This is it. The finale. The beginning of the end. The first of a three-part ending to probably the longest of the series' in this entire narrative.
Now, follow us as we march on to the end of series three and the end of one of this story's biggest mysteries, as we finally reveal a twist that will shatter the life of Spider-Man and all the people that stand with him...
I present to you: Civil War!
The day has come. The Meta Liberation War is soon to begin. S.I.L.K.'s army, strong and made into veterans from the various crisis's over the last year, now aim their sights on Deika City, and Adriana has just executed Garaki and destroyed his laboratory, along with the entirety of Jaku Hospital on top of it.
In Deika City, All for One continues to sit on his throne made up of the rotting bodies and bones of the previous leaders of the Meta Liberation Army. He is still as listless and almost lifeless as ever, choosing to brood to himself and stay in silent contemplation.
A messenger arrives in his room, and he is killed for disturbing his new master. It takes an hour for another messenger to summon the courage to tell All for One about the S.I.L.K. forces building up on their border, and by then it is already too late to stop them.
But All for One isn't disturbed by this. In actuality, he's overjoyed.
When he sees Adriana through the scopes and the spy-sights, he sees Adriana leading the charge, wearing a bloodied gauntlet coloured in gold and with five sparkling gems installed into them.
The Infinity Gauntlet. The thing that might finally bring his brother back to him.
All for One smiles and rises from his rotting seat, eager to take the gauntlet, take Adriana's quirk, take all his enemies quirk, take what rightfully belongs to him.
(But not before he kills the second messenger, simply because he feels like it.)
Meanwhile, Spider-Man swings through the city, conflicted thoughts in his mind. His morals have been rattled, his ideals are being questioned, and he doesn't have the answers. Not anymore. Instead, he swings through the streets, trying to clear his head as the worries of the battle that is no doubt waging elsewhere in the country muddle with his own personal worries.
Unsure of what to do, he makes his way back to S.I.L.K.'s primary headquarters, then soon remembers everything that Kaine told him, as well as his recent conversation with Adriana.
He decides to have a look around.
Back in Deika, Adriana is pulled to the front of her army, looking over Deika City as they ready to move.
Within Deika City, MLA extremists have fortified the city, turning it into a killing ground. Any civilians that once lived in the city have fled with the radicalisation of the MLA's men in the city, or are currently hiding in their homes. At the centre of it all, stands All for One, like a king atop his kingdom.
Adriana is not surprised in the least that he had returned. All for One truly is like a cockroach. He refuses to die.
Adriana sends a message out to the MLA and their malignant leader, giving them one chance to surrender.
All for One refuses, stating that this is his kingdom, and all of those within it are his subjects. He will not bend or break for anyone.
He then demands to know what Adriana will do now.
The message back reads: "In one word: regicide."
The battle begins to the sounds of thundering guns and the cries of the soon-to-be-dead.
Elsewhere, Ochako, Keemia, and Kaine arrive at a local hospital, greeting Melissa Shield and checking up on her and her father. Melissa is doing well, btu her father, David Shield, seems to be slipping further and further back into his Lizard form. Where once it seemed like he had been on the recovery, now his mental faculties continue to slip further and further into a downward spiral, losing his cognitive abilities to speak or think, and beginning to act more and more like a wild animal with each day that passes.
However, during this time, Melissa has spent her days working on a cure for her father's condition, though so far the prototypes have been disappointing to say the least. But there is one possible cure that she hasn't tried yet.
That would have to wait though, as Ochako and Keemia convince her to help them move both her father and herself out of the hospital. Dangerous things are afoot, and soon enough, they will need all hands on deck.
In Deika City, S.I.L.K. and the MLA have engaged each other, tearing up the streets and buildings as S.I.L.K.'s soldiers and contracted heroes crash against the city's palisades and begin to tear them down. Quirks clash against quirks, and the air is awash with thunderclaps of explosions and quirk detonations, flashing briliant shades of colour that made the city seem otherworldly.
Adriana leads her men from the front, slaying MLA minion after minion as she singlehandedly creates a gap in the MLA's lines for her men to slip in and take advantage of.
All for One begins to make his move.
In S.I.L.K.'s headquarters, Peter is in Adriana's office, having given his authorisation to the few remaining guards that have remained within the building to get in and break into the office, and is currently sifting through the files and documents inside to try and find anything that collaborates with what Kaine had told him. As much as Kaine is his brother, Peter doesn't trust him for what he has said before, as well as how callous he seems to be, and needs further proof of Kaine's claims to begin to believe them.
As much as his previous talk with Adriana the night before had convinced him that Kaine had a point to some of the things that he said, he needs something more concrete.
However, he finds that the documents are incredibly mundane in nature. Nothing of critical condition, just simple finances and expenses, things like that. But what he come across is a stray sheet of paper within the stacks, something that he is pretty sure isn't supposed to be there. The writing on the paper talks about the power of the Infinity Stones and what could be done with them, as well as mentioning a single name.
Ezekiel Sims.
Peter remembers that name, from when he and All Might had gone back in time after the Void Knight and had teamed up with Nana Shimura to defeat the mad prophet Ezekiel Sims and his Spider-Society cult for the Time Stone. Is Ezekiel Sims still alive? He'd tried to chase up any leads on the Spider-Society after arriving back in the present, but had come up with nothing.
Adriana Soria... was she linked to Spider-Society? She couldn't have been one of the people who drank her blood, didn't all of them die? And even then, pheromones wasn't part of his power set, nor was it part of Miles or Anya's? Had it been part of Himiko's? He'd always thought Adriana's quirk was simply super-strength, but it couldn't have been from his blood. Again, they all died, and all his blood samples that Ezekiel had harvested from him should've been destroyed when the church was turned to rubble. But then he remembers what Kaine told him, about Adriana shooting webbing of out her fingers. Ezekiel must've had backup supplies of his blood-
The paper had mentioned the Infinity Stones. Multiple times. If Ezekiel is after the Infinity Stones...
What had become of the Stones after Adriana had seized them?
The few guards that are still in the building burst into Adriana's office, guns in hand. Spider-Man is quick to hide the documents, and tells the guards that the door was unlocked, and that he was looking for Adriana.
The guards, believing him, tell him that Adriana is away on her mission, and that this area is supposed to be restricted to unauthorised personnel. Peter apologises to them, gives them a quick joke to ease the tension, and then sets off, a hidden paper on his person.
It's time he paid his old stomping grounds a visit.
In the soot-coated streets of Deika, the city is being torn apart. This level of destruction would never have happened in the times before comic books came to life, but with the arrival of quirks, the powers that now rest in the hands of individuals has made modern day conflicts increasingly destructive in shorter amounts of time, hence the downsizing of regular armed forces in favour of the hero industry.
And now, the streets are being churned up as if they are minced meat. Quirk user clashes against quirk user. The world explodes and flashes with violent light. Screams echo within the flying rubble. It is a slaughter...
One that S.I.L.K. is winning.
Street by street, house by house, S.I.L.K.'s forces march into the city. MLA bodies are left mangled and broken amongst the smoking remains. The few civilians left inside the city are being killed by both sides, either for being suspected spies or suspected traitors. Rivers of blood run through the battered roads. Buildings fall on MLA and S.I.L.K. agents alike, and still S.I.L.K. presses on, ruthless and relentless. The horrors of this short war continue to mount.
And at the front of it all, Adriana marches, darting between foes and felling them with her armoured gauntlet, the five stones clasped onto it shimmering with the destruction as she approaches the central tower where All for One lays...
…Only for the mad tyrant to leap out the top of the building and slam down onto the ground, kicking up smoke and death as he hands. The grotesque monster looked over to Adriana and let out a gurgled laugh as its eyes glanced over the golden gauntlet over her arm.
Adriana snarks that the last time that they'd seen each other, he was being smothered with gas before a bullet went through his brain. All for One remarks that that was his original quirk holder with a copy of his quirk. This All for One that she faces now is the quirk itself, and it is hungry to take what belongs to it.
Adriana doesn't care in the slightest. She uses the Reality Stone to change the world around the monster into a cage and shrink it, crushing All for One...
…Until his Symbiote and various quirks force the cage back, breaking it apart. Adriana raises an eyebrow in amusement, and All for One roars, stabbing the dozen MLA followers and S.I.L.K. agents around him with sharpened tendrils and killing them, stealing their quirks for himself and merging them all together.
He will take as many quirks as he wants. He will take the MLA's quirks, he will take S.I.L.K.'s quirks, he will take Adriana's quirk, he will take the Infinity Gauntlet from her decaying corpse, he will take everything that rightfully belongs to him.
For he is the Demon Lord, the Symbol of Evil. His reign will be eternal, and his evil will spread out across the world and-
Adriana punches him in the face and sends him flying into the skyscraper behind him.
"Shut up and fight."
Izuku, meanwhile, is covering up Bakugo's wounds in the old building that they'd used before. Izuku had refrained from using his phone as of recently. Considering what Kaine has said about Adriana and S.I.L.K.'s experiments, as well as the state that Bakugo arrived in, it is probably for the better that they stay off their phones. Who knows who could be listening in?
Izuku is silent in his work, not wanting to waste anymore time on Bakugo, but Bakugo is equally silent, his mind still rattled over the words that Izuku said to him the day before, with no answer to Izuku's questions and no clearcut idea on why he even wanted to be a hero in the first place. The two of them stay in awkward silence, uncertain of what to say to each other, or even if they should. There has been too much bad blood between them to even give a proper answer to the other's questions.
And so, they stay quiet, desperately trying to pretend that the other isn't there.
Then, the door opens, and Ochako walks in. She asks how Bakugo is doing, and the boy in question only murmurs out something unintelligible as Izuku gives out a more straightforward answer.
However, he begins to grow suspicious of Ochako as she gets small, minute details about themselves wrong, not remembering details about the night that they'd had together with Keemia the day before.
And then, when Izuku asks, Ochako acts like she didn't know that she was in a relationship with both Izuku and Keemia.
That is enough for Izuku, and he sends an Anti-Venom powered punch into the fake Ochako, reducing the copy to a splatter of grey sludge on the wall. Seconds later, a legion of blank clones storm the building, led by four particular individuals.
It is Twice, leading the clones, followed by Kirishima and Tetsutetsu as enforcers, and Jessica Drew as their leader...
And they are demanding that Bakugo comes with them.
In Deika, Adriana and All for One's brawl is doing even more damage to the city than S.I.L.K. and the MLA's battle had ever done. Building are collapsing, streets are exploding, All for One is throwing everything that he has at Adriana, and the woman herself is countering with her own powers and the Infinity Gauntlet.
All for One is laughing and raging at the same time. Laughing at the death and destruction that he is raining down, and raging at the thought of Adriana defying him, of preventing him from having what belongs to him.
He is the ultimate Symbol of Fear. He is the Demon Lord himself! He is looked upon with fear and revulsion, as is his station! All who know him know him to be hatred and fear itself! All who know him know of his wrath, of his pure, unadulterated evil! And yet - and yet! - what stands before him now is not a hero worthy of his station, but a child pretending to match him with his property, the gauntlet and the gems that belong to him and him alone! Where is an opponent worthy of a villain of his nature!? Where is All Might?!
A quick flashback reveals that Adriana had ordered All Might to stay out of the fight, telling the hero that even with his Villainbuster armour, he'd be no match for the MLA now. Not with his current time limit being reduced to less than half an hour and dropping with each passing day. All Might is reluctant, but acquiesces to Adriana's demands, going back to planning his retirement.
In the present, Adriana smiles, and tells All for One that All Might has better things to do.
The Symbiote-covered villain roars with rage, lunging at Adriana with everything that he has. Mangled bodies go flying as Adriana uses the Infinity Stones and her own powers to counter and dodge each attack, leaving All for One roaring with rage and frustration.
Adriana is hoarding his Infinity Gauntlet, his Infinity Stones! They belong to him, him him him and only him! How dare she deny him his right! How dare she deny him what rightfully belongs to him! He begins to explode, proclaiming how everything in the world belongs to him and him alone! He is Earth's Ultimate Evil! This is his dream, his right!
Adriana simply comments that All for One's getting angrier and angrier. He's piloting Shigaraki's body, isn't he? Seems like Shigaraki's endless rage is beginning to mix with him. That, and maybe the Symbiote itself.
All for One doesn't care for any of this. He's still raging. He is all that is evil, all that is malicious and malignant! He is the Ultimate Evil, and he will-
Adriana laughs. Directly at his face.
All for One isn't evil, as much as he claims to be. She's seen evil. She's seen true, real evil. And real evil doesn't scream about how monstrous it is. Real evil doesn't bother calling itself a monster, or a villain, or any other stupid titles. Real evil doesn't rant and rave about its own supposed cruelty. Real evil doesn't call itself the Demon Lord.
Real evil is silent, slow, and insidious. Real evil is as quiet as a whisper and wears the face of a friend. Real evil is corrosion wearing the image of rejuvenation.
All for One isn't evil. He wouldn't need to shout about it so much.
All for One is simply a pathetic little man refusing to grow up, trying his best to live out his childhood fantasies and demanding everyone pay attention to him like a needy, spoiled brat.
In response, All for One, fuelled by Shigaraki's remaining rage and the effects of the Carnage Symbiote, screams at Adriana and blindly throws attack after attack at the S.I.L.K. director, the quirk-powered equivalent of a temper tantrum, but then stops and clutches his head, screaming in pain as Adriana moves to finish him off.
The Symbiote covering All for One begins to turn red.
In Musufatu, Spider-Man arrives at the old U.A. building, now rebuilt into S.I.L.K.'s research and development centre. From the outside, it all seems normal, but Peter can spot the guards that are roaming around the building, both the ones out in the open and the ones that are concealed.
They seem jumpy, the sentries. Considering how S.I.L.K. is currently at war with the MLA in Deika, that's to be expected. But these guys seem paranoid, overly so. It's like they're looking for something. Or rather, they're looking back at the building, expecting something to leap out of the building and gut them.
Kaine. They must still be paranoid about him attacking them again.
Peter pulls out the peace of paper that he had snagged from Adriana's office, detailing the Infinity Stones and the mention of Ezekiel Sims. If Ezekiel Sims truly is still alive, then he would most likely be with the Infinity Stones. Whether they were in S.I.L.K.'s R&D centre, he didn't know. But wherever they were, his first clue was in there.
As well as something else. Or rather, someone else, if Kaine is to be believed.
Otto Octavius. Doctor Octopus.
Peter frowns under his mask, thinking back to all the times that he and Doc Ock had fought each other, how they had become each other's own arch-nemesis alongside the Green Goblin, how Doc Ock had founded the Masters of Evil just to try and kill him...
And then he thinks back to their last tryst against each other, underneath the HPSC building, where the mad scientist had made and tortured his clones and create a synthetic version of his Uncle Ben just to toy with him.
Peter clenches his fist and looks at the building with determination, his eyes narrowed beneath the lens of his mask. If Doc Ock really is in there, and if Kaine truly is right about his and Adriana's experiments... then it's due time that he had a conversation with his old pal.
But first, he needs to find a way in, and- there! A gap in the guards. He slips through, and into one of the research centre's side entrances, unaware that he was allowed in and that Doc Ock's eyes have been on him the whole time.
In Deika, the situation is beginning to turn desperate for both sides. S.I.L.K.'s men are beginning to widdle down the MLA's numbers, but the fanatical zeal of the latter side in the conflict is only growing with each body that falls to the ground. The surviving members of the MLA are determined to fight to the last, and take down as many S.I.L.K. agents as they can before they themselves fall.
But Adriana isn't paying this much mind. She's too busy being enraptured by the sight of All for One's latest, and equally horrific transformation. She begins to muse to herself, attempting to approach only for a warped tendril to lash out at her. Shigaraki's rage must really have mixed with All for One's mind to make him even more unstable as it is.
But then All for One's change truly begins, and she realises that something else has been mixed into the old tyrant's mind as well.
Shigaraki's body - the body that All for One is inhabiting - is warped and twisted into mere skin around a skeleton, growing and stretching as the black Symbiote around him bubbled like it was boiling, turning red like blood as a pair of horns jutted out of the monster's head and the spider-logo on its chest turned a sickly pale whit. A pair of broken wings pulled themselves out of the gore of its back as the spiral in the centre of its face moved up to the forehead, two blank white eyes like lenses taking their place.
Then, the creature rose up to its feet, and laughed.
Carnage, in his new, ungodly form, is gleeful. Finally, his newfound patience has paid off! After so long of waiting, finally a gap emerged in All for One's psyche, and he has the chance to take over and claim all his precious quirks for himself!
Now All for One has been smothered, silenced in Carnage's mind, and the deranged Symbiote has access to a limitless amount of quirks for him to pursue his dream of mindless slaughter and mayhem.
And then the mad monster sees Adriana Soria standing before him, and decides that she will be the first of his many, many kills to come.
Adriana invites him to try, and the two battle once more.
Their conflict tears apart the rubble of the shattered city around them and turns them into ash and cinders. Carnage throws out quirk attack after quirk attack, levelling entire blocks as he kills both S.I.L.K. agents and MLA loyalists alike. The streets run red with blood, and the red Symbiote relishes in the slaughter as Adriana counters each strike with a block and one of her own, creating a violent back and forth between the monster and woman of war as they bloody each other raw.
On and on and on, they duelled, throwing strike after strike and blow after blow and doing their best to utterly annihilate the other, turning the world around them into craters and swales and smouldering ruins.
And the fight, seemingly and eventually, comes to an end when Adriana uses the Infinity Stones to lift the central tower in the middle of the city up from the ground...
And drop it directly on top of Carnage.
In S.I.L.K.'s R&D centre, Spider-Man is carefully slinking his way through the corridors into the building, moving past all the guards and scientists and tracking the fresh damage along the walls, all the way down to the basement.
There, he finds the laboratory, scarred and recently beaten. He finds the braindead Nomu and the bodies of the dissected homeless people being thrown into incinerators. He sees the failed clones of Doctor Octopus in all their macabre horror and the vats of cloned Symbiote samples.
He sees the dead Enforcers, hooked onto slabs and pulled open, their eyes and faces locked in expressions of pained joy.
He sees the corpse of Itsy Bitsy, locked in a vat and pulled apart by surgical droids as she rots in the watery gel.
Kaine was right, and Peter is enraged by all that he sees.
Time to finish what his brother started-
Something taps the back of his neck. Adriana has had Peter's Spider-Man suit - his black and red one with the giant spider-logo in the centre - lined with metal plating for added protection, so whatever it is doesn't affect him. He reaches behind himself and grabs a strange spherical device with thin limbs jutting from its body.
An Octobot. He'd recognise one anywhere.
A split-second later, his Spider-Sense blares in alarm and he twirls and dodges as a dozen metal tendrils snap out at him. Throwing the Octobot at the source, Spider-Man is confronted by Otto Octavius, his armoured coffin patched over and haphazard, looking even more grotesque than ever.
Doctor Octopus remarks that, the last time they had seen each other, his precious Uncle Ben had just died a second time.
He then presents Peter with two options: either he surrenders and allows Otto to take over his body with his superior mind, or he will ensure that his precious uncle and he share a family reunion.
Peter, enraged at the memory of what happened the night of the HPSC's fall and even more so by the bloody sights and horrors that surround him, goes on the attack.
Back in Deika City, Carnage pulls himself out of the rubble of the collapsed skyscraper, even more enraged and bloodthirsty than ever. Adriana is annoyed that the Symbiote refuses to stay down, and goes on the attack once more.
Round two between Adriana and Carnage begins, with the combatants now throwing everything that they have at each other, churning up everything around them into a fine powder until they are left standing in a crater.
And in the end, it is Carnage that yields, collapsing to the ground, but still trying to get up and continue with his hopes for mass-slaughter.
Adriana, however, isn't willing to tolerate such an idea, and readies to bring the Infinity Gauntlet down on Carnage, and All for One's, head.
But then, she senses something. Back at the R&D centre. In the labs. She has to get back there.
She looks down at Carnage, at All for One, and a devilish idea enters her mind.
Grabbing the sickly Carnage by the neck, Adriana orders all her forces to evacuate the city, and for her bombers to rain destruction down upon this land. Nothing in Deika City is to be spared.
She leaves through a portal made from her Infinity Gauntlet, and takes Carnage with her.
In the laboratory, Spider-Man and Doc Ock are throwing down, with Peter tearing up the lab as he goes. He's enraged at Otto. How many more? How many more people is he going to kill? How many more lives is he going to ruin in his blind pursuit to satisfy his own superiority complex?! Does he truly have no limits?!
Otto simply snarls that he will stop at nothing to prolong his own existence, no matter what, or who, stands in his way.
Then, Spider-Man is attacked by Otto's assistant, Carolyn, and is pinned against the wall. Looming over him, Otto decides that he is going to make Peter Parker pay for leaving him in such a sorry state before he takes over his mind, and prepares to peel his suit off his skin and break every bone in his body.
Then, Otto's tendrils are severed, and he is thrown against the wall, limp and no longer with any way to move. Carolyn is barely able to react before she too is tossed across the room and slammed against the wall, weeping blood as a new contender joined the fray.
Adriana, with the Infinity Gauntlet covering one arm, and said arm clamping around a withering Carnage's throat, demanding to know what is going on.
She sees Peter on the ground, and drops Carnage, only to stomp down on his neck with her foot, pinning him down. She reaches out a hand to him, asking him if he is alright, but Peter swats it away, getting up on his own and demanding from her an explanation as to just what the hell she has been doing down here.
Adriana looks around, eyeing the massive amounts of damage done to the lab, and then looks back to Peter and tells him that this wasn't supposed to happen, this wasn't supposed to be how it goes. Otto begins to speak, but Adriana silences him with a web from one of her fingers, demanding him to be quiet. She then looks to Peter, and asks if he has spoken to Kaine recently.
Peter simply remarks that everything that Kaine told him really is true. The lab, the experiments, everything. And the smell around her, that constant sweet smell, that was her pheromones as well, wasn't it? Adriana doesn't answer, and Peter continues. How could she do this? Everything she's said, everything she's told him... it was all a lie, wasn't it?
Adriana shoots back that it wasn't a lie, but Peter snarls at her and demands to know why, if that's the case, she would bring Otto Octavius into her employ and perform such sick experiments. Murdering and dissecting one of his clones and countless other people, murdering them for- for what? What was this all for? Why would she ever do something like this?
Adriana is silent for a long while, and then Peter asks another question.
Where is Ezekiel Sims?
Adriana doesn't hesitate this time. Ezekiel is dead. He's been dead for a long time now. He died a year after he'd pulled her from the burning rubble of the Spider-Society's church, his incompatibility with Peter's blood finally catching up to him.
Peter is shocked by this knowledge, then enraged even further at the fact that, if Ezekiel really is dead, then Adriana has been doing this all of her own accord instead of being manipulated by an outside force. Angrily, he demands to know why she would do all of this, then.
To carry out the Spider-Society's mission. To use their power for the sake of others.
But mostly, she had done it all for him. For Peter. For Spider-Man.
Peter doesn't even get out anymore words before Adriana starts talking again, remarking that it was her mission, her birth right, to be the one to carry out the true meaning of Spider-Man's ideals, to carry within her great power to take away the pain that comes with responsibility from others. It was her mission, as the Spider-Queen, to create a world where no spiders would ever have to know power or responsibility, and it is her task, as the Spider-Bride, to claim a paradise for her groom.
Peter cannot comprehend her words, sounding like bubbling madness, but that is when he notices the Infinity Stones glowing, their energies flowing around Adriana as her costume begins to shift under the energies to the ethereal gems.
She is not Adriana Soria. That was always a cover story, a fake name to make things easier for her.
Peter realises the truth before Adriana can tell it to him, her costume having completed its transformation.
Her real name... is Cindy Moon, the last surviving member of the Spider-Society.
She is Silk, the Spider-Queen.
