Issue 32: Trials of Merlin Part III

"Ahh! Just in time! You two came to start your magic training, finally." Strange looked as if the two arriving would solve all his problems, when he suddenly smiled said, "I know you two wish to learn of your powers' heritage but I'm in a bit of a crisis right now, I was planning on testing you both together...However, the fates seem to have something different in store for you."

"Crystal, this is Spider-Woman, a Hero who fought in the recent invasion." Strange introduced MJ before he turned to Peter and said, "And this is Spider-Man also a Hero who also participated in saving New York from the alien threat."

Crystal looked them over and lifted a brow, "I thank you for protecting the earth, but I have no time for chit-chat at the moment, this 'magic' man and I were in the middle of a discussion."

Peter laughed, "That's a good one, Doctor Steven Strange, Stage Magician Supreme!"

Steven frowned at the joke and said, "Actually I was hoping Spider-Woman would accompany me, while you undergo a trial."

"Say what now, Doc?" Peter questioned while giving his best shot at impersonating bugs bunny.

"I will pay a visit to Black Bolt and since Spider-Woman has a bit of fate with the Inhumans she will come as well," Strange explained.

"Ooook~ay?! Then what test are you giving me?" Peter asked.

Strange then said, "You see almost every magic item contains some sentence, some far more than others, and a particular set of Items has chosen you as its master."

"But I don't know the first thing about magic!" Peter exclaimed.

Strange pulled out a satchel and passed it over to him, "Inside is the beginnings of your magical lessons, you will have to learn several dead languages such as Old Norse, Sanskrit, and Latin." 

Peter smiled with a cringing expression, "Oh, joy, out of school, but I still have homework!"

"The bag is yours, and so are these." A thick leather robe floated over Peter and MJ when Strange continued, "These will help attune your spiritual bodies to better feel your magical energies."

Strange handed a satchel of infinite space to MJ, and said, "After you two complete your initial training, I'll take you to receive your personal chosen items. Since Peter has already been chosen by an artifact, he will undergo a trail of sorts given by the item. It could take a while so Spider-Woman will be joining me on our journey to settle our misunderstanding."

"What do we do about our identities and lives back at home?" MJ asked as started to worry, "Won't our families and friends start freaking out. Not to mention, since we'll be absent at the same time as our hero counterparts, won't they start putting two and two together?"

"I can cast a spell that will create the perfect excuse for your absence. When people try to think of why you two aren't here or there, they will think nothing of it and make up their own answers, so whatever is the acceptable excuse will become the illusion. Of course, this only works if they don't see you," Strange replied.

"Spider-Woman what do you want to do?" Peter asked.

MJ thought of all the people that passed away during the invasion and said, "I want to get stronger."

Peter smiled and turned to Strange, "Well you heard her Sorcerer-Man. You better teach her as much as you can, because when you get back, I might just end up surpassing you."

Strange laughed and said, "We won't be gone that long, but very well, I'll do what I can to teach her in that time. You surpassing me would actually make me quite happy. Wong, please take him to a place to study."

Wong appeared beside Peter making him jump as he asked, "Whoa! When did you?"

"I was standing here for a while now," Wong replied.

Strange turned back to Crystal and said, "If you would."

The Inhuman rolled her eyes before she held the crystal out and activated it by connecting mentally to it. The pale blue fist size crystal shined as a Portal opened up. On the other side was a massive floating citadel hovering over the Himalaya's mountains. The city looked far beyond what she had ever seen, as was something akin to how a mortal would look at Asgard for the first time. Needless to say, the scenery was out of this world. 

There were high rises, and thousands of high-tech looking buildings, all of which was suspended over a bowl-shaped, anti-gravity and cloaking device.

Crystal took one look at Doctor Strange and scowled before saying, "I can let you meet with big brother, but my mission still stands, this is going back to Attilan."

Spider-Woman held out her hand, and said, "I look forward to learning more about your people." 

Mary Jane smiled while Crystal jerked her head away and jumped through the portal.

"Well that could have gone better." The red-headed hero sighed as she jumped through alongside Doctor Strange.

While they left, Peter was led to a large library where he began going through the many languages he would have to study up on. Spider-Man scratched his head and let out a sigh of resignation as he dug into his homework, focusing on the books and their contents like his life depended on it.

While the hero was doing his best to memorize the material, he was completely unaware to the many things currently happening across his city.

One such issue was Osborn's Lab getting up to its old tricks again. They were currently trying to recreate their version of the Super Soldier Serum.

[Manhattan/Oscorp Tower]

"What do you mean the gas isn't ready!? How much money have I sunk into your ridiculous project? If you don't shape up and get some results than you can count yourself out of the job, no one would dare hire Roderick Kingsley again! Ever!" Norman Osborn was shouting at a young blond man sitting in a chair next to his lab equipment.

"Look Mr. Osborn, the Technology we managed to get from the invasion is still too new to us. It wouldn't make it into the experimental category. Even if we could use the alien tech to synthesize an enhancement serum, would the end result even be suitable for humans? This takes time, Norman, and using technology as advanced as this without knowing the full extent of what it's capable of is too dangerous."

"I don't care, Kingsley, you have 4 months to get some results or I'm taking away your lab and sending your work to someone else!" Osborn said shouting at the top of his lungs.

"You can't do that, I've poured my life's work into this Project!" Kingsley shouted back.

"Then you better get some god damn results!" Osborn said as he left the room.

The young scientist grunted and turned back to his work, "I show you, Osborn, I'll show you all!"

[Flushing Meadows-Corona Park/Queens]

Across the city at the Reed Richards Science Center, Eddie Brock was down in the dumps. After losing the only samples he had on Venom, he began trying to recreate the process from scratch. Of course, this required a lot of materials that he couldn't afford so he had to steal, lie, and use blood he received from death row inmates that he acquired from his part-time job as a prison guard at Ryker's Island Maximum Security Penitentiary.

He was going over his lab notes and slammed his fist on the table, "Damn it! Another rejection!" Eddie was searching through his list of possible blood donors and sighed before saying, "Maybe it has something to do with blood type, let's see I ran almost every type, but the Symbiotic Parasite always dies or fails to fully form." 

Eddie was desperately trying to think of a solution when he thought, "What if I used a Type O-negative to form a template gene, and then use type AB-positive to culture the Symbiote, and since I'm AB-Postive I can use my own blood."

Eddie quickly singled out the only O-negative blood type that was available Cletus Kasady. "So, it's going to have be you. Now what's it gonna take to bribe you out of some of your blood?"

Eddie had been passing over things like magazines, and cigarettes but with a lunatic like Kasady, there was no telling what would get him in a cooperative mood. Eddie smiled as he thought that he had finally cracked the Symbiote formula and shouted, "If this works, I'm gonna be rich!"

[Brooklyn]

In a faraway location, over the Brooklyn Bridge a Portal from another world had opened up in a flash of purple light. A bloodied figure could be seen flying out of the portal, he was wearing a black and red Spiderman suit that matched Kaine's signature outfit. 

Falling towards the East River, he webbed out to the side of the bridge and slammed into the wall in pain.

"Okay, I am so done with Micro-worlds and Macro-worlds!" Kaine shouted as he stared at the portal closing. "Well, at least I don't have to worry about that Symbiote God guys anymore. Now… where the hell am I?" 

The Scarlet Spider took a look around in his wrecked suit and shouted, "God Damn It! Why do I always end up back here?"

He sat on the top of the bridge and sighed, "Might as well go pay him a visit. At least I still have one good brother left. Still can't believe Doc Ock was in his body. I wonder how he's doing...is he holding up alright?"

As he webbed off, a small and black weakened ooze trailed down the other side of the bridge and slowly made its way across the support wires.

Kaine webbed through the city and saw that it was vastly different than the one he was familiar with, "Wait a minute, this is New York right?"

The Scarlet Spider started running around the city and shouted, "Crap, Crap, Crap, Crap. Please no!"

With a massive vaulting motion, he webbed to the top of a nearby skyscraper. He had heard about this from Peter before, but never experienced it himself.

"I'm in another reality." Kaine fell down and sighed, "Oh, man what do I do?"

Kaine's stomach growled and he sighed at the fact he didn't have his wallet on him, "I wonder if there's an Annabelle Adams in this Universe too. Nah what are you thinking Kaine, she'd just run away from you too." 

Kaine webbed over to a seedy side of town and looked around for some scum to steal from, "It's not a Spidey nice thing to do, but when you're strapped for cash and in a world you know nothing about..."

Kaine stood on top of a water tower and focused his ability to communicate with spiders, he pulled in their visions until he found what he was looking for, "Nice, a drug house. Well then, let's just clean up and take the cash. I should leave, no I should burn the drugs. Kaine looked at his suits condition and sighed, "I hope it still works, wouldn't want to give the Spider-Man of this world a bad rep."

Kaine tapped his suit with an electrical charge, due to the Symbiote's nature he was previously wearing it had absorbed most of the suit's matter. At the moment Kaine only had a 50/50 chance of jumpstarting the molecules to reactivate the Unstable Fabrics memory. It made a whizzing noise as he said, "Come on! Please work."

A few seconds later the suits unstable molecules began to repair the suit. 

"Haha! Still got some of that Parker luck. Though, I don't know if that's a good thing," He quickly entered into the building and made quick work of the street thugs, he made sure not to use his webbing. As a result of him trying to hide his identity, many of them were going to jail with broken bones and large bruises.

After knocking them out, he bound them against several anchor points in the room with the many Zip ties that were lying around and made sure that he tied their limbs to each other so they couldn't struggle. He then searched through the room and picked up a massive pile of duffle bags stuffed full of 100-dollar bills nicely stacked together. Once he secured the money, he went around the building and collected the drugs before torching them in the bathtub.

"Sometimes I feel bad for Peter's straight-arrow personality." Kaine walked over and picked a gun off the table before firing a few shots into the couch. He picked up the phone from one of the guys he knocked out and gave the police the address before jumping out of the building carrying the bag with him.

As the Scarlet Spider ran across the rooftops he refrained from web-slinging. He thought the image of flying duffle bag would be strange enough, they didn't need to see a copy of the city's hero carrying around loads of drug money.

Kaine was sure that sticking to the rooftops and leaping from building to building would be a better method to avoid the stares. All he needed to do was be hyper aware of his surroundings. 

As he jumped from roof to roof while focusing on avoiding being seen by the public, he failed to notice that he didn't completely zip up the bag properly and a few stray stacks were poking out from the bag.

The otherworlder's Spidey sense went off when he smiled and said, "My Spidey Senses are back! Could Venom have healed me while we were bonded? Wait a minute, my Spidey Senses are back!!!"

Kaine jumped back and narrowly evaded a woman in a revealing tight black leather-like suit. 

She had long silver hair and looked like she was in her early 20s, and a single thin goggle-like black mask worn over her crystal-clear blue eyes.

Kaine tilted his head and listened as Felicia Hardy said, "Puur, Aww...my dear floating bag of money hold still for Kitty will ya?"