Chapter 451: Captain Universe Spider-Man's Mental Breakdown
Captain Universe Spider-Man, in a suit that glittered with starlight, swung between the high-rises at superhuman speed, closing fast on the Hell's Kitchen battlefield. But inside, his mind churned like a sea whipped up by a gale, impossible to calm.
A tangle of self-reproach and wry amusement quietly spread through him.
He had to admit he'd been a bit overconfident before. Maybe he'd talked a little too big, even.
Honestly, if he could, he'd like to apologize for having looked down on Hell's Kitchen.
It wasn't that he was afraid of anything else. He was just afraid the people of Hell's Kitchen would someday find out he'd badmouthed them.
Captain Universe Spider-Man made his way to his assigned position, backing up the Hell's Kitchen fighters as he went.
He looked around at Hell's Kitchen's heroes, unleashing their power on every side.
There was just one thought in Captain Universe Spider-Man's head:
Your Hell's Kitchen and my Hell's Kitchen don't seem to be the same thing.
A whole crowd of Deadpools swept past him like a squall, leaving trails of chilling laughter and spraying blood.
Captain Universe's heart clenched. The sight was as familiar as a nightmare, and it made him think back, against his will, to the awkward, shocking moments of the past two days.
When he'd first arrived in Hell's Kitchen and seen the Deadpool Corps there, he'd only been a little surprised.
He'd seen Deadpools elsewhere in the multiverse, and he knew from the Void timeline that they were a pack of lunatics. He'd only been a little curious about them joining Hell's Kitchen.
He couldn't imagine how Ethan put up with them.
But the Deadpool Corps was only the appetizer. The main course came after.
When Captain Universe stepped into a meeting room that looked plain but hid a great deal, his eyes were instantly drawn to two familiar figures: the two leaders of mutantkind, Magneto and Professor X.
They sat side by side, grave yet perfectly in step with each other, as if discussing some major decision together.
What shocked him even more was that they both seemed to accept Ethan as their leader. Their posture, the look in their eyes, all showed respect and trust for Ethan.
The sight turned Captain Universe Spider-Man's whole worldview upside down.
In every universe's history he knew of, Magneto and Professor X were sworn enemies. Their factions, the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants, drew weapons the moment they met, each wanting to wipe out the other.
But here, all of that seemed to have been turned on its head.
They didn't just share a room. They got along famously, as if years of feuding had blown away on the wind.
What baffled and confused Captain Universe the most, though, was why the mutants would choose to stay in a filthy, run-down place like Hell's Kitchen, and even move their school here.
The federal government had always been wary of mutants, and deeply nervous about them gathering in one place.
To keep mutant power from growing too strong, the federal government had once spared no expense to suppress and scatter them. Now Ethan seemed to have broken all of that.
Thinking about it, Captain Universe Spider-Man couldn't help laughing in exasperation.
Why was he so shocked that mutants had chosen to stay in Hell's Kitchen?
By rights, there were other universes where Magneto and Professor X had no conflict at all. In some corners of the multiverse, Magneto and Professor X had even tied the knot and built a peaceful mutant world together.
But even then, at most they'd form an alliance. Not bow to Ethan the way they did here.
In other universes, mutants had led their people to found nations, and some had even ruled the entire multiverse.
But no mutant had ever been willing to hunker down in a Hell's Kitchen.
He'd just about made his peace with the fact that the mutants had joined Hell's Kitchen.
But! What was with those mutants waving wands around and chanting spells?
Hey, hey, hey!
Why weren't they using their perfectly good mutant powers? What was with the wizard robes and the magic practice?
Even more astonishing, as his gaze passed over the crowd, he spotted a familiar face: Dr. Banner, the famous close-combat tank of the Hulk, wearing a fancy wizard robe and practicing magic with total focus.
The Spider-Man couldn't help shouting, "Don't think I won't recognize you just because you put on a black robe, Dr. Banner! What's this act supposed to be? Why'd you quit being the Hulk and switch careers to wizard?"
Even as he tried to accept this absurd reality, countless question marks flashed through his mind.
He remembered perfectly well that Kamar-Taj, the cradle of sorcerers, was the only gathering place for sorcerers in this world. And its sorcerers all cast their power by tracing intricate magical runes with their hands.
But the scene before him completely overturned that.
Not far away stood a sorcerer in an orange robe, clearly from Kamar-Taj. Even he held a wand and waved it along with the mutants, rather than casting with the circle-drawing he knew. And the one teaching them was Beast from the X-Men.
Seeing it, Captain Universe Spider-Man had only one thought.
Hey, hey, hey, this is completely backwards! What's happening to this world? Shouldn't the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj be teaching the mutants magic? Why are the mutants teaching magic to the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj?
Have I just fallen behind the times?
It made Captain Universe Spider-Man desperate to understand what exactly was going on with the magic in this Hell's Kitchen.
Once he looked into it, he finally learned it was an entirely new system of magic, and that it had been brought here by Ethan.
That told Captain Universe Spider-Man a little more about Ethan.
And in the course of learning it, Captain Universe Spider-Man felt some shame toward Ethan, along with curiosity and admiration.
Shame, because he'd looked down on Ethan and Hell's Kitchen back then, thinking Ethan was just an arrogant fraud.
Curiosity, about what other secrets Ethan was keeping, and how he kept producing one thing after another. As far as he knew, no other universe in the multiverse had this magic.
Admiration, because Ethan wasn't just powerful himself. He could make others powerful too. Without exaggeration, this Hell's Kitchen was the strongest, and strangest, thing he had ever seen.
Now he felt he'd mentally braced himself. Whatever he ran into, nothing would surprise him anymore.
He couldn't imagine anything stranger than mutants learning magic. What, were the gangs of Hell's Kitchen going to start fighting turf wars with magic too?
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