Manhattan, Earth 616
Hughie stepped out of the portal onto a rooftop and looked over the cityscape. There were similarities between his New York and this other New York. However, the stark differences were apparent to him. For starters, he saw a building with a large "4", that likely belonged to Reed Richards and his family. The Baxter Building, if he remembered what the Punisher told him. Hughie pulled out his phone and decided to do some research on Spider-Man. To his annoyance, there was nothing. There was nothing about his identity, no name or address. Not even for the other one Mr. Fantastic mentioned. All he had to off on was that he patrolled Queens.
"You got to be fucking kidding me!" Hughie angrily muttered as he scrolled through the search engine.
He changed tactics and went over to the news. Only one thing caught his eyes, the majority of his exploits were followed by a local news company called "The Daily Bugle". All of these exploits appeared to have a negative view of Spider-Man, with the articles at best having backhanded compliments to outright accusations at worst. Hughie was baffled upon seeing this. Back on his Earth, none of the supes on his world would stand for this especially with any of Voughts' lawyers at their beck and command. Yet, Spider-Man likely didn't have that privilege. As he looked at their articles, Hughie found something notable: most if not all, these photos were taken by one man since Spider-Man first showed up: Peter Parker. He also had the best pictures of other superheroes.
Hughie decided to change the topic of his research. He shot a web-line at a nearby building and began to head to his destination.
Manhattan, Earth 7622
The Human Torch soared in the air, weaving through a pair of skull bots, trying to blast him out of the sky.
"Hot stuff coming through!" He yelled before launching a fireball at one of the skull bots and destroying it as the machine blew up into a fiery inferno.
Meanwhile, the Invisible Woman created a forcefield bubble for some nearby civilians. The nearby HYDRA forces all drew their fire at Sue only for the Invisible Woman to unleash a volley of invisible projectiles that pelted the soldiers. Knocking down most of them and causing the rest to fall back.
All the while, Reed wrapped himself around several Dreadnoughts. He started to look into the circuitry of the one closest to the upper half of his body. He pulled some wires and it instantly shut down. While the others broke themselves when trying to regain their freedom. Another skull bot showed up, when they heard a familiar and welcome voice:
"Catch!" The Thing yelled as he tossed a car at the skull bot.
The car pierced through the skull bot and destroyed it. The Thing casually picked up the downed robot with one hand as he made his way under it.
"Need a hand?" He offered.
The other members of the Fantastic Four stared at Ben completely surprised.
"Ben? Johnny told us you went back to our world." Reed said.
"Yeah, I did, then your instruments got all crazy, stretcho." Ben explained. "Val gave me a copy of your teleportation device to get me here." He added.
Sue let out a sigh.
"Of course she did." Susan remarked. "Just one?"
"She's makin' more of them right now. I think she's havin' Frank send one over to the X-Men or somethin'." Ben mentioned.
"We're glad to see you here, Ben. We need all hands on deck." Reed told his best friend.
"No kiddin' if these HYDRA yahoos wanna mess up New York. Any New York. They gotta go through Benjamin J. Grimm first." Ben proudly declared.
"Good luck, I'm already way ahead of you." Johnny bragged.
Ben frowned and turned to face the grinning Human Torch.
"Yeah cause I just got here, matchstick. Now that I'm here, you're about to eat a nice dust sandwich." Ben told him.
Johnny's cocky look turned to one of determination.
"In your dreams, rocky." Johnny told him.
"Both of you!" The Invisible Woman told him.
"Sorry." They apologized in unison.
At that moment, Ben noticed one of the troops trying to make a break for it.
"Hey, stretch, we gotta a runner." He told Reed pointing at the troop.
Reed turned and stretched his arm. It wrapped around the legs of the trooper like a makeshift lasso. The trooper tripped and soon found himself being pulled over to the Fantastic Four. Reed noted that the trooper appeared to be surprisingly strong. The trooper looked up at the Four in fear when Reed removed his mask, revealing The Deep. Although, his appearance was now different. He had now sported longer, unkempt hair and disheveled facial hair.
"The Deep." Reed said.
Sue only let out a disgusted scoff.
"Who?" Johnny asked.
"The fish creep." Ben told him.
"Oh… that guy." Johnny said, disgust evident.
"Why are you working with HYDRA?" Reed asked.
"Well, they didn't brainwash Homelander to fire me! You 616 people ruined my life for no fucking reason!" The Deep told them.
"You're a sex offender." Sue bluntly told him as she glared at him.
"Hey, I had a wife!" The Deep argued.
"Had?" Sue asked.
The Deep looked away from her gaze.
"You're a long way from the sea, fishy joe." Ben told him.
"Wait, wait, let me guess? She saw the way you looked at a porpoise and kicked you out?" Johnny jokingly asked.
"I killed her." The Deep told them, seriously.
This got the Fantastic Four's undivided attention.
"After I got fired and banished from my seas by that winged foot asshole, she kept nagging me. About how much of a loser I was. About how she made a mistake. So I had enough. It was an accident and I didn't mean it, but then I realized it didn't matter. It helped me realize something. Killing people isn't so bad." The Deep told them as he prepared to punch Sue…
Only for his fist to collide with an invisible forcefield, breaking his fingers and severing his pinky finger.
"FUCK! Not again!" He yelled out in pain and frustration, which soon morphed into fear as The Deep saw the none-too-pleased Fantastic Four.
"Congratulations, you sunk to a new low." Sue threatened him as she walked towards him. The Deep stepped back in fear. He continued to do so until he backed into one of the destroyed tanks. Turning to his right, he saw the Human Torch covered in flames.
"You prefer grilled fish?" He asked.
He turned to his left and saw The Thing pounding his fist.
"Or mashed?" Ben asked.
"Isn't your last name Moskowitz? That's Jewish." Reed told him.
"Yeah, but I'm not jewish-jewish. I'm just kinda spiritual, I guess. I'm not really in sync with the side of my family, and I'm still white, right?" The Deep defended himself.
The Fantastic Four looked at The Deep in differing ways.
Reed merely pinched his temples before letting out an irritated sigh.
Sue continued to glare at him.
Johnny looked befuddled at the stupidity of his comments. His eyes squinting as his mouth was slightly ajar.
Ben merely frowned, but his eyes belied a strong sense of anger.
"Can I?" He asked.
"Yes." The other three said in perfect unison.
Ben placed his hand over the Deep's head and brought it down, knocking him out.
Vought Tower, Earth 7622
Soldier Boy wrestled with the Hydra Dreadnought, his feet sinking on the pavement as he was outmatched, he used his shield and aimed the adamantium edges to slice its stomach. He pulled the pieces out from its insides, deactivating the machine. As he caught his breath, he was attacked by another one who violently pushed him to the ground. Suddenly, a red, white and blue disc hit its head and bounced back. Captain America jumped on the air and grabbed it back to violently hit the Dreadnought again, splitting its head. Captain America stood in front of Soldier Boy as he got up.
"Don't bother thanking me." Steve dryly told him.
"I wasn't going to."
"Right now we have a common enemy representing a bigger threat, but I haven't forgotten what you did to Marvin's family."
"I did?"
"World's greatest hero."
The sarcasm pierced through Soldier Boy's bravado, he directed that anger towards another Dreadnought tackled it down on the ground.
On the other side of the building, Punisher shot Hydra soldiers with a machine gun. It was no regular machine gun but had two barrels and shot some sort of laser. As they surrounded him, he took shelter behind a deactivated Hydra tank. The soldiers shot all around him and marched further. Suddenly, Sage flew down to the soldiers and dropped an electrifying bomb that shocked, the remaining soldiers turned their guns to Sage, at that exact moment, Punisher came out from behind the tank and shot them dead.
"It would be nice to have a Ghost Rider here helping." Punisher told Sage through his earpiece.
"He's dealing with bigger problems right now." Sage told him.
Above them, a gigantic Hydra robot, like a green metallic dragon-shark hybrid, attacked and Butcher spit fire at it while Iron Man shot with his gauntlets.
"Much bigger problems." Stark told them.
"How the Hell are you on this line?" Sage asked.
"Sweetheart, you build all this stuff out of my tech. Sure, you work it thoroughly and change the frequency, but my armor still recognizes it."
Iron Man shot a missile into the eye of the robot. Butcher pieced it's back with his crowbar and heated it up, melting a large chunk of the machine. He looked back at the Vought Tower in disgust.
"Can't believe you have me protecting that shithole." He told Kessler.
"There are still innocent people who work at that shit hole."
"This ain't no bloody kinder care we're on about, son. It's Vought Fucking Tower!"
"Your wife worked there, shithead. Do your fucking job."
Angrily, Butcher whistled and his flaming car came driving throughout the heart of the giant robot.
Hydra Base,
"Sir, we're out of men." Zola told Red Skull.
Red Skull was sitting down with a bag of ice on his head watching the battle folds on the screen through the cameras on the Hydra weapons. Other set of cameras showed coordinated attacks happening on Earth 616 with the other heroes stopping them.
"They were supposed to be distracted!" Red Skull shouted and immediately regretted it as the shout worsened his headache. "Even Captain America is there fighting for a corrupted version of his beloved nation. And since when is there another Ghost Rider!?"
"It appears to be the same one who attacked our men at the bridge, perhaps a new one from here? He is working with the new Payback."
They watched as the Thing and other Secret Avengers attacked the head of the giant robot that was at last destroyed.
"Send a missile attack. Wipe that entire block."
"I'll order the men to retreat."
"Do not! Captain America will recognize something is wrong. Perhaps dying for a missile will be more merciful than by the hands of Frank Castle."
Vought Tower, Earth 7622
"We have a problem." Mr. Fantastic alerted all the other heroes through their earpieces. "My satellites are detecting missile movements coming towards your block."
Down on the street, Captain America and Bucky knocked out Hydra Soldiers and destroyed their dreadnoughts.
"These guys don't seem too concerned about that." The Winter Soldier pointed out.
"That's because they don't know." Captain America promptly explained. "Damn you, Red Skull. How's the evacuation of the tower?"
"I had an evacuation plan in case of these emergencies. The Vought staff chose to ignore it and ran with no coordinations, many people still trapped inside, others were knocked out in the struggle to leave."
"Smartest man in the universe but doesn't calculate stupidity." Sage told Reed.
"We can't deactivate the missiles, even if we did, they'd still the detonate on the fall, so we- -"
"Change trajectory, I figured that much."
Sage flew away at the same time Iron Man did to follow the missiles and they met Falcon in the air. Five missiles, three of them, each one jumped on top of a missile on the back and broke the circuits open.
"There's too many of them!" Falcon said.
"There's actually just enough." Iron Man corrected. "We're sending it faster so they crash on each other before they reach the target."
"I figured." Sage said as she was already tinkering the circuits.
She jumped off the missile as it increased its speed and flew straight to one of the two in front of it. Sam took a little longer before but got the same result. They landed back on the ground. And watched as the missiles crashed creating fire in the sky with a big explosion followed by another. Falcon thought about it for a second.
"There were five missiles, four are gone, what is Stark doing with his?"
Iron Man landed right next to him as he answered.
"Don't worry about it, it's going to do something productive.
VernonCorp, LCC building, Earth 7622
A group of homeless men attempted to break into the building but it was completely locked in every entrance.
"Forget about it." One said. "Vernon is a cheap bastard, did a 3 year stretch in one of his prisons and the guards were always complaining how bad they had it. There's nothing in there worth taking."
Another one pointed to the missile coming in their direction and they ran. Soon, the VernonCorp building was reduced to wreckage on the street.
Unknown Location, Earth 616
Kimikos' eyes shot open; she was in a water-filled tube. There was a respirator wrapped around her nose and mouth, allowing her to breathe. The water made her vision blurry, but her body was embedded with various tubes. She could see the outline of Mister Sinister and Sabretooth, despite being unable to hear them, she could tell they were having an argument. Sinister's body language was tense as his arms folded. Sabretooth seemed more frantic as he pointed at her. Sinisters' hands glowed with energy, and Sabretooth walked away. Upon nearing the tube, he scratched his claws against the glass. Kimiko cringed from the noise before looking at Sinister who appeared to be standing before a console. He pressed a button, and then it began:
Something was being pumped into her body. She could feel her muscles expand as though they were changing. Her bones also started to feel different, almost as though they were growing. The process was painful as Kimiko thrashed trying to free herself or to shake the tubes off of her, but to no avail. Her body was changing into something, and she had no idea what.
After what seemed like hours, it stopped. The tubes retracted out of the tube and into the ceiling. The water flushed down below as the tube ascended, she was freed and angrily glared at her captor. Sinister merely smiled as the red gem on his forehead shined and Kimiko found herself unable to move.
"You will find resistance to be an impossibility now, Miss Miyashiro." Sinister said. "I now control every fiber of your being. You belong to me now." He smugly told her.
Kimiko could only gasp in horror before she felt Sabretooth claw her flesh deeply on the back. Kimiko collapsed; his claws severed her spine. That was when she felt a familiar sensation, one that occurred when she was on Compound V. Only now it was faster. Kimiko got up and found that her wounds disappeared. Kimiko was about to get up when she noticed something new about her fingernails and toenails.
"Can't say I appreciate you using my DNA and the runts for this new experiment of yours. Part of me feels like you're trying to replace me." Sabretooth bitterly told Sinister.
Sinister glared at Creed.
"By all means, Sabretooth, grant me an excuse." Sinister said.
Sabretooth snarled before he turned and saw the dejected Kimiko who remained looking at her nails. He seemed to take some amusement in her despair as he let out a chuckle.
"You know what I recall, always wanting a sister. Granted, I remember killing my last one. Welcome to the family, sis." Sabretooth told her, placing his hand on her shoulder.
Kimiko remained motionless, utterly numb to the world.
She was a monster once more.
Vought Tower, Earth 7622
Nothing was left of Hydra's forces. All that was left was the junkyard on the outskirts of Vought Tower made of the pieces of Hydra weapons reduced by crumbles by the superheroes who destroyed them. The Hydra soldiers dropped their guns and surrendered, Punisher wasn't very fond of the idea and pointed his machine gun at them ready for an execution. Until he heard a familiar voice speak behind him.
"Put it, Punisher." Captain America said.
"Put them down?" Castle asked.
"You know what I meant. They surrendered."
"For now." Punisher said as he put his machine gun down. "What now? Go back to prison?"
"I was about to ask the same. I was working outside the law too, we all were."
"This battle may be finished but the war is not. Red Skull and the Cabal still pose a great threat we can not ignore." Professor X spoke on Punisher's mind.
"What?" Captain America asked Castle.
"Can't you hear Xavier?"
"I put some mental blocks when I first defected from the Illuminati."
"Hey, baldie." Soldier Boy. "Since you're there can you erase everything from 85' to before the Incursion? I'll do alright without it."
"We have a third threat luring now."
"Wonderful, what now?" Iron Man asked.
Just then, Queen Maeve walked towards them, her body bruised, there were pieces of the pavement on her hair.
"He's back." She told him.
Inside the Vought Tower, the heroes found Anika with the head of one of Hydra's dreadnoughts plugged to the analytics computer downloading data. Iron Man grabbed the head and looked puzzled at her.
"What are you doing?" He asked. "I could've done that a million times faster than these computers."
"I thought I'd save some time."
"Homelander," Maeve said. "Wasn't he here?"
"Oh yeah, he wanted to know everything that happened since he was out of commission and took a pendrive with a lot of data."
"And you just bloody gave to him?" Butcher asked.
Anika turned her chair to Butcher, she was angry and puzzled.
"What the fuck did you expect me to do? Say no? To him?"
"Did he say anything?" Maeve asked.
"He did leave a note."
They notice the smut falling from the ceiling. They looked up and saw Homelander's note, branded on the ceiling with his laser vision. One sentence: See you all soon.
Daily Bugle, Earth 616
Peter Parker stepped out of the elevator and into the principal office of the Daily Bugle. It was an unusual chaos that he figured was happening ever since the Incursion. Despite not being an employee, he still submitted photos for two reasons. One, would be getting leads about any criminal dealings. Two, extra pay… Even if said pay meant less than favorable stories. Still, it helped him get May her scooter.
"Parker!" He heard Jameson yell from his office.
Peter sighed and walked over to Jameson's office.
"Where have you been?!" Jameson demanded.
"Sorry, Jonah, I've been preoccupied these past few days." Peter told him.
"Give him a break Jonah, I can't imagine Peter not being busy." Robbie told him.
Jameson let out a sigh.
"Fine." He simply stated.
"Thanks, MJ and I saw the news about the other Earth in the sky. It shocked both of us. What was all that about?" Peter asked.
"Not sure yet." Robbie told him. "All we know is that an anonymous tip gave every media outlet information about Earth-7622." Robbie told him.
Jameson expression changed to one of realization.
"I'm sorry you had to hear about all of that. I keep forgetting you have a little kid these days." Jameson told him. "Can't say I blame you, that is something a two-year-old should ever learn about."
"Three-year-old." Peter corrected until he realized what Jameson said. "What are you talking about?" He asked.
Jameson and Robertson seemed surprised by his question.
"You mean you didn't hear about it?" Robbie asked.
"About what?" Peter asked, feigning ignorance.
"The so-called "heroes" of that Earth have an annual orgy! They called it "Herogasm"! We were sent reports about those hurt during that mess!" Jameson said.
Peter blanched upon hearing that.
"Don't worry about it, kid! I made a similar face when hearing about that, too! Disgraceful, I don't think even Spider-Man would be caught dead in that mess!" Jameson told him.
Peter regained his composure.
"I thought you were for the immigration?" Peter asked him.
Jameson seemed offended upon hearing that.
"Of course I am! Just because their heroes are a bunch of perverted creeps doesn't mean I'm willing to let their people die!" Jameson defended himself.
Peter pushed his feelings aside.
"So you don't know who sent you that?" Peter asked.
"No we don't. We weren't even the first person to print this out anyway. We're just doing our jobs." Robbie said.
"Damn TV news." Jameson angrily muttered.
"Look, why don't you go back home." Robbie told him.
Peter let out a sigh.
"Yeah, you're right." Peter told them.
He stepped out of the office and walked away. Then he noticed someone familiar at the window. It was Hughie. Peter soon made his way to the nearest broom closet.
"You wall-crawling menace! Get the hell off my window or I'll…" Jameson demanded before Hughie crashed through the window and grabbed Jameson by the throat.
"I'm not Spider-Man." Hughie angrily told him.
Jameson struggled and let out a grasp.
"What do you want?!" He asked.
"Peter Parker, where is he?!" Hughie demanded.
"Parker?" Jameson asked.
"Don't you fucking play dumb with me! I know he's sent you photos of Spider-Man for years!" Hughie told him. "Now WHERE IS HE?!" Hughie demanded.
"Look! I don't know where he lives! He always sent me his photos by emails or texts." Jameson told Hughie. "I'm being honest with you!" Jameson told him.
Hughie silently contemplated his response.
"Not that I mind someone picking on ol' picklepuss, but please put him down. Our city would be lost without his constant ranting." Spider-Man told Hughie.
Hughie turned to face Spider-Man and let Jameson down.
"You web-spinning menace! I'll give you thirty sec…" Jameson threatened before Spider-Man shot a web ball at his mouth, silencing him. Jameson could only "mmmph" afterwards trying to free his mouth.
"Why don't we take this somewhere else." Spider-Man offered Hughie.
"Fine." Hughie bluntly agreed.
Upstate New York, Earth 616
Annie slowly woke up. As she got up, she heard chains rattling. Starlight saw that there were shackles around her arms and legs. She still had a collar around her neck. The room was dark and dusty, causing her to cough. She stood up and tried to free herself.
"You really should have taken up Doom's offer." The Green Goblin spoke up, somewhere in the shadows. "It would have saved you from your upcoming predicament."
Annie tried to find him, her eyes darting every reaction.
"Show your fucking face!" Annie demanded.
The Green Goblin only laughed at her demand. His laughter reverberated against the walls.
"Unfortunately, girl, you are in no position to make demands." The Green Goblin told her. She could hear him pacing. "Just imagine it. Right now, right here, I could just kill you, and no one would be the wiser." He told her.
Annie tried to steel herself until she felt someone tug the back of her hair. She let out a startled yell and turned backward, but no one was there. Only for her to hear a match light itself followed by the glow of a lone candle. She found herself face-to-face with the Green Goblin.
"I think it's time we've had a heart-to-heart." Green Goblin told her.
"Fuck you!" Annie told him.
The Goblin only chuckled once more.
"Adorable, but I suppose you'd prefer a more "serious" discussion. Very well." The Goblin said as he removed his mask. He looked to be in his late fifties, maybe even early sixties. He had red hair and green eyes.
"So let's talk." Norman Osborn told her. Annie was surprised to see the Green Goblin's demeanor change.
"Why are you doing this?" Annie asked.
"You'll have to be more specific." He questioned.
"What?" Annie asked.
"I suppose there are various reasons. One, you remind me of someone I once knew. She used to date my son, Harry. I never liked her; honestly, she was so uptight and self-righteous. Even worse when she thought they were better off as friends. Eventually, she moved on to someone else, Spider-Man. Of course, she didn't know about that, what with him being the reason her father died. The poor idiot trapped himself." Norman told her. "Until of course, one day I remembered his little secret and wanted to get even. So I chucked her off a bridge and he accidentally snapped her neck." Norman told her.
Annie was horrified by this.
"He blamed me of course, but she died because of him. I see it as liberating him, like you, she tended to grind men down into a nub." Norman told her.
"You're doing this just to relive killing some young woman?" Annie questioned.
"Not only that. Would you believe me if I told you I had a little respect for your world?" He asked her rhetorically. "Superhumans being able to do what they want, I like the idea about that—unfortunately, survival of the fittest is in place. Then, of course, there's you. The "good" one." He told her, the disgust evident in his tone.
"What do you think you can do to shame me?" Annie asked.
"You're only a hero by comparison. People like us don't get to where we are without stepping on a couple of heads. Like that friend of yours, what was his name? Gecko, right?" He asked her.
Annie was shocked to hear about that. He pulled out a file and showed it to her. It was titled:
"Gecko – Matthew Culbert"
"Says here you used to attend bible camp together back when you were kids. Then, right before Stormfront's exposure, you blackmailed him into doing your dirty work." Norman told her.
"I was working with Hughie to get Compound V." Annie defended herself.
"Then, after Vought learned you used him, they fired him and sent him away. What did you do to defend him?" Norman asked her.
Guilt prevented Annie from speaking.
"You just let him out to hang while you played at being a hero." Norman told her. "Spider-Man wouldn't do that. Captain America wouldn't do that, but you did." He bluntly told her.
Annie was silent.
"The worst part about all of this. It's that everything you ever did will amount to nothing. You won't be remembered as Starlight. You'll be forgotten as space dust." Norman coldly told her.
Annie angrily lunged at him, only for Norman to blow out the candle. He disappeared into the darkness.
"Of course, I have an idea to make sure you give someone a lasting memory." The Green Goblin told her.
He grabbed her from behind and placed something on her mouth and nose. It sprayed a gas, and Annie drifted off to sleep after inhaling it.
New York, Earth 616
Spider-Man and Hughie were on a rooftop not far from the Daily Bugle.
"So…" Spider-Man was about to ask him when Hughie cut him off.
"Green Goblin! Where fucking is he?!" Hughie demanded.
Spider-Man was taken aback for a moment before he realized what upset Hughie.
"What did he do?" Spider-Man asked him, sympathetically.
"He has Annie! He took her!" Hughie told him.
"Alright, I can think of a few places where Norman could be holding up. Maybe get some leads at the Bar With No Name. If that doesn't work then that would mean she's in Latveria with Doctor Doom and the rest of his buddies." Spider-Man told him.
"So?" Hughie asked.
"That would mean going to another country. I don't have the means to invade Latveria by myself." Spider-Man told him.
"Christ, of course you don't! You have nothing!" Hughie angrily told him.
"Hey!" Spider-Man defensively yelled at him. "I'm trying to help you out here, pal. I can go to the Avengers for help. The Thing is also here, too. The Fantastic Four are no strangers when it comes to breaking into Castle Doom." Spider-Man told him.
"Fine. I'll go with you." Hughie told him.
"Look, I appreciate the help, but I don't think you're ready." Spider-Man told him.
"What do you mean not ready?!" Hughie asked.
"Just because you have a symbiote doesn't mean you're unstoppable. A lot of dangerous people have experience against them." Spider-Man told him.
"So what?! I'm supposed to just sit here while you rescue my girlfriend!" Hughie angrily yelled.
"You're underestimating him as well as everyone else here." Spider-Man warned him. "Plus, I don't even think you're aware of the danger currently on you." He added.
Hughie looked at the symbiote.
"I'm fine!" Hughie said.
"A lot of people thought that too." Spider-Man told him.
"Fine, you know what, fuck you! I'll get him on my own!" Hughie told him as he started to swing away.
Spider-Man let out an annoyed sigh and began to follow Hughie. He jumped off the building and shot a line at the same one Hughie hit.
"Hold up!" Spider-Man told Hughie.
Godolkin University,
Deadpool managed to enter the sub-basement of Godolkin. He took out the key card, swiped from a guard and entered the door. The door emitted a beep and Wade stepped inside. The walls of the room were painted to resemble a forest. He peered into the doors and saw the subjects. They were restrained, all of them had haunted looks in their eyes. He heard footsteps coming, so he entered one of the cells inhabited by a young man.
"I hear we're going to be branching out." An A.I.M. scientist said.
"Really?" The other one said.
"Yeah I've heard M.O.D.O.K. and Scientist Supreme have started talks with other scientists to look into the captives and students." One said.
"And the staff is alright with that?" The other asked.
"Look at this place? You think they care. You saw the reports here about that virus they were starting to make." The scientist said.
"I guess you're right, they're scrapping it, right? I don't want my name attached to another Legacy virus." The other said.
"I don't know. This coming from the guy who works for the chemistry department. Didn't you make a new type of nerve gas?" The scientist said.
"Nerve gasses don't specify their targets." The other one said.
Wade heard someone else approach them.
"Dr. Cardosa." The A.I.M. scientist greeted.
Wade peered through the door and saw a bespectacled man in his early-to-mid 30's with brown hair.
"How are things coming along with Sam?" Cardosa asked.
"Kid's testy, it's not up to us, but do you want to keep him?" The AIM scientist asked.
Cardosa let out a sigh of annoyance.
"Brink thinks we might need him for his brother." Cardosa remarked. "Shetti thinks he is no longer useful."
"He punched through one of our men." The other scientist brought up.
"Sam's incapable of seeing reality. He's a danger to everyone around him." Cardosa told them before leaving.
After Cardosa left, the scientists heard something from Sam's cell. They peered through the flap and saw that their captive was gone. Instead a blade ran through the opening, and pierced one of the scientists in the jugular. The other scientist fell down to the ground as the door opened. Revealing not just Sam Riordan, but Deadpool. Sam instantly went to the scientist and gripped his head. He slowly started crushing the man's skull while Deadpool took his key card and went to the other doors.
Cate's room
Cate entered her amidst the neverending party booming outside with all the other college kids having one last time of fun before the end of the world.
"Hi." Homelander said.
She screamed, startled before she realized who he was sitting on her bed reading a piece of paper and did not appear disturbed at all.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
"Homelander…"
"Please, just John." He showed her the paper. "Bucket list? Why is it blank?"
"I… I couldn't think of anything to write down. I'm sorry but why are you here?"
"I'm in big trouble, Cate. Somebody's been tinkering with my brain, I can't let it happen again. I need a telepath, a powerful one to shield my mind from attacks."
"And you think I'm powerful?"
"If you stop taking those pills, you will be." Homelander tossed a pendrive at Cate. "Take a look, you'll find what Dean Shetty really thinks of you. Go ahead."
Cate plugged the pendrive to her computer, so much data it couldn't run all of it but what truly mattered was Vought's archives on Godolkin. They weren't at school to study, the school was there to study them, Thomas Godolkin was a behavioral scientist and wanted to know what makes supes tick. Cate also found out about the pills, they were supposed to to keep her in line, to weaken her powers. Cate cried.
"Luke… Sam…" She mouthed.
"I know, I know." Homelander said and put his hand on her shoulder. "You care about them, and they made you do bad things to them. I never cared about many people. I only did about my son, Ryan, and I messed that up. But we can do something good, fix things."
"What are you talking about?"
"Saving the world."