"Magneto, hello, oh no, it seems a little unfit to call you Magneto anymore."
Michelangelo turned his head slightly sideways and surveyed Erik, "Not bad, the four basic powers have been mastered for the most part, you have more talent than any other Magneto."
"That's not what you said the last time I saw you!" Eric remembered back in the King Thanos Universe, when he first arrived in Immortal City and instead of looking for a way to defeat King Thanos, he went looking for a way to run, Michelangelo taunted him for being the biggest wimp of all Magneto ...
"Oh, that one I'm probably going through menopause." Michelangelo made a small joke, but the dazzling golden light on him made Eric laugh anyway.
"Here, what happened?" Eric asked hastily, digressing and pointing to a patch of broken walls in front of him.
"Civil war!" Michelangelo turned and looked expressionlessly at the tragic sight before him as one glowing figure after another appeared amidst the ruins. They all had identical faces, some meditating with their eyes closed, some painting others, some carving portraits, and others gathered in twos and threes arguing fiercely about something.
Eric squinted his eyes and looked away slightly, it was so blindingly golden!
"In 1960, Newton got into a big fight with Da Vinci over the leadership of the High Council of the Shield and they destroyed this place after a big battle." Michelangelo, beside Eric, spoke up to explain.
"No! The civil war happened in 1978!" A Michelangelo who was drawing suddenly stood up and walked towards them, "It was the Night Machine Tesla that destroyed this place."
"No, it was 1981 when Nostradamus and the Star Child came in search of the Infinity Formula and the Star Child destroyed this place after seeing the 'Quiet Math' and going into a rage!" Michelangelo, who was carving the stone statue, threw down his hammer.
"You are all wrong! The civil war took place ten years later ..."
...
More and more Michelangelos came forward, Michelangelos scattered in different parallel universes, each one real, each one his own.
They each expressed their own opinions, painting a vivid picture of the history they had witnessed, but they could not convince themselves of anything around them.
Michelangelo, beside Eric, made a helpless face as his mouth dropped, "Sometimes it's really hard to convince yourself."
Eric nodded awkwardly, "Let's just talk about the history of this universe."
"Oh, that's great! That way we'll be able to go into a little more detail." The Michelangelo who had initially spoken to Eric gave a small smile, while the other Michelangelos, all with disappointed expressions, disappeared without a trace in a short while.
"The Civil War cost the Brotherhood's elite, the Immortal City was reduced to rubble, and to end this senseless war, I brought back three young men, Howard Stark, Nathaniel Richards, and the son of Nikola Tesla, the Midnight Machine, Leonid."
Papa Iron Man, Papa Mr. Fantastic, plus Tesla's son, sheesh, that's a powerful lineup!
"The High Council of the Shield convenes the court, Nathaniel Richards to energise the spirit, Howard Stark to drive the truth, and Leonid to make the final verdict." Michelangelo's voice was full of memories and seemed to carry a deep sense of exhaustion.
"How did it end?" Eric could not resist asking.
"No one can hide the truth above a court assembly." The light from Michelangelo suddenly became a little dimmer, "The truth is that Newton killed Galileo!"
"What! Newton killed Galileo!" Eric's jaw dropped, suspecting that his ears had heard wrong, but unfortunately that was the truth.
"Yes, for his own selfish desires, Newton killed Galileo!" Michelangelo sighed, "Newton was sentenced to death in court, but unfortunately he had a backhand and activated his time machine in court and travelled to the future where he would witness the destruction of the world, and Da Vinci chased after him with the remaining members of the Brotherhood."
"The future?"
"Yes, the year 2060."
Eric: "..."
Suddenly he felt really frustrated! Look at people like this, jumping through timelines at will and going to the future in groups together. How about him? In order to travel to a parallel universe, he robbed the Illuminati, left the Mystique behind, and got himself half killed. That's a huge difference!
"Why go to 2060?"
"The Brotherhood of the Shield has calculated the time of humanity's extinction, and we've measured it over and over for a hundred years, and the results all show that humanity will die out in 2060, and Newton wants to be a witness to the extinction of humanity."
The end of humanity in 2060? Hmph! How can the survival of humanity be measured by calculation? It's all bullshit!
"And then what happened?"
Michelangelo looked ahead in awe, time passing slowly around him but not affecting him in the slightest, "They're still fighting! Fighting in three different potential timelines."
Erik shrugged, not commenting on this. Last time he had come in such a hurry that he hadn't bothered with anything other than finding something, this time he had time and he had wanted to meet the Sages of the Brotherhood, but now they seemed to be just that! So much for not meeting them!
"Well, the story is told, now to you, what are you here for, this time?" Michelangelo looked at Eric with a scrutinizing gaze.
Eric facepalmed, he was so focused on the story that he had almost forgotten the main event, "I came here to ask you what happened to Howard and Maria."
"Don't you already have the answer in your mind?"
Eric sniffed and swallowed, "Is it really because of that?"
"Howard started working on the Super Soldier Serum in the late eighties, but he was very old by then and his sluggish brain made it impossible for him to deduce the formula for the seum, fortunately Sir Isaac Newton left behind the Infinity Formula, from which Howard was inspired to perfect the seum, but unfortunately the side effects were still apparent."
"True enough!" Eric let out a bitter laugh, the only answer he could think of was this!
The Super Soldier Serum, back then, in order to keep the couple alive, Eric had injected half a tube into each of them, and then left them in a deep sleep for almost ten years because there wasn't enough energy to irradiate them.
Now that they had awoken from their slumber, Eric had long forgotten about it, not realising that they were still under the influence of the serum.
"So, it's still my fault this time? Oh, so what? Isn't it just taking the blame? I'm used to carrying that task!" Eric indifferently thrust his hands into his pockets, a picture of a debt that was too much to bear.
"If I remember correctly, I think you injected two tubes of serum, right?" Michelangelo suddenly smiled at Eric, a smile that gave him goose bumps.
"I found a way to eliminate the side effects!" Eric hastily explained, "I wasn't affected by the side effects of the serum!"
"Oh? Really? Do you really think you weren't affected?"
.....