Chapter Summaries

Mercer and Galacta disguised themselves as students to investigate Hydra’s presence at First High School. There, Mercer spotted Peter Parker from The Amazing Spider-Man and resolved to help him avoid the tragedies ahead.

• Galacta let Mercer borrow the transformation flashlight, and Stark gave him a gamma-energy isolator for the mission.
• Mercer and Galacta dressed as students while Nick Fury took a squad to patrol outside the school.
• At First High School, Mercer and Galacta spotted numerous disguised Hydra agents watching the campus.
• Mercer recognized Peter Parker as the Spider-Man from The Amazing Spider-Man and vowed to prevent the losses Peter would suffer.
• When Galacta teased him about staring at Peter, Mercer called him an old friend.

Mercer and Galacta found the Tesseract displayed on Hydra’s machine in the crowded gymnasium and searched for a way to deal with it without endangering bystanders. Peter Parker sensed the machine’s danger, and when Flash Thompson mocked him, Mercer insulted Flash in return.

• Galacta sensed the energy source in the gymnasium, where Mercer discovered the Tesseract mounted on a machine in the middle of the crowd.
• Mercer stopped Galacta from taking the Tesseract because a fight could kill bystanders, then reported the situation to Nick Fury.
• Hydra operatives posing as staff drew more spectators by claiming the machine could produce a year’s worth of power in one day.
• Peter Parker told Mercer that the object inside the machine was emitting powerful energy, and Mercer noticed the red Spider-Man suit beneath Peter’s shirt.
• Flash Thompson mocked Peter, and Mercer retorted that Flash’s mouth seemed connected to his bowels.

Mercer provoked a confrontation with Wallace to create a distraction, then secretly sent lightning energy into the Tesseract machine and used Galacta’s help to identify the person activating it. He found a middle-aged man in a black baseball cap chanting while watching the Tesseract.

• Wallace confronted Mercer after Mercer mocked him, and Peter stepped in to protect Mercer but was pulled out of the way before Wallace’s punch landed.
• Mercer tripped Wallace’s lackeys and caused them to fall beside the Tesseract machine, secretly sending a flash of energy into it as he fell.
• Wallace backed down and left with his lackeys, while Mercer thanked Peter and gauged the Tesseract’s growing energy through the crowd’s reactions.
• Galacta pointed out a man in a black baseball cap, and Mercer used his Sharingan to spot him silently chanting as he watched the Tesseract.

Mercer used his Sharingan to kill the chanting Hydra operative Manton, but the Tesseract then surged out of control and opened a portal. As Hydra members confronted Mercer, Galacta, and Peter, tentacles emerged from the portal and dragged several people inside.

• Mercer left Galacta to watch over the venue and approached Manton, who was chanting to summon an evil god.
• Mercer used his Sharingan to make Manton collapse, then pretended he had only wanted to ask for the bathroom.
• Hydra members carried Manton away and warned their units that S.H.I.E.L.D. had infiltrated the venue.
• The Tesseract apparatus shook violently, prompting a panicked evacuation, while Peter became Spider-Man and helped prevent injuries.
• Mercer and Galacta dropped their disguises as Hydra members confronted them, and the Tesseract shattered its casing and opened a portal.
• Squid-like tentacles emerged from the portal and dragged three Hydra members inside as Mercer recognized them as the Great Old Ones.

Mercer and Galacta tried to contain the tentacled Great Old One Hydra had summoned, while Mercer wondered whether The Ancient One had set him up. He controlled a Hydra member to learn who supplied the summoning spell and discovered the person was a bald woman.

• The sight of the tentacles drove the Hydra members mad, while Mercer recognized the being as a universal-level Great Old One.
• Mercer sent Galacta to carry Peter outside, then used her cosmic energy to cast Boundless Lockdown around the gymnasium.
• Mercer fought off a tentacle with a lightning-charged punch, but failed to damage it and suspected The Ancient One had set him up.
• Mercer used Four-Sided Suppression to pin the tentacles down temporarily, then controlled a Hydra member with the Sharingan.
• The Hydra member said a bald woman had given them the summoning spell.

Mercer fought the tentacles emerging from the portal and discovered that The Ancient One had used his lightning to activate a Magic Array around the Tesseract. He realized her scheme had failed to account for his Sharingan, which could copy the magic in the array.

• Mercer suspected The Ancient One had turned to darkness, then told Galacta to stay back while he confronted the creature.
• Mercer and Lockdown fought off the tentacles, and Mercer used the Dark Saber at two hundred million degrees to sever them.
• Mercer dodged the tentacles and cut several more while realizing the Great Old One relied more on psychic attacks than close combat.
• Mercer reached the Tesseract and saw that his lightning was circulating through the Magic Array beneath it.
• Mercer recognized that The Ancient One had drawn him into her scheme, but he believed his Sharingan could learn the array's magic.

Mercer evolved his Sharingan into a unique Mangekyo Sharingan after the Ancient One's scheme pushed him into extreme rage. He summoned a powerful, second-form Susanoo and left the enraged tentacles at its mercy.

• Mercer used spells from the Book of the Vishanti, fused with his own abilities, to suppress and sever the Great Old One's tentacles while vowing revenge on The Ancient One.
• Mercer felt lightning and black light surge from within him, and his Sharingan absorbed the energies and transformed into a unique Mangekyo Sharingan.
• The system announced that Mercer's Sharingan had evolved because of his extreme rage as the tentacles recovered and turned red with fury.
• Mercer stopped Galacta from intervening and manifested Susanoo, a deep-purple skeleton that seized a tentacle and wielded his enlarged Dark Saber.
• Mercer's Susanoo formed a second-form body from the Rumble-Rumble Fruit's lightning and the blacklight virus, then cut a tentacle off at its base.

Mercer closed the Portal and staged his apparent death, luring the Ancient One into revealing that she had arranged his assassination to take over Earth. As the Ancient One subdued S.H.I.E.L.D., the Tesseract’s energy enveloped her after Mercer’s voice invoked Boundless Lockdown.

• Mercer severed the Great Old One’s tentacles, dismantled the Magic Array, and closed the Portal.
• Mercer and Galacta arranged the battlefield before Boundless Lockdown was lifted and S.H.I.E.L.D. entered the ruined Gymnasium.
• Carter found Mercer apparently dead, while the Ancient One arrived and took the Tesseract.
• The Ancient One admitted she had arranged Mercer’s death to seize Earth, then subdued Carter and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
• Mercer’s voice invoked Boundless Lockdown, and the Tesseract exploded in energy around the Ancient One.

Mercer confronted the Ancient One after revealing that he had used an illusion to trick her into taking the Tesseract, and learned she had embraced Dormammu’s power to seize control of Earth. He used the Tesseract to protect the stadium and its occupants, then caught the Ancient One through her Sling Ring Portal, leaving her unable to escape.

• The Ancient One reappeared badly wounded after Mercer and Galacta revealed themselves with the Tesseract.
• Mercer admitted he had used the Book of the Vishanti’s All Things in the Universe spell to fool the Ancient One, who had mistaken his illusion for his death.
• The Ancient One revealed Dormammu’s mark and declared her intention to take control of Earth, then unleashed darkness that corrupted the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
• Mercer used the Tesseract to stop the darkness and the Book of the Vishanti to send the corrupted agents outside the stadium.
• The Ancient One opened a Sling Ring Portal to escape, but Mercer reached through it and caught her by the throat, saying the space was under his control.

Mercer defeated the Ancient One inside a Tesseract-created dimension and sent her through a portal into the Great Old One’s lair. As he and Galacta planned to eat the severed tentacles, the system triggered a mission to rescue the Ancient One.

• Mercer trapped the Ancient One in a separate dimension where teleportation magic failed, then overwhelmed her attacks by redirecting her spells with the Tesseract.
• Mercer beat the Ancient One until she surrendered, but he threw her through a portal into the Great Old One’s lair instead of sparing her.
• Galacta joined Mercer, and he explained that sending the Ancient One to the Great Old One might keep it from attacking their world.
• Mercer and Galacta decided to keep and eat the Great Old One’s severed tentacles.
• The system suddenly triggered a mission to rescue the Ancient One.