yournovel Chapter 313 A Terrible Timeline
Chapter 313 A Terrible Timeline
Chapter 313 A Terrible Timeline
Joey did a quick mental calculation and realized that the time Zhang Parker mentioned was roughly "now".
"Initiating the teleportation. Hopefully, Tony hasn't been mistaken for an intruder or a murderer and beaten half to death yet!"
The timelines of the two universes should currently be synchronized.
If we're talking about parallel universes, maybe that universe is quite similar to the one Yang Yi lives in. Ant-Man died in an assassination early in his life, and the Ultron crisis he caused never happened. It's just that the main members of the Avengers live in slightly different eras.
The infinite multiverse brings infinite possibilities, and to be honest, Joey has been getting a bit out of control lately.
This is all Wolverine's fault for his violent actions in trying to stop the Ultron crisis by traveling through different worlds, which caused the originally relatively stable multiverse to split into more timelines.
Such disastrous consequences are exactly the same as those of the Flash next door.
Joey was already very experienced with this kind of thing. Ultron didn't emerge from these split parallel timelines, but unsurprisingly, more dangerous possibilities would arise.
For observers of these universes, that would be an assumption:
If Ant-Man had died a long time ago in an assassination of unknown origin, how would the universe have developed?
For Tony, who is a cyborg, it means the whole world is rushing toward collapse, and only he and a few rational people can slow down this seemingly inevitable process.
Ever since a strange person appeared at the scene of Ant-Man's murder and then mysteriously disappeared, Iron Man realized that something was wrong.
But he wasn't initially very wary of this until things developed to this point.
This newly appeared enemy came from outside the boundary. Although he bore the name of Doctor Doom, he knew that this was not the Doctor Doom he knew.
Their Reed family and Doctor Doom were long dead, killed in a series of massive crises.
Those crises were like surging waves crashing down from the sky, never-ending, and all we could do was struggle to stay afloat.
Iron Man knows he has done some things that have completely crossed the line, but everything he did was to protect the world from necessary evil.
Not only him, but Doctor Strange, Professor X and others also agree with this.
Heroes' initial motivation for protecting the world stems from their relentless pursuit of kindness and justice. But if protecting the world requires abandoning kindness and committing unjust acts, can they still be considered heroes?
This is destined to be a question without an answer.
Such questions persisted for a long time, until everything gradually crumbled; until today, a new Destruction Museum knocks on the door, bringing with it unstoppable destruction.
This Doctor Doom from outside the world is incredibly powerful, and his strategies against enemies are far superior to those of our side.
He used relentless conventional firepower to wear down Doctor Strange's spells, and then used magical incantations he wasn't very familiar with to specifically break through his defenses.
Even though the cyborg Iron Man had secretly prepared many ways to deal with Doctor Strange, he didn't have to use any of them. He was defeated after just a few moves.
A spark flashed at the waist of the cyborg Iron Man, and his body was instantly severed in half. He fell freely downwards in disbelief.
After doing all this, Doctor Doom didn't even glance at the cyborg Iron Man again, and quickly used spells to fight Doctor Strange again.
Faced with a two-against-one situation, Doctor Doom concentrated his power and defeated the weaker of the two, creating a one-on-one advantage for himself.
While the free-falling cyborg Tony had become Mouni, the injury was no longer fatal to his body.
With his last shred of consciousness, Tony controlled his upper body to fly back to Stark Tower, but the cyborg Tony could no longer hold on and crashed on the rooftop.
It was then lifted up by a drone that flew out of the building and carried back to the workshop on the next lower floor.
"Your injury looks pretty bad."
Another voice came from inside the room. The cyborg Tony was curious about who could sneak into his private armory without anyone noticing. It took him half a second to realize that the person was "himself".
Tony from another universe has been tinkering here for quite some time.
"Luckily, your Jarvis is more reasonable than you; he let me in without saying a word."
Tony had only chosen the option "Help me buy some time" before running away. The semi-mechanical Tony had already treated him as a deserter, but unexpectedly, he actually did something.
Jarvis used a drone to lift the half-mechanical Iron Man, who was now only an upper body, onto the worktable. The parts that had been prepared in the workshop were then assembled into his lower body according to the emergency plan.
This is why Tony, the cyborg, could fly so far even after being cut in half at the waist; apart from his heart and brain, he no longer had many original parts left on his body.
"I want to open a portal to the universe I came from."
While he was spouting a string of words, Tony's hands didn't stop moving in the slightest. He was very confident in his abilities, certain that this future version of himself was far beyond the capabilities of the many heroes of this world.
"Before I summon the world's most powerful henchmen to save the day, do you have any more crimes you wish to confess?"
"Hmph!" The cyborg Tony lay on the assembly table, turned his head away, and ignored the unrestrained parallel universe version of himself.
Who starts by asking themselves what immoral things they've done?
"Please, you evil version of me! Since you've already done so many bad things, why not tell me so I can learn from them and avoid making the same mistakes in the future!"
Neither Tony nor the others knew how long Doctor Strange and the other arriving heroes could hold off Doctor Doom, nor whether the teleportation beacon would actually work.
When Tony gets nervous, he tends to ramble on. The other Tony knows this, so while his body is recovering, he tells Tony about the "events" happening in his universe.
The story begins with Ant-Man's mysterious death, followed by a civil war among the heroes, a world war brought about by the Hulk, and culminates in the devastating Battle of Asgard.
Half of Earth's heroes perished in this battle that should only exist in mythology. It was at that time that cyborg Tony lost most of his body and could only survive in a cyborg form.
This wasn't even the most devastating loss suffered by Earth; more importantly, Thor died in the Battle of Asgard.
Such losses were unacceptable to the Asgardians, who subsequently shrank their sphere of influence, abandoning Midgard and leaving Earth exposed to various cosmic threats.
What followed was a series of alien visitors, wars, and funerals.
"This is really—"
After hearing the "evil version" of Iron Man's story, Tony could no longer easily label the other man as "evil."
Having gone through all of this, the cyborg Tony no longer needed anyone's pity. Looking at this relatively inexperienced newcomer before him, his words were full of scorn:
"Sometimes I wonder if the world would be a little less bad if Dr. Pym hadn't died in that unexplained assassination."
"I'm afraid not."
Tony could offer some explanation for this to his other self:
"I also come from a parallel universe where Ant-Man was assassinated, but we found out the reason for Ant-Man's death: Wolverine from the future traveled back in time and killed him."
If Ant-Man Hank Pym doesn't die, he'll create a super A1 like Ultron, and then kill everyone in the future.
"I see!"
Information from another parallel universe filled in the gaps in Tony's long-held questions, making everything make sense: "That idiot Wolverine! I bet Ultron is still around, isn't he?"
Tony sighed as well: "Unfortunately, you're right."
Wolverine's brutal alteration of history did not end the Age of Ultron; instead, it disrupted the timeline and created a bunch of chaotic parallel universes.
Even Ultron from the original universe, after mastering the technology to travel between universes, began to gradually spill over into other parallel universes, bringing even more devastating carnage.
This is one of the reasons why Tony appeared in this universe—to find Superman trapped in other parallel universes.
Tony is now just waiting to set up the teleportation beacon and pray that Superman has returned home and is looking for him.
Upon hearing the name "Superman," the cyborg Tony had a sudden inspiration and immediately projected an old photograph from thirty years ago:
"The Superman you're talking about, it wouldn't be him, would it?"
Tony nodded: "Oh wow, does your parallel universe have a Superman too?"
As they were talking, a magical blast ripped open the top floor of Stark Tower. Fortunately, Jarvis had activated his energy shield beforehand, which saved the two people inside from being destroyed.
Doctor Doom tossed aside the Sorcerer Supreme's red magic cloak, which was mostly burned, and joined the conversation between the two Tonys:
No, they didn't.
The spacetime distortion between parallel universes allowed Superman to briefly visit this universe thirty years earlier.
With a flick of Doctor Doom's green cloak, swarms of Doom robots poured out of his pocket, hurtling towards Tony, who was constructing a teleportation beacon.
"And there never will be again!"
Now, Doctor Doom's job is to keep Superman out of the way.
The Stark Tower's energy shield lit up, temporarily halting Doctor Doom's attack.
Meanwhile, the semi-mechanical Tony was finally reassembled and climbed off the machine tool.
He fearlessly bypassed the energy shield whose capacity was rapidly decreasing, leading an endless horde of war machines towards the towering Doctor Doom:
"Don't stop, Tony!"
He had no idea who the "Superman" Tony from the parallel universe was talking about was, but he had no other hope to choose from now on.