The Spectacular Spider-Harem

by Diablo Ex Machina

Left broken after a large number of emotional traumas, a meeting with a pop-culture loving, cosmically-empowered, blogger babe causes Peter's life to take an interesting turn. You ever wonder just how big a harem can get before it starts to get ridiculous? Well Spidey is about to find out the answer to that question! Discontinued. Reboot Canceled!

8. Destroy (Their) Future

Chapter 8 - Destroy [Their] Future

"Oh man, what a night." Peter grinned as he walked out of the bedroom in nothing but his boxers, stretching out the kinks in his back as he made his way towards the kitchen. "Almost helps me forget I killed a man last night, or afternoon, it's still mostly a blur to me." The self-degradation and bitter reminder of yesterday's events nearly damped his mood, but his emotional high brought on by the massive amount of Tantric Energy - and comparatively small amount of Chaos Energy - now coursing through his veins wouldn't let even him be upset. "Damn it, I thought Galacta said she was gonna drain off all this extra energy for food! Why can't I be unhappy about killing Norman?!"

"Because you shouldn't be upset about it." Laura answered him as she entered the kitchen in nothing but a lacy black bra and panties, her gravid stomach looking bigger and more beautiful that he remembered, and he remembered it well. "You killed a man who was deliberately ruining both your life, and the life of his own son and many others. Not to mention you had a great deal of sex last night. Regardless of the energy Galacta drained from you, those aren't the kind of things you get sad about afterwords."

"She's got a point there." Mary Jane added as she walk in wearing her scale mail bra and loincloth. "Sonja and I are very happy about last night, and we'd feel very insulted if you didn't feel the same." She threatened darkly as she grasped his manhood firmly.

*Spider-Sense!*-She'll rock your world!

"Yes Ma'am!" Peter panicked, the massive amount of very rough sex last night still fresh in him mind and loins.

"Good boy." Felicia kissed his cheek as Mary Jane let him go. "By the way, I didn't bring any underwear last night, so I'm wearing your suit." She purred as she sashayed seductively to a seat, neglecting to mention she was only wearing the top half of his spandex like a shirt just barely long enough to prevent anything from showing.

"Galacta probably would have brought you something to wear if you asked." Nico bounced to a seat, her enormous breasts and shapely rear in jack o' lantern panties and black cat keyhole bra. "She made me this really nice anti-gravity bra, after all." She grinned as she rested her breasts on the table.

"That's where super strength and unstable molecule bras come in handy." Jennifer arced her back and stretched her arms in the air, flaunting every square inch of her rock hard body, massive bosom, and semi-transparent purple lace underwear. "Isn't that right Vange?"

"Yeah, thanks for giving me one of your spares by the way." Evangeline grinned sheepishly as she very carefully navigated her tail, wings, and massive frame around breakable objects, which was pretty much everything at her mass. "Remind me though, who's bright idea was it to spend all morning dressed as sexily as possible?"

"It was Galacta's plan." Liz answered as she rummaged through the fridge, her bright yellow panties squeezing her ass tightly as she bent over. "She felt that after what she pushed Petey into yesterday, it was the best thing we could do to raise his spirits." She bounced up and over to the stove with three cartons of eggs in her arms.

"That, and hopefully give us all some straight answers to why she's been so fixated on him." Shannon added as she pulled two gallons of milk out of the fridge and followed Liz's example, her blue bra with white stars and panties with horizontal red and white stripes visible only briefly before the two of them put on their aprons and began cooking. "Hey Alejandra, do you think you could get the blueberries and pancake mix for us?"

"I'm on it." The flaming skeleton woman complied, the Hellfire that replaced her flesh miraculously filling out her leather dominatrix getup quite nicely.

"Al, these are chocolate chips." Shannon frowned at the offending bag.

"Yeah, so?" The Hispanic woman shrugged. "I like chocolate."

"So, I'm allergic to chocolate." The All-American sweetheart handed the bag back to Alejandra sweetly. "Besides, we agreed on blueberry last night anyway."

"With so much going on last night, who had the mental capacity to keep anything anybody said or did straight?" Rachel asked rhetorically as she lazily pulled a jumbo bag of hash browns out of the freezer, her white bra with black circles in the center of each cup, and vertical black and white striped panties getting many curious stare at how whimsically playful and darkly funny they were compared to her usual 'tough girl' image. Although the long vertical scar in the center of her chest may have been a factor as well. "Could one of you little girls fry these up for me? It's rare that I get a chance to have a full eight hours sleep, so I'm not exactly a morning person when I do." She yawned sleepily as she rubbed the sand from her eyes, barely making it to the table before collapsing face-first into Nico's massive bosom and letting out a tired mumble. "Y'know, fer a minor... *snore*, ya got a pretty sweet rack..." She grinned happily as she nestled her face deeper into the warm, fleshly pillows.

"I know, at least half of the hickies they have are yours after all." Nico rolled her eyes as she brushed the older killer's hair like a mother would to comfort her daughter.

"You wouldn't think that someone responsible for the deaths of so many criminals would look so adorable while sleeping." Silver cooed as she bent over and pinched a grumbling Rachel's cheek, her transparent silver negligee swaying tantalizingly. "And are you gonna come out here and have breakfast or not? I know for a fact that even you have to be hungry after last night." She addressed someone from the doorway.

"I just don't see why I have to dress like this." Natasha pouted as she walked stiffly to the table, her black negligee a perfect compliment to her fellow trained killer. "Going to the trouble of specifically wearing something like this after an orgy of that size just seems like overkill."

"It's part of the fun, Tash." Gwen chided her fellow spider themed heroine as she walked in on the ceiling so she was just over Peter's head. "Besides, if we get to enjoy the view, I think it's only fare that we return the favor." She grinned as she comfortably dropped into the arms of her lover/father of her future child, who couldn't help but grin like an idiot when he noticed that her underwear was spider-themed.

"No matter how many times I see you girls all dressed up like this, or just being around you in general, it never fails to make my day." Peter smiled before kissing Gwen deeply. "It looks like we're still three short though. Are Sage, Ruth and... Gali up yet?" He hesitated to speak of the expecting planet eater; the fact that she no doubt deliberately planned for him to be pushed to murder Norman not forgotten, or fully forgiven for that matter.

"We're all up, don't you worry about that." Sage grinned as she posed seductively in the doorway, her black corset and panties hugging her tightly as she jutted her hip out. "Galacta might be a little slow though. She's worried about how you're gonna take what she has to tell ya."

"Yes, very sorry." Ruth bowed her head as she hid behind Sage, wearing a pink sleeping mask covering where her eyes would be, and baggy green pajamas with frogs on them. "Mr. Spider-Man is very nice. Sorry, Mr. Peter Parker, very nice. Please don't be mad, I just wanted to help."

"Yikes, and people say I apologize too much." Peter winced at how nervous the eyeless young girl looked. "What happened to that confident young prophet that helped me save the world yesterday?" He asked her gently as she took the furthest seat from him.

"Not the same; different when I see things. So sorry, please forgive me." Ruth muttered quietly. "Last night was very nice though." She smiled as she blushed vividly, swaying gently in her seat. "So gentle, so understanding, so perfect."

"Glad to hear I left a good impression." Peter beamed teasingly. "Though I gotta admit, it's pretty odd being around someone even more apologetic and modest than I am. Is this what it feels like when you have to put up with my more angsty side?"

"Depends; do you have a warm feeling that makes you feel right doing whatever you can to help?" Galacta asked from the door as she rubbed her arm nervously, her purple negligee and swollen midsection the last thing on Peter's mind as she took a seat across from him. "Because that's how we feel when we look at you. We just want to help and be helped, love and be loved. Or at least that's how it is with me."

"Yeah, it's something like that." Peter muttered stoically as an eerie weight hung over everyone in the kitchen.

"I guess you have a lot of questions you wanna ask me?" Galacta didn't even need to look at her - possibly soon to be ex - boyfriend to know he was looking at her expectantly.

"That's putting it mildly." Peter remarked as everyone looked at her expectantly. "I have so many questions, so many problems that need to be resolved, that I barely even know where to start."

"I can start us off." Rachel uttered groggily as she reluctantly pulled her head away from Nico's bosom. "Why do you look so much more pregnant than you did last night?" As the violent vigilante glanced around, she noticed everyone giving her odd looks. "What? We're all thinking it, I just had the decency to say it so we can stop wondering while we listen to the more important stuff."

"That's actually a good place to start, now that I think on it." Galacta chuckled nervously as she drummed her fingers across her belly. "To answer your question, my state of pregnancy is dependent on how much I've eaten. I progress further along as I eat more calories, and when I can't get calories, I get cravings. Big cravings." She paused for dramatic effect, the makings of a 'healthy' diet for a girl like her making everyone gulp in fear. "Anyway, like I told Peter when we first started dating... if he's feeling generous enough to call it that..." She paused as she hung her head in shame, knowing that Peter wasn't too angry, but still feeling horrible anyway. "Anyway, Spiders and Spider-Powered beings like Peter are the only lifeforms in the universe that can absorb both Chaos and Tantric Energies. For those who don't know, Chaos Energy comes from committing murder, while Tantric Energy comes from having sex. And when they mix together, they pretty much break the known laws of conservation of energy."

"Giving you tons of energy to feed off of." Natasha nodded understandingly. She may not have approved of some of the cosmic being's methods, but she could see the value in them.

"That doesn't explain why you let Peter impregnate you in the first place." Laura continued the questioning as she massaged her own belly.

"Pot calling the kettle black, much?" Liz smirked at Laura teasingly, being one of the few people in the room who still liked and trusted Galacta unconditionally.

"You're one to talk." Laura returned fire casually. "Your hormone levels indicate that you're expecting as well." Jaws all around the room dropped instantly, the most extreme of which was Liz herself.

"She's right." Sage nodded in confirmation as she removed her hand from Liz's shoulder, which she hadn't even noticed was there. "I can read bodies like a book, and you're definitely at least a few days along."

"I'm gonna have a baby?" Liz gasped in shock as she held her abdomen. "But I'm still in high school, and my brother is still in jail. I can't believe I'm gonna be a teen mom..." For several seconds there was a stinging silence, and then... "Yyyyeeeessssss~! This is the best day ever! I'm gonna be a mother, and my sweetie Petey is the father!" She cried excitedly as she latched onto Peter and gave him a big smooch. "We're gonna be such a happy family, aren't we?"

"You're surprisingly happy about this." Peter chuckled nervously as he held Liz close. "I would think you'd be panicking even more than I am right about now."

"Please Petey, I've wanted this ever since we started dating." Liz smiled warmly. "Think about it, my brother has a serious gambling problem that he doesn't let me help him stop, and is so overprotective of me that he constantly ignores his own problem. Hell, he probably tries to smother me with his protection specifically so he doesn't have to correct his addiction. Not to mention all of your emotional struggles you never let me help you with until my Galacta came into the picture and my X-Gene kicked in." She teased, embarrassing her lover with his previous emotional distance. "I've felt so powerless to help the people I care about most for so long that I have this uncontrollable need to help and protect others, something I'm sure you know all too well as well." She kissed him again. "Being a mother would do all of that and so much more. I need to do this Petey, not just for your or me, but for our child as well. I'm gonna be there for our baby, we both are. I know they say having kids can't fix a broken relationship, nor should they, but in a loving family they can make all of us more complete."

"...Why did you ever leave her in the first place?" Gwen asked Peter in amazement. "I would have shared you with her from the get go if I knew she was this amazing."

"So would I, Tiger." Mary Jane grinned right before kissing Liz deeply. "It's official, as of right now I'm totally in love with you Liz."

"Good to know." Liz grinned as wide as she could.

"I'm pregnant too." Laura raised her hand like an impatient elementary school student. "Don't I get a kiss?"

"Maybe once I get pregnant." Mary Jane backed away from the stoic enthusiasm of the feral mutant. "...I'm not, am I?" She asked hesitantly, recalling Laura's ability to sniff subtle hormone changes.

"...No." Laura pouted sullenly. "But Natasha, Silver, and Felicia are." She quickly turned her attention to three women, especially Natasha, who practically choked on the news.

"I'm what!?" Natasha panicked as Silver and Felicia were each going through their own inner turmoil. "Th-th-that's impossible! I'm sterile, so there's absolutely now way that..." She trailed off as she remembered the conversation she and Peter had shortly after she regained all of her memories. "Peter... What did you do to me?" She interrogated with all the intimidation skills she could put into just words.

"Well..." Peter tried and failed desperately to avoid eye contact with his super spy girlfriend. "I may have managed to intercept a few files you sent to SHIELD about the Infinity Gems..."

*Spider-Sense!*-Do not anger the woman with 80 ways to kill you before breakfast, before breakfast!

"And I knew, depending on how things went, they may try to put you in a position where you either had to steal them, or possibly betray SHIELD..." Peter continued to talk, even as his - now entirely real and unmodified - Spider-Sense was telling him to stop. "So I figured that if you had to go on maternity leave, it would be considered too dangerous for someone in your condition, and eventually a conflict of interests even a super spy organization couldn't ignore."

For several tense seconds there was an unbearable silence between Peter and Natasha, the trained espionage agent scaring her much more powerful lover with nothing more than the force of her glare. Eventually, just as Peter was about to crack, Natasha backed down with a sigh.

"I should be angry at you right now, incredibly so at that." Natasha began tensely. "You intercepted maximum security messages, betrayed my trust, and put me into a condition I'm not ready for... but I'm far too impressed at your skill and initiative to be mad right now." She smiled before placing a delicate kiss on her lover's cheek. "Is it weird that your gross invasion of my privacy only served to turn me on?"

"Incredibly so." Silver grinned cheekily as she wrapped her arms around Natasha's stomach from behind. "Fortunately, you're among good company. After all, I'm in the same boat as you are now."

"Reminds me of when we all first met." Natasha let out a brief, humorless chuckle, recalling their mutual bout of amnesia. Her reminiscing brought another matter back to her mind, bringing her attention directly to Peter. "Speaking of which, I can accept that you managed to outmaneuver my espionage skills, but how did you manage to cure my condition so quickly? Medical advances don't exactly happen overnight, and you've already been busy with so many other matters. Where did you find the time?"

"When someone you love needs help, you make time." Peter shrugged. "Besides, I've been working on the cure to your sterility for longer than I let on."

"And exactly how long have you been working on it?" Felicia asked curiously, clearly looking forward to one of his usual surprises.

"Since about five seconds after she first mentioned it." He grinned playfully. "I'm a genius, what did you expect?"

"Great things, we all expect great things. Thank you." Ruth added her two cents before sheepishly sinking back into her seat. "Love you long time please, thank you."

"Yes, you're a genius. Now can I get back to my exposition?" Galacta inquired, drawing all attention back to herself, both the good and the bad. "Thank you. Anyway, continuing from where we left off, me getting pregnant was more of a personal choice than anything I really needed to do." She blushed as she smiled in nostalgia. "I've seen so many heroes on so many planets rise and fall over my thousands of years, but I've never seen anyone quite like Spider-Man, like Peter. Don't get me wrong, there are tons of people with Spider powers in the universe. Hell, there's even an Intergalactic Society of Spider-Men if you can believe it." She couldn't help but chuckle at the looks of shock and disbelief everyone had.

"Bullshit!" Kiden shouted in denial as she walked in dressed in a red and blue bathrobe, shocking everyone who didn't know she was there, which was everyone. "...Oooohhh, I probably shouldn't have said that out loud, huh?" She winced when she realized her mistake.

"What is she doing here?!" Shannon panicked as she tried to cover herself, suddenly much more modest now that there was an outside party present.

"Ask Laura, she's her friend!" Alejandra pointed at the mutant accusingly.

"Don't get mad at her, I came here on my own last night." Kiden remarked nonchalantly as she took a seat and started munching on some of the pancakes without waiting for permission. "We were hanging out last night and she said something about her boyfriend needing her support. I can freeze time, so it wasn't all that hard to follow her here without being noticed."

"You followed me?" Laura whispered in a minimum of awe and pride.

"You were here last night?" Nico winced, mortified when Kiden just nodded with a smug grin on her face. "How much did you see?"

"Not nearly as much as I felt, considering I dived in about a minute into the orgy." Kiden sighed wistfully, again leaving everyone speechless. "Funny thing about orgies, when they get really big, you tend to lose track of who's who. Don't ask me how I know that, I just do." She held up her hands in a stopping motion, refusing to say anything else on the subject.

"Why?" Peter pleaded with his head in his hands. "Just... why?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but my family was even more of a wreck than usual yesterday." Kiden sighed as she leaned back in her chair until Laura forced the legs back onto the floor. "Spoilsport." The time stopper pouted at her friend. "Anyway, the day started with my mom finding all the heroin my older brother was supposed to move for his boss, and flushing it down the toilet. I knew a huge shitstorm was coming, so I made myself scarce and decided to hang out with Laura all day. Then Laura had to go help you, I tried to go home, but when I got there a bunch of thugs were shaking down my mom and brothers for the drugs. I managed to break one of their arms as an example, but I didn't want to kick up a big fuss with the local crime bosses, so I told them they could take the money they're owed out of my big brother's hide and organs, seeing as how he was the one who bought the package, lost it, and couldn't pay for it. My mom was pretty pissed that I signed my brother's death sentence when I could have helped, and my bratty little brother practically worshiped the ground my big brother walked on, so they both kicked me out and said not to come back until I saved my brother. Can you believe it? Me, an apathetic and unmotivated drug addict that just so happened to have the power to freeze time, and they're expecting me to risk my life to save someone I don't even like. Tch, as if! That kind of thinking got my old man killed when he was on the force. And even if I cared about what happens to him he's probably dead by now anyway, and since we had sex last night, and you're an upstanding millionaire hero, I figure that makes you my sugar daddy, which means I can crash here as long as I like. Probably forever."

By the time she was done talking, everyone was mortified, horrified, and thoroughly disgusted at everyone in the Nixon family, though less so at Kiden, and more so at her older brother than anything else.

"Okay, there's so much wrong about that rant that it would take me all day to properly work through all the conflicting emotions I feel right now." Peter sighed as he massaged his temples, his morning after buzz officially dead now. "Laura, you're right. She needs to get out of that house."

"Does that mean you're letting me live here?" Kiden prodded Peter eagerly.

"...Maybe... but there's gonna be a few conditions." Peter cut her off before she could get started again. "First of all, no telling anyone who I am."

"Done." Kiden nodded eagerly. "The only thing I could think to get out of you for your identity is money, and you're already giving me that."

"Second, if you're gonna live here, rent free I might add, then you're gonna have to keep it clean." He mentally chuckled as she gave an exaggerated groan and banged her head against the table theatrically. "Don't complain, this is technically my loft, and I refuse to let it become your personal pigpen."

"Fine~!" Kiden whined, as if the very idea of any work was a sin punishable by death. "Will there be anything else, master? Shall I become your personal baby factory, popping out time manipulating Spider-Babies every nine months? Perhaps you'd like me to dress-up like a little French maid and take care of your morning wood everyday?"

"Take off your robe." Felicia instructed her curtly as she pulled the waist-tie loose.

"Wait a sec, I was only joking about the-" Kiden stopped short when she saw that she was wearing a French maid uniform under her robe. "Where the hell did this come from?" She asked uncomfortably.

"That would be me." Galacta raised her hand impatiently. "And speaking of me, do you think we could get back to me and let me finish my story already?" Hearing nothing but silence and the faint sound of pancakes and hash browns being stacked high on several serving plates, she felt comfortable continuing. "Now then, to recap: Spiders feed on sex and murder, I can feed off that energy through them, and I got pregnant with Peter's child for personal reasons. Moving along, picture the multiverse as a giant web, with each intersection of threads being a different universe-"

"Multiverse? You mean like that crazy comic book stuff lazy writers use to explain away anything that doesn't fit in their vision of the story?" Felicia raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

"It's totally real." Shannon chuckled nervously. "I'm actually from an alternate universe."

"...I'd ask someone to shoot me if I didn't have my baby to worry about." Gwen pouted sullenly.

"-And the center of the web being its' universe of origin." Galacta carried on loudly as if she hadn't been interrupted. "This web, known as The Web of Life and Destiny, is an artificial construct made by a family of immortals at the center of the multiverse. These immortals call themselves The Inheritors, and they use The Web to create and manipulate fate to seed individuals with powers derived from various animals around the multiverse. They create these animal based super beings, and cultivate them with pain and suffering, so that they can grow and mature until they're ripened enough by constant misery and woe to be tasty to their twisted palettes."

"Seriously?!" Peter asked irately, images of all his unhappiness since he got his powers flashing before his eyes. "You mean to say that everything, EVERYTHING bad that's happened to me since I got my powers has all been so a bunch of gluttonous cannibals can eat me?!"

"Well, not exactly everything." Galacta corrected sheepishly. "There is such a thing as dumb luck, not to mention your own self-destructive, self-sacrificing, and self-martyring tendencies pushing you to take the hard road when the easy road works just as well, or even better, for far less effort and emotional turmoil. Also, some of your personal troubles and fights you get into weren't arranged by them. But, for the most part, yeah, it's totally their fault. Especially that part with your Uncle Ben, they do that to almost all Peter Parkers in the multiverse."

"...I'm gonna kill them!" Peter hissed as talons popped out of his wrist, much to everyone's shock - especially Laura, who suddenly felt her love for him skyrocket. "I swear, if it's the last thing I do, I'm gonna kill those-"

"You already did." Galacta cut him off. "I went to the center of the multiverse a while ago, and ate the Inheritors."

"Turnabout is fair play." Alejandra nodded approvingly, her fire going out and her dominatrix leather turning into black lacy lingerie as the young Hispanic woman and Shannon began serving up pancakes and hash browns to everyone.

"Even if it is kinda gross..." Shannon added as she tried to imagine anything but Galacta eating people. Horrible people, but people nonetheless "Not that there's anything wrong with a little gross from time to time." She grinned as she pictured herself with a massive baby belly, being held gently by the man she loved.

"But why do all this for me?" Peter asked pleedingly. "Not that I'm not grateful, but you had to have had a reason."

"Like I said, I helped you because I love you." Galacta smiled at her lover. "You and all other Spiders in the multiverse have been getting raw deals since day one, and not just from the Inheritors. There are, or at least were tons of Madame Webs in the multiverse as well, each one promised immortality in exchange for helping to cultivate and harvest a bumper crop of Totems for the Inheritors to devour."

"Why did no one stop this sooner, though?" Jennifer asked out of concern for Peter, along with all others like him in the multiverse. "Surely if you were able to stop them, then someone else had to have-"

"I barely survived stopping them." Galacta corrected the gammazon tiredly. "They existed at the center of the multiverse. That's where they were born, and that's where they ruled, manipulating all of fate to suit their whims. I may have been able to eat them, but I couldn't digest them unless a mixture of Chaos and Tantric energy got absorbed into the Web of Life and Destiny, poisoning them long enough for my stomach to break them down into food for my little girl." She smiled as she rubbed her belly lovingly.

"Hang on," Gwen stopped Galacta. "Are you saying that out of all of these Spider Totems in all realities, Peter, our Peter, is the first one to kill someone?" She asked in disbelief.

"Oh no, far from it." Galacta shook her head. "Between all the Spider-Zombies, Spider-Wolves, Spider-Bats, Spider-Assassins, Spider-Monkeys, Spider-Men that gave into the symbiotes, and that Japanese Spider-Man with the giant robot, the multiverse is full of Peter Parkers with huge body counts. He's just the first one that wasn't cut from the Web by the local Madame Web before he could do it."

"And I take it you're the one who prevented him from being cut?" Rachel smiled approvingly at the (relatively) young planet eater.

"I have a giant robot in Japan!?" Spider-Man geeked out excitedly, completely shattering the building tension and ignoring the main point of what was being discussed at the moment so he could fantasize about piloting a giant robot in his image. "That is so awesome! Why does all the cool stuff have to be exclusive to Japan though? I want a giant robot too!"

"Hey, it's like I told Infinity and Eternity." Galacta shrugged proudly, ignoring he lover's fanboy-isms for the moment. "I don't give a fuck about all that 'fate' and 'destiny' stuff! Nobody gets away with hurting my man, and if the only way he leads the happy life he deserves requires messing up the grand design for the multiverse, then move over One Above All, because Galacta has a boyfriend to violently overprotect!"

"Infinity and Eternity?" Natasha wondered hesitantly. "Do I even want to know-?"

"The living embodiments of all possible timelines, and our entire universe respectively." Galacta shrugged like it was no big deal. "Don't get me wrong, I love my Auntie Infinity and Uncle Eternity to Grandma Death, but for a married couple, they're not exactly understanding of the feelings of others. It's like; Hello! I'm over 18,000 now, I can make my own decisions without you hounding me all the time, and if I wanna get teen pregnant by cosmic being standards, then I'm gonna get teen pregnant by cosmic being standards! Thank the One Above All that Uncle Eternity is so ticklish, or I might never have saved my Spidey-Wideykins!" She cooed childishly as she began frantically kissing her man.

"Either her hormones are acting up, or people really need to start rethinking their opinions on religion and deities." Evangeline whispered to Jennifer, who was struggling not to burst out laughing.

"Knowing Galacta, I'm leaning towards both." Peter remarked jokingly. "So... that's the whole story? You did all this for me?" He asked his cosmic girlfriend uncertainly.

"Mostly for you, but I also did it to do some of my own hero work as well." Galacta remarked as a hologram of a web appeared out of nowhere on the table. "Think of this as The Web of Life and Destiny," As she spoke, the web began tearing apart at the seams, starting in a far corner of the web and spreading out from there. "This is the effect your murdering Osborn while still connected had on it," The web then began wrapping in bunches around all the points where the web once intersected. "And this is what I was doing to it after you murdered Osborn, while you were busy fading in and out of dimensional planes." Noticing the looks she was getting, she just waved them off. "Don't worry, nothing bad happened to you during that time, it's just that you spent a lot of time between when you killed Osborn and when you got here last night completely unaware of anything, so I figured you may want some answers to fill in that big blank."

Blinking in surprise at this news, he turned to Sage and Ruth for answers, hoping that the two of them, having been with him when he killed Osborn, would know anything. Curiously, they both just shrugged uncertainly, apparently as unaware that anything had happened as he was. "Huh, and here I thought I was going through some crazy PTSD. Dimensional hooey makes so much more sense." He rolled his eyes sarcastically.

"You're in a penthouse, surrounded by your seventeen or eighteen girlfriends, eating chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes and hash browns stacked to the ceiling, and you're questioning the cosmic sense your planet eating baby mama is making when she's talking about how she saved all versions of you in all realities." Felicia pointed out. "That is the weirdest run-on sentence in the history of run-on sentences, and I have a feeling things are just gonna get weirder. Take your cat burglar baby mama's advice, and just roll with it."

"That's right, you're pregnant too now." Peter nodded, deliberately choosing to focus on the single least impossible thing about what was just said. "So why tie up so many realities in neat little bows? I thought this cosmic web thing was bad news."

"Anything can be used for good or for ill, depending on the intent of the one using it." Galacta grinned proudly. "I told all versions of myself across all realities what my plan was, and they all decided to help out with this last bit. By taking the scraps of the Web and weaving them around our universes, we protect them from any foreign invaders of a cosmic scale." To demonstrate, several glowing dots tried to impact the protected realities in the hologram, only to be harmlessly bounced away. "Granted, anything below a certain level of power can easily slip through, as can anything we didn't specifically design the shields to repel, but since it's a structure from the center of the multiverse that's been constantly added to for longer than even the Elders of The Universe have been alive - about five billion years or so - nothing it's designed to keep out can get through."

"While we're on the subject, exactly what can it keep out?" Natasha was immediately at attention, her sense of global security on red alert at the news of cosmic threats. "Also, is it just keeping things out, or is it also keeping something in? And what other effects might this barrier have on our reality?"

"You don't leave any stone unturned, do you?" Sage glanced at the spy with a half-curious, half-impressed grin on her face. "But she does have a point; what sort of fallout should we expect from this?" Not 'might', 'should'. Sage refused to believe that there wasn't some kind of catch to all this.

"Well..." Galacta hesitantly glanced off to the side before quickly brightening up again. "Let's focus on the positives first, shall we? Our reality won't collide with any others, thus wiping out both universes. Devils and the like can't tempt wavering mortals anymore, they can only be summoned deliberately by incredibly complex rituals that very few people could manage. The Celestials - a race of godlike aliens with a passion for experimenting on lower lifeforms, who make Gods like Thor and Hercules look like regular mortals by comparison - have all been ripped asunder like grated cheese, along with all variations of the Collector and the Grand Master. No variation of a Zombie Virus can exist in the barriers. Non-consensual hive minds and psychic/pheromone-based brainwashing within the barriers will fall apart instantly so long as some remnant of the original minds remains, though brainwashing via long term conditioning or replacing the brain entirely will still be a problem. Oh, and if you ever read any H.P. Lovecraft, don't worry, nothing like that can happen anymore. Anything more threatening than anything I already mentioned isn't gonna be able to get through the barrier either, so with all the heroes this Earth already has, we're more or less secure. If something strong enough to break through all these precautions with pure force arrives then we're all pretty much screwed anyway. Is that a thorough enough explanation for you?" Based on the stunned silence rippling through the room, she seemed to have gotten her point across.

"...Zombies are real?" Evangeline looked around worriedly, shattering the silence as her teeth began chattering.

"Really? That's what you're focusing on?" Kiden chuckled. "Not the fact that she's implying that there's a multitude of multiverses? That for all the many variations of ourselves that exist, there are countless other universes where no versions of ourselves exist? That in all the infinite cosmos we are nothing more than specs of dust, upon specs of dust, upon specs of dust, upon slightly larger specs of dust? That nothing we ever say or do has any cosmological importance? Granted, that's a pretty healthy stance to take; you'll save yourself a lot of headaches that way. Basically, don't think about it."

"...Are you on drugs?" Peter asked worriedly as he held a hand over Laura's belly protectively, as if it could somehow protect the three unborn children from a contact high.

"Not at the moment." Laura assured her mate, blushing as she felt her babies kicking as if in response to the touch of their father. "She only gets existential when she's totally sober."

"Do I even wanna know what you two get up to when I'm not around?" Peter asked hesitantly.

"Don't worry, our babies are my top priority." Laura assured her mate as she fed him pancakes a scene from a high school romance manga. "I would never put our litter in any danger."

"Look alive people, we've got incoming." Sage advised as she appeared from another doorway. "I was off checking the security cameras to get a copy of last night's escapades, when I noticed that we have another uninvited guest in our midst. Isn't that right?" She remarked strictly as an amazonian redhead in a gold tiara, belt, and bracelets, tight red crop top with just a right sleeve, tight red pants with a chain belt, and most notably had a handprint shaped red mark across the left side of her face, entered the room. It took a second for everyone to process the strange new woman's appearance, but once they did, everyone recoiled and braced themselves in shock. "I take it you all remember our little friend from last night then?"

"How could I not?" Peter scowled angrily as Gali snapped her fingers, instantly dressing everyone in their hero uniforms. "Kinda hard to forget anything that happened last night." He barely noticed the talons slowly and menacingly extending from his wrists. "So what happened? Last I saw you were sporting a green coat of paint and kidnapping innocent teens to turn them into Osborn's guinea pigs. Oh, and being erased from existence because I destroyed your timeline. What ever happened to that?"

"You are angry, as you have every right to be." The amazon nodded remorsefully as she looked around the room, everyone either preparing to fight or flee - except for Kiden and Gali, who were bickering over the maid uniform the time stopper was being forced to wear. "I trespass in a past unprepared for and unaware of my presence, and aid a known lunatic in his depraved mad science."

"The lunatic angle is actually pretty recent." Spider-Man corrected her as he got ready to let out what little misplaced aggression was still coursing through him. "He used to fake it pretty well, but apparently whatever HYDRA did to him made the fake crazy into real crazy, which gives you even less ground to stand on. Add in the fact that you just ruined a surprisingly pleasant morning, and... Well, just give me an excuse. Please."

"Please don't be too mad at Thundra." A wispy female voice pleaded as a cloud of white smoke carried in a long bundle of black fabric, which slowly shaped itself into a teenage girl with short red hair. "She only did what she did to protect her people, and now she has nothing to go back to."

"Wait a minute, I remember you from yesterday." American Dream remarked as several other girls walked in, some looking more or less pleased with their former kidnapper than others. "All of you, you all helped us take down Osborn."

"Well, most of us did." The Asian girl in the hazmat suit crossed her arms bitterly as she glared at Thundra.

"Don't be so sore, Jennifer." The dark-haired girl with a pixie cut in the black and white jumpsuit pat her on the back. "She didn't want to hurt us in any way."

"Well she sure as hell has a weird way of showing it!" She snapped as her gloves and mask started glowing in anger. "And the name is Hazmat! So long as I can't get near anyone without this stupid suit without giving them radiation poisoning, I'm nothing but a Hazmat! And it's all her fault!" She literally pointed hotly at Thundra, the heat her radiation generated ominously warming up the air around her through her suit.

"Calm down Hazmat, we went over this before we came here this morning." Komodo massaged Hazmat's shoulders reassuringly. "You guys have X-Genes. Osborn didn't give you powers, he just expedited their development. If anything, this whole experience has saved your family a lot of potential harm."

"I'm still a freak though." Hazmat sulked bitterly.

"I like my powers." A girl in a primarily white jumpsuit and helmet with red and blue details remarked as she lazily drifted by on a cloud. "I'm flying high on Cloud 9, and life is going great. Hey, Cloud 9! That's a pretty sweet nickname! What do you guys think?" She asked excitedly.

"I'm thinking 'why are you even here'!" Hazmat scowled irately. "You said yourself that you have no problems controlling your powers, and that you're not interested in heroics. Granted, I'm not interested either, but you have even less reason to be here than I do."

"Huh, you're right." Cloud 9 muttered curiously, apparently not having realized any of that until Hazmat mentioned it. "This Super Zero is out. Peace!" Kissing her fingers and flashing a peace sign, Cloud 9 rushed out the window on her cloud. "FREEDOOOOOOOM~!" She cheered as she zoomed off into the horizon, never looking back.

"...Should we be worried about her?" Spider-Girl asked hesitantly. "I mean, was she, or any of you guys for that matter, here long enough to see..." She trailed off as she gestured to her face.

"Don't worry, none of us saw anything." The girl in black and white grinned as she twirled a metal baton. "Well, none of them saw anything, but I can read your bodies like an open book, so I know what you were all up to last night." She teased them playfully, leaving many people red faced. "Gotta admit, I'm pretty surprised that someone as lithe as you could make so many women so happy in one sitting. And don't try to deny it, your muscle tensions and erogenous zones show that you've all had sex recently. Don't ask me how I know that. I'm not sure myself, and it kinda freaks me out to be honest, but that's why we're here; to figure things out."

"What Jeanne means is that we wanna be heroes." Komodo explained as her tail shuffled across the floor awkwardly. "...Well, some of us do at least." She amended when Hazmat loudly cleared her throat. "Some of us just want to get our powers under control."

"Wow, this is abrupt." Spider-Man raised a brow in confusion. "Any particular reason why? Not just why you wanna be heroes, but why you came to us for help? And why is she here, and not green, or arrested for kidnapping?" He pointed at Thundra, too confused to be angry right now.

"I am here because this compelled me to come." Thundra began as she placed a dull orange rock on the table, causing the heroes to stare in shock. "As for my skin and freedom, those can both be traced back to the Infinity Gems as well." Now everyone was back on guard. Gone were suspicions and accusation, and in their place was a tense sense of abject terror and caution.

"Well, exposition seem to be the main topics of the day. Stop." Kiden remarked sarcastically as she disappeared, only to reappear a split second later with several additional chairs for the increasingly crowded table. "That being the case, you can count me out! I already had enough existential bullshit to deal with before I met any of you. If any of you need me for anything sexual, I'll be sleeping off a hangover on the couch. Otherwise, just let me nap until noon." She massaged her temples as she stuffed a whole chocolate chip pancake dripping with butter and syrup in her mouth and walked out.

"...Why are the two of you friends?" Nico asked X-23 tiredly as she folded her arms over her gothic lolita garbed bosom.

"Proximity." Was all she could say in defense of their friendship.

"If you don't mind, let's get back to the matter at hand." Spider-Man remarked as he gingerly handled the orange rock Thundra placed on the table. "First of all, I'm sure we're all wondering why you're going by Thundra now, when you were going by Lyra yesterday." The tension immediately deflated, causing everyone to stare at him tiredly. "What? We're all thinking it. Besides, with how much Hulking Out can mess with someone's personality, there's a chance last night wasn't entirely her."

"You are very wise, Man of Spiders." Thundra nodded somberly as she and the others took seats at the table. "It is indeed as you suspected, though my condition cannot take all the blame. Perhaps it would be best for me to start at the beginning."

"That's usually the best place to start a debriefing." Black Widow seconded with authority.

"My story begins in the 28th century, in a society where females are the dominate race, and men are little more than savage animals and breeding stock." Thundra began.

"You lost me." Silver Sable threw her hands up in surrender, voicing a sentiment almost every else shared in.

"I was the leader of my tribe, an honor only given to the strongest, wisest, and most willing to go to any lengths for her people." Thundra continued unhindered. "One day I was approached by shrouded traveler, who spoke of the end of all our time and history."

"We got those here in New York too." Spider-Man joked. "Did they wear a tin foil hat and a sign that said 'The End is Nigh' while shouting at the top of their lungs about the Illuminati, 9/11, and inside jobs?"

"Mock me if you will, but this traveler had true power." Thundra remarked tiredly. "She shared visions of the past, of our history going off course at a vital junction. Our timeline, our history, everything we ever knew, was all being undone by the unraveling of our past. If nothing was done, our entire civilization, everything we had ever known, would be wiped out as if we never existed."

"And the traveler gave you the Time Gem, along with instructions on how to prevent that." Black Cat remarked casually. "I'm not a mind reader, it's just really obvious from context." She added before anyone could ask.

"You are half correct." Thundra replied. "Much of our history has been lost over centuries of conflict, but the origin of our society was never forgotten."

"It all started with a maniac named Norman Osborn." Ghost Rider scowled, her flames rising in anger as Thundra merely lowered her head in shame.

"That does seem to make sense." Sage nodded as she skimmed her finger across a tablet. "I've been powering through some of the data I looted from Osborn - by the way, what kind of backwards paranoid nut has a triple redundant security system on a flash drive they keep on their person when going out to commit acts of evil? I mean it just makes no sense on so many levels." She shrugged nonchalantly, as Spider-Man nervously made a mental note to add another layer or two of security to the Omega Drive woven into his suit. "Anyway, the guy seemed to be crazy obsessed with the X-Gene and other mutations, like he felt it was some major cornerstone for world domination. His notes compare mutations to tinfoil hats, but his descent into madness caused his notes to turn into scribbles and gobbledygook partway through. A quandary for another day I suppose." She shrugged. "One of his experiments inevitably gone wrong is probably the reason females rule the world in your time." She deduced calmly.

"I did what I felt was necessary to preserve our world." Thundra said with a bitter steel in her voice. "Though our society may be barbaric by your standards, and my actions to preserve it even worse, my people have known nothing else. I would do anything to protect my world, even sell my soul to the devil." Much to everyone's surprise, tears started to well up in the corner of her eyes. "And now, because you have prevented the course of events that would lead to the creation of my timeline, they know nothing at all."

"...I'm sorry." Spider-Man remarked, actually pitying the women who he'd accidentally robbed of everything. "Not for stopping Osborn or saving innocent people; I'll never be sorry for that. But I am sorry that your entire timeline was wiped out because of... wait a second. If your timeline is gone, then why are you still here?" He asked in confusion. "I may only be an amateur when it comes to time travel, but if Back to the Future has taught me anything, it's that when you mess with the past, it completely alters the future. Up to and including people being completely wiped out from existence."

"I am uncertain." Thundra admitted. "I have tried to alter the past for my own reasons, hurt many people in the process, and failed in the end. By all rights and justice I should no longer exist. My best guess is that my exposure to the Time Gem kept me stable, while everything and everyone else of my time was lost." The melancholy in her voice was extremely palpable, so much so that even her former victims felt some degree of pity for her.

"So this is another one of those Infinity Gems?" Rachel noted curiously as Spider-Man continued to turn the stone over and over in his hands. "Looks a lot duller than the ones we've already found."

"That which will be, was no more, is now much less." Blindfold spoke up, giving another cryptic prophesy. "Sorry, will be quiet now." She shuffled her feet awkwardly as American Dream pat her gently on the back.

"Was that English?" Hazmat asked in confusion as she turned to her fellow former kidnapping victims. "Veil, Finesse; do either of you have any idea what that means?"

"No, but I managed to follow most of what they were saying so far." Veil shuffled her bandage bound feet quietly. "You know, from context."

"Sounds like she's saying the rock that brought Thundra here isn't working well now that her timeline is gone." Finesse deduced, getting odd stares from everyone. "...What? I'm good at getting a read on people." She shrugged.

"And apparently I'm good at getting a read on Infinity Gems." Spider-Man whispered in awe, completely ignoring everything and everyone around him for a moment as he 'listened' to the dull rock in his hands. "The Time Gem, it's speaking to me, telling me something about where it's hidden itself."

"The Time Gem... is hiding?" Firestar remarked skeptically. "You mean the thing you're holding in your hand right now?"

"No... Yes... Both?" Spider-Man answered uncertainly as his lenses shifted rapidly. "This isn't the Time Gem; not entirely anyway, just a piece of it, with only part of its true power."

"How is that possible?" Evangeline wondered curiously, ignoring the fact that her lover could apparently talk to the all-powerful rock as unimportant. "Infinite is Infinite; even divided its power should still be limitless."

"There's also the small matter of Infinity Gems only working when they have a host or other conduit to bond to." She-Hulk added, tapping on her own Power Gem for emphasis.

"Actually, the Time Gem is a bit different from the other Infinity Gems." Galacta confessed nervously, drawing several expectant stares from everyone present. "Because it has power over all of Time, the law of superposition affects it differently. From the beginning of Time, the Time Gem has known and been bonded to all of its possible hosts, and because of this it's always had the ability to access its own powers."

"That makes sense." Spider-Man nodded absentmindedly as a faint glow flickered inside the rock. "The Time Gem knows all possible outcomes, so it decided to set things up so that it would eventually get the best host possible. The only way it could do that was to split its powers into various timelines where all possible hosts reside, then start up a twisted contest to choose which host, and which timeline, would win the right to exist."

"Did the Gem tell you this, or was it just a guess?" Thundra asked tensely as she cracked her knuckles, the look on her face promising pain to the Time Gem depending on the answer, and despite the fact that it was an indestructible rock that represented the physical embodiment of all of Time itself.

"A little of each actually." Spider-Man shrugged uncertainly. "I mean, I know it split itself into multiple timelines, but these other feelings and impulses I'm getting from it are a little sketchy, like trying to pay attention to half a dozen different TVs at max volume; each one playing a movie from a different genre at the same time. It's actually kinda giving me a headache to be honest." He explained as he put the stone down and rubbed his temples. "I do know this though; the Time Gem isn't evil, it's just using everything at its disposal to make the best outcome. Not even the Time Gem can allow multiple timelines to exist in the same universe."

"...I suppose I can accept that." Thundra hung her head in resignation. "The Time Gem tested my worthiness to wield it and save my timeline, and I failed. Even that is more generosity than could be expected under any other circumstances."

"Speak for yourself." Hazmat scowled at the rock, openly blaming it for her condition. "Anyway, you said that each piece of this useless hunk of rock had different time powers, right?" Spider-Man nodded in response. "So I'm guessing this piece does time travel, seeing as how future freak is here." She glanced bitterly at Thundra.

"Nnnope." Spider-Man twittered in a chipper tone, making a popping noise on the 'P'. "Each piece draws itself to each other, and that bridges the gap between possible timelines. Outside of that, if a timeline becomes impossible, then each piece just becomes a part to reunite with the whole. One piece; One power. And this piece is made to Fast-Forward time."

"It's not dangerous to be around, right?" Finesse asked nervously as she and Veil hid behind Thundra. "We aren't gonna, y'know, age to dust?"

"No." Galacta denied as she placed the piece of the Time Gem into the box she gave her lover for the Infinity Gems, just in case. "Though it did cause some minor passive effects as a sort of apology for messing with you all. Tell me, don't you find it weird how well you all seem to be getting along, despite your bad introductions?"

"...I did go through the five stages of grief faster than usual." Veil commented nonchalantly, drawing several brief but concerned glances. "...I have low self-esteem."

"I guess the fact that I don't wanna kill you for kidnapping and experimenting on me is a bit weird." Hazmat glared at Thundra, who barely even reacted to the insult, seeming more resigned and used to it than anything else.

"And your clones made peace with their status as mere replicas of the original Spider-Man rather quickly once Osborn's technology no longer had a hold on their minds." Thundra informed Spider-Man. "Although they did appear despondent when they mentioned something about their aunt being in for a surprise." She tagged on uncertainly, causing Peter's blood to rush from his head as he realized the unsettling implications of that seemingly benign comment, especially for his female clone.

'I would not wanna be in her shoes.' Peter winced sympathetically. 'Although I guess I kinda am, in a way.'

"So we basically skipped over all the angsting and anger that usually comes with an origin story?" Finesse grinned as she balanced one of her batons on her right index finger, while twirling the other in her left hand. "That's actually pretty cool." She flipped her batons so that both were in her left hand and pointed at Spider-Man. "So does this mean we get to skip all the awkward sidestepping of our feelings and societal norms, and get right to the part where we're all okay with sharing our new boyfriend Spider-Man with a couple dozen other girls?"

"Is that really the analysis you're making of this situation?" Evangeline raised her horned brow cynically, while making no effort effort to dissuade the idea like so many others present were trying to figure out how to do.

"I have photographic reflexes." Finesse rolled her eyes as raised a hand in a halting motion. "What that means is that I can instantly analyze bodily motions, repeat them flawlessly, and predict likely outcomes based on known patterns. Basically, I can read each and every one of you like a book; and this book is telling me we're all probably gonna fall for Spider-Man sooner or later, so I'm going to choose sooner."

"...Do the rest of you feel the same way?" Spider-Girl asked them expectantly, experience making her ready for whatever answer she got.

"Absolutely NOT!" Hazmat vehemently denied, the very idea causing her face to glow so much from anger that the visor of her helmet was completely obscured by the glare. "I'll have you know I have a boyfriend! ...who hates mutants... and nuclear power... and was getting kinda impatient for some action and spontaneously developed cancer right before I was kidnapped... oh god!" She winced as she realized her boyfriend probably wouldn't be sticking around once he saw her present condition.

"...Well..." Veil stared at the floor and shuffled her feet quietly. "I've always been a big fan of yours Spider-Man, especially since that time you stopped the bank robbery where my dad and uncle work."

Spider-Man winced as he tried to find a delicate way to phrase his response, not wanting to offend one of his fans. "...Could you... maybe be a bit more specific? I've stopped like five different bank robberies since I first got my powers a few years ago." He paused as his words sank in. "Huh, five bank robberies stopped by one hero in one city in just a few years? Someone really needs to do something about that, and by 'someone' I mean someone other than me, because I'm starting to realize that even I can't handle everything by myself."

"Wooo-oow~!" Veil whispered airily in awe at Spider-Man's offhand remark of how many crimes he's stopped, almost forgetting to respond. "Oh! Umm... it was that one with Shocker and his friends in those power suits."

"Oh yeah, I remember that one." He frowned as he remembered the good camera he lost that day, and then looked back at Veil, who was still staring amorously at him. "...You do know we never met in person before last night, right?"

"I don't mind." Veil couldn't stop smiling.

"I didn't mind, sorry." Blindfold smiled as her cheeks got redder.

"And you didn't mind either." Sage winked at him teasingly.

"That's different, I mind-melded with both of you." Spidey denied the accusation. "Speaking of which, I am so sorry about what a massive sociopath your brother is, Blindfold. You're a sweet and attentive girl who tried her best to keep her family together, and you did not deserve... what he did to you." He cut himself off as he massaged her shoulders, not wanting to make her uncomfortable.

"Love you long time." Blindfold sighed as she grabbed his hand and smelled it, taking in his scent longingly.

"And Sage," Spider-Man turned to the pale woman. "You were a woman in a third-world country; now you're a super hero - one that can make other super heroes more super - serving what is possibly the most important role on one of the greatest super hero teams in the world no less. I literally cannot think of a better metaphor for how awesome you are, and this is coming from me! I'm never at a loss for what to say!"

"And I'm at a loss as to how you can continue to surprise and delight me when I literally know almost everything about you." Sage grinned as she fiddled with her coffee mug.

Red Sonja gave a low whistle. "Damn, you work fast don't you Tiger?" She grinned as she leaned over to gently pat X-23 on her large belly. "Are you sure the Time Gem piece is only fast-forwarding our emotional states, because you're liable to get us all out of our clothes faster than ever before, and our feral friend here is looking about ready to burst in more ways than one."

"That's what it told me, or tried to anyway." Spider-Man shrugged nonchalantly before standing bolt upright. "Wait a second, that's it! Galacta!" He pointed at his first sex partner, nearly causing her to jump from her seat in shock. "Quick, besides my ability to feed you indefinitely, and your attraction to me, and the Inheritors, and that stuff about destroying fate, why exactly did you approach me? I know you still have reasons you aren't telling me."

"I did it to destroy the Sublime!" Galacta answered in a rush, not really sure why she was responding so quickly and openly to such a personal question, a very horrifying thought to a near omniscient being. "They're an insidious race that represent the living embodiment of the primordial ooze from which all life in the universe originated, and they're bent on having total control over all their creations! They stimulate evolution in other species to make more and more complex lifeforms to possess and drain to maintain their unchanging immortality!" She had no idea why she was divulging so much information so quickly, but she just felt such a powerful conflicting yet addicting feeling of fear and catharsis that she couldn't stop now if she wanted to. "Countless attempts have been made the stop them, but only the X-Gene or a benevolent splinter faction of their race called Klyntar that embraced their mortality and evolution as a species instead of fighting them are able to keep Sublimes from possessing a host! I originally called a Klyntar to Earth to protect and guide you, but you tossed it aside and it went crazy trying to reunite with you! That's why I had to directly meddle in your life like I have! That's why I pushed so hard to force you into a position where you had to kill Osborn!" She was now half-panting, half-sobbing from her rapid explanation. "I just did it to end the selfish machinations of a higher powers from controlling mortals, but I ended up becoming just as bad as they were! I ruined so many lives trying to make you what I needed you to be! I realize that now, but please don't hate me, Peter! I love you too much to bare the idea..." She trailed off in her last sentence, barely a squeaking whisper in comparison to her previous panicked rush of exposition.

For several seconds everyone was too stunned to speak, the bombshell barrage of revelations too much for everyone to process all at once. "...What just happened?" Thundra asked hesitantly.

"Thundra; how did you get the Power Gem, why were green before and normal now, and why did you call yourself Lyra before?" Spider-Man questioned rapidly.

"Osborn had the Power Gem in an emergency lab when I got here, gamma radiation was used to bond it with me by force because it wouldn't bond otherwise, and I called myself Lyra because my natural power and my gamma power were diametrically opposed, causing an imbalance in my mind and body." Thundra rapidly explained. "The Power Gem would only bond properly with a host that got stronger with anger, but I get stronger as I get calmer. The gamma rays were used as a catalyst to bond the gem and I together, so when I was separated from it the mutation wore off."

"...What just happened?" Komodo asked worriedly.

"Something that's gonna be a lifesaver for the near future." Spider-Man grinned like a happy idiot underneath his mask. "Fast-Forwarding emotional responses also Fast-Forwarded how willing you are to disclose information." He let out a slightly hysterical chuckle. "I cannot tell you how much time and suffering this could have saved me before I started dating Galacta! Speaking of which..." He grinned as he jumped to the ceiling and pulled Galacta into his famous upside-down kiss. "I love you baby, that's never gonna change! You may have shaken up my life, but you had good intentions, and almost everything has been coming up roses for both of us since then. So don't let me hear anything about you worrying I might leave you ever again. I'd sooner die than leave you, and something tells me neither Heaven, Hell, nor any other afterlife are off-limits to you at any time, which means it's a moot point anyway." His lenses widened as he had another epiphany, while Galacta was wiggling in her seat in joy.

"The X-Gene! That's why Osborn was so gung-ho about mutations! He must have known about those Sublime things somehow, and wanted an X-Gene of his own to keep his mind off-limits! Gotta hand it to ya Normy, you may have been an asshole, but you recognized a conspiracy when you saw it." He facepalmed as the revelations kept coming. "No wonder there's so much anti-mutant sentiment going around when there are so many other super humans out there for racists to target. That Sublime gunk must have been possessing puppet masters for centuries since it found out it couldn't control Mutants." His lenses went wide in shock at a final revelation. "Holy crap! I was a total jerk to the Symbiote! All it wanted was to keep me safe, keep the universe safe, and I just pushed it away instead of trying to talk things out! No wonder it went all Venom on me, it really did love me, even after how much I hurt it! It just didn't know how to express it in any way other than trying to kill everyone it saw as a threat to me."

"Symbiote? You mean that alien ooze Dr. Connors studied?" Melati questioned excitedly as she frantically searched for a pen and paper. "You have to tell me everything you can about your exposure to it! What was it like? What effects did it have on your already altered biology? Did you experience any side-effects?"

"Slow down a second! One question at a time, please!" Spider-Man backed up. "I know our minds are moving faster right now, but I need a moment to process all these sudden epiphanies and questions. If you could just give me literally one second-"

---

Literally Half a Second Later

*BA-BOOOOOOMMMMMMMM~!*

"What the hell was that?!" Black Widow reacted immediately to the faint tremors as she rushed over to the balcony, swiftly followed by everyone else - except Kiden, who was still snoring on the couch.

"Judging by the seismic readings I'm getting all over the city, and the gamma radiation levels at the epicenter of the quake, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that it's an angry Hulk." Galacta remarked worriedly as she examined her monitors. "And not just regular Hulk levels of angry either, I mean really, really angry. Like, angrier than Hulk has ever been before - and believe me, I've been keeping track of him since the weapons test that made the Hulk in the first place."

"Exactly how dangerous is this gonna be?" Komodo asked as her tail rapidly swished nervously across the floor.

*Spider-Sense!*-Incoming!

"Uhh, She-Hulk, would you mind standing about two feet to my right?" Spider-Girl requested.

"On it." She-Hulk nodded as she took the position and braced herself, skidding back just a few inches when she caught an oversized and heavily damaged Iron Man armor.

"I'd say about that dangerous." Spider-Man pointed nervously at the barely functioning pile of scrap.

"Hey Tony, is that a new Hulkbuster Armor you've got there?" She-Hulk smirked teasingly at the second-in-command of the Avengers. "You should know better by now that my cousin can trash these things like tin cans."

"Older model actually." Iron Man gasped in pain as the over-sized visor creaked open, allowing his basic armored form to get out. "And I thought that by hiding in the smaller, less obvious target I could control my more recent Hulkbusters from a safe distance to make big green take a chill pill, but he found me out in seconds." Suddenly realizing who he was talking to, Tony finally had the decency to look guilty. "Not that I would do any permanent harm to my big green buddy, I just wanted to stop him long enough to... Uhh, Jenn... is this a bad time?" He chuckled when he noticed she had company... and was now just as big as her more famous cousin.

"No, some friends of mine and I were just giving some pointers to some new heroes." She gestured to most of the group. "Speaking of which, did the Avengers get my memo about how it was Norman Osborn and some brainwashed clones kidnapping those kids, and not me and the Spiders?"

"Yeah, but what does any of that have to do with-?" Tony stopped himself when his scanners noted the formerly kidnapped kids and the Spiders. "Okay, I'm assuming there's a story here, but we can save that for later. Right now we need all hands on deck to calm Hulk down."

"What did you do this time, Tony?" Black Widow sighed tiredly, already well acquainted with Tony Stark's screw-ups.

"That hurts Widow, it really does." Iron Man pouted childishly under his helmet. "Why do you automatically assume this is my fault? I mean, Bruce is one of my best friends in the world. I may keep a sub-armory full of Hulkbuster Armors on hand, but c'mon! The whole thing was his idea in the first place, and he helped design most of them!"

"Because infighting among the Avengers, and heroes in general, is almost always your fault in some way." American Dream drummed her fingers across her shield, nervously readying herself for the approaching tussle with the Hulk.

"It's true." Ghost Rider nodded in judgement. "You're lucky I can't make eye contact through your helmet."

"Is that Ghost Rider... with boobs?" Iron Man scratched his helmet in confusion when he noticed her distinctly feminine figure. "How the hell does that even work?" He whispered to himself in astonishment.

"You can satisfy your scientific and sexual curiosity later; and by later I mean never." She-Hulk turned the Avenger's helmet back to her. "Right now I need answers. I haven't seen my cousin in a year, now he's back and madder than ever, and somehow you're on the scene early enough to get knocked halfway across the city just seconds after the most advanced scanners available to the daughter of Galactus detected him in the city." She jerked her thumb at Galacta, who nervously shuffled her feet as Iron Man's helmet opened, revealing the scientist's stunned and speechless expression, which many present quickly snapped a photo of for posterity. "I want answers Tony, and I'm not helping you stop my cousin until I get them."

"I've got some questions that need answering too." Tony rapidly blinked his shock away. "Most of them involving some variation of inquiry on when, where, how, why, and what the hell Galactus had a kid!?" He pointed at Galacta, who just scoffed and walked away. "But that can wait for later. All I know right now is that Hulk was somehow in deep space, but he went on the warpath back to Earth. While en route to Earth, he already destroyed Attilan, killed Black Bolt and about 98% of all Inhumans - including the four alien Inhuman races - and their flying cities, and somehow he's simultaneously using all his Hulk strength, and all of his Banner brainpower to give all the Avengers, even the reserve members, the biggest collective pain in the ass ever. Speaking of which, why aren't you and Widow out there already?!" He demanded in a panic. "I sent you both an alert about four hours ago, and I know Widow checks her messages ritualistically."

"That's a lecture for another day." Black Widow cut the confrontation short as she pushed Iron Man and She-Hulk apart. "Everyone here who isn't pregnant and feels up for fighting a rampaging Hulk needs to get their butts in gear yesterday! There's a reason Hulk has more contingencies against him than any other superhuman on the planet."

"What-with-the-who-now?!" Tony tapped the side of his helmet to make sure his ears were clear. "Did Black Widow just mention something about someone pregnant? I thought she was-"

*BA-BOOOOM!*

"Widow's right." Spider-Man seconded as the ground shook again, ignoring Iron Man for the moment. "I can't believe I'm the one saying this, but now really isn't the time to talk." He remarked as he dove off the balcony and started web-swinging to ground zero of Hulk's biggest rampage ever. "This is the stupidest thing I've ever done!" His panicked voice echoed around the New York skyline.

"You heard the man! We don't have any time to waste!" Rachel commanded as she, Komodo, and Red Sonja climbed onto Evangeline's back.

"You do know I never signed on to fight the Hulk?" Evangeline shook her head even as she spread her wings and flew off, Nico following behind using her Staff of One as a magic broom, and Ghost Rider and American Dream following via rooftops on a flaming motorcycle.

"All the Avengers in action against the Hulk?!" Finesse grinned as she piggybacked on Thundra, all the techniques she could copy at the battle exciting her to no end. "Onward, my faithful steed! Hyah!" She playfully pressed her heels into the amazon's sides.

"I may as well go too." Hazmat rolled her eyes as she forced Thundra to carry her bridal style. "I have a lot of misplaced aggression to vent, and if I can't do it to Hulk, I'll find another outlet." She glared pointedly at Thundra.

"I suppose I don't get a choice in this?" Thundra resigned herself to the obvious outcome as Veil floated by her side, grabbed her shoulder, and shook her head sheepishly. "Very well, hold on tight." She accepted as she jumped several blocks toward their goal in a single bound.

"And this is why you never send an Iron Man to do a She-Hulk's job." She-Hulk grinned as she grabbed Tony by the scruff of his armor and followed after, despite Tony's protests to being manhandled.

---

Ground Zero - World War Hulk

"HULK SMASH EVERYTHING!" The Hulk roared, the mere volume of his voice shattering any windows in a three block radius his actions hadn't already broken yet.

"For the last time Hulk, you need to calm down and stop this!" A badly battered Captain America urged his fellow Avenger, as he braced his kinetic energy absorbing shield to tank another punch from the rampaging green giant, though he was still sent flying several meters into a building.

"Hulk will never stop!" Hulk growled as he stomped forward, the ground shaking with every step he made as he ignored the unconscious and semiconscious forms of his heroes all around. Dr. Strange, The Thing, The Human Torch, Red Hulk, Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Tigra, Ant-Man, Wasp, Power Man, Iron Fist, Falcon, Hercules, dozens of SHIELD agents, even Deadpool; all of them struggling to stand after the thrashing Hulk had dealt out. The only ones still ready to fight were Red She-Hulk, who got off easy for being Bruce Banner's ex; Ms. Marvel, who had commando training, incredible levels of super strength, flight, and energy absorption and projection to fall back on; Thor, who was pretty battered despite normally being Hulk's equal; and Wolverine, who had a healing factor, adamantium coated bones, and more experience fighting Hulk hand-to-hand than anyone else on the planet. While Hulk had lost most of the medieval styled armor he'd arrive in, he was still doing better than any of his still standing opponents. To anyone watching, seeing so many of the greatest heroes the world had to offer beaten by a single being in a matter of minutes would be horrifying. To Hulk, the sight barely did anything to quell his record breaking anger. "Hulk will not stop until Hulk has his-MMPH!" He was cut short as a layer of webbing suddenly latched to his mouth.

"Time out?" Spider-Man quipped fearfully, both as a mocking conclusion to Hulk's unfinished sentence, and as a desperate preemptive plea for mercy from the guy who had defeated several of the greatest heroes in the world single-handed. Seeing Hulk glare at him, even as the angry green giant was struggling to get a good grip on the webbing covering his mouth with his oversized fingers, was enough to send his Spider-Sense into overdrive and make the wall-crawler instantly regret his decision to get involved. "I don't suppose you'd be a nice angry Hulk and talk things out with me calmly and rationally over my aunt's tea and cookies if I told you I was a good friend of your cousin?" He chuckled nervously as Hulk's shadow loomed over him.

*Spider-Sense!*-He would not!

"Didn't think so!" Spider-Man panicked as he jumped away from Hulk's descending fist, before using the flying pavement as a springboard to stick to the ninth story frame of a nearby building. "What if I told you I was sleeping with your cousin?" He ran his mouth before he could stop himself.

*Spider-Sense!*-WHY THE FUCK DID YOU SAY THAT?!

"WHY THE FUDGE DID I SAY THAT?!" Spidey mentally kicked and verbally censored himself for his most boneheaded quip yet as the Hulk's sonic clap sent him and everyone else flying. "To be fair, it's a very committed relationship!" He continued talking against his better judgment as he tumbled through the air.

*Spider-Sense!*-Shut-up already!

'Oh, come on! She-Hulk is such a sex addict that even a committed relationship with polygamous jailbait like me could only be an improvement for her! Yeah, I love her and everything, but everyone knows about how wild her sex life is.' Spidey thought as he kept his distance while the four other heroes still standing got back on the offensive, wisely deciding to heed his Spider-Sense and keep his mouth shut. An impossible feat only accomplished by biting his lower lip so hard it was literally starting to bleed. Spotting something out of the corner of his eye, he cracked a smile under his mask. "Hey, Not-so-jolly-green-giant! Do you know what's scarier than a Hulk?" Hulk was momentarily caught off guard, not expecting anyone to be stupid or suicidal enough to make light of the walking force of nature that was himself.

Which is exactly why he didn't notice Evangeline divebombing him until she had already punched his head into the pavement.

"A Hulk that can fly!" Spider-Man finished his quip as Thor seized his unlikely opportunity and pounced on Hulk himself, slamming Mjolnir down on the torso of his former comrade as hard as he could and leaving it there, the enchantments on it preventing even Hulk from moving it. "Granted, I know you can already jump for miles, but there's just something special about flying, or so I'm told. I don't know, I prefer webs myself."

"Well done, Man of Spiders, and, uh, Woman of Dragons?" Thor awkwardly commended Spider-Man and Evangeline with powerful pats on the back; one which left Vange sore, and one which left Spider-Man on the pavement. "I must admit, I have heard tales of your valor before, Man of Spiders, but I was unaware that bedding She-Hulk was one of them."

"To be fair, Jennifer has been singing his praises as a hero for a while now." Ms. Marvel - a voluptuous, long haired blond in a black one piece swimsuit with a lightning emblem on it - admitted as she and Red She-Hulk helped their comrades to their feet.

"That would definitely explain the smell." Wolverine grimaced as he caught a whiff of Spider-Man, who suddenly wanted to be anywhere but here even more than when Hulk was still rampaging. "Or at least part of it anyway. How many women have you been sleeping with kid, and why do you smell so familiar?" He questioned, making the young hero twice as nervous under the questioning gaze of his potentially deadly semi-father-in-law. "Ah well, not like it's any of my business. Still, credit where credit is due; it smells like you really made them enjoy it something fierce." He extended his hand, causing Spider-Man to flinch away. At least until he realized that the tingling in his skull was coming from his fear of Wolverine finding out he knocked up his daughter, rather than his Spider-Sense. "Folks call me Wolverine. I'm the best there is at what I do; and what I do, isn't very nice."

"Uhh, yeah. Hehe..." Spidey chuckled nervously as he shook the hand that he was desperately trying not to imagine strangling him to death. "People call me the Spectacular Spider-Man! At least the ones who aren't calling me a menace; but if you wanna just go with first impressions and call me the Sextacular Spider-Man that's totally fine too." He mentally slapped himself over how stupid and forced that sounded. "I'm also known as the guy who can't stop putting his foot in his mouth when he's scared out of his mind." He tried his best not to shake his suit to pieces, in-spite his fear and how much Hulk's thrashing was still shaking the ground.

"Can somebody please stop Hulk before he levels the city from a fetal position?" Evangeline pleaded as she fell forward.

"Worry not my fellow warriors!" Thor declared as he pounced and slammed a hammer fist into Hulk's left arm, further shattering the pavement beneath as he continued to pound Hulk about his arms and legs. "Though it may seem cowardly, while he remains restrained by Mjolnir, Hulk is but an easy target for-OOF!" Thor winced as Hulk swatted him aside.

"Keep pouring the pressure on!" Ghost Rider commanded as her bike drove off the rooftop and slammed into Hulk's face rear wheel first, remaining rooted in place for several seconds as she let her tire skid hot rubber and hellfire across Hulk's face before rocketing forward, allowing American Dream to dismount several meters in the air and divebomb her shield into Mjolnir, the clashing of the unique metals in her shield and the hammer creating a shockwave focused on Hulk, making a huge crater beneath him.

"Really sorry about this big guy!" Shannon apologized as she jumped back. "Do you think we could just calm down for a second and talk this out?!" She pleaded to her fellow Avenger.

"No Talk!" Hulk shouted as he grabbed onto the handle of Mjolnir and pulled! "Hulk Not Stop Until All Illuminati Are Dead!"

"Illuminati?" Spider-Man whispered in recollection. Accessing his Omega Drive Database, he quickly pulled up all the info he had on the Illuminati, and was immediately shocked and unsettled by what he saw. "No way in hell..." He whispered as files on Iron Man, Captain America, Mr. Fantastic, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, Black Bolt, Professor Xavier, and Namor popped up. He was so gobsmacked that he ignored the increasingly large number of heroes wailing on the Hulk, including the rookie heroes that had approached him for training just this morning - except for Finesse and Nico, the former of whom just sat back and watched all the movements and techniques she could copy, while the latter wasn't much good in a straight up fight.

'Hold on, this isn't as bad as I thought.' Spider-Man realized as he studied the notes. Apparently, contrary to the popular image of the Illuminati being some secret organization that had existed since the days of the Knights Templar and secretly controlled the whole world, the real Illuminati - or at least this one - was actually a think tank of some of the most intelligent and influential individuals in the world discussing possible, completely legitimate, ways to improve the world. 'Wonder if I could join them...' He pondered, though put aside his intrigue for the moment. His company, though young, was already being compared to the likes of Stark Industries and the Future Foundation in terms of rapid growth, and may get him an invite in a few years regardless. 'Stop Hulk now, join the cool kids later.' He shook the stars from his eyes as She-Hulk tried to drop knee first onto her cousin, only to miss when Hulk actually lifted Mjolnir, and threw it at Thor! Sending him crashing into an exposed I-beam.

"Odin's Beard..." Thor whispered as he fell down the wall he had crashed into, which was coincidentally right next to Spider-Man. "Hulk hath lifted Mjolnir by pure force... All is lost..." He muttered as he fell to his knees in despair.

"Oh c'mon, it's just a really heavy hammer." Spidey chided Thor and yanked him to his feet. "How bad could it-"

*Spider-Sense!*-You jinxed it!

"Holy crap!" Spider-Man panicked as he quickly shot twin web threads at a large slab of concrete and pulled it up to shield everyone from the sonic boom created when Hulk and She-Hulk began grappling. "Thank Galacta everyone came running this way when Thor got hammered." Despite the situation, the ringing in his ears, and the fact that the mere sound wave created from the clash of the Hulks caused the concrete to crack, he still couldn't resist a good - or bad - joke when he saw one.

"Your thanks may be premature Man of Spiders," Thor sighed in frustration and hopelessness. "For although your large lover holds her cousin at bay for now, Hulk's strength is now far greater than anything I hath seen before."

"Eh, you worry too much Goldilocks." Wolverine growled, the ringing in his ears upsetting his ultra-keen hearing and balance as he tried to clear them out by shaking his head like a mad dog. "So Hulk threw your little toy at ya, it's not like you don't swing it around all the time yourself."

"Not without the worthiness to wield it!" Thor countered fretfully. "Mjolnir was crafted by the finest blacksmith in all the Nine Realms, and enchanted by Odin Allfather himself! In lifting Mjolnir by force he hath proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that his present power eclipses even the greatest of Gods!"

"If that's the case then how the hell is She-Hulk matching her cousin blow-for-blow?" Hawkeye rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things as the Gammazon managed to redirect or catch the fury of strikes from Hulk. "Mockingbird and I fought her just yesterday, and she wasn't this big, or this tough back then."

"I believe I can explain that." Dr. Strange winced as he held his arm and braced himself against a pile of rubble. "I don't know how, but She-Hulk seems to have obtained a powerful relic called-"

"An Infinity Gem?" Spider-Man casually cut the Sorcerer Supreme off. "Yeah, been there, done that, got the T-shirt, bruises, and love bites to show for it."

"What?!" Dr. Strange gasped in shock. "How do you know of The Infinity Gems?"

"Long story; don't wanna repeat it." Spider-Man quipped as he turned to his massively buxom magical goth girlfriend/cousin. "Nico, think you can handle this one?"

"On it." She remarked as she held her staff aloft.

"The Staff of One?!" Dr. Strange blinked in shock. "Will wonders never cease?"

"Probably. Calm Down!" Nico commanded the Hulk, a burst of magical energy firing from the Staff of One and colliding with the Hulk, rapidly draining all the rage from his body against his will, reverting him to to his human persona of Dr. Bruce Banner as his cousin held the shrinking giant steady. "There, much better." Nico dusted her hands as everyone present stared at her in shock, amazement, and more than a little lust if the attention her bust was getting was any indication. "You can handle it from here, can't ya?" She smiled as she gave Spidey a peck on the cheek.

"Yeah, I think we can manage." Spidey nodded as he and everyone else approached Banner, who looked to be desperately trying to muster up some anger. "So... your cousin tells me you have anger issues? Wanna talk about it buddy?"

"Don't want to talk..." Dr. Banner muttered weakly as he clenched repeatedly, unable to actually feel the anger he was trying to emulate. "Wants to... smash Illuminati."

"Yeah, so you mentioned." Iron Man winced as he rotated the his shoulders, wincing as the warped metal of his armor ground against itself in a manner way beyond safe operating limits. "But you do know the Illuminati is just a myth, right?"

"Myth? But aren't you, Captain America, and Dr. Strange all members?" Spider-Man questioned innocently, getting incredulous stares from everyone present, especially the three Illuminati members themselves. "What? What did I say?"

"...Uhh, listen; Spider-Kid, was it?" Iron Man approached him cautiously. "Listen, from one armor wearing super hero to another, I'd just like to thank you for helping us deal with this whole debacle. However, those are some pretty bold and baseless claims you're throwing around, and you may want to rethink your claims before you damage the rather sizable street cred you and your lady friends have earned today."

*Spider-Sense!*-He's trying to hack your suit!

"Okay, first of all, it's Spider-MAN." The young hero pushed Iron Man away casually. "Second, these claims aren't baseless; I actually have proof from an inside source. Third, I can respect not mixing your multiple business lives, but from the looks of things, I have a pretty strong hunch that you and your little light bulb gang didn't share information about your men's club with your Avengers buddies, who seem like the kind of people who should probably be informed about this." Iron Man began to sweat under his armor as everyone else began paying more attention to Spidey's words. "And fourth,"

*SMACK!*

"Never try to hack my suit!" Spider-Man shouted furiously at the semi-conscious form of Iron Man, who was now flat on his back on the pavement. "Besides, most of this is just insulation, armor, and trigger activated web shooters anyway. The few electronics in this suit have no control over my motor functions."

"So Tony," Red She-Hulk glared at the Armored Avenger. "Mind explaining why my ex hates you so much this time?"

Cornered by the angry stares of some of the greatest heroes in the world, and the guilty looks of Captain America and Dr. Strange, Iron Man felt compelled to cave in. "Alright, you've got me. You have to believe me though, we didn't mean any harm, and the Illuminati isn't what you think it is. It's just a super hero think tank."

"And yet you named yourselves after the biggest conspiracy theory in modern pop culture." Scott Lang, the new Ant-Man, remarked sarcastically.

"The name had recently become available." Captain America explained, playfully leaving everyone with many uncomfortable thoughts and questions. "Anyway, I can see where this is going. You have to understand that even though we're technically a group, we didn't always agree with each other. Some of us had ideas that others didn't agree with, and the Hulk was one of those divisive topics." As he said this, Steve put down his shield and approached Bruce, helping him out of the clunky armor, leaving him in his traditional purple pants. "One of our members - and I'm not saying who - wanted to launch you into space, onto an uninhabited planet where you couldn't damage Earth anymore. I'm guessing that's where you've been this past year, and why you killed Black Bolt."

"The rocket went off-course when I got angry." Bruce explained, apparently having given up on getting angry for the moment. "I landed on a planet called Sakaar, where powerful, brutal warlords ruled over all, forcing their subjects and dissenters to fight as slave gladiators. I spent months being forced to fight for the amusement of the ruling caste, before finally leading a revolution against the warlords." Everyone listening was shocked, horrified, and more than a little awestruck by the story Bruce was telling. "When it was over, for the first time in my life, I had everything I had ever dreamed of. Self-control, influence, respect, even love..." He paused as Red She-Hulk's tapping foot began shaking the ground. "Then something went wrong with the rocket I arrived in. A malfunction in the power source... it... everything was just gone..." Bruce collapsed to his hands and knees.

"Bruce..." Red She-Hulk remarked tenderly as she knelt down next to him, stroking his back as she held her beloved closely. "What happened? What was gone?" Even as she asked this, she had a sneaking dread that she already knew the answer.

"It exploded." Bruce cried into her shoulder. "Just as there was finally peace, the ship exploded, and took the whole planet with it!" The mutated scientist broke down, his emotions boiling over as everyone looked on in shock and horror, the idea of a whole planet just being gone like that because of something that wasn't remotely its fault frustrating everyone, but none more so than Red She-Hulk, who looked like she was two steps away from picking up where Hulk left off. "All that was left were me and a few of the sturdiest residents who were far enough from ground zero to survive... but Attilan... the Inhuman city..." Bruce choked out between sobs. "It was flying just outside of the blast radius... that's where we crashed after the explosion... I got mad... forced them to talk... it was all Black Bolt's idea... his wife-his wife said that he, Namor, and Black Panther worked together to build the ship... when it went off course he-he came to investigate and... the tracking beacon... there was so much damage that it just-it just-uhhh!" He couldn't hold himself together any longer, and just went back to crying, unable to channel his blocked anger into any other outlet.

"Those idiots!" Mr. Fantastic - who was fresh to the scene, along with his wife the Invisible Woman - hissed irately. "If I told them once, I told them a thousand times; Hulk just wants to be left alone! He won't hurt anyone who doesn't invite it upon themselves."

"A little late to the party to be offering commentary now, aren't you Reed?" His brother-in-law Johnny Storm questioned, getting a proportionately gentle, though still painful, smack to the shoulder from The Thing for his smart remark.

"Watch your mouth, Flame Brain." Ben Grimm scolded his teammate. "Still, even Johnny has a point at least once a month. Where've ya been Reed? We've been bashing skulls and fists with Big Greenie trying to stop his latest tantrum since he passed Jupiter."

"Monitoring something far more worrisome. Nice to see you again by the way, Bruce." Reed nodded to his colleague.

"Worse than a furious Hulk?" Tigra frowned skeptically as she got on all fours and stretched a few kinks out of her back like the werecat she was.

"Far worse." Susan Storm-Richards declared as she pointed upward, drawing everyone's attention to the giant spaceship spontaneously appearing out of nowhere.

"That wasn't there two seconds ago." Johnny uttered fearfully as a huge beam went down from the ship to the ground in front of the assembled heroes.

"And we won't be here two seconds from now!" Power Man panicked when the beam was gone, revealing the shinning gold armored form of-

"GALACTUS!" Spider-Man shouted in mortal terror at the sight of his kinda-father-in-law. "I AM SO DEAD!"

---

Back At The Loft

"What do you mean you're dead?!" Johnny questioned nervously. "If Galactus is here then we're all-"

"Here to witness a momentous occasion." The booming voice of Galactus reverberated through the entire luxury apartment, shaking The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, his entire harem at the moment, and for whatever reason Deadpool, Hulk, Wolverine, and the Spider-Clones who were there as well.

"Whuzzat?! Who goes there?!" Kiden mumbled groggily as she shot up from the couch, startling everyone present. "Oh, hey there ervybody, I weren't sleeping on the jerb. Hey Galacta, like the new look; gold really makes ya look masculine." She droned half-asleep before collapsing back on the couch for three long seconds. "HOLY SHIT IT'S GALACTUS! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" She shot up from the couch again as if she'd been drenched with a bucket of cold water. "TURN OFF THE PLANET, I WANNA GET OFF!" She panicked as she ran around like a chicken with its head cut off.

"And you're certain she's not on drugs right now?" Rachel whispered to Laura, the war veteran not taking her frightened eyes off of Galactus for even a moment.

"Father?" Laura whispered in a mixture of awe and dread when she spotted Wolverine.

"Father?!" Logan parroted in shock as he noticed the similarities between his outfit and scent, and those of the heavily pregnant teen standing before him. He was so focused on the girl that he failed notice Spider-Man making panicked hand gestures behind him.

"Father." Laura repeated as she extended a pair of metal talons from her right fist, clearing any possible doubt.

Now, Logan was by no means father of the year. Hell, he had a least half a dozen kids across the globe that he had no idea existed; partially due to experiments by the Weapon-X project making his memory spotty at best, and partially due to just not caring to keep track of all the many, many, many women he slept with over the centuries. However, if he even had a tiny suspicion that someone had hurt someone he cared about, even if he only just met them, there would be hell to pay.

And the scent of Spider-Man was all over his heavily pregnant daughter.

*Spider-Sense!*-You're gonna die.

"WEB-HEAD!" Wolverine roared as he charged at the masked superhero behind him in a frenzy, rapidly tearing the loft apart as Spider-Man was barely able to stay ahead of his furious pseudo-father-in-law.

"As if one angry father-in-law wasn't enough to deal with today!" Spider-Man panicked as he inadvertently hid behind Galactus. "Uhh... not that I think you're an inherently violent person, Mr. Galactus, Sir! OH HELL, PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!" He bolted as She-Hulk just barely managed to restrain the snarling mad dog that was the world's most famous mutant.

"SILENCE!" Galactus spoke with authority, freezing everyone in mortal terror as Hulk and Spider-Man were suddenly frozen in tractor beams emanating from the hands of the universally feared planet eater. "Much better, now then; Galactus has much to say to you both. Spider-Man and Hulk."

"Daddy~!" Galacta protested as she kicked her father in the shin, shocking everyone into silence, even those who already knew she was the daughter of the most feared being in the universe. "Will you cut it out with booming voice and the third-person speech already? You're terrifying my friends!"

"Very well." Galactus grudgingly acquiesced to his daughter's demands, shocking everyone even further to see that even the mightiest being in the cosmos was powerless against his daughter.

The very thought was both terrifying and oddly comforting to all.

"Dude, what the hell is going on here?" Johnny whispered to Spider-Man questioningly. "Also, why are there so many hot chicks here, and are any of them single?" That little stage whisper get him a proportionately gentle smack to the head from Thundra.

"We are not." The time traveling amazon scolded the flaming hero. "Our mate is Spider-Man."

"'Our mate'?!" Johnny parroted in awe. "As in all of you?!" He looked around in amazement, every woman in the room giving variously levels of awkward, uncomfortable, or boastful nods in response. The only exceptions were Hazmat, who was the only new addition who was against the idea. Komodo, who seemed to be saying something about putting her scientific interest in this situation ahead of any romance, though she was comfortable using her body for research purposes. Spider-Man's opposite sex clone (let's just call her Petra Parker for now), who violently gagged and shook her head at the very idea. And his sister Sue, who was already married to Reed. "...Woah... so you knocked-up Galactus' daughter too?" He asked excitedly, only to flinch away when Galactus glared at him for the comment. "Forget I said anything!" He held his hands up in surrender before patting Spider-Man on the shoulder. "Well, it may have been short, but it was nice knowing you dude. If you manage to survive this, give me a call sometime, because not only are you my nephew's favorite hero, but you're also officially my new best friend! Y'know, if you survive that is." With a wink as his only goodbye, Johnny backed-up slowly to flirt with Petra who looked torn between being uncomfortable and eerily interested.

"Nice knowing ya, Bug-Man." Hulk remarked solemnly, the green giant resigned to their apparent upcoming demise. "I don't know why I'm here, but your chances don't look too good. Thanks for calming me down back there though, for what good it does us."

"Now Galactus, I'm certain that we can talk this over rationally." Reed tried to talk to the planet eater.

"What is there to discuss?" Galactus remarked casually. "I owe these two a great debt for their services to the name Galactus, and I am here to repay them."

"...Okay, what the fuck?!" Spider-Man's other clone (let's call him Ben Reilly) shouted in shock. "I'm sorry, but... what is going on here?! I mean, yesterday I was at an apparently fake funeral for my archenemy, and now I'm a clone, there's another me that's an opposite sex clone, the original us is so far removed from us in attitude and his social status from when we last remember that I don't know whether a few months or a few years passed since the genetic material to make us was harvested, and now the most powerful being in the universe is thanking the original me for knocking up his daughter?! Explain people! Explain!?"

"Pardon me for saying so, but an explanation does seem to be in order." Susan inquired from Galactus.

"For billions of years, Galactus has existed and continued to eat for two purposes." The planet eater began, Galacta rolling her eyes at her father's quick return to his third-person speech pattern. "To protect this universe from external invasion, and to cause an eighth Big Bang upon the heat death of the seventh universe. Galactus was selected for this purpose at the end of the sixth universe, and was to select a successor from this universe to fulfill this same roll upon the creation of the eighth universe. However," He turned his attention back to Spider-Man and Hulk. "These two have rendered my previous missions meaningless."

"Sweet. Easter." The Thing stood slackjawed at the explanation Galactus had given, a sentiment shared by pretty much everyone, even the likes of the normally stoic Black Widow and Wolverine. "I know ya told Reed that ya'd give one day give back more than ya've ever taken when he and that Watcher yancee tried to talk ya outta eatin the Earth, but I always thought ya were just talking out yer-" Ben abruptly stopped as he suddenly remembered who he was talking to.

"Yes, The Watchers." Galactus remarked with a surprising amount of sarcasm for a cosmic horror - by his standards, he was still incredibly stoic compared to his daughter. "How ironic that a race whose actions were responsible for my greatest flaw would title themselves so, for it is due to them that Galactus ever hungered."

"So that's the sin Uatu said made his whole race enact their law of noninterference." Reed realized.

"Oh yeah." Galacta spoke up, reminding everyone she was there as well. "They saw daddy's cocoon just floating around in space a few billion years ago, and the curious little bastards decided to crack it open before he was fully developed. He's been chowing down on planets ever since."

"A mistake the one you call The Incredible Hulk recently rectified, with interest." Galactus continued, making everyone look at the Hulk in shock confusion. Even Hulk himself was utterly baffled, if the way he was pointing at himself questioningly was any indication. "The Inhumans were not the only ones present for the destruction of Sakaar. At the time, Galactus was approaching the planet as well. Its overabundance of extremely powerful life would have kept Galactus well fed for decades." The mention of the world he had lost, and the original intent of Galactus to devour it made Hulk very angry again. "However, in destroying the five Inhuman cities, you released something far more valuable to Galactus. The various mutagens created by the Kree to turn their engineered test subjects; or Inhumans, into various and powerful shock troopers for their millennia long war against the Skrulls, were unknowingly reverse engineered and altered from traces of residue from my original cocoon."

"So when the mutagens mixed together and got all over you, you reverted to your cocoon state to properly develop?" Sage tentatively deduced.

"Indeed." Galactus nodded. "But the alterations to the residue caused a far greater change in Galactus. Within less than a single Earth week after being returned to his cocoon, Galactus emerged. No longer am I Galactus, Devourer of Worlds. Now I am Galactus, Giver of Life. Worlds once destroyed, will now be restored by my hand."

"Sakaar!" Hulk immediately jumped at the opportunity, while everyone else was still reeling from the knowledge that the most feared and dangerous being in the universe had pulled a complete 180. "Can you restore Sakaar?! And everyone on it?!"

"What you request of Galactus is well within my new power." The Life Giver nodded. "If that is what you would request of me for the debt I owe to you, then I shall make Sakaar the first planet restored by Galactus. Be warned however, for despite my new purpose, my power is still limited. A planet able to support so many powerful lifeforms as Sakaar will take much of my energy, and it will be at least one-and-a-half Earth years before Galactus has regained the strength to restore more planets. Other races may view this show of favoritism with envy, and attack you for it."

"Let them come!" Hulk declared bravely. "The strongest of Sakaar are tough enough to give even me a hard time. We can handle anything any spiteful jerks can throw at us. Just so long as nobody bombs the entire planet to rubble again." He glared pointedly at Mr. Fantastic.

"I'll make sure the rest of the Illuminati get the message." Reed nodded.

"What about the Inhumans though?" Johnny reminded everyone. "Black Bolt may have been a jerk, but the rest of his people didn't deserve what happened to them."

"Hnnrg!" Hulk grumbled bitterly, though his eyes quickly softened as his cousin She-Hulk placed a firm hand on his shoulder and gave him a stern glare. "Fine!" He quickly, albeit reluctantly, relented as he turned back to Galactus. "If you're okay with it, then do you think you could bring all the Inhumans except Black Bolt back to life too? They can live under my rule on Sakaar."

"Except Black Bolt?" Spider-Man questioned. "I know he was a jerk to launch you into space, but don't you think that's a little-" He stopped cold when he noted Hulk's angry face. "Right, this is a Hulk problem. Forget I said anything." He immediately backpedaled.

"It shall be done." Galactus nodded as he let Hulk drop to the floor. "Unfortunately, I am unable to restore their mutagens to them without reverting to my former state, and that is a fate I refuse to return to. This will be the last generation of true Inhumans."

"Good." Wolverine nodded gruffly, getting a confused look from his old rival Hulk. "You do not wanna know what Inhuman mutagens do to X-Gene mutants. I have a healing factor, and I still spent a week in bed recovering after some mutant hating scientists exposed me to the stuff for a sick laugh."

"Speaking of which, remind me to tell you about the root of all mutant haters on the planet if I survive this." Spider-Man pipped up. "Trust me, once the world knows exactly where all the hate comes from, baseline humans are gonna be more paranoid about themselves than they are of mutants." That got Logan's attention, but before he could question it further Galactus took back all the focus.

"As for you, Spider-Man." Galactus glared at the wall-crawler. "Though it was my daughter's plan, you were instrumental in preventing this universe from ever suffering any form of total destruction. Because of this, I shall spare you for impregnating my daughter." With that said, Spider-Man was unceremoniously dropped to the ground.

"Wow." Spider-Man said flatly as Spider-Girl, Firestar, and Black Cat rushed to make sure he was okay, the rest of his lovers hanging back so as not to overcrowd him. "Just... Wow. Hulk gets a planet for throwing a tantrum that caused several hundred million dollars in damage and nearly wiped out an entire specie. Meanwhile I get to live for making the best of a series of admittedly awesome events outside of my control. Story of my life." He threw up his hands in exasperation.

"If it makes you feel any better, I appreciate what you've done for us all." Komodo grinned as she coiled her tail around his waist and pressed her lips to his ear. "Especially your help in getting me this job and laying the groundwork for my perfected formula, Mr. Parker." She whispered seductively before slithering off, leaving the young CEO barely stunned by yet another woman figuring out his secret identity.

'I really am getting too used to this.' Peter pouted under his mask. 'I remember the days when secret identities actually meant something.'

*Spider-Sense!*-Angry father-in-law!

"Out of the frying pan," He sighed as he turned to see Wolverine, still as angry as before. "And into the fire."

"Logan, you can't kill him." Black Widow scolded the bitter old Canadian strictly.

"Give me one good reason." Wolverine snarled as Laura grabbed her lover from behind protectively.

"Richard and Mary Parker." Black Widow whispered harshly in his ear, causing his eyes to snap wide open. "You promised them that if anything happened to them, you'd lend a hand in looking after their son. A promise you have thus far failed to keep."

"No way." Logan gasped in shock as he pulled his mask off, giving Spider-Man another quick whiff. Sure enough, underneath the smell of copious amounts of sex, his aroma was distinctly similar to the old man's former apprentices.

"You knew my parents?" Peter blinked in shock as he instinctively removed his mask, forgetting for the moment that Hulk, Deadpool, and the Fantastic Four were also present.

"Yeah." Logan remarked as he awkwardly scratched his neck, feeling guilty for nearly gutting the son of two of his late best friends. "Not sure if I should share old stories with you though. As heroes go you're a saint, whereas while your parents were definitely good people, their methods were..."

"It's okay, Widow already explained everything to me." Peter excused him. "Besides, I was raised by my aunt and uncle as far back as I can remember, so as far as I'm concerned they're my parents. Just... please don't kill me for knocking up your opposite sex clone slash daughter, and you can consider us even." He remarked as, unnoticed to him, Petra Parker was just behind him, dragging Johnny Storm into a storage closet.

"Fair enough." Logan snickered as he and Peter shook hands.

"As for you, young lady." Galactus began scolding his daughter. "Despite your actions being for the benefit of the universe, you still acted very rashly."

"I'm in big trouble, aren't I?" Galacta fidgeted nervously.

"Indeed, but first." Galactus remarked as a beam shot out of his hands, reached into Galacta's stomach, and pulled out an infant glowing pure white, leaving the young cosmic being doubled over and gasping for breath. "I believe this child belongs to you." He said as he handed the cosmic baby off to his stunned and winded daughter.

"Uhh..." Deadpool uttered, for once in his life completely speechless. "Well... that just happened."

"Her baby... our baby..." Peter rapidly blinked away the tears welling up in his eyes as he shuffled over to Galacta in disbelief. "I'm... a father... I'm a father. I'm a father!" He declared proudly, accidentally rousing his newborn child into a crying fit. "I'm a father... I'm a father? Oh God, I'M A FATHER!" He immediately switched from elation to panic as the reality of being a teen father set in and he began to hyperventilate, a panicky sentiment shared by everyone else present, if only because the baby's crying was causing localized earthquakes. "WHATDOIDO?! WHATDOIDO?! WHATDOIDO?!" He panicked as Galacta gently rocked the glowing baby to a calmer state, quickly quieting the tremors.

"Calm down Peter, our little girl can sense your unease." Galacta chided his behavior.

"Sense my unease? I'm the one with the Spider-Sense not-!" Galacta just gave Peter a very dry look and waited for him to realize his mistake. "Oh... right, she's my daughter, of course she inherited my powers." He muttered dumbly.

"This is... incredibly fascinating." Mr. Fantastic remarked clinically as he approached Galacta, who defensively pulled her baby away from the scientist as she began to whimper. "A hybrid born of physical matter and cosmic energy. I could easily write an entire thesis on this subject."

"I'm not letting the maniac who invented Skrull-Cows anywhere near my family." Galacta glared hotly at Reed. "Granted they taste delicious, and will definitely make good baby food, but you're a disaster waiting to happen."

"Oh shit, is this the part where Sue starts having second thoughts about Reed and contemplates leaving him for Spidey?" Deadpool stage whispered scandalously, drawing several irate glares and a solid punch to the gut from a large rocky fist. "I'll take that as a maybe." He squeaked as he collapsed to the floor in severe pain.

"What the hell is wrong with that man?!" Susan questioned irritably before adding an aside to her husband. "And what are Skrull-Cows?"

"I can answer that one." Galacta frowned as she handed off her child to her lover and marched over to Reed furiously. "Mr. Smartest-Moron-on-the-Planet here thought it would be a good idea to hypnotize those Skrulls who impersonated you four a few years back into turning into cows and mixing with the local population, not taking into account the many ecological disasters that could, and would result from that boneheaded move."

"Reed, is what she's saying true?" Sue asked, aghast at the mere idea her husband could do something so utterly irresponsible.

"Oh it's true alright." Galacta continued immediately, not wanting to give the neglectful scientist a chance to present the story in a positive light. "The Skrull-Cows ended up being bred, milked, and slaughtered just like humans are want to do with cows. Ever notice that the entire country has been suffering a severe beef and dairy shortage over the last eight years? That's because I've been tracking down and either consuming or containing all Skrull-Cows I could find, and they accounted for at least ten percent of the cattle population over that time. Half a small farming community ended up poisoned and brainwashed beyond all hope of recovery because of consuming Skrull-Cow products! Those people were the bitterest forty-seven morsels I've ever eaten."

"No, that's not possible!" Reed gasped in shock. "I ran tests, I placed them where there was no settlement for a hundred miles, they weren't supposed to be biologically compatible with actual livestock."

"You mean you actually caused - what would you call this; Skrull-Cow Disease?" Nico shrugged nonchalantly before turning her anger and disappointment to the leader of the Fantastic Four. "You caused Skrull-Cow Disease!?"

"Well, I'm officially off dairy forever." Black Cat cringed as Ghost Rider nodded in support, the irony of the statement apparently lost on them.

"You've got some nerve calling yourself a hero after a stunt like that." Rachel growled as she leveled her shotgun at Reed, ignoring the irony of her remark as Veil gently pushed down her weapon.

"Eh, I'm not really surprised." Deadpool shrugged before making a mocking face at The Thing, who was presently too deep in shock at the carelessness of his oldest and most respected friend to form any coherent thought. "I mean, if Nintendo can make a kid friendly version of Pedobear - and yes, I know that's an oxymoron - and stick it in a Pokemon game, all sorts of horrific and mentally scarring scenarios become all too plausible."

"Ignoring..." Peter pulled Galacta aside and gestured to the whole room; from Sue scolding her husband, to Hulk calling off the surviving soldiers of Sakaar from their rampages on Earth. "This, there's still the matter of us." He remarked as he gently tickled their daughter with a single finger, wincing in barely contained pain when the baby grabbed his finger and unintentionally snapped it out of place. "We've been putting it off but, this is a really big matter we're dealing with. I mean, we're parents now, where exactly do we go from here? I don't exactly know the protocol for raising a cosmic baby."

"You mean you haven't even thought that far ahead?" She-Hulk shook her head in disappointment at their thoughtlessness. "That should have been the first item on your agenda to consider when taking a major step like this."

"For your information I know exactly what I'm doing." Galacta huffed as she took her baby from Peter, handed her to Jennifer, and tickled her chin lovingly. "Isn't that right, Hollow?" She cooed.

"Hollow?" Peter whispered in shock as he snapped his finger back into place. "I don't know how cosmic beings name their kids, but personally I've always preferred at least semi-normal Earth names, and to get a say in naming my own-" He abruptly stopped as young Hollow yawned, and a massive burst of red energy flowed from She-Hulk down the infant's throat. "Is that suppose to happen?!" He hissed at Galacta as he quickly but gently separated his daughter from one of her many step-mothers.

"Yes." Galacta nodded chipperly. "As is this." She added as Hollow began to grow and age right before everyone's eyes, her skin and hair changing from white to a metalic red, growing out razor sharp talons for fingers and toes, as well as developing what could only be defined as waist length, razor sharp dreadlocks. To preserve her modesty in her now teenage body, her mother changed the white blanket she'd been swaddled in into a black jumpsuit.

"Wow, cosmic beings sure grow up fast." Peter stared in shock at his newborn teenage daughter, her innocent glowing white eyes looking at her father joyfully. "Hey there Hollow, I'm your daddy." He introduced himself uncertainly. "Uhh, if you don't mind my asking, what exactly did you do to Jennifer?" He glanced at She-Hulk, whom, aside from looking a little lightheaded to the point where Evangeline had to hold her steady, was otherwise just as massive, hot, and massively hot as she was when she woke up this morning.

"Daaaa-ddiieee." Hollow tested out the syllables curiously as she felt his face. "Daddy? Daddy."

"Awwww! Her first words!" Galacta cooed as she recorded the whole thing, before lifting Hollow out of Peter's arms and setting her on the floor, where she quickly wobbled into a hunched and feral standing position. "Her first steps!"

"This is normal, right?" MJ voiced her concerns. "Shulkie is gonna be okay, isn't she?"

"The One of Power shall be fine." Galactus answered in a booming voice that demanded silence and attention, both to stop the confusion, and to set everyone at ease. Probably for the best, as Red She-Hulk had somehow tracked them down and was a few cross words away from starting a full blown fracas with her ex about his plans to leave Earth - and her - again. "More so than before, in fact. My granddaughter merely stored the wasted portion of the Infinity Gem's energy inside herself."

"Wait, you mean I wasn't going all out against my cousin?" Jennifer grinned smugly as she regained her balance. "And I was still winning."

"We're family, of course I went easy on you." Hulk insisted defensively. "...What's an Infinity Gem?"

"That thing embedded in Shulkie's forehead. Moving on now." Deadpool ushered the overly long chapter along as he slapped Insert Exposition Filler on the screen.

"-and cosmic beings are always born for a reason defined by either themselves, or their parents. Depending on the circumstance of their creation or ascension that is." Galacta finished summarizing the Birds and The Bees: Cosmic Being Edition. "I designed Hollow to be a living void of nothingness, hence her name. She contains the portion of Infinity Gem energy that they normally just restrict from their chosen partners to keep them from destroying themselves from the strain. Isn't that right, my little baby?" She cooed as she brushed Hollow's hair, making her let out a contented purr. "Also, even though she's physically a teenager, she's basically an animal in terms of emotional and intellectual age, so don't anybody get any ideas. I'm looking at you Johnny!" She glared at the closet just as the most immature member of the Fantastic Four hobbled out, Petra following close behind as she dusted off her hands and gave a casual wave of acknowledgement.

"So exactly how powerful is she going to get?" Black Widow inquired, finally realizing what at least one of the 'drawbacks' Galacta neglected to mention before was. "If her body is containing the runoff from the Infinity Gems, I can imagine that it's quite a lot."

"She doesn't have access to most of it herself." Galacta insisted protectively, understanding, though not agreeing with her sister-wife's fears. "Underneath her surface she's basically a small universe that she has no more control over than the average human has over their internal organs. The only part of the Infinity Gems she'll have access to on our level will barely be enough to make her about as powerful as the likes of Thor once she gets them all."

"Awesome!" Deadpool cheered as he jumped on Galactus's big, shiny head, causing everyone to freeze in shock and panic. "Now where's my reward? I did everything your daughter asked me to, so I want my prize!"

"Of course he does." Galacta rolled her eyes and tossed the loony mercenary an ornate black box. "One magic compass that always points to what you desire most, straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean, as promised."

"Thank you kindly." Deadpool grinned as he dismounted the oversized helmet and ran over to the windowsill. "Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm off to find the succubus queen, slash my future wifey-pon! That's right, I love Xenoblade Chronicles despite all the obviously unfinished content, and I don't care who knows! Geronimoooooo~!" He shouted as he leaped out the window.

"He'll be fine, unfortunately." Logan grumbled as he turned to Laura. "So... yer my kid?"

"Would you like to meet my mother?" Laura asked, more stiff and awkward than Peter had ever seen her before. "You never met because she cloned me by splicing a sample of your DNA with her DNA without your knowledge or consent, but... family is family?"

"Just do this for her, okay?" Kiden slapped Logan on the back. "The poor girl has had it real tough, and she could use someone even more damaged than her to help sort out her issues."

"Are you talking about Laura, or yourself?" Peter teased the time stopper.

"Can't it be both?" Kiden grinned as she swiped Peter's mask and put it back on. "By the way, you might not want to take that off in public ever again. Secret identity, remember?"

"Thanks for that." Spider-Man scoffed as he ruffled her hair. "What would I do without you as one of my... how many lovers do I have at this point?" He paused to do a quick head count.

"Twenty-two." Hazmat answered as she grabbed his shoulders and placed his mask against hers. "We've all talked it over, and there's twenty-two of us now. Unless you have a few other girls stashed away that we don't know about."

"Okay." Spider-Man nodded mutely. "Mind my asking what changed your mind?"

"Galacta told me all about the spider that gave you your powers." Hazmat answered. "Genetically altered, and radioactive? Let's be honest, my chances of finding someone I can actually get physical with at this point in my life are slim to none, and you've already got radiation in your veins."

"So I'm basically a consolation prize?"

"Do you have a problem with that?" Hazmat asked dangerously.

"Honestly? I have no room to complain at this point." Spider-Man sighed dejectedly. "If this is what you want, and you're all okay with it, then so am I."

"Good." Finesse grinned as she latched onto him piggyback. "Because class is in session, and everyone's hot for teacher."

"Get a room!" Ben Reilly frowned at the scene before him, envious of Peter not only being the original Spider-Man while he was just a knock-off, but also of all the girls he was getting.

---

Meanwhile - Deep in the Jungles of Africa

'This cannot be happening!' A dark skinned man dressed in red and blue priest robes panted in shock as he clutched at the fabric just over where his heart was located. 'My power is becoming unraveled because of some moody teen. I had thought myself untouchable because I could see all and know all, and yet I have been dealt a fatal blow. Could this be the end for the Weaver?' He shook his head as he vanished from the jungle, reappearing inside an ancient temple. 'No! I refuse to accept this! Madame Web may have failed, but there is still a chance to restore the true order. It will not be easy, but it must be done!' The man's mind set, he sat down in a meditative position as webs began cocooning around him. 'It will take many moons to awaken them all, and it will be far too off schedule for comfort, but despite the risks, I must restore the Web of Life and Destiny. Already I can see the threads taking root.'

*Flash!*

A long-haired brunette in a SHIELD uniform walking down a metallic corridor suddenly looks left and right, as if feeling someone, or something, watching her.

*Flash!*

A Hispanic teenage boy cheering for a luchador dressed from head to toe in a blue and red outfit shivers as he feels a chill looming over the wrestler.

*Flash!*

A redhead drops a young girl off at kindergarten and waves goodbye, when suddenly she feels a massive migraine coming on and decides to rest for a bit before getting back on the road.

*Flash!*

A hand bursts from the ground, just underneath an unmarked headstone.

*Flash!*

A girl curled in a fetal position cries sorrowfully as a camera zooms in on her, an ugly looking, middle-aged man with a look of consternation on his warty face constantly monitoring her as he slammed the desktop furiously.

*Flash!*

A dark-skinned preteen walking down the halls of his school as he fails to notice a spider crawling on his neck until it bit him, wincing and brushing it off before going about his day like nothing happened.

*Flash!*

'They will all serve their rolls.' The priest-like man thoughts as he became fully cocooned in webbing. 'Whether they wish to or not, when Anansi, God of Stories commands you, you must obey!'