Chapter Text
July 13.
Brooklyn, New York, 2023 C.E.
The battle against the Spot was at its most brutal. With the power gained from the Mumbattan Collider, the Spot had ceased to be the classic villain of the week, he had become something more.
A God.
He wasn't very fervently religious, but seeing the power obtained by the Spot had made him cast more than one prayer in his mind.
After rescuing him from Earth-42 and managing to turn Miles-42 in their favor, they had managed to drag out the canon event a bit, drawing Miles's father away from the battle, setting traps with devices they had stolen from the spider society, tricks, they had tried almost everything, but nothing seemed to work, the Spot continued its unstoppable pace.
Warping reality to his liking, returning blows thrown by Miles "friends" (the only ones he could call real friends were Gankee, Hobie and Pavitr, ironically, the last two he barely knew), destroying buildings to use the debris as weapons, and added to everything that, the attacks by other spiders that blindly followed Miguel's orders. The bastards who wanted his Canon event to come true.
The bastards who wanted to see his father dead.
Miles stopped on one of the rooftops that was left standing in the path of the Spot's destruction, the Spot had destroyed too many things, departmental buildings, houses, markets, Miles’ old school and Visions too.
Fortunately, thanks to the drama of the Spot, his progress was very slow, and thanks to a Hobie ad on television, many people had managed to leave their homes and take refuge in other places in New York. Unfortunately, not everyone had been so fast. Throughout the battle he constantly saw bloodstains, human remains among the rubble, cries of anguish from many people who were looking for their relatives and their friends, and screams of horror at finding them among the victims. Ambulance sirens, police patrols and helicopters.
Leaving the roof, Miles continued to follow the Spot, now entering Queens, he saw his father in the distance, helping several people to evacuate, people who had children, children who in the current conditions, would trigger the canon event of his.
"Miles!" he listened, it was Gwen, "We're out of ideas, he's unstoppable!"
"Watch out!" someone else yelled, shoving them to the ground as a pile of debris flew towards them, it was Hobie. "Lov, we better do something quick, your father keeps putting himself in danger by helping civilians." They kept running, dodging more debris and pulling civilians out of harm's way.
Then, in the heat of the moment, an idea came to Miles's mind, too dangerous and risky, but an idea nonetheless.
"Okay, I have an idea. Hobie, I need you to help me launch myself towards the spot, Gwen, go with the others, try to stop Miguel's lackeys and make a distraction for the Spot" Miles said with great determination.
And while the others began to fight the Spot, Hobie and Miles ran towards an alley, "¿Dónde carajo está Miles?!!!" Miles hear, it was Miguel furious speaking in spanish. Finally they reached the interior of the alley, where his cobwebs formed a slingshot, Miles mounted it, became invisible and shot towards the back of the Spot.
"Damn Spiderman, get off me!" The Spot shouted angrily while with his hand he was preparing to open a portal, at that moment, Miles also used his poison on one of the Spot's hands.
The same hand that he was preparing the portal.
Miles had no idea what he had achieved, because at that moment something happened, the portal opened, but this one was strange, it did not have the characteristic black color of all the portals of the Spot, this one had purple tones, and rotating electric sparks around.
Not 5 seconds passed when it began to suck everything with enormous force, dragging rubble from buildings and cars. They all tried to grab onto something, using their webs, but it was useless.
Miles's luck had him hook his web to a building, which soon collapsed under the portal's suction power, while Hobie also had the bad luck of having his web support ripped off and sucked into the portal.
And just like that, the Spot, Miles and Hobie were pulled into the portal. "Miles!" He heard someone scream, while he finished entering the portal, what he saw there was incredible, the spider-verse itself, a bunch of interconnected cobwebs, but he noticed how they got further and further away, until he lost consciousness.
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July 13, 2750 C.E.
Moments before Miles’ actions.
Sector 20, walls of Olympia, Serpulo.
Sebastian, a 16-year-old boy, 1.72 meters tall, with a slight build and slightly brown skin, dark eyes and straight black hair, was in a laboratory, together with a rather large audience, observing what for many, was the last hope of keeping his city, his home, Olympia, alive.
The constant blackouts due to high energy demand endangered the constant fight they continued to maintain against the Crux. The one who had the greatest advance in artificial intelligence of humanity, turned against them.
The Crux's attacks were becoming more constant, more robots devastated the defenses, and each attack put the walls in check. Blackouts delayed any repairs to the walls and turrets or stopped supply trains.
If the blackouts continued, there was no doubt, the walls would collapse, the robots would break through and, well, nobody had any idea what the Crux wanted, but to consider the brutality of the first attack 10 years ago, an attack with no signal and directly at civilian targets, not a good thing.
Everyone's hope was for an experimental reactor, the first of its kind, and if the predictions were correct, it would generate enough power to cover the city's power demand, so the power from another sources, like the thorium reactors, could be fully focused on maintaining the defenses.
He wasn't supposed to be here, but his boss had given him the day off so he could see the reactor tests. Sebastian loved all things physics, and the startup of this reactor was the pinnacle of electricity generation research, and of course, desperate attempts to keep up with the Crux.
"Good afternoon to everyone who has come here, whether from the military headquarters, the walls, or the city itself, many of you know my name, but for those who don't, I'm Carmen Sánchez Contreras, lead scientist for the New Light Project. Today we will start up this reactor, and, if all goes well, blackouts won't be a problem anymore, and therefore, we can continue to put up a good fight against the Crux.” A round of applause came from the audience área” I want to give special thanks to Vetusta industries, for financing part of this project ", another round of applause came from the audience area.
"Alright lads, put the C-1439 compound into the reactor please, let's start this at once, we can't afford to waste time"
And so, the reactor started, which, unknown to the people of this universe, looked a lot like the collider on Earth-1610, with the difference that instead of pointing one directly at the other, the particle shooters shot them at an angle, while powerful magnets were in charge of keeping the particles in constant circulation, forming a ring of particles.
At first, everything seemed to be going well "Carmen" said one of the scientists to the boss, "the readings from the reactor are going quite well, we already have the production of at least 3 thorium reactors"
And after a few minutes "Carmen, the reactor is producing the same energy as at least 10 thorium reactors" said the same scientist.
The audience erupted in applause and shouts of joy, with that amount of energy the entire city could meet its full energy demand. The factories would no longer have problems and the defenses would have guaranteed energy.
"This is excellent, notify the sector commander's office, these are wonderful, wonderful news" she told a soldier guarding the door, and then turned to her team "Congratulations to all of you for your great effort to develop this technology, I know these have been difficult years, but with this, we can expect to see a new...", she was interrupted by alarm signals, "Crap, Gustavo, that alarm is from your area, what's going on?" Carmen said, quite alarmed.
"It's the coating of the core, it's starting to fail" said Gustavo.
"Boss, you have to see this, the center of the reactor is producing what looks like some kind of dark matter," said a scientist monitoring the internal chambers of the reactor, "look," he said, handing her a tablet.
And there it was, the ring of particles spinning at high speed, while some fell to the center, where a mass of dark substance was forming that wavered its shape.
"My God, this is bad, this is bad," she whispered, "Dear audience, please head to the emergency exits please,alrigth guys, we can correct this and keep the reactor running, we need, we can." On that last note, a rumble was heard, coming from the core, while loud alarms began to sound and the whole building began to shake "Carmen! Two drops of the substance just shot out of the center, one heading northwest and one southeast!"
"Emergency procedures, turn this off" and after five minutes, the reactor stopped working and with it, the black mass disappeared. "Maldita sea!” she said as she threw the tablet across the room,”¡Tres años de trabajo para que esto pasara! Estamos jodidos, no podremos salvarnos de esa puta inteligencia”, she said as she fell to the ground, bursting into tears.
They had no idea what they had accomplished that day. They had connected their universe to something bigger.
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Vetusta industrial district.
Southeast of the reactor.
Moments before.
The metro station was quite crowded, with people leaving the factories to head home after their shift, while many more were arriving for the night shift. An aura of sadness and defeatism plagued the vast majority. The constant attacks from the Crux were starting to get on their nerves, the alarms going off more and more often, losing sleep many nights as they sought refuge. Many thought that one day, sooner than expected, it would be the last alarm, that the army would run back to the city while the robots would chase them, and that would be the end.
The last attack had been 2 days ago, but this time they didn't directly attack the walls, they had been aircraft that passed at full speed avoiding the turrets and going directly to residential areas. Fortunately no one died, but this was a message. Surrender or direct attacks against civilians would continue, if they had already managed to fly over the defenses they could do it again.
Defeatism was quite widespread throughout the city, only the youngest, under 18, remained optimistic, that something would change, that they could drive out the Crux and reclaim the planet. But they were too young to remember. All the adults perfectly remembered the initial attack, 10 years ago, when the Crux turned against them, stealing control of many systems, such as the tier 3 aircraft to bomb from the heights, taking control of electrical systems, cutting the electricity of hospitals, schools, buildings, using security robots to attack defenseless civilians, blowing up factories, roads, train tracks, everything. Even releasing spores, a synthetic life form they had developed, to devastate the atmosphere and ground they had terraformed.
It was only the swift action of a marshal who assumed control of the armed forces that prevented total collapse, ordering evacuations, launching constant counter-offensives with improvised robots and hastily built turrets to buy time, and finally, repelling a great offensive on Olympia, the one that became the last city standing on this planet.
And now they had been locked up behind the walls for 8 years.
They could not flee the planet due to the blockade exercised by the hacked aircraft, they could not use the portal technology since everything had been destroyed during the initial attack by orders of the marshal under the argument that they could not let that artificial intelligence reach the Earth, the heart of the United Federation of Planets. Well, that was a very good point, after all, Earth's solar system had connections to all the planets, and if the Crux treated the humans of this planet like this, they couldn't imagine what would have happened to the 671 billion humans that made up the Federation if the Crux had also taken control of all of humanity's systems.
They were all absorbed with their affairs, when the drop of dark matter fell, breaking the glass ceiling. Everyone moved a few meters away, 5 teenagers and a strange animal with 6 legs came out of it, all unconscious.
"My God, they are teenagers, they don't look older than 18" said a woman in her 40s.
“That teen has a horrible burn on his face” said another woman.
"Call for an ambulance," someone yelled.
"And go for animal control!" someone else yelled.
And so the 5 teenagers were taken to the nearest hospital.
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Northwest of the reactor, outside the walls.
Miles was slowly beginning to regain consciousness, waking from his slumber, he had no idea how long he'd been gone. He noticed Hobie not far from him, while the Spot lay a little further away, the three of them were surrounded by snow.
He got up slowly, his whole body ached, the battle had given him very strong blows, he was sure that at least he had a broken bone. When he finished getting up, he was finally able to see his entire body, covered in blood and dust, while a good part of his suit was torn and he had scratches on a good part of his body. His watch was broken, and Hobie’s one also was. He took off his mask, broken on one side.
When he looked up, he noticed some somethings:
1) They were no longer in New York, or on his Earth at least.
2) Great mountains in the distance, the ground and the air had a purple hue
3) The sun was setting behind the mountains, but this sun was a little bigger than his Earth's.
Where were they?