Chapter 1 – Unlikey Enemies, Unlikely Allies

Ultimate Spider-Man Universe

1

The five of them sprung into action. While Power Man and Nova assaulted the thing with fists and nova blasts, respectively, Iron Fist and White Tiger delivered dual martial arts strikes which pushed it back against the wall. Spider-Man came in last, webbing the thing to the wall with the new, stronger webbing that SHIELD's tech division had just developed for him.

Unfortunately, the thing was stronger than the webbing. It ripped itself free, pulling a good deal of wall along with it. Spider-Man noticed that behind the wall had been Wolverine sitting in the bathtub. And now I will never get that out of my mind... thanks, whoever you are! The thing jumped straight up and punched Nova in the face before landing on the wall of a building two blocks away. I guess this wasn't such a bad day after all, if ol' bucket head gets clobbered.

Spider-Man reflected on the events which led them here. The five of them, in their disguises as normal teenagers, had been lounging around in the cafeteria at Midtown High, waiting for their next classes. Suddenly, the thing burst into the school, along with some friends. It looked overall like a normal human woman, with short black hair. But Peter Parker knew, as soon as her hands turned into a glowing purple sword and a glowing purple ball and chain, she wasn't exactly human. There was something eerily mechanical about her.

So the five of them—Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man; Danny Rand, aka Iron Fist; Ava Ayala, aka White Tiger; Luke Cage, aka Power Man; and Sam Alexander, aka Nova—sprung into action, corralling their fellow students away from the cafeteria, without drawing attention to themselves, and then they donned their costumes. Spider-Man started off the fight, firing his web balls at the strange woman's face. She was fast, however, and either dodged them or cut them to pieces with her sword. Next, she flung her mace-on-a-chain straight at Power Man, sending him into one of the support pillars.

"Nova!" Spider-Man shouted, "hit her with the bright lights!"

"Got it, Webbs!" Nova intensified his energy field, creating the equivalent of a human flash grenade. The woman shielded her eyes, but her friends decided to take advantage of the situation. They looked like ninjas, and moved like trained soldiers, but Spider-Man suspected they were a cross between the two. They pounced on Nova like a football team tackling the opposing quarterback (or Peter himself, if it was gym day).

"Nova!" Spider-Man shot a web-line out at one of the black suited figures and flung him at one of his friends. Both broke apart in a brilliant explosion of metal and robotics. So the foot soldiers are robots, a lot like ol' Doc Doom's troops. "Guys! The black-suits are robots! Don't worry about holding back!"

Power Man got back up from his crater in the floor and grabbed two of them by the head. "I was hopin' you'd say that!" He promptly smashed the two robots' heads together.

White Tiger clawed at the robots' faces, knocking them down in seconds, while Iron Fist used his trademarked iron fist and knocked their heads clean off. Nova got back up and showered them with nova blasts, taking care of the group that had tackled him to the floor. Within seconds, the team had destroyed all of the robots, and were left with the woman, who simply stood there, laughing.

"What's so funny, techno-witch?" White Tiger spat at her.

"All you did was destroy a few dozen Black Pawns, you've still got me to deal with."

Spider-Man jumped up on the ceiling above her and brought himself down using a web-line. "Oh yeah? Got a name, Madame Crazy-Hands?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. My name is Black Knight, and I'm your worst nightmare!" That sentence led to the fight that eventually ended in the team losing her after she jumped on the building, and disappeared. Spider-Man simply stood there, wondering where the Black Knight had come from, and what she was after.

2

Black Knight's contact awaited her on the rooftop of the Latverian Embassy. He wasn't human, for certain, and didn't come from this world in more than one sense. He stood at seven and a half feet tall, and that was hunched over. His mouth was always wide open in a devilish smile, speaking or silent. He didn't talk out of his mouth. Sound receptors in his throat did his talking. He had one cyclopeon "eye" in the center of his face, but it never truly saw anything. Photoreceptors in his face did his seeing. Normally, one arm was a cannon of sorts, though he had it condensed into a hand for now. No need to attract unwanted attention, even if the airspace above the embassy was a no-fly zone.

Black Knight returned and nearly missed her contact. He appeared from the shadows and greeted her with a very straight-to-the-point, "What did you think of them?" She spun around and readied the sword she could build with her arm. "I'm sorry. Did I startle you?"

"As a matter of fact, you did. Sneaking up on a person isn't advised, especially if that person is me." She returned her hand to normal. "They're a bunch of kids, both figuratively and literally. They wear costumes, and go by stupid little codenames. At least Rex went by his real name."

"The leader?"

"He calls himself Spider-Man, wears a goofy red and blue outfit and spits webs everywhere. He can cling to walls and he's clearly the one with any real experience."

"I see. Who's the major threat of the group?"

"Probably the spider. As I said, he has real experience. He did a lot more watching than anything else, almost like he was studying me."

The contact scratched his chin and chuckled somewhat. "Just like Tennyson." He focused his attention back on Black Knight. "Come. Our mutual friend wants us."

3

Black Knight and the contact entered the embassy, walking into the throne room. Upon the seat where usually a monarch of the world's most industiralized third world contry would sit, now sat a figure as alien as the contact. He wore a face mask, necessary for breathing after a devestating injury six years prior. Muscular enhancers jutted from his skin on his left shoulder, still the weakest of his limbs. A gauntlet adorned his right hand, a red jewel gleamed from it. Tentacles fell from his face, dropping to his chest like some fleshy rendition of a hermit's beard. Unlike Black Knight's pale-colored human flesh, or the contact's red and black techno skin, the mutual friend's skin shone a pale green, with black veins coursing along it. His eyes glowed red. Nearly every word he spoke was echoed by a growl.

"Well, Black Knight, would the heroes of this world be worth the time it would take to defeat them?"

"Of course. I gave Malware my full report when I arrived, so he can develop countermeasures for them."

The mutual friend turned to Malware. "And what about your discovery in the Null Void?"

A fourth figure entered the room. This one, similar to Black Knight, was human. He had a full head of long hair, and his left arm was a mechanical gauntlet. He wore the clothes of a European conqueror. He wore a perpetual smile, as if he was privy to some joke he would not tell the others even if it killed him. "The Alpha Nanite, my Lord, will be completed as soon as our Latverian host, Doctor Doom, finishes the designs that Malware and I developed for him."

Malware nodded. "Van Kleiss is taking care of getting Doom to work on time. I have copied all Latverian technology, and though it is primitive in comparison to Galvan technology, it will be sufficient to repair Alpha's damaged body."

The mutual friend nodded. "Good." He stood and stepped down from the throne, joining his accomplices. "When the Plumbers discovered my body floating in space after the battle with Tennyson, it was uncertain to them if I would even live. Now, I've conquered a dimension as alien to me as I am to humans, and I'm on the way to conquering a second. Once we have taken over this world, Tennyson will stand no chance against us, and our combined powers." He looked at Malware and Van Kleiss, "Technology." He looked at Black Knight, "Nanites." He held up his gauntlet, "Magic." He looked over at a tube, big enough to hold a normal sized human, "And, soon, complete control over the very dimensions themselves."

Inside the tube was a man who looked to be about fifty or sixty, but was actually older than the space-time continuum itself, partially because he had traversed it a thousand times over, and that was before the advent of the human race. He was broken, bloodied, and near death, a state he never thought he'd reach, but the power of the being that defeated him was greater than anything he'd ever faced. He looked up at the being now, into the red eyes of his own conqueror. "Tell me, Paradox," the being said, "how does it feel to know that your secrets will soon be mine?"

With what he always assumed would be his last breath, he said, "You'll never win, Vilgax..." and then he fell into unconsciousness once again. Underneath the mask on his face, Vilgax smiled. After six years of defeat and punishment at the hands of Ben Tennyson and his Omnitrix, his plans of dominion would soon come to fruition.