After Superman had left, some bandwidth was freed for accommodating Spider-Man, yet still, only two could enter. Fortunately, there were many Batmen present on the scene.
After Charles finally delivered Shiller's suggestion back to Batman's team, just as Shiller predicted, the Batmen agreed.
Batman has always been good at persuading others, especially since there were more than one of him here. They laid out the pros and cons to David and Moira, and in the end, they managed to convince them.
The Batman from the Prime Universe trusted Spider-Man's moral standards a great deal, so he assigned the team's two most problematic Batmen to the two Spider-Men. One was the Green Lantern Batman who had never stopped causing trouble, and the other was the currently uncontrollable Mechanical Batman.
The other Batmen, each leading a team, headed back to Paris to capture other personas. Moira stayed in front of the machine, explaining their plan to each group of personas they brought in. Of course, it was the same terrifying plan that involved shattering them into energy for mending the sky.
The first to be caught by the Batmen were naturally the less powerful personas. Frankly, aside from the key figures of the two major factions, most personas in the city were only capable of arm-wrestling with a somewhat prepared Batman, but not overpowering them.
In the comics, within David's psychic battlefield there are thousands of personas. However, only about 200 to 300 of those are Omega-level, and so far, not even that many have appeared—only about a hundred are entrenched in Paris City, apart from those who went to the plains to fight. The city still has over 2000 personas.
This means that although the energy levels of those hundred-plus Omega personas are very high, they still can't outweigh the total of so many personas added together. In other words, Batman only needs to capture a sufficient number of other personas to awaken David's consciousness, rather than having to single out those particularly strong ones.
However, the vast majority of personas belong to the two factions, and after Batman captured some personas, the stronger personas noticed something was amiss and began to hunt down and ambush the Batmen.
These personas were much harder to deal with, especially those with rule-based powers, such as the sumo wrestler with absolute strength who could also travel through space, who had the upper hand against the Doomsday Batman with immense strength but no ability to traverse space.
Moreover, these personas often sought out the Batmen themselves, which meant every fight Batman engaged in was an ambush. This led to isolated Batmen being beaten back in the initial skirmishes.
Notably, the sumo wrestler who bothered the Doomsday Batman, the giant spider that Lightning Batman accidentally stumbled upon in a cave, and a man burning with towering flames all possessed rule-based abilities.
And their rule-based abilities had no weaknesses, requiring no sacrifice, nor having any cooldown. They could use their powers whenever they wanted, without any hesitation.
The Batmen weren't as lucky. Doomsday Batman and Lightning Batman had not had their powers for long and were still figuring them out. It was like having a Novice Village noob go up against the Sunset Overlord Shrimp, and they got beaten black and blue.
Although Green Lantern Batman had his powers for a longer time, he was effectively out of juice. He struggled even against ordinary personas and could only flee from the powerful Omega-level mutants.
Mechanical Batman, while also newly transformed, was faring a bit better because his body was crafted by two Batmen and an Iron Man. The combat advantage he had was the ability to iterate upon himself during battle, just like a real robot.
This meant he could evolve new abilities on the spot as needed, within a very short time. But because his opponents were too strong, he mostly evolved survival and escape skills.
Little Bruce was one of the Batmen who held a more significant advantage. The only problem was that he was better at defending than attacking. His internal Evil God power had depleted heavily, leaving his pure energy attack unable to break through the enemy's defenses. Concerned about contaminating David, he dared not use his whispering skills, resulting in a stalemate where neither he nor his opponents could land a hit on each other.
The Batmonster Vehicle was in a similar position, its speed blazingly fast and its Armor robust. Even when controlled, it would hardly take damage. However, its impact was ineffective against the powerful Omega-level mutants, and its cannons could hardly breach their defenses.
The only ones who truly made progress were Batman and Batwoman, who teamed up without venturing out alone. Batwoman alone couldn't control the Trident of Poseidon, but together they managed to use tactical cooperation to shoot off one of the spider's legs using the trident. However, this giant spider had reality-altering abilities, so the minor injury was negligible to it.
The Bat Tyrant Dragon, along with Cull Obsidian who defected to his side, did manage to restrain the man ablaze with fire. Unfortunately, they couldn't strike him either. The opponent was like a flame that never goes out, no matter how much they extinguished it, it would flare up again.
The battles, full of probing skirmishes, continued for a day and a night, leaving everyone exhausted. Yet upon returning to the Shining Alliance Base, they realized that not only had they made no progress, but the situation was the same everywhere.
It wasn't that they were too weak, but that the enemy was too strong.
Faced with such formidable opponents, even Batman, who always preferred to go solo and play a behind-the-scenes role in a team, couldn't help but think of a way to band together. They distributed battle tasks and tackled different foes based on individual abilities.
Their experience of collaborating with another group of themselves was also very novel, as usually, not everyone gets the chance to work with other versions of themselves.
At this moment, the airbase established by the Luminous Alliance in Paris City came in handy. The floating base hovered a few hundred meters above the city and could fly away at any time, helping them avoid several super-mutants who were looking for trouble without reason.
However, due to bandwidth constraints, the Alliance members couldn't enter in person, but they could still observe the situation inside the city through the cameras and drones deployed from the base.
Having realized that the Batmen were struggling, they sent out drones to guide them towards the airborne base, where more professional equipment and supplies awaited. Meanwhile, Earth was also ready to provide them with tactical support.
After discussing among themselves, the Batmen decided that obedience was better than defiance, as they genuinely couldn't defeat the opposition. At this point, being stubborn about minor details was pointless, so it was better to quickly think of a solution.
And so, the Batmen boarded the aerial base together, and to cooperate and communicate, they needed to reveal their capabilities without reservation. Otherwise, incorrect information could lead to disastrous consequences for countless soldiers.
For the Batmen, this was even an absurd experience. They would rather share their information with the Joker than with another version of themselves.
Moreover, the Batman from the Prime Universe felt the greatest psychological pressure, as he was a normal Batman, and the bunch in front of him, looking bizarre and abnormal, included several who were uncontrollable.
Revealing information to them like this, what if they turned evil one day, becoming moving disasters in the cosmos again? What then?
The other Batmen also had their own worries, but the situation was beyond their control. The mastermind who polluted them had not shown any trace yet, and they were still entangled with the troubles here, unable to return to their own universes.
If they couldn't defeat these super mutants, they would never be able to return, and their universes were currently in complete chaos, disasters everywhere. How could they not be anxious to return?
In such circumstances, they had to speak and unite, whether they liked it or not. So many Batmen forced into cooperation created a heavy atmosphere for themselves, but this presented a bizarre kind of joy to the onlookers.
"I really don't know what they're fretting about," Stark said, shaking his head in front of the screen, "Look at the expression of another me—he's nearly ready to rush up there and pry their mouths open."
"I can totally understand their concerns," said Professor X, "After all, one must always be cautious. For Batman, there are too many things he must guard against, so being cautious has become second nature."
"Then they might as well not cluster together," Stark said, "If they each did their own thing, they'd eventually find a solution. It's much better than them dragging their feet here, playing this game of who speaks first, loses."
"They seem particularly reluctant to team up with themselves," Loki, stroking his chin, said, "What's so bad about that? Working with other versions of me has been quite pleasant."
"That's because the other you's aren't weird enough," Strange said with a grin, "Can you imagine there's a universe where one version of you is a car? Oh, for you asgardians, it would be a starship."
"That would be perfect," Loki laughed, "Thor would have an excellent ride. A couple of days ago, he was complaining to me that the Father of All Gods' old vehicle has suffered too much battle damage. Now, when the gas pedal goes down, everything rattles except for the horn."
The others shook their heads, clearly not understanding nor wanting to understand their brotherly bond, but Stark was still more focused on the main issue. He said, "We've investigated these personalities before, has anyone deduced their weaknesses yet?"
Hearing this, everyone sighed, and Strange, looking at Professor X, said, "Please, please, don't let Nick find out you can return to your youth with the Extremis Virus. If he does, he'll have you go on ten blind dates a day at the very least, and you'd better have enough children to field a soccer team. That way, the human race might just rule the cosmos."
Charles sighed deeply and said, "David was an accident, even if there are other descendants, they wouldn't have such abilities."
"That's also true," Stark said, crossing his arms, "If every mutant's child could inherit their powers, even becoming stronger than them, then the human race really would be laughing."
"By the way, where's Shiller?" Strange asked.
"He's occupied," Stark glanced at his communicator and said, "It seems to be something to do with that other universe—he appears to be chasing after someone."
They exchanged perplexed glances—what kind of person would Shiller be chasing after? Shiller was always one to squeeze blood from a stone or pluck feathers from a passing goose; anyone who helped him make money wouldn't count as an enemy. And yet, there was someone in this world he was chasing after without the concern for making money?
Sensing some doubts, Stark sent a message to Shiller to ask if there had been some misunderstanding.
When Shiller saw the message, he felt helpless. These people could never empathize with just how much he loathed Mad Laugh. Since this was the case, it was time they tasted the bitterness he had felt back then.
Shiller then sent a message to Ultron. Ultron, the most advanced artificial intelligence in the world, stared at the message for a long time, unable to understand what it meant.
However, although he didn't understand, he faithfully executed Shiller's order.
Ultron was the primary manager of David's Psychic_Battlefield outpost base and the supervisor of the signal channel relay. With a slight manipulation, he adjusted the mode.
The few people sitting in the Shining Alliance Base suddenly found the video had no sound, and as Stark was about to check the machine, the dialogue that should have been conveyed by voice turned into a series of speech bubbles—black background, red letters, uppercase.