Chapter 7 – Time Is On Our Side
The Universes
1
Nova carried Power Man, Iron Fist and White Tiger ran, and Spider Man swung through the changing New York landscape, all toward the Latverian embassy. Spider-Man hoped it was still there, though honestly, no buildings actually seemed to be disappearing, just merging with other buildings. Maybe in the other two universes, the Wakandan embassy was where the Latverian embassy sat in their world.
When they arrived at the building, they found it untouched, for whatever reason. Spider-Man was initially nervous about going in there, because Doom could be in there, on Vilgax's side. Hopefully, they could get inside and take whatever it was that Doom had built for Van Kleiss and use it to stop Vilgax.
Their luck ran out as soon as they got inside, however, or so Spider-Man thought. Doom sat there upon his throne, looking, for all intents and purposes, like the most bored human being imaginable. Wait, he is human, right? How do we know this one isn't a Doombot?
"Yes, young heroes," Doom said, almost as if he'd read Spider-Man's eyes, "your eyes do, indeed, see me upon this throne in boredom. This is what happens when you're forced to become a glorified weapons manufacturer for an intergalactic warlord." He stood up and walked over to a door. "Please, come with me." Reluctantly—and almost in a daze—the five heroes followed Doom into the room that he was leading them into. "This man calls himself Professor Paradox, and he says that you, Spider-Man, are to play a special role in today's events, though he refuses to tell me what it is."
The man was dressed like a scientist, and was held in a stasis tube similar to the ones you'd see in any mad scientists laboratory. He was very injured, with what appeared to be a broken arm and at least one long slash across his chest. Whoever he was, Spider-Man had never seen him before, so he probably wasn't from their universe.
"So, what's up, professor?" Spider-Man asked, tapping on the glass.
"Don't do that!" he shouted, through his breathing mask. "It's extremely annoying!"
"What are you doing here?" Power Man asked.
"Vilgax nearly defeated me in battle, and then used me to create a device to merge the universes into one, though he has no idea that it will cause all three universes to explode once they've reached full merger."
"Explode?" Nova asked, shocked. "As in, blow up? Go kabloowey? Cease to exist? There won't be a me anymore?"
"I do believe that is exactly what he means," Iron Fist deadpanned.
White Tiger narrowed her eyes at Iron Fist. "You can be a real downer sometimes, Danny."
Paradox cleared his throat. "Not to worry, children, that'll never happen. Right now, Ben is dealing with Alpha Omega, while the Providence and Plumber teams are dealing with Green Goblin, Venom, Malware and Black Knight. It won't be long now before the only one left to worry about is Vilgax, and he'll be stopped long before he destroys all three universes." He looked directly at Spider-Man. "You need to take that," he pointed at a device on the table that looked very much like Ben's Omnitrix core, "and use it against Vilgax. Van Kleiss had poor, poor Victor building it for his own nefarious ends."
"Yeah, speaking of Van Kleiss, what happened to him, anyway? Where is he?" Spider-Man asked.
"Vilgax killed him," Doom answered.
2
Diamond Head punched Alpha Omega's face with his right fist, while he used his left fist to hit him in the stomach—or, whatever passed for a stomach on a nanite creature. Rex slammed his smash hands onto the back of Alpha's head. Together, they knocked him down, but he wasn't out yet.
"You sure Gwen didn't need you up there?" Diamond Head asked. "I don't want my cousin dying up there because you wanted to have some fun down here."
"Don't worry about it," Rex said, smirking, "turns out goblins and freaky suits are no match for Anodites."
3
Gwen was almost getting tired of using Venom to hit the Goblin, and vice versa, but she couldn't complain. At least she didn't have to get her hands dirty. Anodite powers are fun.
Goblin was getting tired, she could see, so she dropped him onto the deck, followed shortly by Venom. Neither one stood up right away, but when they did, they both fell right back down out of exhaustion. Now, she wondered how Kevin, Six and Rook were doing.
4
Malware went down quickly, almost too easily, but when Rook slapped the Mechamorph containment device on him, he was down and out for the count. The only one they had left to deal with was Black Knight, and she was very clearly tiring. She couldn't take the combined assault of three heroes at one time. Every build she made, every step she took, every attack she tried—it was all countered by either Kevin's metal skin, Six's swords, or Rook's multitool.
Less than five minutes after Malware was taken down and contained, Black Knight—former leader of Providence and weilder of one of the meta-nanites—surrendered.
"Smart move," Six said, taking off his sunglasses.
"So, now the only ones we have to deal with are the Alpha nanite," Rook began.
"And Vilgax," Kevin finished.
5
"What are we doing here, Webbs?" Nova asked as they walked the remains of the Helicarrier, directly toward Doctor Connors' lab. Spider-Man knew exactly what he needed in order to use the time-thingy that Paradox had given them.
"Ol' Doc Connors' lab, I left something there."
White Tiger said, "There's only one thing you leave in Connors' lab, and I still don't think you have the hang of that thing."
"It was quite instrumental in defeating Doctor Octopus when he stole Stark tech, though," Iron Fist brought up.
"And Spidey's been doing better with it," Power Man piped in, "remember? He only destroyed the basketball court last time."
Spider-Man slouched. "Yeah, you guys are just barrels of optimisim, aren't ya?"
Once they reached Connors' lab, Spider-Man saw exactly what he was looking for. The Iron Spider armor was developed specifically for him by Tony Stark—Iron Man himself. It contained standard Iron Tech weapons—repulsors, micro missiles, chaffing flares—as well as spider-like "legs" which could be used to scale buildings, should he choose not to use the repulsor jets. It also contained something that he was about to take out and replace—a miniaturized Arc reactor, the standard power source for all of Stark's technology.
"You sure this is gonna work?" White Tiger asked.
"No, I'm not. But Paradox sure was."
"Why do you even trust that guy?" Nova asked.
"There was something about him, something I can't understand, but I know he was here to help, otherwise he wouldn't have given us this thing."
Spider-Man lifted up the Arc reactor and set it aside—hopefully out of harm's way, because if it was accidentally hit by an explosion, it could level half of New York, and that would mean three different New Yorks, thanks to the merging of the three universes—and inserted the device from Paradox. It fit almost as if it was meant to go there, and suddenly the suit was activated. With the help of his friends, he got inside the suit and could tell things were going to be a little different.
"Alright, guys, let's get back out there and help out Ben and the rest of those guys."
6
Vilgax yawned, in boredom. His fellow villains from three different dimensions were proving to be no match against the combined might of the heroes. Not that he expected them to win, but killing one or two of the heroes would have been enough. Oh well, the true final battle was about to begin. He could see it, thanks to the hourglass.
Alpha Omega was being taken down by Tennyson and Salazar, much as he had been the last time Tennyson had gone on a dimension-hopping adventure. It was only a matter of time before all the heroes focused their attention him. Too bad only Salazar and Tennyson—if the stupid human had the brains to select Alien X—would be able to last in the pocket dimension the final battle was to take place in. That foolish Spider-Man stood no chance.
"I hope all of you are ready," Vilgax said, his tone commanding. "It's time for the show to really begin."
7
Ben had no idea what it was Vilgax meant, but he hated the implications. He slid through the Omnitrix's selector menu and found just the alien he was looking for. It may not have done the job last time, but he had Rex and the other heroes on his side this time. Let's do this, Alien X. He slapped the Omnitrix core down and suddenly found himself floating in non-dimensional space. Two giant faces floated there, appearing to stare out in the distance.
"Ben Tennyson! It's so nice to see you!" Serena—the immortal choice of beauty and love—welcomed him.
"I suppose you're not entirely unwelcome," Bellicus—the immortal choice of anger and hate—sort-of welcomed him.
"Serena, Bellicus, look, I don't have time to explain, but Vilgax is still alive, and he's about to merge three different universes together."
"But that's impossible," Serena said, her smile turning into a frown, "not only did we make the universe a better place by destroying Vilgax, but to merge universes together would be to destroy them."
"Didn't your time walker tell you that?" Bellicus gruffly asked.
"No, actually, I haven't seen Paradox ever since... well, I actually don't remember, but somehow I think it had something to do with steampunk gear—anyway, that's not important. If the universes are going to be destroyed, then I need complete control of Alien X to stop Vilgax once and for all."
"I don't know, how do we know you'll use Alien X properly?" Serena asked.
"How do we know you won't screw everything up, like you did the last time?" Bellicus asked.
"Just give me enough control to stop Vilgax, I won't need anything else."
"What do you say, Bellicus? You always love a good battle," Serena appealed to her mate's desires.
"Fine. I grant you control over Alien X. Serena?"
"I also grant you control over Alien X."
Ben said, "Thank you, I'll make sure I don't cause more damage than has already happened."
And in a flash, he was back outside the non-dimension, with Rex waving his hand in front of Ben's face.
"Yo, hermano, you okay?"
"I'm fine," Alien X said, his voice a combination of Ben's Serena's and Bellicus's. "Meet Alien X."
"What does this one do?"
Alien X smiled, though it was hard to tell, since he had no real mouth. "Everything."
8
Spider-Man and his teammates reached Times Square, where Vilgax was now down on the street, holding the hourglass. Some kid in a red jacket—Rex Salazar, by Ben's description—and a weird humanoid thing that looked like somebody cut a hole out of space-time in the shape of a human were standing there. Ben was nowhere to be seen, so the guessing was good that the humanoid thing was Ben, probably that mystical Alien X that he told them about.
"I hope you're all ready to die, heroes," Vilgax said, holding the hourglass over his head. A strange circular light started to emerge from it, inverting the colors of the world as it pulsated outward. Buildings started to crumble, glass started to shatter, the streets began to disappear. Spider-Man lifted off with his repulsor jets just as soon as the tidal waves of inverted colors reached him, He looked back at his team and watched them burst into a million pieces.
"No!"
"It's alright," Alien X said. Spider-Man turned to him and saw that he and Rex were as unaffected by Spider-Man was, "they're not dead yet. We're being taken into a pocket dimension, one that Vilgax can't control, even if he thinks he can."
"On the contrary, Tennyson, I am in complete control."
Spider-Man landed back down on the 'ground' and walked over to Alien X and Rex. "So, what's the plan?"
"Yeah, Ben, this guy's caused you more trouble than us, you call the shots."
If there was an expression on Alien X's face, it was one of surprise, and understanding. Yes, Vilgax had caused Ben more trouble, but he'd destroyed Rex's world, and nearly destroyed Spider-Man's. They were all in this together. "Take the first shot you have on him and don't stop punching until either he's dead, or you are."
"Sounds about right to me," Spider-Man said.
"Me too," Rex smirked as he spoke.
"Three on one, Vilgax," Alien X said, his tone very steady, "and this time, we won't stop until you're dead."
Vilgax started chuckling, then broke into full blown laughter. "That's the best thing you've said in your entire life, Tennyson, because I'm about to do the same thing to all of you!"