"Who are you?!" Jack asked again, cautiously staring at the person who looked exactly like him standing inside his home.
"Master, you returned!"
Hearing the familiar voice, Jack's suspicious expression changed.
"Red Queen?"
He wasn't completely sure, but the way he spoke was familiar. Seeing Jack's reaction, the other Jack smiled before his appearance suddenly changed.
"It's me, Master. I'm using a robot body to disguise myself as you, so others wouldn't find out you were missing!"
The robot transformed back into Red Queen's normal mechanical body.
Seeing that it was Red Queen, both Jack and Gwen finally relaxed. For a moment, Jack had seriously wondered if he had walked into some horror movie where the main character meets his own evil double.
Thank God. I really thought I was about to fight my own evil twin.
From Red Queen, they learned why she had disguised herself. Jack and Gwen had been missing for more than fifteen days.
"Fifteen days?! The time machine really messed up this time! But how did you get this robot technology?" Jack asked, still surprised.
"It was Alice, the other me. When you all lost contact that day, I was in complete chaos. I didn't know what to do! Then Alice contacted me, told me everything, and gave me two robots to disguise as you and Gwen so nobody would suspect you were missing."
Jack nodded before another question came to his mind.
"Can you tell me what happened? Alice didn't give me full information. When I asked to fuse with her memory to get all the data, she told me she had already become a mechanical life form, and that getting her memories would affect my growth."
Jack and Gwen weren't surprised to hear that Alice had become a mechanical life form instead of an AI, since she had already told them that she was in the process of changing. That was also why Alice hadn't fused with Red Queen when Jack and Gwen were in the past. Alice was no longer simply another version of Red Queen. She had become her own mechanical life form with her own identity.
So Jack told Red Queen to retrieve the information from the Red Queen copies inside his and Gwen's suits.
The Red Queen who had traveled with Jack and Gwen was only a copy of the original Red Queen. The original Red Queen had remained in 2008 while the copy had accompanied them through time.
The two Red Queens connected with each other. Their memories and information were synchronized, and the original Red Queen absorbed everything the traveling copy had experienced during the journey through time.
Now, the original Red Queen knew everything that had happened to Jack and Gwen, including their time in 1943, their return to 1991, Howard and Maria, the Plumbers, Emma and Morgan, and everything else that had happened during their journey.
Once the synchronization was complete, the traveling Red Queen's consciousness gradually merged back into the original Red Queen.
"I understand everything now, Jack and Gwen. It was really an unbelievable adventure!" Red Queen said, surprised by everything she had just learned.
"Yeah. Red, contact Alice. Tell her about us and tell her to meet me tomorrow," Jack said.
"Gwen, are you going home or staying with me?" Jack asked.
"Since it's already late, I'll stay with you today!"
The Next Morning
Alice soon arrived to meet them, but she brought some bad news.Jack silently read through the report of everything that had happened from 1991 to 2008. The more he read, the darker his expression became.
His hands slowly tightened around the report before he finally slammed it down.
"How on earth did this happen?! Didn't I tell you again and again to take precautions regarding this? We had decades of preparation, and we still couldn't stop it?!"
Gwen had never seen Jack this angry before. She was surprised by his reaction, but she quickly tried to calm him down.
"Jack, calm down. Alice did everything she could. You can't put all of this on her. She's the one who worked for the Plumbers more than anyone else."
Hearing Gwen, Jack realized he had lost control of his emotions.
He wasn't really angry at Alice. He was angry because, despite all the time, planning, and preparation, they had still failed to protect Zen-Whoberi.
"Sorry, Alice. I just lost control for a minute," Jack said, lowering his head slightly.
He felt guilty. Gwen was right. Alice had been the one carrying the Plumbers for decades. Jack had only given her the original outline and plans. Alice was the one who had actually done the work and kept the organization alive.
"It's okay. I understand how you feel. Even in 1991, you warned us to be careful and gave us many plans. But we still underestimated Thanos's army. We didn't realize how strong he and his forces had become."
Alice then showed them images of the war and the battle against Thanos.
Jack watched the videos silently.
After seeing Thanos's army and the fight, along with the report, Jack realized that he had made a mistake.
Jack had originally assumed that this universe mostly followed the MCU. The people looked familiar, and most of the events he remembered had happened with only a few differences, such as Nighthawk, Speedball, and the other characters he had encountered.
Because of that, he had also assumed that the power levels would be similar.
But he was wrong.
This Thanos was far stronger than the one Jack remembered from the MCU. His army was also much stronger than he had expected.
For the first time, Jack began to doubt how much he really understood about the strength of the enemies in this world.
"Jack, Alice did her best. Even though the war made Zen-Whoberi no longer suitable for living, she still saved the Zen-Whoberi people and gave them a new home. She saved them from Thanos's plan to wipe out half the population. In my opinion, she did an amazing job," Gwen said.
A few moments ago, he had been angry about what had happened to Zen-Whoberi. But he wasn't angry simply because the planet had fallen. Alice had saved its people from being slaughtered, and most of the population had survived. It was many times better than what would have happened in the original future. They had prevented a tragic fate for an entire civilization. In Jack's eyes, that was still a success.
Kalen's death was different.
Jack considered Kalen his friend. His death made Jack feel, for the first time, what it truly meant to lose someone he knew. It made him feel powerless.
Even with a powerful Omnitrix and an organization as powerful as the Plumbers behind him, he still couldn't save everyone.
He had tried to prevent a tragedy, and yet tragedy had still found its way to someone he cared about.
Alice looked at Jack and Gwen for a moment before speaking.
"Death cannot be undone. We can't bring back everyone we've lost, Jack. But we can make sure their deaths weren't meaningless. The reason we exist is to prevent tragedies like this from happening again. Isn't that the reason you created the Plumbers in the first place?"
Jack remained silent for a moment.
She was right. The Plumbers weren't created so he could save everyone. They were created so fewer people would have to suffer the kind of tragedies he had seen throughout his life.
"We can't save everyone," Alice continued. "But that doesn't mean we stop trying. There are still people who need our help, and there is still a future we can protect."
Gwen wiped the tears from her eyes and nodded.
Jack took a deep breath and looked down at Kalen's name on the report again.
Alice is right. I can't let one loss make me forget everything we've already accomplished.
He slowly closed the report.
"You're right," Jack said quietly. "We keep moving forward."
Alice nodded.
"That's what you should do."
Jack turned away, but after a few steps, he stopped suddenly. A strange thought had entered his mind.
Wait...
Is death really absolute in the Marvel universe?
He had already seen too many things that should have been impossible. Aliens, magic, cosmic beings, alternate dimensions, time travel, souls, and even people returning from situations that should have been their deaths.
Then what actually happens after someone dies?
Jack's expression slowly became serious.
Where does the soul go? Is there really an afterlife? If a soul still exists somewhere after death...
His eyes narrowed.
Then does death really mean the end?
A/N: The Patreon version is already updated with 20 advanced chapters. If you'd like to read ahead of the public release schedule, you can join here:
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