Another universe's Batman fired a single shot and immediately left the scene, leaving the six people present staring at the corpse of Superman.
Cyborg scanned the body with his mechanical eye and spoke up to remind them:
"He's already starting to harden. What do we do now?"
By hardening, Cyborg didn't mean rigor mortis or anything like that—he meant that as sunlight scattered into the crater, this Superman's body was already beginning to regain its invulnerability.
"I have to go. It's time for Billy and the others to get to school."
Shazam flicked his cape and shot into the sky, letting out a soft sigh midair:
"Hopefully Billy and the others don't have nightmares tonight."
In this universe, Shazam couldn't manifest easily. The power of the Greek gods sustaining his transformation was split evenly among six children, rather than belonging solely to Billy Batson like in the main universe.
The reason Shazam had held back earlier against the now-dead Superman wasn't his own decision—it was the will of those six children.
Being chosen by the gods was proof of their moral character, and they didn't want something like this to happen.
As for Shazam himself, he had only suggested sparing Superman because it might be more useful. Otherwise, with the speed of Mercury, how could he possibly have failed to outrun a handgun bullet?
Watching the expressionless Shazam leave in such a hurry, Joey couldn't help but feel that this world really was different from a normal universe.
If it had been the Shazam from a typical universe, he might have fought everyone on the spot over this, and wouldn't have stopped until someone was seriously hurt.
A harsher world had forged more pragmatic heroes. The fact that no one present had tried to stop that bullet spoke volumes.
No matter what, Joey couldn't let this Kryptonian corpse fall into anyone else's hands in this world. Who knew what kind of horrific things they might do with it?
"I'll handle it. Thanks, Cyborg—and please pass my thanks to Shazam as well."
Cyborg didn't say anything more. He simply nodded and prepared to leave—only to be grabbed tightly by Aquaman, who wrapped an arm around him and refused to let go:
"Cyborg, you can fly—can you give me a lift? Just take me out past the coastline. I really don't want to go back through the sewers again!"
Cyborg obviously wanted to refuse. He knew exactly what kind of things Aquaman had done before—how was he supposed to just help him now?
After everything that had happened, Aquaman's reputation on land wasn't exactly stellar—more like universally disliked. He couldn't just stroll back to the ocean openly.
Unlike Wonder Woman, who only had to worry about a few thousand Amazons, Aquaman represented the interests of billions of Atlanteans. He no longer had the luxury of acting on impulse.
Wonder Woman frowned and snapped at him without mercy:
"You idiot—that's because I have an invisible jet! I don't go riding a giant sea monster right up to someone else's borders like you do!"
Taking another undeserved verbal hit, Aquaman turned to Cyborg again. At this point, Cyborg was his only hope. Even if Wonder Woman agreed to give him a ride, she'd probably toss him back into the ocean from the stratosphere.
"Look, Cyborg, you're the only one who can help me now. We just fought side by side—you wouldn't want Atlantis and North America causing another diplomatic incident, would you?"
Aquaman's shameless persistence left even Cyborg's mechanical brain speechless. He clearly remembered that Aquaman had only shown up after everything was already over:
"Dude, you contributed nothing back there, okay?"
"I did speak up for you!"
"That didn't even count as helping!"
Joey tuned out their argument. Right now, he was staring at the Superman corpse, his mind racing with possibilities—and for once, even he was at a loss.
Kryptonians in a yellow-sun system were a troublesome existence whether alive or dead.
Now that the sun had risen, Joey had no doubt that if he left this corpse alone, burying it on the spot would still result in it remaining uncorrupted for a thousand years.
If someone were to extract the kryptonite bullet from its skull and leave it under the sun for enough time, it might even come back to life on its own.
Send it to the Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole?
Not very reliable. Kryptonians were about to arrive, and whether that fortress—built entirely on Kryptonian technology—was even stable was an open question.
"Alright, stop arguing!"
Joey shut down the noise in the group. At this point, he already had a new idea for how to handle the corpse.
"Anyone want to come with me to deal with the body?"
Starfire looked puzzled.
"it's just one corpse… we don't need this many people, do we?"
"No."
Like a ghost, Batman appeared again behind Starfire, startling her so badly she nearly flared up on instinct, her whole body igniting with orange energy.
Batman clearly understood what Joey meant. At this point, he had roughly figured out what kind of world this was, and he had no choice but to accept it.
"When your Superman says 'body,' he doesn't just mean this one. He means many."
Deep beneath Gotham, in the Justice League Watchtower buried underground, there were still quite a few bodies left.
Even Batman alone would not be able to descend deep enough to properly bury his old friends.
Rumble—
Just as Shazam had claimed he was heading to school, he returned in a bolt of lightning and dropped back into the crater. Under everyone's confused stares, he awkwardly explained:
"It's Saturday."
"Oh."
Solomon's wisdom clearly wasn't working that well.
Seeing Shazam return, Joey was pleased.
"Perfect timing, Shazam. Come with us to…"
"A party?"
Now that the tension of battle had eased, Shazam's consciousness had started shifting again. Billy Batson, the teenager within the group of six, had regained control of the forefront of his mind.
"That's usually how the comic books I read goes!"
"No, it's…"
"Cough cough!"
Mid-sentence, Joey saw Cyborg frantically signaling him with his remaining human eye, interrupting him. Joey immediately caught on and let Cyborg take over.
Cyborg cleared his throat.
"Ahem. Of course—it's to help with search and rescue in the city ruins, looking for survivors…"
As he spoke, a drone had already flown in to take over Cyborg's statement, while the real Cyborg quietly led Shazam away.
In reality, Cyborg had already deployed drones across Gotham during the aftermath to assist the police with rescue operations, and most of the work was already nearly complete.
He just needed an excuse to temporarily get Shazam out of the way. He was a hardened warrior, yes—but his true identity was still six middle school kids.
Shazam also understood this very well, and Billy didn't object internally either. He simply followed Cyborg's lead and left.
Because reality was not a traditional superhero story—and what this group was about to do next would have an unimaginable impact on teenagers.