The first week of November arrived with a massive, city-wide hangover. Or, more accurately, a symbiote-induced state of emergency.
The alien invasion had torn through Manhattan, leaving a trail of shattered asphalt, overturned cars, and thoroughly traumatized commuters. In a rare display of bureaucratic efficiency, the district announced that all Manhattan public schools would be closed for repairs until Monday, November 5th. For Peter Parker, that meant a glorious, completely unexpected two-day weekend extension.
He was in the middle of reorganizing his web-fluid cartridges when his phone buzzed on the desk. He wiped a smudge of chemical solvent on his jeans and picked it up. It was a text from Jessica.
As the president of Midtown High's chronically underfunded Detective Club, his senior upperclassman was informing him of a mandatory "team-building exercise" in Puerto Rico. Apparently, every single member of the club had passed the regional science competition qualifiers, and the school was footing the bill for a tropical getaway.
Peter blinked at the screen. He tapped his thumb against the cracked glass, genuinely bewildered. He had always assumed the Detective Club was a front—a ghost organization perpetually on the verge of being shut down by the student council. As far as he knew, the roster consisted of exactly six human beings: Jessica, Felicia as her vice-president, and four terrified freshmen who barely spoke.
Whenever he checked the club's social media groups, he assumed the massive follower count was just Jessica running a small army of burner accounts to artificially inflate their popularity.
But a follow-up picture loaded in the chat. Over sixty students were crowded into Terminal 4 at JFK, throwing up peace signs around a massive banner. Over sixty actual, breathing people.
Peter let out a long breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He really underestimated Midtown High. It made sense, in a twisted way. A school heavily subsidized by Stark Industries and Osborn Technologies was bound to attract a disproportionate number of hyper-competent overachievers. Finding sixty top-tier science students who also wanted a free trip to Puerto Rico wasn't exactly a miracle.
He tossed his phone onto the mattress and pulled out his desk chair. He grabbed a chewed-up ballpoint pen and a crumpled piece of loose-leaf paper. He didn't keep a diary—leaving a written record of his life was a spectacular security liability—but his brain was buzzing with too much static. He needed a checklist. Today was the second of November. He had until the eleventh to clear the board.
He clicked the pen, scribbling down bullet points.
Doctor Octopus. Otto had somehow slipped the net, and Peter needed to track him down before he fortified a new lab.
The Raft. He had to pay a visit to the maximum-security island. A few "old friends" were locked up, and he needed to verify their status.
The USB drive. Felicia had slipped him an encrypted flash drive before she bounced. He had to sneak into the school lab to run a brute-force decryption on it.
Xavier's Institute. Kitty was officially enrolling, and Scott Summers had specifically asked him to drop by and make sure the transition was smooth.
The Baxter Building. Reed Richards always had some multiverse-ending homework for him.
Peter stared at the list, tapping the plastic barrel of the pen against his teeth. He felt like he was forgetting something.
Right. Taking advantage of the lull in global catastrophes, he needed to swing by Osborn Industries. He had an overdue meeting with Dr. Curtis Connors.
Millions of light-years away from Peter Parker's bedroom desk, things were significantly less quiet.
A deafening, catastrophic roar violently rattled the hull of the Milano. Below the ship, the surface of the planet tore open. A towering geyser of superheated magma erupted from the crust, shooting miles into the toxic atmosphere like a bleeding artery. This wasn't a natural disaster. The planet was literally breaking apart from the sheer kinetic force of a battle raging at its core.
Peter Quill sprinted down the ship's loading ramp, a pair of quad-blasters gripped tight in his hands. He slapped the control panel by the rear hatch, screaming over the thunder of splitting tectonic plates.
"Hurry up! Groot, move your bark! What are you dawdling for?!"
Rocket Raccoon sprinted past Quill's boots, a massive, illegal plasma cannon slung over his shoulder. The genetically modified furball lived by a very simple philosophy: blow it up, sell the scrap, and run.
"I am Groot!" the towering Flora Colossus bellowed, taking massive, lumbering strides up the ramp.
Gamora slipped past Groot, her green skin slick with sweat and alien blood. She moved with lethal, mechanical efficiency, diving into the cargo bay. Mantis scurried in right behind her, her antennae glowing faintly with residual panic.
Quill turned to hit the retract button, but stopped. Drax the Destroyer was standing at the very edge of the cargo ramp. His gray-green skin, crisscrossed with raised red scarifications, reflected the hellish orange glow of the rising lava. He wasn't moving. He was just watching the apocalyptic wave of magma inch closer.
Quill gripped his own hair, feeling a migraine spike behind his eyes. "Drax?! What the hell are you doing?!"
"The warlock has not returned yet," Drax stated, his voice a flat, booming baritone that completely ignored the imminent threat of incineration.
"Oh, my god!" Quill lunged forward, grabbed the thick leather strap on Drax's shoulder, and physically hauled the massive warrior backward into the hold. Quill slammed his palm onto the emergency seal. "Rocket! Thrusters! Now!"
"I've been hitting the button for five minutes, Quill!" Rocket shrieked from the pilot's seat.
He slammed his small paws down on the main throttle. The ship's engines screamed, kicking up a shockwave of displaced dirt. In an instant, the vessel tore through the burning atmosphere, pulling punishing G-forces as it breached the stratosphere and shot into the cold vacuum of the stars.
Below them, the planet simply gave up. The continental plates fractured, the core went critical, and the entire sphere shattered into billions of burning fragments. The Guardians stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the bridge, the harsh orange light washing over their faces.
Suddenly, amidst the silent, expanding cloud of planetary debris, a streak of brilliant blue light shot out from the wreckage. It bypassed their viewport entirely, drifting wildly into the void of unknown space.
"Look on the bright side," Rocket muttered, kicking his feet up on the console. "At least the Kree paid off the parking fines on this bucket."
Quill let out a long, exhausted groan. He holstered his blasters and slumped into the gunner's seat, letting his head crack back against the headrest.
THUMP. A golden-skinned man smashed face-first into the thick glass of the windshield.
Quill jumped a foot in the air, clutching his chest. An orange gem pulsed with unimaginable cosmic energy right in the center of the man's forehead.
"Uh," Quill stammered, pointing a shaky finger at the glass. "Does this piece of junk have windshield wipers?"
"No," Gamora snapped, already marching toward the rear of the ship. "I'm already in my EVA suit. Cycle the airlock."
Two minutes later, Gamora dragged the golden man onto the deck plates. The team circled him like stray dogs inspecting a fresh steak.
Drax crossed his massive arms. "Our warlock is still alive. Astonishing."
"He has an Infinity Stone embedded in his skull, Drax," Rocket pointed out, hopping down from his chair to poke the man's boot. "It's an artifact Thanos tore the galaxy apart trying to get."
"But he survived a planetary explosion," Drax countered, as if this entirely proved his point.
Gamora ignored the brute. Quill knelt down, inspecting the burns on the man's pristine skin. He looked up. "Mantis? Can you wake him up?"
Mantis stepped forward, extending her hands, her antennae glowing a soft, bright white. Before she could even make contact, Adam Warlock gasped. His eyes snapped open, blazing with golden light. He shot upward, startling the entire crew backward.
The cosmic energy faded just as quickly. Adam slumped, his breathing ragged. He reached out with a trembling hand, grabbing the lapel of Quill's ravager jacket.
"Peter," Adam rasped, his voice hollow. "I... I couldn't stop him."
"Hey, hey. You did your best, Adam. Get up." Quill grabbed Warlock by the shoulders, trying to haul him to his feet.
But Adam's grip on the leather was iron-tight. He pulled Quill down closer to his face, his eyes wide and frantic. "We must stop him, Quill. You must stop him. He will unmake planet after planet until there is nothing left."
"Stop a bastard who can casually blow up a planet?" Rocket scoffed, crossing his arms. "Yeah, forget it. Let's not even talk about who's footing the bill for a suicide run. Even if the Nova Corps cuts us a check, we've gotta be breathing to spend it."
Adam ignored the raccoon. His golden skin seemed to dim as the gravity of his failure set in. "We have to do this!"
The sheer desperation in the warlock's roar echoed off the metal bulkheads.
Quill held up both hands, adopting his best calming-down-the-demigod voice. "Alright, Adam. I hear you. We didn't say we weren't going. But look at us. We don't know who this guy is, we don't know what he wants, and we definitely don't know where he's going."
"I know." Adam's glowing eyes locked onto Quill's. "When I fought him... when I touched his mind. I understood exactly who he was. And I saw his trajectory."
The bridge went dead silent. Only the low hum of the hyperdrive engines filled the space.
"His name is Michael Korvac," Adam said, his voice dropping to a grim whisper. "And he is heading for your homeworld, Peter. He is going to Earth."