed the wire, and as it snapped and fell, he picked it up, and sure enough, Wayne Industries.
"Is this universe's Bruce Wayne all right?" Diana asked, holding the component with some concern. "If these people can't use the equipment he made, does that mean he's possibly..."
"It's not that simple," Bruce looked up to the East Coast skyline but didn't find the familiar structure, he said. "Before coming here, I send an onboarding email to the chosen ones, and only if they reply do I come here. If he could reply to the email, it means he is still alive."
"I'm more concerned about... where Wayne Tower has gone," Bruce looked all around but couldn't find that familiar structure, then turned to Clark and said, "Do you see it? Clark, where's my home?"
Clark instantly soared up into the sky, looked around for a long time, and found nothing. However, his gaze soon rested on the only building that had been destroyed. After landing, he said uncertainly, "I think I just saw Wayne Tower, but... it's rubble."
"Let's go over there and check it out."
They quickly flew to the wreckage and discovered that it was indeed the location of Wayne Enterprises. Unfortunately, it had been scorched, and the slogans scrawled in large letters explained what had happened.
"Down with the evil tyrant Wayne! The Human race should have freedom!"
"Electronic life is not to rule over humans! We want freedom!"
"To Hell with Wayne! Give back what belongs to the human race!"
"Well, it seems the situation is indeed more complicated than we thought," Clark said. "Is Wayne in this universe a Robot? Did he use Robots and mechanical devices to rule over humanity?"
"It's probably even more than that," Diana said. "If it were a rule, he would have been a benevolent ruler. Why don't you look at where this is?"
Clark frowned slightly as he carefully recalled that while Metropolis's familiar buildings were not far, they were currently standing on Gotham's ground.
Clark involuntarily shivered.