"Wait," Zhang Dianyu hurriedly tried to stop Strange, who was stimulated by the sudden streaking, for the sake of his own neck, "I can explain—but, are you the supreme mage Doctor Strange?"
"That?" Strange on the opposite side grasped the point keenly.
"This is a complicated story." Zhang Dianyu breathed a sigh of relief, and was about to continue talking when he realized that his feet were off the ground again.
"?"
This Strange is so violent
"Where are my cloak and... necklace?" Strange asked in a deep voice.
Zhang Dianyu understood, it turned out that what Strange really cared about was not streaking, but his two precious instruments.
After using the skill "Prison Search" a few times before, Zhang Dianyu later received reports that the prison guards found clothes and guns scattered everywhere in the evidence room, which proved that the disarmed weapons did not disappear out of thin air , but it has become a part of the normal process... What a ghost, Zhang Dianyu spent a lot of brain cells to cover up the fact to the guards who came to report, pretending that there is a mysterious vigilante who likes to suddenly send many criminal clues, contacted The judiciary came to collect the evidence.
If it wasn't for the fact that the guard wasn't a pixel villain, Zhang Dianyu wouldn't need to waste his time explaining.
But even so, the guard didn't seem to hesitate at all, and accepted the statement very quickly, which gave Zhang Dianyu a little confidence in the reason he made up.
Although I still feel something is wrong.
Later, someone anonymously posted a post on the Internet as a "guide to prison" for special criminals - the basic strategy is to never expose the clumsy lies of the big boss, otherwise there is a chance of triggering the brutal nature under the boss's mask and being imprisoned. The sun's grave and corpse are companions.
But right now Zhang Dianyu was in the "sandbox". Strange and Stark who were with him were missing, let alone the bill they were looking for. He didn't know how to leave.
He decided to explain to this Strange from another world, hoping that the other party could understand.
"Your stuff is in my storage, just—"
Before he finished speaking, he found that his neck was pinched by an invisible hand again.
Zhang Dianyu: "?"
This Strange is really a little irritable
In the same scorching desert, a man in a blue robe stood with his chest folded, and beside him stood a little boy with black hair. The two hid themselves in the shadows on the back of the dune, their feet sunk deep into the sand, and their expressions were a little numb.
The black-haired boy scratched his head: "When are they going to fight?"
Strange didn't respond for a long time.
"Are you asleep?" The black-haired boy looked up at him.
"..." Strange glanced at him, "I don't know."
"Isn't that your cloak?" the dark-haired boy pointed out.
"yes."
"Can't you ask?"
Strange was silent for a moment, then replied, "I don't know which one is my cloak either."
After all, they look exactly the same, and when they meet, they fight violently, even he can't stop them.
From being caught off guard at the beginning until now, Strange has almost gradually guessed what is going on in this situation—the other cloak is obviously also genuine, which means that Strange from another world is also here.
The levitating cloak was his—obviously, so was the other one—best partner, and if it wasn't for an emergency that required it to leave to report or other reasons, it would usually be by Strange's side.
So why is it here
Regarding this, Strange also has some guesses.
He has seen this happen once, in prison, where he was counseling an inmate whose clothes suddenly disappeared.
Based on the information he's put together from Banner and Stark - it's clearly the Warden's doing.
It is not known why he suddenly stripped all the prisoners naked in broad daylight.
Maybe it's a special habit—he used to think that Mr. Warden might have various psychological problems, but now that the warden is not human at all, it's easier to explain.
The proclivities of non-human beings are of course more difficult to understand.
He also knew what happened later. Those clothes and the weapons hidden by the prisoners were found in the evidence room. Based on the fingerprints and other information on the contraband, the guards sent most of the prisoners in the prison to the confinement room. .
Perhaps Mr. Warden simply wanted to straighten things up, Strange thought.
All in all, he thought about what would happen if the warden used this strange ability on him—after all, the cloak is not an ordinary "weapon", it has self-awareness and is close to a living body, but it cannot be counted as life.
Now he knew—probably on the way.
Strange listened to the occasional sound of cloth being torn, his face expressionless.
"You." He finally decided to try to convince the other cloak—whichever it was, "you should be able to sense his presence, shouldn't you?"
Both cloaks paused, looked at Strange, then pointed to themselves.
Strange: "…"
"You know who I'm talking about." With a straight face, he stretched out his hand to the two cloaks and said, "Come back."
One of the cloaks raised a corner and scratched its raised collar, then whizzed back to Strange, snapping the buckle shut.
Well, now he knew which was his cloak.
The other cloak was suspended in the air, shaking its fabric, looking very angry. Strange frowned slightly, because he didn't know why the cloak was angry.
The cloak floated in front of Strange, and shook violently at him, a cloud of dust suddenly floated into the air, making people want to sneeze.
Strange: "…"
The dark-haired boy next to him reluctantly poured sand out of his shoes, looked up at Strange and said, "Now we can go—but the other you should really wash your cloak."
These words made the cloak floating in the air start chasing the black-haired boy and shaking the dust. The black-haired boy fled and waved his arms wildly: "Doctor-mage? Or Mr. Chef, please keep your cloak in order!"
"Sorry, it's not my cloak, it's another Stephen Strange's cloak." Strange said coolly aside, then frowned again, and asked about his cloak, "But I still Don't understand why it looks a little angry."
The cloak on Strange was raising one corner, gleefully watching the other cloak bullying the other Stark who was put into the body of the black-haired boy, and paused when he heard Strange's question .
It pointed to the identical cloak floating in the air, then made a gesture of listening, then pointed to Strange himself, and then made a gesture of rejection.
Perhaps it was due to the long-term tacit understanding, Strange thought for a while, and guessed: "You mean, because I am here, it can't sense the other Stephen?"
The cloak tapped its own horn.
Strange thought for a while, and raised his hand to stop another cloak that was still chasing the black-haired boy: "I can take you to find your current master."
The voice of these words was not loud, but the effect was remarkable, and the cloak stopped immediately when he heard it.
"It's trying to strangle me," the dark-haired boy complained.
Strange had no expression on his face: "It's not just it that thinks so."
The black-haired boy thought for a while, then nodded: "Maybe."
Strange looked at the cloak: "I don't know where the other Stephen is, but I'm not a fake, I think you already know."
The cloak squeezed out another cloud of dust.
"..." Strange: "If I do this again, I won't take you to find him."
The cloak barely cut a deal with him.
One large and one small with a floating cloak resumed their trek.
The black-haired boy patted the dust off his body with a disheveled face and said to Strange: "We can go to Mr. Warden first, he is quite dangerous here." He looked at Strange and said: " But it doesn't matter, you have the levitation cloak."
This inexplicable statement made Strange a little puzzled, but he didn't intend to get to the bottom of it.
He shook his head: "Let's look for the bill first, and replace the two of you—don't worry, I won't do anything to Mr. Warden easily."
Black-haired boy: "Oh... I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about men with no clothes on."
Strange was silent for a moment: "What I said... may be the same situation."
The black-haired boy glanced at him curiously: "Are you not wearing any clothes?"
"No." Strange paused, "Yes—but that's not my problem."
"Dude..." The dark-haired boy patted his elbow sympathetically and said nothing more.
Strange: "?"
But in fact, the other Strange was obviously not as happy as he imagined. At least Zhang Dianyu thought so, even though Strange had used magic to make himself a fake dress.
But Zhang Dianyu was still forced to float in the air, let alone counterattack, he couldn't even touch Strange.
"I've already explained the situation, doctor, can you let me down first?" Zhang Dianyu rubbed his neck, feeling that he was almost cut off by that empty hand just now.
"No," Strange replied, "I can't tell if you're telling the truth."
"Or you don't want me to find out that your clothes are fake." Zhang Dianyu said.
Strange gave him a cold look, and actually put him down.
Zhang Dianyu heaved a sigh of relief. In any case, Strange seems to have accepted his words, despite his bluntness.
After all, he has no other possibility to enter another Stark's spiritual world.
"So, where should we go to find someone?" Zhang Dianyu threw the question to Strange - after all, the last time he came here, he remembered being chased by a group of naked prison guards, and even tricked Stark. got it.
He couldn't help but looked up at the sky.
The golden sun hangs in the center of the head, and the sand under the hot sun seems to be exuding a hot breath. This is different from last time—in his "nightmare", there is a blood-red sun.
Come to think of it, that might represent his worst fear of a fiscal deficit
But since that's his dream - and Bill also said, there is actually a sandbox, which is also connected to Stark's dream.
So what is Stark's dream
Zhang Dianyu turned his head and waited for Strange's answer, but slowly opened his mouth wide.
If he read correctly, at the junction of the horizon and the sky, there seemed to be a group of steel-colored behemoths slowly revealing their bodies.
Strange saw his expression, and after casting a spell to fix the distance between the two, he also turned his head to look behind him, and then frowned.
"That seems to be a group of... mechanical octopuses?" Zhang Dianyu was a little confused, but he also guessed what was going on, "This should be Stark's dream, right?"
"The Nth-generation Stark Titanium Mecha Squid, an envisioned world-destroying war machine."
A voice appeared behind him.
Zhang Dianyu turned his head abruptly, and then covered his neck with a hiss.
"At least that's what it says on the blueprints I found, but it hasn't actually been released—what happened to your neck?"
The person who came was Stark—the one Zhang Dianyu knew, the Stark in their world.
Zhang Dianyu coughed and glanced at the other Strange.
Stark also looked up: "Who is this naked man behind you—wait, Stephen? Oh, no, you are another Stephen. Why don't you wear clothes?"
Zhang Dianyu looked away.
The other Strange's expression was not very good: "Are you the so-called Tony Stark from another universe?"
"It seems that I don't need to introduce the previous summary." Stark paused, stretched out his hand and clicked in the void, "It looks much more comfortable now."
Zhang Dianyu was a little puzzled: "Why is it more comfortable?"
"I tweaked some data—originally to find you guys, I removed some redundant code that was used to decorate the scene, like... uh, you know."
Strange: "…"
He found Zhang Dianyu looking at him silently, and added: "It's like this, I mean, if your whole body, including your clothes, entered this world as one, then your clothes can only be passed through your virtual hands." Take it off — can we get this out of the way? I think that's a better thing to talk about at a party."
"Why are you here?" Zhang Dianyu changed the subject stiffly.
Stark spread his hands: "—The most difficult thing to answer is the one that came up, great."
"Then change one," Zhang Dianyu asked, "How did you get here?"
Theoretically, they can only enter here through Strange, but now the other Strange is still wandering around, and the same goes for that Stark.
"The thing you need, I think I should be—made it." Stark shrugged.
Zhang Dianyu opened his mouth, feeling that the voice did not sound like his own: "You mean virtual reality brain connection technology? It's only been a few days?"
"What do you misunderstand about Tony Stark?"
Is this the time to brag
However, Zhang Dianyu still couldn't control his expression. Perhaps it was the admiration in his expression that made Stark very useful. He smiled slightly and propped himself on the sand dune beside him: "In fact, in just a few days, I have basically wiped them down. Deployed in the Alcatraz tourist area—just short of your prison portion."
With that sentence he sank into the dunes.
Zhang Dianyu: "..."
He could only help pull Stark, who was only three seconds handsome, out of the sand.
"The cells in the prison have almost been refitted," Zhang Dianyu said. "So how long will it take to install the required amount of equipment in the prison?"
Stark spat a mouthful of sand, then looked at him. "It's up to you."
Zhang Dianyu's face showed doubts.
Stark shrugged: "Did you forget? Your prison does not allow anyone to directly sponsor a large amount of property—but you can open tenders, and Stark Industries will undertake the transformation."
Zhang Dianyu opened his mouth and closed it again.
Want to spend money
He glanced at Stark with some concern, his eyebrows furrowed slightly: "So... it may take a while."
A large number of prisoners can also bring in a sum of money, but it is still not enough-the only way is to implement the previous plan as soon as possible and send super criminals out to work.
Lex Luthor led the construction team to move the bricks for two weeks at the site of the collapse of his own building caused by himself, and was permanently caught by the reporters' cameras at the hearing with his face so tanned that he couldn't distinguish his facial features. recorded.
I heard that he actually relied on this to win a lot of favorable voices for himself—Zhang Dianyu rolled his eyes when he read the news.
But that money also ends up in the pockets of prisons, so let's say it's a win-win.
Obviously, Stark knew what he meant too. He spread his hands: "That's why I didn't tell you in advance."
"So," Strange, who was floating in the air wearing a fake coat, said suddenly, "can you find someone in this world?"
"Basically, but I'm not going to cross the line to gain too much authority - do you know who the administrator of this 'virtual platform' is? It's the world itself, and believe me, it's not very smart."
Zhang Dianyu thought about the big plan conspired by the two "people" of the world and the law, and felt that what Stark said was quite right.
"Find them."
Strange ignored Stark's nonsense and gave simple and straightforward instructions.
Although he looked extremely indifferent, Zhang Dianyu thought about his current situation and felt that it was best for him to keep a low profile.
Although his eyes were deceiving himself to whitewash everything, Strange was actually naked.
"No, the most urgent thing is to escape first." Stark glanced at the direction of the horizon, "Oh my god, this world—no, what did Tony in another universe do..."
Strange glanced at him, raised his eyebrows slightly, but didn't speak.
The Stark titanium mecha squid in the distance is approaching their direction, making a heavy sound every time it lands, and the sand sinks down, making the ground a little unsafe.
The three ran in opposite directions - except Strange was floating.
Zhang Dianyu can also understand. Although the desert is fake, under the scorching sun, it feels a little hot through the shoes.
Why on earth would that Stark dream of such a place
Zhang Dianyu thought about it, maybe it was the desert.
When a person loses his memory, what he can still dream about is probably the most important scene in his heart. For Tony Stark, no matter which Stark it is, the most important turning point in his life is nothing more than the desert that imprisoned him for several months.
His real life started there, and he ended up returning to the same place.
Zhang Dianyu sighed in his heart.
Although the Stark who was put into the body of the black-haired boy was not very flattering in any way, he still hadn't forgotten the first time they met in the desert. Help.
But every time he comes here, he seems to have to face the plot of the hunt—Zhang Dianyu thought as he felt the vibration of the ground.
A terrifying red light lit up on the gigantic mechanical squid, killing all moving objects it touched.
Is this really another Stark-made machine
The three of them ran in the desert with one deep foot and one shallow foot. They were thinking about each other for a while, but they didn't speak.
Fortunately, the desert is not empty, there will be vacant huts at intervals, and it seems that someone has lived in them. This is the hiding place that Stark scanned again with a higher authority. He led the two into it, and opened a board door to hide in the basement together.
"Don't worry, according to the setting above, the mechanical squid will not explore here." Stark said looking at the things in the void.
Zhang Dianyu thought for a while, maybe this is how others feel when he looks at the game panel and talks
"That thing outside," he finally couldn't help asking, "is it really..."
Stark froze for a moment, seemed a little uncomfortable, but nodded.
Strange suddenly turned his head to look at them.
"Uh, are we getting too close?" Stark asked politely. After all, although this Strange looked similar to the one they knew, he was not actually their friend.
And without clothes on.
Strange's face darkened: "What I want to talk about is not this matter—that mechanical squid was indeed used to destroy the world, but it was not something he created under his subjective will. He was controlled."
Zhang Dianyu nodded.
Strange continued, "But maybe you've heard of Sentinels or something that's worse than that."
Zhang Dianyu: "...?"
"If that's the case, can't he be called a superhero?" Strange asked.
Zhang Dianyu didn't answer, and Stark next to him was also silent.
"I was entrusted by his friend to come here—he was indeed dead, and he had the chance to die, but he left the choice to others." Strange said calmly, "It was the captain who chose Revive him. But he didn't wake up right away, so I came to me to help regain his consciousness."
"About the 'Super Human Registration Act' you mentioned," Strange closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, "the last time this happened, I was at the North Pole."
Zhang Dianyu thought for a while: "That's not your problem, you just don't have a chance to participate in—"
"I took the initiative to go to the refuge in the North Pole to fast for forty days, away from that place of right and wrong." Strange said, "because this is a war without results."
Zhang Dianyu: "..." It is very difficult to chat with the Supreme Master, no matter which world it is from.
"Sometimes, things don't have an optimal solution." Strange left this sentence behind, and turned to walk towards the stairs in the basement, "I had already returned to the outside world, and Stark should have woken up as well—but not Be careful being pulled into this strange place by you, I can only follow and find it."
He glanced back at Zhang Dianyu: "Tell him to wake up as soon as the matter is resolved, so as not to tarnish my reputation as a doctor."
"?" Zhang Dianyu: "Do you also practice medicine with candles and chalk?"
Strange looked cold: "Yes."
Zhang Dianyu: "..."
"Wait!" Stark interrupted suddenly, "What happened to him that he should have woken up—do you mean that he has recovered his memory?"
Strange paused: "In your words, his brain is now like a hard disk. When the backup he made was overwritten, the memory has been restored. It's just that his consciousness is not connected to the hard disk for the time being. And I went into his spiritual world to find his consciousness."
"No no no," Stark said, "I mean, you said that before he entered this 'sandbox world', your business was over? His consciousness had already driven the 'hard drive', restored memory?"
Strange frowned slightly: "Why, isn't it?"
Now Zhang Dianyu also understood.
The other universe's Tony Stark lived up to his reputation - and he was a huge liar.
He'd figured out who he was from the beginning, but since he was suddenly dragged into this sandbox world, he'd been pretending he didn't know anything.
And "Mom" is also very slippery.
Zhang Dianyu felt a little heart attack.
Strange nodded to them and walked up the stairs.
"You don't have to leave now, maybe you can wait for the other Stark to come back together?" Stark asked casually.
Strange's face was cold and hard: "When I leave here, my consciousness will return to my body—the same goes for my cloak."
In other words, he was wearing clothes in the real world, which is why he was in a hurry to go back.
Stark: "..."
This is also inconvenient for people to stay.
After Strange left, the tremors outside gradually became weaker, and the intervals became longer and longer.
It looked as if those mechanical squids had left.
"Have you ever thought that maybe that Stark is trying to throw you off on purpose?" Stark asked suddenly.
Zhang Dianyu was slightly taken aback.
But why
He hesitated and asked, "Why?"
Unexpectedly, Stark also shook his head, and sighed suddenly after a while: "This Tony Stark who has no plans..."
Immediately afterwards, he found Zhang Dianyu staring at him with complicated eyes, and immediately clarified: "I'm not talking about myself!"
There was suspicion in Zhang Dianyu's eyes.
Stark: "... at most 30% is about myself, and the rest is about another Stark."
Zhang Dianyu: "..."
After the house stopped shaking intermittently, they climbed up from the basement. Those red lights strafing the ground also moved away with the huge group of mechanical squids. Only by looking far away can we see the black spots of steel in the distance.
Zhang Dianyu looked at the hot sand under his feet, and the terrifying squid in the distance—it stands to reason that they all only appeared in the mind of another Stark, but this world transplanted them into the sandbox, obviously for a purpose of.
I have to say that Zhang Dianyu seems to have joined the world at this level.
They're all going to bring super criminals here to have fun serving time.
Of course, it was the group that refused to cooperate—presumably after they had exhausted enough energy here, they would be able to reduce some desires to escape from prison and go out to make trouble.
"What are you thinking?" Stark poked him suddenly with his elbow.
Only then did Zhang Dianyu realize that he was a little lost in thought.
"Thinking about... future plans."
Stark smiled slightly.
Zhang Dianyu looked at the other party, and found that the man's expression was a bit indescribably complicated.
"how?"
"I know why it's called Biosphere 46." Stark shrugged.
"Why?" Zhang Dianyu asked.
"Originally, Stark imprisoned superpowers who opposed the superhuman registration bill in Negative Space Prison No. 42—Biosphere 1 made our earth, and Biosphere 2 was the famous failed experiment."
"So, this is also one of his backup plans?" Zhang Dianyu was a little shocked.
Stark shrugged: "If a prison is going to fail - then exile the superpowers to another world, which is Biosphere 45 and Biosphere 46, a world with superpowers, and a world without superpowers world."
Zhang Dianyu was dumbfounded.
This Stark—no, that Stark, is it really uncomfortable not to do something big
Stark shrugged, and suddenly lay down and sank into the sand, looking at the dazzling golden sun, narrowing his eyes.
"Backup plan..."
Zhang Dianyu hesitated for a moment, then sat down beside Stark, fell silent for a while, then immediately got up and squatted aside.
His little head was full of big question marks.
It's too hot here too—is Stark crazy
"Didn't you say you never had a plan?" Zhang Dianyu asked suspiciously.
"Not now," Stark said. "They're all in the future. But you never know what the future holds, do you?"
Zhang Dianyu opened his mouth, but did not speak.
It occurred to him that this was a Stark too—and they had just discussed another Stark's wonderful utopia. Who knows what's going on in this Stark's head? After all, he also agreed to sign the Super Human Registration Act.
Zhang Dianyu licked his lips.
Stark suddenly opened his eyes and looked at him.
Zhang Dianyu felt a little uncomfortable as if his mind had been read through. He turned his head to look at the sun, but was forced back by the glare of the sun, and subconsciously stretched out his hand to cover it.
"It's like our future." Stark's voice came from beside his ears, "Not many people in this world are willing to look directly at it."