DC: I am Bruce Wayne

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"I can make you rich... rich enough to impress a princess." 

- Jafar (Aladdin)

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<(Bruce Wayne POV)> 

"My god, that was fun. I don't think Lex Luthor will be recovering from that anytime soon. Maybe he will even have nightmares about this day if he is really as prideful as I think he is." I chuckled to myself after I finally finished shorting all the Lexcorp stocks I had been holding on to for the last few days. Roughly, it was only about 1 percent of the company, so I didn't have to report my holdings, and thus neither Lexcorp nor the SEC were aware of the sale before it was too late. Normally, this type of shorting would have been counterproductive for me since the market would have quickly stabilized even before I could make any profit but due to the crash, stock traders were so spooked that even the slightest dip in Lexcorp stock prices made them start dumping their shares like crazy. Of course, I didn't make as much profit from the sale as I made from my other major investments, but it was worth it since I knew how much this would annoy the junior Luthor.

"The market is closing now, Bruce. Is there anything else you would like me to do?" Cortana asked as her hologram bent over my shoulder from behind me as if she was also looking at the computer screen before suddenly turning her voice seductive, "I can do anything... and I mean anything."

"My my, Cortana. You seem to be getting bolder and bolder every day. *Sigh* I wonder where my little innocent angel who used to be a hardcore otome weeb has disappeared to." I joked while doing my best to ignore the feeling of the huge pair of breasts she was pressing on my back. "The way you are evolving, I think you might be on course to become one of those 'ara ara' milfs soon." I teased. 

Ever since I had installed and enabled my newest hard light hologram technology in my cave a few days ago, Cortana had been using it almost exclusively to tease me. At first, it seemed funny because of the laughs she was able to keep cracking at my expense but now, it was honestly becoming a little bit annoying because of the constant boner I had to hide under my pants. I mean there is only so much teasing a man can take before finally losing his balls... pun intended.

Additionally, my hard light technology was based on the diamond-light holograms from the show Red Dwarf with a few minor changes. So, Cortana in this form couldn't just replicate the different levels of... the softness present in the human body perfectly to the 't' but also had access to more unique advantages like super strength, super speed, and even some amount of light manipulation abilities. Of course, it wasn't even a question that she was gladly using these advantages without the slightest hesitation to constantly flirt with me for some reason. 

"Maybe. We will see once you get my actual physical body ready. *Ufufufu*" She responded with an exaggerated laugh before looking at her own holographic body with an impressed look on her face, "But for now, this new technology isn't bad as well. Because of the additional sensors, I can even somewhat feel whatever I touch and smell everything in the cave. Even though I know these sensations are just artificially produced through sensors, a bunch of pre-written programs, and whole lots of data, I still cannot help but imagine what it will actually feel like once we complete my real body, where I will get to completely experience my senses in reality." She giggled dreamily before hugging me from behind as she pushed her breasts against my back even harder.

"Please stop doing that for a few minutes, Cortana. I really need to focus here. I get that you are excited, but we can always celebrate later after we are done. Counting my rewards and spoils after a victory is a ritual for me and I don't like to be interrupted when I am doing it. You should already know this." I lightly reprimanded her, reminding the task that was still ahead of us. 

"Tch, you are so boring, master." She complained in the voice of a spoiled girl before finally relenting, "Fine... Today, after the White House finally released a statement, admitting the sublime mortgage crisis and the dangers it posed to the economy as a whole, all the financial markets in the country went into panic mode. The value of stocks, bonds, securities, and various traded commodities, almost everything dipped below anything anyone had seen for years. Silver and gold were the only things that didn't see a large enough dip but even their prices decreased a lot. Almost 1.6 trillion dollars were wiped out from the US stock market alone in a single day!" Cortana reported. "And these losses will only widen with time. My estimates say that within a year, America may lose up to 16 trillion dollars because of this crash while losses for the global financial system may be anything between 30 and 50 trillion dollars. All this is of course if and only the authorities could work quickly to soften the blow." She explained.

"My god that's a lot of money. I feel bad for the people that would be affected by this. I can only imagine how many families would go into debt or lose their jobs because of a screwup that the banks and a small flaw in our financial system were responsible for." I muttered after hearing the numbers. "I almost feel ashamed for making money off this event. It feels like some sort of blood money." 

In fact, if this wasn't my second life and if I didn't already have the knowledge that the crash was destined to happen one way or the other with or without my involvement, I probably wouldn't have tried making money this way because it just feels wrong. However, the banks were already in deep shit, and even if I were to try to warn them in time, they wouldn't have listened to me. Mortgage bonds were a huge source of revenue for financial organizations, and they wouldn't have been able to control their greed and stop inflating the mortgage market even with my warning. After all, some financial analysts did try to warn them of the incoming danger ahead of time, but they had all been suppressed because the banks simply wanted to make as much money as they could without worrying about minor things like crashes. 

As a matter of fact, the sublime mortgage market was already so rotten that a serious warning from someone like me would have only accelerated the crash. That's why I had no hesitation when it came to making money from this recession. I mean the money that disappeared from the markets would have gone somewhere anyway like some rich hedge-fund assholes who had informants in the white house or something. So, better me than them, right? At least, I would use them for nobler purposes like R&D, expanding my company, creating more jobs, and most important of all, protecting the world.

"By the way, how much did we make today?" I asked, not able to control my excitement anymore. 

"We had a net profit of one hundred billion dollars, three hundred if we count the money, we got by using your bank's and company's assets as well," Cortana answered. "However, most of the money has been reinvested in different places. But I estimate we will be making north of 1.5 trillion dollars by the end of next year. And this is without considering any acquisitions or long-time investments you might make." She explained as a digital table of all our financial transactions today opened up on the big screen in front of me. "As you instructed, I focused mostly on bonds and commodities since you wanted to take money from professional investors, banks, and the ultra-rich instead of ordinary people. I even tried my best not to meddle with those retirement funds and insurance companies, otherwise, we could have easily made double this amount." She revealed. "The bond and securities market will lose about 10 trillion dollars because of this crash, so I will try my best to ensure that more than half of our profits come from here." 

"You did good Cortana. People losing their insurance coverage or their retirement funds because of me will leave a bad taste in my mouth, so it's much better for my conscience if I just leech off of people who can afford to lose that money. I mean the government always bails out struggling banks, but never struggling families, right?" I shrugged before focusing back on the numbers. 

"... Bruce, I know that you don't like how most banks operate but I think you need to make peace with your dislike over them. After all, in a few years, you might own one of the top 5 biggest banks in the country. So, you will be a hypocrite if you hate the business while still making money off people." She responded after a few moments of silence. "With how a lot of banks will go bankrupt or get restructured, customers WILL flock to your bank once they see that you actually made profits when every other major bank in the country and maybe even in the world lost money faster than they can count." 

"You are right, Cortana. But at least, we won't be rotten like them. As long as I am alive and believe me, I plan to be alive for a LONG time, Wayne Enterprises will do its best to serve its employees and its customers while contributing to society and trying to make the world a better place. I will never indulge in shady business practices just to make some meager profit." I swore while trying to make her understand what type of company I really wanted to create. 

"I see. At least, now I know I am not working for a company that wants world domination because they simply want to make more money." Cortana giggled before adding, "By the way, you should treat Alfred better from now on. Since he, Miss Leslie, Vicki, Selina, Helena, Talia, and Nyssa invested their savings in your bank's investment division, they are officially multimillionaires now, especially Alfred. With how much money he now has sitting in his bank account, he might not hesitate to leave his job if you ever piss him off." Cortana playfully warned. 

"Yeah, if that's ever happening." I chuckled as if it was a joke. "Alfred works for me because he cares for me and the Wayne family... correction, he cares for all of us including you, Ace, and even Miss Whiskers. If he cared for money, he would have left a long time ago. I mean the man literally banged a queen. If he ever goes public with the story, the money from various license deals with podcasts and shows alone will be worth a fortune." I could not help but laugh aloud. 

"By the way, I wonder what Slade is currently feeling, now that he has lost his opportunity to quintuple his wealth. It was his own fault since he couldn't bring himself to trust my Gotham Merchant Bank's ability to make money through investments. He thought he would be able to make more by investing in professional hedge funds even though I tried to give him subtle warnings about it. Now that I think about it, there is a possibility that he might even try to kill himself if he ever hears that everyone else except him made millions of dollars today without lifting a single finger." 

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