A Tale of Life and Death: Chapter I
Cancerverse: Part II
Frontline: The Fault
["Attention--hostile, eight meters! Targeting! Attention--two hostiles, five and seven meters! Targeting! Attention--hostile closing from behind! Nova, are you even paying attention?!"] It was pure chaos at the mouth of the Fault. The situation had immediately began deteriorating when the planets containing trillions of Universal Church of Truth adherents detonated at once, allowing a flood of Templeships from the Cancerverse to pour in. Furthermore, it also allowed the cancerous creatures that had filled the Cancerverse to the brim to pour in as well.
As such, it was impossible for the allied forces primarily consisting of the Shi'ar, the Kree/Inhumans, and Blastaar's Negative Zone ships to maintain fleet formation. Jamal barely had enough time to think as the allied ships quickly became overwhelmed. He relied on pure instinct to follow Worldmind's instructions on where he should target next as he and Quasar flew around the space.
"Worldmind, pulse-fire, left hand, full gravimetric!" Jamal pulled up sharply and circled around, suddenly bringing him back to when he was a child and riding a roller coaster at Disney World. He had no idea why such a memory came to him
now of all times. Maybe it was his way of coping with the situation at hand. In any case, throwing away these thoughts, Jamal was now facing the backside of what was basically a giant, and purple, facehugger from
Aliens. He fired a gravimetric blast thorough it.
Just as he was wondering about how stupid the creatures were for actually falling for such a basic high Yo-Yo that he thought really only worked in video games, the creature showed no signs that it had actually been harmed and swiped at him. Jamal fired again at the creature, this time using both hands. "Damn, this things are hard to kill!"
["Jamal, I'm concerned about your concentration. This is a major hard-space engagement, yet I believe that you are being distracted by--"]"I'm not distracted. My head's in the game. I just get the feeling that there's a lot more to this than we think, based off of what happened back at the Resolute. Major Victory was just...
taken--and right under our noses." Jamal said.
"Rich, of course there's something more. This makes the Annihilation War look like a schoolyard scrap." Quasar said as the two blasted through monster after Cancerverse creature after Cancerverse creature.
"We're barely holding them back. Warships from a hundred different interstellar cultures... Shi'ar, Spartoi, Xarth... Wait. Kree vessel in major trouble up ahead." Jamal and Quasar flew to the ship, beginning to blast at the creatures attacking the ship.
["Jamal, I've identified the vessel profile as the Imperial Stellar Flagship."]Quasar and Jamal saw the Kree soldiers and Inhuman Royal family defending the ship, equipped in battle suits with some using large mechs. "Triton! Is Queen Medusa still on board!" Jamal called out to the
aquatic based Inhuman.
"Gorgon evaced her, despite her protests to stay. We're attempting to save the ship and get the main batteries back onli--" Triton began.
"Look out!" Quasar shouted as the gaping maw of a creature approached Triton from behind. Triton turned and could only watch as the hundreds of sharp teeth, each the length of his own height enclose around him. Suddenly, the creature exploded violently as a bright flash of light tore through it.
"Uh... wow." Jamal could only say as he saw the Silver Surfer look down at them atop his board. "So... am I to take it that you're standing with us in this fight?" Jamal said, recalling their previous encounter where Surfer wasn't too, well, helpful.
"I am merely a Herald..." Surfer said, extending his hand forward and pointing behind them. Everyone turned, and, despite the chaos around them, it turned disturbingly quiet as everyone gazed upon the presence of a countless number of the
Cosmic Abstracts now present at the mouth of the Fault.
"...Forces have been aligned."Cancerverse
"Team, you know what to do! Cosmo, take out their abilitity to send out a TK broadcast to warn their buddies!" Star-Lord said. "Mantis, magic user!"
"Kthl yoggor m--" Dr. Strange began an incantation before Mantis attacked his mind and scrambled it before he could finish casting the spell. Mantis then delivered a powerful kick up, hitting him square in the jaw and knocking him unconscious.
"Bad kitty!" Star-Lord said as he unloaded bullets into Alt!Hellcat, whose face had grown squid-like tentacles and her overall facial features growing insect-like as she knocked him down and tried to finish him off.
"Yeah, you too, pluck-face!" Rocket said as he unloaded a beam of energy from his blaster into Alt!Nighthawk who attempted to fly at him.
The swords of Gamora and Alt!Valkyrie clanged as they collided together. "You fight like a girl." Gamora remarked as she dodged a slash from Alt!Valkyrie. and then shoved her sword through her chest. "Too bad I'm the galaxy's most dangerous
woman."
Alt!Namor punched Drax in the jaw, then the abdomen, and finally, clasped his hands together and brought them down on the back of Drax's head. Drax immediately hit him with an uppercut, and then grabbed Alt!Namor's head. "You do not seem intent. As if you are playing. This is ill-advised." He repeatedly punched Alt!Namor's head and then simply ripped the disoriented Cancerverse King of Atlantis's head off. "I am
not playing. I am
Destroying."
Alt!Hulk roared as he raised his arms and prepared to crush Cosmo the dog. "Cosmo see you are havink anger issues." Suddenly, Alt!Hulk collapsed to the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head. "I make you stroke out. It painless way to go."
"Yeah! Who the heck said we weren't big league? We just beat some major--" Rocket began to celebrate.
"Be shuttink up, Rocket Raccoon!" Cosmo said.
"Don't you be telling me to sup up, you stinky old pooch...Oh." Rocket watched as the group stood up, transforming even further into insect-like creatures as they grew pincers, tentacles, etc. "Right... that whole not dying thing. Forgot about that."
"Our universe has extraordinary things to offer you. A new way of living. A new way of understanding the cosmos. There is no end to the experiences you will embrace.
Literally no end." Alt!Nighthawk snarled.
"Kyle... What is that...
thing they've brought with them?" Alt!Hellcat asked, pointing at Thanos, who was getting to his knees. "I am
afraid of it." Thanos dug his fingers into the ground and plucked out a chunk of it. "Kyle. What
is that?" Thanos crushed the chunk of earth in his hand and looked up at the undying creatures, scowling and his eyes glowing.
Thanos roared and reached forward, encompassing them in a powerful blast of yellow energy. Though they were incinerated instantly, Thanos continued and fired similar beams from his eyes, crying out like a wild animal. Once he stopped, he gripped his head as he looked upon the skeletal remains of the enemy, who showed no signs of returning back to life. "I am.... having great difficulty retaining my mental...mental composure in this universe, I am afraid. However, it would appear... that I am capable... of delivering
permanent death."
"Hooraaay." Star-Lord sarcastically said, twirling his gun around his index finger.
"Do you have any idea of the situation we are presently in?" Thanos scowled as he led the group forward.
"Hey now, I just find it pretty ironic how that for the longest time, you've been one of the worst things to ever happen to our universe several times. And now, here we are in another universe and now you can also be that in someone else's." Star-Lord said.
"Speaking of Thanos being a huge pain in the butt, it me, or is he getting stronger by the second?" Rocket asked the rest of the Guardians behind Star-Lord and Thanos.
"Unfortunately, it would seem so." Mantis said. "He's beginning to acclimate very quickly. It's becoming even harder to read his mind as it stabilizes more and more." Suddenly, Mantis stopped. "Wait, I sense another mind approaching!"
["Greetings, travelers."] A voice said from above. The group looked up to see Vision descending down to them. ["I am the Vision, and I mean you no harm."]
Normal Space, Location Unkown
"Get your hands off of me! Where have you taken me!" Major Victory shouted as he was dragged across the floor of an unknown ship by Alt!Iron Man and Alt!Captain Marvel. Merely an hour or so ago, he was fighting with the Nova Corps at the Fault, simply trying to survive as the allied fleet was overrun by the invading forces from the other universe.
"Ftaghn yoth he's a vigorous one. Just hold him and--" Alt!Iron Man began when suddenly Major Victory pulled his arms forward and escaped their grip.
He immediately began running away, not knowing where exactly he should go. All he knew was that he had to go as far away from those people as possible. Naturally of course, they chased after him. "Who the hell
are you?" Major Victory asked, looking back at them.
"Apparently, someone who really ought to have people to do this sort of thing for him." A voice in front of him stated. Major Victory turned his head and saw an arm sticking out across the front of his chest horizontally. Major Victory was clotheslined and hit the ground hard, the wind taken out of him.
"Apologies, Lord Mar-Vell. We underestimated his level of resistance..." Alt!Captain Marvel said as she and Alt!Iron Man rushed over and grabbed Major Victory.
"Who is he?" "Major Victory, of the Guardians of the Galaxy. He was fighting in the Enemy Vanguard when we intercepted and captured him. The Yot-Soteric vibrations clearly mark him as an anomaly."
Alt!Mar-Vell knelt down and grabbed Major Victory by the jaw, inspecting him closely.
"Hmm. A temporal anomaly, I believe. Most like a castaway from a possible future. I doubt he's the one, but it is a smart decision to be thorough. Put him with the others." He stood back up and walked away. As he walked through the halls of
their ship, he was cut off by Alt!Quasar.
"My Lord, forgive me if I step out of line, but I have been wondering for quite some time now..." Alt!Quasar said, kneeling. He looked up at Alt!Mar-Vell. "Should we not deal with this universe's Earth's heroes?"
"Don't be ashamed, Vaughn. That is a valid question, one I have already considered. To be quite honest, I expected them to come to us, if not be already present at the Fault upon my arrival. It would seem that they are busy with some other problem that threatens their planet directly." Alt!Mar-Vell chuckled.
"Their very universe is threatened and they cannot spare even some of their finest 'heroes.' Pathetic. In any case, one of the Many-Angled Ones graciously volunteered to even further distract them. I imagine by the time they are even able to consider going against us, it will have already been too late, and the battle at the Fault will have already been lost for this universe."Alt!Iron Man and Alt!Captain Marvel took Major Victory to the prison ward and stopped in front of one of the cells. Next to the cell door, a rectangular panel--roughly five feet high--built into the metal wall opened up. Out of it emerged some sort of device that they attached to Major Victory to restrain his arms behind him. The doors opened and Major Victory saw six other prisoners of various races inside of the large prison cell. "Get in there." Alt!Iron Man pushed him into the room and closed the door behind him.
"So... any of you guys know where we are?" Major Victory asked.
They collectively shook their heads. One of them, a male Shi'ar soldier, spoke up. "They collected each of us, calling us anomalies. They consider us all to not be of this space-time, and thus they sent his Revengers to get us. They are looking for something called the Necropsy. By the sounds of it, it can't be good."
"Seriously...?" Major Victory sighed. "Well, let's some there's someone out there who can rescue us. All we can do now... is wait."
Earth
A hooded figure walked into the middle of the busy street leading through Times Square, causing the car to her side to abruptly stop and honk at her. The figure stopped and knelt down in front of the car, causing the driver to once again honk. Paying the driver no mind, the figure reached into their cloak and took out several vials filled with red liquid. The figure began pouring the liquid onto the ground creating a circle containing several different symbols and patterns. The driver had had enough and opened his door. "Hey!" The figure ignored him and began muttering in another language, hunched over with their head touching the ground.
"Hey, I'm talking to you!" The driver walked up to the figure in the center of the circle from behind. He knelt down and grabbed the figure's shoulder and began shaking it as they continued the chant. The driver walked around to the front of the figure and grabbed their hood, pulling it from over their head, revealing them to be a redheaded woman. The figure suddenly sat upright, looking up at the sky, her eyes glowing. The ground began breaking apart in front of the figure and within a second, a chasm began forming, within which the driver fell into, unable to escape in time.
"
Before all was," A deep, demonic voice rang out throughout the area as the ground rumbled and further broke apart. People screamed as they attempted to get out of the range of the growing gap in the ground. ".
..I was. Before time was, I waited." A green tentacle emerged from the chasm and slowly but surely, the being attached to it also emerged. "
I fed on the screaming souls of the Universes. I drank the spoiled milk of dead stars. I am the emptiness outside all understanding. I. Am. Shuma-Gorath." Shuma-Gorath began reaching out with his tentacles and destroying the buildings around Times Square. "
And this world is mine."
Screams of the citizens around Shuma-Gorath rang out as the debris from the buildings rained down from above. "
You will have endless eons screaming my name. My substance thickens. I grow more real. Now, I claim you all." The citizens around him suddenly stopped running and began gagging. Tentacles emerged out of their mouths and their eyes began glowing. "
Mine now. As everyone in this universe will be." Suddenly, Shuma-Gorath's eyes widened slightly. "
You." Two figures approached the unthinkably powerful demon. They stopped in front of Shuma-Gorath and his tentacles twisted and turned as he grew larger and larger in size. "
You dare?"
"Yes..." Karnilla said, with a smile, standing next to Dr Strange. "We
do."
Frontline: The Fault
The battle had rapidly escalated beyond Jamal's wildest dreams. "Nova, the Cosmic Abstracts of our universe have entered the combat..." Quasar stated in amazement. Upon the arrival of the Abstracts, including Galactus, the two remaining Proemial Gods Aegis and Tenebrous, as well as numerous Celestials,
they spread out and outstretched their arms--forming a net of sorts and destroying the vast majority of the invading forces from the Cancerverse. "That means that the magnitude of this war is no longer in question." Quasar said as he, Jamal, and Surfer flew throughout the space in front of the Fault, helping to catch any invading forces that manged to slip by the Abstracts.
"This is... I mean, I've never seen anything so...
unbelievable." Jamal said as they passed the head of a Celestial. The Celestial showed no signs of even acknowledging his existence as far as Jamal could tell. And it didn't help that it was covered in some sort of armor so he couldn't see its face... if it even had one at all. "Do they even know we're here?"
"They know more than you can possibly imagine, Jamal Hawkins of Earth. They know what is at stake here." Surfer said.
"The fate of a whole
universe!"Quasar said as he blasted through the Cancerverse creatures in front of him.
"This is not merely for the fate of one universe, Wendell Vaughn. Can you not sense it through the entanglement that links your Quantum Bands to all of creation? We face beings who have despoiled and filled one universe and now attack ours. They have the means to overthrow the fundamental laws of all possible universes. Life and Death form the cornerstone of all realities--two sides to the same coin. These beings can remake the basic language with which reality is composed--""Surfer! Quasar! Look!" Jamal stopped and pointed at the Fault, which began to glow brighter. Suddenly, the swirling energy of the Fault morphed to form a
haunting image of what appeared to be a face.
"What the hell is
that?!" Fear immediately gripped Jamal, even though he had no idea of what just happened.
"Something is coming out of the Fault. Something... big." Jamal wished he could believe that he was going wrong--that he was hearing things-- but the slight shudder in Surfer's voice convinced him otherwise: the Surfer was afraid as well.
"The enemy is responding to the arrival of the Abstracts. I can hear a foul name being chanted on the solar winds. A blasphemy, a heresy..." A creature emerged from the Fault, several light years in size. But what made it truly frighting was its haunting appearance that indicated just how fundamentally
screwed they were.
"...The Galactus Engine."