"Delwald!"
"Brumley!"
The two middle-aged men embraced like long-lost brothers reuniting after decades apart. The moment was almost cinematic—two figures colliding in desperate relief, symbols of youth and innocence lost to Counter-Earth's endless cruelty.
"Brumley, I knew I'd see you again!" Delwald said, his voice thick with emotion. He wore gray maintenance coveralls, stained with grease and rust. An electric baton hung from his belt—standard equipment for overseers managing slave labor in the castle's industrial sectors.
"I never imagined you were still alive," Brumley choked out, tears streaming freely down his weathered face. "Thirty years. Thirty years since the beastman attacked our village. I thought they'd killed everyone. I thought you were dead."
"I survived," Delwald said, pulling back slightly. His smile widened, taking on a quality that didn't quite match the emotional reunion. "And because I did, the High Evolutionary is going to make me manager of all human slaves in Wundagore Castle."
The words took a moment to register.
"What?" Brumley's expression froze, confusion replacing joy.
Before anyone could react, heavy steel panels slammed down from the ceiling and erupted from the floor. The escape routes sealed with mechanical precision—thunk, thunk, thunk—cutting off every exit within seconds. The infiltration team was trapped in a steel box.
Brumley released his brother, staggering backward. His hands trembled. The familiar face before him suddenly seemed alien, wrong, wearing the mask of someone he'd loved but housing something completely different underneath.
He stared at Delwald like a stranger.
"Delwald," he said, voice breaking. "Have you... have you betrayed humanity? Did the High Evolutionary force you? Threaten your life?"
"Force me?" Delwald laughed—genuinely amused. "No, no, little brother. I volunteered."
He spread his arms, gesturing to the power generation chamber around them. "What's wrong with working for the High Evolutionary? I'm going to be the slave manager! Every human in this castle will obey my orders. I can punish them whenever I'm unhappy!"
To demonstrate, he yanked the electric baton from his belt and struck a nearby slave—a thin man in rags who'd been pretending to work on the reactor maintenance. The discharge sent the man convulsing to the floor, screaming. But he didn't complain. Didn't curse. Didn't even look up at his torturer.
He just lay there, whimpering, until Delwald got bored and kicked him aside.
Brumley felt something break inside his chest.
His brother was dead. The real Delwald—the young man who'd protected him during the famine years, who'd shared his rations when food was scarce, who'd taught him how to repair machinery—that person had died thirty years ago.
What stood before him now was a hollow shell wearing his brother's face. A demon that had learned to speak with a familiar voice.
"Come on, Brumley," Delwald said, extending his hand. "You're my brother. With me vouching for you, you can experience real power. It's a million times better than living like a rat in the sewers."
"No." Brumley's voice was barely a whisper. He retreated until his back pressed against Karen and the others. "We're not brothers anymore."
He raised his weapon, hands shaking so badly he could barely aim. "The High Evolutionary killed my brother thirty years ago. You're just... you're just what's left."
"Well," Otto said quietly, his mechanical arms spreading into defensive formation. "I take back my earlier sentiment about touching reunions."
What should have been a heartwarming moment had transformed into a nightmare in seconds. Brothers turned against each other. The trap sprung perfectly.
And they were sealed in with no escape route.
Then an old but powerful voice resonated through the chamber, amplified by hidden speakers.
"Look at this. Look at humanity's eternal tragedy." The words dripped with contempt. "Betrayal. Alienation. Oppression of the weak by the strong. It's pathetic. This is precisely why humans are the lowest species on Counter-Earth."
A door opened in the far wall—hidden until now, seamless with the stone. The High Evolutionary emerged, moving with the casual confidence of a god surveying his domain.
His aged face bore the weight of decades, but his eyes remained sharp, burning with intelligence and absolute conviction. Those eyes fixed on Karen with unsettling intensity, studying her like a sculptor admiring a work-in-progress.
Otto's mechanical arms subtly shifted. While everyone's attention was on the High Evolutionary, he began integrating the diffusion device into his tentacles using nanomolecular bonding. The canister disappeared into the mechanical appendage's interior, becoming part of the arm itself.
"So you're the High Evolutionary," Otto said, keeping his voice neutral. "The self-proclaimed god of genetic destiny."
"You outsiders," the High Evolutionary said coldly, "interfering with my planet without permission. Don't you think that's arrogant? You Plumbers operate under specific jurisdictional guidelines."
Otto's surprise must have shown, because the High Evolutionary smiled thinly.
"Did you think I was isolated here? I do monitor galactic affairs. I know the three great empires fell to your organization's interference. Their own fault, naturally—genetic stagnation made them vulnerable."
He clasped his hands behind his back, lecturer-like. "But this doesn't conform to Plumber operating protocols, does it? Counter-Earth is an isolated civilization. You have no legal jurisdiction here."
"You're right about our protocols," Otto admitted. "But you attacked our agents."
"You mean Spider-Man?" The High Evolutionary's tone suggested he was being reasonable. "That was a misunderstanding. But don't forget—Spider-Man invaded my planet first. Shot down approaching my world without permission, disrupted my society, interfered with my research."
He produced something from his coat—Peter's damaged wireless receiver, the one destroyed in their first battle. "However, I'm willing to be magnanimous. I can provide a spacecraft so you and your fellow Plumbers can leave Counter-Earth. Consider this gesture of goodwill."
He tossed the receiver to Otto, who caught it reflexively.
"I've already extracted all the genetic data from that device," the High Evolutionary explained. "The hardware is worthless to me now. Take it. Leave peacefully. No one else needs to die."
Otto stared at the wireless receiver in his palm. The offer was... rational. Logical, even.
Peter's arrival on Counter-Earth had been accidental. They'd come to rescue John Jameson, not liberate an entire planet. The others had come specifically to extract Peter and John—nothing more.
The High Evolutionary's actions were unjust by any moral standard. But Counter-Earth wasn't under Plumber jurisdiction. If the High Evolutionary was offering a peaceful resolution, if he was letting them leave with their people...
"Dr. Octavius!" Karen's voice cracked with desperation. "Please."
Brumley grabbed Otto's arm. "You can't leave us. You can't."
Otto looked at them—really looked. At Brumley, who'd just watched his brother become a monster. At Karen, whose secret genetic modifications marked her as the High Evolutionary's granddaughter. At the terrified slaves who'd spent decades suffering under this regime.
He thought about Peter, still fighting in the sewers. About John, who'd volunteered to become a weapon to protect people he barely knew. About Ben Parker, who'd built the Plumbers on one simple principle: With great power comes great responsibility.
The hesitation lasted maybe three seconds.
"I'm sorry," Otto said, addressing the High Evolutionary. "But now that we're involved, it's too late for reconciliation."
He adjusted his sunglasses with one organic hand. "And your justification about invasion? Spider-Man could have left peacefully. You shot down his spacecraft. You initiated hostilities. You escalated at every opportunity."
"So the negotiation has failed." The High Evolutionary's expression shifted, warmth draining away like water from a broken dam. "It seems Plumbers are universally unreasonable."
His hand moved with casual precision—not touching Otto, but manipulating something unseen.
Otto felt invisible force seize him, pressing from all directions. His mechanical arms strained against the psychic grip, servos screaming, but each appendage possessed nearly ten tons of lifting power and it meant nothing.
The High Evolutionary's telekinetic strength was overwhelming.
"This forces me to seize you as leverage," the High Evolutionary said, almost apologetically. "The Plumbers will negotiate for their own."
The pressure intensified. Otto's vision went white, then black.
BOOM.
Otto slowly opened his eyes to darkness and the smell of stone.
"You're awake."
The voice was deep, resonant, touched with something like resignation.
Otto's combat training kicked in immediately—assess environment, identify threats, locate exits. He was in a cell. Stone walls, minimal light, no obvious doors. His mechanical arms were still attached, surprisingly. His glasses were missing.
And sitting cross-legged in the shadows across from him was a massive anthropomorphic tiger.
"You're Lord Tyger," Otto said. Not a question.
"Correct." The golden tiger's lightning-bolt marking was barely visible in the dim light. "You rebels were foolish to infiltrate Wundagore Castle so recklessly."
At the mention of rebels, Otto's memory snapped back into focus. He looked around frantically. "The others—where are—"
Brumley was slumped against one wall, unconscious but breathing. Kit sat nearby, bandages wrapped around his invisible form. Mantis stood in the corner, antennae drooping.
But Karen was missing.
"The High Evolutionary didn't kill them?" Otto asked, surprised. He understood why he'd been spared—killing a Plumber would bring serious retaliation. But sparing the resistance members seemed out of character.
"This is because Karen made a deal," Lord Tyger explained quietly. His voice carried weight, like he was delivering a death sentence. "I'm afraid when you see her again, she'll have become something completely different."