"Take them all back they've been fully analyzed."
Nolan handed the Infinity Gauntlet back to Tony, who had once again come to retrieve it. But before releasing it, Nolan used the Gauntlet to erase the copy of Oscorp he had conjured in this timeline. Otherwise, this universe would have been left with a duplicate Oscorp whose technology could crush its native world.
In Universe 199999-A, the six Infinity Stones had already been destroyed.
Alone, no Stone could erase another but when wielded together in a Gauntlet, their combined resonance had allowed Thanos to annihilate them, dispersing their essence back into the fabric of the cosmos. Perhaps one day they would reform, or perhaps they were gone forever.
Tony exhaled with relief as he accepted the Gauntlet. "Good. Do you need us to send you back?"
Truthfully, he'd been worried. In the last few days, even Steve had been drafting contingencies to take the Stones back from Nolan.
Carol and Wanda had wanted to storm Oscorp and demand them directly. If not for Tony's intervention, they might already have provoked a war and he doubted they could win.
"No need. I can handle it myself. Until next time."
With mastery over both the Time and Space Stones, Nolan could slip home effortlessly. Traveling to unknown universes still required coordinates, but returning to his own was simple.
A shimmering pane of light opened before him. Nolan stepped through and vanished from Tony's sight.
When he emerged, Nolan immediately sensed something wrong.
He stood in the middle of a New York street. But instead of traffic and chatter, there was silence. The air reeked of blood. Corpses littered the pavement, half-devoured, while shuffling figures lurched through the wreckage.
Their skin was ashen. Their jaws dripped gore. Some still chewed on human entrails.
Nolan opened a space-gate and returned to Oscorp. "E.L.L.," he called.
"What happened to New York? Why the hell are there zombies?"
"Sir, you've been gone sixty-seven days," the AI reported, projecting streams of footage.
The recordings made Nolan's brow tighten. Only days after his departure, a figure had smashed through the defenses of the New York Sanctum. At first dazed, then grinning with feral hunger, the stranger had attacked civilians. His bite killed in seconds and the victims rose again, ravenous.
Oscorp moved quickly. Max Dillon, aka Electro, personally confronted the intruder. But even he was overpowered, mauled, and barely escaped by amputating half his body before retreating behind Oscorp's walls.
Now Wanda and the mystics of Kamar-Taj held a barrier around Oscorp, holding back the tide of infected.
"Who else has been turned?" Nolan asked, recognizing the intruder's spiked hair. Zombie Glaive. Somehow, the corrupted Black Order warrior had crossed into their universe.
The AI listed names that made Nolan's eyes narrow. "He went after Stark Tower, but Professor X happened to be there, so he withdrew. Instead, he infected Hell's Kitchen's street-level heroes. Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four. Storm and Juggernaut from the X-Men. Even Rhino."
"Wanda and Pietro are engaging him as we speak. Jessica Jones's team and several of the Hell's Kitchen vigilantes are compromised. Even parts of the Hand's demon army."
A call cut across the feed. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵⟡𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮⟡𝓷𝓮𝓽
"Patch it through," Nolan ordered.
Tony's voice came over the line, shaken. "Thank God you're back. Another week and Earth would have been finished."
"What's the current situation?"
"Bad. Every U.S. state is overrun. Heavy weapons slowed them at first, but it doesn't matter they're turning superhumans. Juggernaut, Storm, Punisher, even Steve… they're all gone. Every day more die."
Nolan leaned back, arms crossed. "I'll handle it."
Zombies didn't concern him. New York had seen worse. What mattered was the source Zombie Glaive. And to Nolan, that monster was also an opportunity.
He already possessed fragments of multiversal resonance from the Infinity Stones. Reed Richards had nearly finished building a dimensional traverser, but lacked stable coordinates. If Nolan captured this invader, he could extract the temporal signature of the Marvel Zombies universe.
That corrupted world could become his proving ground, a multiversal laboratory, and staging ground for Oscorp's expansion.
One way or another, Zombie Glaive would lead him straight to it.
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