Marvel: Omnitrix In The Multiverse

Chapter 158: Chapter 158: The Truth Serum

Ignoring Mercer’s shouting, Morgan pulled a rope from Emma’s space bag and tightly tied his hands and legs together, making sure there was no chance of him escaping.

"You..." Mercer struggled, but the ropes didn’t budge.

"Okay. Now that you can’t run anywhere," Morgan said calmly, "let’s start with something simple. What’s your real name?"

Mercer tried to keep his mouth shut, but the truth serum gave him no choice.

"...Victor Kane." Fear crept into his voice. "What... what did you do to me?"

"Looks like the truth serum’s working perfectly." Morgan gave a satisfied nod. "Victor..." She thought for a moment, then shook her head. "No, Mercer suits you better. I’ll keep calling you that."

She folded her arms.

"Now tell me. Who are you? Why were the Plumbers hunting you? And what’s the real reason you came to the past?"

Mercer bit his tongue, trying to stop himself from speaking. But no matter how hard he resisted, the serum forced the words out.

"My name is Victor Kane. In the future, I worked as a scientist for a private organization."

"What organization?"

"A human supremacist organization," Mercer answered against his will. "We believed humanity should stand above every alien race. Earth belongs to humans, not outsiders. Aliens could live among us, but never as our equals."

Morgan studied him for a moment.

"...So that’s why you never used the Lizard serum on yourself."

Mercer gave a bitter smile.

"Of course not. Why would I inject lizard blood into myself? I didn’t want to become some half-alien monster. Our goal was never to turn humans into aliens."

He couldn’t stop talking.

"We wanted to create the perfect serum. A way for humans to gain alien abilities while remaining completely human. No mutations. No side effects."

His eyes fell on the unconscious Lizard hybrids nearby.

"Those two..."

"...they’re failures."

"The serum worked, but it changed them into monsters."

Frustration filled his face.

"Give me a little more time..."

"...and I would’ve perfected it."

"And how many people died because of that dream?"

He was silent for a second.

"...Many. At one point I was assigned to research whether humans could use alien abilities, like a Skrull’s powers. Since most aliens on Earth were under Plumber protection, everything we did was illegal." He showed no guilt whatsoever. "We captured a Skrull and began experimenting on it. When that wasn’t enough, we tested our prototypes on human volunteers... and later, on innocent civilians."

Morgan’s fists clenched.

"You experimented on innocent people?"

"Every great discovery requires sacrifice," Mercer said, without emotion. "Their deaths would’ve helped secure humanity’s future."

"No." Morgan looked at him in disbelief. "Their deaths only served your obsession."

"Call it obsession if you want. I call it survival." The words kept coming against his will. "Eventually the Plumbers found our facilities. Those alien-loving fools wiped out the entire organization. They cared more about protecting one Skrull than humanity’s future."

"They stopped a group kidnapping aliens and murdering innocent humans."

Mercer laughed bitterly.

"That’s exactly the problem with the Plumbers. They’re full of aliens. They’ll always protect outsiders before their own species."

"...You’re just a racist."

"Call it whatever you want. I call it protecting humanity." The serum dragged the next part out of him too. "After the organization was destroyed, I became one of the Plumbers’ most wanted. Just when I thought I was about to be caught, a magic caster saved me." His expression darkened. "Even after that, we were constantly hunted. I don’t know how he got his hands on a time machine, but he told me to escape to the past. Before I left, he gave me a magic artifact, something that could hide me from magic users, and anyone else trying to track me."

"Wait." Morgan cut in. "Who was this magic caster? What’s his name?"

Mercer’s jaw tightened, fighting the pull of the serum.

"...I don’t know."

"You worked with him and don’t even know his name?"

"He never told me."

"Then what did he look like?"

"A man." The words came out unwillingly. "Around his thirties. Black hair. Pale skin. Always wore dark robes covered in strange symbols."

"Anything else?"

"He kept his hood up. We only met a few times. I never even learned where he came from."

"And you trusted a complete stranger?"

Mercer let out a bitter laugh.

"When the Plumbers are hunting you day and night, you don’t get to be picky."

Morgan let that sit for a moment before nodding.

"Continue. What did you promise Hydra? And why step into the public eye when you could’ve stayed hidden? You’re a scientist. You should know what happens if you change history."

"Hydra?" Mercer shook his head, laughing bitterly. "They were just partners. I gave them knowledge from the future, weapon designs, the theory behind immortality medicine. In return, they gave me money, manpower, everything I needed." A mocking smile crossed his face. "They thought they were using me. But I was using them too."

"And changing history?" Morgan asked.

His expression shifted.

"...That wasn’t entirely my choice."

"What do you mean?"

"The magic artifact. It has side effects. At first just headaches. Then hallucinations. Voices, sometimes. My emotions would slip, my personality would change without me even noticing."

"Magic?" Morgan’s voice hardened. "You knew it was dangerous and you kept it anyway?"

"You think I didn’t try to get rid of it? I did. Many times." He let out a helpless laugh. "It always came back."

"...It came back?"

"No matter where I threw it... no matter how far," Mercer said, the words dragged out of him by the truth serum, "it always found its way back to me."

A chill ran down Morgan’s spine.

"Then why didn’t you destroy it?"

Mercer’s face stiffened.

"I tried..."

Fear flashed across his face.

"...I couldn’t."

Morgan’s expression grew even more serious.

"...What else did it do?"

Mercer gritted his teeth, trying to resist, but the truth serum forced him to continue.

"The voices only became quieter whenever I changed history."

"It kept pushing me to interfere with the past."

"Every time I changed something..."

"...the voices became quieter."

Morgan remained silent.

So it wasn’t just hiding him...

It was manipulating him.

"So you built your entire plan around satisfying that thing?" she asked.

Mercer slowly shook his head.

"...Yes and no."

Morgan frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"It never cared how I changed history," Mercer answered unwillingly. "The plans... the targets... they were all mine."

Hearing that, Morgan hadn’t expected the truth behind Mercer to be this complicated.

Just as she was about to ask more, Friday’s warning cut through her helmet.

One minute remaining before the dimensional space collapses.

"...Already?"

There was no time left. She pulled a glass sphere shaped like a tiny prison cell from Emma’s space bracelet and pointed it at the two unconscious Lizard hybrids first. A flash of light, and both were pulled inside.

Then she turned it toward Mercer.

"No! Don’t!" He tried to crawl away, but another flash swallowed him too. In an instant, he vanished, trapped inside the glass prison beside the other two.

Morgan looked at the tiny figures inside the sphere.

"Not bad." A small smile. "This gadget’s actually pretty useful for capturing criminals."

She tucked the sphere back into Emma’s bracelet, activated her camouflage, and turned invisible. A moment later, the dimensional space collapsed, and she slipped quietly back into the outside world.

Redqueen immediately let Emma know Friday’s signal was back in range. Still cloaked, Morgan stayed frozen inside the wreckage of the detention building, watching soldiers search the area just a short distance away.

"Emma, I’m back outside," she said quietly over the comm.

"Stay there," Emma replied. "I’ll pull them off you."

A few seconds later, BOOM! An explosion tore through the roof of a building across from the detention block, debris and smoke bursting into the night air.

"Another explosion!"

"The attacker’s over there!"

"Move! Move!"

Every soldier nearby bolted toward the explosion, rifles raised.

Taking advantage of the opening, Morgan quietly flew out through the broken wall under the cover of her camouflage.

Not wanting to waste even a second, she fired a repulsor blast through another section of the damaged building before accelerating into the night.

BOOM!

More debris crashed to the ground as another hole was blasted through the wall.

"There!"

"The attacker’s still inside!"

Several soldiers immediately turned toward the new sound, while others searched the surrounding area, completely unaware that Morgan had already slipped away into the darkness.

Guided by Friday and Redqueen, the two of them left Camp Lehigh and regrouped deep in the forest. Emma, already in XLR8 form, got there first. Morgan landed beside her moments later.

"Morgan, are you okay?" Emma circled her immediately, checking her over from head to toe.

"Stop that. I’m fine." A small smile. "Those guys couldn’t even land a hit on me."

Only once she was sure did Emma finally relax.

"So? What happened?"

Morgan gave her the quick version. Emma listened quietly until she finished.

Emma’s eyes lit up. "You actually did it! Captured a criminal who escaped from the Plumbers, all by yourself." She grinned. "I bet this earns you a promotion."

"...You think so?" Morgan couldn’t quite hide the smile.

"Definitely." Emma crossed her arms proudly. "Now come on, I want to see the guy who’s been giving us all this trouble."

"Let’s question him before the serum wears off." Morgan activated the containment sphere. A flash of light, and Mercer hit the forest floor, still bound, blinking against the dark. Only moonlight and two young girls stood in front of him.

Morgan let her suit dissolve, the violet armor breaking apart into nanobots until her face was bare underneath.

"So, Mercer." Her voice was calm. "You finally know who we really are."

Mercer stared at her, then at Emma, his shock creeping in slowly.

"...I lost to children..."

"Not what you expected?" Morgan asked.

"That’s exactly the reaction I was hoping for," Emma said with a grin.

Morgan folded her arms.

"Now tell us. Where did you hide the magic artifact?"

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