Ch 4

After the brief meeting, Petra and Fury took a boat through the canal down to Fury's base. On the way, Fury gave Petra a glass case.

When she opened it, she saw blue-tinted glasses with the Stark Industries logo.

Stark gave me this? That's new.

Then she flipped the case over and saw a quote.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown." Fury quoted. "Stark said you wouldn't get it because its not a Star Wars reference."

Yeah, Stark would do that.

Petra chuckled, then put the gift in her pocket as the two of them headed into the base.

"We have Maria Hill over here, and that is Dimitri." Fury explained.

Hill nodded at Petra and Dimitri just cocked his gun by way of greeting.

"And this is Mr. Beck." Fury said.

Then the mystery man with the gold armor and purple cape came out.

"Mysterio." Petra said in awe.

"What?" the man asked.

"It's just what my friends have been calling you." Petra replied.

"Well, you can all me Quentin. We could really use someone like you on my world." Quentin said.

"Thanks." Then Petra realized something. "Wait, I'm sorry, did you say your world?"

"Mr. Beck is from Earth. Just not yours." Fury explained.

"There are multiple realities. Mine is Earth-838 and this is Earth-616." Beck added.

The Multiverse is real? OMG.

"Wait, you're saying there's a Multiverse? I mean, we're talking about an eternal inflation system and how would that even work with all the quantum-"

Then everyone just stared at her.

"Sorry. It's just really cool." Petra said.

"Don't ever apologize for being the smartest one in the room." Beck said and Petra smiled.

"Anyway." Hill said, then she turned on the holoprojector. Petra watched as four Elemental monsters appeared, all a warping of the four elements into fierce beasts.

"We first fought them on my world, many years ago." Beck said. "The science division had a technical name but we just called them Elementals. I was part of the last battalion left trying to stop them. All we did was delay the inevitable."

Then the holoprojector showed a wave of fire engulffing Beck's Earth.

"The strongest one of them all is Fire. It's the one that took my home." Beck said in sorrow.

So they destroyed his planet and now he's trying to save ours. Petra felt a pang of sympathy. She knew what it was like to loose people. First she lost Uncle Ben, then she lost Stark. No wonder this means so much to everyone.

"We have one mission, kill it. And you're coming with us." Fury said.

"I'm sorry, what?" Petra asked.

She'd barely fought Thanos and now they wanted her to fight four monsters?

Couldn't they see that she was busy?

"What about Thor or Captain Marvel? Can't you just call on them?"

"They're unavailable." Hill explained.

I know, but I can't. I have a class to go to.

"If my class learns that I'm gone, then they'll know that I'm Spider-Girl, then the whole world will figure out and then I'm done." Petra tried.

"I understand. Take her back to the hotel, please." Fury said surprsingly.

Okay, what?

Now this just got downright fishy but she just decided to go with it.

"Okay, um, good luck everyone." Petra said as she headed out.

"See you out there." Beck replied.

Well, that was something.