Issue 47: Trials of Merlin Part XVIII

Captain America smiled. He listened to their cheers and waited until the room calmed down before saying, "We start the scan tonight. At the crack of dawn tomorrow, we hunt down every last Skrulls and end this war before it ever begins."

Everyone cheered louder as Peter left the area. He headed up to the room Tony had assigned him to and stared at the ceiling. He was stumped on trying to think of why the Gemstones sent him here. 

"I know it has something to do with time and space, think Parker, think! Is there something special about this moment in history? Perhaps something to do with me altering history?" Peter scrambled his brains that night and didn't sleep at all, so instead, to take his mind off of the whole ordeal, he decided to craft another suit for his Counterpart, that way he would be more helpful in the battle to come.

After he finished the suit, he went back to trying to solve his problem. Peter was starting to feel like he was losing it after staring at the ceiling for an hour, when he suddenly thought of something. He jumped out of bed and started to head towards the confinement chamber that Tony made for the Skrull Queen.

As he snuck into the room, he saw a single 6 foot tall, and 4 feet wide pod made out of Proto-Adamantium, with a transparent hard-light shielding that acted like a glass window. On the other side was the Queen of an entire alien species. 

Peter tapped on the prison cell. However, she gave no reaction to his attempts to gain her attention. 

"Hey, I know you can hear me." Peter said, standing in front of her.

The Queen feigned ignorance, leaving the room in silence, that was until Peter said, "Tell me Queen Veranke, tell me about the Prophecy your people had."

The Queen's eyes twitched.

"I know somehow, someway your people once had a prophet, and that he or she predicted the death of your world, I want you to tell me the exact words."

The Queen opened her eyes, "How do you know so much?"

"You first!" Peter responded.

The Queen frowned and said, "Do not dare to presume you can talk to me in this manner of speaking, you insect. I am a queen, and you are a lowly bug." 

Peter's temperament turned cold, he didn't want to resort to this, but the Queen Skrull left him no choice as he said, "Do you know what it feels like to have your molecules ripped apart atom by atom?" 

Peter briefly activated the Power Ruby and channeled it into his magnetic control. Only by using the Merlin Gem was he currently able to forcefully activate this ability. 

The Skrull Queen looked on in horror as her fingers started to evaporate into dust. She screamed out in pain. Peter slowed the processes of her disintegration as much as he could then shouted, "Now tell me your Prophet's words!"

The Queen tried to start talking, only able to make out few words before Peter stopped using his power, "In a time before the Skrull conquer the Andromeda Galaxy." 

Peter stopped using the Power Ruby when she fell over and started panting heavily before continuing, "A herald of destruction will visit our home world and destroy the majority of the Skrull Race and our right to rule the universe will be lost, but a blue planet of the Sol in the Milky Way shall be our salvation."

"That's it?" Peter rose his hand up, making the Queen almost shrill back, "That is all! I swear!"

"Not what I was looking for." Peter frowned as he thought about the implications of such a thing. He then looked to Veranke and said, "You stupid shallow minded morons, the God of the Skrulls would be ashamed of what your people have become, mere harvesters of worlds that leave nothing of terror, death, and destruction in your wake. Did you know the reason that the original Skrull Eternal and your blood ancestors only became gods, was because they were compassionate people and met the criteria of the Celestial's requirements?"

The Queen looked at him in disbelief and responded, "You can't possibly know of such things, we Skrull have no such gods, and there remains no record of such things."

"The saddest part is that you misinterpreted your own prophecy, Earth could have indeed been your salvation, but not like this. If you had come in peace instead of out of conquest, then your people would have welcomed. As a matter of fact, you don't know it, but there are species on this planet that could terraform entire new planets for the Skrull to live on, not to mention there are plenty of worlds floating in the infinity of space that could be terraformed with ease. Oh, and let's not forget the countless worlds that exist out there that would accept your people if you all didn't slaughter 80 percent of the Andromeda Galaxy's life forms."

Peter looked at her in disappointment before he said, "Let me tell you something that's going to happen because of your evil ways, your entire armada, will be wiped out." 

Peter then placed his hand out and pointed to himself as he continued, "and I personally will be on the front lines against the assault towards your current base world. Normally I would choose for peace over war and spare your people from tragedy, but for sick warmongering fucks like yourselves, only death on a large scale will make you fear the earth, and unfortunately for you, the Skrulls will become nothing more than a warning sign to the rest of the alien species eyeing this world."

For the first time since the destruction of her world did the Queen felt fear, "You think you are powerful, we have the Super Skrull, you are no match for him, no one on this earth is." the Queen reputed, trying to rally her confidence.

"If I see that bastard Kl'rt, I'll kill him myself. Since I know firsthand what will happen should he survive this event, my consciousness would never be at rest thinking of all the innocent lives he will take." 

Peter then looked deeply into her eyes and said, "To you, he may be the strongest Skrull, but to me, I think he'll only barely managed to give me a challenge, that's only if I don't use my ace in the hole," Peter statement made the Queen go wide-eyed.

"Who are you?"

"Just a man moving through space and time, a singularity of unknown origin." Suddenly Peter felt something pulling on him, there was no one there, but he could feel it none the less, like a string wrapped around his head, 

"A pivotal moment that decided the futures of countless beings," Peter thought as he turned around and walked away, "A moment where all of time and space will diverge into countless futures." Peter then returned to his room and laid on the bed, "What is it that I need to see?"

He didn't know what it was just yet, but he felt like there was a paper-thin wall between him and the answers, he decided to get some sleep. However, that didn't last long, as he only got a few hours of sleep before Tony's message came over an intercom waking everyone up. 

"Well, it's been a while since I could say this, Avengers assemble to the war room!"

Everyone marched up together and stood in a room around a large holographic projection table. An image of the globe appeared showing thousands of red and green dots on it. 

Steve stood in front of everyone and said, "Last night, Jarvis contacted every known hero across the world and sent them a listing of Skrull spies, the identities of every person they have ever impersonated was discovered thanks to the satellite photos and Jarvis's hacking skills."

Tony then clapped his hands together as he said, "On top of that we've discovered 4 spots of Skrull life forms bunched together circling the Earth's exosphere. We need to make a single group of Avengers to take on one of the ships, S.H.I.E.L.D, S.W.O.R.D, and S.T.R.I.K.E will be sending their most powerful squads to take out the remaining 3."

Steven placed his shield on his back and said, "Listen up, the attack has to be timed perfectly, this is a worldwide blitzkrieg assault, we hit them hard, and we hit them fast. Before they even have a chance to notice us coming. This isn't just for the Avengers, it's not about our issues or needs. This mission is for the protection of our very world. For the first time in humanity, all the nations are working together as one, and every innocent life taking up residence on this planet is counting on our success."

Steven then looked to the two Peter Parkers and said, "So no pressure, right?"

The room was quiet until the 616 Peter said, "Did Cap just make a joke?"

Peter started laughing, making all the tension that they had built up vanish in an instant. Everyone else joined in on the joke when young Parker said, "Just another day at the office." 

As Luke stood up and cracked his knuckles he asked, "So who's going to Space?"

"The Parker Twins, Doctor Strange, and Tony will be heading up to one of the spaceships since their powers and specialties work best in space. Everyone else is with me on ground force duty. It's our job to get rid of every last Skrull on Earth."

Everyone nodded their heads when MJ walked up wearing her suit, "I'm coming too."

616 Peter almost fell over and stepped in front of her as he said, "No, you're not."

MJ looked to him again and said, "I know how to fight, Peter, you know I started taking self-defense classes after we started dating, and have continued to even till this day."

"You knowing how to fight isn't the problem MJ. This is a War, you'll have to...look please for me, just this once, stay here and look after Aunt May for me, I promise that as soon as I come back we'll go out and be superheroes together and kick all sorts of bad guy butt, but until then, please stay here," 616 Peter pleaded.

MJ pouted and then said, "Fine, just this once, Tiger, but you have to keep your promise."

Everyone else was prepping for combat when the Space assault team was led into one of Tony's spaceships. After activating the cloaking device on it, they took off headed out of the earth atmosphere. Reaching space and feeling the sense of weightlessness, everyone began to wait outside their intended target with strange feelings, some excited, others worried they be sent flying into the void.

They had 2 hours until the mission began and it passed by at an agonizingly slow pace.

As the seconds passed they talked about a few things to pass the time, Tony had a lot of questions about his counterpart, "I'm a genius over there too huh? I guess no matter which universe you visit I would have to be one."

Peter rolled his eyes, "You're all just as cocky at least."

Tony's A.I gave him a heads up, warning him that it was getting down to minutes until the assault. When the timer hit zero, he knew it was time for them to board the ship. 

Just before they exited, Peter turned to his 616 Counterpart and said, "I almost forgot!" 

Young-Peter pulled out a copy of the classic design and handed it over to 616 Peter, "I made another one last night. You wanted a cool suit too right?"

"You're giving this to me this now?" 616 Peter said with a mixture of happiness and annoyance, 

"If you don't want it..."

616 Peter grabbed the Suit and said, "Now what kind of man would I be if I turned down such a great gift? From...my...self?"

616 quickly changed before he suddenly felt the magic properties of the suit empower his Spider abilities, "Wow! It feels just like the Symbiote, minus the additional voice in my head."

The all had a quick chuckle as they began to board the alien spacecraft. They entered through a trash shoot and ended up inside the Ships air ducts. Tony was busy scanning the ship while the Spider-Men keep a lookout, focusing on using their Spider-Senses to keep watch. 

Strange cloaked their presence from all of their security scans and maintained the spell with ease as they made their way deeper into the ship's internal structure.

Tony had just finished scanning the entire ship when he almost shouted, "This is strange, no pun intended."

"Sure," Doctor Strange rolled his eyes.

"Get on with, Tony. Quit with all the suspense," Peter groaned.

He looked to everyone and pulled up the ship's schematics, "I'm reading human signatures, hundreds of them!"