Marvels of the Middle Ages

A.N. AFFO, NoSex; I neither own nor make money off of X-Men, Fantastic Four, Avengers,

 

 

It was a busy day at the S.H.I.E.L.D. offices.  Every known mutant and mutate had been invited to see Reed Richards newest discovery.  Naturally, not all of them came, but those who did filled the large demonstration space to standing room only capacity.  Because some of the invitees were sworn enemies, all non natural weapons were checked at the door and Hawkeye and Black Widow did quiet, unseen surveillance from the exposed girders.  The other Avengers were standing with the Fantastic Four on the raised platform in the center of the room.  With them was a large cloth covered cube.

"I'd like to welcome you all to the unveiling of the result of tireless research done by my team and me.  We know that many of you suffer daily from persecution for your, ehrm, differences.  I'd like now to show you the answer I have come up with." Whipping off the cloth, Richards exposed a huge mirrored cube, each side trimmed in complex designs in wire, diodes and chips. "This device is a reality portal.  When activated, any person, human or mutant or mutate, can step through it to an alter-earth where the only animal life that evolved after the extinction of the dinosaurs were small mammals and reptiles, insects, fish, and birds.  There never evolved an ape, and certainly not mankind.  All the probes sent into the portal reported lush unspoiled forests and jungles, with no sign of intelligent life.  This is a world those of us who have grown sick and weary of the discrimination and hatred can colonize and be free.  The number of you who came today, and the expected number of those who will leave later is high enough to ensure genetic diversity but low enough that you won't have to be neighbors with someone you hate.  We can start anew there." 

As Reed continued his speech and waxed poetic about the virtues of the alter-earth he had discovered, a quiet change was taking place.  Inside the box, metal components were shifting, wires reattaching themselves to different locations, and slowly the device was being rendered useless.  Black Widow noticed from her perch over the back half of the demonstration room an older man better recognized in a Greek helmet was slowly moving his hands in a seemingly random way.  She knew that this man never did anything randomly or for no reason, so she signaled her former lover.  When Hawkeye reached her girder and saw what she saw, he drew his bow, but Natasha stopped him, "I will go, and be quick and silent.  Cover me."  She clipped a carabineer to a convenient slot placed on the girder for that reason and swiftly slipped down behind the man in the back row.  As her ceramic dagger pressed to his throat, Magneto yanked his hands up to pull it away, and in his abruptness lost control on the device on the platform.  It exploded with great force, and then imploded, creating a wormhole where the box had been.  Despite all efforts to escape, the event horizon for the sucking pit ended at the walls of the circular room.  Every one of the hundreds of humans, mutants and mutates was swept into the swirling gem-toned light of the portal.

 

Thus the heroes and villains of Marvel are sent back across time, space, and the fifth dimension; reality itself, to times and places in new worlds, most finding themselves in a world in its Darkest Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire, but before the Renaissance.  These are their stories.