A/N: Okay, folks, I should warn you readers of a few things before we get started. First of all, there will Marvel characters that will die and they won't always be heroes/villains. Yes, some civilian characters will meet their brutal and sticky end. Also, a couple Marvel characters will be a tad out of character. Trust me, you'll know it when you see it. Also, this doesn't take place during a specific point in the Marvel canon. Peter Parker is Spider-man and married to Mary Jane. The X-men are led by Charles Xavier with Cyclops leading the ground teams. That is all.
A/N: Please remember to review with any comments, question, concerns, or constructive criticism that you might have.
Chapter 1:
A New Evil Rises
New York City was no stranger to massive super fights. The City has seen fights between all manner of superhero teams and supervillans. The Fantastic Four, the X-men, and many others have made their appearance throughout the years and as a result, these fights and the damage caused by them have become commonplace and this day was no exception. The Avengers were once more fighting the Masters of Evil. Many of the Avengers were dealing with problems elsewhere, so their number was temporarily reduced to six, making them equal in number to the Masters of Evil's numbers. Captain America faced against his longtime foe, the leader of the Masters of Evil, Red Skull, Thor faced his brother Loki, Luke Cage took on Abomination, Ms. Marvel took on her own longtime adversary, Moonstone, Wolverine battled his villainous counterpart, Sabretooth, and Spider-man fought against his friend turned deadly creature, the Lizard. Most civilians, when caught in this sort of situation, either run to a safe distance or take cover inside a building, the latter being the case for a very specific family called the Blagdans. The father, John, ushered his wife, Beverly, and eight-year-old son, Jack into the bedroom while he watched from the window.
"You're going down this time, Skull!" Captain America said as engaged his opponent in a melee.
"That is where you are wrong, Herr Captain," Skull said, dodging one of the Captain's punches and driving another one into his gut.
Meanwhile, Spider-man was using his superhuman agility to dodge the claws and snapping jaws of the Lizard.
"Dr. Connors, snap out of it! You have to fight the lizard part of your brain!" Spider-man insisted.
The large humanoid reptile, instead of answering, roared and charged again, but this time, the webhead shot a web-line at the Lizard's chest before using the Lizard's momentum to spin in place before throwing him away, not realizing just where his opponent was flying, namely the apartment of the Blagdans. As soon as the spider-powered hero realized the sort of building he'd sent his enemy into, he leapt off the ground hoping to save the people inside. When the Lizard got back to his feet, he was in even more of a bestial rage than before. So much so, in fact that he attacked the first thing he saw, which just so happened to be John Blagdan. He slashed the poor man across the chest, sending him flying through the door to the master bedroom, where his wife and son were hiding. Beverly shrieked at the sign of her husband's mangled and bloody corpse, drawing the Lizard's attention.
When the Lizard made his way into the room, looking for more prey, his attention was first drawn to the sobbing child that had pulled from his mother in order to try and awaken his father.
"Daddy, wake up! Please, Daddy, wake up!" Jack wailed, as he continued to try and shake his father awake.
The Lizard stalked towards the child, his claws preparing to gut the small child. As the reptile's claws descended to cut the child's life tragically short, Jack's mother made the ultimate sacrifice by leaping into their path and taking the fatal blow in the place of her child, covering little Jack in his mother's blood. Just then, Spider-man hit the Lizard with a double-heeled kick, sending the Lizard crashing into the wall where Spidey webbed him up before injecting him with an antidote, turning him back to his human form. The Webhead then made his way over to the child that was weeping over his parents' corpses.
"Hey, kid, it's okay now. I'll get you out of here," Spidey said, offering his hand to the child just as the rest of the Avengers arrived after their own opponents, realizing they were beaten and managed to escape.
Just as they entered, the young boy looked up at them with a expression no small child should have: one of unbridled rage and hatred.
"IT'S. ALL. YOUR. FAULLLLTTTT!" Jack screamed, his rage unlocking something within himself, something hidden away in his genes after being passed on for hundreds of generations. His eyes turned a bright yellow with blue lines forming over his skin. The energy that was released was so powerful that the Avengers were actually knocked back a few steps.
Meanwhile, in the Netherworld, what appeared to be a walnut with ears was loitering in an old and rundown throne room inside a very old tower suddenly looked to the ceiling.
"Awaken the minions and fire up the gates! A new master has finally revealed himself!" the walnut yelled.
Groups of small imp-like creatures, the minions the walnut spoke to, cheered and headed for a portal in the center of the throne room.
Back on the surface, the Avengers were trying to push through the energy being released by young Jack, hoping to stop him from doing whatever he was doing. Before they could get close, however, a stone structure broke out of the ground and many of the minions came out, attacking the Avengers.
"Master! Master! This way!" one of the minions called over Jack's cries.
Hearing the minion's calls, Jack calmed down enough to look at the minions, considering listening to them. When he saw the Avengers, finally realizing that there were others beyond him, Spider-man, and the minions there, he decided to listen to the minions and followed them through the portal after glaring over his shoulder at the heroes.
He looked around when he reached somewhere he didn't recognize.
"Greetings, young one," said a voice from the shadows. Jack looked to see a creature similar to the minions walk out, though he was more hunched over and had grey skin.
"Who are you? Where am I?" Jack asked.
"In order of your questions, I am Gnarl, minion master and devoted servant of darkness. As to where you are, you are in the Dark Tower, young one, the center of power for every Overlord. As to where the Dark Tower is, it is located in the Netherworld."
"Netherworld? I think I've heard of that on tv. It was another name for…Hell! I'm in Hell!? I thought you only went there when you were bad after you died! Did I die!?" Jack exclaimed, his frightened young mind not understanding what was going on.
"No, young one, you haven't died," Gnarl said with a chuckle, "And this isn't Hell, though I guess you could say we're neighbors. As for being bad, well, let's get to that point later."
"So, why did those things bring me here?" Jack asked, calming down slightly.
"Well, that is a bit of a story. One that involves your physical changes," Gnarl said gesturing to the young boy.
"Changes?" Jack asked, looking down at himself and seeing for the first time the blue lines that were all over his body, "Ah! What happened to me!?"
"I will explain, young one. You see, I saw what happened with your family and I believe that your pain and anger at your loss activated the great and powerful lineage that has long been dormant, a lineage that traces all the way back to our last Overlord, who was tragically cut down not long after destroying the Glorious Empire. Anyway, the cursed wench that killed him didn't know that Mistress Kelda had hidden away his one and only child, which was the first step to a long, but rather dull line of descendents that eventually led to you."
"What is an overlord? Does that have something to do with why you brought me here?"
Gnarl chuckled, "Right you are, young one. You're quite smart for such a young man. You see, an overlord is the leader of the minions and the ruler of all he surveys, a conqueror and destroyer. He is the most powerful dark ruler in the land and those that stand against him are crushed under his boot. Now, in the old days, there'd be elves, dwarves, maybe a fellowship of heroes, and all manner of forces of light, but nowadays, there're more heroes out there than flies on a twenty-foot tall pile of manure."
"So, what does this have to do with me?"
"Ah, yes, apologies, I got a little sidetracked. You see, you have the potential to be the next overlord with training, of course, and I would like to give you that training."
"So, what would I do if I become an overlord?" Jack asked.
"You'd be able to do whatever you want, though you'll be expected to build a new Dark Domain, but that probably doesn't mean much to you, so perhaps you'll need a better reason. You see, there will be many people that will stand in your way, including those so-called 'Masters of Evil.' Feh! The arrogance of them to actually take the title that rightfully belongs to an overlord!" Gnarl said, going off on another tangent before seeing Jack's bored expression, "Oh, sorry, young one, got distracted again. Anyway, the heroes will also try and prevent you from succeeding, so you'll be able to get your revenge against them."
While that sold Jack, he did have one more question, "How long will this training take?"
"Well, that requires a bit more explanation. You see, in the years since the last master died, I've had the minions watch over the surface to keep up to date. During one of these scouting trips, they found a very interesting artifact that will allow us, for one time only, to slow the passage of time here in the Netherworld. In short, what will be days on the surface will be years here in the Netherworld," Gnarl explained.
"Okay, I just got one more question, Gnarl," Jack said.
"Which is?"
"When can we start?"
Gnarl smiled, "Immediately."
Ten Netherworld Years/ Ten Surface World Days
"Congratulations, Master, you have completed your training and the minions have accepted you as their new master. The Netherworld has recognized you as the new Overlord!"
The young boy formerly named Jack was now a young man, easily six feet tall and thick with muscles. His hair had become silver. He was thick with muscle, making him a very intimidating presence even without his the years of nearly nonstop training, Gnarl had taught the Overlord-in-training everything he knew. Jack was trained in multiple forms of melee combat that Gnarl observed over the many years, including the use of different forms of weapons, not to mention the use of magic, including the most important spell in an overlord's arsenal, the evil presence spell, the magic spell that bends others to an overlord's will. He was also taught strategy, since, while overlords could get by being brutish thugs in the old days, in the more modern times, it was better if the new overlord was able to outthink his enemies rather than relying merely on the usual strategy of diving straight into the fight. He learned about the different heroes and villains in the world, as well as the history of the overlords. He learned how, unfortunately, the more attention span-lacking minion tribes, namely the reds, blues, and greens, all left the tower after a century, not to be seen since, taking many of the artifacts with them.
He nodded, "Thank you, Gnarl. I can't wait to finally get started on achieving my revenge," the new overlord said. Gnarl's training had taken what innocence Jack had and threw it out the window, now he was fully in sync with the overlord mentality and wanted nothing more than to conquer everything he set his sights on and take his revenge on those he saw as responsible for the death of his family, most of all: Spider-man and the Lizard.
"I can't wait to watch you give those fools a good smiting, my lord!" Gnarl said, chuckling.
"Oh, I'm not going to kill them all right away, especially Spider-man. I'm going to do to him what he did to me and take everything from him: his job, his home, his friends, his loved ones, everything. I'm going to make him suffer worse than anyone has ever suffered before and only then will I give him permission to die."
Gnarl chuckled giddily, "That plan is so brutal and cruel! I love it! That's the way a true Overlord thinks!"
"Now, I think I need to choose a new name, a name to represent my new place in life. My name will be Grim Ebonyheart, the new Overlord!"
The minions all began to chant, "Hail Overlord Ebonyheart! Hail Overlord Ebonyheart!"
"So, what would you suggest we do first, Gnarl?"
"Well, unfortunately, the minion tribes that left took the Tower Heart with them, so we need to retrieve it first, but luckily, our spies on the surface informed me of a deal going down that some humans have the Heart and are actually planning on selling it to some collector. You must get it back, Master! It is crucial that we retrieve it!"
The newly renamed Grim nodded his agreement before summoning five minions, which was all he could summon due to the severe lack of lifeforce, and headed through the portal. The tower gate came up in a warehouse that Gnarl had managed to purchase ahead of time. He was dressed in the armor of his predecessor and carried his mace as he led the minions out of the warehouse to the docks where the deal was taking place. The moon was already high in the sky by the time the overlord reached the surface, so he was able to stick to the shadows as he and the minions made their way to the deal. Reaching the site, Grim and the minions found the area guarded by some low-level thugs, carrying various makeshift melee weapons, like baseball bats, crowbars, and lead pipes.
One of the thugs was talking loudly, "So, what is all this shit that were transporting anyway?"
"Just some museum shit," a second thug said, "Gotta say they're kinda creepy. Have you seen that one statue that looks like some kinda demon? The damn thing is actually glowing! Not to mention that weird giant ass ball. For some reason, that thing creeps me out the most! I can't wait for us to offload it all."
"So, what's the deal with the sheep? Why're we smuggling those little puffballs anyway?" the first thug asked.
"Who cares? Maybe they just wanna avoid taxes, maybe they're being used to smuggle drugs. Doesn't matter so long as we gettin' paid," the second said, "Besides, it's not like you gotta deal with 'em, just keep 'em in the warehouse with that creepy shit."
Just as he finished saying that, Grim came out of the shadows and smashed the first thug in the face with his mace, killing him with one blow, while his minions ganged up on the second, beating him with their maces and little fists. The overlord and his minions moved inside the warehouse before the other thugs in the area noticed their presence, after grabbing the lifeforce they dropped.
"Sheepies!" one of the minions cheered.
Sure enough, there was a large pen filled with the "fuzzy wastes of space" as Gnarl would call them. Grim, however, saw them in a different light, namely as a source of easy lifeforce. With a wave of his hand, the Overlord sent his minions into the pen, where they proceeded to slaughter the sheep and bringing the newly released lifeforce to their master.
Grim used the telepathic communicator to contact Gnarl back in the Netherworld, "Gnarl, can you have Grubby dig a brown minion spawn point in here?"
"Of course master. It will take a few minutes though," Gnarl said through the helmet's link.
Just as Gnarl said that, Grim heard a voice outside the warehouse, "I think he's in here, surround the warehouse and we'll break in and take the fucker down!"
Grim spoke to the minion master once more, "He has one minute. Tell him to hustle."
Now that the sheep had been wiped out, the minions returned to their dark master as they prepared for the thugs to get in. The thugs began to bang on the doors to get inside and Grim readied his mace. Just as they were breaking through, a minion spawn mound came out of the ground. Grim immediately used it to summon five more brown minions, reaching his maximum command capacity. He sent the minions at the large group of thugs that came in, while Grim himself took out three of them. The minions, being deceptively strong despite their small size, managed to make quick work of the remaining thugs. The last thug was brought before the Overlord, who kicked him in the face to knock him on his back, while he prepared to smash his head with his mace.
"You won't get away with this! Do you know who I work for? We answer to the Kingpin!"
Grim lowered his mace and growled, "I'll let you know when I start giving a damn," before stomping on his head, turning it into paste. "Alright, minions, start smashing the crates and find anything of value!"
The minions immediately went to work, mostly finding museum pieces that Grim had no use for. They'd just finished smashing their tenth crate when they found something very interesting: a large cylinder decorated with the image of a minion.
"Oh, that's a command upgrade, master! It'll allow you to summon more minions to your side!"
"Excellent, we'll take that too," the Overlord said as he watched the minions smash open another crate, this one containing the Tower Heart that they were looking for.
"Alright, minions, take the Tower Heart and the upgrade. We're taking them both back to the Tower."
"Yes, Master!" the minions chanted before they grabbed the items and the Overlord led them back to the Tower gate.
Just before the group took the items inside the warehouse, a 'thwip' sound was heard and something stopped the Overlord in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder to see a webline attached to his shoulder. He followed it with his eyes to where it came from to see the person that he hates most: Spider-man.
"You know, the renaissance fair's next week, but I gotta say that I love the black knight look."
Grim just grabbed the webline and ripped it off his armor as he turned around to glare at the web-slinging hero.
"Ooo, the strong silent type, huh? Usually the bad guys are monolouging my ear off by now, you know, telling me how they were going to 'crush me like the bug I was.'"
Grim still stayed silent.
"Still nothing? Okay, let's start this over. First, we'll introduce ourselves," Spider-man joked, "Like me, I'm Spider-man. I also go by Webhead, the Wall-Crawler, the Arachnid, or Spidey Now, you."
"We've met before," Grim said.
"Really? Pretty sure I'd remember meeting someone like you."
"I'm not surprised that you don't remember. It was only days for you, but it was years for me. The last time you saw me, I was a small child crying over my parents' bloody corpses. Tell me do you remember the boy named Jack? The boy that became an orphan because of you?" Grim asked, his anger causing his blood to start boiling.
"Oh, God," Spider-man said, remembering his failure, "Look, I tried to save them. I did the best that I could!"
"I don't care! It was your fault that the Lizard was there! It was you that sent him there!" Grim said, as he sensed the minions had brought the artifacts to the Tower Gate, "But none of that matters now. Tell your fellow 'heroes' of my presence. Tell them that you and the rest of the Avengers have created a threat that you've never seen before. Tell them that the Overlord will see their world come crashing down around them!"
With that, Grim ran into the warehouse before taking the Tower Gate back to the Netherworld. Upon reaching the Netherworld, Grim addressed Gnarl, "Gnarl, do you have another location that you can send up a Tower Gate?"
"Of course, Master. One must always be prepared."
"Good, you once told me that you could have them self-destruct, so I want you to do so for the one I just came through."
"I thought you wanted to let that web-shooting fool to suffer before he died, my lord."
"Knowing his penchant for surviving, I doubt he'll survive. Besides, we can't risk him calling S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers and telling them where the Gate is."
"As you wish, Master," Gnarl said, immediately getting to work at fulfilling his master's wishes.
Meanwhile, back on the surface, Spider-man had made it into the warehouse the man claiming that a mere ten days ago he'd been a small boy had disappeared into. The apparent age jump didn't really take Spidey by surprise, considering some of the things he'd seen. Hell, he had a literal god on speed dial, right after his favorite pizza place. Anyway, when he got inside, he found a massive structure with a creepy blue aura pulsing around it. As he approached it, his spider-sense sent a hundred pins drilling into his brain. It was as this happened that he noticed the pulsing was quickly speeding up.
"Crap!" Spidey shouted, as he used a web zipline to shoot himself out the window and swing as fast as he could before the structure exploded, destroying half of a city block. "Jeez, that was close. I should probably let the others know what happened."
Meanwhile, back in the Netherworld, Grim turned to his throne and saw that a visitor had apparently dropped in.
Gnarl, sensing his master's sudden annoyance, spoke up quickly, "Master, I was going to tell you that we had a guest, but you gave me a task to do first, so I didn't have a moment."
Grim, ignoring the minion master, stepped towards the throne and the person that had the audacity to sit on his throne.
"Who are you? Why are you here? And what makes you think I won't kill you?" Grim asked his female guest, who shot to her feet at his question. This motion was the only one that was frantic or worried. Once she was on her feet, her posture turned to one of grace and sensuality. It was then that Grim got a good look at her. She had pale skin and long jet black hair. She wore a black corset with the strings in the middle were loose enough to expose her middle and stopped at her navel. She wore matching elbow-long gloves and boots that went up to her thigh and had loose strings that exposed the sides of her legs.
"My apologies, Dark One, I was waiting for your return and when you did, I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't act properly. I hope that you forgive me," she said, slightly bowing her head.
"If I didn't, you'd be dead. Now, answer me who are you and why are you here?"
"My name is Selene, my lord, and I am here with the hope to become your mistress," the now-named Selene said.
"And why would you want that?" Grim asked.
Selene smiled slightly, "Well, you see, my lord, every since I was a little girl, I had wished to be the mistress of an overlord. Where most little girls dreamed of being princesses and being rescued by some hero in gleaming armor, I dreamed of standing side-by-side with a powerful overlord as we conquered all in our path. (A/N: In short, I essentially made Selene an overlord groupie. What serial killers can have them, but an overlord can't?) For centuries, I was worried that I missed out on my chance to live my dream when that red-haired whore and her muscle-bound nitwit of a barbarian killed your predecessor, but then, centuries later, I sense a magical energy that means only that a new overlord has come into being."
"Centuries?"
"Oh, yes, my liege. You see I have the ability to absorb the lifeforce from others, which allows me to not only power my different abilities, but also keeps me young, so long as I don't exert myself."
"How could you sense the magical energy?" Grim asked.
"I am a powerful sorceress. Such things are a simple matter for me," Selene said shrugging.
"I see and why should I let you be one of my mistresses?" Grim asked.
"You mean besides the obvious?" Selene asked with a seductive smile as she twisted her body to show off her impressive body.
"Unlike my predecessors, I have decided not to choose my mistresses solely based on appearances. Now, what can you offer me?"
Selene seemed to be caught off guard by this. Grim figured she'd expected him to jump at the chance to bed a woman as beautiful as her.
She erased the surprise from her face quickly, "Well, as I said, I'm a powerful sorceress. I also have telepathy, telekinesis, and numerous other abilities, not to mention that I have informants that could help you in your conquest. Also, I have a…friend I suppose that you could call her that would likely wish to be one as well. I also happen to have the ability to increase your no doubt already impressive physical attributes and spells. Finally, I have already received word of an interesting little facility in the Canadian wilderness that might not only offer you a very useful servant, but also some very hard to come by supplies."
"What sort of supplies?" Grim asked, liking her offer more and more, though he was keeping his expression neutral.
"Have you ever heard of the metal known as adamantium?" Selene asked with a smile.
"Very well, I accept your offer. You'll first use that spell of yours and then we'll decide what to do next," Grim said as he started walking up the steps to the private quarters, his voice still monotone. He got about five steps up when he noticed that Selene was still standing by the throne, clearly waiting for him to give her orders. "Well? Come on, we'll do this in the private chambers."
She hurried after him with the exuberance of a trained dog following its master.
While Grim was dealing with Selene, the entire roster of the Avengers, even the reserves, was meeting at their tower with someone that rarely involved himself in the more 'normal' crises: Dr. Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme.
"So, why have you called us here, Doctor?" Steve Rogers AKA Captain America asked, "In case you didn't hear, there's been an explosion down in the warehouse district and we need to check it out."
"Of course, Captain. I wanted to let you know that ten days ago, I sensed a dark energy being released. I tried to find out about it, but it was so small that I couldn't get a good enough sample to analyze, to use a more common description. What little I could determine was that there was nothing about it in the more obvious books in the Sanctorum. I later heard that the energy originated near your fight with the Masters of Evil. Did you notice anything strange during the fight?"
"Yes, actually, there was a boy, whose parents died as collateral damage during the fight. He released this energy that held us back when we came to help him. We mostly assumed he was a mutant. Even after these strange creatures came and took him away."
"Creatures? Could you describe them to me?" Strange asked.
"Sure, but why? What is so important that you'd tell us now when there is a crisis we need to help with?"
"Because that same energy that I sensed ten days ago, I sensed today at the epicenter of the bomb area. I just hope to find something that can tell me the source."
"So, you think…what? That someone made a 'magic' bomb?" Tony Stark asked sarcastically, the biggest magic-pessimist of the group.
"Possibly," Strange said, completely ignoring Stark's trademark sarcasm.
"I believe I can help ya out there, Doc," Spidey said, as he climbed in through a window, his costume slightly burned from the explosion, "And I don't think you're going like it."
A/N: And there's chapter 1! Please remember to review with any comments, question, concerns, or constructive criticism that you might have.