Thor leaned back on the leather sofa, grabbed a handful of popcorn, stuffed it into his mouth, and crunched it loudly. Then he nodded at Valeria.
"Yes."
Valeria whirled around and raised her right hand to rapidly tap on her personal terminal on her left wrist.
A blue spatial portal suddenly opened in front of her, revealing the metallic reflection of another laboratory behind it.
She didn't even bother to brush the mud off her clothes before plunging headfirst into the portal.
The door flickered a few times in mid-air, remaining open.
America stopped eating her potato chips, pointed in the direction of the portal, and turned to look at Thor. "Where did she go?"
"Let's look it up." Thor sank deeper into the sofa, shifting to a more comfortable position.
Less than five minutes later, the blue light fluctuated violently again.
Valeria stepped out of the portal, carrying a silver data storage device thicker than her thigh.
She slammed the memory stick onto the console with a bang, her fingers flying across the virtual keyboard.
Another giant holographic projection screen popped up in mid-air, hovering next to the screen playing the animation.
Countless colorful comic book covers cascaded down the screen like a waterfall.
"I just went back to my universe and retrieved all the matching DC Comics data." Valeria pointed to a cover on the screen that depicted seven people, then turned to look at Thor.
"But that's not right. According to the information I've gathered, the seven members of the Justice League are clearly Batman, Superman, the Flash, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern."
She extended her index finger and poked it directly at Shayera, who was kneeling on the ground. "This winged bird-woman isn't even on the list of the Seven Leaders. When did she get in?"
Shayera, who was already pinned to the floor by Thor, suddenly raised her head upon hearing this.
She stared intently at the comic book covers on the holographic projection, each with a different style but clearly showing the faces of her teammates.
Superman's red cape, Batman's pointed ears, and even the angle at which Green Lantern's ring glowed were exactly the same as she remembered.
Shayera braced herself against the dented metal floor, struggling to move her knees, and turned to look at Valeria.
"You mean..." she struggled to speak, a dry, grinding sound coming from her throat, "The universe I live in is actually just... a comic book?"
Thor swallowed the popcorn in his mouth, dusted off the crumbs on his hands, and casually remarked, "You guys aren't..."
Shayera turned to look at Thor, puzzled.
Thor raised his right hand, pointing his index finger at the screen next to him that was playing an animation. "You are the animated universe."
The screen then switched to a new scene.
Superman, dressed in a tattered Gladiator suit, was being escorted by several aliens into a huge circular arena.
A deafening roar of cheers erupted from the surrounding stands.
Shayera stared at the familiar scene—the one where she and John had gone to rescue Superman and Martian Manhunter. In the scene, Superman was easily defeating Mongul, the leader of the Warworld, leaving him questioning his existence.
The betrayal from her home planet, the alienation from her comrades, and the hatred from Earthlings—these heavy realities that had once suffocated her—all became a huge joke at this moment.
Her proud battles, her heart-wrenching choices, were all just frames drawn by someone else.
Shayera's arms went limp, and she collapsed to the ground, motionless, like a statue.
Valeria completely ignored the collapsing experimental samples on the ground.
She looked Thor up and down suspiciously, then took two steps forward. " Thor, I've noticed something."
Thor raised an eyebrow. "Speak."
"You always manage to recognize guys I've never seen before, guys who aren't even in my database."
" Valeria crossed her arms, tapping her fingers on her forearms. From that Black Swan to this pink-uniformed Barbie doll, to this winged birdman. You haven't seen a comic book or movie in some other universe that relates to all of us, have you?"
Thor clasped his hands together in front of his chest, pointed at Valeria, and said, "The little rascal's got a quick head."
He sat up straight and put his legs off the table. "Actually, strictly speaking, you can see these so-called 'comics' or 'movies' as projections of higher-dimensional existence."
Those creators—screenwriters and illustrators—didn't create you out of thin air. Rather, their brainwaves, at a specific frequency, captured dimensional projections emanating from the multiverse, and then transformed these projections into stories.
Reed, who had been standing by the control panel, strode into the crowd upon hearing this.
He pushed up his glasses and crossed his arms in front of him. "This is completely illogical! Information transmission in any dimension requires a medium, and information inevitably experiences entropy increase and data loss when crossing dimensional barriers. It's impossible to form such a precise narrative structure, down to the smallest detail. This is unscientific."
Thor turned his head and glanced at Reed. " The Marvel Universe and the DC Universe aren't places for science. You expect to explain the Snap wiping out half of all life in the universe using Newton's three laws?"
Valeria took a large step forward, blocking Reed's path, and slammed her hands heavily on the table.
"Wait! What did you just say?" She stared at Thor. " The Marvel Universe? You mean, our universe, or rather, the collective name for all our multiverses, is called the Marvel Universe?"
Thor nodded and began to ramble on.
"Yes. I've been to a special universe before. There were no superpowers in that universe, but bookstores and movie theaters were crammed with all sorts of your comics and movies. That's why I know everything about you. Of course, that includes these animated films too."
He casually pointed to the screen that was still playing a video of Superman beating someone up, and then pointed to Shayera, who was sprawled on the ground.
America was sitting on the armrest of the sofa, stopped chewing. The potato chips in her hand fell to the ground and shattered into pieces.
She gripped the leather edge of the sofa with both hands, her fingernails scratching several marks on it.
"So..." she stammered, "I'm fake? I traveled across dozens of universes to find my mother, only to find out I'm just a cartoon character drawn on paper?"
"Yes! Yes!"
A sharp scream suddenly erupted from the transparent isolation chamber in the corner of the laboratory.
The Dark Gwenpool pressed her hands and feet firmly against the blast-proof glass, her entire face squeezed against the glass surface, her features distorted.
"You NPCs have finally woken up!" Gwenpool frantically pounded on the glass, the metal bulkhead rumbling loudly.
"You're all puppets on the screenwriter's strings! Your joys and sorrows are all for sales! Let me out right now! We're going to team up and drag that damn screenwriter out, and kick his ass! I'm going to shove his pen up his nose!"
However, not a single person in the entire laboratory turned to look at her; they all tacitly treated her as if she were invisible.
Reed stood there, his fingers unconsciously stroking his chin. He turned to look at Thor, who was sitting on the sofa. " Wade..."
Thor looked up.
" Deadpool, Wade Wilson." Reed spoke very quickly and clearly.
"That guy often talks to thin air, spouting illogical and out-of-context words. He'll even complain to the security camera, 'This panel is ugly.' Just like Gwenpool in the glass jar."
Reed took a step forward, staring at Thor. "He knew all along that we were characters in the story, didn't he?"
Thor casually picked up an empty water glass from the table and twirled it in his hand twice. "Yes, that counts as one of his abilities too."
Valeria suddenly jumped up, slapping her thighs hard with both hands, splashing mud and water from her white coat everywhere, onto the control panel next to her.
"I understand!" Valeria shouted, excitedly spinning around twice.
"No wonder! No wonder Franklin kept telling me he was sealing his power! He must have sensed something!"
Thor abruptly stopped spinning the water glass. The glass clattered against the table.
He straightened up, staring intently at Valeria. "What did you say? Franklin is sealing away his own power?"
Thor quickly recalled what Lucifer had told him before.
Lucifer had explicitly warned that Loki and Franklin were definitely not simple characters, and even forbade them from entering the DC Universe.
"No wonder..." Thor muttered to himself, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the table.
"So these two guys are more than just Multiverse Level! They've sensed some kind of truth and are deliberately hiding their abilities?"
Reed looked at his daughter, who was in a state of excitement, and strode over to her side.
He reached out, wanting to pat Valeria on the shoulder; as a father, he tried to find the right words to comfort his daughter.
After all, any intelligent being with the ability to think independently would face a huge existential crisis and mental breakdown if they suddenly learned that they were just a fictional character created by humans to please readers.
Even though he was an extremely rational scientist, his heart was beating erratically at that moment.
Before Reed's hand could even touch Valeria's shoulder, Valeria suddenly turned around and clapped her hands together forcefully, the crisp sound echoing in the laboratory.
"That means!" Valeria's eyes lit up, completely ignoring Reed's outstretched hand, and turned to stare intently at Shayera on the ground and the warhammer on the experimental table next to her.
"So I can go do research in the DC Universe?!"
Valeria grabbed the miniature laser cutter from the table and strode toward the lab bench.
"That winged birdman, and that Planet Thanagar they're using, is a complete waste! Such perfect anti-gravity, anti-magic metal, and they've used it to make such a crude hammer! It doesn't even have an energy conduction circuit!"
She kicked aside the discarded parts next to her, and pointed the laser cutter at the handle of the warhammer.
"Their scientist is an absolute brain-stem idiot!"
Sparks flew wildly across the lab bench, and Valeria's excited shouts drowned out the roar of the cutting machine.
Thor sat on the sofa, watching Valeria frantically dismantle the warhammer, a popcorn dangling from his hand, suspended in mid-air.
Sure enough, for a mad scientist, the truth is not important at all; what matters is doing research from beginning to end.