Code Avengers: Cosmic

by lyokoMARVELanime

Sequel to Code Avengers. The Lyoko Avengers are back with all of their friends and allies, and this time, they're taking on new dangers, villains, and challenges, because after saving the universe from being destroyed, how can you really expect any less? Alien invasions, tests of trust, and more will await our heroes as they soar on to new levels of adventure like never before!

14. Avengers Recruit: The Sorcerer

AN: Phew! Well, it took a little while, but it's happened. It's finally, finally, finally, happened. We've got another one out there. That's right, folks, your old buddy lyoko Prime is finally gotten back with another new chapter in Code Avengers Cosmic!

[audience applause]

Yes, thank you, thank you. Thank you all!

Hawkeye: Hold up! Wait just a second. Who's lyoko Prime?

AN: It...That...That's my new nickname. It's me. Weren't you paying attention when I brought this up the other day? Or in any of the other stories that I've updated recently?

Ulrich: Dude, this is Hawkeye you're talking to. Since when does he ever pay enough attention to anything other than attempts to be a smartass.

AN: Good point. By the way, what's the status on our lookout for undesirable number 1?

Aelita: No sign of him. Looks like your deal with him is holding true.

AN: I'm not gonna celebrate just yet. The deal was that he stays away from my non-marvel stories. Stories like this one are still up for grabs.

Deadpool: True. So true, lyoko Prime.

AN: [spins around dramatically to face the merc] Deadpool.

Deadpool: [narrows his eyes] Prime.

AN: [begins stand-off] One shall stand, and one shall fall.

Deadpool: Why throw away your life so recklessly?

AN: That's a question you should ask yourself, Deadpool.

Deadpool: No! I'll crush you with my bare hands! And my swords. And my guns. And a lot of exploding things!

AN: [drops serious facade] Aw, are you serious?! Are you freaking serious, right now?! You can't even get this right?! Bad enough that you're breaking into my stories again, but you have to go and screw with an epic movie moment like that?!

Deadpool: Wait, you were making us reenact an epic movie moment? Why didn't you just say so?! Okay, let's go again. I'll get it this time.

AN: Too late. You've already ruined it and made me mad. And now you're getting out.

Deadpool: Oh no I ain't.

AN: Oh yes you are.

Deadpool: Oh no I ain't.

AN: Oh, yes you are. [secretly starts drawing a blaster from his belt]

Deadpool: OOoooh...[stops short when lyoko Prime draws the blaster and then fires it. Gets hit and is blasted out of the room, and from the sound of things, the building. Still somehow heard as he finishes talking] Yes I am.

AN: Ugh! I just...I can't...Ugh, I can't with that guy. Let's get the chapter rolling before anything else happens. Or worse, before he comes back!

Ulrich: Thought you'd never ask, lyoko Prime.

Aelita: Let's make some magic!

Wasp: [stares at Aelita for a minute] Did you really just say that?

Aelita: Yes I did, and I'm also saying this...

lyokoMARVELanime (aka lyoko Prime) does not own anything from any of either of the Code Lyoko or MARVEL franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

---

And there came a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest heroes found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, they became the Avengers: the invincible, armored Iron Man; Hawkeye, the world's greatest archer; the Wakandan King, Black Panther; Daredevil, the man without fear; Thor, Prince of Thunder; the Wasp, size-changing extraordinaire; Ms. Marvel, kree-energy-infused defender of Earth; the Hulk, strongest hero there is; Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch; the jade giantess, She-Hulk; Ulrich Stern and Aelita Schaeffer, alias Sprint Samurai and Angel Guardian, the last Lyoko Warriors; and Captain America, the First Avenger. Assembled, they are strong, and forever, they fight as one. Avengers, assemble!

---

Chapter 14: Avengers Recruit: The Sorcerer

She-Hulk had been quick to integrate herself with the rest of the Avengers team, even despite the fact that Hawkeye was complaining about how there were starting to be more girls than guys on the Avengers. Not his smartest wise-crack, given how Wanda, Janet, and Carol were all in the room at the time and each took a shot at smacking him in either the arm or the head afterwards, but that aside, the welcome transition did go very smoothly. Hulk in particular was happy to see how well-received his cousin was by the others, but he was honestly not surprised. Jen was always very well-liked even before she got gamma-fied from what he understood, despite her insistence that she was mostly regarded as a quiet, mousy woman that very few people really socialized with, but seeing that so many people still liked her after her transformation into a Hulk was something that the big guy always took to be a sign that everyone would be able to stop thinking of him as a monster one day.

The only downside to this was that none of them had any ideas on who else they could ask to join the Avengers. They had pretty much regained all the heavy muscle they lost, and adding in anyone else with special skills like Hawkeye and Cap had proven to be very difficult for a variety of reasons. Prime examples of this would be when they approached Iron Fist and Luke Cage, who were both happy to be asked, but insisted that they would only be joining if they got paid. Not that any of them had too much of a problem with that, but considering that they were not just bringing the Heroes for Hire on temporarily like Hank did when he first met Scott Lang, and that they no longer had access to Tony's bank account as far as they knew, the Avengers did not think it was a good idea to make them permanent members just yet. Another example came up when Ulrich and Cap met up with a vigilante in a white hood calling himself Moon Knight, and that led them into a very…bizarre night, to say the least, and that was without accounting for how crazy the guy clearly was. If he were being totally honest, Ulrich honestly felt like he had almost as big of a headache after dealing with Moon Knight as the one he had after he and the two Hulks had their little run-in with Deadpool.

Eventually, Ulrich finally decided to bite the bullet and just ask White Tiger if she was interested in joining the team, and while she did seem excited by the idea, she still said no. Ulrich had thought for sure that Ava would want to join up, but she stated that she would rather join at a time when it would not make her feel like she was just being a replacement for someone else. It was pretty understandable why she would feel that way, given that there were more than a few similarities between her and Black Panther, but Ulrich still did his best to assure her that was not the case. Sadly, Ava was adamant in her decision, and Ulrich had to respect that. It did not hurt that she also revealed that she was looking into a small matter of her own at the moment regarding her family's duty as protectors of the Tiger Gem.

Soon enough, they had even taken to talking with Simon Williams again, only to receive the same answer that he had given before, and now, they were at a dead-end on ideas of other heroes they could ask to join their ranks. Not that many of them really thought it was all that necessary anymore, given how many heroes had already joined up with them, but Janet still felt that it would not hurt to add at least one or two more heroes if only to be absolutely certain they could handle any situation like they were before Iron Man's little confrontation with them.

Speaking of Iron Man, the little undercover, secret scheme that Stark had Aelita and Ulrich helping him with was starting to take its toll on the two Lyoko Avengers. Neither of them were losing faith, but given how Tony still had not figured out how to get his Skrull scanner working, and how that meant the two had to continue basically lying and spying on their friends and surrogate family, it was not surprising that a few cracks had started to form. Honestly, Aelita was surprised that one of them had not already broken down and told the others everything about what was going on, especially since she knew how often keeping secrets like this from teammates had resulted in something really bad going wrong for the Lyoko Warriors, but then again, that was what she those few nights she spent venting to Ulrich about this were for. She probably should have vented to Peter a little too, but she was still a little hesitant to talk with him about this matter. Not that she did not trust her boyfriend, but she was a little worried that telling him could put Peter in danger, and she did not want that.

It was just too bad for Aelita that Peter was so observant, at least when it came to her, but then again, he did not need to be in this case. All these troubling thoughts she had about what had been going on with the Avengers lately had been plaguing Aelita's mind so much that she ended up spacing out and getting a little distracted from what she was doing, even when they were on a simple date that did not involve or end with them fighting crime. Thankfully, she did not seem to get distracted any of the times that they were fighting bad guys together, but Peter was still growing very concerned that it would eventually happen if he did not talk with her sooner rather than later.

He did not need to wait long for a chance to talk with Aelita about whatever was bothering her, but the real challenge was in getting her to listen, as was evident as they left the very fancy restaurant their latest date had taken place in. It was a very lovely night, and it had the added bonus of the two even getting all dressed up for the event. Of course, Peter would insist that Aelita looked better in the beautiful dress she wore than he ever could in his Uncle Ben's old suit. Not that it was too surprising, given that Aelita did live and usually went shopping with Janet Van Dyne, so the chances of the pinkette ever wearing something that was not fashionable at the very least were very slim. The only downside of their night was that most of their conversations tended to die out or just end up one-sided, as Aelita was constantly getting lost in thought due to thinking back on her surrogate family's current dilemmas. Right when they were about halfway through their walk in Central Park, a staple occasion that they always seemed to do at least once every month, Peter had finally reached the point where he had enough, and gave Aelita a tap on the shoulder while snapping his fingers in her face, startling her out of her stupor.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Peter. What were you saying," Aelita asked after she had calmed down from the sudden surprise.

"Aelita, I just told you that I was having an affair with MJ and she was carrying my love child, and you didn't react at all," Peter filled in a bit crossly. His statement got the reaction he had been expecting before, but he was not deterred from getting to his point. At least, not entirely; seeing Aelita showing the smallest signs of getting angry was not usually a good thing. "Hey, I wasn't being serious! You know I'd never do that to you, but more importantly, it helps me prove that you've barely been paying attention to what I've been saying for the last ten minutes, alone. Heck, you've had your head up in the clouds for most of the night!"

Peter was right when he said that Aelita knew better than to think he would betray by seeing another girl behind her back like that, but that did not mean she did not still take a breath to help calm her nerves a little. "I'm so sorry, Peter. There's just been…a lot going on lately," Aelita tried to explain as best she could without giving away anything about her little behind the scenes scheme with Tony. "A lot of…family stuff."

"Must be pretty big if it's got you this worked up," Peter noted. "Do you what to talk about it?"

Aelita shook her head. "I don't want you getting mixed up in my mess. At least, not anymore than you already do."

"Hey, getting mixed up in the messes you deal with is all par the course for me. I mean, I was right there with you and the others when the Masters of Evil attacked you guys in your own home," Peter reminded her. He then remembered that said supervillains had done the exact same thing very recently, and quickly added, "The first time. The first time they attacked you guys in your own home. And I've helped out with a lot of other stuff you and your team got into as well. I'm sure I can handle whatever it is."

"I appreciate that, Peter, but this is something that I have to handle on my own," Aelita continued trying to insist, but Peter was not having it.

"You know, in my experience, trying to handle things on your own, usually ends up putting you in a place where you don't want to be, especially with the people you care about," Peter knowingly stated, and with good reason. You do not get to be Spider-Man without having to go through a large amount of drama with your friends and family at least once, after all, and that summer with the symbiote suit and Venom was just one of the biggest examples of that. "Just talk to me. You never know; maybe I can help out somehow."

Aelita smiled sweetly at Peter, having seen that coming even before this conversation had a chance of becoming a reality, but she was still not planning on divulging anything just yet. "Hey, you've already got more than enough of your own problems to deal with, and I'm not just talking about figuring out the identity of this new Kingpin of Crime."

"Wait, how did you know I was…" Peter started to ask, until he remembered who the Avengers had most recently brought into their ranks. "Daredevil told you, didn't he?"

"Yep," Aelita cheerily confirmed. "Not that he really needed too, because I know you wouldn't be able to rest until you figured out who was trying to take over Fisk's old empire. And even without that, I know you've been trying to find some way to pay for your tuition at whatever college you plan on going to while also helping Aunt May with her bills, aside from the Bugle. You know, I'm pretty sure you could at least file a complaint or something about how Jameson underpays you for your pictures."

"One, I'm still technically just a freelance photographer, so my pay is determined based on when and what pictures I turn in, and two, clearly you've been paying even less attention the stuff I've been saying all night than I thought," Peter easily countered, drawing an inquiring look from Aelita with his second statement. "Like I said over dinner, Aunt May and I have been looking into various different scholarships I could apply for since I finished at Midtown, but what we didn't know was that Miles was looking into some for us too."

"Miles? You mean your friend from the FEAST Shelter that May works at," Aelita recalled.

"Yep, that's him. Apparently, he's bright enough to the point where it looks like he might even finish high school a little early, so he and his parents had started looking into things like scholarships already. Plus, with how much he helps out at FEAST, it's not that surprising that he would want to help out others with the same or similar troubles to mine," Peter explained, earning an impressed hum from Aelita once she had heard all of that. "Anyways, Miles only told us that he had been looking into that stuff today when I saw him at the shelter, and get this, he found a scholarship that I have a very real chance of getting; one that would be able to get me a full ride into one of my first choice colleges!"

"That's great!" Aelita cheered, wrapping Peter in a congratulatory hug and reacting a little more like Peter had been hoping and expecting she would when he first told her the news. "So, what school would this be for, anyway? Empire State?"

"Better. It's Horizon University," Peter revealed an eager grin stretched across his face.

"Horizon? Like as in Horizon Industries, the next-gen tech company," Aelita recalled, having seen a few specials about the place on the news every now and then.

"Actually, the two are one and the same. Max Modell, the founder of Horizon believes that the brilliant minds of future generations should have at least a chance to get access to resources that would really allow them to shine in whatever projects they undertake, so he set up his company so that it doubles as a school, mainly for college-level students. Not only would people be able to get a full education like they would at any other school, but at the same time, the students can be asked to help out on special projects that Horizon takes on from various parties, like the space administration for example, and if their contributions are significant enough, the students could even get paid a small fee for their work. Plus, if they create anything for a school project that could be easily mass produced and beneficial to the general public somehow, then Horizon would not only make that student's work a product, but also pay them for that too."

"So by attending Horizon, you could even take on projects that would help you pay for your tuition, even with the scholarship," Aelita reasoned out.

"Yeah, and I hear that a few regular Horizon employees actually started out as students attending the school, so if I manage to show my worth there as a student, I could easily land a job as a regular Horizon Industries employee," Peter finally concluded, his excitement growing with every word.

"Peter that's amazing," Aelita cheered once again. "And if anyone can land that scholarship, it's you."

"Sure, assuming that I can come up with something that I can present at the special science exhibit that Horizon holds every year," Peter said, making Aelita pause in wonder of why that mattered. Luckily, Peter had an explanation ready for that too. "That's the whole key to getting the scholarship. I have to come up with a special project that could wow the crowd or at the very least impress Mr. Modell, and a lot of people are likely to be trying for the same thing, both in terms of people that are already students and people that are hoping to get into Horizon like me."

Now Aelita was starting to see why Peter sounded so cautious when he mentioned the science exhibit. This was looking like his best if not his only shot to get into the college he wanted, and knowing how Peter tended to get himself wrapped up in self-doubt so often, it was no surprise that he would be nervous about his chances of pulling this off. Being the supporting girlfriend she was, Aelita had no intention of letting him wallow in self-doubt, so she quickly pecked him on the cheek and said, "Well, if anyone can pull it off, it's you, Peter. I know it."

"Thanks, Aelita," Peter smiled gratefully. He soon had to shake it away though, but only because he realized that they had gotten way off track from their previous topic. "But that can wait for later. Namely once you've talked to me about whatever it is that's been bugging you so much lately, and don't think you can dodge the topic this time."

Aelita could not help but let out a mental curse, since that was exactly what she had been trying to do by asking Peter about all of this, and now, she was back to square one on figuring out how to keep her boyfriend in the dark about the secret plan that she was caught up in with Tony and Ulrich. Then again, it was not like that was the only thing that had been bothering her lately, and she had been hoping to talk with someone about it for a while now. She just did not expect to be talking about this subject as a way of covering up her concerns for something else.

"I guess…I guess I'm just a little worried about how often we've been finding bad guys that are looking into a certain matter," Aelita quietly confessed, not due to her hesitance to talk about it, but more so to better hide certain aspects of her secret identity.

Peter quickly caught on to what she was referring to. "You mean how a lot of them are doing research on ways to get past yours and Ulrich's suit's protection?"

"It's not just research anymore, Peter. Remember? Ulrich and Ava ran into a group of HYDRA troops that were using actual, working weapons that could get past the protection of our suits and hurt us. Not only that, but they even deployed a robotic duplicate of one of the monsters that Ulrich and I used to fight on Lyoko, and they were working with someone who not only fought a lot like us, but also seemed to have powers similar to ours," Aelita reminded him. She had to pause for a second in order to keep from shivering at the memory of what Ulrich told them regarding his encounter with Savage Artillery, but she was back on topic again soon after. "We've been trying like crazy to keep that from happening, but despite everything someone still found a way to weaponize whatever weakness exists in our suits."

"Yeah, I'll admit that is a pretty scary thought, and I can understand getting worked up about it, but do you really think you could prevent it forever," Peter asked.

"What," was the only thing Aelita could say in reply, and Peter did not like the way she had said it, or the way her face had started to make an angry scowl when she did. Still, he felt that this was something that should not be ignored, especially given how Aelita and Ulrich had been reacting to just hearing about people doing that kind of research lately.

"Just hear me out," he pleaded. "I get that you're freaked out by the idea that someone might find a way to hurt you guys, but despite all of our best efforts, it's impossible to keep stuff like that from coming up forever. Sure, it sucks that someone has a weapon that can hurt you and your brother, but at the same time, that doesn't mean it's the end of the world. Just that you now have a new challenge to overcome, and considering how smart you are, I'm sure you can find a way to beat it."

"That's easy for you to say. You don't have any weaknesses that leave you writhing in pain on the floor while your friends are forced to cover for you," huffed Aelita.

Peter was quiet for a few seconds, and Aelita almost took that to mean that she had won this argument, until he finally spoke up again. "Did you know that there's a certain chemical that makes me feel really weak, like kryptonite to Superman?"

"There is," Aelita gasped in surprise.

"Yep. Ethyl chloride," Peter revealed, his face turning a little red out of embarrassment.

Aelita was a little confused by why Peter would be embarrassed about that until she realized the exact significance of that chemical. "Wait, Ethyl chloride? Isn't that…"

"The main ingredient of bug spray? Yes," Peter confirmed, already hanging his head in anticipation of what was likely to follow next.

To her credit, Aelita did try. She tried very hard, but no matter how hard she tried, she could just barely keep a smile from making its way onto her face, so what chance did she have of stopping herself from so much as giggling a little? She did have mercy on Peter and turned away while covering her mouth with one hand to better hide the fact she was laughing at him, but she had a feeling that it would not hurt any less that she was laughing about this. "Y-you…You're joking, right," Aelita just barely managed to get out.

"No. No, I'm not," Peter admitted. "Part of me wish I was joking and that I had some really cool, or even rare and hard to get weakness, but no, I get stuck with a weakness that someone can just pick up at the store. I really can't have anything, can I?"

Most of his comments did not help Aelita's attempts at stopping her laughter from belting out, but that last one certainly helped to calm her down just enough that she could speak with a chuckle finding its way into her voice. Good thing too, because her next comment would have lost a lot of credibility if she was still in the midst of stopping a laughing fit. "Hey, don't say that. I mean, you've got me, don't you," she told him, sweetly.

Peter had to smile in reply, as he said, "Yes, I do." A quick kiss soon followed between the two lovers, before he continued on with his point. "Anyways, having a weakness that bad guys can get doesn't mean that you have to give up, quit, or go on a mad rampage to eliminate every last trace of that weakness. It just reminds you that underneath all of the powers and cool suits, you're still human, and that you do need help from others every now and then."

She did not want to admit it, but she knew that Peter had something of a point there. Despite this, Aelita still did not seem willing to listen to her boyfriend entirely when it came to the matter of things that weakened her or her brother. "Human or not, I don't want anyone to be put at risk just because someone can hurt me both in and out of my suit."

"That's not really a choice you can always make, Aelita. And even if it was, the people who care about you will always want to do everything they can to protect you," Peter reminded her, grasping her hand in a reassuring manner as if to prove his point. He then decided to get a little cheeky as he added, "Even if you are being a little mean by not letting them help out as much as possible, like by letting them join your awesome team of superheroes?"

"Oh here we go again," Aelita tiredly sighed. "I thought we'd had this conversation already."

"Only after what happened at Williams Innovations, and yet, ever since, you and the other Avengers have been trying to recruit every hero under the sun except me," Peter quickly pointed out. "Now I know that I've told you that I do prefer being a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be willing to step up and join the big leagues if given the chance, so why are you so insistent on not asking your loving boyfriend to do his part? And please don't say it's because you don't want me to get hurt. I practically invented that excuse, as you very well know."

"It's not just that, Peter. The Avengers face dangers every day that I'm afraid you're not used to or ready for. Yes, I know you've taken on some supervillains, and that a good deal of them are really powerful and dangerous, but the stuff we face is on an entirely different level all together," Aelita tried to explain, but even to her own ears, it sounded very weak.

"Um, you do remember when I mentioned earlier how I was right there with you guys when you got attacked by the Masters of Evil the first time, right? I think I did alright back then, and it's not like fighting crime bosses or groups like the Sinister Six is all that different from what you guys deal with," Peter immediately countered. All playfulness left him right after he said that, and he asked, "What's the real reason why don't want me to join?"

Aelita wanted to mention the stress he dealt with from juggling his civilian life with his work as Spider-Man, and how he was struggling to find some way to better afford going to college and take care of his aunt, but she knew even before opening her mouth to say it that such an argument had been rendered invalid already just from what she learned about Peter's chances at that scholarship to Horizon University. She really had very few other excuses to give him, but they had all died in her throat when she heard Peter take that tone of voice with her. Hearing him get that serious was rare, especially with most of their discussions, and always had a tendency to leave her tongue-tied, so she was surprised that she was even able to stutter anything in response. Honestly, she was having a hard time admitting the entire reason why she did not want Peter joining the Avengers in general, so being asked to tell him like this was not a great help for her.

She ended up having to refrain from saying anything, because she saw something coming towards them at a high speed, and it was definitely something big. A brief second's look caused her eyes to widen when she realized the object was a car, and she instantly reacted on instinct by pushing Peter out of the way as she shouted for him to duck. The airborne vehicle soared right over their heads before crashing into the ground behind them, prompting both young heroes to spare its wreckage only a short glance before attempting to find who had thrown it. What they saw was definitely strange to say the least, as it turned out to be an army of bizarre, massive grey monsters with a single red slit on their heads acting as an eye, and no other features. From the look of things, the creatures were barely even cognizant of their actions beyond the fact that they were just destroying everything around them, and they did not even stop for even the briefest of pauses regardless of how much strength they exerted in carrying out the actions they took.

Seeing this, Peter could only sigh as he checked to make sure there was not anyone paying attention to them, and then began to undo his tie and unbuttoning his shirt, revealing his spider-suit underneath while commenting, "We can never have just one night to ourselves without being extremely lucky, can we?"

"I'm just glad that our outfits weren't ruined by any of that," Aelita shrugged after brushing the few specks of dirt that had gotten on her dress. It was a mystery how her dress was not damaged any more than that, but she was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, she just tapped her watch to transform into Angel Guardian, saving her outfit from any further harm, and once she was suited up, she gave Peter a few more seconds to finish his transformation into Spider-Man before grabbing her ID card and sending out the signal for her team. "Avengers, assemble!"

Spidey and Angel Guardian went right to work once they were all suited up, attacking the closest of the strange creatures without any hesitation. It was pretty easy to take them down too, thanks to a tried and true strategy that they had often employed before on some of their patrols. Either Spidey would ensnare a large number in his webs so that Aelita could blast them, or Aelita would blast a large group in order to drive them into a web-trap that Spidey had laid down. Regardless of whatever tactics they used though, they had barely even taken down more than five of these things when a lot of the others suddenly decided to converge on their position, attempting to swarm and overwhelm them both. To make matters worse, there were still plenty left to terrorize the rest of the city, and as soon as she realized this, Aelita immediately tried to make a path that some civilians could escape through by throwing a flurry of energy fields at any of the creatures that came within her line of sight. It did little good, because from the look of things, these guys had decided to take a page out of HYDRA's book, and send in several more to take the place of one that had been destroyed.

Realizing this made Aelita growl under her breath in frustration, and her attacks soon became more akin to a barrage you would expect from Hulk. Even under the force of attacks that came from the angered Angel Guardian, the creatures continued to persist, making Aelita wonder aloud, "Do these things not even have enough brains to give them some survival instincts?!"

Spider-Man could not help but pause after Aelita had shouted that, thankfully after he had bashed away the creatures that had previously surrounded him, and muttered, "No, they don't. Because they're mindless." Without even thinking, Spidey then shot off some more webs to trap the creatures with, and then moved to swing away as he shouted, "Keep these guys busy a little longer, Angel! I need to make a call!"

"What?! Now," snapped Aelita, hardly believing that Peter would be trying to call anyone right now. Too bad he had swung out of sight before she could question him further, so she just had to settle for grumbling about it to herself. "Who could he possibly be trying to call at a time like this?"

Aelita's frustrated musings had an unfortunate downside, as she did not realize she had left herself open to an attack from behind, namely a concentrated laser blast that came from the eyes of several of the creatures at once. Since she had not been paying attention, Aelita took the blast in full, and was knocked out of the air to the hard street below. Times like this were moments when Aelita was glad that her suit did what it was supposed to and absorbed damage from serious attacks, but she could still feel a small tingle in her back that made her slightly concerned. It was not anything like what would happen if she were struck by something wielded by say Kang or Loki, even Wanda's powers; if anything, it was more like that one small itch that you can't ignore yet can't reach.

She probably would have thought about it a little more if she did not have to worry about the city being attacked, or how a large number of these creatures had moved to surround her while she was getting up again. Thankfully, the latter was something she did not have to worry about for too long, as a scarlet energy blast suddenly sent a quarter of the creatures surrounding her flying away, and a golden one soon pushed back another half of the original group. The rest were straight up punched back by a double dose of gamma strength, courtesy of She-Hulk and Hulk, the former of which stopped to help Aelita back to her feet after the monsters surrounding her were dealt with.

"You okay, Angel," asked Jen.

"Nothing broken except for my pride," Aelita joked in response. "Thanks for asking though."

"Any idea what these things even are," Daredevil asked once he and Captain had reached them, while Hawkeye and Sprint Samurai rushed ahead to take out a few more of the monsters.

"No clue. They just appeared out of nowhere and started trashing everything. It doesn't even seem like they have any mind to try and either concentrate on more dangerous opponents or avoid the ones they can't beat," Aelita informed him, speaking into her comm. device so that the other Avengers could hear the report as well.

"More like they don't have any mind at all," Wasp suddenly said over the radio.

"Janet? Where are you right now," Aelita questioned.

"Believe it or not, taking a look inside the head of one of these things," Wasp confessed. "From what I'm seeing, it literally has no mind. Just a small, glowing ball of some kind."

"Fascinating. Maybe that acts as a limited processor, allowing these things to carry out basic functions such as movement," Hank theorized over their radios.

"And attacking," Hawkeye shouted as he ducked, rolled, and flipped out of the way of the various attacks that the monsters were using on him. When he finally caught a break, he instantly drew several arrows at once, and fired them all at the monsters closest to him, each one exploding on impact with their targets. Once he confirmed that his shots destroyed or disabled the creatures that were hounding him, he then grabbed his ID card and asked, "So does that mean that were fighting some kind of organic robots or something?"

"I'm not entirely certain. Our scanners don't seem to be picking up any electrical components that would be typical of any machinery," Hank reasoned. "But near as I can tell, these things don't really seem to be alive."

"Which means we don't need to worry about holding back when we smash 'em," Hulk roared right before he unleashed a powerful thunderclap on a group of monsters that were right in front of him.

Hulk's attack may have succeeded in destroying the monsters, but the downside was that it also left several structures unstable, one of which would have collapsed on top of some civilians that were taking shelter from the fighting. Thankfully, She-Hulk came to the rescue by destroying the debris before any of it could hit. "We do still need to worry about the people that weren't able to get away in time, Cous," Jen reminded him once she was done and had ushered the people she just rescued to safety.

"My bad."

"Don't worry. I've got a plan," Wasp revealed as she flew up out of the monsters' reach, using her smaller size to better dodge the laser blasts that they were shooting at her. "Hulk, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Angel, you all take the fight straight to these things. Do whatever you can to take them out while containing the fight in one location. Sprint Samurai, Cap, and Scarlet Witch, you're on civilian evacuation duty. Destroy any monsters you can if you get a chance or just have to, but your priority is getting anyone still in the area to safety as fast as possible. Hawkeye, we need you to get somewhere up high so you can have eyes on everything. You see any civilians, let Samurai's group know right away so one of them can get them out fast. Otherwise, nail as many targets as you can, and let us know if any monsters try to get further out into the city."

"And what about the two of us," Daredevil asked.

"We're going to get in close so that we can lighten the load for our heavy hitters. While we're doing that, try to find a weak point that anyone can hit. I don't mean just in terms of anyone on our team, but also that anyone from the police or SHIELD can get to," Wasp explained. "Shouldn't be too hard for us, right?"

"Right," Daredevil smirked in response, and he then used his billy club to swing over everyone's heads in order to get in close and better scout out those weak points with his enhanced senses.

"Are you sure it's a good idea having Scarlet Witch on our team? Her powers would be of greater assistance with the main attack force," Captain America informed Wasp.

"We've got more than enough heavy hitters on the offensive, and Wanda's telekinetic powers would be of more help with clearing out anything that could be keeping people trapped," Wasp reasoned, her eyes narrowing a little in suspicion. It was not like Cap to question orders, especially if they were well-reasoned ones.

"Besides, Spidey should be back at any second to help in any one of those jobs," Aelita revealed.

"Wait, what do you mean 'should be back?' You mean he just left you here by yourself," Ulrich questioned once he had come to a stop next to her, having just finished a quick run around that consisted of him slashing several more monsters to pieces.

Right when Aelita was about to answer, a barrage of web-bullets came raining down on the monsters around her and her adoptive brother. Where there were webs, there was always Spider-Man, and this time was no different, as the web-swinger came soaring onto the scene just in time to land a series of spin kicks on the nearest monsters, followed by a pair of devastating punches and a back-flip kick to destroy a few more. While he was in the air, Spidey snagged two more monsters with web-lines, and after he landed again, he spun around so that he was holding the lines from over his head, and pulled the two monsters into each other with a hard tug on both lines.

Spidey continued his ferocious assault by shooting more webs, all the while replying to Ulrich's earlier question. "To be accurate, Samurai, I didn't just leave her here. I knew you guys were just around the corner, and that meant I could make a quick call to someone that can help us deal with these things. Just be glad that I was able to get in touch with him, because trying to reach that guy normally is almost harder than getting Jameson to say something nice about me, let alone when something like this little invasion of Mindless Ones is happening."

Now it was Aelita and Ulrich who had to pause in their fighting, as the former said, "How did you know that these things didn't have minds?"

"Wait, they really don't have minds? I always thought that it was just a hokey name," Spidey admitted.

"A name? You mean these things are literally called Mindless Ones? How do you even know that," asked Aelita, feeling her head starting to hurt from how confused she was getting.

Just before another question could be answered or posed, a circle of sparks suddenly appeared behind Spider-Man, and upon forming completely, an arm garbed in what looked like blue robes reached out to grab the web-swinger and pull him in, much to everyone's surprise. Only Aelita seemed to react though, and her reaction was to spread her wings and fly into the portal after her boyfriend, just before it closed on her. She was the only other person to make it through though, because the portal slammed shut right behind her.

The other Avengers who had seen all of this could only look on in worry for both their teammate and her lover, until Ulrich tapped his visor and almost shouted, "Sis! Angel, are you okay?! Can you hear me?!"

"Hank, tell me you've got a fix on Angel Guardian's location," Wasp demanded soon after, blasting some Mindless Ones with her stingers to discourage them from getting too close to the panicking speedster.

"I'm trying, but there's nothing there. JARVIS can't seem to pick up on any trace of Aelita at all. Nothing from her Avengers ID card, the energy signal that her suit gives off, even her biometric readings aren't showing up. It's like she just vanished!"

Wasp cursed under her breath, having wanted any answer besides that, and was about to order one of her teammates to go back to the mansion so that they could help Hank with his search until she saw more Mindless Ones marching on the city, almost like they too had appeared out of thin air. Taking a deep breath to better calm down, Janet tapped the radio in her antenna again as she relayed new orders to the team. "Keep trying, Hank. In the meantime, the rest of us need to focus on what's happening here."

"What?! But Janet," Ulrich started to protest.

"I don't like it anymore than you do, Ulrich, but right now, there isn't anything else we can do for Aelita," snapped Janet before he could get too far. "We're just going to have to trust Hank to find her, and that Spidey will be able to keep her safe until he does. Until then, let's keep these people here safe."

Ulrich wanted to argue more, but he knew that Janet was right. That point and the fact she was also upset about the matter was better driven home by the fact that she had used both his real name and Aelita's, so he let out a reluctant nod and turned to carry out his previous orders. Of course, no one missed how he viciously attacked any Mindless Ones that were careless enough to come too close to him, most likely in an attempt to vent his anger over the situation with Aelita being MIA, but he was not the only one venting right now. Wasp had also stepped up her game as well by turning into Giant-Woman, and any Mindless One foolish enough to stand in her way was lucky if she settled for simply stepping on them.

---

Maybe it was not the best idea to just rush head-first into a strange portal without any idea of what could be on the other side besides her boyfriend, but the fact that something on the other side had snatched her boyfriend up like that was all the reason Aelita really needed to make that jump. Besides, it was not like this was the first time she had done something like that, be it willingly or otherwise, and after all the times it had happened, Aelita was sure that she would be ready for anything that could come at her. She was wrong. She was definitely not ready for what she found on the other side of the strange portal.

Granted, Aelita had highly suspected she would be attacked the second she came out on the other side, and she suspected such an attack could come from any manner of villain or beast, but never in all of her life had she expected to be attacked by a large piece of cloth. The minute her feet had touched the ground on the other side and she stood up ready to deliver any kind of ultimatum for the safe return of her boyfriend, Aelita's vision was filled with the texture of a red fabric, and it did not take much for her to realize that the fabric blinding her was wrapping around her arms as well. She tried to get it off, but to her surprise, it seemed like whatever this cloth was, it was somehow alive and doing its best to keep her restrained. Naturally she struggled to break free and get the bothersome thing off of her, but it was proving to be surprisingly strong. Right when she was about to consider using either her energy fields or creativity to vaporize this thing, the sound of her boyfriend's voice made her stop short.

"Hey! Whoa! No, no, no! Bad Cloaky! Angel Guardian is a friend, not an enemy," Spider-Man could be heard shouting, and from the way she was being pulled this way and that, Aelita figured that the web-head was now trying to pull the cloak off of her too. It seemed like he was not having much success, because the next thing she heard from him was, "Hey Doc! Could you lend me a hand and tell your crazy cape to let my girlfriend loose!"

Aelita was not sure who Peter was talking to, but she got her answer, when another, unfamiliar, almost-regal sounding voice shouted, "Cloak of Levitation, enough! Release her at once!"

The fabric holding Aelita seemed to relax and then flew off of her, spinning her around a little and leaving her a bit dizzy as it came off. Luckily her dizzy spell did not last long, and she was then able to get a fix on just where she was. From what she could tell, it looked like a very lavish room, something you would expect to find in the home of someone who lived the life of high-society, but there seemed to be a number of strange items, trinkets, and other such furnishings that stretched the limits of what could be called odd and then some. If she had to make any kind of comparison, Aelita would have to say that it looked a lot like what Thor's room would be in Asgard, or even at the mansion if the Prince of Thunder was allowed to decorate it himself. The only thing that came remotely close to being stranger than the room was the man who had spoken just a second ago.

There, standing before Aelita, was a man in strange, blue robes, with a well-trimmed, thin goatee, and a bit of grey on the sides of his dark hair. Around his neck was a thin cord, attached a gold medallion that glowed with a faint orange color, and before she knew it, the red cloak that she had just been wrestling with had flown around to rest on his shoulders. The guy seemed a bit weird, but at the same time, Aelita could not help but get a vibe from him that was oddly similar to Thor's. Not that she was really paying attention to those details right now; she was busy trying to wrap her head around all the confusing things that were happening right now.

"What in the world is going on here? Where is here," Aelita started off. Before Spidey could answer her questions, she immediately rounded on the man she suspected to be a sorcerer and added, "And just who are you, Mister…?"

"Doctor," was all that the sorcerer said in response to Aelita's last question.

The response seemed to have left Aelita a little bewildered, and certainly seemed to drain away any of her previous ire. "Mister Doctor?"

The sorcerer had to suppress a small scowl when he heard Spider-Man snort in amusement to his girlfriend's question. "No, it's Strange."

"Well, so is having natural pink hair, so clearly I'm not one to judge," Aelita pointed out, still not quite getting what the man was trying to say.

"No, no. My name is Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme," the now properly identified Doctor Strange finally clarified with a brief display of magic consisting of magic runes summoning a brief storm of lightning around him. When he had finished his rather impressive display, he gave the pinkette a small smile and said, "A pleasure to make your acquaintance at last, Angel Guardian, or may I call you Aelita?"

That last question scared Aelita a little, and why would it not? This man she had never met before somehow knew her secret identity, and she doubted that Spidey or anyone else she knew ever said or did anything that would lead him to figure it out. Naturally, her first response was, "What…? How do you…?"

"I'm an acquaintance with a certain friend of yours from beyond," Strange revealed with a knowing smile.

Given the extra emphasis that he had placed on the word "beyond," Aelita had no trouble figuring out that Strange was talking about the Beyonder. Still, the only response she could give his short explanation was a simple nod if for no other reason than the fact that they had more important things to worry about right now. "If you're really on our side, then why did you kidnap Spider-Man?"

"Ah, yes," Strange recalled, now looking at least a little ashamed for that choice of action as he turned to address Spider-Man. "Forgive me for my hastiness, old friend, but time is of the essence if we are to stop the crisis that is currently upon us."

"Yeah, I kinda figured you'd say something like that, but considering that the city is being attacked by Mindless Ones, I can't blame you for being worried," Spidey shrugged.

"Wait, Spidey, are you saying that this guy can stop the Mindless Ones," Aelita asked.

"Yep. Seen him do that and a lot more before."

"Well then what are we doing here talking about it? Let's get back to the city and help the rest of the Avengers before New York is destroyed," Aelita insisted.

"I'm afraid you misunderstand the exact nature of this situation, Aelita, for it is not only New York that is at stake, but all of our world if not our universe," Strange revealed. "The Mindless Ones alone are not the great threat, but merely the first wave of the assault. Their purpose, as near as I can foresee, is to wear down any defenders of our realm so that their master may more easily gain access and spread his darkness and evil unopposed."

"Their master?" Aelita repeated in question. "Who are you talking about?"

"I speak of the greatest threat that I and all who have bared the responsibilities as Sorcerer Supreme have long fought to hold back over the centuries: the ruler of the Dark Dimension himself. The Dread Dormammu."

Even though this was the first time she had ever heard the name, Aelita could still feel a shiver run up her spine at the mere mention of it, and that alone spelled bad news in her mind. Spider-Man on the other hand, did not seem all that nervous. If anything, he just came across as confused. "Yeah, speaking of which, maybe now you'd like to answer my earlier question from when I called you," the web-head requested. "How is Dormammu even still around? I thought we beat him for good the last time we teamed up."

"Sadly, Dormammu is a threat that is never thwarted for good. If he were, my order would not need to exist, or at the very least, we would have one less reason to," Strange revealed. "Not only that, but he is also very crafty, constantly seeking and plotting new ways that he could slip into our world and destroy us all."

"Well from where I'm standing, his latest scheme seems to be working, and is only seconds away from succeeding," Aelita pointed out, once again referencing the army of Mindless Ones that were currently battling the Avengers.

"On the contrary, we still have a good deal of time before Dormammu himself enters our dimension. The Mindless Ones are but mere pawns that can easily reach other realms without much difficulty, and the only time Dormammu would think to send them himself, would be when he finds some form of weakness or exploitable method that would allow for him to break the barrier that divides his realm from ours. Still, if we are to stop him, our best chance is to face him in his own domain," Strange revealed. He then set about gathering various different items from the room around them, as he said, "I merely need to gather a few items that would better ensure our safe return, and then we can set off."

"Um, 'we,'" Spidey and Aelita both parroted.

"There is a reason why I reached out to you and brought you to the Sanctum Santorum, Spider-Man. Wong and the other mystics here must guard the Sanctum in my absence, as it is the focal point through which many other magical forces, good and bad could slip through to our realm, and my absence would doubtlessly not go unnoticed if we take too long. Since you have aided me in my battle with Dormammu before, you may be the best option I have to aid me this time as well."

"I'm flattered, Doc, but there's got to be someone way more qualified than me. I mean, what about Iron Fist? This kind of mystic stuff is right up his alley, you know, since you two are kind of old, cosmic neighbors and all," Spidey argued.

"He is busy defending New York with many other heroes, including any other sorcerers that may or may not exist in our realm, which leads me to the second reason why I called upon you for this. You are literally the only option available to me at the moment," Doctor Strange finally admitted.

Spidey just stared at the doctor before he finally said, "I know I should probably feel a little insulted by that, but sadly, that is just so me, I can't really disagree with you."

"I can," snapped Aelita. "I've told you time and again that you deserve a lot more credit than most people give you, and that you're more than capable of handling major things like this."

"And yet, you still don't want to extend an invitation for me to join the Avengers," Spidey reminded her.

"Not the point and not nearly the same thing."

"I feel like it kinda is,"

"Perhaps you two could continue this discussion after we've all returned," interrupted Doctor Strange, confusing the two once again. "What? Did you think I was only referring to myself and Spider-Man when I said that we would be going to the Dark Dimension?"

Aelita was not entirely certain if she was hearing this right, mainly because she was not sure if Doctor Strange was the type to joke, be it rarely or otherwise, but Spidey most certainly was sure, and he did not agree with the doctor's decision at all. "Whoa! No! Uh-uh! Dragging me along for the ride is one thing, but I am not about to let you drag my girlfriend to the Dark Dimension, let alone into a fight with the king of the mega-demons!"

"Excuse me," snapped Aelita, now shooting Peter a very cross look. "I don't think I need to remind you, but I will anyway. I've fought a time-traveling warlord, stopped the Leader from turning Earth into Gamma World, survived numerous confrontations with the Masters of Evil, prevented Malekith from killing everyone on the planet in a second ice age, and saved the universe from being destroyed by Loki, and that's just the highlights of the most major things I had done in the past year. I think I'm more than qualified to go with you, so…yeah, I'm going."

"Even without some of those accomplishments, I would still wish for you to journey with us to battle Dormammu," Strange revealed. "I have heard many a tale of how your powers were able to counter those of the Asgardian sorceress, Enchantress, and it's no secret of how you also purified Yggdrasil of the black magic Loki had infected it with amongst the more magically aware. There is little doubt in my mind that you will be of great assistance in our endeavor."

Spidey was still against the idea. "But…"

"Spider-Man, if we are to succeed here today, then I must ask you to once again do the impossible just I had when we first met," Doctor Strange interrupted. "Close your mouth, and open your mind."

If that was not an obvious barb against him, then Spider-Man was unable to stick to walls, so he could only slump his shoulders in defeat. The only thing that stung more was that it seemed like Aelita was not saying anything in his defense this time. "You know, sweetie, you can disagree with him," he informed her like it should have been obvious.

"I probably could, but the thing is, I know he's not wrong. It does take quite a bit to make you stop talking or just close your mouth, barring a certain variety of circumstances," Aelita teased, her smile not lacking in any form of mischief as she stared at him with a certain look in her eyes that never failed to make Spider-Man blush.

Seeing that all further arguments had been settled and the supplies he deemed necessary were all collected, Strange began to wave his hands about as numerous magical seals formed around the room, while he chanted, "By the Eye of Agamotto, open the path to the dark one's domain!"

A brilliant flash of light coupled with an explosion of magic followed right after, and it all signaled the appearance of a dark colored portal that could only have lead to the Dark Dimension. Of course, it was not just the color that gave off that impression, because Aelita could also feel a certain chill coming from the other side that gave her goose bumps. Regardless, she kept her head held high, and proceeded to march towards the portal with Spider-Man. At least they were until Strange stopped them again for some last minute words.

"I know that you are already aware of this, Spider-Man, but I feel that you should be reminded of the warning I must give to Angel Guardian. The Dark Dimension is no place for the faint of heart, let alone great progenitors of light who have not experienced anything comparable to its depths. While we are there, you must not ever let your courage and conviction waver for even the slightest of moments, or the darkness within this realm will find the cracks and seek to destroy you from within," Strange cautioned them both.

Hearing Strange iterate just how bad this place was made Aelita grow a little more concerned for their wellbeing, but she did not let it show at all. Instead, she just steeled her nerves and set her face into a determined expression with a nod, hoping that would be enough to reassure Strange that she could handle this. Given the sorcerer's responding nod, it must have worked, and Doctor Strange then waved for the two to follow after him into the portal, and neither hero hesitated in doing so.

---

Aelita would like to think she had a pretty good idea about what she should expect from a place called the Dark Dimension. The ideas ranged from a pitch black, endless void with random rocks cropping up to mark locations or distances, with any form of pathways being unseen, assuming there were any at all, to something more akin to a random asteroid field in space. She even considered the possibility that it was a veritable hell with fire and brimstone included. Upon coming out of the portal that Strange had opened for them, she found that the truth was actually something of a mix between all of those ideas.

The paths were not unseen, but the world around them was certainly close to being between an endless void somewhere out in the deepest reaches of space. Namely, a point where there were barely any stars to be seen in the sky, but more than enough dark clouds that rumbled with thunderstorms. The rocky ground beneath their feet seemed to be floating up in the skies, much like most of the landmasses back on Lyoko had, but there were still somehow enough substance beneath the ground to give rise to a number of volcanic geysers that would constantly spew lava at an incalculable rate of time. It certainly gave off the appearance and the feeling of a regular place of damnation, and not just from the appearance either. Aelita could not really explain why, but after stepping into this Dark Dimension's plane of existence, there was a tightness in her stomach that grew more and more with every passing second, if not every millisecond, while a sense of dread that she could only compare to what she felt whenever she picked up on the pulsations that signaled XANA's attacks at best filled her senses. These feelings were so bad that Aelita could not stop glancing every direction she could in an attempt to locate some unseen enemy, expecting an attack at any second like someone who lived their life in fear of everything.

All these sensations that were now racking her conscious mind only passed when Doctor Strange muttered another incantation that cast a faint glow over both herself and Spider-Man. "Forgive me, Angel Guardian. I probably should have cast that protective ward before we entered the Dark Dimension," Doctor Strange explained afterwards.

"It's…It's alright," Aelita panted. "I guess I wasn't as ready for this place as I thought."

"I'm pretty sure no one ever really is," Spidey comforted her; a reasoning that Doctor Strange confirmed shortly after.

A few more protective spells later, and Doctor Strange finally deemed it safe enough for them to proceed onwards from the portal that was still right behind them. Then again, he would hardly call any location in Dormammu's realm safe, and he made sure that the younger heroes with him understood that when ushered them onwards. "We mustn't linger for too long," he had said. "Every second we waste is another in which Dormammu draws closer to his success."

"And that our friends have to spend fighting off his forces," added Spidey.

"Exactly. We must hurry if we are to dispense with whatever scheme that he is concocting this time," Strange confirmed.

Aelita agreed with all of this, but there was still one worry on her mind. "How long do we have until Dormammu realizes we're here?"

"Nothing in the Dark Dimension escapes his notice. If he was not already aware of our presence from the moment we opened the portal, then he most certainly is now," Strange confessed, though whether or not he had intended to worry Aelita and Peter more, neither of them could tell you.

If Strange's intention of telling Spidey and Aelita that had been to scare them, he certainly came close to succeeding. More so in the latter's case than the former, given that Spider-Man had helped Strange fight against Dormammu before, but Aelita had only been frightened to the point where she motioned to create an energy field at any second, be it for attack or defense. Turns out that had been a good decision on her part, because after walking only a few more paces, the three were set upon by a variety of hideous monsters. Aelita had been the first to attack by only a few seconds, and Doctor Strange was right behind her in shooting energy blasts at whatever demonic entity dared to come after them. Spider-Man took a more basic approach, for him that is, and simply dodged, ducked, and flipped away from anything that tried to attack him before retaliating with either his webs or his own fighting skills, but regardless of the tactics used, no one could say that this fight was proving difficult.

Though the creatures had an advantage in numbers, and did possess some level of brute strength and durability, they seemed to possess so little intelligence that Spidey honestly believed any quips he could make about their brain power would be too easy to even bother with. The creatures' go-to strategy was to just roar and jump at the heroes in an attempt to overwhelm the invaders to the Dark Dimension, but between Strange's magic, Spidey's acrobatics and webs, and Aelita's power and skills, they might as well have been just throwing themselves over the nearest ledge. At best, all the creatures really seemed to be doing was slowing the heroes down, and even that did not escape anyone's notice for too long, because Strange and Aelita were both soon forming energy barriers to use as battering rams as they rushed forward, plowing through the monsters like one would snow, while Spider-Man used his webs to keep anymore monsters from getting back up or to bar their path further. Even that would not last long.

Just when Aelita started to think that they had bulldozed their way through the last of these dumb monsters that had jumped them, a new swarm came up from underground and dog-piled both sorcerer and Avenger alike. Out of sheer, dumb luck, Spider-Man ended up out of the monsters' reach, so he was able to pull enough of the creatures off the other two so that they could get free again. Not wanting to get attacked like that again, Strange and Aelita both took to the skies, but were found themselves unprepared for when some of the creatures sprouted wings of their own and flew after them.

"Oh give me a break," Aelita grumbled. "Even some of XANA's monsters were never this stubborn when they chased after me."

"Guess they just weren't as fond of you as these guys are," Spidey quipped. "Not that you're a hard person to so much as dislike."

While she did appreciate her boyfriend's compliment, Aelita did not think that now was the best time for him to be saying things like that. Her belief looked like it would be compounded when several of the monsters grabbed her by her wings, but then, just after they had grabbed her, the monsters let her go and then scrambled to get away from Aelita while still staying in the area. It was only natural that Aelita would want to know what just happened there, and Doctor Strange and Spidey were no less bewildered when they saw several of the monsters stop and turn startled or frightened looks to the pinkette as well afterwards.

"This seems new for Dark Dimension monsters," Spidey remarked, unable to think of anything else he could say.

"Yes. Quite curious indeed," muttered Doctor Strange. "It almost appears as though they are frightened of Angel Guardian."

The surprises continued onwards when the monsters all suddenly flinched away upon hearing Doctor Strange mentioning Aelita's code name. Some of them even made sounds of worry and fear, and when she noticed this, Aelita just had to smirk a little as realization struck her. Without even thinking about it, Aelita flew up to where everyone could see and hear her perfectly, and spread her wings as she addressed the monsters. "That's right; I'm an angel. You can mess with me if you want, but do you really want to mess with the boss?"

No one was expecting that to work. There was absolutely no way that monsters from the Dark Dimension could have ever fallen for such a clear and obvious trick. It would only be another five seconds until they were on the attack again. All this and more ran through Doctor Strange's mind, so imagine his surprise when the monsters that had just been viciously attacking them…actually turned around and ran away with their tails between their legs like a bat out of hell! He was so stunned that he almost missed the one monster brave enough to make one last attempt at killing him, only to fail when Strange just knocked it away with barely more than a simple flick of his wrist.

It had not just been Strange who was left gob smacked by this turn of events though. "What… But… How… Huh?!" Spider-Man stuttered, looking between his girlfriend and the monsters that had just ran away. "That actually worked?!"

After she had descended to the ground again, still smirking over her recent trick, Aelita shrugged to the two boys and said, "Guess some monsters are even dumber than the crooks Spidey and I run into in the city on a regular patrol."

No one could say a word in reply to that, and knowing that her boyfriend's mouth was hanging open right now, Aelita strutted over to close it for him with one finger, shooting him a cute look laced with flirtatious intent when she did. As surprising as this was for him, Strange managed to regain his senses, and said, "Well, Dormammu does normally tend to send out the slightly more intelligent creatures when he makes his attempts at invasion of other realms."

"The Mindless Ones are intelligent," Spidey questioned.

"I did say 'slightly,'" Strange pointed out. "But I would not expect it to be that easy the next time we encounter his defenses. Be on your guard, both of you."

Aelita and Spidey nodded in response, and then allowed Strange to take point when they began to proceed onward again. The two boys of their group were just rounding the corner when Aelita's ears picked up on a small, soft sound that only she managed to hear. Not sure if it had been something that only she heard or not, given that she was the only one in the group with super hearing, Aelita figured she should investigate and quickly followed the sound to where she believed it to be coming from. When finally reached the source, Aelita just to let out a surprised gasp at what she found.

Hiding behind the rocks, pawing at some unseen thing on the ground, was a cute, little kitty with light orange, white fur, and from the sound of its meows, Aelita could only assume that the poor little thing was scared to death. Not that the cat stayed that way for long after it saw Aelita, because once it did, the cat rushed over to her and started rubbing his head against her leg while loudly purring. Seeing her presence was calming the cat down, Aelita gave it a few gentle pets on the head, and then picked up when it offered no resistance or signs of distaste with her doing so.

"Aw, hey there little guy," Aelita cooed while petting the cat she now held in her arms, noting that it did not have a collar or anything else indicating it had an owner as she did. "How did you get here? Did you accidentally slip in while those big mean monsters were coming to Earth?" The only answers she got were more meows and purrs, but it was not like she had been expecting any less. "Well, we can't just leave you here by yourself, now can we? No, we can't."

"Hey, Angel! Hurry up," Spidey called out from where he was.

"Be right there," Aelita shouted back. She gave the cat another look, but she did not need to think that hard about her next decision. "Come on. My friends and I will get you back home as soon as we stop the bad guy responsible for all of this."

The cat seemed to understand that pretty well, because it offered her a pleased meow in reply as Aelita stood up and took off after the other two with the cat still in her arms.

---

"I sincerely hope that Aelita has not wandered too far off on her own. This is not a place you would want to be getting lost in," Doctor Strange said to Spider-Man when Aelita had not immediately joined them after the web-head had first called out to her.

"Just give it a minute," Spidey insisted. Strange did not seem too eager to wait, as he simply proceeded further ahead, likely to check if there was anything lurking in the shadows. Doing so ended up causing him to miss the moment when Aelita finally arrived, and Spidey did not fail to notice she was carrying something with her. "There you are. Where did you go? When we saw you weren't with us, I thought some monster had grabbed you, or worse, Dormammu had caught you in one of his traps."

"Believe me, I can think of much worse than that," Aelita told Spidey, shivering a little when her mind went back to her encounter with Malekith. "Either way, I am sorry about that, but I got a little sidetracked."

"By what," asked Spider-Man.

Aelita then moved so that Peter could better see what she was holding, and replied, "By this little guy here. Well, girl actually, as I've only recently found out, but you get my point."

Seeing the cat that his girlfriend was carrying, Spider-Man just stared for a second or two, probably skeptical about the idea that Aelita had found a cat of all things in the Dark Dimension. Do not get him wrong, Spider-Man did like cats as much as the next person, unless of course the cat in question happened to be Felicia Hardy, but after some of his previous adventures with Doctor Strange, he was a little skeptical that this could be an actual cat. Slowly reaching out to the cat in Aelita's arms, he found no reaction from his Spider-Sense, and it stayed that way even after he gave it a few tentative pats and rubs. The cat on the other hand let out several soft purrs, clearly enjoying the attention, and bringing a smile to both heroes' faces.

"Where did you find her, anyway," Spidey finally asked.

"Just back there. I figured that she slipped in through whatever portal Dormammu was using to send the Mindless Ones to Earth, or that she might belong to Doctor Strange and hitched a ride here with us," Aelita explained as she readjusted her hold on the cat to better ensure she would not drop him.

Speaking of the Sorcerer Supreme, Strange chose that moment to rejoin them again, announcing his presence as he did. "Ah, good of you to rejoin us, Angel Guardian. It seems that are path forward is clear of any additional obstructions, so either Dormammu is setting a very elaborate trap for us, or something had scared off the remaining—Oh my god!"

Hearing that last part had startled Aelita and Spidey so much that the former nearly dropped the cat she was holding, but thankfully, she managed to catch it before she did. "Geez, Doc, don't scare us like that," Spidey scolded.

Strange paid no heed to Spider-Man at all; he was too focused on Aelita at the moment. "What are you doing with that thing?"

"What, this little kitty? I just found her all by herself back there," Aelita explained as she held up the cat for Strange to better see.

That did not comfort Strange. If anything, it only seemed to freak him out more, right to the point where he not only flinched away, but even prepared to cast another spell. "Angel Guardian, I insist that you drop that beast and send it away at once," Strange demanded.

Aelita could not believe what she just heard. "You want me to just leave her here? The poor little thing was scared to death when I found her. What if she has an owner?"

"I am very certain that if she does, it is not of Earth. Now drive that creature away from us right now," Strange insisted once more, a hint of fear finding its way into his voice now.

Spidey and Aelita both picked up on the latter fact, and the former could not help but laugh a bit. "Doc, are you…Are you actually scared of the cat," Spidey just managed to ask between chuckles. He did not give Strange much chance to answer before he commenced with teasing. "Big tough Sorcerer Supreme's afraid of a cat."

"That thing is not a cat," Strange protested. "It is a Flerken!"

"A Flerken," Aelita repeated in disbelief, just barely keeping her amusement down to a smile as she continued to hold the cat close. Hearing that last remark from Strange though made all her attempt for naught, as she was now joining Spidey in laughing at Strange.

"This is no laughing matter! The Flerken are extremely dangerous creatures feared throughout the cosmos," Doctor Strange tried to tell them, but the other two just kept on laughing.

"Oh please. I'm sure she wouldn't hurt anyone, would you," Aelita cooed as she snuggled the cat closer to her chest. Her attention to the cat was rewarded with more purring and the cat rubbing its head against her to show appreciation. "No you wouldn't. Who's a good kitty? Who's a sweet little, cool cat? You are. Yes, you are."

Doctor Strange could tell that he was not likely to win this fight, but on the plus side, he now had a solid idea on why the area was so devoid of any other monsters, so perhaps he should not complain about this. Too much. "At any rate, we're close to Dormammu's palace now. Just leave the Flerken here, and while it's keeping the other monsters away, we can stop the dread lord from invading our realm."

"No, I'm not leaving the cat here to get eaten by something," Aelita insisted.

Strange was about to bring up a counter argument, when Spidey cut him off. "Trust me, Doc, you're not gonna win this. She's got that look on her face that says she's not going to back down for anything or anyone, and she wins arguments with that look almost as often as she does with the sad puppy look."

Hearing that from his old friend and then looking back to better study Aelita's face and overall stance, Strange realized that Spider-Man was right, and ended sighing in defeat at last. "Fine, but I am not carrying the thing, even if you paid me."

Aelita accepted that condition with a nod, and the three then proceeded forward on foot, ready to bring an end to the nightmare before it could truly begin. The only thing that really ruined their dramatic march was the sounds of the cat meowing innocently as they went.

---

Our heroes' trek to Dormammu's palace, or whatever you want to call the place where he hangs his magic suit of armor, was peaceful enough to the point where Spidey had been tempted to start asking "are we there yet," with not a monster in sight. Then again, Doctor Strange would say that there was at least one monster, but only because he still insisted that the cat Aelita found was actually a Flerken. Regardless, the quiet last leg of their journey did allow Aelita the chance to finally solve the mysteries she had been wondering about since meeting the doctor.

"Doctor Strange, if you don't mind my asking, how do you and Spidey know each other," Aelita inquired of the Sorcerer Supreme.

"To make a long story short, we first met not that long ago, back when Spider-Man was leading the Warriors. One of my enemies, Nightmare, had unleashed a sleep spell on Manhattan in order to strengthen his power, using the bad dreams of the people. Luckily, Iron Fist was able to break free of the spell and then freed Spider-Man as well before bringing him here," Strange began.

"Yeah, turns out that Doc and Iron Fist were cosmic neighbors back when the latter was training and living in K'un Lun, so they were pretty well acquainted," Spidey cut in. "I wasn't exactly all that much of a believer in magic at the time, but one little adventure with those two into the realm of dreams later, and I'm now a bit more open-minded about that type of thing."

"I always did wonder why you were more accepting of magic than Tony and some of the other scientists we know," admitted Aelita.

Strange had to nod in agreement with that before continuing his tale. "After that, Spider-Man assisted me on a few more adventures, including our last one in which we defeated Dormammu and thwarted what was at the time his most recent attempt to invade our realm. He has been quite the staunch ally in my battles against mystical threats, even when all I needed him to do was a mere simple task."

"Simple he says. There was nothing simple about that house sitting gig you asked me to do last Halloween, Doc, and you know it," Spidey argued.

"In fairness, I was not expecting Morgan le Fay to escape her imprisonment while I was dealing with Baron Mordo," Strange defended.

Now Aelita was very surprised. Learning about all of that she had today was one thing, but finding out that the witch from the Arthurian legends was actually real… That was pushing her limits a little, and she needed to change the subject before going past those limits. Luckily she had one such subject she wished to know about. "So, where exactly are you from, Doctor? Asgard or one of the other realms where magic is prevalent?"

"I am not Asgardian, but to answer your question, I am actually from Greenwich Village," Strange revealed, surprising Aelita when he did. An amused smile came to him when he took note of the girl's surprise, and he asked, "You didn't think all sorcerers were from other worlds did you?"

"Well to be fair, those are the only kind of magic users I've met up until now," Aelita said in her defense.

Strange chuckled in concession of that, and decided to enlighten the girl on his tale. "Your skepticism is understandable, my dear, for I too once found it difficult to believe magic could so much as exist in our realm, let alone be wielded by human beings. A lifetime ago, I was a very wealthy, accomplished, and prominent surgeon of New York. Sadly, I was far cry from a humble man, and fate saw fit for me to suffer for my arrogance. As such, my career in medicine came to an end when a car accident robbed me of the delicate touch a surgeon requires."

Aelita could not help but gasp upon hearing this. True, she was no stranger to having the life you knew being torn away from you in an instant, but her experience could not really compare to that of Strange's. She knew just from a few brief conversations with Jane Foster that gaining the ability to practice any form of medicine was no simple or easy feat, let alone to the point that Strange claimed he had once been at, so finding out that everything Strange had likely worked and studied so hard to achieve had been stripped away just like that had to have been a very crushing moment for him. Realizing all of this also helped Aelita to fit another piece into place for the puzzle she had been pondering since she first heard Strange's name.

"I think I actually read something about that in some old news articles not too long ago. According to the report, a very skilled doctor had been run off the road by a drunk driver and then disappeared a few months later after his recovery," Aelita recalled.

"Yes, that was me," Strange confessed. "Though I may have lived, discovering that I could no longer engage in my practice left me a bitter and broken man. After being discharged from my rehab, I must have spent a few small fortunes for some hope of a cure that could restore my hands to what they had once been, but ultimately, every attempt was met with failure. Eventually I grew desperate enough to seek out what could only be described as a miracle cure, and my search led me to the far corners of Asia to seek a man known only as the Ancient One. From what I had heard, he possessed the ability to cure many forms of ailments, some of which were ones that even I had been unable to cure, so when I finally found him, I begged him to do the same for me. Instead, the Ancient One told me to study with him, to learn his mystic ways and find the cure within myself. Alas, I was too bitter to listen at first, but then the Ancient One showed me that the world of mysticism did exist, and after testing me to see if there truly was a good spirit within me, he allowed me to study under him."

"And that's how you became the Sorcerer Supreme," Aelita guessed.

"Not entirely. At the time, the Ancient One held the title himself, and had been looking for one who would be a worthy successor. When I first arrived, he believed that person to be my senior disciple, Mordo, but after I helped him discover that Mordo had made a deal with Dormammu for more powerful magic, he decided to pass the mantle, and the most important relic that all Sorcerer Supremes defended on to me," Strange corrected, indicating the medallion he wore around his neck when he continued on. "The Eye of Agamotto. One of the most powerful magical artifacts in existence, and also the relic in which something far more powerful is held, safe from the hands of those with sinister nature and intent."

"And what would that be," Aelita asked, the waver of her voice indicating that she had been rendered nervous about just what would be so powerful that it needed to be stored inside a magical artifact like the Eye of Agamotto for safe keeping.

Strange hesitated for a brief time, likely weighing the wisdom of telling Aelita about the item that he kept locked within the Eye of Agamotto, until finally, he made a brief motion with his hands before the pendant around his neck, and it opened to reveal a glowing, orange stone inside of it. "Behold, the Time Stone," Strange announced. "One of the physical manifestations of the six essential aspects of existence."

After the doctor had revealed all of this, Aelita could swear that it had become quiet enough to hear a pin drop. That was likely just in her head, because she found herself captivated by the Time Stone and the power that it seemed to exude with its mere presence. That said, something about the Time Stone felt oddly familiar to Aelita, and it did not take her long to realize what. "I've…I've seen something like this before," she softly gasped.

"What," asked Doctor Strange.

"This stone…I've seen something like it before. I'm sure of it," Aelita repeated a little more clearly. "About a month ago or so, the Avengers met a group called the Guardians of the Galaxy, and one of their members, Adam Warlock, had a gem in his forehead that they called the Soul Gem. From what I can remember, it was very similar to this Time Stone."

"If what you say is true, then that likely means that it was the Soul Stone, one of the more dangerous and powerful of the six stones in many regards," Doctor Strange revealed. "I would not be surprised if it turned out his body was under a great deal of strain if it was embedded into him as you say it was."

Hearing that made Aelita think back to her first encounter with the Guardians, and she did recall that Warlock was probably the most disciplined, or at least the most stiff member of the Guardians, given that he showed very little emotion the entire time that they had interacted with him, and the second time she met them had been no different. Strange's supposition made a lot of sense if the gem in Warlock's forehead was in fact what Strange believed it to be, and now Aelita had to wonder how the Guardian had gotten it. Of course, she was also curious to learn more about the other four stones that Strange spoke of, but Strange preempted her just when she was about to ask the question.

"Now is not the time for you to learn anything more about the Infinity Stones, Aelita. There will come a time when it is necessary, but for now, we must address our current crisis," Doctor Strange informed her as he sealed the Time Stone back into the Eye of Agamotto.

"On the bright side, if you can call it that, you won't have to wait long to address said crisis. Casa el Dormammu, dead ahead," Spider-Man announced, pointing towards something in the distance when he did.

Looking to where Spidey was pointing, the chill Aelita had felt when she first heard Dormammu's name came back with a vengeance, because the place looked perfect for the most horrifying thing imaginable. Nothing short of palace could be used for a basic description of what it looked like, and if the spiked walls surrounding it were not enough to indicate that intruders were unwelcome, then the massive gates and overall, dark design certainly did. The central most tower seemed to have a large window at the top that almost looked like a slitted eye, and the judging by the black masses around the outside of the castle, one could only assume that there were Mindless Ones gathered up for a march to Earth. To put it another way, the whole place had a vibe that screamed of being something from the worst of worst nightmares.

Aelita was immensely thankful that Spidey and Doctor Strange were considerate enough to let her regain her bearings before continuing to the castle, but right when she did, she had to pause for a second time as her super hearing picked up on something once more. Only this time it was not the sound of any kind of creature.

"Doctor Strange, has Dormammu ever tried to come to our world using methods other than magic," Aelita asked.

"Not to my knowledge, no," Strange replied like clockwork. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I'm hearing a lot of active machinery somewhere up ahead, along with someone talking about a trans-dimensional device," Aelita reported, cupping one of her ears as a way of better focusing on the sounds she was hearing.

Strange briefly hummed in thought upon hearing this, and commented, "Perhaps that would explain why I did not sense any sort of mystical disturbance in the barrier between our realm and the Dark Dimension. Dormammu believes that he can circumvent the mystical barriers by more scientific means."

"Is that even possible," Spidey asked.

"Considering what I just heard, it must be," Aelita pointed out. "Does that mean we're going to have a harder time stopping him?"

"No. If anything, that makes things easier. We need only destroy whatever device is being used to breach the barrier. Afterwards, it would be a simple matter of keeping Dormammu away as we return home," Doctor Strange revealed.

"So why do I feel like it will still be anything but easy," Spider-Man asked.

No one answered the web-head, but only because they had started rushing forwards again, and right into the courtyard of Dormammu's palace at that. Several Mindless Ones glared down at the heroes, but they were not given any chance to attack, because Strange and Aelita instantly destroyed a huge chunk with their respective energy blasts. Spider-Man was next to attack, and caused several of the Mindless Ones to destroy themselves by webbing their eyes shut right when they were about to shoot them with their laser eyes. Their easy victories only continued as they proceeded on through the courtyard, until finally, the Mindless Ones that had once been in the way were all destroyed.

At least, that was what they had initially thought, because suddenly they were being swarmed with even more Mindless Ones coming from every direction. Thinking quickly, Aelita took to the skies and used her creativity to barricade their entry points, blocking any further reinforcements from entering the fray. That left Spider-Man and Doctor Strange to deal with the Mindless Ones that were already coming after them, but such a simple task was no problem for either hero. It only grew easier after Aelita had sealed the last entry point shut and fired several large energy fields down at the remaining Mindless Ones, eliminating several groups at once upon impact. After landing a single strike to the ground using her energy impact, Aelita had to smirk at the sight of the courtyard being completely emptied of Mindless Ones, leaving their path into Dormammu's palace open.

"Now then, on to the perils of the ultimate battle for the fate all once again," Doctor Strange declared.

"Oh boy, oh boy. How exciting," Spider-Man sarcastically drawled.

"Indeed, my friend," Doctor Strange agreed, apparently missing the sarcasm entirely.

The other two heroes just stared after Strange as he made his way into the creepy palace, until Aelita finally looked to Spider-Man and said, "No offense, sweetie, but there are times I can't help but think that you have the weirdest friends."

"Said the girl who lives with the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America," Spider-Man quipped in return.

Aelita could not find a comeback for that one, so she simply let Spidey have that win and joined him in going after Doctor Strange, hoping that they would be able to stop Dormammu quickly so they could get back home to help the rest of the Avengers deal with any Mindless Ones that were still left over afterwards.

---

If this were any other day, no, any other time, Dormammu would not be considering using technology to aid in his invasion of Earth. In fact, if this were another time, he would not even allow humans to invade his territory for any purpose, but today was most certainly not any other time. As of right now, Dormammu was considering the possibility that maybe he had underestimated the value of the humans' mortal technology, because it most certainly proved its value by granting him a portal that somehow managed to work around the infuriating spells that Strange and his predecessors used to blockade all the paths between the Dark Dimension and Earth. True, it came with the price of allowing these human ants to perform various scans and surveys of his realm, but that would be of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. This HYDRA group would never be able to use what they learned here once he had extinguished all light from their realm. Still, he would admit that he was growing a slight bit of fondness for the people who were leading this particular group of HYDRA ants; this XANA and his personal commander, Savage Artillery seemed to share a great deal of traits with both him and his own regular servant, Baron Mordo. No matter what he felt though, it was only a matter of time until he finally achieved his goals and the humans outlived their usefulness.

His moment of dark glee over his impending triumph ended up being squashed when he heard explosions echoing from out in the courtyard, and Dormammu immediately scowled in knowing of only one being that would dare challenge him like that. His guess proved to be true, when Doctor Strange burst into the room, with that infuriating speck called Spider-Man alongside of him. There was another human with them as well that Dormammu did not recognize, but he still took careful note of her when his senses picked up on a peculiar energy coming from her. An energy trace not entirely dissimilar to the one he had often sensed from Savage Artillery, but Dormammu hardly considered it to be of importance. The only thing that mattered was that Strange and his cohorts had arrived to try and stop him again, and he would not allow the Sorcerer Supreme to do so this time.

"Dormammu, you will cease your invasion at once, or face my wrath," Strange demanded.

"And that of Spider-Man and Angel Guardian, too," Spidey quickly added on.

Aelita seemed to be the only one who took notice of the HYDRA goons around the area, because her comment was directed at them. "And to any HYDRA goons that don't want to get blasted or beaten up too badly, I suggest you go back to Earth and surrender yourselves to either the Avengers or SHIELD, right now."

Only the HYDRA agents seemed to react to the heroes' arrival, namely by dropping or just stowing away the equipment they had been previously using and drawing weapons on the three. Dormammu on the other hand, simply studied the three before he just laughed at them. "You are a fool to think that you can stop me this time, Strange," Dormammu mocked. "This portal I'm using to send my forces into your world is not one of magic, and cannot be closed with one of your meager spells. The only thing more amusing is that you seem to think that mere children can be of any help in your futile endeavor."

"You do remember that one these 'children' helped Strange take you down before, right Flame-Brain," Spidey asked. "And I really don't think you've got much right to claim this as your victory since you're working with HYDRA to make it happen."

"Though it does beg the question as to how HYDRA even got into contact with you," Aelita posed while keeping a sharp eye out for any sudden moves that she did not like.

Feeling that there was no harm in enlightening the heroes, Dormammu proceeded to reveal a secret or two behind his latest attempt at invasion. "The ones you call HYDRA happened upon a special kind of technology that would allow them to traverse dimensions, and their first attempt at doing so, put them into contact with me. I'll admit, I took some offense to these wretched humans invading my realm, but after seeing what they had to offer, it took little effort for us to work out some form of deal."

"A deal that you will no doubt fail to deliver, given your ultimate endgame," Strange accused.

Dormammu just laughed again, but otherwise did not confirm or deny Strange's accusation. If any HYDRA goons took notice of this, they did not show it, because they were still keeping their weapons trained on the heroes. Regardless, Aelita just had to ask, "What could you possibly have that HYDRA would want?"

The dread lord's grin seemed to widen more than it already had after the pinkette had asked that question, and replied, "I'm so glad that you asked, my dear, for if what I understand is true, it has a great deal to do with you in particular. Namely, how you would hold up against something from my realm, such as this!"

Quick as a flash, Dormammu had unleashed a blast of dark energy directly at Aelita, striking the girl dead center, and causing her to release her charged energy field in a random direction. Luckily Aelita's energy field did not hit anywhere near the heroes, but did end up causing several HYDRA forces to scatter, assuming that they were not hit. Seeing their comrades getting hit by an enemy attack, the remaining HYDRA forces opened fire on the heroes, preventing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange from going to check on Aelita and instead doing whatever they could to either block or dodge enemy fire. Strange had an easier time of blocking the attacks, being able to cast a powerful barrier spell that none of HYDRA's weapons had much chance of breaking through, but Spider-Man ended up being left to do like he always did whenever people shot at him: jump, duck, spin, and dodge like crazy, and often times in ways that would leave an average person feeling very sore or just in pain afterwards.

Thankfully, fighting HYDRA troops was a bit closer to the kind of enemies that Spidey was used to dealing with, and it took him very little time to either disarm or knock out enough HYDRA troops to give him adequate breathing room. Or at least adequate enough for him to finally check on his girlfriend, and he did not like what he saw when he did. Aside from struggling to stand up again, Aelita was also showing signs of being in a great deal of pain, while her Lyoko suit flickered in and out of being, and he knew that could only mean trouble when she completely recovered. For Dormammu.

Not that he was too concerned for the dread lord. Spidey's only concern right now was the wellbeing of his girlfriend. "Angel! Angel, please tell me you're okay," Spidey begged.

"I'm…I'm alright," Aelita panted after her suit finally settled in its active state. She made that a little hard to believe though, and Spider-Man's skepticism of the claim only grew when she turned a powerful glare up at Dormammu once she was on her feet again. "But he's not going to be."

Before anyone could stop her, Aelita had spread her wings and started flying straight towards Dormammu, intent on paying him back for his attack on her, and simultaneously adding another person to the list of people that could harm her even with her Lyoko suit active. She did not even get within a favorable striking range though, because someone ended up shooting her out of the air, and delivering another wave of pain into her shoulder that had been hit. She was just glad that her crash landing did not increase that pain anymore, but neither of those things stopped her from turning to glare at the person who shot her.

Her anger at getting hurt while suited up twice in one day grew even more when she came face-to-face with said shooter, because it turned out to be none other than the same mystery warrior that Ulrich had fought against on her birthday in all of his dark violet and red detailed glory, his gauntlets primed and ready to fire again as he aimed them at the Lyoko Avenger. When he spoke, his voice was no less chilling than Ulrich had described, and that was without taking into account the words he spoke to her. "And so we finally meet, daughter of Schaeffer."

"Savage Artillery, I presume," Aelita snarled in return, hoping to play off any signs of injury she might be feeling with a show of bravado.

The HYDRA warrior said nothing in response, but he knew he did not need to confirm his identity to the girl. Instead, he just slowly moved in closer, likely measuring her current state and how she would react to any moves he would make as he did, until he finally said, "It was foolish of you to come here alone, Lyoko Warrior. Or perhaps you suspected our presence and decided to leave the other one behind out of an illogical belief that he would be safer that way?"

Aelita did not see any reason to respond to his line of questioning, but then again, answering him was not really the first thing on her mind at the moment. No, what really grabbed Aelita's attention was his choice of words and how they pricked a sense of familiarity in her mind, like she had heard that type of thing somewhere before. Her first thoughts immediately went to Ultron, given that it had been a machine at its bare basics, regardless of the fact that Hank had mapped human brain patterns to Ultron's processor, but she just as quickly dismissed that idea. Both because she knew Ultron had been destroyed for good and because, while it did have merit, the idea of Ultron being the one she heard that from did not seem entirely accurate.

Aside from the phrase and words, something else about this Savage Artillery seemed vaguely familiar to Aelita. Ulrich had mentioned that the guy possessed abilities and skills that could only be compared to a select few people that they knew both before and after they came to this dimension, but Aelita also remembered how he felt there was something else about this guy that made him think he met Artillery somewhere before that first encounter. She had cast it off as his mind playing tricks on him, no doubt due to the adrenaline rush he had been feeling at the time, but now that she was face-to-face with this guy, Aelita had to rethink that, because she was getting the same feeling from Artillery now. The outfit he wore likely had something to do with it, but there was something about the way he was standing, if not his mere presence that made her mind race with attempts to figure out where she had seen him or someone like him before.

The muck of confusion and thought had overwhelmed her so much that she never even realized that Savage Artillery had not just been closing in and speaking to her for the sake of doing either one. He was also doing it to distract her. A single, silent nod between him and Dormammu proved that almost as well as the moment when Dormammu cast his next spell, not only striking Aelita with another blast of dark magic, but capturing her within a sphere of it as well. Spidey and Doctor Strange both noticed this, and while the former was worried for the obvious reasons, the horrified look on Strange's face said his own worries carried just as great if not more weight.

"What have you done," Strange growled at Dormammu, and even with how quietly he spoke, one could still pick up on the immense fury that Strange had now directed at the cackling ruler of the Dark Dimension.

---

The first thing that registered in Aelita's mind when she started stirring again was that instead of hard, rocky ground, she felt a soft, comfortable surface beneath her. Despite that, her body did not seem to want to agree with her desire to get up and case her surroundings. Then again, she had been fighting a lot of monsters nonstop for the past few hours, and add in the pressure and stress she had been dealing with ever since learning about the Skrulls, and Aelita figured that it would only be natural for her to feel really drained in some sense. She did manage to get herself up though, but paused for a second when she took note of her location. No longer was she in the Dark Dimension, but instead, her old room at Kadic Academy.

Everything in here was just as she remembered from the last time she saw this room, from the computer on her desk, to the few posters on the walls, and even the outfit she had chosen for the day of graduation hanging on the door of her wardrobe, right alongside of her cap and gown. That last one made her pause for a minute, while a sense of dread began creeping into her stomach and up her spine, but Aelita figured that was only natural. The last thing she could recall was Dormammu throwing another spell at her, but afterwards, her mind seemed to go blank. Had she passed out, or was this part of some trick by the dread lord? For a brief moment, Aelita could not help wondering if everything that had happened for the past year had all just been one crazy, vivid dream, but she instantly dismissed that notion. If that had been the case, she probably would have woken up screaming at several earlier points.

"What's going on," she finally asked aloud, not expecting an answer. She ended up getting one though, and not from anyone she had been expecting.

"From the look of things, you oversleeping, Mrs. Einstein," a high-pitched voice replied, and while at one point it may have irritated Aelita, over the past few years, she found it to be a bit more comforting, much like how the person it belonged to had ceased to be an annoying brat.

Of course, Aelita could not believe that she had not just imagined hearing the voice, and quickly turned to see the speaker standing next to her bed, only to gasp at the sight of them. "Sissi? Sissi Delmas?!"

Indeed, there, standing before Aelita, was none other than the girl who used to drive the Lyoko Warriors insane with her attempts at figuring out their secret and her rather obsessive crush on Ulrich. Granted, she had moved on from that crush a while back, to the point that she had willingly given Herb a chance, but some details are still hard to forget. Aelita certainly could not deny that the memories of all the times Sissi had basically bullied her were still strong in her memory, but ever since they shut down the supercomputer and assured Sissi that they were friends, the girl had been nothing but honestly pleasant to the entire group. There were even a few times that Sissi had bailed them out of trouble with her father during that time without any prompting or reward, even if those times were much rarer after they had said goodbye to their Lyoko Warrior days.

While Aelita was stunned at the sight of her old friend, Sissi just looked at her in bewilderment. "What's with you, Aelita? You look like haven't seen me in ages," she commented. Her only answer ended up being Aelita springing from her bed to wrap her up in a tight hug. "Whoa! Okay, this is…new. I kind of thought we'd only be doing this after the ceremony."

"I just…I can't believe you're…What are you doing here," Aelita eventually managed to stutter out, her mind still reeling from the shock.

"Don't you remember? We agreed to help each other with making sure we'd be ready and on time for the ceremony," Sissi reminded her. "Probably a good thing that I did, because it looks like you overslept, and the guys were all starting to get worried when you didn't come down. Guess you must've been having quite the dream."

"Dream? Ceremony," Aelita repeated, still feeling confused.

Sissi just shrugged off those questions, and pulled Aelita over to her mirror and makeshift vanity set. "Well, you can fill me and the others in on it later. Right now, we need to get you ready," Sissi determined with a proud smile. "Trust me, when we're done not only will Jeremy freeze up and likely want to drop down and pop the question, but all the guys will be wishing that they hadn't missed their chance with you."

Hearing Sissi say that started ringing a few bells in Aelita's head, but before she could process anything, the scenery around her began to shift and change, almost like time had begun to move forward really fast, until finally, it stopped again, and she found herself outside in the school's soccer field. And she was not alone. Standing around her was not just Ulrich, but all of her most dear and treasured friends as well. Yumi Ishiyama, William Dunbar, Odd Della Robbia, and of course, Jeremy Belpois. The latter two and Ulrich were all decked out in caps and gowns, with the best versions of their regular attires being just visible underneath, while the former two were dressed as they usually were with happy smiles on their faces.

"So, guess you guys are pretty excited to finally be graduating, huh," William said to everyone but Yumi, his tone meant to show he was being as honest as he was teasing. "I mean, it certainly took you long enough."

"Yeah, yeah, rub in the fact that you two were finished with this place before us. It doesn't really count all that much when you're a year older than we are," Ulrich reminded his former rival.

"Either way, it's still good to see everyone made it all the way here. I'm sure we all had doubts in at least one or two cases of you guys graduating," Yumi smiled proudly, playful teasing working into her voice with her second sentence, while her gaze focused mainly on the purple-clad member of their group.

"Hey you! I'll have you know that I am in fact capable of being a good student to the point of passing when I want to be," Odd snapped in return, trying to act like he had been insulted. His smile gave it away that he knew she was just playing with him.

"Yeah, we know. It's just a bit hard to believe with how often you sleep during class and copy off of some of our homework and notes," Jeremy joined in.

"Either way, you guys should all be really proud of yourselves today," William told the group. "We've all made it through one of the greatest challenges our lives and are now on the verge of tackling the world."

"Jeez, dude, don't go getting all philosophical on us," Odd joked around. "It's not like you went straight to college after finishing up here, Mister World-Tour."

"I wouldn't really call it a world tour so much as just a visit to one or two notable cities in the country," William dismissed.

"Either way, it's more of a plan than scrawny here seems to have for after this," Ulrich remarked.

Everyone had been expecting and braced for Odd's usual response to hearing someone calling him scrawny, and even a bit of the annoyance if not straight up anger that he let loose upon hearing that as well, but to their surprise, Odd ended up taking a deep breath and saying, "You know what? I'm gonna let that slide for now, just because today's a special occasion. Nothing anything that anyone says is going to get me down today, because the fact is…we all made it through to the end."

The entirety of the other former Lyoko Warriors could not help it. They all just had to exchange looks of shock and disbelief between them once they heard that, before ultimately getting to the obvious jabs. "Did you guys all hear that too," Jeremy asked.

"I think we did," Aelita stated, finally speaking up, but at this point, she was really just going with the flow of things. She felt like she should be saying more right now, but in her addled state, she could only keep quiet.

"Someone call Milly and Tamiya over, or even the city news crew. It sounds like Odd's finally started to mature a little," Yumi joked.

"And here I thought it wouldn't happen until after he finally realized what a menace his dog can be," Ulrich continued from there.

"Ha, ha, ha. Very funny. Look, even I can appreciate the importance of occasions like this. Maybe you guys just underestimate how mature I really am," Odd shot back.

"Said the guy who was stuffing his face like a starved teenager at the big breakfast banquet an hour ago," William reminded, making everyone laugh, even Odd, after a little bit.

Aelita's laughter ended up dying down really quickly though, as all the remarks, the people around her, and even what Sissi said back in her room finally clued her in on what was happening. "This is…" Aelita whispered to herself, before just letting it all run wild in her thoughts. 'The ceremony…The ceremony! Graduation day at Kadic! But how…No, it doesn't matter. This time, I'll stop it. This time I have to stop it! I won't let it happen again.' Right when she had finished that thought, the scene seemed to fast forward again, right to the point of the ceremony just before the attack had started. 'No, no! Not now! There's not enough time before…'

It was too little too late to be making any complaints, because the first sign of the attack soon hit. Namely, the explosion that had nearly demolished the science building, followed by several more explosions from all across the campus. Before Aelita knew it, she could see and hear everyone screaming and running about in a panic, nearly making it impossible for her to meet up with the rest of her friends, and when she finally did, they all caught sight of XANA's robotic form marching into the area, firing its weapons at everyone and anything that moved.

"No…No! Not again," Aelita whispered in desperation, and she instinctively reached for her wrist to activate her virtual form. It was not until she had actually slapped her wrist she wore the necessary watch on that she remembered she did not have it, but that did not stop her from still trying to use her powers on the metal monstrosity. It was a fruitless effort, but Aelita still begged and pleaded with any higher power she could that it would. "Please! I can't let this happen again! Not again! Come on! Please! Energy Field!"

"Energy field? What do you think we're on Lyoko or something," Odd asked, clearly thinking Aelita had lost her mind.

Aelita did not remember her friend ever making that remark, but then again, she did not actually try and use her powers when this happened the first time, so maybe that was just what Odd would have said if she did. She did not have much time to think on it, because the true pain of that horrible day began unfolding before her eyes all over again. Everyone realizing that the robot was XANA, Jeremy ordering everyone to the factory, and even XANA firing the blast that killed Jeremy. Despite how long it had been, Aelita still broke down like she had the last time all over again, and she could hardly believe that she had reacted like this.

"I thought…I thought I'd finally moved on…I thought that," Aelita sobbed, barely even registering much more beyond the fact that she was holding the dying body of her first love all over again.

"Go…Have to lure XANA…to the factory…Supercomputer's self-destruct…may be the only way now," Jeremy whispered, his voice having an added echo effect in Aelita's ears. "Aelita…I…I'll always…love you."

Hearing that again just brought it all back to her, and Aelita let out a wailing sob of agony as she saw the life leave Jeremy's eyes all over again. Seeing Odd rush towards XANA in a desperate bid to stall their old enemy while the others got away did not make things better, and neither did watching the rest of this wretched day unfold before her eyes and ears again. From the explosion that had likely killed Odd, judging by his loud, pained scream, to the second when they entered the boiler room to enter the passageway into the sewers and found themselves cornered by XANA's robot army, and of course, the things that happened next.

Ulrich moved to stand his ground and fight, but ended up shoved through the passage by Yumi and William. "Take Aelita to the factory! She's the only one that can work the supercomputer to the point that we need right now," Yumi shouted to Ulrich. "William and I will keep them busy!"

"Yumi, no! We can't lose you guys, too," Ulrich's desperately plead echoed both in Aelita's ears and mind.

"There's no time to argue! Just g-AGH!" Yumi's counter was cut off as one of the robots stabbed Yumi through the back, and all she could do was glanced down at the blade running through her before shooting Ulrich an apologetic look.

"YUMI!"

Aelita knew what Yumi had said to Ulrich after that, but she did not want to relive that again too. She shut her eyes and ears, desperate to block out everything else, but somehow, she still heard Yumi saying her last words to Ulrich before falling to the ground, lifeless. The next thing that followed was the sounds of William slamming the door shut, blocking it from the other side, and shouting that he would meet Aelita and Ulrich at the factory later, but Aelita was still desperately trying to block it all out. Even when the final events of that night played out again, and she found herself unable to do anything but follow along with what seemed to have been etched into stone, Aelita kept trying to block it all out. The only things she really registered at that point were the final words she had given to XANA, still echoing in both her ears and head like everything that her friends had said before. "Game over you bastard son of a bitch!"

The explosion of the supercomputer came next, and before she knew it, Aelita was screaming her heart out as she shot up in bed, panting like she had run a marathon. When she finally regained her bearings, she realized that she was back in her room like nothing had happened, and Sissi was standing next to her, looking really freaked out.

"Oh my gosh. That must have been some nightmare," Sissi remarked.

"What? No, it-it wasn't a nightmare, it…" Aelita tried to say, but Sissi did not seem to hear her.

"Well, we can worry about it later. Right now, we need to get you ready," Sissi informed her, repeating the very same words that Aelita had just heard what felt like seconds ago. "Trust me, when we're done not only will Jeremy freeze up and likely want to drop down and pop the question, but all the guys will be wishing that they hadn't missed their chance with you."

"But I can't worry about that now! I-I have to…" Aelita tried to protest, but Sissi did not seem to hear her. Not that it would have mattered if she did, because Aelita could already feel herself getting pulled along to the next big moment of that day all over again.

---

"What did you do," Strange angrily shouted at Dormammu while he used various spells to attack and repel all the enemies around him, including the Dark Dimension's ruler.

Dormammu just continued laughing at his mortal enemy's attacks and his anger, apparently finding it all to be the funniest thing ever. "Oh Strange, you poor fool. And I thought the Ancient One had taught you so much before his passing," Dormammu mocked. "What I did is simply remind her of the darkest experiences of her life."

"Meaning what," Spider-Man snapped after kicking down another HYDRA agent, and then proceeding to take down several more with webs, punches, and kicks.

"That spell I just cast is one that has felled many sorcerers of many levels before. One that only a master of the dark arts could ever successfully cast," Dormammu explained, still enjoying the anger and fury the two heroes were showing. "What it does is quite simple. It not only traps the target within that sphere of shadows, but also forces them to relive the most horrifying, most traumatic moment of their life over and over again, until it becomes too much to bear. When that happens, the target either goes mad with grief, or simply loses all will to live."

"Casting a spell like that on one so young is a new low, even for you, Dormammu," Strange snapped, and to better emphasize his point, he completely left the battle with the HYDRA agents and made to attack Dormammu directly. Doing so meant that he was forced into fighting with Savage Artillery, but Strange had been counting on that happening, because he knew that it meant the two greatest threats would be more concerned with him than the person they needed to worry about. "Spider-Man! Get to Angel Guardian! Pull her out of the spell!"

Spidey had just taken down several more HYDRA agents when he heard that, and only stopped to fire some more webs that would discourage or distract others from attacking him when he tried to protest. "What? Me?! But I'm a scientist, not a sorcerer! I can't…"

"You're the ONLY one who can," Strange insisted before his friend could finish arguing. "If Angel Guardian is to survive the power of that spell, she needs someone close to her heart to reach her! She needs you to save her!"

Having been through as many insane adventures with Doctor Strange as he had, Spidey knew that it was probably a good idea to take the doctor's word on that kind of thing, and immediately started making his way over to Aelita. Several more HYDRA forces tried to get in his way, but they stood little chance in stopping the man who does whatever a spider can on a normal basis, let alone when he had something so important at stake. When he noticed what was happening to the HYDRA forces he brought along, Savage Artillery tried to intercept the web-head, but found that difficult with Doctor Strange's magic pushing him back.

Finally, Spidey made it to the sphere Aelita was trapped in, and tried calling out to her. "Angel! Please, you gotta listen to me! What you're seeing isn't real! It's just a memory that Dormammu's spell is making you relive! You've got to break free," Spidey shouted, but no matter how loudly he shouted, Aelita just would not stir even a little. It was not going to stop Spider-Man though. "Aelita, please! You've gotta wake up! AELITA!"

Even after shouting her real name to her, Spidey could not see any reaction from the pinkette, and at that point, he figured it was time for him to take drastic measures. Steeling his resolve, Spider-Man stepped back a little, and dove head-first into the sphere as well. Once inside, he wrapped he could feel the dark energy trying to worm its way into his mind, but Spidey did his best to fight it off, determined to reach Aelita within the sphere. The minute he had, Spider-Man wrapped his arms around the girl as tightly as he could, and started letting the dark magic seep into his mind, even as he continued calling out to her.

"Please, Aelita. You need to wake up. I know what you're seeing is horrible, but you can't let it consume you. Please, come back to me," Spider-Man…no, Peter whispered to the woman he loved so much, even as Strange called out to both of them in horror after seeing what Peter had done, while the energy of the sphere seemed to fluctuate and writhe around like mad.

---

"Stop it," Aelita pleaded between sobbing, having started to realize what was happening around her. By this point, she had lost count of how many times she had relived the events of that fateful, horrible night, and no matter how many times they repeated, nothing she ever did seemed to make any difference in stopping the events from happening. Sometimes the others would look at her like she had gone crazy, and other times, they just did not know what to make of the things she said. No matter what their reactions to her warnings had been, the end results kept turning out the same: with everyone dying at XANA's hands and she could hardly bare much more of it. "Just stop it, please. I don't want to keep seeing this."

Even as Aelita spoke, the events were playing out again, for it was at that very second in which the moment of Jeremy's last words and death played out before her eyes, and she knew it would only be a matter of time before she had to watch the rest of her beloved friends die and then repeat the whole process all over again. "Please, just make it stop," Aelita begged. "Don't make me relive this unless I can stop it from happening again. I can't…I can't take much more of this."

She did not expect someone to answer her prayers, at least not aside from whatever her friends from back then likely would have said, so it came as something close to a pleasant surprise when someone else did answer her. "So what? Are you going to just give up? That doesn't sound like the Aelita I know and fell in love with."

Aelita let out a gasp when she heard that new person's voice, and instantly spun around to see someone who definitely had not been there on the night these events had taken place. "Spider-Man," Aelita whispered. "Peter…How…what are you…?"

"Aelita, listen to me," Peter interrupted, yanking his mask off so that she could look him directly in the eye. "None of this is real. Dormammu's trapped you in a spell that's forcing you to relive your worst memory without end, and you've got to break out of it now. If you don't there's a good chance that it will kill you."

"But I…I don't know how," Aelita protested. "I've tried everything to break the loop, to stop all of this from happening again, but no matter what I do, it just keeps going like it did back then. I can't stop it. I don't want to keep watching this happen over and over again."

"I know it hurts, but you shouldn't try to. Like I said, all of this is just a memory, so of course it's impossible to stop it from happening again," Peter started to say, but Aelita did not let him finish.

"No, Peter, don't you get it?! I have to stop this from happening again, or this will all just repeat itself today with us," Aelita snapped, her face flooding with tears.

Now Peter was confused. "What are you talking about? What makes you think this has anything to do with us?"

Seeing as there was no getting out of it now, Aelita let out a shaky breath in hopes of calming down a little, and finally admitted one of the biggest secrets she had been keeping from her boyfriend. "Peter, nearly my entire life has seen nothing but loss and suffering. My mother, my father, my friends…I've had to watch them die time and time again. This night may be my worst memory, but it wasn't the first time I've had to suffer this kind of pain. Just the worst time, and I'm afraid that it might happen to the people that are in my life now. More than that, I'm afraid that something horrible may happen that will cause me to lose you. That's why I don't want you to join the Avengers. Because I'm afraid that if you do, it'll just make the possibility of losing you even stronger. I know that being a hero means we risk our lives every time we go out there, but after losing everyone I already have, if anything happened to you…I don't think I'd ever be able to recover. I can't go through that again."

Now it was out there. Aelita's true reason for not wanting Peter to join the Avengers was revealed, and with that weight lifted from her shoulders, coupled with witnessing the horrors that had ended her old life, Aelita could no longer hold any form of strength, and just started sobbing harder than ever once she fell to the ground and curled up in a ball. Peter found his voice getting caught in his throat seeing how seriously this all affected her, and he did not find any strength in him to do more than pull her close to him, letting her tears fall into his shoulder. Even that did not feel like enough to him though, and given how Aelita's crying only grew heavier, it must have been more obvious than he would have liked. At this point, Peter found himself at a total loss on what to say and what to do. Lucky for him, the gamble he made on throwing himself into the spell like this was about to pay off.

"You didn't think it'd be that easy, did you, kiddo," asked a kind-sounding, elderly voice, prompting both Spidey and Aelita to turn and face this newcomer. From the looks of him, Aelita guessed that the man had to be the same age as Peter's aunt, and even with the simple t-shirt and khakis that he wore, the man gave off a fatherly-like sensation that Aelita normally only felt around Cap before their little adventure in Asgard. Still, for the life of her, Aelita could not place where she had seen this person before, if ever, but Peter did.

"Hey Uncle Ben," Peter smiled in relief, standing up to hug his late uncle after saying that. "It's good to see you."

Aelita could hardly believe it. This was Peter's uncle? The man who had taught him the all-important philosophy that had defined his entire career, if not his life as Spider-Man? If that was true, then what was he doing here in her memory? It just did not make sense, but her surprise at seeing him and the emotional drain she had just gone through made it hard for her to give a voice to any of her questions. Thankfully, it did not seem like she had to, because Peter and his uncle somehow managed to figure it out.

"Well, the spell is supposed to dredge up our worst memories, and Uncle Ben plays a big part in mine," Peter explained to her after breaking off the hug he and his uncle were sharing. "When I was getting the symbiote off me, it forced me to relive that same moment, so I figured if this spell was anything like that it would try to do the same thing once I jumped into it with you."

"And since my memory was stirred up, you kids and that spell are stuck with me," Ben finished for his nephew. "You might want to pay close attention to some of what happens next, sweetie, because this trip down memory lane is taking a few new turns."

Just as Uncle Ben had finished saying this, the scenery around them began changing again; only this time, it did not send them back to Aelita's old dorm room or any other location at Kadic. When the scene finally settled again, Aelita noticed that they had ended up in the living room of the Parker house, and there were only two occupants in said room. One of the two, a slightly younger looking Ben Parker, and the other, a very young Peter, who seemed really upset.

"Rough day, Kiddo," Ben asked the young Peter.

"Yeah Uncle Ben," Peter sniffed. "Flash and his friends never let up and are always nothing but jerks. I wish they'd just leave me alone."

"Well Peter, you can't always expect everything to be good, but sometimes, we need a bad day or two in our lives," Ben reasoned. "Sure, it's nice to have a good day and have everything go the way we want it to, but sometimes, you need to experience a bad day too. It's just like when you fell off your bike back when you were learning how to ride. Sure, it hurt a lot, but you kept getting up and trying again until you could ride like the other kids."

"So does that mean that someday, I could learn how to go back and stop the bad days from happening," Peter asked with a little child-like wonder.

Ben laughed at that. "I never said that. For example, if you didn't have a bad day today, you wouldn't be learning this lesson, and figuring out how to get up again so that you could make tomorrow better." Ben then glanced over to the kitchen before he lowered his voice and whispered, "Plus, if you didn't have a bad day today, May wouldn't be making you some of her famous wheatcakes to cheer you up, now would she?"

The young Peter and Uncle Ben shared a few chuckles after that last remark, and the sight of such a touching moment between the two made the corners of Aelita's lips start to slowly turn upwards into the beginnings of a smile. It truly was a touching, getting to see how Peter and his Uncle Ben interacted with each other, and just from that one memory, Aelita could now see how much Peter loved his uncle better than ever before. Sure, Peter talked about it all the time, but actually seeing things like this helped to drive that point home.

"I doubt I need to tell you that I didn't always understand Uncle Ben's lessons right away," commented the Peter of today, making Aelita turn to see him standing next to her, gazing at the same memory with a fond smile. "But I always figured it out eventually. Sure, what happened to you back then was horrible, but if none of it ever happened, you and Ulrich never would have come to this universe, and we never would've met."

"It's always scary letting people in after experiencing something like that, and even scarier thinking about what might happen if something happens to drive you apart, but if you spend all your time worrying about what might happen, you're going to miss out on the best things in life," Ben added, rejoining the conversation with the two heroes.

Aelita wanted to believe that, but just thinking of that day and the chance that Peter could fall to a similar fate that so many of the people she cared about had just would not leave her mind. "But…But what if…"

"Hey, whatever happens, happens. Peter promised you that would be by your side no matter what, and part of that means letting him in even if you're scared of the consequences," Ben interrupted before she could finish. "And even if the unthinkable does happen, you're still going to be able to pick yourself up and press on."

"I don't know," Aelita muttered, still not believing it.

"I do. After all, you've done it plenty of times before, or am I remembering the past year and all those stories about your past adventures wrong," Peter insistently reminded her.

When Peter brought that up, Aelita's mind suddenly began flashing back to all the things she and her friends had been through since she first woke up on Lyoko all those years ago. Everything from the first struggles against XANA, to finding the Hermitage and later learning of her true identity as the daughter of the supercomputer's creator, to XANA's destroying of Lyoko while they desperately searched for signs of her father, and all right up to the end when they struggled to free William and finally destroyed XANA for good. In between all of that, she saw all the times that she had felt isolated and cut off from the rest of the world, and how each and every time, her friends were there to have her back. All the times that Yumi lent an ear to listen to whatever problems she have had, every moment when Odd came to rescue her from bullies with a joke that left said bullies humiliated, the times when Ulrich took time out of his day to act as the big brother she never had while teaching her about how to just be a normal kid, and each and every special moment she shared with Jeremy no matter how big or small. Some of the best moments that flashed through her mind though were always the times when all of her friends were there for her at the worst and best moments of her life, and how each time she felt her heart warming up a little just from the knowledge that she had them with her, no matter how dark things may have seemed.

It did not stop with the adventures and fun times of the Lyoko Warriors, though. No, her memories found it necessary to remind her that she still had people like that even now. Reminders that Ulrich and Odd's faithful dog, Kiwi were still with her, and how they had found a new family in the Avengers. Some people had a little more presence in her memories than others, like Peter, Janet, Tony, and Steve, but others still appeared to remind her of the special times that they had shared with her as well. Among them was the time when Hulk had stood up to Fury for her and Ulrich after not even knowing them for a few hours, how Hank and Janet gave her and Ulrich a home without a second thought when they first met the pair, all the fun times she spent trying to emulate Thor's eccentric way of speaking if only to see the Asgardian smile a bit more, each time she got to hang out with Hawkeye and Black Panther, whether it was just for patrols, or even just to spend time with someone, and even all the special moments she shared with Peter as their relationship grew into something truly special.

All these precious memories and more raced through Aelita's mind, reminding her of all the people she now had in her life, and how so many of them were affecting just from meeting her once, until finally, she found her tears had dried up completely. Sure, the sad times were still present in her mind, but they were now being overpowered by something much greater than any doubts or fears she may hold. With all of these things fueling her resolves, no one was surprised when Aelita stood up again with her fires of determination and bravery rekindled and maybe even stronger than ever.

"You're right," Aelita started out saying, her voice quiet at first but steadily growing louder as she continued. "You're both right. I've had plenty of days when it seemed like it was the end of the world, but I never let that stop me before. I always got back up and kept fighting, and I've never done it alone. I've never had to do it alone even once, because I know that everyone I've ever cared about is always with me. Even if they're gone forever, they're still with me in my heart, and they'd be ashamed of me if I let some stupid spell beat me now."

"Who do you think you're fooling, girl," a creepy voice questioned, prompting the three to turn around and see the robotic form of XANA towering over them. Or more accurately, the one from Aelita's memories. "You will destroy yourself long before you truly start believing that. It's illogical to try resisting after failing so many times now."

"Except I'm not resisting the memory anymore," Aelita pointed out. "I'm just resisting you. Like Peter said, you're not real. Just a bad memory and I'm not letting you control my life anymore than you already have."

Peter and Ben shared very similar smiles with one another as the latter said, "I think she's got things from here."

"I know she does," Peter agreed. "And thanks for the help, Uncle Ben."

"Anytime, kiddo. Anytime," Ben promised, and with that, he faded away, back into Peter's memories.

Once his uncle had disappeared, Peter slid his mask back on, and turned to Aelita as he said, "Doctor Strange and I can take care of the rest of the mess outside, so try not to take too long with kicking this spell's butt."

"Easy as a run to deactivate a tower on Lyoko," Aelita assured him just before he too vanished from view. Aelita then turned back to the Memory-XANA, raised her wrist up before her, and slapped the familiar watch that had reappeared on it, transforming into her Lyoko form. Of course, it took little time to notice a small problem with her transformation; namely that she had not changed into the suit she had been wearing ever since arriving in this universe. Instead, she was decked out in her original Lyoko attire, but that did not bother her too much. All it really did was make her smile as she studied her old look and said, "Hm, classic."

Reflections on old fashions would have to wait until later, because Memory-XANA had stopped waiting, and moved to attack, throwing one of its massive metal fists at Aelita. Too bad for him Aelita's smaller size made her faster and more agile, so she had no trouble dodging the attack just by jumping to one side. Her counterattack came just as easily, since it started off with a simple energy field to Memory-XANA's head, giving her the chance to race forward and leap up to plant a hard kick to the machine's head. By the time she landed behind Memory-XANA again, Aelita already had another energy field ready to go, and set it loose on her old foe after a simple spin around.

After seeing her blast strike its mark, Aelita could not resist the temptation to brag a little, and shouted, "You know, you're only going to be in for more of that by sticking around. Maybe it's time you consider giving up and hitting the road?"

Memory-XANA disagreed with that sentiment with a dark chuckle and retorted, "Just where do you think we are?" It barely even moved that much after that comment, and before Aelita knew it, several long tendrils were shooting out from the darkness and wrapping her in a strong grip while leaving her little room to move, despite her best attempts at struggling. "The spell has already taken route in your mind, Aelita Schaeffer. It is already beginning to merge with and overtake your mind, even as we speak." Memory-XANA then proceeded to watch as Aelita continued trying to free herself to no avail, while the tendrils slowly started to pull her down into what Aelita could only describe as some kind of black muck, and it seemed to find more amusement in her attempts. "Don't bother struggling. There's nowhere you can hide from us, and without the arachnid boy, you're all alone in this fight."

Just when Aelita started to think that the Memory-XANA was going to start doing an evil laugh, even though she knew XANA was very incapable of doing so anyway, she heard the sounds of something being fired, and the memory manifestation let out a few cries of pain when multiple, arrow-like projectiles hit it. Shortly after that, something really fast spinning through the air several a lot of the tendrils holding Aelita, and a massive sword cut apart the remaining ones. Despite being freed from the tendrils that were holding her upper body, Aelita could still feel something pulling her down, until someone grasped her hand and pulled her back up. Aelita needed a minute to get her balance back after that, but when she looked up to see who had rescued her she started grinning from ear to ear at who she saw.

Standing before Aelita was what she could only assume to be the memory manifestation of Ulrich, given that like her, he was wearing his original Lyoko attire, and he was not the only one to have come to her rescue. Dropping down from out of nowhere to land with the cat-like grace he was known for, came Odd clad in his old purple-cat suit, and not long after, Yumi landed next to her after catching her steel fan on its return trip to her hand, much like she always did whenever she made a dramatic entrance. It did not stop with just those two, because William came marching up to stand with them as well, decked out in the blue battle suit he had only gotten to wear the first time he went to Lyoko, with his large blade resting on his shoulder. Seeing the old team back together like this, no one could blame Aelita if she never stopped smiling again.

"Maybe you weren't paying attention before," the memory version of Ulrich told Memory-XANA.

"She has no reason to hide from you. Not as long as we're here for her," Memory-Yumi next picked up.

"After all, like the old saying goes, you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us," Memory-William grinned cockily.

"And when you mess with Aelita, you mess with all of the Lyoko Warriors," Memory-Odd promised, already reloading his gloves to fire another round of Laser Arrows.

"And we're all much stronger than you think," finished the memory form of Jeremy, right as he came up to stand behind Aelita with a hand on one shoulder.

Before Aelita knew it, Jeremy's memory form had allowed itself to be absorbed into her, along with the memories of every single person she had come to value over the course of her life, be it as friends or family. Once the process was complete, Aelita felt stronger than ever, and she proved it by taking up a ready stance while the others drew their weapons in preparation for the upcoming fight. If she were able to take a picture right now, Aelita would gladly do it, because this was a nostalgic sight that she would likely never see again, but then again, it was also very likely that she would never forget it either.

Once she had decided that she had taken in the iconic sight of the Lyoko Warriors readying themselves for battle well enough, Aelita locked her gaze on the enemy before them, and said, "You guys ready for one last run?"

"Always, Princess," Memory-Ulrich instantly confirmed, with the others nodding in agreement soon after.

Everything that followed after was like something out of history; Lyoko Warrior history that is, because the five had all charged in and attacked Memory-XANA with all the power, skill, and courage that Aelita remembered them each of them for. Then again, all of this was happening inside of Aelita's head, so it probably should not be surprising that they were all acting just like she remembered, but that is beside the point. Even with the addition of William, nothing about their flow of combat was thrown off. If anything, it made them stronger, and opened up the chance for several new combos and tag-teams that they had never gotten the chance to try before the end of their mission. No specific grouping of members was better than the other, each individual member could hold their own when necessary while covering for another, and every attack that they landed not only had the power, but the accuracy needed to keep the tide of battle in their favor.

As the fight raged on, Aelita could tell that Memory-XANA was weakening, and even saw his image shift between that of the mechanical body of her archenemy and that of Dormammu's as their attacks continued to land on target. Not only that, but eventually, she saw each of the Lyoko Warriors' outfits begin changing to their upgraded versions. It did come with the downside of seeing William in the suit he had when he was under XANA's control, but the absence of the AI's emblem on him did put Aelita a little more at ease. The changes did not stop with just their appearances, but also included the new additions to their arsenal and powers as well; meaning Aelita got her wings back once her change was complete, and Memory-Ulrich his second saber. Memory-William even gained the ability to use Super Smoke once his appearance had fully changed, and Aelita smiled with a twinge of satisfaction at seeing that trick being turned on the being that had given it to William in the first place.

Eventually, one final change occurred in the Lyoko Warrior team, and that change saw Aelita and Ulrich's attire transforming into the ones they had today, while William and Yumi's appearances also gained a new change. In the case of Yumi, hers was not too drastic, as it still looked much like a dark purple bodysuit, fitting of a ninja, however, there was no longer any gaps in the suit that showed any skin, aside from her face, while William's outfit retained the all black stylings, but without the XANA emblem anywhere on him, and with orange highlights and detailing through various points of his suit. The only other real change of note was in how his skin seemed to turn incredibly pale. At first, Aelita figured that Memory-Odd would not mind being left out on this last change, but she probably should have known better, given how accurate her recollections of her friends had been so far.

"Hey, how come all of you guys get cool new looks? That's so not fair," Memory-Odd complained.

"Well, what can I say, Odd, you're the only one in our group that didn't get a third redesign," Aelita shrugged. "As for the why…well, it's a long story."

All further conversation ceased as the Lyoko Warriors made one final push against Memory-XANA, who had now completely changed into an astral form of Dormammu, and with one final team attack, the Lyoko Warriors finally extinguished the dread lord's hold on Aelita's mind, wiping away all traces of darkness in her psyche, and making way for a brilliant, bright light as he cried out in agony from his defeat.

Seeing that the bad guy was gone, Aelita turned a happy smile to the memory manifestations of her friends, who were rejoined by the one of Jeremy, and said, "Thanks everyone."

"Any time, Aelita," Jeremy promised while the rest of the boys nodded in agreement.

"We're always with you," Yumi assured her, just before they each vanished from sight, leaving Aelita to be nearly blinded by the light that was left in their wake.

---

While Strange was relieved to see Spider-Man emerge from the dark sphere imprisoning Aelita unharmed, his concern still remained when Aelita did not join them immediately after like he had been expecting. As such, he followed his first instinct in trying to get Spider-Man to reach out to her again, but the web-head surprised him by saying that everything was under control before turning to fight the remaining HYDRA forces, most of which had begun retreating by now. Whether they were running because they had realized they had lost the battle or because they had gotten whatever they came here for, Strange could not say, and right now, he found no reason to care. Not so long as Dormammu still posed a threat to the world, and preventing the ruler of the Dark Dimension from invading Earth had long been one of Strange's first priorities as Sorcerer Supreme, so he focused on that for the moment.

With his focus so firmly fixated on destroying Doctor Strange, Dormammu did not seem to notice that his human allies had started abandoning him. Spider-Man helped to better ensure that any remaining HYDRA troops were unable to get away or help their demonic ally, so that when Dormammu finally started to realize how little reinforcement he had been receiving in his battle, it was already too late. It still did not stop him from getting angry and raging to the high heavens about the clear betrayal.

"Savage Artillery! What is the meaning of this," Dormammu demanded of the strange warrior. "Why are your forces leaving when the battle is yet to be lost?!"

"For one thing, we're smart to know when to cut our losses, unlike you," Savage Artillery almost joked in reply, earning a sneer from Dormammu even as he laid out the next reason. "And besides, we've already gotten what we came here for, so you're usefulness to us has come to an end. Farewell, Dormammu."

With his piece given, Savage Artillery took his leave of the battle, jumping through the portal that HYDRA had been using to get into the Dark Dimension, and leaving Dormammu to whatever fate awaited him at the end of his most recent clash with Doctor Strange, much to the dread lord's fury. "Damn you, HYDRA cowards," Dormammu cursed. "I swear, you will be among the first to burn once I've broken through to your realm! Mark my words, you and your master will suffer for this betrayal! You will all…"

Dormammu's rant ended up being cut short by a sudden blast of energy exploding from the middle of the room. Or more accurately, it had exploded from the sphere that Aelita had been trapped in, and when everyone turned towards it, the heroes breathed sighs of relief at seeing Aelita the Angel Guardian freed from her imprisonment, and not only ready to fight, but looking very, very angry. Lucky for Strange and Spidey, they were not the ones she was upset with right now.

"Impossible," Dormammu whispered, hardly believing that a simple mortal with no magical power could have broken free from his spell. "How could you have overpowered that spell and break free?!"

"The answer's a simple piece of advice, Dormammu," Aelita snarled while charging an energy field in one hand, making sure to pack a lot more power into it than she normally did. "Don't mess with a Lyoko Warrior!"

With that simple declaration, Aelita tossed the energy field she had been charging up right into Dormammu's face, and since it had so much more energy behind it than most of Aelita's regular energy fields did, Dormammu ended up getting blown off his feet and across the room, crashing into the portal device that he and HYDRA had been using to send the Mindless Ones into New York. Dormammu only realized what he had landed on after he sat up again and heard bits of metal falling on the ground behind him, and he instantly let out another roar of fury upon seeing the portal device in shambles. Now, if he were any other, lower tier villain, the heroes probably would have given him a little time to come to terms with how the key to his victory had been destroyed, but since Dormammu was definitely not such a villain, such mercies could not be granted, and Doctor Strange made sure to make that clear to his old foe.

"And now, by the Hoary Hosts of Hogoth!" Strange cried out, unleashing a freezing wind that encased Dormammu in ice. "That may not hold him for long, but it will be just enough to ensure that HYDRA's portal is completely sealed, along with our escape route once we've departed from this wretched place."

"I don't suppose you've got another one of those in you, Doc, because we've still got those guys to worry about," Spider-Man asked, indicating another wave of Mindless Ones approaching them.

Aelita stepped forward, ready to charge up another set of energy fields so that she could hold them off, until suddenly, the cat from earlier stepped between the heroes and the Mindless Ones. Much to Spidey and Aelita's surprise, the creatures actually paused for a second when they saw the cat, but that paled in comparison to what they witnessed after that. The cat opened its mouth much wider than what should be possible for such an animal, and released a mass of tentacles on the Mindless Ones that utterly demolished the monsters, or just made it easy for the cat to swallow them whole. When he was done, the cat just retracted the tentacles back into its mouth, allowing it to return to being like a normal cat with a simple meow.

Both Aelita and Spidey's eyes were now the size of dinner plates, neither of them really sure how to describe or question what they had just witnessed, but Doctor Strange did have one thing to say on the matter, and he did it with a very smug smirk. "I told you it was a Flerken."

Said Flerken just continued acting like a sweet, innocent cat, despite the fact it had just demolished and even swallowed several monsters, and seeing the way that it meowed happily while purring and rubbing its head against Aelita's leg, the pinkette just could not stop herself from smiling a little at the magic cat. "Aw, you were just trying to keep us safe, weren't you," Aelita cooed as she petted the cat a bit more cautiously than before.

"Uh, suddenly I'm not so sure if we should bring it back with us," Spidey muttered as quietly as possible, forgetting in his bewildered state that his girlfriend had super hearing. Naturally, that meant she had ended up shooting him a cross look that instantly reminded him why an angry Aelita was something that so many people feared, and quickly amended, "But I'm sure it'll be fine as long as she doesn't try to eat us."

If he were not busy opening the portal they needed to get home right then after finishing his work in sealing the one that HYDRA had created with their machine, Doctor Strange would have been openly staring at the pinkette like she had lost her mind. "You mean to tell me still want to take the Flerken home with you, even after witnessing its true nature," Strange asked, hardly believing that could be the case. "That thing is feared by multiple beings all across the cosmos, both in regards to the multiverse and all other forms of life within our own dimension."

Aelita had been seconds away from trying to explain how the Flerken appeared to have gotten really attached to her by now, or that she had grown pretty fond of the little guy, had Strange's last comment not caught her attention, making her think a little. Before long, a steady smirk stretched across her face when she asked, "When you say all other forms of life in our universe, do you mean as in…alien life?"

---

It was the weirdest thing, and considering that the Avengers of all people were saying that too, you know it had to be true. One minute, the horde of Mindless Ones had been invading New York nonstop with wave after wave, and then the next, they seemed to just stop. Not that anyone had any complaints, mind you, but it was still weird. Either way, the Avengers managed to defeat the invading monsters, and assisted in cleaning up the damage of the city. Sure, that proved to be an easy task to accomplish with Giant-Woman, two Hulks, and a speedster to help out, but they were all feeling really tired afterwards, to the point where every Avenger on the team made plans to either take a really long power nap or just sleep for the next week when they got back to the mansion. Even Hank felt a little tired after just watching and listening to everything that had been going on in the city, but he managed to stay conscious enough to greet the team when they arrived home. Though, that may have had something to do with the fact that he managed to find Aelita, and said pinkette claimed to have some important announcements for everyone.

Once everyone had gotten into the entrance hall of the mansion, the Avengers quickly spotted their pink haired teammate and her boyfriend waiting for them, along with a new face that they had not seen before. Seeing the strange man in blue robes and a red cape raised a few suspicious eyebrows from some of the Avengers, but only Wasp took the initiative in asking the question. "Um, Angel, who's your new friend?"

"Glad you asked," Aelita smirked in reply. "Avengers, meet the man responsible for saving our world from being invaded by the Dark Dimension: Doctor Strange."

"Doctor Strange, huh? So what's his real name," Hawkeye asked.

"Doctor Strange," the sorcerer replied.

"Oh, so you're the type who doesn't want to share his secret identity with just anybody," Hawkeye figured, thinking that Strange was still just using a hero name.

"No, Legolas, his name is literally Doctor Stephen Strange," Spidey clarified on the doctor's behalf.

The Avengers all exchanged surprised looks when they heard that, before Hulk and Jen just shrugged and simultaneously said, "Meh, we've heard weirder."

"I'm…not sure how to take that," Strange confessed.

"Well maybe one of you can explain how this guy stopped this invasion," Ms. Marvel asked.

"Short version, the Mindless Ones are the minions of one of Doctor Strange's old enemies, and thanks to his magic powers, we were able to travel to the dimension they were coming from, stop the bad guys, along with a squad of HYDRA agents, close portal, and destroy the device that HYDRA had been using to help said bad guy in his own conquest plans," Aelita summarized for them.

"Seriously? He did all of that," Daredevil asked, sounding extremely skeptical.

"Well, we might've helped a little. Just not that much," Spider-Man modestly played off.

"And he said that he's willing to join the Avengers if we were all okay with that. Trust me, he's definitely got what it takes," Aelita added on.

Janet cupped her chin to think that over, as she mused, "It would be nice to have a full-fledged magic expert on the team again. Plus, we have needed someone to fill that gap for us since Thor decided to stay in Asgard…What do you guys think?"

"Hey, if he's as good as Princess says he is, I'm all for it," Ulrich agreed without any hesitation.

"Trust me, he's that good. I got a pretty impressive demonstration of what he's capable of while we were waiting for all of you to get back," Hank confirmed.

The rest of the team gave similar voices of agreement, and with that, Wasp gladly gave Strange a welcoming handshake to make it official. "Of course, I should warn you, I still have many duties to perform as the Sorcerer Supreme, but should you need me, I will do my utmost best to be there to aid you all," Strange cautioned afterwards.

"Glad to hear it," Wasp nodded, understandingly, and then she turned her attention back to Aelita. "So, Hank said you had two announcements to make. What was the other thing?"

Janet's question ended up being answered by the sound of Kiwi's barking being paired with a cat's meows, and the Avengers all turned to see the dog come running into the room, playfully racing with an unfamiliar cat. Said cat was soon scooped up into Aelita's arms, happily purring loudly as the pinkette smiled and said, "I think I've found a new member for the family."

Every Avenger simply stared in surprise upon seeing that there was another pet in their house, until Wanda finally asked, "Uh, Angel, did you seriously bring a stray cat to the mansion?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Aelita shrugged like it was no big deal. "I found her all alone and scared to death, and ever since, she's basically stuck to me like glue."

"She's not kidding. When we tried to leave her at a pet shelter, the thing started crying like crazy, and since there was nothing to indicate it had an owner, Aelita decided to just bring it home with her," Spidey filled in as he started petting the cat in his girlfriend's arms.

Most of the team seemed to accept that reasoning, while others seemed really hesitant to accept letting another pet into the mansion. Sure, they were okay with Kiwi, but adding another one? That may have been pushing it a little. Out of all the Avengers though, Captain America seemed to be the most against this idea, but not for the same reasons as the others. "Wh-Where did you say you found…it," the super soldier nervously questioned.

"Like I said, out in the middle of nowhere, all by itself," Aelita repeated.

"Maybe you shouldn't keep it then," Captain America instantly declared afterwards, surprising the others with how fast he had jumped to that. Cap must have realized this too, because he hastily added on, "It's probably got a bunch of…diseases. And flees. We-we could all end up getting sick because of that thing."

"Geez, lighten up, old man. They said that they took it to a pet shelter. I'm sure they would've noticed if the cat had anything like that by now," Hawkeye assured him, but it did not seem like his words helped Cap to relax. It was then that Clint came to a stunning realization. "Wait, you're not scared of cats, are you Steve?"

"No, of course not," Steve scoffed.

"Maybe he's just allergic to cats? Is that why you're so nervous," Carol offered up.

"Even if he was, that shouldn't be a problem now. The Super Soldier Serum prevents Steve from getting sick and any ailments or allergies he had before taking the serum were all removed by it," Ulrich shot down.

"Whatever the case, you don't have any reason to be afraid of her," Aelita calmly insisted, slowly stepping towards Steve with the cat held out towards him. When Captain America noticed this, he just barely managed to keep from flinching, but still backed further away as Aelita drew closer with the cat. "Come on, Steve. Just try petting her."

"I'm good, thanks," Captain America hurriedly replied.

"Don't worry. She won't bite," Aelita promised. She then paused in thought before adding, "I mean, she might try to take a small little nip at you, but she'd only be playing in that case."

"I highly doubt that," Captain America muttered under his breath, still backing away despite Aelita's attempts to corner him with the cat.

"Oh come on. There's absolutely no reason for you to…"

"Just keep that blasted Flerken away from me," Captain America finally snapped, cutting Aelita off before she could finish her most recent reassurance.

The others all jumped a bit when they heard Cap shout at Aelita, but some of them were a little more upset with him than they were startled. "Hey, just because you're afraid of the cat, doesn't mean you should take it out on Aelita," Janet scolded.

"Yeah, chill out, Cap. It's just a cat, not Pennywise," Hawkeye added, sounding pretty upset with Steve as well, but all their scolding came to an end the next time Aelita spoke.

"How do you know about that," Aelita had asked, her voice at rather a dangerous level of serious that made everyone turn back to her again. "How do you know what a Flerken is?"

Captain America's eyes widened upon hearing that question, but he did not show any other signs of panic beyond that. "I…read something about them in the files from SWORD," he quickly excused.

That may have been believable were it not for the fact that a SWORD agent was among them right now. "I've been over all the data that SWORD has on other aliens, most of which was given to us by Sydren, a former Kree slave, and I've never seen or heard anything in it about a Flerken before."

"That makes two of us, seeing as I've seen those files as well, and I only just learned about the Flerken today from Doctor Strange," Aelita pressed on, pushing more pressure onto the Captain with every word. "More to the point, I never said anything resembling the term before you spoke up, so I'll ask again: how do you know what a Flerken is, Captain?"

A quick look at his surroundings and at the suspicious glares that all the Avengers were now giving him, and "Captain America" found a lot more trouble in coming up with another, viable excuse. He certainly tried his hardest, but with all these heroes backing him into a corner like this, figuratively and literally speaking, as he soon realized, it became much more difficult. Finally, after a few more, very tense minutes, he finally gave up trying for any excuse and just decided, "Oh to hell with this."

Despite the fact that everyone had gotten on guard, no one saw it coming when "Captain America" suddenly punched Daredevil square in the jaw, knocked Scarlet Witch into the air with an uppercut, and finally, kicked Wasp into Hank, the latter of which had already started moving to check on the first two heroes. Seeing their teammates being attacked like this prompted the other Avengers into action, but the now obvious imposter was too quick for them, and promptly slammed his energy shield into Hawkeye just as the latter had unfolded his bow. He then intercepted She-Hulk's fist with his shield, and then used her own strength against her by slipping out from under the blow and sending her tumbling over into a charging Ms Marvel due to how much strength she had put into her attack. Hulk immediately rushed the fake captain after seeing what happened to his cousin, but "Cap" used his momentum from escaping She-Hulk to spin around and land a strong kick right into Hulk's crotch.

Upon witnessing that, Ulrich's eyes widened a little, even after seeing Hulk drop down, proving that even the strongest hero there is was just as weak to crotch shots as any other male in the world. "Wow. If I didn't already know it, I'd say this guy had one hell of a death wish," the Sprint Samurai muttered before rushing towards the man posing as his friend.

Fake-Cap saw Ulrich coming and immediately dove to the side before turning off his energy shield and using it like a laser blast to keep Ulrich away from him, a tactic he also employed against Aelita when he saw her joining the battle. He then tried to make a run for it, but ended up with his path being blocked by the one of Doctor Strange's spells, turning his attention onto the Sorcerer Supreme in the hopes of breaking the spell by taking down the doctor. It proved a very difficult task though, as Ulrich and Aelita were constantly intercepting him, making it so that Fake-Cap had to do whatever he could just to keep away from them, and vice-versa. Unknown to the Fake-Cap that had been just what the three were hoping for.

Since his focus ended up so fixated on the Lyoko Avengers and Doctor Strange, Fake-Cap just barely took notice when the other downed heroes were starting to recover, but he definitely never noticed how the last hero in the room had finished setting up to make his move. Before anyone knew it, a pair of web-lines had caught Fake-Cap by his legs, and pulled the imposter off his feet and into the wall, where he remained after getting pinned in place by several more rounds of webbing. No one needed to think very hard to realize where the webs came from, so none of them were surprised to see Spider-Man still aiming his web-shooters at the captured fake.

"Aw, what's the matter, 'Cap?' Spidey got your shield," the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man jokingly questioned.

Aelita let herself smirk a little in response to her boyfriend's joke, but had quickly schooled her features again when she faced the person pretending to be a dear friend of hers. "This is game over for you, Skrull. Time to show your real face," Aelita demanded.

When the Skrull-Cap just snarled in response to Aelita's demand, Doctor Strange stepped forward and requested, "Allow me. Eye of Agamotto, reveal the hidden truth!"

Like all of his other spells, Doctor Strange's incantation acted within seconds, and the Avengers all let out horrified gasps upon seeing their friend and teammate's features melt away to reveal the green skin, pointed ears, and large bumpy chin hidden underneath. "I…I don't believe it," Hank just managed to whisper.

"The kids were right," Hawkeye added on.

"Cap is the Skrull," Ms. Marvel finally finished.

The other heroes were unable to say anything. How could they? Seeing someone they knew turn out to actually be an alien spy in disguise was one thing, but a person like Captain America of all people being that spy was an entirely different matter. The only thing even more shocking was the method that Aelita had used to expose said spy. None of them would have suspected that she would do so with what they now knew to be an alien cat of some kind. Out of everyone though, Wanda's reaction was probably the worst, and the captured Skrull was not currently in any position to protect himself from her wrath.

Before anyone could react, Wanda's powers had flared to life, and the Skrull cried out in pain as he felt some an unseen force begin crushing his body while the Scarlet Witch glared at him. "I'm only going to ask you this once," Wanda sneered. "Where. Is. Steve?"

"I…I'll never talk," the Skrull just barely gasped, but that was the wrong thing to say, because the pressure crushing his body quickly became stronger around his neck, making it harder for him to breathe.

Wanda probably would have crushed the Skrull's wind pipe entirely had Janet not stepped in and ordered her to stop. She had to get a little more demanding than she normally would have, but Wasp did manage to get the mutant member of the Avengers to cease her torture. With that done, Ulrich took his own turn at interrogating the alien. "Unless you want that to start up again, or for me to test out just how poisonous my sister and I really are to your race, I suggest you tell us what we want to know, now," Ulrich demanded. He expected a lot of things from the Skrull, but none of them included the shapeshifting alien laughing at him. "What's so funny?"

"You really believed that," the Skrull asked. "The idea that you two were such a threat to us was just a ruse to get you to lower your guard and make you think that you were above suspicion."

"Then I guess you won't mind if I do this," Aelita remarked from out of nowhere, and before anyone could stop her, she had already placed a hand against the Skrull's bare chin.

The results were instantaneous, and honestly scared everyone a little. From the second that Aelita's hand had made contact with his skin, the Skrull had begun letting out a bloodcurdling scream while the skin beneath Aelita's palm started burning to the point where smoke was actually coming off of it. Whether or not it was affecting Aelita was hard to tell, because her face showed no signs of anything at all. No pain, no sadness, not even a small amount of regret; just a simple expression of cold indifference that frightened everyone a little more than the sounds of the Skrull's screams.

"Angel, that's enough," Janet said, but Aelita did not listen, and just kept her hand where it was. "Aelita! Stop it! You're going to kill him at this rate!"

Hearing that second remark seemed to do the trick, because Aelita quickly pulled back, ending her torture of the Skrull, but leaving him with a very noticeable burn that covered a good portion of his face. She panted pretty heavily for a bit, and then moved to stand next to Peter, allowing him to quietly hold her in his arms as she buried her face into his shoulder. Seeing her previous mask fall and allow her to return to the Aelita they all knew left the other Avengers very relieved, but some of them still showed signs of concern for the girl. They wanted to talk to her about it, but Ulrich soon reminded them of the other problem they had on hand.

"That was strike two, and I know I won't be able to hold my sister back if she decides you need another dose, so you better start talking," Ulrich told the Skrull. "Who are you? Who are the other Skrull spies? And where's the real Captain America?"

"My…My name is Pitt'o Nili," the Skrull-Cap finally gasped out. "And I'll die…before I tell you anything about…about my brothers and sisters…or our plans."

"Is that so," Ulrich asked, raising a hand to the burn mark that Aelita had left on the man.

Pitt'o flinched back when he saw this, and quickly brought up another topic. "But I can tell you about your missing friends and the others we replaced!"

"Then start talking, or I'll let both Ulrich and Aelita have a go at you," Janet demanded.

Pitt'o needed to take another breath, but he still gave his answer as quickly as possible. "I don't know where they are," he started off, flinching back a little when he saw Wanda start raising her hands towards him again. "I really don't! They were being held prisoner on one of our ships, but then they broke out and escaped on a stolen vessel! The only thing our soldiers were able to figure out afterwards was that their projected course put them on the path to return to this planet. That's all I know about them, I swear!"

"And what about the other Skrulls? Who are they posing as," Janet demanded.

Somehow, Pitt'o managed to gather up a little courage for this next answer. "If you think that I'll sell out any of my brothers and sisters, then you're a fool. Besides, it's already too late. The final phase of our plan is almost upon us. I'd say one of your Earth weeks at least, a week and a half at the most, and when it comes, your world will be ours. As it is written."

"Then I guess we know how long SWORD has to make you talk, and we will make you talk, one way or another," Carol promised as she approached him.

If the Skrull was nervous at all about that, he did not show it, but the Avengers no longer needed him to be scared. They had already gotten what they needed from him for now.

---

After SWORD had come to collect Pitt'o and left, with Carol making sure that the agents understood just how dangerous the Skrull spy could be, the Avengers had gathered up again in the lounge, this time to lick their wounds and better process the fact that the Captain America they had been working with for the last few months really had been a spy. They were all very relieved when they heard Pitt'o admit while being taken away that the real Cap had not been replaced until after the events in Asgard, Wanda more than anyone else. Still that was a small comfort knowing that the Skrull had deceived most of them for so long. Even Aelita and Ulrich, who had suspected him for longer than anyone else, felt upset for not realizing it sooner, and just brushing some of Cap's strange behavior off as either his method of coping with what happened in Asgard and his usual approach to handling things in the present day.

Of course, that was not the only thing that they needed to discuss right now, but even Hawkeye had enough common courtesy and sense to let the more upsetting news rest a little before he finally brought up the matter in question. "So, we are going to talk about the other elephant in the room right," Hawkeye asked. "Or should I say the magic cat in the room?"

"It's more of a space-cat than a magic one," Strange corrected as he watched the Flerken prance over and snuggle up on Aelita's lap, who had just entered the room with Wasp after talking with the current Avengers leader about some unknown topic.

"Whatever, it doesn't change the fact that there's really only one thing to say about it," Ulrich brushed off.

"Yes there is," Aelita agreed. She then took a minute to glance around at the others before smiling and asking, "Can I keep her?"

Ulrich's jaw dropped when he heard that. Clearly he and Aelita had not been on the same wavelength this time. "That is not what I meant."

"Whether it was or not, there's still the fact that it's an unregistered alien presence on Earth, and I'm already likely to catch a bit of heat from my superiors for not so much as saying anything about it when the agents arrived to transport the Skrull to Damocles," Carol reminded them. She had only kept quiet about it because one, she had still been processing the whole concept of a space-cat in the first place, and two, Aelita asked her to hold off on saying anything.

"Besides, we've already got Kiwi stirring up trouble around here, and what makes you so sure that he'll be able to handle living with a cat, space or otherwise," Hank questioned while trying to get the dog in question to leave him alone at that very same time.

"Because while you were watching Doctor Strange's demonstration, I was introducing the two to each other, and they got along perfectly," Aelita revealed with a smile, likely having anticipated that question before this conversation started. To prove this, Aelita encouraged the two pets to approach one another, and everyone could only watch as Kiwi gave the Flerken a friendly lick before the latter rubbed its head up under the dog's chin. "See?"

"I still don't know," Jen hedged, but only because she was uncertain on how much of a vote she had in this, being the most recent addition to the team. "What do you think, Hulk?"

"Don't care. Not as long as it stays out of my food and doesn't annoy me like the mutt," Hulk gruffly answered. He could tell that Jen and a few of the others wanted to call him out on that, but they never got the chance too. The Flerken had beaten them to it by rubbing its head against Hulk's leg, happily purring, and that ended up being enough to break Hulk down. "Okay, fine. You're pretty adorable. Happy?"

The arguments both for and against the idea of keeping the Flerken as their newest pet continued to go around the room, until Aelita finally pulled out her secret weapon on everyone. "Please," she pleaded with a pout, coupled with her sad puppy eyes.

That did it. They were done. No other arguments could be made now that Aelita had shot all of them with that look, and they all quickly agreed to let her keep the space-cat. Only Ms. Marvel held off on answering right away, but when she did, her answer ended up being no different than the others. "Well, I guess as long as I assure Brand and the others at SWORD that it's under the watchful care of a respectful and trustworthy owner, they won't complain too much."

"Yes," Aelita cheered afterwards, and she then scooped up the space-cat to hug it close. "Welcome to the family, cool cat."

"Please tell me that's not what you're going for as its name," Hawkeye begged her. When Aelita paused in her cuddling of the space-cat afterwards, he soon came to realize, "You mean you wanted to keep that thing, and you didn't even start thinking of a name for it?"

"I figured you guys would feel pressured into agreeing if I had," Aelita defended. She ended up adding one other thing to her defense shortly after. "Plus, aside from Kiwi, I've never had a pet before, so I've never really had to think of names for one."

"As long as you don't name it after that dolly of yours, I'm not complaining," Clint shrugged, getting in a bit of teasing when he did.

"Hey! You leave Mister Puck out of this," Aelita snapped in kind, but still allowed the others to throw out name suggestions.

"How about Memento? You know, since she's basically your mission souvenir," Ulrich offered.

"That feels like I'm objectifying her. No way. Next," Aelita denied.

"Fluffy," Hulk suggested.

"Too generic. Next."

"How about Spacey," Clint half-joked.

"I refuse to even consider that. Next."

"…Goose," Hank offered, making everyone stare at him a little. "What? I think it's a good idea."

"Um…I'll consider it if no one has anything better," Aelita hesitantly decided.

"You know, when I was growing up, if I ever had a pet, I always wanted to name them Chewie," Carol admitted with a fond smile.

"Chewie? Like the Star Wars character," Janet guessed, knowing that Carol was such a huge fan of said franchise.

Carol merely shrugged and said, "Why not? He's an awesome character, and the idea of me actually getting a pet back then was an awesome dream. It seemed fitting."

Aelita looked down at the Flerken for a few minutes, letting that mill around in her mind, before she finally tested it out. "Chewie…Do you like that," Aelita asked, getting what sounded like a happy meow and a purr from the space-cat in reply, sealing the deal. "Yeah, that makes two of us. Okay, Chewie it is."

"Well, I guess that's that then," Spider-Man suddenly spoke up, reminding everyone that he was still there. To be honest, he had been so quiet up until now, that they had almost forgotten about him. "Guess I'll just head on out for home, and…yeah."

As they watched the web-swinger stand up, Janet and Aelita shared a quick nod between them, giving the latter her cue to pass the newly named Chewie over to Carol and approach her boyfriend. "Spidey, wait," Aelita said once she had stopped him. "You were right."

"About what," Spider-Man asked, suddenly very confused.

"About my reasons for not wanting you to join. I shouldn't have let what happened in the past dictate my decisions in the present or for the future," Aelita explained. "And even without that in mind, you did really good today. If it weren't for you, we never would have met Doctor Strange, and I would probably be dead right now. Plus you were also the one who stopped Skrull-Cap from getting away, so there's that too."

"Not to mention all the other times he's helped us with something, be it by accident or intentionally," Ulrich added on.

"Which is why, after talking it over with Janet, I think everyone can agree that, if you really are interested, we would be honored to have you join the team," Aelita finished.

A rare event happened after Aelita said that, and no one in the room would ever regret witnessing it. Spider-Man was rendered speechless. He had figured that today's events would have given Aelita a lot to think about, but he never expected her to do a one eighty on her choice in whether or not to ask him to be an Avenger. It was not unwelcome, of course, but he still asked, "Are you serious? You really want me to join?"

"It's alright if you don't want to be a full-time member," Wasp explained to him. "Aelita's told us about how you've got a lot of stuff going on right now both in and out of the suit, between your job, your family, and getting ready for college, so if you want to be just a part-time member like Daredevil, you can. You could even be just a reserve member if you wanted. No matter what you choose, we'd really like it if you agreed to join." After giving that reassurance to the web-head, Janet pulled out an already prepared Avengers ID card, and offered to Spidey as she asked, "So…what do you say? Can we introduce Spider-Man to the world as the newest Avenger?"

Spider-Man stuttered and stumbled over his words for a few seconds. "Uh…I…Wow! I…I don't know what to say."

"Now you know how I felt when I was first asked to join," Carol joked while petting Chewie. Seemed like she and the space-cat were really bonding with each other. "Piece of advice, they most likely want you to say yes."

That settled it for Spider-Man. "Yes. Absolutely! Thanks," he finally managed to get out, and he happily accepted the ID card from Wasp, grinning from ear to ear beneath his mask at the sight of his picture in the little box on the top right corner of the ID card. It did not stop him from making another joke though. "So…does this get me a discount anywhere?"

No one laughed at the joke, but Aelita did feel the need to give some response to it. "Sorry, honey, but I already made that joke."

"Aw, not fair," Spidey playfully complained, drawing a bit of laughter from both of them after he said it.

Ulrich rolled his eyes at the two lovebirds and commented, "Yeah, you two are perfect for each other all right."

Hawkeye on the other hand had another opinion that he just could not leave unsaid. "Are we sure about this?"

The looks he got from Janet, Wanda, and Ulrich was answer enough, and the archer wisely chose to keep silent afterwards. Besides, even with all this good news, they still had some important business to deal with, and very little time to do it in. The Skrulls would be launching the final phase of their plan in little more than a week's time, and the Avengers intended to make sure they would be ready for them.

---

AN: Okay, this was a long one. I think there's a chance that this might be a new record in terms of longest chapters I've written. I'll admit, this one went a little bit off the rails from the usual stylings of the chapters in this recruitment arc, but at the same time, I felt like it was also the perfect moment for so many different things. And hey, we got the main thing done: introducing Doctor Strange and getting him on the team, thus giving the Avengers their magic strengths back.

A lot of this chapter was really fun to write. Everything like the well-known quotes and nods to various Marvel media, to the special moments that were shared between Aelita and Peter, and getting to see how the new Avengers team performs in a big situation like the one we had here, but then you've got a couple of very specific moments that made me get all choked up and emotional even as I was writing it. Yes, I am referring to what happened to Aelita and what she saw while under that spell of Dormammu's. Before anyone asks, no, that's not a real spell that Dormammu can use. At least, I'm pretty sure its not. Regardless, it's really intended as something that was geared specifically for this story, and because of it, we got to see a little more detail on the things that happened on the day that the Lyoko Warriors were destroyed. Sure, it had the upside of giving us a few cameo appearances by the various other Code Lyoko characters, but that's probably one of the few bright sides there.

Speaking of, we also got to see Peter and Aelita interact with Uncle Ben, or at least the memory version of him, which leads me to the other point about that part of the story. If you've seen the show, you probably already figured out that the whole thing was majorly inspired by a certain episode in season 1 of The Spectacular Spider-Man, namely the episode in which Spidey finally got the black suit off of him. The whole flashback to a time in Peter and Uncle Ben's past was something that I had largely made up just for this story, mainly because I had a hard time finding an Uncle Ben lesson moment that suited this situation perfectly, but everything else was geared exactly as you would expect. The moments I was talking about when Aelita's mind thought back to her adventures over the course of the series so far, and during the time of Code Lyoko Seasons 1-4, yeah, that happened much like that one point of the Spectacular Spidey episode that I mentioned earlier.

And of course, there was that epic moment with the return of the Lyoko Warriors, at least in Aelita's mind. Is that a little bit of foreshadowing to what may come later on? Maybe. That's for you all to decide/figure out. Honestly, I wish I could've done a bit better in describing how that unfolded, between the fight itself and how they slowly started with their classic looks before progressively working their way through their new looks as the fight went on, but the whole thing was just so epic in my mind's eye that it made it really difficult to actually describe how it was when I wrote it out on paper, so I can only hope that I did a good enough job for everyone to enjoy it as is.

Now, let's talk about some of the other things. We got to see a little bit of how everything is weighing on Aelita's mind, from the secret mission that Tony has her doing, to the matter of the Skrulls, and of course, all the guys that have been looking into and even found ways to hurt her and Ulrich. Even during the interrogation of Pitt'o, you kind of get the sense that it's starting to break her limits, and just so you all know, that will factor in quite a bit as the story continues.

Speaking of said Skrull, how many of you expected him to be exposed like this, hm? Anyone? I'm guessing not that many of you raised your hands, since I can't actually see any of you.

Hawkeye: I am. Honestly, who would've thought the space-cat would save the day like that?

AN: Probably the same number of people who saw Captain Marvel. And yeah, the fact that Goose was suggested and even considered as a possible name for the Flerken here is a nod to Goose from that movie. The only reason why I didn't name Aelita's space-cat Goose was because in the comics, Carol does have a pet Flerken named Chewie, and I felt like that's a better name, more suiting for this story.

Spidey: I really liked the fact that Chewie was in this too, but not as much as the fact that I had such a huge presence in this chapter.

AN: Speaking of which, if any of you have read my newest spin-off story Enter the Spider-Verse: A Code Avengers Story, you probably already know that Spidey is going to end up attending Horizon University. Well, this is but one stepping stone the path to how Spidey gets there. Basically, think of how Hiro from Big Hero 6 got into SFIT, and you've got a solid idea on how Peter's aiming to get into Horizon University. Oh, and yes, the whole Horizon is both a tech company and a college thing is my attempt at mixing some of the best elements of the comics and a certain Spider-Man cartoon so that it works for this series.

Wasp: So is that everything you wanted to talk about here?

AN: In terms of details and choices that affected how the chapter played out, yes. But there is still one thing I've gotta do: review answers!

Firstly, in a general response to anyone and everyone who asked me to bring Deadpool back in the main story of this series or another one...[stares intently] No. You were paying attention earlier when I blasted the maniac out of the studio right? He's not coming back for this series so long as I can help it. Maybe if I hit another extreme case like I had with deciding the villain for last chapter, but otherwise, the answer is no.

Also, to everyone who offered feedback on how I handled the fourth wall breaks last chapter, thanks for that input. I'll keep it all in mind for the future, and maybe even rework last chapter a bit so that it looks better due to the suggestion you made.

Now, getting into the reviewer specific answers, "Dragon Rider 66", very smart move shredding that coupon. In answer to your question about the idea of making Tony's reaction a ruse, yes, it was partly changed up to be that thanks to your input. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that last chapter, but either way, thanks for the idea. Oh, and I guess we also confirmed that Strange does have the Time Stone in the Eye of Agamotto here, in case anyone wasn't paying attention to that. How's that for a little foreshadowing on what will come in the sequel to this story, eh?

"CT7567Rules", yes, I do hate Deadpool. Like I said last chapter, I only let him into the main story to make him shut up with his begging to let it happen.

"Guest" of 7/15/2019, he'll try to get back at me. But he'll fail. Why is that? Well, the starting note certainly serves as a prime example on reasons why.

"Actionmoviefan", we will see A-Bomb appearing in the series, but it won't be until the next story. Gwen will in fact get spider powers and join the Web Warriors, we saw evidence of that over in Enter the Spider-Verse, along with the fact that Miles will get spider powers too. All other Spider-Heroes that join the team will be kept under wraps until we reach that story. Sorry. As for your question regarding what I think about the MCU future, well, I'm pretty excited. Sure, some of its gotten pushed back because of...certain events, *cough* cumbersome virus *cough*

Carol: Don't you mean Corona Virus?

AN: I know what I said. Anyways, despite that push back, a good deal of it still seems pretty exciting and cool. Plus, we're going to get to see some new faces showing up in the spotlight, a lot of which don't really get as much appreciation as the really big names do, so good for them.

"Thunder Dragon", don't worry, we will not be seeing the Merc with a Mouth in the main story of this series ever again, so long as I can help it. And thanks for the compliments on my writing. Glad to see you enjoyed how I handled those things you mentioned.

"KongKing94", I actually haven't given any thoughts as to who She-Hulk may or may not hook up with. I mean, it's not like every girl in this story is hooking up with someone. Example, Black Widow is currently single, as is Maria Hill and Agent Brand. Besides, you can have She-Hulk be awesome without her being paired up with someone. If I do decide to have her get into a relationship in this story, then good for that. For now though, She-Hulk's gonna show how to be single and still be awesome.

She-Hulk: I think you mean sensational. Right?

AN: Okay, yeah. That too. Can't believe I almost forgot about that. Moving on.

"Odin's Eye"...well, here's your answer. Pitt'o busted! And yeah, that is his name. I know I probably mentioned this before, but I'm saying it again in case anyone forgot.

"Kaiser Dragon", glad to be of service on that front. And rest assured, I always do my best to showcase the best versions of every character I write about in my stories. Or in failing that, the best versions that I know of, or just use the best elements from various versions and hope for the best in what results, so I hope I continue to please.

"Loki's Tongue", I actually forgot all about that whole thing with Juggernaut, to be honest...

She-Hulk: Which we don't talk about. Why does everyone always feel like that needs to be brought up?

AN: But I'm glad you still enjoyed the chapter, and considered it to have turned out better. Thanks for the props!

"Ikki", your question has also been answered, and I'm glad to hear that you understood the references I made last chapter.

Now, with all of this said, I am pleased to announce that as of now, the Avengers Recruitment Arc is at long last completed!

[audience applause]

Yeah, it is pretty great, huh? Because you know what that means? We're returning to the main story of EMH next chapter, and if you guys think that the Avengers are going to have it easier now that they don't have to worry about the Skrull spy anymore, well, think again. Why should we be doing that, you ask? Your answer comes when you move Onto the Preview!...

Despite their desires to plan and prepared for the impending Skrull arrival, the Avengers are unable to catch a break. A distress call from the Helicarrier has them scrambling to act, both to save SHIELD headquarters (again) and to prove the innocence of Hulk. Why is the latter necessary? Because the person attacking the Helicarrier is a Hulk! And not just any Hulk, no; this is a whole new Hulk. One that comes in red and has fire powers. To make matters worse the Code Red team finally makes their move on the Avengers, mainly to keep the real Hulk from doing anything that would prove his innocence. Can the Avengers prove their teammate is in fact still the hero they know him to be, or will the Code Red team gain another victory for HYDRA? The only thing that is certain is that this will be the day when Ulrich finally solves the mystery of Savage Artillery's identity, and even that raises some new questions if only for Ulrich and Aelita. Start smashing your way to victory next time, in…Chapter 15: Nightmare in Red.

Yeah, Red Hulk's coming, and not just him, either. Oh, and fair warning, things are about to get really crazy and complicated for some of them, but you probably already figured that out if you saw the little trailer thing I did at the end of the Code Avengers New Years Special I put up last year Code Resolution: A Code Avengers Holiday Special. Oh, and if you haven't already, be sure to check out the first couple chapters of Enter the Spider-Verse: A Code Avengers Story, now online and likely to receive many more chapters and end up completed very quickly. Don't worry, it shouldn't spoil too much of this series for you. I mean, it does have a few spoilers in it, for both this series and some of my other stories (along with ones for the series another writer is doing), but it's still going to be a great read from start to finish, I can promise you that. Until then...

Please read and review, and I'll see ya next time, fellow true believers!