Unknown location.
A tiny crack in reality allowed it to enter. It came from outside the universe, exiting a vertical, fist-sized slit in the dimension's border.
The slit closed then behind it as the universe attempted to fix the anomaly and the intrusion into its domain.
From deep within the void it came—a translucent orb the size of an eyeball, warping space around it. It knew what it was and its purpose, but time was against it.
If it didn't find an anchor soon this reality would correct itself and reject its presence, it would not die, it could not die, something like it transcended the very concept of death, that was its nature, but without an anchor to serve as a foothold in this dimension, it was powerless.
It could not fight against the forces that called this multi-verse home, let alone the one above them.
It needed a host, one that met a specific set of conditions that would allow its continued existence in this dimension. Its countless brethren have already found suitable anchors in other realities and as a fragment of ***** it was duty bound to do the same.
It needed to find someone or something insignificant here, someone who didn't matter in this universe, whose death and survival mattered little in the fable in this particular universe, yet fundamentally linked to this multiverse.
Even if its actions were discovered by the world's governing beings, this person must survive, despite potential changes—they would be too important to end by then.
It allowed its instincts to take over; this would drive its senses for now. It was weak, and the God of this multiverse was too powerful for it to face without an anchor.
That God of this world would not harm it but only banish it into another multiverse. An embarrassing outcome among its kind, something it would have to deal with for a hundred universal cycles.
Even if this "God" had a way to end it here, its death would have fatal repercussions for this universe. Its death would only gain the attention of its own creator. Those two were monstrous beings who existed on a scale of their own, and should they ever meet, entire dimensions would bend and break with their presence alone.
It aspired to reach such a level before returning to its origin. That was its primary goal as a fragmented part of its creator.
Seeping seamlessly like a tiny particle of sand into the vast universe, it felt a sudden pull, a tug on its instincts.
A fable.
It tasted fate.
It heard the melody of destiny.
A soul resonated with it.
Its course shifted sharply in the empty void among the stars as if it were a starving beast that discovered its next meal.
At last, a tethered soul, someone insignificant in this fable, he was strong, resonating like no other within this multi-verse, one worthy of countless fables—the one that would inherit its will.
The soul was, however, fading fast, too fast.
That fact mattered little to it.
Death was like sleeping; it would reap the soul from death's embrace and awaken it from its eternal slumber. It would deal with the repercussions of its actions after it merged with its anchor.
With its goal now clear, it shot through the universe, following the tug on its senses, reaching speeds beyond that of light.
It had found its partner and therefore it had chosen its fate.
All that remained was reaching him without alerting the loyal guard dog of the "God" of this world.
The being that called itself the Living Tribunal.
***
Random Alley.
She left him.
Beaten.
Broken.
Bleeding.
Peter's mind was in shambles. He was confused and tired, too tired to notice that he was still speaking. Quietly muttering to himself, each time the tone of his voice lowered, his passing whispers got lower and lower until his words were reduced to nothing but silent whimpering pleas.
"Pleashh shtop it, it'sh not ee, it's not ee, shtop it."
"It ish not me, Shtop it, pleashe."
"Thish ishn't me, shtop."
It hurts, stop it please, it hurts, it's not me... His whimpers gradually faded into gurgled whimpers.
Peter Parker's body was a twisted mass of flesh, broken bones, and muscle. Half of him was a writhing amalgamation of reptilian skin, and the other was of human flesh—his reptilian-like tail was torn to the base of his back. His face, swollen, cheeks torn, with his teeth missing. His body was riddled with cuts, bruises, and dark, hexagonal, purple patches of mutated skin that were unrecognizable in the dark, lightless alley.
He had been abandoned face down, his bareback smoking from the access of cellular activity. He could not move even if he wanted to.
The pain was unbearable.
His human arm was broken, the shoulder it was attached to was dislocated while the other one was green and covered in reptilian scales. The hand at the end had morphed into a claw that was bent in all the wrong angles. It was broken in three places with his radius visible below the base of his elbow, some fingers were missing and a few digits were facing the wrong direction.
The rest of his body was in a terrible state.
Peter could hardly feel his left leg, and given the height he fell from while fighting Spider-Woman, he was sure his insides were probably pulverized.
Who knew someone so small could hit that hard? He certainly didn't.
She practically ripped his reptilian arm off with that last hit. Even in that mindless feral state, he could feel it, or rather, it was worse because of that.
As their battle raged on, he slowly regained his senses, but by the time he regained control, it was far too late. She did not care about what he had to say, enraged as she was and desperate to stop him, she let herself go—whatever self-control she had was forgotten for a brief moment, abandoned so she could stop the monster he had become.
Spider-Woman fought him as if he were a mindless beast that needed to be stopped.
He probably deserved it.
Peter could vaguely remember some of his actions in his feral state—flashes of memories haunted him.
When they fought, it was like he had been chained to a chair, forced to sit in the back of his own mind as something animalistic took over. He was driven by primal instincts and an all-consuming hunger that ruled his thoughts and dictated his actions.
He had become a monster of predation—a side effect of the serum that he realized too late.
The potent mutating chemical cocktail restricted his higher brain functions and reduced him to an animal with a supercharged apatite.
Flashes of his actions ran through his mind.
He could faintly remember the pain-stricken face of Cpt. Stacey, the memory of the police captain's expression as he held his bleeding chest and emptied his clip into Peter's reptilian body remained as vivid as ever. Peter remembered digging his claws into Cpt. Stacey's stomach—Gwen's dad, his best friend's father—and the horror was that in that moment, he'd relished it. The primal satisfaction as flesh yielded. As Stacey's face twisted in agony.
Peter told them to run. He begged them to stop shooting and leave him alone. Despite having no physical control of his body, he still felt the pain inflicted on it.
As he was stripped of the ability to control his body, the pain was all his conscious mind could focus on, whether he wanted to or not.
He lashed out like a wild animal, and like a wild animal this was where he ended up, breathing his last breaths in an alley.
He was going to die here. He was going to die alone in some random alley. Some aspiring hero he turned out to be.
Slowly, Peter started making sense of his circumstances with his fading awareness.
That serum was a bad idea.
Peter hoped that at least no one would know it was him. That his Aunt May and Uncle Ben would find him here in human form. That they would assume he fell from the top of the building, and that the height would explain his mangled corpse.
They would...Worst-case scenario, they would just assume he killed himself, or maybe they would lean into the idea that the giant man-eating lizard killed him.
That would be better than discovering that their adoptive son was a teenage supervillain responsible for countless deaths.
God, he didn't want to know what would happen to them if they found out he was some mutant Lizard Man-Eater.
Then something occurred to him.
His broken body twitched, causing him unbearable pain.
Wait…
She saw him. She knew who he was. Spider-Woman saw his face when she came down and picked him up by his torn shirt. She was going to finish the job. Why didn't she finish the job!? What if she told them?
She might tell them all.
Why?! Why did she stop!? Why didn't she just finish the job?
What was the point of coming this far if she was just going to leave like this and run away?
This is cruel. Spider-Woman...
Why couldn't anyone understand? All he wanted to do was to be one of them. He wanted to be like her. I just wanted to help...
Why did it turn out like this? Peter struggled to move. He tried desperately.
A low, quiet, and pitiful wave of desperate wails filled the alley. He just didn't have the energy anymore.
He was tired.
Everything hurt too much.
He wanted it to end, wanted the pain to stop.
Peter had no desire to die.
He just wanted everything to end. Peter needed it to end. He didn't feel it before, numb as he was because of that shock, but as time went on, it started to come back... The pain... It increased, it got stronger, more pronounced, getting worse with each passing second.
His body's regeneration only made things worse. The sickening cracks of his bones moving back into position excruciatingly slow and the shifting and melding of his flesh only to fall apart and begin to meld again.
It wouldn't work. He was too weak. His energy was gone, and the serums' latent effects were starting to kick in and affecting his body in unnatural ways.
I'm going to die here, aren't I?
His breath became shallow and haggard, his throat felt like a thousand shards of glass clogged it. He struggled to speak. He had to. They had to know. Would they even hear me? I wonder what they're doing right now.
"Uncle… Ben… Aunt… May… I'm… Sho… shorry..."
Please God, I don't want to die...
The pain finally stopped. Peter Parker drifted off into unconsciousness, embracing the numbing darkness for one last time.
***
High above Peter, something broke through the stratosphere. It shot across the sky, causing spatial distortions in its wake until finally it made a beeline straight into Peter's broken, dying body.
Beings of alien origin, gods, and cosmic entities that operated on scales that left the universe in the literal palm of their hands, even in this universe, they were unknown and incomprehensible.
They began to converse within Peter's subconscious mind.
?: {-Link to host established}
?: {Conditions Met_True}
?: {Absolute Bond Established}
?: {Accessing fragment protocal_sequence ##^$**#%}
?: {Link to Admin Granted}
Admin:[Query]
?: [Host Self Preservation Protocol _True_Confirm_]
Admin:[True]
?: [Temporary access to Acausality (Type #) Granted to Host_Remaining Temp_0_Condition for reactivation unspecified by Admin]
?: [Temporary access to Immortality ( Type #) Granted to Host_Remaining Temp_0_Condition for reactivation unspecified by Admin]
?: [Activation of self-preservation sequence ##^$**#% Granted]
?: [Temporary access to Plot Manipulation_Remaining Temp_0_Condition for reactivation_unspecified by Admin]
?:[Plot Manipulation activated]
Then everything changed. Time, the world and the narrative had been rewritten.
Reality flickered, and time reset as if someone hit the rewind button on reality. Peter's breath reverberated throughout the alley. The events that took place were altered, what was history became fiction and something else became fact.
[Host Status: Resurrection Complete]
[Fusion Protocol: Active]
[Integration: 40%]
Slow and steady, Peter chest rose and fell, dancing to the rhythmic beating of his heart.
Peter Parker was alive, his serum's regenerative properties kicked in and healed him just in time to save his life, and his clothes were repaired too. Slowly Peter opened his eyes, they were dull and seemed lifeless, his pupils dilated as they took in all the surrounding light in the dark alley.
His face was expressionless.
He pushed himself up, dragging his beaten and broken body up like a puppet that had reattached its strings. His bones cricked and cracked, and his exposed flesh hissed and squelched, but Peter stood up effortlessly, twisted and mangled as he was, he moved as if everything was perfectly normal.
Peter's thoughts churned before his mind expressed thoughts and ideas that weren't his own, and as he reached out beyond the boundaries of what a human mind could process, something beyond comprehension responded.
[Caution- Host Self-Preservation protocol detected]
[Initiating protocol #$& *#$^]
Admin:[Access Granted}
[Observer Identified:
species: abstract Entity;
Title: Death;
Intent: Curiosity;
State: Surprised]
It tilted Peter's head curiously.
[Observer Identified:
species: Cosmic Entity;
Name: The Living Tribunal;
Intent: Hostile;
State: Calm]
The entity recognized danger. The Living Tribunal—the God of this world's enforcer—had noticed.
And then something else arrived, and time itself stopped.
[Observer Identified:
species: Cosmic Entity;
Title: T.O.A.A;
Intent: Unknown; State: Amused]
'It appears I was too late, it seems, but given your nature, that is to be expected.'
[Affirmation] Peter tilted his head, unaffected by the time-stopping phenomena, as he began conversing with the being within his mind. The voice was everywhere and nowhere.
'You are a tricky little one, aren't you?'
[Designation: Highest Authority.
Title: THE ONE ABOVE ALL.]
[Query?]
'Ho, you are quite young, curious too. How peculiar. I'll have to chat with that big one later, but for now, your elder will do.'
[Query?]
"Well, well… you've already made quite a mess, haven't you? No matter — I'm fond of surprises. Just don't tear the script too badly, little one."
A snap of a finger resounded, and the world resumed.
Admin: [Confirm]
Admin: [All temporary access revoked_reactivation unspecified_minor protocols sealed]
Admin: [Accord_Set]
'Well then, a deal is a deal, surprise me, now you can stay here undeterred and travel this universe undeterred, none of the big guys will see you well almost none, don't do anything too crazy though, they will notice that, there is a limit to how much I can interfere without changing things too much, don't want anyone messing up with canon continuity anymore now do we.'
[Query]
[Re-initiating protocol #$& *#$^]
[Observer Identified:
Species: abstract cosmic entity;
Title: T.O.A.A;
Intent: Unknown;
State: Content-]
[Observer Identified:
species: Cosmic Entity;
Name: The Living Tribunal;
Intent: Neutral;
State: Annoyed]
[Observer Identified:
species: Abstract Entity;
Title: Death;
Intent: Extreme Curiosity;
State: Extreme Interest]
Admin: [Link Denied]
[Host Preserved_Initiatingiating Host- Fragment Fusion_Intergration compatibility_100%_Host-Fable-Tetheared_Class: Protagonist Tier: Z]
[Host Detail
Name: Peter Benjamin Parker;
Species: Human;
Verse: Marvel;
Universe: Unspecified(Admin Accord Restriction);
Variant: Unspecified(Admin Accord Restriction);
Fusion_Complete
Integration_40%
Fusion Protocol-Fable Initiated
Verifying Power Slot Compatibility
Slot Compatibility 4; Slot 6-? sealed
Multi-fandom Power Package Uplink Generated
Link Forged
Slot One: Incarnation of Garou (Partially Sealed- Condition for Activation not met)
The host possesses a natural supernatural ability that enables him to instantly learn any witnessed hand-to-hand and martial arts styles, while also instinctively using Garous' fighting skills within his physical limits. He can master, enhance, and adjust to all combat styles. His instincts sharpen with combat, his body evolving with damage, up to continental class. Garou's personality could overtake the host under severe duress or fear of a strong enemy.
Slot Two: Will of Saitama (Partial Sealed-Condition for activation not met)
Condition: Completion of Saitama's training regimen
The host is now compelled to follow Saitama's training regimen for complete activation for a specified number of years. The host's humanity diminishes as they gain strength. Perfect strength adjustment enables the host to regulate their escalating strength to align precisely with an opponent's level. This process dampens the host's emotional responses.
Condition met: have slots filled by variants from the same world
Bonus Slot active
Side effect gained: The Cruelty of Mercy
As a result of the combined influences of Garou, Saitama, and the host, Peter Parker is unable to harm those he perceives as innocent and is incapable of killing human opponents. While he may subject them to extreme physical punishment, he instinctively prevents fatal outcomes. Non-human entities, however, are not bound by this limitation, including those he no longer considers human.
Slot 3: Ajin(Dormant)
Activation condition: The host must experience physical death
This ability grants the host immortality via death-triggered resurrection. Following revival, the host can manifest an Ajin: a sentient, shadow-formed entity imbued with an aspect of Death. Operating independently, the Ajin may seek to protect the host by expressing the host's latent subconscious will.
Slot 4: Kagune-Altered(Dormant)
Activation condition: The user must consume human blood that's not their own
Although the host is biologically human, he possesses an evolved Rinkaku-type Kagune located at the base of the spine. Upon activation, the host will exhibit a compulsion to consume blood instead of human flesh.
Sealed abilities require specific unknown conditions to unlock. Dormant abilities await trigger events. Active abilities are immediately accessible within stated limitations.
Fable Fusion Protocol- Phase 1 Complete
]
[Satisfaction] Peter "smiled".
His smile was wrong, his lips twisted at odd angles, and his eyes were still lifeless and dull. It was almost as if he were attempting to imitate a smile. It was as if his body instinctively knew the idea of a smile, of how a human should smile, but 'it' wasn't sure how to 'express' that concept.
This plane, this body, it had limitations.
It was complete, yet it wasn't.
They were one: the tethered soul and the being from beyond the void. Peter was IT, and IT was Peter.
There was no distinction between them.
It tilted Peter's head upward; its gaze lingered on the starry horizon curiously. It found this limitation of time, causality, substance, expression, and dimension interesting but ultimately lacking.
It found that stars looked rather appetizing.
It found the void, which the stars dotted themselves on, resembled its true body.
Its voice was Peter's, and yet it wasn't.
"ACcEPtaNCe."
As it spoke through Peter's mouth, something shifted within Peter, and the world around Peter changed too.
Chapter End
A/N: this is a rewrite with a few touch ups an a lot of editing since the old was well... Hope you enjoy this one too.