I'm the day, I'm the day
I can show you the way
And look I'm right beside you
I'm the night, I'm the night
I'm the dark and the light
With eyes that see inside you
Come down with fire
Lift my spirit higher
Someone's screaming my name
Come and make me holy again
I'm the man on the silver mountain
I'm the man on the silver mountain
Rainbow - "Man On The Silver Mountain"
A long time in the future, in a galaxy far, far away
The One: Uatu the Watcher, you are here because you have failed your sacred duties. You have repeatedly outskirted your task of watching Earth-65 to watch Netflix TV series instead. And your most recent fault, you have failed to see how did Ghost Spider drives the evil Storm brothers from her city because you were watching "Vikings" and the new season of "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.". What can you say in your defense?
Uatu: My Noble Lord, I can't offer you either richness or jewels, crowns, or scepters, either lands or nations to submit. But hear, my king, hear my song telling the legends of an ancient age when the forces of light contrasted the dominion of the gods and the balance of the universe. My Lord... My Lord, keep in your heart the saga of the warlord whose name was THE KING OF ALL EVIL. Hear the epic tales of a time now far past, when men kneeled to the power of the hammers. Hear the deeds of the mighty A-Force, they believed in the sacred fire of glory and pride. I sing the saga of the bravest and proudest warrior of Doom's court. Blood, ice, earth, and moonlight blessed his soul. He was called by the king of kings to be the defender of the sky. Hear the last Ultimate story, the duel on the Golden city, the anger of evil. Thus came the age of destruction and death, when the darkness of war engulfed all the land and the sky.
Now
No place to hide. No place to run. The King of All Evil was floating in the air, in front of the destroyed gates of Arcadia, and his attack has now begun. His crimson helmet concealed only part of his face, a face with electric eyes that denoted great arrogance and confidence. A-Force had never seen him, but knew about him: he was the most terrible and dangerous servant of Doom. The Ultimates also knew him, but not with that name. They once knew him as Magneto.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! X-MEN! WELCOME… TO DIE! WHEN THE BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANT TERRORISTS AND I ARE THROUGH, HUMANS WILL NO LONGER HAVE A PLACE ON PLANET EARTH!"
And when he said that, the rest of the Brotherhood showed up. "The White Queen welcomes you… to die", said a woman. Storm thought that she looked similar to Emma Frost, headmistress of the Academy of Tomorrow, but was puzzled by her appearance, as she was dressed like a hooker in white clothes. She immediately dismissed the idea, as it was clearly someone else. "Nothing moves da Blob!", said a morbidly obese man with a club. Clearly the Blob, a man who ate the dead corpse of Janet Van Dyne, a vision that had haunted Hawkeye since then. "Juggernaut will flatten you!" said a man with a bazooka and a helmet that covered his whole face. His helmet was brown, not blue, but Rogue recognized him as Cain Marko, his childhood friend. "Pyro will turn you to toast!" said the last one, who looked nothing like the guy that joined Storm and Bishop in that X-Men team, but probably had fire manipulation powers as well.
Even worse, the Deviants regrouped, ready to follow behind the Brotherhood. And more portals opened in the sky, as even more Thors showed up to take part in the fight. They had been fighting the heroes of Earth-2 elsewhere but left the battleground when God Doom intervened personally, which left them free to join their brothers in arms in this other conflict. The King of All Evil made a final statement. "I AM MAGNETO! YOU ARE NOTHING!", and advanced to the city, inside his magnetic bubble.
First, he wrapped Thundra with her own chains, and casually, effortlessly, threw him to the city. Then he did the same with Titania, whose leather suit was filled with metal spikes. Many guards in the walls were armed with swords, he attracted them and then release them back like deadly projectiles. One of those swords killed Dagger, but he hardly even cared. He felt so secure in his power, that he was simply toying with his prey.
The Blob faced both Hawkeyes first. He attacked them with his club, crying "Nothing moves da Blob!", but they quickly evaded it. Kate pointed out that he was saying the same line all the time, as if it was the only thing he could say. No time to check it out though. Clint first thought that the Blob may be immune to blunt force, but perhaps less so to pierce weapons, such as arrows. It was of no use. The arrows simply stuck to the fat of his body, and Blob removed them, repeating his line. Kate tried with her arrows, to the same effect. Then Clint remembered the tapes of the first fight of the Ultimates with Hulk and thought that his body, legs, and arms were so filled with fat, but he could still aim to his weak points. He shot his arrow to his mouth: he still survived, but was clearly enraged now. Still, he understood that he was in the good direction. But arrows were still something big, and even if he gets to the right point, they stay at the surface of the body. He needed to be precise, and go deep. Fortunately, although he had left the suit and the attitude he had after the death of his family, he still kept the tricks in his belt. He discarded the bow and took a gun he had hidden. He aimed at Blob's eye and crying "This is for Jan!", he fired. The shot got through his eye and into his brain. No invulnerability saved him, and he collapsed to the ground.
Magneto was still nearby, but he was still amused by the fight, and unconcerned by the death of one of the Brotherhood. Suddenly, however, his face grew serious, and looked elsewhere, back to the fields. A new portal was opening, and then many others. But only one of those portals was a Mjolnir portal, those used by the Thors to move around Battleworld. The other portals were sling-ring portals. A battle-weary, but still ready Captain America appeared first, though the Mjolnir portal. Iron Man appeared through another, to the left. And Beta Ray Bill, a traitor to the Thors, was with them. The armies of the Blue and the Iron followed them. Their Spider-Man, flying with his Falcon wings, got through one of the portals and landed next to Cap. He was followed by Dr. Strange and some of the Guardians of the Galaxy. And then more sorcerers, the Wasp, Pepper Pots in her Iron Man suit, and many others. Dr. Strange asked "Is that everyone?", and Wong replied "What? You wanted more?". As in reply to that line, Stature grew to giant size and left another She-Hulk in the field. Soon they filled the fields, dwarfing even the Deviant army. They had halted their Civil War, and joined the real war in Arcadia. Captain America summoned the Mjolnir of one of the fallen Thors and took it for himself. He cried "AVENGERS… ASSEMBLE!".
But it was no deviant-chieftain or brigand that led the assault upon Arcadia. Victory was slipping from his grasp even as he stretched out his hand to seize it. But his arm was long. He was still in command, wielding great powers. King of All Evil, mutant, Lord of the Brotherhood, he had many weapons. He shouted, "YOU ARE HELPLESS AGAINST MY POWER!". Instead of engaging the whole new army, he made a gesture with his hand and raised part of the mountain range in the background. He moved it on top of the Avengers until its shadow engulfed all the battlefield beneath it. For a second, impossibly, it hangs suspended in the sky. And then, it falls.
Pyro had an unexpected ability to make big leaps and proved to be quite a match for the Spiders. Eventually, he got on top of a large structure, with Spider-Man Noir and Spider-Gwen behind him. At that point, the White Queen, who was nearby, lend him a hand and knocked Spider-Man unconscious with a psi blast. Gwen managed to get him and left him on the top of the structure, as she kicked Pyro out of it. Still, noticing the advantage, Pyro managed to return to that spot, took the unconscious Spider-Man, and threw him down. Unconscious, he fell like dead weight. "Peter! NO!" She dived towards him and fired her web-shooter towards him while she fell. She managed to grab him and stick to the wall at that point, but it was not enough to prevent him from reaching the ground. She tried to wake him up, to no avail. He was not unconscious. He was dead. She kept trying to wake him up, mussing "you can't be dead, not again, I saved you, I saved you this time…". Pyro showed up then. Gwen barely cared about what he said, he was gloating and saying something about making her pay. "Wrong, Pyro, you're the creep who's going to pay! I'm going to get you, Pyro! I'm going to destroy you slowly, and when you start begging for me to end it, I'm going to remind you of one thing! You killed the man I love, and for that, you're going to die!"
Spider-Woman was no longer in the game of ballet jumps. She got to Pyro before he could escape, and crashed the devices in his hands that he used to manipulate fire. She crushed them with her superhuman strength, so intensely and so uncaring for the consequences, that she fractured his arms in the process. The White Queen tried to use her powers on her, to drop her unconscious, but it was of no use. Gwen was so driven by anger, that Frost's powers did not affect her. In fact, as she played a part in Peter's death, Spider-Woman headed to her then.
At that point, she was so angry and focused that she lead everybody else, both the Ultimates and A-Force, into the attack. Even Old Man Logan and Jimmy Hudson, who were fighting on their own, joined the group. The villains that got into the city were pushed out of it, through the ruins of the gate and into the fields. In the distance, the Avengers were dead, with the broken and shattered remains of a mountain range on top of them… or so everybody thought. First, a fist emerged from the ruins: Captain America, the manliest superhero ever, would not let a mere mountain to stop him. Beta Ray Bill, with the power of the Thors, also survived. And a repulsor blast signaled that Iron Man survived as well.
But Magneto was not an easy foe to defeat. He made a magnetic explosion, that threw everyone away from him. Captain America stood up first, walked to him without fear, and said "As long as one man stands against you, King of All Evil, you'll never be able to claim victory". Magneto crushed Iron Man inside his armor but kept the arc reactor and his arm fully functional. He fired with full force to Captain America, killing him, as he said "THEN! DIE! NOW!". All the heroes were shocked by this execution. Magneto made a new magnetic explosion before they could get past their horror and react.
Despite the forces aligned against him, the King of All Evil still stood in his prime, powerful and undefeated. And then he saw one of the Thors, Rune Thor, going towards him. Fine, another servant of God Doom, who will help him to squash this rebellion. Then he cried "Magneto!", and he noticed that he was holding a sword, and his position denoted that he was going to attack him. What kind of treason was this? No matter, he can easily take the sword from his hands with his magnetic powers and threw it away. Surprisingly, it did not work. Somehow, Rune Thor was countering his power. And the, he had no more time to figure it out: Rune Thor reached him, and stabbed him in the chest and stomach, causing a fatal wound. He could not understand. It was said that no living man in all Battleworld could kill him. Then Rune Thor removed his helmet: it was actually Jean Grey. "You killed Xavier. You killed Logan. You indirectly killed Scott. I promised myself that someday, somehow, even if it had to be in another life, you'd die for that". Yes, Jean knew that this was not the Magneto she once knew. Perhaps he never even heard those names. She did not care. It was Magneto, and he was as evil as the one she knew. Now, she thought, no matter where are her Scott, Xavier, and Logan in this weird multiverse, they can rest in peace.
But the enemy regroups, and the battle is not yet won. The hordes of Deviants, Atlanteans, and the remaining Thors were still there. Pyro, the White Queen, and the Juggernaut were still standing. They had stayed behind, to avoid the wrath of the King of All Evil, but now that he was dead, they were ready to continue the war. But suddenly, the darkness abated, and the light was restored. Not by the sun, but by a rainbow in the sky, so shiny as the sun itself. At the end of the rainbow, three figures appeared in the remaining part of the mountains. Two of them were Iron Man and Thor, that the Ultimates had missed since that battle against the Thors in the desert. As for the third one… Kitty Pryde was the first one who recognized him.
"Peter!"
Peter Parker raised his hand, and suddenly a legion of zombies appeared. They flew directly towards the heroes, who could not react in time. They thought that were having reinforcements, and it was instead more enemies. But no: the zombies ignored them all and, without a single moment of delay, continued their way towards everybody else. Atlanteans, Deviants, Thors, villains, all fell like wheat before a sickle. Within minutes, all the battlefield was cleansed of enemies. Peter reunited with the others, who were completely surprised. Only Miles Morales knew that Peter was alive before the incursions, and not even him knew that he had been transported to Battleworld as well. Spider-Gwen was visibly ashamed by it: she had lost another Peter Parker some minutes ago, and now another one appears. Too much to process. The other Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew, couldn't be happier. Still, the one who was relived the most was Kitty Pryde. Although she had come to terms with the idea that Peter loved Mary Jane and not her, she still holds feelings for him and was devastated by the loss when he died. And now he was back. She gave him the hug of a lifetime. Even with their battle won, their fate was still unclear so she kept him while she could.
She released him when the zombies returned, with the job done. "You must do it. Now." Kitty defied the Zombies and urged everybody else to stand alongside her, to prevent them from attacking Peter. Peter, however, calmly asked her to stop, that there was no problem. He saw the zombies and said "I hold your oaths fulfilled. Go. Be at peace". They smiled and turned into dust, soon removed by the breeze. Still, they all seemed satisfied and relived with their fate. Peter checked his right hand: the 666 mark, the mark that Mephisto placed in him, vanished as well.
Now it was the turn for Jessica. They once shared a hug, "the most awkward hug in the history of the planet", as she said then. Back in those days when a hug between a clone and the original was awkward. But now… they were still original and clone, but it was also a hug after a long time when she thought him dead. And a hug made after the destruction of the universe, in a patch-up world made by a crazy man with godlike powers. And a hug made outside a city of female warriors that stood against Thors and monsters of all sizes and kinds. And a hug after an army of zombies cleansed the whole battlefield, and Peter gave them peace and depart. Now it was officially the most awkward hug, in the history in the multiverse!
Still, the heroes had their dead to look after. Captain Marvel. Dagger. Spider-Man Noir. The Iron Man and Captain America from the Warzone. They took them to the mountain and buried them. As for everybody else from the Warzone, they left them under the remains of the mountain for the time being. They still had to discuss their next move. The Colonel noticed that Logan brought a big stone next to Cap's grave, placed next to a big flower, and carved a text in it with his claws. "I'm not really sure I understand everything that is going on right now in here. I remember a Captain America in my past. But was he real? Was World War II, when we fought together, real? Or was it everything something made up by Doom? I don't know. That mumbo jumbo has never been my strong suit. But if this Cap if anything like my Cap… I'm sure he also liked this song"
Una mattina mi son svegliato
e ho trovato l'invasor.
O partigiano portami via
che mi sento di morir.
E se io muoio da partigiano
tu mi devi seppellir.
Seppellire lassù in montagna
sotto l'ombra di un bel fior.
E le genti che passeranno
mi diranno «che bel fior.»
Questo è il fiore del partigiano
morto per la libertà
"Bella Ciao" - Partisan song of the anti-fascist Italian resistance