A/N: Did y'all hear the news about Patrick Stewart dying? R.I.P the goat man 😔 "Even if someone stumbles and loses their way, it doesn't mean they're lost forever"
[Third Person Pov]Â
"We'll clear the path for you," Gwen said, bringing her hands together in a sharp, deliberate clap. When she parted them, a long, crystalline icicle spear blossomed into existence between her palms, its surface glowed a soft, glacial blue. The weapon hummed with cold power as she leveled it toward the nearest ranks of Mindless Ones.
Reed's voice cut cleanly through the chaos. "You just have to incapacitate Victor. We can't let him go through with whatever it is he's planning."
Hulk cracked his massive knuckles with a sound like breaking tree trunks. "Hulk doesn't want to wait anymore! Hulk wants to smash!!"
Peter's eyes flicked across the group one last time. "Alright, everyone in position—and go!"
He dropped the eldritch shield. Susan simultaneously dissolved her own barrier. The moment the dual protection vanished, the entire team surged forward into the storm of red optic fire.
Hulk was the first to hit full speed. He broke into a thunderous sprint, green muscles pumping, the floor cracking under every footfall. Optic blasts pelted him from every direction, searing deep green burn marks across his shoulders, arms, and chest. The wounds glowed for a fraction of a second before the Hulk's regenerative flesh knitted itself shut again, steam rising from the healed skin. He lowered his shoulder and crashed into the front line of Mindless Ones like a living avalanche. Black stone shattered into jagged fragments. His fists punched heads clean from shoulders. One particularly vicious uppercut reduced an entire golem to a drifting cloud of dark dust.
"Hahaha! Hulk smashes ugly boulder men and he's having fun!!"
He turned mid-rampage toward Ben, who was already tearing through the ranks beside him. "Don't worry—you're safe, even if boulder man is still ugly!"
A surge of pure annoyance flared through Ben. "Look in a mirror first, you troll-faced Neanderthal! That's a face not even a mother could love!" he bellowed, wrapping both rocky arms around a Mindless One in a crushing bear hug and grinding it into powder between his hands.
Another volley of optic beams slammed into Hulk's face. He winced, roared, then grabbed two golems by their necks and smashed them together so hard both heads exploded into rubble. "If Hulk is ugly, how does he have a pretty girlfriend?!" he shot back with a smug, toothy grin.
"Wha—bullshi—ugghh!" Ben's reply was cut short as a concentrated bombardment of red beams struck him square in the chest. The impact launched the Thing off his feet and sent him tumbling end-over-end into the distance in a trail of shattered stone.
"Now is not really the time to be distracted, Ben!" Susan called, already weaving her force-fields into lethal projectiles. She caught one Mindless One staring directly at her, its single red eye flaring in preparation. In a blink she formed a perfect spherical barrier around its head. The optic blast fired—and the entire interior of the force-field flooded with blinding crimson light. When Susan released the construct a moment later, the golem stood headless, thick black smoke pouring from the empty space between its shoulders, before the rest of its body crumbled into a neat hill of rubble.
Across the battlefield Mary Jane's eyes began to glow with soft violet light as her large psionic spider-legs stabbed and pierced through the ranks. "Reed, I need you to do me a favor and gather as many of them as you can into one place—I have an idea!"
"I'll give it a try!" Reed answered. His body stretched and expanded into an enormous, elastic curve, looping around a huge portion of the Mindless Ones army and cinching them tightly together like a living rubber band.
"Benjamin—roly-poly, please! And Johnny, turn him into a fireball!" MJ commanded while flipping through the air, webbing firing in precise arrays to keep lesser threats off her teammates.
Ben grumbled as he curled into a tight rocky sphere. "This better be worth it, you hear me, little red?"
Johnny's laugh rang out bright and wild. "Hahaha! I love teamwork!!" A swirling fireball bloomed between his hands, growing rapidly until it was larger than a beach ball. He lifted it high overhead and slammed it down onto the curled-up Thing. The impact plunged the entire concentrated area into a roaring sphere of orange-and-white flame, Ben's rocky exterior glowing cherry-red at the edges.
Above the chaos MJ created a pair of giant, translucent constructs of her own manicured hands. Between the fingers of the larger construct a long, elegant pool cue of pure psionic energy took shape. She closed one eye, lining up her shot with surgical precision.
"Reed—let go!"
Reed released the elastic loop with a springy bounce. The moment he saw the full shape of MJ's plan he couldn't help a sharp, delighted laugh.
"Brace yourself!" she warned.
She mimed the motion of a perfect billiard strike with her real hands. The giant construct copied the movement exactly, the psionic cue striking Ben's fiery, curled form with a resounding—
*CLACK!!*
The Thing shot forward like a living cannonball, smashing straight through the tightly packed cluster of Mindless Ones. Black stone exploded outward in every direction in a spectacular shower of rubble and dust. Ben's voice trailed behind him in a continuous, bouncing wail as he continued rolling at uncontrollable speed.
"Au-au-au-au! I can't stop!!"
Felicia swung through the collapsing palace corridors on a silvery web-line, white hair streaming behind her. "Don't worry, Benjamin—I got you!!"
She curled herself tightly mid-air and spun, her body shrinking and reforming in a blur of black fur and white. A sleek black cat landed squarely atop the still-rolling Thing. Instantly Felicia began running in place on his rocky surface, trying to steer the runaway boulder with frantic little steps.
Then the heat hit her.
Johnny's fireball had left Ben's exterior glowing like banked coals. The second her paws touched the scorching rock she let out a high, offended catty hiss followed by a sharp, piercing *Meow!!*
She started to panic, dancing and hopping from foot to foot as the heat seared her pads, guiding Ben's chaotic path in wild, unpredictable curves. Optic blasts continued to hammer the Thing from every side. One particularly heavy beam struck his flank and sent the entire living boulder careening into a wall. He bounced off it with a ground-shaking *crunch*, only for a massive chunk of the ruined ceiling to slam down directly in front of them, forming a perfect stone ramp.
"MEEEEOOOW!!"
"I'M GONNA HURL!!"
Their twin screams overlapped as they shot up the ramp and launched into the air for a long, stomach-dropping second of freefall.
*BOOM!!*
They crashed down into another dense cluster of Mindless Ones, black stone exploding outward in every direction. The impact finally separated them. Felicia and Ben bounced and rolled in opposite directions across the debris-strewn floor.
Felicia snapped back into human form, landing hard on her knees. She immediately started blowing desperately on her burned hands, eyes watering. "Ow! Ow! Owie!" She yanked off her gloves and kept blowing on the reddened skin.
Ben was on all fours a short distance away, rocky shoulders heaving as he dry-heaved. "Urghhh… Never… again!!"
Elsewhere in the chamber, Peter, Gwen, and Harry had formed a tight back-to-back triangle against the remaining Mindless Ones.
Gwen hurled spears and concentrated blasts of frost in rapid succession. The golems rolled and twisted with unnatural agility, dodging many of the attacks and answering with relentless red optic fire. Undeterred, Gwen slammed one boot down. A glowing magic circle flared beneath her foot, and the entire floor in a wide radius flash-froze. Thick sheets of ice raced outward, locking the nearest Mindless Ones in place from the ankles up, their red eyes still blazing uselessly.
Peter answered with a continuous barrage of web-shots, coating the frozen and free golems alike in thick white strands that marked them like targets. A second magic circle ignited beneath him. He dropped into a low three-point stance. His vision shifted—every web-strand suddenly glowed as a bright trajectory line in his mind's eye.
"I'm in need—"
His body collapsed into pure white-blue lightning.
In the span of a single second the bolt bounced from marked enemy to marked enemy in a blinding chain, each impact detonating the Mindless One into flying rubble. Peter reappeared on the far side of the chamber in a perfect landing pose, one arm stretched forward, the other back, bone claws extended, static electricity still crawling across his suit.
"—for speed!"
Behind him the entire line of marked golems simply ceased to exist, reduced to drifting clouds of black dust.
Doom clicked his tongue in open annoyance. Both armored hands rose. From the floor two colossal serpents erupted—one woven from living darkness, the other from roaring black-and-crimson flame—both of them hissing with voices that belonged to the Dark Dimension.
Gwen and Harry leapt forward as one, tackling the massive snakes mid-strike and driving them sideways into the walls. Above them a monstrous vulture and an enormous bat-like creature swarmed out of the same shadows. Lizzy and Aria streaked upward on wings of energy and light, blasting the flying horrors out of the air with coordinated beams.
Doom's own shadow lengthened and deepened. From its depths a giant Hellhound of pure flame and bone leapt forth, jaws wide and eyes burning with murderous intent.
A green blur answered it.
Hulk roared as he crashed in from the side, wrapping both massive arms around the beast's neck and tackling it clean across the chamber. "Bad doggy!!"
Doom raised another hand, preparing a fresh spell—only for a thick strand of webbing to slam into his wrist and pin it to the wall. He tried to lift Mjolnir. Another web-shot pinned the hammer arm. Strand after strand flew from Peter's wrists in a relentless barrage until the armored tyrant was stuck fast against the stone like a giant, struggling insect, limbs spread and immobilized.
Peter landed lightly in front of him, head tilted, voice dripping with mockery.
"What's the matter, Doom? Did we manage to catch… you… at… a… bad… time?"
The last words stretched and slowed unnaturally.
Peter's mouth froze mid-sentence. His body locked in place. Across the entire battlefield the same stillness fell. Thor remained frozen mid-deflection, shield raised against a beam. Susan hung half-invisible in the act of turning translucent. Hulk was locked in his mid-air tackle of the Hellhound. Every hero, every remaining Mindless One, every particle of dust and flying debris simply… stopped.
A soft glow bloomed in the center of the chamber. It swirled and expanded outward in luminous ribbons that looked uncannily like living filmstrips. A rectangular platform of bright green and blue light rose from the floor, carrying a single figure.
When the radiance faded, a man stood upon the platform—tall, regal, clad in the rich linens and gold of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, hands clasped loosely behind his back. The world around him had become a black-and-white outlined void, the frozen battle preserved like a photograph.
The Pharaoh's eyes moved calmly across the scene: the chaos paused mid-destruction, Thor's shield, Susan's vanishing form, Doom webbed to the wall, Peter frozen in his taunt only a few feet away.
A slow, knowing grin spread across the Pharaoh's face.
"It seems," he said softly, voice echoing in the silent void, "that I'm right on time."