In the world that had existed prior to Nexastra’s fall; Fury had gathered the heroes that didn’t vanish for a status report. Their dimension seemed fine now that the anomaly was taken care of; but there was a cost. Five of their finest heroes disappeared and where they went, nobody knew.
The event was dubbed “the Amalgam wave”, because it was easier than referring to it as “The thing that made Cyclops, Wolverine, Deadpool, Star-Lord and Hulk vanish”. Fury wanted answers, Pym and Richards were the ones who had to give them to him.
In a SHIELD lab, entirely out of both Mr Fantastic and the Scientist Supreme’s comfort zones, the pair were analysing a shard of Nexastra, trying to figure out what the strange energy the being had sent out to cause the anomalies. Spider-man; in a lab coat, his Peter Parker identity out for Pym to see, was assisting them. The metal X-man, Colossus and the man with the explosive touch, Gambit, were guarding the lab. The shard falling into the hands of, say, Dr Doom, Ultron or any of the other evildoers of their world would be a very, very bad thing and push comes to shove; Gambit could try using his powers to destroy the shards.
Meanwhile, in the new world; the five had searched the phantom New York all over and found nothing. They were alone. The sun still rose and fell, there were abandoned supermarkets filled with food, the avengers tower still stood proudly but there were no people. Quill explained his visions, the spectacle of men dressed as bats, laser swords and petal mouthed monsters. Banner suggested that, given Nexastra’s gimmick of messing with dimensions, that he had seen outside of their own. Wolverine didn’t care. There was beer here, Xavier and the other bookworms could probably whip up a fix, wherever they are.
Cyclops was wandering the streets, looking for a sign of life. He missed Jean, The professor, the mutants that fell fighting that stupid monster. He walked past the fancy library building and stopped dead in his tracks. Staring up at the sign carved into the stone.
What the hell is a “Gotham”?
Back in the true New York; The scientists were at odds. Reed was preparing to administer a power source to the shard, Pym was against such a thing. They still had no idea what it even was, doing it could be catastrophic. Reed explained that he had a theory that they could use the shards of Nexastra to control the power and maybe bring back their lost friends. Peter just sort of watched. Any attempt he made to interject was met with ignorance by Reed or snaps to be quiet by Pym.
The argument reached its peak when Pym stormed away to his own workstation, promising that Richards would suffer consequences if he tried it. Fury walked in, unimpressed. He stormed to Pym and demanded an explanation. Richards didn’t even look up. Peter’s spider-sense went crazy as he shot around. Reed had administered electricity to the shard.
Like the last time, a sound echoed out. Fury spun around with a face of pure fury and sounded an alarm. With a small plume of smoke, Nightcrawler appeared as his face quickly contorted with horror. Colossus and Gambit barged in, understanding what had happened in an instant, bellowed at Reed to stop what he was doing.
Reed was staring forward into nothing, at least from the others’ perspectives. What he was seeing himself was much different. He saw a man firing balls of energy like he was in a video game, two large dimensional beings shaking hands, a bald little girl showing psychic powers that would make Professor X smile, A soldier constructing towers that could pierce the clouds. A man with a green ring, glowing brightly. A groovy man, adorned in blue with a chainsaw grinning as he cut through an undead Captain America.
A new wave blasted forwards, Peter shot a web to dodge, but got caught, Pym shrunk and it missed him by a hair, Fury couldn’t even dodge, Nightcrawler tried to teleport but it didn’t make a difference. Colossus took it head-on. He would find his friends somehow.
Pym grew as the second Amalgam event came to close. The lab was now empty, Maria Hill cracked a demand for answers through the radio. Pym stumbled to the radio and asked if they felt that and got some awful news: disappearances had been reported in. The rest of the Fantastic Four had vanished. Whatever this was, it was getting worse.
In the Other York, Wilson had taken refuge in a high rise tower called “The Baxter Building”. Seemingly vacated, he worked on trying to repair his device. The device, a 1st class worldskipper, had been damaged when that strange monster had died and left him stranded in this bizarre other world. It was hard enough to fix something he’d never even seen the inside of, let alone with these damned costumed weirdos constantly looking around.
The lab around him shuddered and the lights flickered. He looked around and heard something unusual. People were outside. The confused murmuring that came from below sent a signal to him that it’d be best to hide.
Cyclops ran around as people faded in from nowhere. There was going to be panic, where the hell was everyone else? A shout rang out, he rounded a corner to see that in the panic, two people had started fighting. He went to break it up when a web pulled them apart. His heart lifted in small relief. Spider-man!
Spider-man dropped down in front of him. Before they could exchange pleasantries; His earpiece rang out. Fury was, fittingly enough, furious and demanded that Spider-man help round up all the heroes sent here. Cyclops and Spidey shared a look and got to work.