He usually detested such things, considering any hacking of human genes and brains as sacrilege, but I shockingly came across experimental data concerning a brain in a vat in the files he was perusing at breakfast that day.
I thought perhaps he was overly stressed, so I advised him to get some rest, but it still left me feeling somewhat uneasy…"
Upon reading this, Eddie hastily scrolled through the earlier surveillance footage and found something unsettling. When he zoomed in, he saw that Spider Man, who was found by Zombie Iron Man, was holding a fishbowl containing a brain.
"Whose is that..."
Before Eddie could finish, the howls of the wind picked up, muting his urgent shouts for Venom.
There was a subtle shift of light in the office of the Time Management Bureau, Mobius turned to look at the table.
He saw that the two universes represented by the Binary Star System on the table had once again swapped places. Mobius frowned, "Why does the loop seem to be accelerating?"
"Who's going in this time?"
In Shiller's Tower of Thought, a group of Shillers looked at one another beside the high tower railing.
With multiple gazes on him, Greed raised his hands and stepped back. "I've already gone down once. This isn't fair."
"It was you who brought us here!" Arrogant grumbled, "You knew it was a time-loop universe, you should have prepared for it."
"I thought it was just like taking out the trash." Greed smiled nonchalantly, "Who knew this place was so tricky? Each cycle resets the entire universe and memories."
"It's fortunate that it's a reset, not a rewind." Sloth said as he leaned on his hand. "The memories are tucked away in your subconscious. Just dredge them up."
"I suspect this universe's Spider Man has been affected by my butterfly effect, so this universe's time anomaly doesn't entirely exempt me as Nick suggested," Greed theorized with crossed arms. "However, since the reset isn't detrimental, let it reset."
"So, you have a plan?"
Greed's hand stroked his chin as he pondered and narrated.
"This is the fifth time we've been reset. With each reset, we are born at a certain location in New York at a particular time period."
The birth locations are entirely random, but there seems to be a pattern with the timing.
"The first time we were born, Stark and I crossed the portal and arrived seconds before the Zombie Sentinel descended. Stark was clueless as we saw the Avengers turn into zombies right before our eyes."
Stark was very angry, but we soon realized that the Black Panther wasn't transformed into a zombie, instead, he was captured by Ant-Man. Determined to save his friend, we hit the ground running and rescued the Black Panther."
When the Black Panther was rescued, Wakanda was not yet fallen. So, we returned to Wakanda with him, armed ourselves and boarded the ship to New York, planning to suppress the Zombie Avengers Alliance."
I knew they probably wouldn't win, but there was no reason to stop them from trying. The surprising arrival of Wakanda's troops in the New York sky certainly drew the attention of Spider Man, who had remained clear-headed all along."
He had probably repeated this cycle thousands of times already, with all his actions ultimately resulting in very little change. However, our noisy arrival likely signaled the presence of outsiders."
"The second time we were born, it was three days after the zombie crisis broke out. There was a wide-scale invasion in New York, but there was no sign of Spider Man in any media coverage. He had hidden himself and no longer tried to save his companions."
I figured he probably viewed our arrival as an opportunity. He should do his best to stay clear-headed, find us, and discuss countermeasures."
Stark wanted to use technological means to forcefully seize control at the Stark Building, but news came that the Stark Building had been infiltrated and destroyed. Someone else had clearly thought of this approach and made their move before us."
I thought it might be Venom, since he had once parasitized Stark too. He saw the lethal power within Stark Building as a good tool against the zombies."
Given Eddie's personality, he would have chosen a covert approach. But something may have gone amiss. They were discovered by Zombie Iron Man and a fight broke out."
This misled Spider Man, who was trying to find his teammates. He thought intruders had entered Stark Building and rushed over. But he was attacked by Zombie Captain America who arrived for reinforcement."
"The third time we were born, New York had fallen completely. The zombie crisis broke out nationally. Perhaps Spider Man, who remembered the previous events, thought it was a good idea to inform the Avengers in advance, so he did his best to convince the others in the Avengers that a disaster was imminent. They laid an ambush at the spot the Sentinel was supposed to land and jointly tried to contain it."
As expected, the operation failed. But the early preparation indeed made the Avengers less helpless than before. They managed to cause a fatal wound to the Zombie Sentinel, but they still couldn't escape the fate of being infected."
Spider Man repeated his previous move, striving to find the foreign visitors. Yet he was inevitably bitten again. By now, he probably realized that turning into a zombie was his destiny, bound to come true in some form or another. Therefore, he had to do as much as possible before hunger took over his rationality."
"The fourth time we were born, the zombie virus affected the whole world. Spider Man, once again, warned the Avengers in advance to ambush the Sentinel. This time, however, he provided the Avengers with the Zombie Sentinel's weakness, and Captain America's shield beheaded the Zombie Sentinel."
The Avengers still couldn't avoid being infected, but this time Spider Man managed to hold on to the Zombie Sentinel's head and turn it into a brain in a vat."
At that time, I guessed that he might want to find out how the Zombie Sentinel got here by examining its brain, so that he could develop a specific antidote after learning about the essence of the zombie virus. But I didn't foresee that his ambitions were far greater than I had imagined."
Greed let out a slight sigh and said, "The fifth time we were reborn, the Avengers once again ambushed in advance, and Spider Man once again got hold of the Zombie Sentinel's brain. This time, however, he did not recklessly seek out the outsiders but left clues for us."
"The noise Tony heard in his emergency communication device might contain instructions for using the brain in a vat, created by Spider Man, and if I'm not wrong, Spider Man wants to use the brain in a vat to break the time loop for good."