Crystal's side effect was part of the comic setting. Although Schiller had known before that Anatoly had left him with a huge mess, he had not known what exactly this so-called "misfortune" meant. Did it mean nothing he wanted to do would work out, or that it would work out but come with side effects? He had even wondered whether it might involve something metaphysical, a question of fate.
Now he knew. It actually was not that profound. It was simply bad luck on the level of the universe's will. And it seemed it did not distinguish between universes, either; wherever he went, the bad luck was equal. Perhaps this was what happened when quantitative change led to qualitative change.
"Is there any way to undo it?" Schiller asked.
"If it had only been used once or twice, yes," Reed said after thinking for a moment. "But we crossed hundreds of thousands of universes to gather everything we wanted, so there's probably no saving it."
Schiller sighed and decided not to think about it. He said, "How did you know Anatoly was back?"
"I guessed," Reed said, looking rather smug. "If he hadn't come back, the personality trait appearing in front of me wouldn't have been you. Greed must have gone to watch the show, right?"
Schiller was a little surprised again. He said, "You know about him and Lucifer too..."
Reed looked reminiscent and said, "He didn't have many friends and was always alone. Even in the Old Skrull Empire, there were very few people he could talk to. The two of us had very similar ways of thinking in certain areas, so we were fairly close in private. Sometimes he'd drink, and when he drank too much, he'd talk about things like that..."
"Then why didn't you mention