Miles swung through New York. The second Amalgam event had caused an uproar in panic. His dad had vanished, Aunt May was nowhere to be seen, The Bugle was publishing that Betty and Robbie had vanished; which was to say JJJ was hiring replacements. He had to pick up the slack since Peter vanished, a feat he didn’t find easy. Maria Hill had to take up Fury’s role leading SHIELD and was coordinating the efforts to figure out where the vanished were sent.
He came to a rest on a tall building and perched on the end. He thought back to when he discovered the Spider-Society and chuckled. Miguel was a hardass when he so much as saved a police officer; he would flip if he saw something like Nexastra.
The police radio in his suit sounded off; a bunch of goons were shaking down the local bodega. Miles swung off without a quip, ready to fulfil his heroic duty. It was roughly 10 at night, perfect timing for criminals to do whatever misdeeds they felt like.
At the bodega, the goons were emptying the cash register and a portly one was helping himself to the hershey’s selection. Miles dropped down by the smashed in door and joked that while the store was having a sale, the five finger discount wasn’t one of them and began webbing them to the walls.
The larger one clutched his hershey bar and ran for it through the back door. Miles gave chase and caught his leg in the back alley. The big man grabbed his gun and pointed it at him, but couldn’t pull the trigger as a black web ensnared him, pulling him into the darkness.
Miles heard a punch noise, then the hershey wrapper floated back into view. Of COURSE he was still here. Venom emerged from the shadows.
Mystique wandered the hallways of SHIELD, disguised as some Joe Shmoe she left in a crate. Her son, Nightcrawler, had vanished with the second wave and she was here to find out why. She reflexively straightened up when none other than Janet Van Dyne walked through a nearby door with Hank Pym, discussing the shards of Nexastra and a “hired help” they were bringing in to build a machine to utilise them.
Mystique perked up at the mention of that. Whatever it was, it sounded like it would yield answers. Janet and Hank both put their hands to their ears and hurried off. Whoever it was was about to arrive.
Maria Hill waited on top of the Helicarrier, Coulson stood next to her politely. Since the second Amalgam event, it was decided to try keeping them in the air, away from the public. She could not overstate how much she did NOT want to go to him for help, but they were down two geniuses and she needed SOMEONE to keep Pym in check and they had managed to multiply how many people who vanished by hundreds.
A familiar rock tune began fading in. Maria smirked grimly, Tony Stark was still the same regardless of any anomaly. The metal man landed with a familiar face next to him. Rhodey and Stark both let their helmets fold off their heads. With a grin, he asked what they needed.
Miles wandered through Hell’s Kitchen with Venom and, to his surprise, Daredevil. The man with no fear explained that Carnage had been causing a few upsets around town. And by “Upsets”, he meant “killed and eaten a few people.” The trio swung and ran around the rooftops, hoping to catch a glimpse at the fleshy, symbiotic abomination, but it was currently for naught.
Miles stopped as his spider-sense went haywire. Something was going on! Another event? No, this was something… familiar. A fresh web hit the wall next to the three. A hooded, ghostly spider-woman landed gracefully next to them. Gwen.
Meanwhile, in the Other York. Wilson stared at the people trying to go about their lives, most of them didn’t seem to really notice he was there, the ones that did assumed he was among the costume wearing bozos that kept interrupting his repairs. The two red wearing freaks that kept having shouting matches while trying to assist the displaced people were admittedly his least disliked, they generally kept out of his way but if the one with the katanas called him “some unlucky d-lister” one more time he was going to remake his worldskipper into a disintegrator ray and scatter his atoms across space-time, however; he had caught wind of a few places he could try to acquire parts. The one downside? The people who could point him in their direction weren’t willing to help and anyone who was willing wasn’t here.
He sat on the New York rooftop and pondered to himself. He may have to wait for another wave; but how long would that take? He sighed. For now, he’d have to try finding a good excuse to be caught digging around this “Avenger’s Tower”.
Cyclops, Wolverine, Gambit, Nightcrawler and Colossus arrived at the empty school for gifted youngsters, their plan was to make sure if any more X-men were sent their way, they’d have a safe place. Cyclops stopped by a tree nearby, an old carving of S+J bringing back memories of simpler times with Jean. Wolverine yelled out an order to stop. What was there of the X-men ground to a halt as Wolverine pointed out something that wasn’t there before; A greenhouse, far from any Xavier had tried to build. The pair broke in with bated breath which faded to mild disappointment that the greenhouse seemed completely normal. No mentions of alien locations unlike the library, which Fury had ordered to be condemned.
A small, strange looking plant caught Gambit’s attention and Nightcrawler snatched the notes next to it. Logan growled that they should stay back from the strange plant and Nightcrawler piped up with a question. Who the hell is “Dr. Pamela Isley?”
The Fantastic Four had settled into the Baxter building, for the sake of their friend, Peter Parker, his aunt May had begun to stay with them, dissuading his fears that since people he knew were being dragged here with him that someone had figured out his true identity. Reed didn’t think that was why, but he was curious why seemingly unrelated people had been dragged to the phantom dimension with them. His brother in law, the audacious Johnny Storm, had landed in the dimension with a cheap floozy on his arm. Normally, this would be enough for Reed to consider finally replacing him with Spider-man, but in this case it sparked a theory. Whoever got caught in the wave seemed to send out a signal with the wave, catching anyone close to them, physically or emotionally.
However, this universe had no shards of Nexastra. As a result, the most he could do was try to send himself back to his home dimension. Spider-Man swung by the open window to his lab for a status report. Reed thanked him and, before sending him away, remembered to ask him something. Specifically to look for anyone familiar; to help with his theory. Spider-Man gave a quick salute and went off to look.
Spider-man swung throughout the city, scanning peoples bewildered faces as he swung near them. He rounded a corner to a police station, staffed with what few cops had shown up. His Spider-sense tingled as he noticed a disturbance between two cops at the front door.
He landed by the station and asked the cop that was facing him what was wrong. The cop bellowed that the “identity stealin’ dirtbag” was trying to pretend to be a fallen cop. The cop that was facing away from him, trapped between Spider-Man and the red-faced cop turned around. When Spider-Man saw his face, his blood froze. It was unmistakable; the man who was standing before him was none other than someone he had watched die, early in his superhero career.
Captain George Stacy.
In True York: Gwen had explained a mile a minute what had happened; her dad had vanished and she had come to Miles and Peter’s dimension to ask for help, only to be stuck here when some sort of anomaly had busted her device. She couldn’t contact Miguel, Jessica, Hobie, Pavitir or anyone for help.
Miles and Matt shared a look, in a figurative sense. The fight with Nexastra must have had ramifications past their universe. Before either could offer words of comfort or promise to help, a scream sounded out. The squad dashed towards it. Follow the screams, they’d find Carnage.
Back on the helicarrier, Tony had completed the blueprints for the device. It was dubbed the Eonova door. It was going to utilise the energy the shards gave off to essentially pull open a wave, if they could figure out how it works, they could try and figure out where it was sending people. Mystique watched in the distance, disguised as an assistant scientist. Some other X-men were here, much to her chagrin. Kitty Pryde was called in, Pym reasoned that they could try using her intangibility to keep her around and also see if it could help her avoid a wave. Daken had shown up, which was to say “he was kept in a small cage near the shards to see if his relation to Logan would pull him in and kept shouting colourful words at Hill and Coulson.
When everyone was preoccupied looking at ways to build and set up the device, Mystique slowly nudged towards the shards. Was this what sent her son away? She herself had begun to lose track of how old she was and she had never seen such a thing.
Elsewhere, Miles and Gwen were trying to wrangle a feral Carnage. Venom was taking advantage of the distraction the little spider-people were giving him to get in cheap shots and Daredevil was doing all he could to keep civilians away from the fight.
Mystique edged closer to the shard. Maria Hill noticed the scientist and snapped at her to leave it alone. There was a tense pause. Then Stark, who had taken the time to learn who he was working with, asked for her ID.
Mystique froze. Then grabbed for the shard. Maybe she could use it as leverage. Tony, knowing the damage that could do, fired at her with his hand beam, it hit her square in the chest and sent an electricity pulse throughout her body. Her quickly bleeding out body clutched the shard for dear life. She fell to the floor, a hole in her chest and electric in her muscles squeezed the shard. Maria noticed the shuddering in the strange scientist and put two and two together. She screamed for everyone to get down.
BOOM!
The electricity in Mystique’s injured body hit the shard and sent out a third Amalgam wave. Iron man got hit almost instantly and began to see the world unravel. The battling Spider-People froze as the world began to wobble around them. Daredevil, while blind, felt everything unravel around him.
The Other York shook. Nightcrawler was everywhere at once, popping in and out wherever he could to make sure nobody was hurt. Spider-Man turned away from the seemingly resurrected captain Stacy and began to swing into action. He tensed in mid-air and began falling. His Spider-sense felt like it was going to make his head explode and yet, felt familiar. He landed on a clocktower, as he faded in and out of consciousness he saw a familiar black suit swing towards him. His last thought before he fell unconscious was relief.
Carnage crawled to the top of the clock tower and picked up the unconscious Parker boy. Gloating to the Spider duo that he was going to bite the “real” Spider-Man’s head off and then move onto the impostor Spider-people. A green fist punched the fleshy symbiote so hard that Gwen swore she almost saw Cleetus Kassidy underneath it. The hulk screamed at the symbiote to leave Spider-Man alone.
The serial killing symbiote grew a sword from his arm and challenged the superheroes. Before he could get out his further insane ramblings, a beam of energy hit him and knocked him clean out. The Invincible Iron Man landed on the tower. He looked at the unconscious Spider-man and the recently rediscovered Hulk. underneath his metal helmet, he grinned. Whatever this was got interesting.
Mystique awoke by Avengers tower. The pain in her chest had subsided, and the injury by Stark’s triggerhappy attack was no longer there. She heard something approaching on the unoccupied streets and struggled to her feet. A grey, smiling creature holding a device approached her. They stared at each other but before the shapeshifter could speak, Wilson spoke up first.
“Can I ask a favour?”