Speaking of potential allies, the Grandmaster right in front of her was one. The man was practically oozing comic relief, but his real body looked like it was on its last legs, possibly already gone. Whether or not the Grandmaster's corpse had actually gone cold was uncertain; Galactus, on the other hand, was definitely dead. Still, as one of the Five Cosmic Entities, weak as he was among them, he wouldn't go down that easily. Life and death wasn't an absolute concept for beings at that level. All things considered, there was still hope.
Two potential allies, one confirmed dead, one maybe clinging to his last hit points. That was what Thea had to work with.
"You're sure you won't hurt me?" The Grandmaster was cautious about Thea visiting his real body.
"I won't. I need your help right now, so I'll just have to take the loss and patch you up first!" Thea put on a look of pure frustration, which delighted the Grandmaster. He figured he'd come out ahead on this deal, though the fact that his real body was about to flatline probably factored into his willingness.
Following his coordinates, Thea teleported into the Grandmaster's personal space.
It was a tower-like structure, its walls packed floor to ceiling with collectibles: toys, trophies, souvenirs, and an assortment of swords, shields, and blades that radiated zero energy whatsoever.
"Uh... do you enjoy watching fights?" Noticing Thea examining his display, the Grandmaster asked with genuine interest.
Thea was speechless. Your real body is about to die, and you're worried about your trophy case? The man was carefree to a fault.
She'd sensed his real body the moment she entered the tower. The life signature was faint, barely detectable. But if he wasn't in a hurry, why should she be?
"I have a gladiatorial arena. It's famous across three sectors, nineteen star systems, and fifteen hundred planets."
Well, if they were going to trade tall tales, Thea wasn't about to lose. She launched into her own story with dramatic flair. "My arena's record? Over three thousand battle-hardened warriors from dozens of worlds, all killed in a single day."
The Grandmaster's mouth fell open. His arena was more entertainment than bloodsport; the fatality rate didn't even come close.
They swapped stories for a while longer before the Grandmaster noticed his real body was about to give out entirely and finally remembered why they were here.
He pushed open a side door. Down a spiral staircase to the base of the tower, Thea finally laid eyes on his real body.
The bottom of the tower was five meters across, and his body filled the entire space.
He looked exactly like his projection, except the brilliant Elder of the Universe robe had been blasted open. A massive wound ran clean through his chest and abdomen, front to back. Searing energy still clung to the edges of the wound, and even the Grandmaster's legendary regeneration, supposedly the strongest in the universe, was being eaten away bit by bit. His eternal lifespan was running out.
All she had to do was drain the energy from the wound. His regeneration would handle the rest, given time. But Thea wasn't about to work for free.
"The Elders of the Universe, there are what, a dozen of you? None of your colleagues came to help?" she asked, genuinely curious.
The Grandmaster mumbled but said nothing.
So it was true everywhere: professional rivalry was a universal constant. Thea couldn't help but marvel at it. Even the Elders of the Universe couldn't get along.
She scanned the tower's contents one more time and felt mildly disappointed. Marvel's physical laws were fundamentally different from her own universe's. Most of these artifacts would lose half their function on her side. She didn't need divine weapons to begin with, and half of the Grandmaster's collection was toys anyway.
Still, just because she couldn't use them didn't mean she'd waive her fee.
She picked through the lot, claiming half of the Grandmaster's collection. The toys and trophies she left behind, something for him to reminisce over in his free time.
Her outright robbery drew some grumbling from the Grandmaster, but that was all it amounted to. Both of them knew those items held more sentimental value than practical worth.
The actual treatment wasn't difficult. This wasn't some exotic poison; Krona was a scientist, not a poisoner. Ninety-nine percent of his focus went to research. His weapons requirements were simple: hit hard, hit big, hit strong, enough firepower to destroy a universe for him to study.
Thea examined the Grandmaster's wound first. She'd just fought Krona, so the energy signature was unmistakable: this was from that energy gun. Could that gun actually be the Cosmic Probe? A question for next time. She hadn't found much useful information in the little blue man's memories.
Judging by the angle of entry, it looked like a cheap shot. The Grandmaster, that idiot, had probably thought Krona was playing a game with him. He'd lost this round entirely because he didn't have the sense to see it coming.
The first step was neutralizing the residual energy in the wound. But this energy was refined to an extreme degree. Even after the Grandmaster's regeneration had worn away part of it, the remaining concentration was staggering.
She considered grinding it down with her own energy, bit by bit. Workable, but too slow.
Thea didn't have that kind of time, and letting energy this pure simply dissipate would be a waste.
Energy at this level of purity was exceedingly rare in the universe. Who knew what kind of technology Krona had used to gather it? If she stored it inside her pocket world, it would accelerate the world's development. At that point, producing a genuine universe wouldn't be far off.
Weighing all the factors, she decided to seal the energy instead.
She'd prepared seven or eight blocks of durable material when she sealed Eclipso before, and she'd scavenged more in the Antimatter Universe. She still had a decent supply of Nth Metal on hand.
What followed left the Grandmaster staring in bewilderment as she pulled out three chunks of seemingly worthless scrap metal and started forging something new.
Underworld Metal had been salvaged from the deepest abyss, where the dead congregated thickest. The resentment saturating it was dense enough to give even a Goddess of Death pause.
Underworld Metal, brimming with death, and Nth Metal, practically alive with its own energy, were polar opposites. Mixing them directly would result in an explosion, no question.
Fortunately, antimatter metal served as the bridge.
These were metals that had survived the Big Bang itself. Their resilience and durability had reached their absolute limit. With antimatter metal acting as a mediator, it balanced the Underworld Metal and Nth Metal. The three fused into an entirely new substance.
Thea worked fast, shaping the new metal in her palms.
She began siphoning energy immediately. Thread by thread, slow but steady, the energy was drawn out.
After an hour, she felt the first block reaching its sealing capacity. She forged another. It took the better part of a day before the Grandmaster's life was finally pulled back from the brink.
Nine blocks of the new metal in total, all of them dumped into her pocket world. When she had time, she'd unseal them gradually and let her world absorb the energy.
Her part was done. The rest was up to the Grandmaster's own regeneration. They agreed on the arrangements for the coming battle, and that was one combatant secured. Thea teleported straight back to Earth on this side.
By then, the second wave of DC reinforcements had arrived: Green Arrow, Zatanna, Firestorm, Atom, Martian Manhunter, Vibe, Elongated Man, and Killer Frost.