Dial: Call Resumed

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The Sequel to Dial, continuing the story of a self-insert in the MCU fighting on the side of heroes using an Omnitrix.

Things are heating up. New enemies, heroes, and dumb mistakes from politicians are ahead.

And all the while, the stars hide new threats. Also posted on RoyalRoad
1: Recap and Return
Dial: Call Resumed

EVERYTHING past "The Infinity Saga" info is completely off the rails and cannot be taken as a reliable Canon for Dial. And even post-Phase 2 stuff might be changed.

Chapter 1

Laura/Blood Diamond

Laura dreamed. It had been a long time since she'd done that. She dreamed of the past. Of what once was.

Her home was a soft yellow, painted over brick. Her grandfather had smoked cigars. She liked the smell, hanging about softly in the air, mixing with the smell of homemade tortilla. She dreamed of it. Then of those smells, marred by the copper scent of blood.

She dreamed of Mama dying. Of men with guns and machetes slicing into a face that had kissed her forehead and smiled so softly. She dreamed of killing those men with tattoos and guns. Feeling skin rip between her fingers, bones crunch as she snapped them, the harsh feel of wrapped hilts under her fingers as she stole their machetes and used them.

Laura had never fought until then. She could still taste the blood. Smell the urine and bile as she killed the men who killed her mother.

Then when it was over, she cried. She cried forever, standing over Mama.

That was how the men in black suits found her. They took her from Mama. They put her to sleep. When she woke up again, she was in a cage.

Every year since then, she was there. They cut her open. They tested her. Shot her. Forced her to kill more. She learned to fight quickly. No one taught her. But she had to learn if only to end it sooner before they knocked her out again. She didn't question why it happened anymore.

Laura knew why.

She was in hell. She'd been a bad girl. And God had sent her to hell. That was why she didn't have her Mama anymore. Mama had been good. She went to heaven. Laura wasn't allowed to go with her.

They took her apart, put her back together, and kept doing it over and over. No more hugs. No more real food when they could just feed her with a tube. Just hell.

Then, something changed. January 12th, 2014.

She remembered the men screaming as they began to fight. The cage was moved. But as they moved her, she listened. Listened to them talk about Hydra, and SHIELD.

And the Avengers. She'd hear a lot about them.

Laura was in hell. But she'd never heard about demons being so afraid.

They went to a castle. And she kept on listening.

The bad men had been scared. Except two. Strucker and Sterns. They spoke to her, sometimes. Told her about things. She didn't talk unless they told her too. Her voice was still raw. It had been years since she spoke.

She didn't have a lot of context. Some of what they said sounded like fairy tales. Gods, aliens, men with powerful bodies and suits, women who could disappear and reappear.

She learned that SHIELD had found out that Hydra was hiding within them, and had begun fighting against them. As a scientist inserted a needle into her, he complained that they had become BRIDGE. Another one said the Avengers were chasing them.

Sterns showed her some blue-green crystals. "Beautiful, aren't they?" the green-skinned man with a massive head said, smiling at her. "A gift from Dial. They'll be yours now. Be sure to thank me, will you?"

Dial. The Hydra people called him an alien. She saw a video once. A dark-skinned man with a short beard and hair, fighting on the news one time, talking with Captain America another. He sometimes changed into monsters. Giant wolves, flying dinosaurs, small demons that cackled.

And sometimes, he changed into pretty crystals.

Hydra did something to her. She could feel it, when one day they forced her to watch TV for days. The colors were so pretty. And then she didn't want to fight them anymore.

The next day, the crystals were inside her. She felt them all through her. They were heavy, and if she wasn't careful, they were sharp. She got used to it. To the feeling of something inside her slicing through her, to feeling her own skeleton and knowing she could control it.

From then on, she was almost always close to Strucker. She saw everything he did. And he had seen a lot.

She saw Hydra kidnap a pretty woman and turn her into a pretty green giant. She was forced to go with them when they ran away from the Avengers and BRIDGE, seeing a storm in the distance as they ran from a god.

Strucker had ignored her as she watched the news with him later. March 15th, 2014, the news said. Rio De Janeiro had been struck by an earthquake. Then, more news came in. Monsters from all across time. Dinosaurs. Demons. Knights in shining armor.

The Avengers and BRIDGE went in. Footage played of them fighting in the streets. Saving people. Dial smashing through groups of enemies. Captain America leading men and women into battle. Black Widow carrying a girl in her right arm as she fired a submachine gun into the head of a massive lion. Laura found something warm as she watched them.

An armored man with a white skull painted on his chest pressed a shotgun into a creature out of nightmares. Just before he took its head off, Laura took pleasure in the fear on the demon's face.

And then Laura saw her. The green woman. Giant and strong, fighting alongside the others. She looked happy.

Laura hated her. Hated her happiness. Hated that she had been captured for barely anytime, but the Avengers had saved her. Made her one of them.

Under the sea of fog that Hydra had made of her thoughts, Laura felt that hatred. She clung to it. In that sea of fog… hatred of that green woman was the only thing that was hers.

March 12, 2014, Laura went on a mission with two others. Former SHIELD agents, taken in and brainwashed. Agent Trip and Agent Sharon Carter. They were fascinating. Efficient, and very skilled. But beyond that, they were also somehow… alive. In a way that she didn't feel. That most of the others didn't. Trip gave her a protein bar on the way to the mission. Sharon told her to sleep.

They were worried about her.

It made sense. What was the point of hell, if only one person could go.

That comforted her. That after years of demons, she had found people like her. They went into a Chinese facility together, killed everyone within, and stole a computer chip. On the way out, Trip reminded her to clean some blood that landed on her. It was a nice thing to do.

After they gave Strucker the chip, he woke up a robot with a green face in its chest. And then they watched the news.

Dial and Creel had gone to Russia. Creel, as Strucker had helpfully told her, was the first person to survive the same machine that made her. She found that interesting. That they were similar like that.

And then, Russia apparently became something insane. She didn't get to find out all of it, but she heard about parts of it. Monkey robots, other heroes, someone named 'Kragoff' that was described as a James Bond villain.

Her training was adjusted to account for the Winter Guard. Kraven, a hunter, and Vanguard, a Captain America copycat were ignored. Chernobog, the dark god, she was told to run away from while an army of Hydra-Hulks attacked him. Crimson Dynamo, she was to slice through the armor and pull out the pilot for capture. Fantasma was also someone she had to be wary of, since Hydra's knowledge of 'magic' was limited. And Ursa Major was hers to fight, with a focus on slicing apart real bears that Hydra sent towards her.

She liked fighting the bears. They were fluffy. Sometimes she could lie against them after she killed them, enjoy the warmth before she was forced to kill more.

All the while, all across the world, more superhumans appeared to follow the Winter Guard. A team in Japan called Big Hero 6, China had the Ascendants, Canada revealed Alpha Flight. Strucker kept an eye on all of them, even the pretty Korean girls.

The first time in years that Laura heard music was from those girls. The sound of it. So powerful. Beautiful, but also like it was challenging everyone. She listened to it with avid interest whenever Strucker would play the videos. He used the videos to try and prepare for a day he might have to fight them.

Laura listened because they made her feel like she could fight the entire world.

March 20th, 2014. They heard very little from BRIDGE. She-Hulk had had a very public fight with a redheaded woman, the battle becoming a legend among wrestling fans apparently. There were rumors about BRIDGE hiring paleontologists, biologists, experts in Antarctica, and outdoorsmen for a special project, something Strucker had been confused about.

The only thing Laura focused on was a question Strucker asked while they visited Zola with Josef, a strange man Strucker said was one of the 'Winter Soldiers'.

"Blood Diamond. What will you do if you ever meet Dial?"

"Kill him,"
Laura said blankly.

"Do you consider him a father, for donating the crystals in your body?"

She'd shaken her head. She didn't. But she did feel strange when it came to him. The diamonds in her always seemed to weigh just a bit more when she thought of that odd man. Even as she killed an alien man later, she thought about the human who could turn into aliens.

The feeling continued four days later, when she caught footage of him and Captain America on a tv show. At one point, he smiled at the camera. She thought about that. That happened a lot.

Under the fog of soothing voices telling her to comply, she watched. Watched Strucker hire a red-haired man that made the base into a shifting moving fortress. Watched Zola create a strange gelatinous creature. Watched Strucker turn the aliens into his own personal army.

And then, one day, Strucker sent her on a mission. To kill Tony Stark. She was given a dress and a quinjet.

She went. She was happy to comply.

It all went wrong when she arrived. The small girl. The Blonde one. Strucker had called her Ruby Hale, a candidate for the Destroyer of Worlds project. The girl was with Tony Stark and pegged her immediately. She attacked. Iron Man and Ruby fought back.

At one point, Iron Man shot her with a blast of sonics. She felt her bones shatter in her own head, slicing through her eyes. She felt her cheekbones break and cut into her. It was the worst pain she had ever felt.

It happened again and again. And she kept on trying to kill him. She was happy to comply.

And then… Tony got new armor. He stared at her.

"Sorry about this kid. But this is over."

And something in her… for just a moment. Just one. The thought filled her.

If I die. Maybe I'll see Mama again.

"...kill me."

She'd been so desperate for it. The thought consumed her. It broke through the fog.

Then the moment was gone. She complied. And she attacked again.

Then, when she had no way of succeeding in her objective, she ran. Strucker had ordered her too.

But she sliced out the stomach of Ruby Hale. She never knew if the girl died.

When she got back to base, Strucker punished her. He'd cut her open down to the bone diamond bone, burned the flesh there, then timed how long it would take for her to heal. Then again. And again. For hours.

"After all," he'd said. "I don't know if I'll be able to do this again."

And then. The next day. War. June 5th, 2014.

BRIDGE came down, on three great ships, with an army pouring out of the doors. She watched as they fought Hydra forces, and knew that this was hell. Where else but hell could have such a battle, such horrors? Giant monsters, inhuman speedsters, demons from the sky, alien warships.

Blood was a common factor in Laura's life. But that day, she saw more than she thought possible.

The aliens came down. They killed hundreds. For a moment. Just a moment. It looked like Hydra would win.

Then Godzilla exploded from out of one of the ships.

Silence filled the room around her. Laura stared in awe at the sight. A crystal monster, the size of a mountain. Roaring.

"...Holy shit," Strucker chuckled, surprising Laura. He looked to his right. Laura looked back at him, her brainwashing keeping her from showing the shock she felt. "It seems your 'father' still has many surprises."

He never saw Laura look back at the screen. She stared at it as the ground continued to shake. The echoing voice of a monster reverberated through her body, her blood… right into her crystal bones.

From there, Dial infiltrated the base along with a few others. And Strucker told her to go get him.

And for the very first time, in the shifting rooms that the strange laughing red-haired man had made. Laura met Dial.

He was standing there. Long black hair. Brown eyes. He was shorter than Strucker by about an inch, but was built like Josef, with the same powerful muscles and stance, wearing an armored shirt with a hood, jeans, and the famous Omnitrix on his arm.

His face when he saw her… it was shocked. But he looked… warm. Like Trip and Sharon sometimes did. But there was more there.

"Laura…"

For a moment, Laura stared at him. He stared back. She felt so lost-

A voice that sounded like Strucker roared. "Comply!"

Twin blades left her knuckles. His eyes hardened. He reached for the Omnitrix. The dial pressed down. She moved, lunging at him. Green light shone across his body, transforming him before reaching golden eyes. Eyes that matched her own now.

A fist punched her. But she barely felt it.

He was in Diamondhead form. And she could feel him.

She'd felt it with the giant crystal monster. But this was more. More intimate, warmer. A sensation like she was connected to him. Not just in her crystals. For a moment, it was like every part of Laura was calling out for him.

COMPLY.

Then she was trying to kill him.

They fought for a while. And Laura continued to comply. To draw him in. To bring him towards the target.

Until they fell into the trap.

And Strucker sprung it.

Laura felt herself raise a blade to her own throat, the diamond slicing just a bit. She stared at Dial as Strucker spoke.

Stand in the center of sonic weapons in Diamondhead form. Or she would kill herself.

And Laura felt the warmth and hope within her fade. She was going to die. He would let her die. He was a hero. Heroes stopped bad people. Dial would let her die, and then Strucker would die. That was fine-

Dial transformed into Diamondhead. And Laura broke.

Shock and horror filled her, breaking through her conditioning. Then the sound weapons struck.

And Dial began to break too.

"GAAAAAAH!"

He screamed. He cracked to pieces. And then he healed. And broke. His eye shattered. He fell to his knees. Broke. Healed. Over and over.

But he didn't die. He refused to. She watched him scream. Watched portions of him crack. Bleed a strange fluid. When Tony Stark had hit her with sonics, she felt her bones snap apart and shred her own flesh. This… this was so much more. The sounds of his face, chest, and back snapping open, his right eye exploding, crystals growing into the gaps to fill the holes only to vibrate apart and break again.

Then the sound stopped. And Strucker and Dial spoke. Strucker sounded powerful, domineering. Dial should have sounded weak. His voice was soft, filled with pain.

But his voice still echoed.

"What is the point of allowing this level of pain? For a girl you don't know? A woman who tried to kill you. Tried to kill your friend?"

Laura looked at Dial and wondered the same. He should have just changed. Turned into one of those other aliens. Killed Strucker. Laura had hurt so many. Killed more. Why didn't he want to let her die?

"You realize the point of brainwashing is you don't blame the person being forced into it?"

Strucker chuckled. "Yes, I suppose. Still, I believe a reasonable person would have given up when their fingers began to explode."

"Heroes aren't reasonable,"
Dial growled out. "That's the point of heroes. Always meddling in things that aren't our business. Helping everyone who needs it. We.. I'll take the pain. I'll break. If it'll make sure she doesn't die."

The words shook her.

The increase to the sonic weapons did more than that. They had been loud before, but now she could see the air shake.

Her own body was shaking, breaking, just from standing in the same room as the sonic weapons. She fell to her knees, tears running down her cheeks. But Dial was dying.

"¡Basta!" the word left her lips without thinking. The first time in months she said something without being ordered to.

The light of Dial's eyes began to flicker. His chest fell open, revealing his inner core. And for a moment, just a moment, Laura thought he was dead.

A single arrow stabbed into a speaker to her right. Laura didn't understand at first. But Dial and Strucker seemed to.

Nine more arrows seemed to appear in the other speakers. Then they exploded apart.

Laura barely acknowledged the sudden feeling of relief. Instead, she stared upwards as Hawkeye came down from the ceiling. His arrows flew so fast they seemed to be fired at the same time. They never missed. Not a single shot.

He landed beside Dial. Strucker screamed at her to kill him. And he didn't even flinch. The next thing she knew, electricity was pouring through her, and she couldn't move.

Then she was on the floor. She couldn't stop shaking. Her head hurt. The arrow pumping electricity into her was worse. She stared into Dial's eyes. He smiled around crystal lips shattered to pieces.

"...I'm sorry."

The words echoed even over the sound of Hawkeye taunting Strucker in the background.

"But you'll be okay. We'll get you out. I promise."

She didn't believe him.

She was proven right when, moments later, Strucker was in her mind again.

"Ah… of all the minds in this sea of souls. You are the one I don't need to manipulate."


That hurt worse than anything else. The reminder of her constant violation. Years of horror had broken her even before the mind control. And now, Strucker didn't even need to try.

Then Dial exploded in a wave of green light.

So. Even he'd given up on her.

She barely registered his new appearance, the thin muscular frame, the four arms, the white robes. She only saw Strucker speak.

"Do it."

Laura couldn't stop herself. She reached to remove her own throat.

Then a voice echoed in her mind. A soft and kind mumble.

"Rest kid. I'll see you when it's over."

And then the voice was gone. And so was the haze over her mind. Laura fell asleep. For the first time in a long time, her dreams were peaceful.






June 9th, 2014
She woke up in a room later. There was a plate of food on a table in front of her. She got off the comfortable bed and ate the steak and rice. It was the best food she'd had in years. Ignoring the utensils to shovel it into her mouth, she looked around.

The room she was in was a pale white in color, with a concrete floor, another table with a couch and a sofa next to it. It was big. The biggest room she'd ever woken up in.

She created a diamond blade and tossed it at a wall. It bounced off. Not impale, not even scratch. Just bounced off.

Still a prison then.

The TV was on. She turned to watch it. A news broadcast of the battle was on, with various people talking about what had happened. Something about a psychic battle and a battle in space. But none of that mattered to her.

The important thing was the remote.

She stared at it as she ate. A remote. It was black, and covered in buttons, resting on the table next to her food. She reached out, hands slippery with steak juice, and fumbled. With a press of a button, the channel changed.

Laura stared at the screen. And changed the channel again. And again. Over and over.






Natasha Romanov/Black Widow

In another part of the Triskelion, Natasha watched on a camera with Director Maria Hill as Laura changed channels on the TV with an odd fascination. The young woman seemed to be in shock.

"What is she doing?" Maria asked Nat.

"She's been imprisoned for most of her life, since she was a kid. Told what to do, where to go, who to kill," Natasha looked over at Maria sadly. "Changing the channel? That might be the first time she's ever had a choice in something since Hydra kidnapped her."

Maria looked back at Nat, then sighed sadly. "Fair enough, but she's going to be a problem. Even if Dial broke her out of her brainwashing, she's still someone who was raised in captivity to kill others. She's a timebomb."

"I'm getting a lot of Deja Vu right now," Natasha said sadly.

Maria chuckled, turning and walking towards her desk. Natasha joined her, sitting in front of the desk as Maria leaned against it. "Yeah, I guess you would. What do you suggest?"

"Therapy," Natasha said without hesitation. "Lots of it. Someone needs to speak with her first, get a handle on just how feral she might be. Dial asked to speak with her."

"Because he stupidly feels responsible for her," Maria pointed out.

Natasha didn't respond to that. Maria shook her head. "I'll schedule a time for later. We already called in Professor Garner for her, so that's one more among a fleet of therapists we've called in."

Maria shrugged. "Okay, Laura is in custody at least, but we've got a lot on our plate besides her."

"That's an understatement," Natasha noted. "We're things supposed to be less complicated after we beat Hydra?"

"We're BRIDGE, even back when we were SHIELD our lives were never going to become less complicated. Speaking of which," Maria raised a hand and snapped her fingers in a complicated pattern. A screen appeared before her, revealing two people on different screens. Trip and Sharon. The two were in a cell of their own, similar to Laura's.

Trip was roaming back and forth in his cell. Sharon was lying in bed. And both looked like they had been through hell.

"How are they?" Nat asked carefully.

"Enhanced, for one," Maria's face twisted just a bit. "Apparently Hydra managed to crack the code on a weaker version of the super soldier serum. Nothing like Steve, but the same as Bucky and the other Winter Soldiers. Sharon and Trip were given it."

"Everybody is some kind of enhanced nowadays," Natasha said. "How are they really doing?"

"They'll probably retire at some point, if my guess is right. Peggy Carter asked to see them. Same with Steve, Coulson's team, Mack, Bobby, Izzy-"
"Long list," Nat flashed a smirk.

The Director didn't disagree. "Natasha, I want you to monitor Laura."

That didn't surprise her. "You think she's like me."

"I think she's similar to you, with some severe differences, but at her core she's got a lot in common with you and Ruby."

"Oh, Ruby is going to love that."

Maria barked out a laugh. "She'll have to suck it up. Laura has an easy weakness for us to exploit, but she's also one of the most dangerous people in the world. We need to defuse this tykebomb."

That was a fair statement.

"When did I become the big sister of every dangerous girl in the world," Natasha said more than asked. As the words left her lips, an old memory hit her. A tiny blonde girl, smiling at her as she colored in a notebook.

"...Your request for time-off was approved, by the way."

"You didn't tell anyone else about it?"

"No, but you should."

Natasha and Maria looked at each other for a moment. "...Fine. Well, best of luck when you head out."

"Thank you."

Maria looked over at the screen again and waved a hand.

"You're following Dial."

The Director nodded. "He left in Big Chill form. He's almost to Westchester County already."

Natasha didn't speak, but she could see Maria hiding her own stress.

The world was getting crazier and crazier. There had to be a breaking point.






Mahmoud Schahed/Dial/Back At It

I twirled through the air on wings of blue, chilled air following in my wake, contemplating the past few months.

On July 15, 2018, I had been in my home universe writing fanfiction. Then, Professor Paradox showed up in my room and shoved me into the Marvel Universe. Well, one of them anyways.

I went from my world, to New York City, Fall of 2013, in a place where Tony Stark, Thor, and all the other heroes I loved existed and lived.

At least Professor Paradox didn't leave me entirely in the cold.

He gave me an Omnitrix.

One of the most powerful weapons in multiversal history. Allowing me to turn into aliens to obtain their powers.

Currently I was Big Chill, a frozen insect. I had faster aliens, but few that I could just kind of relax in the air with.

I needed it. I'd been dropped in the middle of November and It was the beginning of June now. And in that time I'd fought in five different wars, various battles, and navigated several dangerous waters across the Earth. I needed a break man.

But there is no rest for the wicked, and thus none for the righteous either. I think someone said that once.

I flew through clear skies, enjoying the air fluttering across my insectoid form, and tried to breath softly. With New York City having disappeared behind me long ago, I was now away from the skyscrapers, had left behind the warehouses, the suburbs, and was full on in the countryside. Hopefully, me flying overhead in broad daylight wouldn't lead to Mothman rumours in the area.

I say hopefully, but I could have avoided sight… Okay fine, I just thought it would be funny if it happened. I waved at a car full of kids as I passed, grinning at the shocked looks on their faces.

I flew through a cloud and appeared out the other side with a small layer of frost. Below, I could see my destination.

1407 Greymalkin Lane Westchester, North Salem, NY, 10560.

The building I was reaching was beautiful, large. A mansion with a large yard in front, a pool in the backyard… And a tennis court. And a baseball diamond. And a basketball court… and I was pretty sure the property was even bigger than that!

"Good lord," I breathed out, reaching out mentally. "You really spring for the full package."

"The benefits of an inheritance and careful investments,"
a voice echoed in my mind.

I landed by the front door and transformed back into my human self. I walked up to the doors of the giant mansion. As I did, I noticed someone staring at me from one of the windows. I hid a grin when they tried to hide, but didn't stop staring at me. The teens were looking me over. That was just… Wild man. Absolutely wild.

I almost knocked on the doors before they opened up. Behind the door was, to my surprise, someone I did and did not recognize.

Since coming to this world I'd gotten used to many things. One, was that for some reason, every hero I met looked like an actor or actress from my world.

Captain America looked like Chris Evans. Natasha Romanov was Scarlett Johanssen. Hell, Fantasma, one of my best friends, was a dead ringer for a cosplayer named KalinkaFox.

So when I first met Ororo Monroe, I was surprised I didn't think of any actress I knew that looked like her. On the other hand, she was a dead ringer for her X-Men Evolution counterpart.

The same straight pale white hair, blue eyes, and dark skin, all while looking incredibly beautiful. She was wearing a red shirt and a long blue skirt with some interesting flower designs along it. She smiled at me as she held the door open.

"Good Morning, Mr. Schahed. Please, come inside," her voice had a hint of an African accent. Just like I remembered!

"Thank you, Ms. Monroe," I stepped in, grinning at her.

"Please, right this way. The Professor is waiting."

She led me inside. The mansion was beautiful, very old school-looking, with marble and hardwood everywhere. We went up to the staircase in the center of the lobby, Storm just in front of me. I couldn't help a bit of the fanboy coming out.

"Gotta say Ms. Monroe. It's a real honor to meet you."

She gave me an odd look. "Oh? Oh!" she seemed to come to a realization. "Right, the Professor did mention the… multiverse, and that you were familiar with other versions of us."

Her voice's odd timbre drew my eye. She was still very calm, almost zen, but she also seemed uncomfortable. I winced.

"Sorry, I didn't even think about that. The whole knowing about different versions of you and their history. The other Avengers, a lot of the BRIDGE folk, they got used to that pretty quick. Just, keep in mind, I basically just have an impression of-"

Storm stopped me with a laugh. "I understand, Mr. Schahed. I live with a telepath. I do not mind you knowing a bit about me, I am simply trying to comprehend the idea of a multiverse."

Ah, that was fair.

"Well, at least we don't live in the one where the Earth got turned into a sea of orange goo by insane lunatics."

We'd gotten to a door by that point. Ororo looked over at me, surprised. "Really?"

"You want to see the most insane, beautiful, wonderful sights possible, Ms. Monroe? The multiverse is the best way to see it all. I'll let you know when we figure out how to travel through it safely, show you some cool shit."

She seemed amused by that. "I'll keep that in mind. And please, call me Ororo."

"Dial."

That surprised her. "You want people to call you by your codename?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, it's one I've earned."

Somehow she seemed to understand, based on the small smile on her face.

She opened the door, letting me into the room. Within, two men waited.

One was short, but thickly built with muscle, his bare arms fuzzy with hair, hair cut into an interesting pattern like a combination of mullet and ducktail. His skin was darkly tanned the way hunters get, and he had a scowl so deep I was reminded of some of my angrier friends.

Wolverine. I was surprised he didn't look like Hugh Jackman, rather looking a lot like his X-Men Evo counterpart just like Storm.

The other man was in a wheelchair. And he was a dead ringer for Patrick Stewart.

"Thank god," I said as I walked in. "After Logan and Ororo, I was starting to feel like things had gone weird."

The two mentioned looked at each other in confusion. The austere man in the wheelchair, on the other hand, knew what I was talking about.

Charles Xavier grinned. "I'm glad I could reassure you, Mr. Schahed. I believe we have much to discuss.

"A fuckton's worth," I agreed, Ororo wincing at the language as Logan snorted. "So, let's talk shop, because I need you to convince me and my boss that hiding the existence of mutants is in our best interests."

The door closed behind me and I sat down to talk.






Author's Note: Next Chapter will be Tuesday on my Patreon. For now… I'm so damn happy to be writing this again.

I missed Dial.

I'm sorry that the beginning is a recap, but hopefully reading it from Laura's perspective made it interesting. Next chapter will be more about the mutants, Dial meeting the X-Men kids, Brotherhood, and much much more!
 
2: In Living Color
Chapter 2

June 9th, 2014

Charles Xavier, being the gentleman that he was, had set out tea for us. Logan took a beer. Not one of us was surprised.

I was glad for the tea. Tony liked to joke that I was a fanboy, but it was true. I tended to get pretty starstruck when I met my heroes, and the X-Men had been my heroes for a very long time. Ever since the 90's cartoon I watched as a kid.

Having the tea gave me a chance to focus. We had a lot to talk about.

I took a sip of my drink before speaking. "The problem, Mr. Xavier, is that while I understand why you and others are worried about hiding your powers, waiting for society to be 'ready' for the reveal of mutants is a losing battle."

"Is it?" Xavier sipped his own drink. "You've seen how the public currently responds to superhumans. Even those like Captain America, respected individuals among the community, or Tony Stark, someone who only gained 'abilities' through technology, have those who hate and fear them. Despite my efforts, there are those in the world who know about mutants, who exploit them. How much worse do you think it would be if the whole world knew about us? Knew about our potential?"

"You could make the argument that they would do that no matter what. And at this point, you're already pretty deep in the hole," I said. "For one thing, people are going to argue you should have helped fight off all the bullshit that's popped up. Think about it. Maybe back when the Chitauri first showed up you could claim that those mutants with combat ability were too surprised to head in to fight.

"But since then, we have had a dozen different problems. Problems that at the least you could have helped with," I said, indicating all three.

Logan scoffed. "Bub, we have enough problems without taking on the rest of the world's."

"Oh, that's right. Guess the rest of the world will take that into account," I said sarcastically. "Keep in mind, every point I make is from the perspective of that. The WORLD. It's full of dicks, with all the intelligence of it."

Ororo made a small noise that drew our attention. "Dial, I understand where you're coming from. But mutants aren't a united force, we are people all across the world. Even in this school, we only have six students. Students. They have already faced enemies we would have rather they didn't. We couldn't send them into warzones."

"I absolutely agree. I get it. You can't speak for every mutant. But you three could have helped. Even if it wasn't combat, Rio needed as many people to help as it could get."

Charles shook his head sadly. "And I did do what I could."

Huh?

At my confusion, he smirked. "During the course of the efforts, I guided as many of the rescuers to victims as I could. It was difficult, something about the way Rio was hit affected the psychic plane, but I did what I could."

"That's-"

"Not going to matter," Charles finished for me. He leaned back in his seat, frowning. "Yes, I've been worried about that for some time."

"Professor, people were going to fear us no matter what," Logan said dismissively. "Half the kids are walking weapons."

"That is no reason to make it easier," Xavier admonished. "I must admit, Dial, I've been struggling with that question for some time. While I do wish for the children to have normal lives, that is quickly becoming impossible. This world we live in will begin to draw them in. It may be time for us adults to step into the light."

"That's gonna lead to a lot of trouble," Logan pointed out.

"Agreed," Storm sighed. "If we reveal ourselves, enemies who once held back out of a need for secrecy will feel no need to."

"Then you don't have to reveal the full truth, do you?" I frowned. "People might eventually figure out the full x-gene thing. But right now, you can just step out as another powered human if you want. Same as me, Cap, or any of the rest."

Logan scoffed. "I ain't one for the limelight, bub."

God, I wanted to laugh my ass off at that. Wolverine Publicity was hilarious considering how much he would have hated it. Logan continued.

"How about you, Storm? Feeling eager to get turned into a celebrity?"

"I have faced similar prospects before," she said idly. She sighed, looking over at Charles.

The bald psychic looked troubled. "In truth, I had been considering it. If Emma hadn't forced my hand, I likely would have approached BRIDGE some time ago."

"I knew that icy bitch was going to ruin something," Logan growled.

"She nearly wiped my mind out," I grumbled.

"We heard about that. Are you okay?" Ororo asked, her eyes soft.

"I'll live. She won't." Logan smirked at that. Then I sighed, running a hand through my beard. "As for this? Well. I can't exactly force you guys to expose mutants as a whole to the world. But you gotta understand, you were already in a precarious state."

I raised my hand and started counting on my fingers. "Let's list off all the Biomorphic Events, shall we?"

"Bio-what?" Logan asked.

"Catalysts that change a species' baseline abilities," Xavier said.

"We got enhanced. That's Captain America, Deathlok, Vanguard. Gamma mutates, that's Hulk and She-Hulk. People with alien genetics, like Thor, those enhanced by items, like me, then cosmic beings like Ares, magic users, and people changed by magic. Now, there are super-geniuses like Iron Man and Crimson Dynamo, so smart it's basically a power. Technically that doesn't as a biomorphic event, but they still fit into a tier of their own-"

"You got a point here, bub?" Logan asked, annoyed.

I held up my six fingers. "That's the ones people can google search. But then there are the hidden ones," two more fingers.

"One is us. What is the other?"

"Inhumans. People whose ancestors' DNA was modified, so now if they encounter a special substance they end up with a random superpower," I explained. "But then, there are mutants… god, there needs to be a less problematic name for that."

"I'll workshop it in marketing," Logan snarked.

"But yeah. The rest of us need to at least encounter some sort of event, make something, take a chemical, to get our powers. Whereas you guys just need to hit puberty. Hell, in some cases not even that."

Seriously, the number of mutants who'd had their full powers since birth was kind of ridiculous when you thought about it.

"And then we have the randomness of it all," I pointed at Logan. "Super healing, senses, and claws. Powerful, but not galaxy changing," I pointed at Ororo. "A literal hurricane waiting to happen, with weather changing on a level Thor has asked about," Ororo blinked at that, curiosity on her face, while I pointed at Charles. "Come on Prof, do I even need to explain why you're ridiculous?"

"I shall take that as a compliment," he said with some real humility. "Still, I must agree with you, Mr. Schahed. For one thing, had I approached BRIDGE some time ago, I may have been within your vicinity sooner, and been able to sense your mental block."

"You ever find out who made it?" Logan asked us.

Charles and I shared a look. After all, Emma may have taken advantage of it, but someone had placed it there… most probable suspect was Professor Paradox. Likely the block made sure I didn't bring in the X-Men before it would have been perfect for the timeline.

But we kept that to ourselves. Bringing him up wouldn't be useful. He'd do things for the benefit of the timeline, but he'd only step in if needed. For now, just us doing our own thing was fine.

"It doesn't matter," Charles said at last. "We'll continue to maintain the blocks we placed on far more antagonistic sorts however."

Logan and I had the same uncomfortable looks on our faces. I'd guessed he had a similar history to his alternates, a history of mindwipes and mental blocks. After my stint, I was just as disturbed.

But there were some people who would end up killing thousands if they regained their memories of mutants. Until BRIDGE was ready, we'd have to let Charles keep them in the dark.

"Then I suppose we have a plan," Ororo brought us back on topic. "I suppose this will keep Evan from asking me if I'm going to become an Avenger," she added with a chuckle.

I grinned. But that did bring up something.

"...Speaking of the kids," I leaned back in my seat.

"Don't even think about asking them to fight," Logan snarled.

"Calm down, Papa Logan," my quip made Ororo hide a smile as Logan growled. "I don't want teenagers fighting terrorists. I'm not Dumbledore. But Charles, I gotta say, for a guy who wants peace between 'mutants' and humans, you have a tendency to make this school pretty insular."

Logan and Ororo looked over at him. Charles pressed his hands together, a thoughtful look on his face. "Yes. I suppose I do," the words were said with a sort of, confused and mystified tone. "My plan was always to integrate mutants into society. To train them, yes, keep them safe from those who would bring them harm. But I never planned on making my school mutant-only."

And yet, it always was. In terms of comic writing, that was likely because actually having teenage heroes that weren't mutants, like the Young Avengers and Runaways, added to the school would have ended in some confusion.

Didn't make sense for Xavier's goals though. And both Charles and I knew that looking at the multiverse from a fictional perspective just didn't work. These were real places, with real people. And that meant that these dozens of Xaviers had somehow decided to make the same decision every time.

Fight for peace, but also keep mutants separate from humans.

Of course, Logan brought up a good point. "Not like we could have taken any human students in. Too much of a chance the brats would tell people about it."

"We're simply thinking about the future, Logan," Ororo said kindly. "One day, our students might be able to be open with their powers."

"Possibly with other powered people," I pointed out. "There aren't too many kids right now with powers, but a large batch of the Graveyard Survivors were teens. BRIDGE is doing their best with them, but they might benefit from a more school-like setting."

"Graveyard Survivors?" Ororo asked.

I winced. "Well… a while back, there was this Hydra Facility. A dumping ground, really. We found it full of Hydra's failed experiments. When they tested out making superhumans of their own. And when those tests didn't end in the results they wanted, well… Some of them were found in a state of near death. Most were in some kind of… heavily altered state. Charles, could you share my memory of that?"

Charles lowered his gaze. I felt his presence in my mind. Then Logan and Ororo's expressions changed. Ororo looked sickened. Logan was pissed, his overly sharp canines flashing.

"Luckily, the Omnitrix helped out most of them. But those who ended up with powers are still learning. Some of them, the quick learners, are now a part of STRIKE. Others have new identities or went back to their families. Still, we do have kids, like I said. Some with new super-soldier powers, some similar to my friend Creel, others with new gamma mutations.

"I'm not going to force you to accept them, but if you really want to make a school to teach kids, or even adults, with powers? A place where they'll be safe? Well. I can help with that."

"Intriguing," Xavier leaned back in his chair thoughtfully. "Yes, I can see that. We'll need more teachers as time passes of course. Right now, our children go to Bayville High for their general schooling, but if we become public that may need to change."

"Like I said, that's something the Avengers will help with."

"Not BRIDGE, right?" Logan said.

"Logan," Ororo admonished gently.

"Hey, I don't want the government sticking their noses in if we can help it," he snarled.

Fair enough. "Just the Avengers. Privately. Maria Hill will be keeping an eye on things of course, but any help we give is going to be on our own. Tony Stark is actually interested in building the defenses of this place further, and a friend of mine, X, is hoping you'll accept his application to teach here."

"I likely will, depending on his credentials," Charles then blinked when I sent him those credentials mentally. "Oh… well that is quite unique."

Ororo pressed a hand to her cheek. "Sadly, this won't all be solved in a single conversation. If Logan and I do go public as members of the Avengers, we'll have a lot to deal with. And then of course, there are the children."

"Yeah, we'd like to avoid the kids being forced to fight. But you know-"

Logan interrupted me. "Shit happens."

Ain't that the truth.

"And what about you?" Charles asked me.

"Me?"

"Yes. We've spoken about your compatriots. But would you like to teach at our school as well? During your off-hours?"

That threw me for a loop. "Uh, I don't think I'm really qualified for that."

"I disagree," Charles smiled. "In fact, you are more qualified than most. You have a unique insight into my students."

"Because of-?"

He stopped me with a raised hand. "No. Not because of your multiversal knowledge. Rather, because of your familiarity with having powers of your own. As well as the drawbacks of those powers."

Oh. That was a reasonable thought.

"While you may be a boon to us as a sparring partner, I would value you far more for the aid you can give those students who may be dealing with troublesome abilities," I immediately thought of two. "At the least, consider a trail run."

…Well, my mom and dad did want me to be a teacher when I was younger.

Before I could think further, I heard something at the door. So did the others. We all looked over at it. For a moment, a long one, I thought about changing forms. This was the Xavier Mansion. One of the top three most attacked locations in Marvel. But logic made me realize who it probably was.

Charles smiled. "Students."

The noise stopped.

"Come on in, brats," Logan said, though he sounded more fond than annoyed.

The door opened after a long moment. I couldn't help a grin as I watched them walk in. In full costume.

First, a tall young man, so tall I'd have thought him a full adult if it wasn't for his baby face, a flop of brown hair on his head, his eyes hidden under a visor. Scott Summers. Cyclops. He looked super-guilty. It was adorable, like a puppy who got caught eating slippers.

He was followed by a pretty redheaded girl wearing a headband around her head and very green eyes that held a bit of chagrin. Her hair was left loose, and she was wearing a similar costume to Scott, just with a bit of green. Easy enough to point her out as Jean Grey. Though I didn't know if she went by any of her code names like Marvel Girl. Or Phoenix. Doubt the Phoenix Force had arrived yet after all…

As I was contemplating that mess, another girl stepped in. Even younger than Jean and Scott, just a bit older than Shuri and Ruby really, with brown hair set into a high ponytail with a set of pink beads to hold it up. Kitty Pryde, aka Shadowcat, looking cute as a button, with a blue scheme to her costume.

The next kid was younger still. He looked sort of like Ororo, with the same cheekbones. His hair was blonde as well, though yellow rather than white, and he had cocky energy to him, reminding me of Pietro. Evan Daniels, Spyke, the nephew of Storm.

Finally, he entered. Blue fur across his body, with hair that had a hint of blue tint as well. He had a tail, three fingers, and two toes. He also looked nervous as hell, though he grinned back at me when I met his gold eyes. Kurt Wagner, known as Nightcrawler, looked the least guilty, which made me think this whole thing was his idea.

"Looks like you all are dressed to party," I noted.

"Against our orders," Ororo said sternly. "We told you this meeting was to be in private for now."

Scott winced. "Sorry Professors. We just… got curious."

"Yeah, for good reason!" Evan popped in. "Auntie, you're going to be an Avenger?"

"Well, reserve at least," I said. "She still gets her own action figures, but she doesn't need to join us full time."

"Action figures?" Storm asked.

"With kung fu action if you want."

"That is so cool!" Kurt chimed in with a thick German accent, the blue-furred kid said, popping into the room with a familiar 'BAMF' sound, stopping just in front of me. "Dial, right? I'm such a huge fan!"

"He has your poster in his room," Kitty added, sounding like a Valley Girl, grinning as she walked in.

"Kitty!"

"Seriously?" I asked, just a bit surprised. "Guess we should trade autographs, huh?"

All this time and I was still thrown that I was actually famous. Not because I was humble or anything, just that I wasn't used to it.

"Trade? That would be amazing!" Kurt said excitedly.

"Children, please," Charles said. "Let's be more polite to our guest, shall we?"

"Yes, Professor," Kurt looked chagrined. "Just… not every day we get an Avenger in here."

"It'll happen more often," I said, leaning over.

"Does that mean we'll be teaming up sometimes?" Scott asked, a bit of the kid in him coming out. "We heard some of what you guys were talking about."

The kids all started talking at once. Except Jean, who was looking a bit weirdly at me. I pushed aside whatever that could mean to focus on the kids.

"Well, like I told your teachers. I'd prefer not to get you guys involved in missions if I could help it. You have powers, and you should learn to defend yourselves. But having you along on say, a mission to take down weapons manufacturers in India is not something we're ready for. More likely some of us will help with training if Professor X asks. That said, if you guys do need help with some bigger threat," at that point, Charles whispered to me mentally that the kids didn't know that Magneto or Juggernaut were a thing yet. "We're more than happy to jump in."

"So we're going to get training from Avengers?" Evan asked excitedly. "That's awesome!"

"What, Wolverine and Storm aren't cool enough for you?" I asked.

"Awwww, Logan and Auntie are cool, but they aren't famous, you know?"

Ah, Evan, if only you knew.

"About that," Logan said, drawing attention. "What are you brats doing in your uniforms?"

"..." They all shuffled in place.

"We kind of thought he was here asking for help on a mission?" Scott said nervously.

Logan took a deep breath, then rubbed at his eyes with the deliberate movements teachers the world over did so often. "So you put on your uniforms?"

"That's kind of adorable," I said with a grin, getting an offended look from the kids. Kids. What sort of world was I in where the X-Men were kids to me? Yeesh.

"Well, I'm sad to say I'm not going on a mission right now," I leaned forward. "That said, boys and girls, we'll probably do a few of those. And I do come bearing gifts."

I reached into my pockets and began taking out cards, handing them out.

"Business cards?" Jean asked, speaking for the first time. She took one from me, then jumped when the white card lit up. A gold X flashed into being. "Whoa."

"That card is something the Avengers had been using for a while. It's a communications unit capable of working just about anywhere. It'll also let you into the Avengers Tower."

"We get to visit the tower!?" Kurt said happily, his German accent getting stronger. "Dude, that's awesome!"

"Calm down, Elf, I doubt he's just doing this out of the goodness of his heart," Logan looked at his card suspiciously. "I bet these are trackers too."

"Well yeah, duh," I said instantly. When the students stared at me in betrayal I shook my head. "Guys, you know how often heroes get lost mid-adventure? I once got lost in the middle of a jungle full of dinosaurs, enslaved, forced into gladiatorial combat against dino-human hybrids, and rode through a prehistoric city on a dragon's back to escape. All because my friends couldn't find me and my Omnitrix broke."

"Like, are you joking right now?" Kitty asked, surprised.

"Not in the slightest," I nodded at the cards. "In the case of an emergency, the cards can let others track your location. We still don't have anything in case of dimensional travel off of Earth, but it'll send out as best a signal as it can in case you're just on a different plane."

"That would have been useful a while back," Kurt said half-jokingly. "Can we call each other?"

"Yes, text, access the internet, all the things a smartphone can do. But I don't recommend using it outside the mansion."

"Oh yeah, new favorite toy!" Kitty said happily.

"Yo, this has a camera!" Evan cheered.

The adults in the room shared a look. I decided to let them enjoy it for now, but continued. "The real important thing is that it means the Avengers can come in if you need extra help. If something comes up and you guys might need extra muscle? We're in."

"That might be real useful down the road," Jean said with a smile. "Especially if the Brotherhood decides to attack us again."

Oh yeah. Those idiots.

"Anyways, I don't only come with fancy business cards. Scott, I hear you've got trouble controlling your powers."

Scott winced. A few of the others looked over at him, Jean in particular looking saddened. "Yeah. You could say that."

I rose to my feet, sighing. Honestly. Why was it this poor guy's destiny to have uncontrollable eye beams?

"I'm not going to beat around the bush. I might have a solution."

"Really!" Jean looked ecstatic. "Scott would love that!"

He looked stunned as well.

"Well, I said might. Tony and I developed this," I reached into a pocket and brought out a big watch, about the size of the OG Omnitrix. "Well, we had some help of course. But basically, it needs to be calibrated. So… who wants to show me to the Danger Room?"

The looks of confusion I got didn't stop me from feeling a bit giddy. Danger Room. That was gonna rule.






In the Danger Room, Scott and I stood alone. The others were up in a control room above looking down at us.

Really though man, the Danger Room. A big old semi-spherical room, empty right now. Still, if it was anything like the X-Men media, this place might suddenly turn into a big old obstacle course. When I'd told Tony about it, he'd spent some time wondering where the hell the tech for that came from, before getting to work on redesigning one for our own use.

Right now though, it was just Scott and I in an empty room. He was adjusting the oversized watch on his wrist nervously. "Are you sure about this, Mr. Schahed? I don't want to hurt you."

"Believe me, if you could hurt me like this, I'd have died a while back," I tapped the Omnitrix, shifting quickly into a new form.

"Feedback!"

In the control room, I heard a loud shout of glee. Heh. As a fanboy myself, I approved.

"Man, that is weird looking. Uh, no offense," Scott said as he looked over my alien form.

I lifted a hand tipped with gold and gave him a massive Feedback grin. "None taken. I like to think looking kinda weird is a fine trade-off for sweet powers. Now. Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Scott still looked nervous. "Mr. Schah-"

"Dial. Call me Dial."

"...Dial. Will this really work?"

"If it doesn't, then it will still be good for us," I pointed at the watch. "That power stabilizer is meant to read data, first and foremost. It will scan you as you fire your laser, and use the data from that to shut down your powers. It should even be able to adjust as you grow older."

"And it's not permanent, right?" Scott asked.

"Not a chance. Never know when you might need to keep an eye on the situation," I punned.

"Ugh, really?" Scott groaned.

"Couldn't help it. Now. Hit me with it."

Scott stared at me through his gold visor. Then he took a breath, raising a hand to his visor. I crossed my arms and extended my top tendrils outwards..

Okay. Party time.

The visor opened up. And the sun burst forth. A beam of red as large around as a dinner plate, crackling with energy.

The red beam swirled into me. Just like that, the battle was on. Well, sort of battle. More of a test.

Cyclops' optic blast hit my plugs and was absorbed into them, flowing into my body. My singular eye crinkled at the feel of it. It was weird. A touch of solar radiation, odd photons, something similar to Thor's personal energy. Optic blasts felt like they took the flavor of every form of energy Cyclops' came close to before unleashing it.

Though he wasn't going all out.

"Come on, Scott. Hit me with all you've got!" I shouted over the sound of lasers.

Scott grunted. Then he let just a bit more power unleash. And I sighed.

"Scott, I have absorbed the power of the God of Thunder. I can take in the energy of the Big Bang if I have to. So stop holding back. For the first time in your life, you can unleash all the energy you've got, and no one is going to get hurt. So let go!"

"Nnnnn!" Scott fell to a knee. "Fine! Here you go!"

More power. I raised my hands and absorbed energy into them. "Nah, kid! That watch needs to read your full output! So take off that visor!"

"Dial, are you sure-" Charles whispered in my mind.

"It's fine, Prof X," I grinned while speaking both mentally and outloud. "Scott! Let go! For the first time in your life, just have some FUN."

For a moment it was quiet. Then Scott reached for his visor. And when he took it off, a blast the size of a wall headed towards me. The floor under us cracked. The air screamed.

"RAAAAAAAH!!!" Scott shouted and laughed, and I joined in.

Goddamn, this kid was strong. I thought that Sauron had had a lot of energy. Thor's lightning, Iron Man's repulsors, those were powerhouses. But Scott was on par with all of them as just a kid. He may have had just one power, but it was a damn good one.

And as he unleashed hell, the watch on his wrist finally let out a loud piercing beep noise. I shouted to Scott. "Okay! Close your eyes and tap the watch!"

Scott staggered to his knees. With a shudder, he closed his eyes. Energy equal to nuclear power plants, stopped by a thin pair of eyelids. God, the physics of the kid would be fun to go over later. For right then, he tapped the watch hesitantly. I lowered my arms, noting the immense heat in the air. The cracked concrete under his feet. The look of exhaustion on his face.

The watch beeped quietly. I sighed in relief. Well, that should have worked.

"...Scott. Open your eyes."

He seemed so hesitant. Then, slowly, he peeked the lids open. The red glow glimmered there, but then it slowly faded. As I watched, his eyes fully opened. For a long moment, he stared up at me. I looked into his eyes as well.

The pupils glowed a bright red before they slowly faded away, leaving brown and very normal irises there.

He stared at me.

"Huh, you've got nice eyes, dude."

He began to cry as I smiled down at him.

No more red hues for Scott Summers. Not if I could help it.






I begged off hanging out further. I wanted to let Scott enjoy his new sight. Jean had been crying for him, and the kid seemed to love looking at everything around him with his own eyes. I imagined it was something like a colorblind person seeing color for the first time.

Though with more not blowing away the world around you.

Still, I had more appointments to keep. Scott wasn't the only one who needed help.

I flew over the city in Astrodactyl form, rocketing through the air at high speed. She was walking alone when I found her, taking a path home. Thankfully few had hair more distinctive than hers.

Aiming for the goth girl with a white stripe through her brown hair, I began to drop towards the ground. First her, then a certain batch of idiots.






Author's Note: The X-Men stuff isn't done just yet. But we're on our way.

Now, the main thing to keep in mind with all this stuff is that it's part of a bigger universe. Dial is taking on a couple of problems, but there is something much bigger on the horizon he needs to keep in mind. Namely, the idiots waiting in the wings.

Chapter 3 is almost done and will be up on my Patreon ASAP. I'm HOPING I can get it done and out tomorrow or the day after. It'll depend on how long it turns out.
 
3: Holding
Chapter 3

When I tapped the Omnitrix to shift back into human form and dropped down in front of Rogue, she jumped in shock, staring at me. "Whoa! Wha-"

We were in a small park, with benches and pathways, and a small fountain in the distance. More importantly, nobody was around, so her secret was safe in case someone saw a random girl talking to Dial the Avenger. She stared at me as I walked over. "Hi. Rogue right?"

"Who wants to know?" she said, surprising me. I expected her to sound like that, but her accent was stronger than I realized. Very Southern. And adorable.

Rogue wore the same green see-through top over a black tank top, a collar around her neck, and a pair of gloves. Basically covering herself entirely. Her hair was in a tight bob, and dark green lipstick shined just a bit.

Just like the X-Men kids, she was cute as a button. Probably wouldn't have appreciated that opinion though. I kept back a safe distance, and Rogue took a good look at me.

"Yer an Avenger!" She sounded surprised. And scared. She backed away from me, holding a stack of books close. "What do you want?"

"To say hi, partially," I waved just a bit, smiling as non-threateningly as possible. "I'm Dial. And you're Rogue, one of the X-Men's friends."

She scoffed. "They ain't no friends of mine."

"That wasn't what they said," Scott was a big believer in her actually.

Rogue eyed me suspiciously. "Good for them. What do you want? You gonna arrest me?"

"For what, being a teenager?" I asked honestly.

"No, for my powers!" she spat out. I think she was trying for defiant anger. She seemed more scared to me.

"...Rogue. I'm an Avenger. We arrest bad guys. Fight demi-gods, armies, monsters. Not high schoolers," I looked around the park. After a second, I moved over to a bench near us and sat down. "I'm not here to hurt you, Rogue. I know about your issue controlling your powers."

She hesitated at the sight of me sitting, then brushed some hair back from her eyes. "It ain't… really about control."

I motioned for her to sit, feeling like I was dealing with a skittish cat. It was similar. Rogue hadn't had a good time of it. Never knew who to trust. Half of that was likely Mystique. That blue woman lied so much for a living that she couldn't tell the difference between loving someone and gaslighting them.

Rogue finally lowered down next to me. "You know about my power, right?"

"Absorption," I said immediately. "With a touch, you can take on the abilities of anyone you touch. But it takes a toll on the people you touch."

"More like nearly kills them!" she waved a hand in the air and turned to face me. "I can't control it! I don't mean to! But every time I get close to someone now I just end up hurting 'em!"

She turned away from me and stared at her hands. "I just wish I never got these stupid powers…"

"...Rogue. You have incredible powers."

"How can you say that!?" she snapped, spinning around. "The last person I got close to-"

"Is recovering," when I said that, she stopped in shock. I smiled sadly. "Slowly. But Cody is being looked at by some of BRIDGE's top people. They've managed to wake him up. He might be slow to get out of bed. But the fact we knew what to look for meant we could wake him."

Rogue looked as though the sky had opened up. "R-Really?"

"Yes. And Rogue. I don't think your powers are as uncontrollable as it seems, based on the science," I reached for my pocket and took out a large watch. An exact copy of Scott's actually. "I think, with time and practice, you might be able to choose when and how your powers activate. You'll be able to take in powers for longer periods of time, mix and match them… and touch people without them being harmed. But until that time."

I reached out for her hand. She jumped, startled. I stopped. "Don't worry. I'll be careful."

The moment it took for her to finally reach out as well was longer than I expected. But she finally did, placing her gloved hand carefully in mine. I took my other hand and wrapped the watch around her wrist.

"Now, this model is a bit cumbersome," I attached the clasps. "But it's going to work. Made by Iron Man, Jury Rigg, and a bunch of the smartest people I know. Based on the research we did on Cody. And…"

I touched her glove. And removed it in a movement Nat had taught me. Turns out even gloves are easy to steal when you have enough pickpocket skills. She gasped in horror. "No-!"

My palm pressed into hers. And it began.

God. I hadn't expected the pain of it to be so all-encompassing. Still. I'd felt worse. I'd seen literal hell.

"Relax," I told her, watching as the watch beeped loudly. It didn't need much. As I'd told her, we had plenty of data. The watch shone a familiar green. And the pain ended. I sighed in relief. "There. That wasn't so bad."

Rogue's jaw dropped open.

"Well, it was pretty bad," I admitted. "But it's over now. How do you feel?"

"I'm… touching you…"

I chuckled. Then I turned her hand around and took it in a shaking position. "Let's try this again. I'm Dial, of the Avengers."

She stared at our bare hands touching. "How-"

"The watch," I took a hold of her other glove and removed it, folding it together with the other one. "It's meant to negate the powers of the wearers. You can turn it off anytime you wanna take down a moron or two who makes the mistake of 'messing with the Rogue'. And I still think you should train your powers. But for now, you can touch people agai-"

I stopped when a pair of arms wrapped around me. I felt her shake against me as she hugged me. Closing my big mouth, I held the crying girl close, sighing sadly. "Hey, hey. I got you. I got you."

Later, maybe, she'd ask me what the big catch was, or would wonder if there was something I was hiding. Hard to counter all the trauma, fear, and lies she'd been hit with.

But right then, Rogue hugged another person without fear for the first time in what must have been weeks. That was enough for me.




We were like that for a good while. Not going to say how long. Rogue needed time to get herself together.

Afterward, I gave her a card. If she noticed the X-symbol on it, she didn't mention it. "I can call you with this?"

"Yeah. It's also got a few other numbers. Jen, my girlfriend, put the number of her law firm there, in case you need legal assistance. Tony is on there, if you want to ask about the watch."

"She-Hulk and Iron Man?" she asked, startled.

"Man, if those surprise you, wait till you find out the God of Thunder might stop by to say hi."

"Ha!" she grinned, looking up at me as I stood to my full height. "Does that mean I need to watch out for lightning?"

"Naw. Just keep an eye out," I said honestly. After all, Storm was in the area. I sighed. "Rogue. You can live whatever life you want from here. I'm not going to force you. But if you want help practicing with your powers, or just need a friend. Well. Try reaching out. Okay?"

"...No promises," she said softly.

That would have to do.

"Oh, and if anyone tries to pretend to be me, know that the card works to ID others carrying one," I added. "So if I show up screaming about how you're evil or something, it's bullshit."

With that, I twisted the dial. In a flash of light, I was in Fasttrack form.

"Whoa!" Rogue said, surprised.

"Later, skater," with a wave of two fingers, I spun around and zoomed off at super-speed, leaving the Southern belle behind me.

Thank god that hadn't been more awkward. I'd had a huge crush on her as a kid. Can you blame me? I was ten and she was a hot goth girl.

As of now, she was just a kid who needed help. A dangerous kid, with a possible bright future. Hopefully, I could help with that.




Running at Fasttrack speed was always so addictive. There is something so damn fun about blazing around while the world stood still. Granted, I could tell why Pietro sometimes got annoyed with how slow the world could be. Or why La Vent considered his speed a curse.

Thank god I could turn it off. For me, the fun moments between heartbeats was a choice.

As I ran past people, I thought about the watches I'd given Rogue and Scott. They were… expensive. Prohibitively expensive. Each one had been made for a specific problem, put together based on designs Tony had already been working on for a while to do the job.

Poly-tectic adaptive materials let it survive a whole lot of abuse. The on-board software to adjust to the power needs. Oh, and a specialized power source. The watches cost as much as a Quinjet. Each.

And of course, they were imperfect. If Scott really wanted to blast out a laser, if he put his full focus on forcing it out, his powers would eventually overload the systems and shatter the internal mechanism. Rogue, despite what she thought, might have enough control that she could do the same.

Which was fine. Last thing I wanted was for some techno villain to break through the safeties and force their powers off against their will. Did mean Magneto wouldn't let it work on him though. Maybe the next iterations.

Of course, one other thing. It did nothing for physical mutations. Sorry, Kurt. Blob. Toad. And a whole list of others.

As these thoughts ran through my head, I came to a skidding halt at my destination. There, a familiar man waited. "Huh. I guess I'm late."

"Not at all. I was just early," Fury, leaning against his new car. Well, old car, renewed. His Chevy Tahoe, a heavily modified and upgraded version, was a standard SHIELD one that Fitz had worked on with Shuri to restore and give to the superspy.

"How's she running?" I asked, joining the older man. He looked pretty happy, in his relaxed suit and long coat, his classic eyepatch on.

"Like a dream. How about yours?" he said with a nod to the Omnitrix.

"Same," I looked over at the building Fury had been waiting in front of. "I guess I don't need to ask?"

"Yeah, they're in there," Fury said. "Except the big fish. She's probably at work."

"Easier this way, I guess. After you, old man," I said, turning back into my human form in a flash.

"Kid, you've gotten real uppity lately," Fury grumbled with no real heat.

"Naaaah, I'm just fond of you now," we passed a sign as we walked. It read 'The Brotherhood Of Bayville Boarding House'.

We came to the steps of a large building. I knocked on the door, stepping back with Fury. As I waited, I wondered a couple of things.

Back in my universe, I'd watched X-Men Evolution. I remembered it fondly. And one thing I remember was that Quicksilver was a member of the Brotherhood, with Scarlet Witch following. That was clearly not the case here. Man, what is the point of meta-knowledge if it's useless a lot of the time?

So when the door opened and an unfamiliar young teen stood there, I was unsurprised. He was tall, fairly athletic for his young age, with brown skin a few shades lighter than my own, slicked-back black hair, and dark brown eyes. He looked us over, confused. When he spoke, it was with a bit of an Italian accent.

"Who the hell are-" then he stopped. His eyes widened.

First, he looked at Fury. The famous former head of SHIELD. More famous since he shot the leader of Hydra in the face on live television.

Then me. Dial.

His fingers clenched on the door. I spoke quickly before he could unleash hell. "We wanted to speak to you guys. Just speak. Nothing else."

He glared at me. "Or what!?"

"...seriously?" I asked him pointedly. I looked over at Fury. Fury rolled his eye and walked forward.

"Boy, you really don't want to ask questions like that," Fury pushed past the kid with the confidence of decades. "The guys you ask might answer."

I followed him after while the teenager sputtered. Fury stepped into the living room, where a massive mound of flesh was sitting on the couch. He stared at us weirdly as Fury sat down on a beat-up old armoire. I took a spot just behind Fury while looking around.

The place was cleaner than I expected. Granted, still messy, since, you know, teenage boys, but the garbage was empty at least. Guess Mystique ran a tight enough ship that the place wasn't a toxic wasteland.

"Uh, who are you?" the big kid asked, sounding just a bit lost.

"I'm Nick Fury, Agent of BRIDGE," Fury sat back in the seat with his usual Sam Jackson cool.

"Some people call him a bad mutha-"

"Shut your mouth," Fury cut me off.

"I'm just talking about Fury."

Fury didn't laugh, but he did give me an amused smile. The large kid on the other hand looked confused. Not a fan of classic blaxploitation films probably.

Three others rushed into the room. One, the slick-haired kid who'd opened the door. Then, a long-haired kid wearing a black t-shirt and a brown vest. Finally, a kid who literally hopped into the room, with pallid grey-green skin and the worst teeth I'd ever seen in a teenager. Their appearance seemed to spur the large kid into action, who stumbled up to his feet.

The long-haired one took the lead. "What is going on here!?"

The room shook. Something fell in the house. Impressive stuff. One clenched fist and suddenly there was an earthquake.

"We came here to talk," Fury said. "Just that."

"Yo, what if we don't want to-" the green-skinned kid said.

"Todd Tolansky," I pointed at him. "Frederick Dukes," the large kid. "Lance Alvers," long hair. "And Gunther Bain." That was the slicked-back hair one.

Fury took over. "Or, as you have codenamed yourselves. Toad. Blob. Avalanche. And Unus the Untouchable… little ostentatious on the last one."

"Fuck you," the aforementioned Unus spat out.

"Told you," Toad whispered. "Plus, it sounds like Anu-"

"What the hell do you want!?!" Lance spat out.

"Like Fury said. To talk. Because obviously, we know what you are. Mutants. Powered humans. And we came here to make you an offer."

The batch of teenagers glared at us with varying levels of anger.

"Part of the offer is a massive bundle of cash," I added helpfully.

The anger lowered a significant amount.

"...We're listening," Lance said hesitantly.

"It's pretty simple," I began. "We know you guys have powers. Not insignificant ones either."

"Did the X-Nerds tell you that?" Gunther asked.

"No, our research did. It's how we know you can form force fields around you, for example."

Unus the Untouchable. I had never heard of him, back in my world. Likely he was one of those X-Men characters that just didn't show up too often. In this world, Gunther Bain, born Angelo Unuscione was an Italian immigrant who had moved to Bayville after spending some time in New York City. He'd gone to the same school as Spyke actually, confirming he'd taken on, at least in spirit, the role that Pietro had in the X-Men Evolution universe.

I wondered who had taken Wanda's role before focusing up.

"But, despite what your principal would say, you guys have been using your powers to bully, attack, and otherwise abuse others," I said without holding back.

"Hey, you can't prove it," Toad said quickly.

"We don't have to right now. As I said, we came with an offer. I'm just letting you know why we're extending it, rather than having Hulk drop out of the sky."

That last part stilled them. Even Blob looked worried.

"Here's the basics, boys," Fury said. "I've been authorized to offer you all a job. With BRIDGE's Grappler unit. Come work with us. We'll provide you with pay, training, and a place to live. You want an education? We can provide the best."

"What if we don't want to go to school?" Blob asked, looking worried.

For a moment, I felt for him. His school records reminded me that modern education dropped the ball in a lot of ways, especially for kids like him with possible developmental issues.

"Then we'll talk it over," Fury said diplomatically.

"Fuck that," Lance snapped, the ground shaking again. "What do you want? Why are you even making this offer?"

"Because you guys might end up in jail if we don't try to intervene. Or dead," the sigh that left me then shook my lungs. "Lance. You can quake buildings apart. In fact, you have. If you cause that kind of damage wily-nily, and you don't stop, then cops will have to intervene. And they'll likely kill you. Because you are powerful. Not bulletproof."

I looked over at Unus and Blob. "Now, you two are bulletproof. Which means I get called in. And one of my options to beat you is tossing you into lava."

The smug looks on their faces faded.

"Hey, what about me!?" Toad squawked.

We all looked over at him.

"Well you are very agile and even fairly strong for your size… but would you really like to have The God of Thunder or the Doomslayer of Rio come after you?"

Toad paled. And yeah, Doomslayer of Rio. You're welcome, Frank.

After a long moment, I continued. "So we are making you an offer. But beyond that, we have an ultimatum."

"Stop causing trouble," Fury said. His smirk was gone. Instead, a single intimidating eye glared at them. "We know about you. We know what you can do. And we don't mind you having powers. But you are done. No more buildings quaking apart. No more kidnapping others. No more random fights."

The ground began to shake. Blob's face began to twist in rage. Unus glared at us.

I stepped forward then. I looked them over one by one.

The teenagers tried to glare me down.

Then, the ground calmed as Lance slowly unclenched his fists. Blob stepped back. Unus eyed me warily.

Guess my reputation proceeded me.

"You're lucky," Fury said. "If you were adults, we'd have taken you in. As of now? Those are your choices. Join BRIDGE and get paid handsomely. Stay as you are and stop causing trouble. Or cause trouble."

That last one didn't need any additions.

Fury got up. I followed him calmly. "Think about it. Here's a card," Fury handed Lance one. Similar to Rogue and the X-Men's versions, with a G for Grappler. And a fuckton more restrictions. "My number is in there."

"'In'?" Unus asked, confused.

"It's a phone," I said, not explaining further.

We walked up to the door, not looking back at the kids.

"Hey," Blob said.

Fury and I stopped, turning to look at him. He looked hesitant. "Um… how much money do we get?"

I named a figure. A very large one.

Then Fury and I left the shocked kids behind.




"I feel kind of bad, bugging their place like that," I told Fury as we entered his car.

"Had to be done," the older man started up his car. "We need to monitor them."

"Yeah. I'm just happy we got out without a fight. Those kids are damn volatile. I think Blob was ready to start swinging."

Fury scoffed. "These kids are going to end up causing a lot of damage if they continue as they are. Same with the X-Men."

"Fury-"

"I don't care what kind of soft spot you've got for them. The kids on that team have caused a lot of damage. Both of them are teenagers. That gets them a lighter sentence, not a get-out-of-jail-free card for stupidity…"

"I was going to say I agreed completely."

"...Huh," he blinked at that.

I may have been a fan of the X-Men, but I'd spent enough time around other heroes, being a hero, that my hero-worship was way lower than my pragmatism. I leaned against the window as I sat there, thinking. Fury wasn't wrong. We hadn't had time to talk about it. But the two groupss of kids had caused some property damage recently. Nothing that couldn't be repaired, and no one hurt so bad they couldn't heal.

But enough that they would have been sued a couple of dozen times.

An argument could be made for Scott since he didn't ask for the lack of control, but even he'd done some damage on purpose.

Either way, I felt uncomfortable misleading the Brotherhood. The way we'd worded it, they would get training in their powers. But they weren't about to become Avengers anymore than the X-Men were. Maria had gotten some therapists ready to go, unorthodox teachers, had Creel, the Grapplers, and a few former criminals turned BRIDGE Elites to drop in.

Training, schooling, and pay. And maybe, when they turned 18, they could decide for themselves what they wanted, after plenty of mentoring.

Like I'd told the X-Men kids, we weren't down for child soldiers.

"Also, that green kid-"

"Smelled."

"Like absolute shit, he needs a few showers. But also, he's leaving," I looked up to see Toad leaving the house. He was talking in towards… the same place we were going.

"Makes sense they'd try to reach out to her," I said softly.

"Then we need to beat them to it," Fury started driving. "If you're right, she might be trouble."

Yeah. Maybe we'd get lucky and she would look like Jennifer Lawrence.

Unlikely, but hopes were high.




We got to Bayville High. Fury and I walked into the office, striding past the secretary. When we entered the Principal's office, she was shocked to see us.

She had short brown hair, high cheekbones, and brown eyes. None of which mattered.

"Raven Darkhölme? I'm Nicholas Fury," he said with a grim look on his face. "This is Dial, of the Avengers. We're here to talk to you about-"

The brown-haired woman's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing here? Who let you in?"

"The law," Fury snapped. He glared at her. That led me to remember that Nick Fury in the comics was actually one of the first people to take on Mystique. Along with Captain Marvel… Huh, what is Carol up to?

Fury sat down again, while I stood behind him. "We came here to talk to you about a few things. Namely, your powers."

She stared at him. Then she looked over at me. Then she leaned back in her seat, harsh eyes glaring. "Do you?"

"Yes… Mystique," I paused. "You've got blue skin."

That was enough apparently.

Pale white flowed into soft blue. The smart pantsuit became a flowing white dress. Brown eyes shifted to gold. Brown hair became long and scarlet, the color of blood.

Mystique leaned back in her chair. "Then it seems you know more than you should. Are you here to arrest me for having powers? Because while I may lose my job, I don't believe you could hold me for that."

"Oh sweetheart," I smirked. "That's just the tip of the iceberg."

She smirked back. "You have no idea."

Doubt that. Sorry Mystique. But this is my house now.

Still… I kept an eye on the metal in the room. Just in case.






Author's Note: Gunther Bain is going to be unfamiliar to some. Unus the Untouchable isn't one the level of Apocalypse, doesn't show up as much as Magneto, just plain isn't a guy the X-Men fight often. But like most of their characters, he's got some wild powers. Well, ONE wild power. That said, a good one, that doesn't get portrayed as interestingly as it could be.

Giulio Berruti is going to be the actor who portrays him by the way. The dude has some acting chops and he's got the looks from his teenage years.

Now. Mystique. Who, in season 1, is always in contact with Magneto. He somehow is just there whenever he needs to talk to her. Maybe Mastermind helps him with that? Hell if I know.

Still, Dial is right to keep an eye out on the metal around him.

Next chapter will be up on my Patreon. I'm also doing some work on a sidestory for this I promised I'd finish a while ago, so keep an eye out for that.
 
Dial: Nullverse Invasion
Author's Note: A long time ago, I started an omake I promised to finish later, a chapter where Rooters would battle Avengers. I didn't finish it. Until now.

Here is that omake.



Kolar
Way Bad
Servantis
Swift
Leander
Phil Billings

VS

Captain America
Thor
Falcon
Creel
Warrior
Dial

Sam Wilson/Falcon

"I've been flying for a while up here, guys," Sam said, looking down at the ground as he tumbled through the air. He aimed himself toward one building in particular. "We sure this is the place?"

The place was an industrial container terminal, right next to the river. No one was working there. Not since the Avengers had tracked strange energy signatures in the area, which had been connected to similar energy signatures found at a jewelry store that had been robbed just a week ago. Sam was trying to see if he could get a view of what was causing those, but all he'd done was fly for a few minutes. As of right then, only six Avengers were available to check in on it. Captain America, Dial, Sam himself, Creel, Warrior, and-

"Indeed," Sam almost had a heart attack when Thor came out of the sky, flying alongside him for a moment before disappearing at high speed. Thor continued speaking, Sam listening through his radio. "This place seems completely empty."

"Watch where you're flying!" Sam said, drifting down to a building that looked like a large warehouse and landing in front of it. Thor landed next to him, giving Sam an embarrassed look.

"Apologies, Son of Wil. I do not have the precision you do in flight."

"Fast as hell though," Sam admitted. "Even if you do fly like you're constantly strapped to a meteor."

"It's pronounced 'Mjolnir'," Thor said helpfully.

Sam shook his head, chuckling. Then he looked over the area. "What do you think, hammer boy? We got anything to worry about?"

"I believe we do," Thor said grimly. He looked around. "I sense some sort of fel magic has taken place here. The energies here… it is like the Convergence has happened once more."

"That whole thing with portals all over London?" Sam shook his head. "Yeah, after Rio, I think I've had enough of that kind of thing. Just feel like we fight enough weirdness on Earth without adding to it, you know?"

"I do know," Thor's voice took on a melancholy tone. "I hope this is not yet another Asgardian problem. My people have caused enough trouble for your-"

"Oh please," Sam rolled his eyes, giving Thor a grin. "Like you're responsible for what a bunch of dickheads from your world does. I might as well take the blame for HYDRA stealing stuff from you."

"But the chaos we cause when we arrive-" Thor was ready to say.

"Look," Sam cut him off, lifting a hand up. "You've been helping out Earth for what, four years now? Little more? I doubt you haven't made up for what your brother and a bunch of guys related to Asgard's history have done. Far as I'm concerned, we're square," Sam patted his arm with a grin. "And I'm not just saying that because you can toss me into the sun."

Thor laughed at that, giving Sam a large smile. "Thank you, friend Sam. I will admit, I do worry about-"

"Yo!" Thor was interrupted when someone came around the corner. They turned around and saw Izzy walking over. The powerful brunette woman was dressed in her knight-like armor, sword on her back. Her helmet was removed, allowing her hair to flow as she walked over, giving Thor and Sam a bored look. "I don't suppose either of you found a fight somewhere around her."

"Ha!" Thor barked. "I agree, Lady Hartley. I hope for a battle for the ages!"

"As long as it isn't over too quickly, ya know? Lately, all I've fought is thugs and mercs," Izzy sighed dramatically. "What's the point of this fancy armor if I don't get to really test it out, ya know?"

"Hey, I'm all for the overkill," Sam said. "I don't mind a fight for the right reasons, but getting my ass kicked isn't something I'm eager for."

"Ah, come Sam!" Thor placed a heavy arm around Sam's shoulder. "Where is your warrior's spirit!? The drive for battle, the wish to prove yourself against an enemy worthy of your strength!"

"I'm more of a 'do what I have to for the right thing' kind of guy," Sam said honestly.

"Awwww, that's boring though!" Izzy grumbled. Sam shrugged, smirking.

"What can I say? All the monsters coming out of the woodwork makes me want to tone things back. You can only fight so many demons and mutants before you start to relish normal gangsters."

"We don't fight that many monsters," Izzy said with a sigh.

It was then that a building exploded.

Sam staggered back as dust blew outwards from a warehouse several dozen feet away from them, steel and concrete shattering. And a massive purple form lifted up into the air. Sam stared at the being that stood up, higher and higher, towering over them. The earth shook under a massive footstep, a shadow falling across the three of them as Sam tried to comprehend the sheer size of that being.

"Nice tits," Izzy said nonchalantly.

"What." Sam stared at her. The giant monster strode forward, but Izzy ignored it to look at him.

"Well, look at her. Even if we ignore the fact she's a giant, she's got some nice proportions-"

"HER BEING A GIANT IS ALL WE SHOULD FOCUS ON!" Sam exploded. "Where the hell did she come from!?"

"She is no Frost Giant. A worthy opponent nonetheless!" Thor said happily, twirling the hammer in his hand with a savage laugh.

Before he could do anything, however, something smashed through a wall. For a moment, at the sight of the four arms and the muscular powerful body, Sam thought it was Dial in Four Arms form. Until he noticed the pale blue-gray skin and long hair, rather than Four Arm's dark red skin and bald head. Red eyes glared at them. The being was a little shorter and less built than Four Arms, but he was still at least thirteen feet tall, rippling with muscle, and now running right towards them.

Sam leaped back, holding back the urge to start shooting. While he had some powerful weapons available to him nowadays, most weren't built to defeat things as durable as Four Arms.

Thor, on the other hand, was.

"Come, brute!" Thor ran forward, Mjolnir raised. "Have at thee!"

"You think you can take on Kolar!?" two fists smashed into Thor's face, sending out a shockwave, then uppercuting him in the stomach. "Bring it on huma-"

A hammer to the chin shut up whoever this Kolar guy was. Thor grinned, his eyes gleaming with savage pride. "I am not a human. I am a god."

Thor punched Kolar, who backflipped to get out of the way.

"Falcon to all Avengers on site, we have two meta beings!" Sam shouted, lifting into the air.

"Same here!" Dial said through the radio. "I'm taking over tactical control of the mission. I'm going to go deal with the Way Bad!"

"You know what that thing is?"

"Intimately. I know these guys. Steve is dealing with the leader, Creel is headed your way with the other three! Sam, take on the girl with wings, Creel will handle the furry one, Izzy, your suit is hardened against rads so you can take on the one that looks like NRG's little brother!"

Before Sam could say anything, a wall nearby shattered into concrete dust. Creel came out of it, rolling on the ground for a moment before snapping to his feet. Sam and Izzy took a spot on either side of him, facing whoever had sent him through the wall. Two men and one woman came out of the hole. All three were wearing similar uniforms, with black armored plating over a lighter shade colored black undersuit, with silver linings around the edges of the armor.

One of them was female, with red skin, short red-black hair, red eyes, and a yellow pair of eyebrows or something. Her feet and hands had three digits each, a long tail was coming from her back, and she had wing flaps under her arms.

The second one was human-shaped, with a powerful-looking build, but had a helmet that looked like a smaller version of NRG's. He blasted out red energy as he stepped forward. Izzy stepped in front of them, a shield of catoms flowing on her arm and taking the blast. The laser turned the catoms to slag but were successfully blocked, Izzy glaring at the tall man.

The last one surprised Sam. Because he looked like a human soldier. He was well built, caucasian, with grey-white pulled into a ponytail, and slightly scraggly beard around his face. He raised his hands as he came forward.

"Hold on!" the man said. "Wait for a second! We aren't here to fight!"

"You put me through a wall," Creel said idly. He was in his human form, but Sam could see his gauntlet, full of useful materials, shining on his arm, a large box-shaped object on his back. "I tend to start fights with people who do that."

"It's the laser that does it for me," Izzy said, looking like a little girl about to get a new doll as she slowly raised her sword, the armored knight of the Avengers ready to brawl.

Sam had to step in. Dial likely had good reason for why he thought these guys were hostile. If he could get some time...

"Wait a sec," Sam stepped forward. Izzy and Creel stepped back, but stayed ready. "Who are you? Why is that guy with the four arms attacking one of my team? You with him and the 300-foot tall woman?"

Why were these sentences so normal in his life now?

"The Way Bad and Kolar?" the man shook his head. "No. I apologize for my compatriots' original attack," Sam noted that the guy was beginning to step to the side. Sam slowly backed away, keeping his eyes on him. "My name is Phil Billings. We're the Rooters, members of an organization that fights alien criminals in my world. We aren't here to fight. But as I said, we're from another world, another dimension. We were just confused. We want to go home."

"The Rooters tried to kill a 16 year old superhero because they thought he was going to end the universe. He wasn't. They're the worst kind of military intelligence. Shoot a possible threat while it's still an ally. Like every general who keeps urging us to find a way to kill the Hulk or Thor. Or me," Dial said. The sounds of explosions were going off in the distance, the purple-being screaming.

"If that's the case," Sam said, keeping an eye on all three. "We can talk about that. I'm Sam Wilson, of the Avengers, a peacekeeping organization. We can help you. Provided that you-"

A voice came in on the radio. Steve. "Avengers. The leader of these metas, Servantis, just initiated a psychic assault on my mind. Consider them-" the sound of a shield bouncing off a hard surface was followed by a posh accent cursing. "Hostile."

Phil looked up. He apparently received a message of his own, as did the winged woman and armored man. For a moment the six of them eyed each other.

Dial was speaking as quickly as he could. "The girl is Swift. She can fly fast as fuck, and has laser eyes and a laser tail. But she can't take a beating, so stay on your toes and you can take her Sam. Phil can transform into a monster with enhanced physical abilities, can absorb energy, and interfere with my Omnitrix. Creel can beat the shit out of him while ignoring his lightning blasts and lasers. Izzy, you've got the skills to take on Leander, the NRG knockoff, just avoid his direct radiation attacks. Steve. Servantis can manipulate minds, move things with telekinesis, levitate, make force fields, and shoot electric beams. He's a badass. But you're Captain America."

A whistling sound filled the air. The six of them looked out at the harbor. For a moment, just a moment they could see the purple woman facing a flying green light flashing at her. The light smashed into the woman, sending 300 hundred feet of monster movie reject skidding back.

That might as well have been the signal. Sam's wings snapped out. Phil shifted into a furry monster. Creel's skin became a dark black like rubber. Izzy's sword snapped out as she went for Leander, a red blast aiming for her head that she barely dodged.

Sam lifted up into the air. Swift followed. In a blaze of speed, the two went into the sky, and the fight began.








Steve Rogers/Captain America

At first, Steve had tried to be nice. He'd seen the man on his own. Tall, almost seven feet, and thin. His skin was red, and his head was elongated, like the Leader's. Unlike Sterns, his head seemed to be covered in a carapace, like the armor of a crab.

Steve had been ready to give the man the benefit of the doubt. Simply attacking someone for being a meta, for looking so different from the norm, went against his nature.

So Steve had walked in, cautious, but not about to attack without reason. Then, a blast of red lightning slammed into him.

And he found himself in the War.

He stared around himself. He was in the War. It didn't matter what time, what place. He was in a fight again. All around him, allies were fighting enemies. Maybe they were Bucky, or the Howling Commandos, Avengers, SHIELD, or BRIDGE. Maybe they were fighting HYDRA or the Chitauri.

All that mattered was that he was in the war. And someone was fighting him.

"Impressive," a voice said. Steve blocked a punch, snapped a kick out that was dodged, blocked a blast of electricity on a shield that shifted shapes and colors. "Most minds that resist me have had practice. Years of experience with mental defense. But you? How are you fighting me?"

The voice sounded amused. Steve fought with everything he had. As best he could.

"Is it some form of misguided patriotism? That incredibly naive look at the world, or-"

Steve hit the enemy in the face. The world shook. The voice let out a gasp of noise. Steve focused on that.

"Bow," a voice snarled. The weight on Steve's shoulder became insane. "I am Servantis. And you will listen to me. Tell your team to stand down. To let us go!"

There was a war. There was an enemy. And there was the right thing to do. The people he had to fight for. The ones he knew, the invisible ones he would never know, but who he had to save all the same. He reached for that. The world was not black and white. But for Steve, that didn't matter. As long as there was good in the world…

Steve planted his feet. The enemy surrounded him. An intangible body that pressed to his skin. He lifted his shield, and threw it forward. For a moment, he wasn't throwing a shield. He was throwing everything. His beliefs, hopes, his willpower. Not a metal frisbee, but all the things that represented him. Red, white, and blue flashed through the war. And the voice shouted.

Steve's mind cleared. The man he'd been facing staggered back. Servantis. That was what he'd said his name was.

"Avengers. The leader of these metas, Servantis, just initiated a psychic assault on my mind. Consider them," Steve tossed his shield, and it hit the chest of the man. "Hostile!"

"Damn you!" Servantis shouted. He snapped his head up. The carapace on his head opened up, revealing his brain, to Steve's disgust. Red electricity snapped across the crevices of his brain. Steve caught his shield in time to block a blast of electricity that lifted him into the air before he could get his feet under him to tank the blast on the invulnerable shield.

"Dial, give everyone a rundown on what we're fighting!"







Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

I sped into the air, trying to figure out what the fuck the Rooters were doing here.

I hadn't watched a lot of Omniverse. But I had visited the Ben 10 wiki a lot before getting dropped into this world. Hell, I'd dropped into a lot of wiki's in my time. So I knew who these guys were.

But hadn't they been locked in the Null Void? Hell, in the show, Kevin 10,000 mentioned fighting them a bunch. So what were they doing here, in 2014 New York?

With a Way Bad. Don't forget that. The terrifying and giant Kaiju of a monster currently striding into the Hudson.

I cartwheeled into the air and spoke while flying, trying to inform everyone even as I tried to figure out a damn way to take down a cosmic storm summoning mutant.

"The Rooters tried to kill a 16 year old superhero because they thought he was going to end the universe. He wasn't. They're the worst kind of military intelligence. Shoot a possible threat while it's still an ally. Like every general who keeps urging us to find a way to kill the Hulk or Thor. Or me."

I started blasting the Way Bad with green energy blasts as I flew, thinking carefully. She screamed as the blasts exploded against her. I dived between her legs, right above the water, and shot at her thighs and crotch as I passed. She screamed again, but it was like taking down a normal human with pop rocks.

Okay. Needed to hit a lot harder then.

I flew up out of the city, passing every mach I could, sonic booms following in my wake. Until I was going past the atmosphere, reaching space. I twisted in the air, for a moment flying with the Earth to my back and the great emptiness of outer space above me. Then I flew back. Everything I had went into my flight.

I arced down, aiming diagonally towards my target. I spoke as I went over the ocean, the Omnitrix passing my words through to the others despite the fact I'd passed the speed of sound a while ago, giving them the rundown on Swift, Leander, and Paul.

As I did that, I aimed for the Way Bad's chest. She roared, though I couldn't hear it. I tapped the Omnitrix and transformed in a flash of green light. At mach-20, I slammed into the Way Bad in Diamondhead form.

The Way Bad screamed, a wave of spit coming out of her mouth. God. Until you actually saw it, it was hard to comprehend what it meant to interact with a being of her size. As she fell back, I could feel wind get created by her movement. Her voice cracked the air with a sound like a car crash. Even in my Diamondhead form, so much taller and larger than my human form, I felt like a beetle falling away from the chest of a human woman. I raised my arms and fired crystals as I fell, the crystals exploding on impact as they smashed into her chest and face. I tried to aim for her armpits, elbows, groin, then knees, with a few shots headed for every place a super-assassin and a war god had pointed out as a weak point on a bipedal body.

The Way Bad acted with all the pain of a person getting hit by a bunch of small bouncy balls. That being, pained, but far off from knocked out or dead.

I landed in the water with a splash, thinking furiously as Way Bad reached into the water, waving her arms around. Even below the water, getting spun around like a toy in a bathtub, I could hear her grunting and moaning in exertion, the sound booming in the water. I tapped the omnitrix.

In a flash, I was Big Chill. Under the water, I went intangible, letting that feeling of being separate from the universe fill me just as Way Bad's fingers passed through me, her hand becoming encased in ice. I spread my wings and arms. I forced that chill within me, the dark power that filled Big Chill to his core, out of my body in an explosion of cold.

"YAAAAA!"

The water of the Hudson River around me froze into an iceberg. It climbed up the legs of the Way Bad, surrounded her as she panicked and punched at it, but slowly became covered in chilled gross smelly ice. She reached out just before she was finally frozen entirely, her face a mask of fear and pain.

Then I flew up out of the water, creating a tower of ice that floated up to about neck level from her. I knew what was going to happen next. This was a creature of immense power. No way getting frozen would stop her.

"Have at thee!" Thor went flying past. Kolar was punching him in the face. Thor laughed, lightning sparking in his eyes.

"Die already!" Kolar roared.

"Not this day or any other!" Thor got his arm out of Kolar's grip, then smashed him in the chin with Mjolnir, sending him skyrocketing into the sky in a trail of a few broken teeth. Then Thor noticed me. "Dial! How does this battle find you my friend!?"

True to my paranoia, the ice began to crack. I tapped the Omnitrix.

A giant monster erupted from the ice, then blasted me in the face with a laser.

I spread my stance on the chilled ice platform and raised two pluglike hands. The laser, as big around as a semi-truck flying at me, shrank and was absorbed into the openings on my fingertips.

In Feedback-form, I absorbed the full power of a cosmic storm. The energy was warm. In my time, few bursts of energy that I'd pulled into me matched the energy of the Way Bad in terms of output.

"She's got a lot of juice," I mumbled to Thor.

"Indeed. Would you like aid in this battle?" my Asgardian friend said, hefting Mjolnir in a single hand.

I raised my hands and fired. The beam of blue light I smashed the Way Bad with was the most powerful I'd ever done, enough to send her screaming onto her back in a wave of ice and water. I kept up the blast, trying to keep her down. "After you're done with Kolar!" I said in answer to Thor.

"Very well!" Thor looked up. The spinning tetramand was coming back down towards us, screaming with abject rage. "Tell me, how do members of his species deal with lightning?"

"Enough will work," I absorbed another blast from the Way Bad, then groaned when my return blast had as much effect as a firehose on a person. Hurts, but not unbearable.

"Then I will be back!" Thor rocketed upwards, slamming into Kolar with a loud 'boom!' The lightning that fell from the sky enveloped them. The clouds above began to swirl, and rain poured down upon us. Thor and Kolar fell towards the Battery, the park that sat at the southern tip of Manhattan island, the sounds of thunder and lightning echoing before I lost sight of them.

This wasn't working… Okay then.

I shifted to my human form. For a moment, I stood there in my black and green armor on top of a pillar of ice. Then I looked at the Omnitrix on my wrist. Time for a hail mary.

"Come on, Omnitrix," I mumbled, staring at it, before looking up at the Way Bad. "Give me something appropriate."

I popped the dial up, spun it like the cylinder of a revolver, then smashed down on it. Honestly, if I had to deal with the Way Bad with any of my normal forms, I knew I could figure something out. But here and now? Hoping that the AI within was going to help me out felt oddly appropriate.

A flash of light appeared. The Way Bad looked at me. Then she blinked. The ice platform beneath me shattered as my weight crushed it. I rose upwards. Like all my transformations, it was instant. But the sheer size I was growing up to made it seem like a gradual increase, my shadow crossing the Way Bad. My head grew a tall and thin fin, as did the backs of my arms. My skin shifted shades to red across my fins, arms, and feet, with a single line stretching down my chest to surround the Omnitrix. The rest of my body was colored a shade of white almost dark enough to count as grey.

I stopped at my final height and stared down at the Way Bad. She stared back at me.

"You're in big trouble," I said with a slow, long, smile.

She snapped to her feet. Now, matching her in size, her moves seemed normal. Rather than the strange slowness her colossal weight gave her movements, I could appreciate how fast she really was. She grabbed at me, squealing. She sounded like a scared animal. I grabbed her right arm and twisted it behind her, the water at my feet ankle-deep now. Funny enough, I was about a foot taller than her. Uh… Well, make that a lot of feet. Whatever, I was taller than her.

She desperately fought against my grip, our struggle bringing us closer to the buildings. "Jarvis, is the city-?"

"I had the buildings near the harbor evacuated the moment you began fighting a giant. You are clear."

"Then sorry in advance if Tony ends up having to pay for a hell of a lot of property damage," I brought the Way Bad around and punched her in the chin, then throat, solar plexus, right breast, trying to throw her off guard as much as I could. She blindly grabbed me and twisted around, pushing me away. I stumbled when my ankles hit the rocks masquerading as the Hudson's shore, falling back and smashing into one of the buildings behind me.

The Way Bad, sensing weakness, rushed me in a manner that reminded me of the time a meth addict had attacked me once. I rolled out of the way and smashed her head with my elbow as she spun away.

It was so strange, being this size. No other transformation had made me feel like this. I felt like I was in the middle of a Lego city, cars smaller than my feet, buildings reaching up to my waist. And inside I felt power. Power that swirled in me. Only in my Asgadian form had I felt such insane strength. Beyond that there was this… sense. Of something outside of the atmosphere. A storm.

I pushed aside that thought to focus on the Way Bad… who was running?

"Are you serious!?" I roared, rushing towards her, the ground cracking under my footsteps. "Get back here!"

"SKREEEEE!!!"
she screamed like a scared animal.

Damnit, I should not be feeling sorry for a giant monster made to subjugate worlds.

I got to her and punched at her. She blocked it on her forearm, then lashed out. I slid to a stop, so that we were standing on either side of a street. For a second, things got relatively interesting.

She started punching and clawing at me. I blocked and parried. A fin on her arm slashed out at me. I caught it between my elbow and knee and punished her by grabbing the horns on either side of her face, pulling her in for a headbutt. She surprised me with a claw across the chest, her hardened nails clashing with my tough skin and leaving a painful sensation. I kicked her in the ribs, then cracked her in the jaws. She blasted at me, and I had to take the blast to keep the buildings behind me safe.

I was the better fighter, but I wasn't trained in being a giant in a city I wanted to keep from squishing. She had no such issues, and could unleash her animalistic fighting-style with impunity.

At one point, she stepped back. Her foot smashed through a wall, crushing a restaurant that had been situated at the bottom of a building. Neither of us paid attention to it beyond the pain that was caused when she blasted me again.

"How dare you?"

I winced. Way Bad screeched. We looked at the source of the voice that had seemed to echo in our minds and souls.

I couldn't recognize him. At Way Big's height, all the people looked like dolls. He was wearing a purple set of robes. Which he was removing, glaring up at us.

The Way Bad, seeing I was distracted, punched me in the face. I staggered back, but forced myself to fall in front of the one guy who'd ignored evacuation, landing on my knee. I raised my hands in a cross, focusing the energy within me into the air in front of me, then out towards her.

A beam of green light sliced through the air, smashing her in the chest and sending her flying back into a building.

"Ultraman, bitch!" Yeah, I couldn't help it. I've watched Kaiju movies all my life. Even for all my new experiences with superhero antics, fighting as a giant still made me excited. All I needed was Godzilla, but the closest form I had to that was too short to fight here.

Then the guy I'd been protecting began to grow behind me. I turned, stunned, to watch him rise up towards the sky. Now, much closer to him, I could recognize him. He was bald, but with a long wispy beard. Despite his appearance of advanced age, he had the muscles of a martial arts master. He was changing shape, however. His pale white skin darkened and thickened into green and savage scales. His small head elongated out and out, until it was shaped roughly like a lizard or horses, long spikes sprouting along his spine between two wings that rose from his back before they went down along the tail he grew. He came to match me in height, then even taller, finally stopping when my head was about chest level with him.

"...Always a bigger fish," I mumbled slightly, staring up at him.

"A sound philosophy, from a below-average film," the bipedal dragon told me, smirking. "I am-"

"Fin Fang Foom." I hadn't seen him since the party, where he'd been talking to Thor and Jane. I'd decided to leave him alone after a deep background check had revealed a simple chef making good food, rather than the conqueror of worlds he was in other incarnations. I wasn't willing to attack him for no reason. I'd hoped to speak with him, but all the other problems kept coming up.

And now, here he was, forced into my life… Of course.

He chuckled, stepping forward to walk around me. "My excellent reputation precedes me! As does yours, young hero. But I'm afraid I must step in. You are clearly inexperienced with fighting in a form of such magnificent size," his eyes narrowed. "And the young one there crushed one of my restaurants."

"Well. My mom always taught me not to get between a dragon and their enemies," I stepped aside to let him pass. God. He was huge. I felt like I was standing next to the Hulk. Which, considering my own size made him- my mind shut down at the numbers. How was New York City even standing while three of its citizens were currently making the square-cube law their bitch!?

"She sounds like a wise woman," I watched hundreds of thousands of tons of muscled scales stalk towards the Way Bad. She rose to her feet, eyes blinking in confusion, then widening at the sight of Foom, his tail whipping in the air behind him as he walked towards her.

Panicking, the Way Bad brought her arms up and blasted out a red beam of power. Foom returned it with a beam of green light from his mouth. They clashed for a mere moment, then Foom's blast overwhelmed hers, exploding against her face. She staggered, then ran forward, claws slashing outwards.

If my shift in size had made fighting a bit harder for me, then Foom showed what I had to aspire towards. He ducked the claw strike, hit the Way Bad in the chest with a palm that pushed her back, then brought his hands up, his body swaying slightly. For just a moment, I was reminded of Ip Man or Bruce Lee.

The comparison became more relevant when he began blocking her attacks with high speed. He used two hands at first. Then, when he seemed to realize her lack of real martial skill, he turned to the side, brought one of his hands behind the small of his back, and started blocking and parrying with one clawed hand.

I was beginning to feel really annoyed at my previous performance. Ares was going to make me run drills when he saw my fight, I knew it.

"Ah, child. Someone truly ruined you," Foom said, shaking his head. He blocked a kick with his left leg, grabbed a wrist before a fist could land in his ribs, then chopped the Way Bad in the throat. "All rage and hatred. That is no state for you to be in. For any being to be in. A feral child, unable to even speak. Where are your kin?"

"She was cloned," I said helpfully.

Foom looked over at me. For a moment, he looked shocked. Then his eyes lit with rage.

When the Way Bad, still coughing from his neck chop, came at him with a screech, he looked at her. Her arms were wide, teeth bared.

"SCREEEEEEE-"

There was a blur. A sound like meat getting smashed by a baseball bat. A few windows cracked. And Foom was lifting the Way Bad into his arms in a bridal carry.

"What the-" I mumbled. That had been so fast! Like watching Pietro or Fasttrack move a little slower than normal. Likely it was a lot slower than I thought, but he'd still moved really damn quick for such a big being.

"The irresponsibility of parents," Foom looked down at her sadly, shaking his head. He looked down at Way Bad. She was so small compared to him. Compared to me as well, really. He sighed, hefting her. "It makes an old fool like me… well. Enough of the past I suppose."

He looked at me. "I will be taking this one into custody. See if I can teach her how to become more than an animal."

"Do you really think you can?" I asked, walking until I had a close look at the Way Bad. "Rehabilitating anyone is a tough prospect. Her… well, her DNA might be a mess. Her mind, the way Dr. Psychobos created her and her 'siblings', might make her unable to even function as a normal person. She was made from the DNA of this species," I patted my chest. "To be a weapon."

"Is that so," Foom chuckled. "Well. A weapon is a noble thing, in the right circumstances. I will see if I can give her that."

His wings rose into the sky, spreading their shadows across the city. With a massive beat that somehow left the city around us undisturbed, he lifted into the sky, leaving me behind.

"Well," I looked up in the sky, watching a dragon take off with a kaiju woman in his arms. "Still not the weirdest thing I've seen."

With that, I turned and ran to join the others, who I hoped also got magical help with their battles.








Sam Wilson/Falcon

Sam twisted in the air, cursing as a laser went spinning past him at immense speed. "Damn she's fast!"

That was putting it lightly. Swift wasn't quite as maneuverable as he was, but she had blazing speed, blasting past him before he could blink. He also had trouble keeping an eye on her, twisting and turning to dodge her, only to lose track.

Luckily, he had some extra advantages.

"Redbird, give me some eyes!"

On the back of his wings, a small drone unfolded out, shooting a pair of wings out before rocketing out. As it zoomed off to begin sending data to his headset, Sam reached for his leg while dropping from the sky.

In the battle against Hydra recently, he'd ended up losing a leg. He was still getting used to that idea. Even with all his experience helping vets with similar issues, even after talking with Frank's friend Curtis, a fellow soldier and amputee… it was rough, getting used to it.

Thankfully, the new leg he'd gotten had some upgrades.

The leg raised up a pair of rockets, each one around three inches in diameter, both on his thigh.

A green laser brushed his side, forcing him to snap his wings out and pull aside as the flying alien hybrid shot past him.

They entered the airspace of New York City. The pair shot over the city streets, blasting past the office buildings, buzzing over the top of an eighteen wheeler. Sam struggled to keep ahead of her while also twisting out of the way of her laser by diving into an open building, finding himself on the upper levels of an above ground parking garage.

Surrounded by dozens of cars of various makes and models, Sam zoomed through the place, someone shouting in shock in the distance.

A parked car behind exploded as he passed, lasers firing past him. He raised a gun and fired a repulsor shot at an elevator door across from him, blowing out the doors to enter the shaft. He flew upwards through the tight space as Swift struggled to keep up with the tight maneuver, bouncing off the walls.

He stopped for a brief moment in front of one door, blasting it open and flying out to the next floor, his HUD screaming as another green laser flew past.

For a sickening moment, he was reading the data from Redbird, dodging a laser by flying through an above ground parking garage, and snapping around an approaching SUV. Behind him, Swift bounced off the same SUV, shouting in pain. Sam took that brief respite to spin out of the parking garage, flying up and around to land on the rooftop. He crouched briefly, breathing.

Sam had to time it just right. She was quick. But not so good on the turning. Stop and go were her main moves. If he could catch her just as she was accelerating, he could hit her with everything he had.

Any other time, he'd have been embarrassed at what he was going to do next. Tony had promised they'd change the new move to something less weird. But in the moment, the move worked, and it would let him finish this alien chick off.

Redbird floated nearby, tracking the movement of Swift as she flew out of the parking garage and upwards towards the rooftop. Sam grit his teeth.

The repulsors in his new prosthetic leg lit up and began to charge. His wingsuit's jet flared up, slowly getting to its final launch. Soon he could barely keep himself down as his leg and wingsuit shuddered.

Swift flew upwards. Sam released all restraints. He lifted into the air just as Swift came into view. Her red eyes widened under that golden crown eyebrow of hers when she saw him there. She tried to stop, to twist aside.

Sam was already coming in. He called out the codeword Tony gave him to activate his finisher.

"Rider Kick!"

His HUD flashed up a diagram, targeting Swift and displaying bright red rings on the trail to attack her. His wings snapped back as his leg rockets and wingsuit jet exploded forth. The air screamed and split with his passage as a boisterous voice echoed in the air.

"FINAL WINGED RIIIIIDE!"

In a flash of red and blue, Falcon smashed into Swift with an impact like an asteroid into the Earth. She screamed as the boot in her stomach refused to let up, the pair flying through the air with streams of fire in their wake.

The impact into the street below echoed in the air, glass shattering and car alarms going off. Falcon bounced off of her, landing on the asphalt and skidding across it with a stream of sparks before he slid to a stop, while Swift rolled just behind him. The winged girl halted after one final roll. She weakly stared up at Sam as he stood straight, his wingpack and leg steaming. He didn't look back at her as she passed out.

"Swift is down. You guys okay?"

"Working on it," Creel returned.

Sam took that for what it was and turned around, pulling out a pair of handcuffs. "Then I guess I'll have to come and help."







Carl Creel/Alloy

The problem with the modern world was that things had gotten super-weird. Even after who knows how many fights, Creel still found himself surprised by shit.

The most recent one being the old guy that suddenly turned into a giant freaky spidey monster that punched him through the side of a metal warehouse.

In his steel form, Creel bounced off a truck and landed in a role, raising his hands up to take the claws of the beastly monster on. The razor-sharp nails bounced off. On feeling the strength of the blow, Creel switched to his vibranium form. The next attack didn't even flinch Creel. He returned it with a right cross then staggered the spider-beast, then a simple jab opened him up for an uppercut.

The guy, Phil was his name? Flipped through the air and landed on the side of a building, his claws digging into the brickwork.

For a moment, Creel and Phil glared at each other.

"...Osmosian?" the massive spider-creature snarled through fangs and mandibles.

"What?" Creel asked, confused. As he did, he slowly adjusted his back. A large box he'd gotten from X after they started training together while back shifted. The second he got an opening, he would reach for it.

"The… material shifting. You Osmosian?"

"Buddy, I have no idea what the fuck-"

The spider raised a hand and a red beam of energy flew out. Creel reflexively blocked it on one arm while the other reached back, wincing at the feeling of electricity running across his Vibranium form. He could withstand it unlike in other metal forms, but it still fucking hurt.

His other arm grabbed the box on his back by a handle and snapped it forward. Panels exploded apart. The box opened to reveal a four-foot-long object as big around as one of Creel's arms. He grabbed it by the handle and raised it up. Paul's eyes widened at the sight of a shotgun-rifle-hybrid pointing right him, moving quick-

The barrel exploded with enough force to crack the concrete beneath Creel's feet. His vibranium form ignored the recoil even as the cars around him begin to ring out alarms and windows shattered.

Paul screamed something aloud when a few of the pellets fired at him slammed into his flesh. The spider-creature fired another red energy blast, Creel ducking aside then shooting again.

Paul snapped out another beam of red energy, but this one solidified into a red web, snapping out to engulf Creel.

"Fuck!" Creel fell back against a car as the web of energy surrounded him, snapping his arms and legs together.

Taking hold at the other end of the net, Phil pulled hard and spun Creel around before letting go, sending him flying into a parked car, the vehicle exploding. Phil landed in the wreckage, reaching a hand out to grab Creel.

The barrel of a gun pressed to his chest. Phil had enough time for his eyes to widen before the shotgun exploded, sending him flying back with his suit, fur, and upper layers of skin and muscle ripped apart. As Phil screamed, Creel leaped out of the fire in vibranium form.

Then dropped towards him as osmium. A grocery bag of osmium weighed as much as a humvee. Creel was much larger than a grocery bag of osmium.

He landed like a meteor on Phil's chest, face, and groin.

"...uk-" the large man weakly squeaked staring up at the unforgiving face of the man whose knee had yet to move from the sensitive bits. Then, mandibles flapping weakly, Phil passed out.

Creel waited a bit to make sure he was really unconscious. Then, sighing, he rose to his feet, looking at the massive grey and black shotgun in his hands. Creel shook his head.

".950 calibur…" Creel looked over at a shell casing nearby. It was the size of a coke can. "Goddamn. X, when do you have time to make these things?"

Musing on that, Creel reached into his pocket for some cuffs as Phil shrank back into his human form. As he did, a voice came on the radio.

"Swift is down. You guys okay?" Sam asked.

"Working on it," Creel returned.

"Then I guess I'll have to come and help," Sam returned.

"I'm good. Just arresting this guy. Izzy?"

…Nothing came in. Creel got worried.

"Izzy?"

Still nothing. Creel's eyes narrowed. He hurried to cuff Phil, worry filling him.






Isabella 'Izzy' Hartley/Warrior

Izzy loved her job. Sometimes it didn't feel real, like she wasn't supposed to be living it. But she enjoyed every moment.

Her sister's cancer was long gone, taken care of by whatever magic Dial and Tony had worked. She was a goddamn superhero, fighting monsters and mobsters every day. Often with a superhero boyfriend. And she got to use a sword every time she fought!

All around, not a bad deal at all.

That said, sometimes she knew when she was in over her head. A guy blasting out a big laser from a grill set into his face was one of those times. The sound of a Geiger counting slowly ticking away in her helmet wasn't helping.

Leander, Dial had called the guy. A big guy in black armor, with an head that had similar features to that NRG alien Dial used sometimes. They'd ended up in a warehouse, and red lines of melted metal and stone surrounded them. Even in her hardened suit, she could feel the immense heat through her armor.

Izzy landed in a roll, barely dodging the radioactive beam of energy. She snapped to her feet as she stopped in front of him, swinging out her sword. The double-edged broadsword bounced off one of Leander's raised arms before the eerily silent man punched outwards. Izzy blocked it, only to be sent flying back a few feet, tossing a knife at him to prevent the larger fighter from following up. As she landed, she took stock of the situation.

Strong as hell, durable, and with a very powerful energy beam of radiation. He was also trained. She didn't know what military force he had once been under, but he used a mixture of martial arts common in the US armed forces. As well as some new stuff she didn't recognize.

Izzy noted the red shine of his grills, dodging before the red laser could hit her. Her suit may have been rated to take a lot, but the smoking patch on her shoulder said a lot about how much power the guy had. Even while dodging, she felt the heat brush past her back, feeling blisters form as her HUD screamed.

Ignoring the pain, she tossed another knife, Leander letting this one bounce off his head in favor of rushing forward and reaching out for her. Izzy stopped to block his grabbing hand, kicking at his leg. The large man took the hit, punching her in the chest. Her armor locked up a bit to resist the force of that hit, letting Izzy stay in the fight and swing her sword out, jamming the edge into his throat, then punch him in the solar plexus.

Then she had to duck the beam of red light again. Damn. Those beams were a bitch. But that was why she'd made him follow her into this warehouse.

Like a few of the other abandoned buildings that seemed to frequent New York City, it had once been a manufacturing plant. Full of tools, tables, and old discarded materials. Including one she could use.

Izzy dropped and kicked the larger man in the ankles, grinning as he fell on his ass. Then she turned and ran.

Another beam brushed past her helmeted head, the heat scalding. She ignored it. In the back would be… there it was.

In a small shed, she found a large metal barrel. She ducked behind it, her Geiger counter's ticking lessening as she hid there. She began chopping at the soft metal, gouging out as big a section as she could. It was slow work.

Leander came to a stop in the same room. He looked around, red grill sending up small hints of smoke. He didn't speak. Instead he slowly prowled forward, his stride calm, stance low.

The problem with fighting him was that if Izzy really tried to stab or slice him, that would end in his containment suit leaking. If she even could do that. So she needed to go for something else.

She slowly finished slicing off the dinner plate-sized section of metal, carrying the soft, heavy material under one hand. Leander was circling the barrel. Izzy took a page out of Black Widow's book.

Sensing he was close to her, Leander spun around the barrel and fired a shot of radiation.

Hitting the floor. He stared at the smoking concrete, surprised.

Then Izzy landed on his shoulders. He let out no sound, but raised up his arms in surprise, grabbing for her legs. Then the world went dark. He fired a beam of radiation, only to curse when metal heated up just in front of his grill, blocking his vision.

Blinded, he tried to fire again, but Izzy landed on the ground in front of him and punched him in the gut. Her armor, increasing her strength by a massive level, let her dish out a blow even the half-Prypiatosian-B felt despite his immense strength.

He instinctively lashed out, but missed, Izzy hitting him in the solar plexus with a kick. He landed against the barrel, then staggered forward, arms wide.

Izzy grabbed around the waist and suplexedsupplexed him into the ground. She grinned at the sight of lead wrapped around his head. Yep. Lead. Soft. Heavy. And very resistant to radiation. Heat notNot heat so much though. If that makeshift blindfold stayed too long, it would melt and disappear. Better finish things quick.

As the lead began to heat up, Izzy kicked Leander in the gut, groin, and torso. He staggered silently, trying to fight back. When he kicked out at her, she grabbed his leg and twisted. The sound of an ankle breaking filled the air. A very human scream came muffled from Leander. It didn't help when Izzy kicked him in the groin again.

He pulled his leg away, silently crawling away, clawing at the metal on his face. It was beginning to drip now. If he could keep it up, if he could-

The sound of metal grinding filled the air. Izzy gave the metal barrel another push. And it tipped over, landing directly on the large alien hybrids' back.

On his stomach, thousands of pounds of lead on top of him, Leander never saw Izzy come to a stop in front of him. He did feel the punch. Then the next, then the next.

"Damn, what does it take to knock you out?"

Leander released another blast. Izzy barely dodged this one when it finally pierced through the lead blindfold. Then she grabbed him by the back of his head and slammed it into the ground, the radioactiveradiactive blast beginning to scorch the concrete. Then Izzy viciously punched him in the back of the head.

The last thing Leander heard before passing out was Izzy's gleeful laugh…






Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

In Way Big form, making it back to the warehouses everyone had been fighting in was easy, just a few strides. As I got there, Thor landed on my shoulder, clutching an unconscious Kolar by the ponytail. The four-armed blue man groaned. Thor idly electrocuted him, knocking him out.

"What ho, Dial! How went your battle? Is the giantess vanquished?" the God of Thunder asked.

"Actually, I think she got adopted?" I said, befuddled. "I don't know how adoptions of people on battlefields work."

"I could ask my father," Thor grunted.

We came to a stop just before Steve was suddenly blasted through a metal grating by a blast of red lightning. From my height, he looked like a living action figure as he backflipped through the air, landing on his feet. He looked beat up a bit, his helmet gone, a portion of suit burned off across the chest. But his shield was still on, and his eyes glimmered with a familiar shine.

Servantis stepped out of the warehouse. He had a sour look on his face, a broken nose, and his right arm hung oddly. Then he noticed me, standing high above.

"...Ah," he said weakly. His eyes panned to Thor. "Well-"

Falcon flew down, carrying Swift in his arms. Creel smashed through a wall, Phil over one shoulder. Izzy moved into view, pulling Leander behind her.

We all looked at him.

"...Show's over I suppose," Servantis mumbled, sighing.

"And what a show it was!" a voice said from nowhere.

And Servantis smirked as he flashed away in blue. Swift, Kolar, LeanderLeandros, and Phil disappeared in the same flash, leaving us staring at nothing.

"Avengers, get ready!" Steve barked, shield raised.

"What sorcery is this!?" Thor shouted, dropping off my shoulder to land on the floor.

"Not just sorcery! TV Magic!"

A drone flew down out of the sky. Then another. Then another. Dozens of them, flying around us, staring at us with box-like cameras.

"Uh, what's going on?" Sam asked.

"And are they getting my good side?" Izzy added, though she still pulled out her sword.

"Sweetheart, you got nothing but good sides!" all the drones said at once. Then one of them projected a hologram.

And suddenly I understood everything. "Mojo…"

My booming voice echoed. And the man of the hour laughed.

"That's right!" his deep voice echoed, before shifting into a high-pitched laugh.

He was somewhat green in color, obese as I'd ever seen in my life, with long thin arms and fingers ending in sharp nails. His eyes were yellow at the pupils, and red around, eyelids pulled back A Clockwork Orange style to reveal them as he laughed through giant square teeth also getting pulled back by the same metal contraptions. He sat on a spider tank of sorts, his massively fat form flowing over its edgesoverflowing it.

Oh good lord he looked like an obese Jim Carrey.

"The man, the myth, the living legend!" Mojo laughed, shifting his voice as he spoke. "What a fight! The Avengers vs the Rooters, two brutal groups of superhumans, fighting to the near death! What a fight! Ratings are through the roof!"

"Dial," Steve whispered to me, the Omnitrix broadcasting it to me.

"I don't know, Steve. Mojo is dangerous, I can say that."

"Aw shucks," Mojo chuckled. "Look at me, blushing! I gotta say, even after that show your guys put out in Siberia, I didn't expect you to keep up a good show! But you did it! I can't wait for the sequel!"

"You're going to do this again?" Sam snapped out angrily.

"What manner of fiend are you, to summon enemies to battle us for mere entertainment?" Thor growled.

"MERE entertainment?" Thethe hologram grew to tower over everyone except me, reaching knee-height with Way Big. "Oh bubbala. You have some lessons to learn, youlearn you big dummy! Entertainment is EVERYTHING! I guess your trilogy is going to be a teaching experience."

He laughed. Steve tossed his shield through him, destroying the drone projecting his image, only for another one to take his place. "Awwwww, so cute! The heroic Captain America, the man with a plan who kills for a living!"

Steve's eyes narrowed.

"Sam Wilson, the Falcon with a broken talon! Izzy, the psycho-knife nut! Creel, the wanna-be hero and current thug! Thor, the dumbest god alive! And the Universal Dial, the fanboy still clutching for greatness!"

He laughed as we glared at him. "Ohhhhh, yes! That's the look! The fire! Perfect for the poster! Ohhhh, the ratings are going up, baby! We're headed to the moonto moon!"

"Silence!" Thor shouted, lightning crashing from the sky. "We are not here to play games, cur! We will find you, and stop you from doing this ever again!"

"Gosh," Mojo mockingly clenched his fists under his chin. "I hope not! That would be ever so awful for my ratings!"

That was enough for me. I slammed a hand down onto one batch of drones. "You'll get your ratings. The sequel will be titled 'Mojo's Asswhooping.' Coming to theaters next fall."

"Needs more panache on the name," Mojo laughed as the other Avengers began popping the drones out of the air. "But deal! See you maniacs next season!"

The last drone shattered, the laughing fat man disappearing. Steve scowled, looking around as I shifted back into a human and landed with the others.

"...Can we track him?" he asked me.

"Maybe. But he's from another universe," I scowled. "And apparently the Rooters are available to him… This might be trouble, Steve."

"Then we'll deal with it," Sam said, growling. "Come on. Let's go home and debrief."

Mojo got away with fucking with us. But that wouldn't be the end of things. Not if we had anything to say about it.

Sam suddenly looked around, confused. "Wait, Dial. What happened to that big one? The Way Bad, you called it?"

"...A dragon took her. I think he's going to adopt her and teach her kung fu."

Everyone but Thor looked confused. I shook my head. "And no, I'm not joking."

I lead an interesting life.


Author's Note: That's the omake folks. Hope you enjoyed it! Next 'real' chapter will be soon. In the meantime, tell me what you guys thought of this new batch of stuff. And as for canonicity... well. That's a spoiler.

Mojo is ABSOLUTELY played by Jim Carrey though.
 
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4: Registering the Stupidity
Chapter 4

Sat in Mystique's office, Fury and I eyed her carefully. She looked calm, assured. And very very blue. She knew we had made her, but was confident she could find a way to get out of it. Impressive composure. Then again, a professional liar had to stay calm at all times. And this was one of the best in the world.

"If you aren't here to arrest me, then I hesitate to ask why you have arrived," Mystique said with a small smile.

"Other than faking your credentials to become a principal?" Fury asked.

"Oh, my credentials are entirely real. I'm a qualified educator of children," she said.

"I shed tears for the state of our educational programs," I quipped.

"You should, but that's another story," Mystique said.

"And even then, your credentials are under an assumed identity. Not a great defense, there," Fury then frowned. "We've met, haven't we?" He looked surprised but was still certain of his words.

"Oh, I doubt that," Mystique said.

"We have," Fury glared at her. "I've known shapeshifters. Damn good ones. I don't remember who you were pretending to be, but something about you is damn familiar."

"I do have one of those faces," she said smugly.

Fury and I glared at her for different reasons before Fury continued. "Ms. Darkhölme, Mystique, whatever you call yourself. I doubt we need to explain who we are. And the reason we are here is that we know who you are. And what you can do."

She quirked an amused eyebrow upwards. "I'm still wondering why you're here. If not to arrest me, then maybe the X-Men? They have been at the epicenter of quite a few instances of property damage."

"If we were going to arrest them for that, your boys would be on the block as well," Fury waved a hand dismissively. "Ms. Darkholme-"

"Mystique is fine."

"Mystique. BRIDGE is not SHIELD. We are not Hydra, and we are not any of the dozens of organizations that want to turn powered folk into weapons, soldiers, or victims. We're trying for a better approach. That's why we're here with an olive branch."

"I'm sure that's comforting for those on your, what was it called? The Index?" Mystique said pointedly, looking over at me. "Has he told you about that? That SHIELD puts powered people on a list to be watched. Possibly, what's the word?" she dramatically drew a blue finger through the air. "Crossed off."

I winced. "Yeah. He did."

"I have a friend. He was put on a similar list. Same with his family. His friends. His neighbors. I have to ask, will you be tattooing us next?"

Fury didn't seem the least bit surprised. "You want to spit out facts without context more? Ignoring that the Index is no longer a thing for us, we stayed within ethical boundaries. We've made mistakes. Hydra was likely behind some of our worst ones."

"How charming, that you can simply blame Hydra for any of your wrongdoings."

"Nah, we've had a few of our idiots to cull as well. But we're putting in the work. BRIDGE is not and never will be abusive towards others. We stop criminals. Rehabilitate people. Help those with powers that can hurt themselves and others. And mutants are part of that. We're reaching out, helping folk. Like Cyclops or Rogue."

Mystique's face became stone. She looked as though we'd threatened her children. "What about Rogue!?"

"The teenager with powers that hurt people she might get close to? Nothing but help her," I said. "You are coming at this the wrong way. We came here to offer peace."

"Well, and to lay down a line in the sand," Fury added. "We won't come after you and yours. But if we get wind that anyone has been hurt, by anyone at all, we'll come down on them like hellfire."

Mystique flashed a set of fangs. "Is that so… then I suppose I'll have to keep my hands clean, won't I?"

"Should be easy for you," Fury said idly. "As for your friend… make one thing clear to him. A few of us were around to see the worse levels of racism. Of World War 2 even. I imagine he knows a couple of us from when they saved him," her eyes widened at the implication. That we knew who her 'friend' was. "BRIDGE is not the same organization as SHIELD. We protect everyone's rights. Everyone. Human, mutant, alien, god, and everything in between."

Her fangs flashed again. "That remains to be seen. I've known government agencies. Worked within them on every level. The only difference, Mr. Fury and Dial, is that you are looking at my true face while you make these claims of wanting a better world."

Neither of us responded to her. Fury simply rose, his single eye glimmering just a bit. I stepped aside to let him leave. Mystique and I eyed each other for another moment. Then I turned my back on her.

Fury said one last thing. "If you or your friends want to talk, let us know. Until then, keep your noses clean."

"Or else I show up," I added. Mystique's flashed to the Omnitrix. Not much else needed to be said there.

There wasn't much more we could do. Just let her know that we would keep an eye on things. With the mutant secret still in effect, BRIDGE would be able to prepare a whole lot of PR to counter the various anti-mutant and anti-human shit that would follow the reveal.

But the best way to fight back against already built-in prejudice was just to do good. To show that we were on the up and up, and would only take down those who deserved it. If Mystique, and more importantly, Magneto, were anything like their other counterparts, they could be swayed to join the good guys.

If not. Well. What was one more powerful enemy on the pile?

Fury and I left the school side by side. "What do you think?"

He huffed a bit at my question. "I think that woman is more paranoid than I am."

"That bad huh?"

"Not like I can blame her. If she's survived for as long as you claim, she's probably seen the worst of humanity. She's like a less intense Agatha."

The thought made me want to laugh. I let it go. "Think we'll need to be careful of… you know."

Metal. I didn't need to say it, but Fury knew what I was thinking.

"No more than usual. Keep an eye out just in case Tony doesn't have a counter ready to go."

"I'd be surprised if he didn't already have one half-done."

"He does tend to be proactive like that."

"What next other than that?"

Fury and I reached his car, though I didn't move to enter it. He looked back at me. "Next, we keep at it. You work on that space shit. I'll keep building the underground."

"You think we'll need it?"

"I'm guessing Maria didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"...The Registration Act. We got a draft of it."

"...Oh."

Fuck.






Director Maria Hill of BRIDGE

Maria was in her office, holding onto a bunch of papers as thick as a textbook. She flipped through them, ignoring the various 'UN' emblems on the pages. On a notepad next to her was a series of notes.

The notepad was scratched up by now, full of anger. She'd calmed down now. But barely.

When Dial had warned her and the Avengers about the possibility of a Registration Act, she'd been ready for many things. But this was beyond what she'd planned for. So many parts of it were a direct attack on members of the Avengers, right down to a ban on changing forms without sending a request in.

In other words, Dial wouldn't be allowed to change into any alien without asking, then getting signed permission. For a single change.

The fact members of the US Senate were pushing for this mess of unconstitutional affronts made her want to scream.

She took the time to send a copy of it out to a certain law firm in New York City, then to BRIDGE's lawyers. Probably Tony's folk as well as Jen's firm. As a UN organization, they'd be required to uphold it. Which meant it was time for her to prepare some contingencies. If the people of Earth were willing to destroy themselves, it was up to her to protect them from their stupidity. No matter the cost.

And so, a set of orders was sent out.






Frank Castle/The Punisher

Frank looked over the holographic screen in front of him. New orders. More suggestions.

"What's up, Frank?" Jamal, one of the BRIDGE STRIKE members and a part of Frank's team, walked up to join him.

The two men were in the New York City Strike barracks, set aside for them in a secret location. Frank stepped aside to let the much larger man join him.

Jamal was a super-soldier. Well, now he was. Before he'd been part of a large group of disenfranchised folk tricked by Hydra to accept a 'vaccine' that turned out to be a version of the super-soldier serum. He and his grandson were among a small group that hadn't died. Just mutated.

Until Dial showed up at the Graveyard he had been imprisoned in and used the Omnitrix to heal them.

Now Jamal joined Strike as one of their superhuman fighters. However, that might end up changing.

"Registration," Jamal sighed sadly, rubbing his eyes. "Goddamn it."

"The Director isn't going to kick you out of BRIDGE just because the UN says so," Frank said.

"I know she won't. But a lot of the Graveyard survivors are just getting back to a normal life. This registration shit is going to mess with it even if it doesn't get pushed through," Jamal looked further down the list. "Wait, our power armor is going to get restricted?"

It was true. The use of technology to bestow individuals with innate superhuman capabilities is strictly regulated and was on the list of proposed rules. Frank scoffed.

"Fucking stupid. That armor saves lives. Same with our guns. They're going to ask us to drop our capabilities while still arresting superhumans and monsters?"

"They're scared, Frank," Jamal said softly. "Siberia was a shitshow. The world saw Hydra summon enough superhumans and aliens to invade a country. And even with Hydra dead… well, Dial turned into Godzilla. Footage of that Russian god-eating people is on the web. Thor and Hulk turned a portion of the battlefield to glass. Hell, even footage of you ripping a Hydra-Hulk's chest open showed up."

"They just don't stay down," Frank grumbled.

"Fear makes people do strange things."

"At the worst times. Fucking aliens know we're a threat now. We should be prepping for random bullshit. Not downgrading our weapons to make damn politicians happy."

"It's not just politicians," Jamal tapped the screen before them, speaking towards it. "Jarvis, can you show us the Watchdogs?"

"Right away, Jamal."

News articles, forum pages, Facebook, Twitter, and more began to pop up. "These guys showed up recently. Militant types, but way more organized than the norm for some reason."

A few messages stood out. Cries by anti-government folks screaming about secrets BRIDGE was hiding, how Siberia proved superhumans were hiding among the public, that people in the streets were willing to destroy cities on a whim with their powers. Nothing like direct attacks or anything, but a nasty level of rhetoric that was building and building.

"Jung Moon, a friend of mine with Creel-type powers? She was worried she was getting followed. Found a rumour on a Watchdog site that she was a powered human."

"She okay?"

"She's staying with family. Director is having the Korean branch watch out for her."

"Wait, these guys are worldwide?"

"And growing," Jamal sighed. "They're more than just a loose group of internet political nerds though. They've started connecting in more ways than just shouting online. Now, with all this stuff going on… if the act really does out people with powers, the Watchdogs might end up getting their hands on it. Then we've all got a target on our backs."

Frank stared at the screen. Maybe he was strange. He didn't feel fear at the thought of people with powers. Never really had. Not more than the normal fear a soldier needed to keep their edge. People were assholes. Didn't matter if they had powers, guns, knives, or stones. As long as there were two people in the world, someone would want someone dead.

"We'll deal with it," Frank said grimly.

"I don't know if that's entirely true, Frank."

More news popped up. A face of some Senator, an Indian woman. Senator Ellen Nadeer was the caption. She looked pissed off and was facing a crowd of other politician types.






United Nations

"This isn't just Hydra now," Nadeer said into her microphone. "It's not just the Avengers, or BRIDGE, it's people on the streets. We can't trust our friends, or family, we can't trust anyone if they could end up getting powers."

"That's fear-mongering and you know it, Senator," Boris, the handler for the Winter Guard, barked out angrily. By now, things had become less formal, and those within were simply speaking their mind rather than the more polite methods usually used for these meetings.

"By that definition, anyone with access to a knife or gun cannot be trusted, I didn't see anything about restricting those did I? Powers can be dangerous, but the people who gain them are simply that. People! And the proposed rules you have in place go against everything the UN stands for."

"But they will be necessary," the Austrian representative barked. He slapped his hand on the table. "We aren't dealing with simple terrorists! We live in a world where people can turn into skyscraper-sized monsters, or send armies of aliens and robotic monkeys to kill us."

A French-accented voice chimed in. "I will remind you that the skyscraper-sized monster was on our side, and we have dozens more who helped, including two French heroes. This Act, as you've set it out, is nothing less than page after page of human rights violations. Not to mention, the sanctions you've proposed on those nations that refuse to sign it are nothing less than outright bullying."

"They're necessary," this time, the representative from Canada spoke, a serious-looking man with dark red hair. "It would be nice if we could be one-hundred percent sure that everyone with powers was good, kind, and innocent. But for the past few years, we've seen different flavors of monsters instead. We need to adapt. To regulate. Make sure those with powers don't use them for anything but the benefit of others."

"And what of those who don't want their powers," King T'Chaka of Wakanda said grimly. "Or those who simply wish to live normal lives."

"They'll have to be restricted from using their powers then. Otherwise, the economy will be full of those who use their powers for profit."

T'Chaka raised an eyebrow. "And I imagine many of us would be less unwilling to restrict them if they used their powers to instead profit their governments? Or defend them. I noticed the United States, Russia, and China all had technology or superhumans that would be affected by this list."

"That's not what we want," Senator Nadeer scowled. "But the fact is, these people are dangerous. We need to stop them, before more of our people die."

"What about those we can't 'regulate'," T'Chaka pointed at the ceiling. An unsettling silence came over everyone. "Strucker revealed us to the universe. And even if we were willing to use nuclear weapons, we have no guarantees it would work. BRIDGE has already begun working on defending us from the stars, but how can we do that with these limitations you've created? Among the many rules, limitations on Catom technology, Iron Man's suits, even NASA will be affected by these rules."

The King of Wakanda looked about the room, his presence dominating. "This Registration Act isn't just limiting. It's dangerous. I recommend we take it, and rework it into our current laws. Make sure it does not make our people into slaves simply for being able to do the abnormal."

"It's not that simple," Nadeer snapped. "We need radical change! We need to step up! Otherwise, we don't need to wait for hypothetical aliens. We'll be killed by the ones in our midst. Once we know Earth is safe, then we can look up. Because if Dial decides to turn us, to rule over us, who can stop him? Worse, SHIELD was a puppet of Hydra. Who is to say BRIDGE isn't under the control of those with powers? How can they be trusted?"

Another storm took over the room. Loud shouting. One woman asking if they would go after people with robotic prosthetics next, another arguing about the dangers of a telepath stealing nuclear codes.

T'Chaka leaned back in his seat, briefly meeting eyes with Boris and the French representative. The look was a simple message.

This wouldn't end quickly.






Author's Note: So there we are. It's not the Sokovia Accords. But it is a Registration Act.

Basically, the Siberia battle terrified people. They saw Chernobog eating soldiers, Dial turning into Godzilla, those more sensitive to psychic energies felt the battle between an Ethereal and Mind Stone. And of course, aliens came out of the sky, with many Kree and Remorath now in BRIDGE custody.

Now, of course, things are very different from how they went down in MCU. I'll go over that a bit more, but one big one is that T'Chaka isn't one of the voices speaking for the act. Same with Russia, who is different not only from the MCU but from the real world (Putin isn't president, as an example). France I'm basing off of the comics, where Ben Grimm ended up heading to France since it was one of the places that voted against the Registration Act.

As for those fighting for it, well. Canada in Marvel is Canada in Marvel. Ellen Nadeer wasn't likely to change her attitude, same with other American Marvel politicians.

You can make a list of countries you think would and wouldn't sign it of course. Or countries that would just abstain from it. I can think of a few personally.

Point is, the Act is being discussed. Yaaaaay.

Anyways, next chapter is halfway done and will be on my Patreon asap. I'll try to post it tomorrow there. In the meantime, let me know what you guys thought of this chapter, what you'd like to see for the foreseeable future, and ask me why your favorite waifu has yet to show up. later folks!
 
5: Lykos and Friends
Chapter 5

June 10th, 2014

Mahmoud Schahed/Dial


A day after meeting the X-Men, the Brotherhood, and finally Mystique, I sat down in the Nelson, Murdock, and Walters office with a document laid out before us. I wasn't reading it. Just watching the three before me react to it.

Jen, Matt, and Foggy looked as though someone had murdered a cat and laid out the organs before them.

"This is more than just stupid," Foggy said. "This might as well be criminal. Forget the rest of the world, this goes against how many amendments?"

"At least six," Jen said. She was in her green form with her hair held back into a ponytail, a pair of glasses on her face as she sat back in her chair. "To start. You see one of those rules going against my boyfriend and me?"

"Oh yeah, that one is funny," I chuckled.

"More illegal honestly," Matt said, though he still smiled as he read it outloud. "'No individual may take a form outside the human norm without submitting a permit, to be signed and released by an approved individual, with a specific time and place noted in the permit.'"

"They literally want to make it illegal for me to quick switch in the middle of a fight," I said. "Worse, they don't want me to change at all without it being planned out. And who the hell will be approving?"

"A government-approved member of the nation you reside in. Also in order to travel and use abilities, the authorization of your native government authority and the one from the country being visited when on foreign soil."

"So now me, Jen, Bruce, and who knows who else, all can't change without someone we don't know signing off days beforehand. And what the hell is a 'human norm' anymore between the enhanced, mutants and who the hell knows what else might come up in the future?"

"And what about us who currently can't switch at all, and have a law degree to sue with?" Jen asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Pretty sure it's made purposely broad and vague so that there is very little wiggle room to argue against it." Foggy suggested.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Matt smiled. "That'd be the pizza girl."

"Pizza girl?" Foggy said incredulously. "Oh come on! I bet you know if she's hot or not, too."

"How would I even know that?" Matt said as he pointed to his glasses.

"Because you always do!"

I got up and opened the door, finding a pretty and short Latina woman in a Joe's Pizza uniform holding three boxes. "Hey, you guys the law firm?"

"That we are," I took the pizzas in hand and passed her some cash. "That should cover it. Keep the change."

"Whoa, what!" she blinked, shocked at the fold of bills I'd handed her. "A-Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I won the lottery," I closed the door in her face (making sure to smile politely before I did). As I left, I heard her voice through the door.

"Are you an Avenger!?"

I returned with the pizza and placed it on the designated snack table, where Foggy and Matt had placed the piles of food their clients sometimes gave them in lue of money.

"Ohhh, nice!" Foggy snapped up to his feet and rushed over, placing a pepperoni slice on his plate. "So, was she cute?"

"Am I allowed to answer that?" I asked Jen.

"Only if you think I'm insecure."

"She was pretty, but not my type."

"Ohhh, good answer."

"How do you always know?" Foggy asked Matt, who only chuckled.

Jen took her own thick crust pizza, something Foggy stared at in disgust. "God, I can't believe you. Living in New York City, and you order that? Might as well spit on the Statue of Liberty."

"I'm from Cali, I don't like floppy pizza."

"Your honor, my opponent is clearly insane."

"Guilty," Matt jokingly added.

We all chuckled. Then I looked around briefly, swallowing my chunk of four-cheese pizza. "I knew this shit would be bad, but I thought we'd have more time to fight it."

"We do have time," Matt said. "This is just a proposal. They bring out the tough sell, try to force what they can. But there's going to be a lot of people fighting this. If Tony Stark doesn't have an army of lawyers fighting it, BRIDGE will."

"Same with us, honestly," Foggy lifted another paper. "According to this one 'Any enhanced individuals who does not sign will not be allowed to take part in any legal, police, military, or espionage activities, or to otherwise participate in any national or international conflict, even in their own country'. And legal meeeeeeans," he snapped his fingers and pointed at Jen.

"I'm not allowed to practice law," Jen shook her head. "Forget the Constitution, that violates the Fair Employment and Housing Act."

"Technically the Americans with Disabilities Act too," Matt took another bite of pizza.

I rubbed my eyes. "Okay… we'll do what we can legally, huh? Or, you know, the bevy of trained professionals will. And I know a few of us that are best at public speaking will be talking it over. Goddamn, and after I met the X-Men."

"The X-who? Is that a band or something?" Foggy asked.

"Don't get me started," I leaned forward grimly. "I have another meeting later on. Meeting a frie-...Former enemy? Guy who tried to kill me in his alternate persona but is apparently an okay guy in the other one?"

"You might be overthinking that," Jen said gently.

"Maybe. Anyways, before I go, you guys gonna be busy today?"

"Technically we already are," Matt slowly began gathering the papers before him, looking somewhere to the right of my head. "We have hiring today."

"Hiring?"

"It's something we've needed for a while," Foggy said, sounding a touch excited. "It'd be nice to have some real help around here."

"How many people do you need to hire?"

"6-10."

I hadn't expected that. "So many? I thought you guys were staying small for a bit."

"Dude, that is small."

Jen finished off her pizza and continued on from Foggy. "Law firms need a lot of maintenance. Don't need someone for our computers, since we cheat with X's help," she waved vaguely at the computers. "But we each need a secretary and paralegal to assist us. Then we want to hire some associate attorneys, and even if we only hire two they still need a shared paralegal and secretary between them."

"Don't forget if we add a summer associate or a law student doing an externship," Matt pointed out.

"God, do we really want a law student? They're so tiny and annoying," Foggy groaned.

"Foggy, we just stopped being law students ourselves."

"All the more reason not to add one more!"

I was once again reminded of how little I understood about the law and lawyers who defended/prosecuted people. Even for all my recent research into the topics.

"I'll leave you guys too it then," I scarfed down the last of my pizza, tossing the empty box in the trash.

"Whoa, did you finish that whole thing already!?" Foggy asked.

"I burn calories like a nuclear engine," I kissed Jen on the lips. "See you at home?"

"Maybe, depends how long this takes us," she chuckled. "Good luck!"

With that, I headed to the Raft.






The Raft was a huge round facility hidden in the middle of the ocean, built to be damn near impossible to find or escape from. I flew in through the top and entered right as the facility sank under the waves again.

A BRIDGE guard guided me through the halls of the Raft. Men and women were rushing through the corridors with various tools, with sounds of banging, drills, and welding all around us.

"Sorry about this, sir," the tall man said as we moved around a pair of scientists. "We're still putting her together. Water damage would be hell without the improvements we've been getting. Plus, the new guy, Flux? Keeps having fits and trying to find his 'mommy'."

"If anything it's a miracle it's functional enough to sink under the waves," I noted. "Is he dangerous right now?"

"If he is, nobody told me," the man sighed, stopping at a door and nodding to me. "Through here. He's excited to see you."

I raised an eyebrow.

On stepping inside, two things stood out to me. One was the force field. Shining a bright transparent yellow, looking like the one the US Army had been using to contain Hydra in Siberia. I pressed a hand to it, blinking at the feeling of static barely buzzing from it. The second thing that stood out to me chuckled.

"Interesting, isn't it?" Karl Lykos, formerly Sauron, eyed the field. I once more was reminded of Raul Julia. "This side of it is far more painful, believe me."

"You can't absorb it?" I asked.

"I haven't tried," at my disbelieving look he shrugged. "I don't want to leave honestly… How are you?"

"Good... Kind of… Lots changed, some of it bad."

While I spoke, I took in our surroundings. Behind the field, Lykos had been given a desk with a computer, two bed behind walls, a large table, and another private section in back. Nice digs for a cell. He was wearing a pale blue jumpsuit, the kind all BRIDGE prisoners were given.

"The Registration Act," he nodded. "We've been talking about it."

"'We'?"

"WAAAAAGH!" a head poked out from the private section. I stared at the goblin as he approached, noting that my Omnitrix flashed yellow. So, not one I'd encountered… oh fuck me, did he say WAAAAGH?

"Ah yes!" Lykos waved the guy forward. He was green, with hair pulled into a ponytail, pointy ears, and intelligent-looking brown eyes. He joined Lykos. "A fellow scientist. One of the visitors from that unfortunate Rio Incident. He has quite the noteworthy intelligence! Mind like a steel trap, eh Wrugaz?"

"WAAAGH!"

"That means-"

"No, I understood that," I said with a wave of my hand. The Omnitrix's universal translator was truly op. "How are you both caged up together?"

"Special permission from the director," Lykos said proudly. "We are consulting!"

"WAAAGH!"

…So many questions, not the least of which was what was the world coming to. Better make sure that I took care of as many as possible before I left.

"Okay? Well uh… Dr. Lykos, I was told you wanted to meet me?"

"Indeed, young man," Lykos looked me over. "I imagine that by now you've met my old friend."

"Charles Xavier."

"The very same! I imagine you've been having long conversations with him?"

"One, actually. More in the future though."

"Oh," he frowned. "He was so excited to speak with you, I thought the two of you would be best friends!"

"Trust me, things ended well, but we're gonna have a few more long conversations," I popped down into a chair set aside before the forcefield. "Registration being a new one. I'm worried about what will follow that. And once the news comes out about the Savage Land…"

"Ah, yes. My former domicile. Of sorts," he chuckled. "I must admit, the nomenclature escapes me for what you call a place your other half ruled over."

"Partly. Savage Land has other kings," I said, thinking of Ka-Zar and Hauser.

"Ah yes, you did end up taking rulership yourself."

"What?"

"Hm?"

We stared at each other, confused.

"What are you talking about, rulership?"

"Ah… you didn't realize," he began to pace. "You may have made a mistake. My dear hero. You must know. When you fought your way out of the Savage Land, from the clutches of my… hm, better half?"

My eyes traced his path, the goblin watching as well. "I believe that you may have had an effect you didn't realize. My memories of that magnificent land are clear. Well, somewhat. Feelings, impressions, basic facts of life. And one thing I know is that the cultures of that world look to leadership in a very different way than we do. The kingdom of the Savage Land is one that reaches for tyrants. It's what made Sauron so effective at such things. Especially the Saurians."

I thought of Gresh.

"But if you didn't take rulership of them, then the city Sauron ruled over may continue as they did."

"There wasn't much chance we could have stopped them without dismantling the whole society. BRIDGE isn't exactly the kind of organization to do that. Ideally."

"You should have, my dear hero. You should have," he shook his head. "It may be that you've left a sleeping dragon in that land."

I opened my mouth.

"No, not that magnificent beast from hell."

I closed my mouth.

"You should have taken over. As it is, Styro was killed. I imagine, with Sauron and him dead. Stend will be alive. And if no one else can take over, then he's the one willing to do so."

Stend. That asshole. Even with the heat that filled me at the thought of him, a bit of Nat's training pushed through. Putting the pieces together with his psychology.

"Sauron left something, didn't he?"

"Dozens of things," Lykos shook his head. "Textbooks, metals, technology, some of it stolen from the ruins of ancient civilizations within the Savage Land. Stend will get his hands on it."

He rubbed his forehead. "I shudder to think what could follow. All that power, in the hands of him? My other half at least wished to release things at a slow and even pace. Stend will have no such discipline."

I thought about that. Then I chuckled.

"Oh!" Lykos leaned forward, a smile on his face. "It seems my words haven't disheartened you! Good news I hope?"

"Yeah. Kind of. It's just. If Stend does end up causing trouble. The Savage Land has its own heroes to defend it. It has its own Avengers. But thanks for warning me."

"Of course. I'm more than happy to aid you," Lykos smiled. "This world. It's become very interesting recently. I shudder to think what new surprises will come around the corner. And yet, that tense sense of fear is joined with a certain excited anticipation! What an intoxicating combination of emotions!"

"I'll have to keep you apprised I guess," I frowned. "So. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about, doctor?"

"Allow me to consider that question! Let me see. We discussed my old friend. My current roommate-"

"WAAAGH!"

"My old home seems to be in good hands. Did I have anything else to speak with you about?" he chuckled. "Ah yes! I've spoken with BRIDGE before. They've requested my knowledge on certain things. But I wish for more. I have a lifetime of knowledge I wish to put to use. Dial. I wish to ask. Would the Avengers be looking for another pair of minds to join them?"

Well fuck. Didn't expect that at all.

"Ah, it seems I've shocked you quite a bit!" Lykos laughed boisterously. "What a fun result, my friend!"

"WAAAGH!"



I told him I'd think about it and left. I walked through the halls of the Raft, my thoughts racing. Fact was, Lykos was smart. Very smart. Even Tony was impressed by him. Having access to his mind for the long haul could be great. What he was asking for was a direct line to the Avengers. A way to aid us in any scientific research, and to speak with us. As of now, BRIDGE had him under tight lock and key.

His forcefield was just stage one. If that failed, then massive metal doors would smash down around him. His vents were filled with incinerators just in case that goblin was a spore kind (as far as we knew it wasn't), his communications were monitored, and since meeting Charles, Tony had started working on figuring out a way to block psychic stuff (he wasn't having much luck so far).

He was a complicated problem then. Lykos, by all accounts, was a nice guy. Enthusiastic, dramatic, and very much in what I imagined it was like to interact with Raul Julia.

Sauron though… he was a monster. He'd stood against Creel, Fantasma, and me, and almost won. I didn't know if that was in line with his comic version or not, but it was for sure powerful. If Lykos ended up getting enough energy to transform back, we were all in trouble.

And of course, the Goblin. Intelligent. Fiercely so, speaking with a familiar British accent I remembered from the WH40K series. I didn't know much, but I knew the Warhammer ones could make more of themselves through spores. This one didn't. Instead, he somehow made the laws of physics work for him. Just like Jury Rigg.

Now I had his form. No idea what to do with it though, since Jury Rigg was already in the watch, but maybe it would pop up at some point.

I'd talk to the others about it later. I couldn't make a decision for all the Avengers after all.

"Hey, you," a female voice drew me from my thoughts. I looked to my right and blinked. For a second I was reminded of Komodo, AKA Melati Kusama, the reptilian scientist who'd joined Coulson's team. This woman had a scaled appearance as well.

It was the guy in the cell next to her that made me realize who she was. After all, the Abomination doesn't need an introduction, and neither does the Aberration.

The two scaled superhumans watched me approach, Abomination leaning casually against the massive metal bars just behind a yellow forcefield, while Aberration rested on her bed.

"Emil," I said to Abomination. The ten-foot tall man grinned. "Rana," Aberration grunted. "How are you guys doing?"

"Bored," Abomination grunted. "I was hoping you were here to go a couple rounds."

"I don't feel like knocking you out today."

He chuckled. "You really think that's how it would go?"

I shrugged. He leered down at me, but I only smiled back before looking over at Rana.

"I'm getting out soon," she said, though she looked nervous. "Gonna join the Grapplers."

"Good for you."

I was honest about that. Still, she looked nervous. "I'm supposed to… but I heard about the Registration. I want to do good, Dial. I want to redeem myself. Am I going to be able to do that, or am I going to stay here?"

"...I can't make any promises, Rana."

"See?" Abomination chuckled. "We're all in the dark, baby girl. Guess you and I are stuck here forever, huh? Leaves me more time for lessons?"

"What are you learning, piano?" I said sarcastically.

"Knitting. Hahaha!"

I ignored him to focus on Rana. "This Registration is something I knew was coming for a while. We're fighting it, and BRIDGE has plans for it. And a few of the bigger countries will veto it from being the rule of law across the world. But if we have to, we set up some contingencies."

"What, are you going to run away?" Abomination asked sarcastically. I looked up at him. He blinked. "Wait. Is that really it?"

"No. But it's one thing we're considering," I said sadly. "We'll make sure anyone trying to do good can do just that. Beyond that, we aren't going to force anyone to accept us. So don't worry about it, Rana. You'll be fine."

I walked away sadly. Yeah. If a country decided we weren't worth helping, then maybe we couldn't stay there. Not as heroes anyways.

This whole thing was stupid and was only going to get worse.






Steve Rogers/Captain America

"I'm just saying, I wasn't willing to give my suit to the government before, why would I want to do it now?" Tony asked Steve as he set up a camera. The pair were in Tony's penthouse floor of the Avengers Tower, Steve sat down on a far too comfortable couch with a milkshake in his hand and his shield laid down next to him.

Steve sighed. "Tony, it's not about giving our powers to the government. You know that. I just know that people are scared. I want us to try, just try, to create reasonable laws. To adjust the system to make sure people like us can't abuse them."

"And I'm saying that's fine, but not what we're dealing with now," Tony adjusted the camera and moved to grab himself a drink from the bar. "What we've got is a bunch of government idiots trying to monopolize us. I know that I apparently agreed with that in another universe for some… unfathomably stupid reason. Probably guilt, that tracks with how I work."

Steve watched as Tony poured himself a glass of whiskey. "But here it's a bunch of idiots."

"They're scared, Tony."

"Yeah, people keep telling me that. You know scared people can be stupid too right, it's not like they get a license to make dumb decisions? Nobody cries when Jason kills the dumb teens in a horror movie."

Steve rolled his eyes. "That's not what this is. I agree that the act they've suggested is far too restrictive, but laws need to be adjusted. It's not just one guy a little stronger than others anymore. We have telepaths, storm makers, Dial even mentioned a guy who could manipulate luck."

"So we change the laws a bit. But for now, I think we can agree. If this new act becomes the law of the land, then you and I, buddy? We might need to start looking into new jobs."

"Aren't you a CEO?"

"Nah, that's more of a sidegig."

"Oh right," Steve smiled just a bit. "Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Right?"

"Heh. Yeah. Yeah… I know what you're thinking. You want everyone to sit down around apple pie, talk things out, come up with a way to koombaiya. But that ain't gonna happen. The guys behind this aren't just doing it out of fear now. They're politicians."

He took a swig of his drink before continuing. "These guys, they can't be seen changing their minds no matter how logical it is. They got a precious image to hold on to. The people behind the act? Guys like this Nadeer woman, like Ross? They didn't put out this damn act because they thought it would pass. They knew it wouldn't. So ask yourself. If they knew that, what's the act they really want to put out?"

Steve thought about that idea. The idea that the draconian laws they were pushing for were so blatant because they planned for more insidious versions of those laws to replace them. Instead of wrist and ankle trackers on superhumans, a digital census. Instead of indefinite prison time without trial, years worth of time for using a superhuman power. Worse replaced with bad.

"There," Tony pointed at him. "That, right there. The things you're thinking of? I've gone over it in my head a thousand times, Steve. Going over every angle. So yeah. I don't care how scared regular people are. I'm worried about the guys making a show for voters. Guys using fear to get power. Because if Dial and his team don't get enough allies in space for us to be ready for the next invasion, the politicians aren't going to be the ones laying their lives on the line. They'll be the ones complaining the rules they made that restricted our freedoms also kept us from doing our damn jobs."

"...A cold war, then," Steve said sadly.

"You and I know that the world needs defenses. But what's the point of that if we need to sacrifice the freedoms of everyone? You and I, we made that choice, we decided to step up to the plate. But kids like the ones at Xavier's school, people like Melati who just want to be scientists, prisoners who are actually looking for some kind of redemption like Wanda? They need to have someone looking out for them."

"...All right then. I'm in."

"I knew you were," Tony finished his drink. "Now. You ready?"

Steve felt some of his good nature return. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"Good," Tony moved to adjust himself on the couch next to the seat. Then he waved a hand and a large screen appeared before him. The camera began recording.

"What's up you nerds?" Tony said to the camera. "Thanks for joining the Capsicle and I on this whole thing. It's been, what, a month?"

"A little more I think."

"Yeesh. Time flies. Then again, we did have a little thing. Small war, got in the way of all this."

"I think it's a little bit thematically appropriate," Steve said with a hint of humour. "We stopped the series at the finale while having a finale of our own."

"Hey, ours had Godzilla, so this one has a lot to live up to."

"It wasn't really Godzilla," Steve chuckled.

Tony rolled his eyes. "He was a giant lizar- Oh, I can't with this argument again. Anyways! Avatar: The Last Airbender. Sozin's Comet. This show has been a fucking blast to watch, and I can't wait to see how it ends. I already bought the company that makes Korra too."

"Wait, wha-"

"Anyways, let's start."

"Tony, I think that's a conflict of interest."

"It better be, I'm voicing a character in the final season."

"Tony-"

"Start!"

The two friends began to finish the show together. As they did, they let go of the thoughts of doom and gloom.

For now. Only for now.



The Beginning and the End

In an AIM base halfway across the world, a computer played the live stream of Steve and Tony watching and responding to the show. It then flipped to traffic cam footage showing Dial in Bayville. Records of the Registration Act. More footage. Hulk. Aliens. BRIDGE. Watchdogs.

Thousands of records compiling. AIM's systems were being taxed, but that didn't matter. He was making more. AIM was expanding. Forcefully, in some cases.

The Evolution Project was growing. Among it's files, new folders opened, with small addendums being made as new data was found, a project that had been continuing for some time. The words 'Gamma Gene', 'Mutations', 'Alien Additions' came up at various points.

Yet another folder was opened for one simple project. Magic. Fantasma was in that folder, hundreds of hours of footage of her. But along with it, was another name.

Kulan Gath. The newest guest of AIM.

Research was ongoing on both.

In another base, blueprints were being followed. New technology.

And within the base the computer was working in, a single tube sat. It was stolen. Not the actual tube, but the design for it. It had been created by a woman named Helen Cho. A brilliant Korean doctor. It was missing a component. But that was fine. That could be stolen as well.

He was coming.

The computer froze on Dial's image. A bearded man, smiling in a group of heroes, mid-transformation into a monster. He was muscular, matching the super-soldiers around him for sheer size if not in height. His beard gave him a savage appearance despite his happy smile. For all the speed of the computers, they held onto that image of a man with an Omnitrix for a prenatural amount of time.

A single image flashed throughout AIM, on thousands of servers and screens.

A scarlet face like fire, set with a pair of glowing white eyes.

Then it disappeared in a flash. A series of 1's replaced it in a digital cloud of many angles. AIM continued its work.



Author's Note: Next chapter. Conan. That'll show up on my Patreon :D
 
6: Into The Woods
Chapter 6

June 11th, 2014

You'd think with all the bullshit we were dealing with, I wouldn't have a random mission pop up. But you'd be wrong.

"A wild man?" I asked Maria, befuddled.

"That's what I said," she leaned back in her seat in her office, rubbing her chin.

It was a day after I'd gone to the Raft to visit Lykos. I'd spent the morning training with Ares, so my legs were still shaking. He'd spent a lot of our training recently forcing me to move between Astrodactyl and Fasttrack form, moving as fast as I could while catching or dodging his attacks. I knew that catching arrows was possible. Theoretically, so were bullets.

Turns out, bullets are not easier to catch when they're bigger. They just make bigger holes in your hand. Ares was a damn sadist. So yeah, my morning had been exhausting before Maria called me in with a request.

"It's a story that came up a while back," she began to explain. "People in a set of Canadian woods are reporting a man in leather with incredible strength and speed is running around out there fighting off an unknown group of soldiers."

"And you want me to track him down?" I rubbed the back of my neck. "Director, aren't we kinda in crisis mode? I was working on my ship when you called me."

"I know. And I wouldn't have called you if it wasn't for your contacts," Maria leaned forward. "Dial, we need to wipe the slate as clean as possible before whatever happens with this Act happens. So I'm getting aggressive. Coulson's team is tracking the Ghost Rider you mentioned down. The Grapplers are joining in an operation in China. I've got Bucky and Bobbi helping with the Luna, Crescent, and White Fox with rumors of someone trying to steal from Helen Cho. We're dealing with a lot."

"I know, Fitz-Simmons told me they ran out of tea from all the late-night building Tony has them doing."

Maria continued. "So yes. I want you to go in, find out what's going on, then come back. Thankfully you've got enough power that I can trust it will be nothing you can't handle. And since it's the Canadian wilderness…"

Ah. Yeah. That made sense.






An hour later

"And that's basically when I called you," I said while piloting the Quinjet.

"I guess that makes sense," Logan, wearing a leather jacket and jeans, grunted from the seat next to me. "Don't you have an alien that can track though?"

"Track, sure. But there is a difference between that and actually knowing the area. Plus, the reports of armed soldiers chasing whoever this guy is has me worried. With this registration act shit, I'm worried the Canadian government has some black ops groups that are getting a head start on shit."

The glower I got at that told me he understood.

And yes, of course I grabbed Logan. I needed a guy who had run through the Canadian wilderness and he was the best backup I could get.

We flew low and tight over the forest in cloak, rushing over the snow frosted trees. I stared at the GPS coordinates of the last place that our… I don't know, target? Call him a target I guess.

"So, you have any questions about alternate versions of you?" I asked Logan casually.

"You get a lot of those?"

"An unbelievably large amount when people find out I have seen their alternate selves. Usually they end after a while. It's kinda the ultimate 'what if I did "x" instead of' game."

"Then I'll pass. I lived a solid life. I can let the other versions of me live theirs."

I looked over at him. He was relaxed.

"...I have something I'm looking into that has to do with you, but I can't tell you until after the mission."

"Because it might affect me?"

"Yeah."

"Leave it then, bub," he scoffed. "Just focus on what we gotta do. Leave everything else for later."

Damn. I forgot how self-assured Logan from the Evolution universe was. Still had some issues, but he was DadWolvie instead of SadWolvie. Like the later versions of him in the comics really.

A loud noise from the back of the Quinjet made me jump. We both shared a look. A pained look. A look that told me he knew exactly what that was.

"Don't tell me…" I mumbled.

"Goddamnit!" Logan snapped to his feet and strode to the back, where the bathroom was installed. Yes, bathroom. It was an Avengers Quinjet.

"No Avenger is gonna hold it if I can help it."

Yeah, Tony had weird lines in the sand.

I set the autopilot up and got up as well. Logan and I walked over in front of the bathroom. I tapped the panel next to the door. It slid open.

"Uh… like, heya?" Kitty Pryde waved her fingers awkwardly at us. She had her laptop on the sink counter.

I slapped a hand to my face. "Ms. Pryde."

"Half-Pint, what the hell are you doing here?" Logan said with an odd combination of frustration and fondness.

"Well uh… I wanted some privacy?"

"And you choose my quinjet?" I asked, aghast.

"Yeah, cause Kurt always finds me in the Blackbird!" She got up quickly. "Like, I just wanted some peace and quiet! So I thought, if I hid in here for a little bit-"

"Why not tell us you were in here? I would have stopped and turned around."

"I… didn't want to get in trouble?"

"And what, half-pint, was your plan? To just stay in the bathroom until we went back?"

She looked between us. Then she shuffled awkwardly, looking down at the ground and rubbing her arm.

"Half-pint…"

"Leave it. You're here. Now we gotta work with it. Kitty, put on, um…" I thought quickly. "Ruby's suit. It's bullet resistant, and she's about your size. Her suit should be in the back of Black Widow's locker."

"What?" Kitty jumped in surprise, staring at me.

"What are you thinking, bub?"

From the sound of Logan's voice, I needed to have a real good explanation.

"We can't leave her in here," I sighed. "There is no telling what's out there in the woods, and that paramilitary group is running around."

"Paramilitary!?" Kitty squeaked.

"Even under cloak, I'd rather make sure we are fighting together and not getting eaten separately."

"Eaten!?"

"Calm down, I'm being overly dramatic," I kept my eyes on Logan. He rubbed his face, grumbling. Then he looked down at Kitty.

"Like… do I have to?" she squeaked.

The shorter but much more dangerous man sighed. "He's not wrong. This isn't a regular mission."

"Oh, so it's the same as all our other missions."

That little comment got a growl that made her wince. I held in a small smile. DadWolvie man.

"Like I said," I pointed at the lockers. "Ruby's costume should be in that locker. Go ahead and put it on so you've got some real protection, all right?"

"Y-Yeah!" She ran over to the locker and opened it up. Then she blinked. "Wow… this is Black Widow's stuff?"

"If you take anything, she'll know, and she'll hunt you down in the shadows."

"I wasn't going to!" Still, Kitty was much more careful about reaching behind the widow suit and gear. She pulled out a dark red uniform and ran into the bathroom with it. Once the door was locked, Logan reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

"I need to tell Charles the sprout hitched a ride."

"I thought you called her half-pint."

"Right now I'm considering calling her 'pain in my ass'."

Grumbling, he sauntered off. I chuckled a bit. Internally though, I was thinking about the mission. Kitty being here was going to be… interesting.






In a bit, we were all standing outside of the cloaked Quinjet. Kitty was wearing Ruby's suit, a red take on Natasha's usual uniform. She didn't have any of the weaponry, but she was putting Ruby's earpiece into her ear.

"First things first. Silence," I told her as gently as I could. "As long as you mumble things, Ruby's quantum earpiece will pick it up and send it, but keep the conversation to that. We don't know what we're hunting. We just know that some kind of black ops group is also after it. So stay close. Be ready to go intangible," I need to introduce her to Ghost soon. "And be as quiet as you can. Stay between us so that a sniper hits Logan or me first."

"Sniper!?" she shouted in shock. In the open air, her voice cracked across the snowbitten forest. Logan and I glared at her. She covered her mouth quickly, squeaking quietly. "Uh… sorry."

"It's fine. Just be careful. Logan?"

"On it," he took a whiff of the air. Then he frowned. "That's weird."

I didn't reply, letting him lead the way. We took a slow and careful pace, our boots crunching through the snow. I took in cold frosted breaths, and smelled the pine around us. If it wasn't for the mission, this might have been relaxing.

He spoke softly, his voice going into our earpieces.

"It's hard to track this guy. I can smell him, but it's usually easier to get a trace than this. He smells like steel. Blood. Smoke. Sweat."

Kitty pursed her lips in disgust.

"What about his pursuers?"

"Walking around like elephants, Half-pint. Might as well make this a learning experience. What do you see?"

Kitty swallowed at being put on the spot. "Um… like, can I get a clue?"

"You've been in forests. What doesn't look like it belongs in a forest?"

"I haven't been in a real forest."

Logan closed his eyes, then opened them slowly. "You've seen them on tv. Make educated guesses."

She looked a little freaked, but started panning her eyes around. "Okay. Tree. Tree. Snow… I mean, those branches are broken I guess."

When she looked back at Logan, he was smirking. "What? Like, seriously? Broken branches?"

"Like, seriously," he said sarcastically. He walked up to the branches and waved her over. Softly speaking, he panned his fingers across them. "Bear or deer might have done it, but there's no tracks, no antler scratches, no claw marks. If you look carefully at the ground, what do you think you'll see?"

"Um…" Kitty leaned down. I watched carefully, feeling a bit like a third wheel in this teaching exercise, but still enjoying the show.

Kitty slowly pouted. Her eyes were hard, glaring at the landscape.

"Calm down," Logan patted her shoulder. "It's not an enemy. Just take in all the details, half-pint. The forest is dangerous. But it's fair. And it tells its story to you long as you're willing to take it in."

Her eyes softened. She looked a bit more. Then she sighed. "Okay. So, like. The branches are broken here. So maybe they were running?"

The grumpy older man didn't reply. Kitty continued. "Chasing somebody. Over here maybe?"

She walked the perimeter and stopped in a spot of snow that looked lower than the others. I had a guess as to what she'd find. Group of paramilitary dudes, chasing someone? No way they didn't-

"Bullets!"

Shoot at the guy.

"Nice job," Logan walked over to take a hold of one of them. "I'll teach you how to tell the difference between cartridges another time. But for now-"

"5.56×45mm NATO," I cut in, cocking my head. "That could be used by a lot of rifles. I was hoping for something more specialized."

"Are they like, really common?" Kitty asked us.

"Used by everyone from the US to the Swiss and much more. Including, of course, Canada."

"Makes it harder to tell if this is one of those other countries or just Canada being Canada."

"Wait, what does that mean?" Kitty looked between us, confused.

I decided to copy one of the catchphrases of an old friend of mine. "Don't worry about it."

"I don't like the way you said that," the young girl said.

Logan took a sniff of the bullet, frowning. "All well and good to use normal tracking skills. But from here on out, it's up to me I think. The guy they're pursuing. He's good. Almost as good as me. Reminds me of Sabertooth."

"That doesn't bode well."

"Like, tell me about it!"

Logan tossed the bullet aside and started walking. "This way. Come on."

We moved in his wake, quick, but not running. Just staying on the move. Kitty started to run towards a tree, but I pulled at her arm to make her dodge it rather than run through it.

"Hey, what gives?"

"Does going through things cost energy?" I asked pointedly.

She nodded, though she still looked confused.

"Then save it. We might need your powers later. Better that you've got a full tank."

As we continued, I stared out at the forest. Miles of woods. Hundreds of them. Rivers, animals, snow, trees, all hiding secrets. I don't think Kitty had really registered what it meant to find bullets in the woods. They weren't just pursuing this guy. They were trying to kill him. Thing was, were we trying to help him? Or did he need to be taken down too?

I reached for the Omnitrix and flipped through the playlist of aliens. Speed. I'd need speed.






Kulan Gath

Within AIM, the thin and wrinkled man wearing a suit watched next to Lyle Getz as a group of men manipulated the cameras before them. Footage of soldiers moving in formation, holding guns, the cameras either flying on drones or attached to helmets.

"In some ways, technology is both inferior and superior to the magic available to me," Kulan mused.

"How so?" Lyle asked curiously. "I can understand both perspectives, but I wish to hear your thoughts first."

"Ah, a true intellectual," Kulan felt a hint of amusement . Lyle Getz was an idiot. But better than most Kulan had to contend with. "Magic allows me to unleash the forces of the elements. Few are the men who can match me. Even your modern guns cannot match them. And yet, for my single august self, you can arm thousands of soldiers with those wonderful toys."

He continued. "My spells let me not only see across the world, but to project my astral self so I may feel, smell, even affect things from miles away. But your cameras allow you dozens of different perspectives, perfect recordings, and continuing advancements to the clarity, right down to thermal imaging!"

Kulan didn't hide his enthusiasm. "Oh yes. My powers are truly formidable. But I would be a fool to discount the lessons of this new world's great gifts."

"That is good to hear. For a moment, I believed you thought me to be an idiot. Though, I suppose you still do."

Kulan froze. He turned to stare at Lyle.

The scientist didn't look at him, merely watched the screens. "I'm simply making an observation, Mr. Gath. Based on my interactions with you, I know you are far more familiar with this man than you led me to believe. In fact, he is your enemy. You kept this from me. I assume it's because any information you share with us may reveal your true goals, even your weaknesses. Which leads me to believe you do not have our best interests at heart."

"...And?"

"And nothing, Mr. Gath. After all, I cannot pretend I have your own best interests at heart. I am content to allow you to use us. As long as it is understood we are using you in turn."

"How amusing. What exactly do you believe I can offer you, if I am as duplicitous as you say?"

"The keys to the kingdom. This is a world of monsters, myths, and super-science. AIM will not lose its traction. Not after its previous failure. We will become greater than ever before. If I must shake the hand of the devil, it will be worth it when we strike at the gods.

At that moment, Kulan's estimation of Lyle Getz rose. "Strike at the gods. It makes this old sorcerer laugh, to know that blasphemies such as that are considered possibilities."

Getz looked him in the eyes for the first time. Gath felt his heart swell at what he saw. Desperation. Madness. And pure obsession. How beautiful.

"I've seen gods bleed, Mr. Gath. I know they can be killed as well. AIM can rise higher than them one day. I plan to make that happen. Now. This man we're hunting. How is he doing as much damage as this with nothing but a sword?"

At that, Gath's new admiration of Getz turned into annoyance and rage towards their shared adversary.

"If I knew that, I'd have killed him long ago."

"Fair enou- Wait!" Lyle snapped his hand at one of the cameras. "Who is that?"

The camera froze on the woods. There, Kulan and Lyle could see a single glowing symbol on an arm moving through the trees.

"Omnitrix," Lyle hissed.

"Dial," Kulan smiled. "Now that is interesting. What is he doing here?"

"No clue. We wouldn't have known if that thing wasn't glowing!" Lyle pressed a button on his watch. "All teams, avoid contact with Dial."

"Are you afraid of him?" Kulan asked mildly.

"Yes."

Kulan smirked.

"I am no fool, Gath. So far, every enterprise Dial has encountered has gotten shut down. He can turn into Godzilla damnit!"

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

To Gath's annoyance, Getz ignored him. Gath watched him continue coordinating his forces. As he did, he stroked his chin. He'd already seen Dial in action. But perhaps…

"Oh Dr. Getz?" Gath asked, his voice sweet as sugar. "I believe I may be able to offer some assistance?"

Lyle looked over at him. The scientist and the sorcerer met eyes. Lyle finally nodded. "What do you need?"

"A cow will do. This summoning will require a sacrifice. Hahahaha!"

It was time to see how the Omnitrix dealt with magic. After all, Kulan was learning quite a bit about science. Now for an experiment or two.



Author's Note: Conan and a monster from Kulan Gath :D Although I will say, the Omnitrix rarely has trouble with magical monsters. Some, but it's otherwise been pretty much like all other threats.

I will admit, this is sort of part of me setting up the end to Dial as a whole. There are still some big things I want to do of course. But as a whole, there's a plan in mind for where the story is gonna end, and this is part of the build to it.

In other news, I've been writing a new original fic. It's called Rewired Saga, a story based on a combination of cyberpunk, fighting game, and mythology tropes, and it's my new baby. I'd appreciate it if you guys could take a look at it, show it some love, or better yet, criticize my ideas and grammar so I can make it better. Should be on SpaceBattles and RoyalRoad.

Also, just watched Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Fantastic show. But it hit a blow to my confidence because how am I supposed to do that good?

Anyways, that's what's been happening. Next chapter of Dial will be on my Patreon in, I want to say, a couple of days? Let me know what you guys think about the potential Logan vs Conan fight, and I'll catch ya'll later.
 
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7: The Future King
I hopped up into a tree, looking out over the landscape. "This guy's range is pretty damn impressive," I mumbled into the Omnitrix.

"More like crazy," Kitty complained in my ear. I could see her at the bottom of the tree, looking up at me. "This guy really hunts across 20 acres? Is that normal?"

"Not usually," Logan said back. I couldn't see him, which probably meant he was doing all right. "Most hunters range around only 10 acres in the modern day."

"Modern?" I asked, noting that choice of language.

"I'm starting to have doubts about this guy. I found arrows. Flint and wood."

Someone landed behind me. I jumped and turned quickly, only to sigh a bit at the sight of Logan. We both dropped down from the tree, landing next to Kitty. "He smells like animal skins along with everything else. But all the modern smells; Smog, plastic and such. They're new on him."

"New?" My mind raced through the list of characters I knew in Marvel who might fit the bill. "Maybe this is a caveman."

"You're joking, right?" Kitty asked skeptically.

"Only a bit. Literally anything is possible, but that just means we take in evidence without bias, not that we assume things offhand," I rubbed the back of my neck, sighing. "Still… who is this guy? And who are the people after him?"

Logan spoke softly. "No idea. But they're avoiding us."

Kitty looked around. "They are?"

"Yeah. Like the damn plague. Surrounding us, but not moving in."

"Figures," I'd noticed. I didn't have Logan's instincts, but I'd been at this for long enough to feel when people were watching me. "Let's keep moving. Sooner we find this guy, the sooner we get answers.

I saw something fly overhead. A drone, flying high. I choose to ignore it for now. Better to wait for my moment.

The three of us moved differently. Logan practically flowed through the woods, like he was a part of it, each step landing perfectly without sound. I was less used to woods. My beat tended to have a lot more concrete and street lights, but I felt pretty good about how quiet I was.

Kitty was less relaxed. She kept stepping on branches, getting leaves in her face, doing the Valley Girl equivalent of Joe Pesci cursing his head off.

Finally, I had enough of that. I reached for the Omnitrix and tapped it. In a flash of light, my body shifted. I became taller and thinner, insect wings floated off my back then wrapped around me like a cloak.

"Big Chill."

"Here, take my hand,"
I said to Kitty.

"Ewww!" Kitty recoiled, staring at me. "Your eyes are like, totally grody!"

I'd have rolled those same eyes if I could have. "You are being too loud and clumsy. And you don't have to be. Take my hand, Shadowcat."

Kitty still looked grossed out. Still, she took a hold of my clawed hand. "Wha-"

I shifted to become intangible. And so did Kitty.

"Whoa!" she shivered. "That feels like, so weird!"

"You're telling me."

She didn't feel like Ghost did. When Ghost and I had to interact intangibly, she felt like she was disconnecting from the world around her. Like touching a soap bubble made of power. It was there, but it could disappear at any moment.

Big Chill felt more like a cold breeze. Cold, of course, invisible, but still there. You couldn't see the air as it blew around you, but you could feel it. It was a part of the world, rather than pulling away from it.

Kitty felt like she was fuzzy. I don't know how else to explain it. She was still there, but it was like the universe couldn't quite get a hold on her. Fuzzy and hard to touch.

I lifted off, floating upwards with Kitty in tow. Kitty gasped at the sensation, but otherwise closed her mouth.

"Come on," I pulled her along, following in Logan's wake. Without thinking, I started repeating a lesson Nat had once taught me. "It's fine to learn stealth, but you have natural advantages you can take advantage of. If things can't touch you, then you also avoid making noise. Noise requires interaction after all."

We went through a tree together. "How long can you stay like this?"

"Uh, I don't know? Like, a few hours? I get tired after a while," Kitty said, floating over the snow.

"A few hours. That's perfect," I mused. "Anyways, next time you need to keep under the radar, don't be afraid to turn intangible. The stuff you'll run into has no problems cheating, so neither should you."

"Run into? Like what?" Kitty asked curiously.

That's when an arrow slammed into Logan's throat.

"Guh!" Logan fell to a knee, coughing. I pulled Kitty over to him as she screamed in horror, watching as he grabbed the arrow and ripped it out, a spray of blood following the movement.

Another arrow flew at me, but I turned intangible in time, the arrow getting covered in frost as it passed through my head.

"Grrrrr!" Logan snapped, his throat healing in seconds. "Cheap shot!"

He leaped up and entered the brush. A sound filled the air. Metal on metal.

"Who shoots arrows at people!?" Kitty shouted.

"I know a guy," I tapped the Omnitrix and shifted to Wildmutt form. I could smell Logan and one other person, the person we'd been tracking. I leaped for them, reaching the pair.

Through Wildmutt's superpowered senses, I could tell the man was tall. A giant of a man really, around Thor's height. He was wearing a deer hide as a cloak with wolf fur trimming his arms and legs, but was otherwise nearly naked, his body running hotter than most people. He had a sword in each hand, one of which had been sliced in half by Logan's adamantium claws.

Apparently he'd learned his lesson though, because he parried the claws instead of meeting them head on now, dodging when he could, and sliced into Logan several times.

I kept quiet as I lunged at him, trying to catch him off guard.

I don't know how he sensed me. But as I was about to hit him, he spun around and stabbed me in the chest, kicking me back moments later.

"RARRGH!"

Gaaaah, that hurt. Getting stabbed in the chest hurts no matter how many times it happens or whatever form you're in. You don't get used to that shit.

Logan rushed in. His right claws whistled through the air, barely missing. The large man retaliated with a stab, which Logan took in the shoulder, trading it for a chance to kick his leg. The man rolled as his leg left the ground, swords slicing out to parry Logan's follow up.

Then the two stood in front of each other and began moving at top speed. In Wildmutt form, I couldn't see it, but the sounds of the clash was clear as day to me. Metal ringing over and over, painting the world in vibrating air, bits of heat as swords and claws clashed, the breathing of the two men going fast and hard, sending clouds of warmth into the warm Canadian air. The smell of sweat and blood mingling with the muddy snow flying up around their feet.

Both of them moved faster than anyone not on super-soldier serum should have been able to, bouncing back and forth. Cuts flashed across Logan's body, healing near instantly. The man got similar wounds, but ignored them, focusing on the battle.

The man slashed downward at Logan. Logan blocked it with his forearm. The blade sliced through his flesh and stopped with a metallic clang that surprised the barbarian.

Logan smirked. "Metal bones don't break."

"Get away from him!" Kitty threw a rock. The giant man slashed it out of the air without looking and continued his duel with Logan. She then surprised me by rushing in and throwing the most clumsy punch I'd ever seen.

It landed on his cheek. He didn't flinch. He did, however, lose the hood that had been covering his face when her hand caught on it and pulled.

I was getting up, covering the hole in my chest, but I almost froze at the sight of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In a headband, with tanner skin, and much more youthful than the former California governor. But close enough that all three of us stared in surprise.

He took his chance to let loose a casual backhand towards Kitty. I knew what he expected. To send her flying, then continue his fight with Logan.

He stumbled when his giant fist flew through her with no resistance. Kitty screamed and punched him again, surprising him further.

Logan and I moved at the same time. I tapped the Omnitrix while Logan rushed him.

I still got there first.

"Fasttrack!" at super-speed, I punched Conan (Because who else could this barbarian with swords and an action star's face be?) in ribs, shifting to let Logan slash at him as I ripped a sword from his right hand.

Conan roared in rage, as loud as any animal, and parried Logan again.

I took the sword in hand and swung with superhuman speed, slicing off his cloak. Conan's eyes widened. Then they closed.

When I swung again, he parried it. Despite my superspeed.

Holy shit.

"Logan, back up!" I shouted.

"Are you kidding, brat!?" Logan snarled.

"This guy doesn't have guns!" I answered.

He understood instantly. If we were surrounded by enemies, then Logan would be the one who could detect them first. Reluctantly, Logan backed off.

I twirled my stolen sword and rushed Conan. He rushed back. And just like that, I was in another sword fight.

Conan was good. Scratch that. He was the best I'd ever dueled. Natasha, Melinda May, Clint, they would have been in for the fight of their lives.

The closest I'd ever fought that compared to him was Thor. Thor. The 1500 year old warrior, who had fought everything possible to fight. Conan was almost as good as him.

In Fasttrack form, with my blue fur getting bits of snow in it, I could match and surpass him, but I felt admiration fill me at the sight of his swordsmanship. He adjusted to my speed by slowing down, not trying to overwhelm me like he had Logan, but instead flowing with me, eyes taking in my whole body. Sparks flew with every blow, the swords in our hands shaking on every contact.

I felt bad for what I did next, but I didn't have time to waste on admiring his swordsmanship.

Conan raised his blade to slash at my neck, and I stopped holding back.

Fasttrack was not as fast as XLR8, but he was still insanely quick. If I gave Conan enough time, he might be able to counter him, clever and skilled opponents could do it. Couldn't give him that time though.

I ducked under his slash then bashed his sword with mine with all the strength and speed I had, knocking the blade from his hand. Then I swung my own sword so the blade was placed against Conan's neck, tickling his adam's apple with the point. A small amount of blood came from the point.

Conan stared at me. Then he spoke. And I couldn't understand it.

I stared at him, uncomprehending. Since I'd gotten to the Marvel Earth, the only time I'd had trouble with language had been when the Omnitrix had shut down. Conan said something else, trying a different language.

"What'd he say?" Kitty asked, confused.

"I have no clue."

"...haf na clo." Conan mumbled, repeating the words thoughtfully.

I backed away from him and tossed his sword back to him. Conan's eyes widened, catching the blade with ease. Then I tapped the Omnitrix. In a flash, I was back in human form again. He didn't seem that put off by my transformation, only raising an intrigued eyebrow.

"What are you doing?" Logan asked me, snarling. Conan clenched and unclenched the blade.

"Conan." I said.

The man in question now looked truly surprised. I pointed at myself. "Dial. Logan. Kitty."

He watched me point at each of them. Then he said something else. Gibberish. The Omnitrix fluttered with colors on my wrist. Conan added something.

"-manner of demon?"

"Not demons," I said. I raised my Omnitrix up. "You have swords. But in this world, weapons have evolved a good amount."

"You speak good now?" Conan's voice was deep as hell. He twirled his sword, not sheathing it just yet. His speech was also not what I expected. He sounded like the Heavy from Team Fortress. Slow, deep, using simple words. Like the Omnitrix was having trouble translating him.

Conan wasn't dumb. For his time period, he was a fucking Renaissance man. I had to remind myself of that as his speech was butchered to pieces.

"Weapons. Hmf! Weapons like coward. Sneak knife, metal bone, ghostly wench and beast men. You are sorcerer?"

"I know your legends, Conan. Are any of those things you haven't encountered before?" I asked.

"...No metal bones. You say not demons. Then what?"

"Superheroes. Which kind of makes us weirder than demons," I tried to joke. He didn't seem to get it, only scowling. "Look, we aren't with those guys who were tracking you."

"The worthless ones?" Conan cocked his eyebrow. He had inky-black hair I noticed, something that further separated him from Ahnold. "Hmmm."

That was a growl. A deep and rumbling one. Okay, so he was pissed.

"What want then?" He pointed at me harshly.

"Honestly, to get you out of trouble. You aren't supposed to be here."

That was an understatement. The Hyborian Age was what, 10,000 years ago? Further? Had he been left here because of the Rio Timequake?

"Who is this guy?" Kitty asked.

"A man from an age way before ours," I walked over to the sword on the ground and picked it up, noting where Logan had sliced through it. When I handed it to Conan, he put it away without looking.

"...Hmf," he turned and began to walk away.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Away. Leave me." Conan growled, continuing on.

"So you can keep getting hunted by assholes?"

He seemed surprised by the last word, stopping to chuckle. "Funny, beast-man. I Conan. Need no one."
Logan frowned. He sniffed the air. "Whatever the hell you two are talking about. Stow it. We got company."

I felt a run of frustration fill me. God fucking damnit, I had to get him out. I had no time to waste on this. Whoever was tracking him, they'd cause trouble-

Magic. It was in the air. Sudden and rushing. I was no wizard, but time with Fantasma had gotten me used to the sting of it in the air. Magic had different flavors from person to person. My favorite witch girl had a different feel from Wanda's more chaotic or Agatha's ancient and controlled versions of magic, for example.

This magic felt like a baby being strangled. It was horrific. Poisonous. And it covered us all.

Conan snarled, looking around. "Sorcery!"

Logan was looking around as well, though more confused than anything. Kitty shivered, grabbing at her arms. "Like, what is that?"

"Magic," I reached for the omnitrix, looking around with wide eyes. "Logan-"

It came from beneath me. A claw of pure ice separating the snow as it reached for my crotch with lacerating spikes. I leaped back, screaming a bit higher pitched than normal when the claws caught briefly on the armor protecting me. I slammed down on the Omnitrix.

"NRG!"

In my armored form, I grabbed the claw and ripped it upwards.

The creature was around four feet in height. It was made entirely of spiky ice except for its green eyes, the two wings on its back giving it the appearance of an imp.

"Mephit!" Conan snarled.

The creature screeched, breathing pure ice onto my helmet.

So I breathed nuclear radiation into its face.The creature didn't have enough time to respond before its grinning demon head melted.

Then the earth snapped up beneath me, another creature, this one made of dirt and stone, punching me, followed by gunshots.

"They're here!" Logan extended his claws and went to rush forward. Only to trip as the ground beneath him began to soften, pulling him under. "Crap!"

"AH!" Kitty screamed when another earth imp looking thing rose up and swung at her, getting nothing. She grabbed Logan and pulled him out of the mudlike-earth, letting go of him once he was out.

"Thanks, pipsqueak!" Logan dug his claws into the imp and ripped it in half, taking several shots in the back with spurts of blood. He rushed for where the bullets had been shooting at him from, leaping into the woods.

I grabbed my own earth imp by the shoulders and pulled, ripping its arms off before twirling them to beat the creature to rubble with its own limbs.

Then ice covered me instantly, keeping me in place. I couldn't see it, since I was frozen, but behind me Kitty yelled out again, rushing towards Conan.

The quintessential barbarian had circled around me, using me as cover from the bullets bouncing off my new icy prison, only for a water imp to flow out of the snow and soak him in a blast of fluid. He sliced through the attack, removing the lethal aspect of the attack but covering him with water. In the middle of the snow.

I raised my temperature, exploding from the ice around me as Kitty passed me and blasted the water imp, evaporating it in clouds of steam. I tried to keep my radiation contained while my heat was high, a trick I'd practiced with Bruce, and Conan sighed in relief at the rush of heat that filled the area.

"What are these things!?" Kitty shouted, letting an ice one's claws go through her before pushing it back, Conan smashing it apart with his sword.

"Conan, give me info, comrade!" I shouted in NRG's Russian accented tones.

"Mephit! Spirit of nature they are!"

That fit. We were surrounded by them. Ice, earth, air, water, imps of various types. Or mephits, I guess. A rock smashed into me, hard enough to send me stumbling back. Then ice surrounded me as a ball of wind hit Conan in the back.

A hail of bullets from the treeline was concerning as well, Logan's rage filled voice coming from that direction. The bullets went through Kitty, nearly took Conan's head off, and smashed apart an earth imp.

This was too much. We had to deal with the problems separately.

"Kitty, get Conan to Logan!" I shouted. "Conan, shut down the honorless ones!"

Conan took in the sight around us, then growled and nodded. Thank god he wasn't dumb. Logan and he could easily deal with the gunmen. But the mephits, whatever they were, required a more powerful touch.

Kitty grabbed Conan and pulled him, only for the giant of a man to spin her around and take her into his arms.

"Eep! Like, what are you doing, you creep-AHHHH!"

Conan took off, running faster than anyone I'd ever seen who wasn't on super-soldier juice, rushing past the monsters without care.

He adjusted fast, that was for sure.

"Now," I raised my fists, the armor around them beginning to glow with red hot power. The mephits around me screeched and charged. "Let us party, comrades!"

The demonic forces of nature rushed me. I ran forth and unleashed all the power within me on contact with an earth mephit, exploding in radiative power. My fist split the air before exploding inside a water golem.

Then I was dogpiled. I punched, grappled, blew fire, as the dozens of mephits clawed, blew various types of breath at me, and screeched.

"Yes, cry some more!"






Kulan Gath

"Cry some more," Kulan shook his head, chuckling. "A man after my own heart."

On a television screen in the small room he'd been given, footage of Dial fighting the mephits was playing live. Kulan hummed to himself.

He raised a hand to his beard, only to stop himself. "Oh, that would have been embarrassing.

His hand was still covered in blood. Getting that in his beard was a sticky endeavor to clean.

Kulan looked over at the calf he had been cutting into. Still a babe in truth, the living creature was bleating weakly with its entrails spread out across the floor. Its pain, youth, and blood were all feeding into the entrails arranged into ancient patterns across the concrete, bringing forth the neutral spirits of the elements and binding them to Kulan's will.

Kulan idly kicked the calf, trying to feed just a bit more pain into the spell, but otherwise smiled.

This was good. His powers were, if anything, more potent than ever. Perhaps because his particular brand of magic had less users in this world. The 'pool' he drank from had less competition.

And summoning the mephits would prove to be immensely useful. The elemental spirits were neutral, but easily binded to a sorcerer who knew what they were doing. Enough of them could cause damage, distract, and use subterfuge.

They had weaknesses. They could only be formed from their environments. Thus why Dial was only fighting spirits of ice, earth, air, and water. In the right settings, lighting, fire, and much more could be added.

Still, as a beginning test, Kulan was satisfied…

Except. Conan.

On the screen, Kulan watched as Conan approached a soldier, the barbarian savage slicing into the armored man's throat. Conan. Always Conan.

Kulan believed in Crom. How else could a barbarian somehow overcome odds over and over again, if not with the aid of a god's strength? Conan was no superhuman. He was skilled, strong, but he had no true power. And yet, he survived. He won. Over and over again.

Pain in his palms drew his attention. When Kulan looked, he had driven his pointed nails into his own hands. Kulan relished in the pain for a moment, allowing it to bring him back to reality.

Conan would be dealt with. Dial, the Avengers… and eventually, even AIM. All would become his.

Until even his benefactor would become his thrall.

Kulan raised his palm, covered in the blood of the calf and his own, and licked at it idly, smiling at the screen.
 
8: Moving Forward
June 11th, 2014

Conan the Barbarian

Conan put down the witch girl once they had reached the other battle. The Cimmerian's eyes swept the field, taking in everything as a whole picture before parsing the details, a trick he had learned through many battles.

Then he dived forward, swords held high. The men before him wore black clothing armored with some strange material, and carried those metal sticks that fired arrowheads without shafts. There were fifteen, two of them firing at the steel boned one.

Conan landed before one of them, ducked under his aimed weapon, and sliced into his gut, just under the black material the man wore as armor. His sword ripped through cloth and flesh, entrails steaming as they met the cold air. The man screamed, only cut off by Conan's other blade slamming into his throat in a spray of red on the white snow.

14 men now. 12, since the steel-boned one had torn into two others with those sneak knives of his.

In truth, he preferred this battlefield to the one he had left behind. While the honorless warriors here fought with strange sticks that blasted thunder and released hyperfast beads of iron, at the end of the day they were the same as any archer. Stay out of the way of the arrow, and you would not be struck.

Mephits, while something he was familiar with, sat firmly in the realm of things Conan was wary of. Lesser spirits they are, but Conan felt more comfortable fighting men of flesh and blood than he did those elementals.

Let the shapeshifting demon deal with those. Conan had blood of his own to spill.

But not alone. As he approached the next soldier, he ended up with the steel-boned man at his back. He ignored him, focusing on his opponent.

Dodge from the path of the soldier's weapon as his hand tightened around the trigger. Swing his sword at the man's fingers, slicing them off. Followed with a stab to the throat, twisting as he pulled out.

The steel-boned one landed in front of Conan, taking a hail of arrowheads into his chest. Rather than dying, he roared, a true roar, a sound that reverberated in the air and sang to Conan's warrior blood. The short man charged forth, biceps and forearms bulging as he stabbed deep into the soldier, slashing upwards in a bloody spray that curled in the air.
Conan moved to cover the other man's back, only to shudder when the witch-girl passed through his chest. She ran through the steel-boned one as well, before landing a clumsy punch to the face of one shocked soldier. Another more prepared soldier shot the girl in the face. She yelped, ducking back despite not getting harmed in any way.

What a useful ability. Conan sliced the man who had shot the girl, metal passing through his elbow and sending his forearm flying through the air. The man screamed before a trio of unnaturally sharp blades impaled his face.

Conan looked around. There had been 12. Now there were nine. Very well.

The barbarian and the steel-boned man rushed forth. The witch-girl followed.



Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

Thank god Conan, Logan, and Kitty were far away. I didn't want to risk irradiating them. Sure, Logan could take it and maybe Kitty's powers could protect her, but still! I didn't want to give anyone cancer or worse.

I took a moment to enjoy the irony. These creatures of magic, the power of the ancient world, fighting a being of radiation, the power of the modern world.

I discarded the thought to focus on the fight.

There were dozens of mephits, as Conan had called them. They had a bevy of abilities. Earth ones dived into the ground before showing up again, while ice and water ones could do the same with snow. The earth ones were also physically strong, hitting me not just with stone projectiles from their mouths but with rocky fists. Air mephits were the most elusive, constantly hitting me from just out of range with balls of air with similar force to a punch from Nat.

So to counter most of it, I unleashed the heat of my body in full. Radiation blew from my hands and feet, surrounding me in an aura of nuclear energy. Only the earth golems could approach me without just evaporating after a few moments in my vicinity. I slammed those with punches, full body slams, grabbing one by the face and melting it with a palmful of fire.

The other mephits got blasts of poisonous fire. I fired them carefully, aiming away from the battlefield where Conan, Logan, and Kitty were at. Some mephits tried to head over there. I ignored a bolt of ice that hit me in the back, instead smashing my hands into the ground.

In front of the mephits trying to head for the others, a volcano of pure radiation exploded upwards, molten rock flowing back towards us and cutting off the other battlefield. With that, I went back into the fight.

This battle was worrying. The mephits weren't very tough compared to NRG. Compared to a lot of aliens, really. But for a normal army they would have turned most battles into a massacre. I could cook the air ones with my radiation, but they were able to shift to be almost as intangible as Kitty, then come back with claws of pure air.

Earth ones could dig under the ground as though it were water, and hit as hard as a car. Ice ones could freeze things in their tracks just by passing through them. Water ones could drown a man in their bodies.

To me, they were a challenge. But there were dozens of these things. Whoever had summoned them might be able to replicate that. And this was just one of the magical species. BRIDGE had to be informed.

I covered myself in my aura of radiation and dived forward. The next few minutes were a blur. My fists shatter elemental heads and torsos, with more ephemeral mephits screaming as they were cooked alive either by my aura or my blasts. I felt like I was doing a real life horde mode. They were weak, compared to me, but there were so many. At points, they'd dogpile me, covering me enough that I couldn't see anything but their bodies for a few feet.

I kept punching- Kept blasting. The mud and snow turned to hardened earth as my heat cooked it, radiation soaking the ground like poison soaking into cake. The sound of mephits squealing filled the air, like a variety of guitar strings being abused, cut, and oiled.

The noises were grating. My armor ringing with hits, the squeals of the creatures, claws scratching at me…

"Otyebis ot menya!" I finally roared. I ripped open the helmet of my armor up and the real NRG came out.

The Mmphits died. They died merely by being next to me. I didn't hold back beyond the bare minimum to keep my radiation to my own battlefield. Earth, snow, air, and water spirits burned.

In the form of pure fire, I flew forth, passing through spirits and leaving burning holes in my wake before they dissipated. The ground cracked and split under the heat.

And the mephits all around began to fall apart. I flew through a couple more, but stopped when I realized they were all simply fading away.

One, an ice one still melting, grinning. For a moment, its eyes were… not alive. You couldn't call something with those eyes alive. I felt, for a moment, like I was meeting the gaze of a shark. An ancient apex predator.

Then the look faded. The ice spirit melted and the battlefield was empty.

And chock full of radiation.

"...This is big problem," I said, crossing arms of radioactive flame. I flew over to my armor and hopped into it. After the hood was closed, I began absorbing the radiation, cleaning it as much as I could.

I also sent a signal out through the Omnitrix. Time to get out of here.



Conan The Barbarian

"They're pulling back!" Conan roared at the short man fighting alongside him. He swung his sword in a downward arc, cutting off an arm, then stabbing with his other sword.

The man said something in that strange language of his, but his tone sounded like agreement as he sliced through the weapon of a soldier. As well as his armor, trisecting the man in three pieces.

Conan felt some envy for those blades. They seemed to cut through anything with ease. Other blades, armor, those metal weapons. To have a sword of quality similar to those sneak knives.

More soldiers shouted in the distance. They began to back up. Conan, to his frustration, took cover behind the smaller man. While the other man was smaller, Conan had seen him heal in mere moments without a scratch, while those arrowheads bounced off of his metal skeleton. It galled Conan, to take cover.

It was why he called these soldiers honorless. None of them were willing to fight like godsdamned men. They attacked from afar, shooting at him in cover, surrounding him in numbers. If he was not Conan the Cimmerian, he would have been dead long ago.

A head popped up from the ground next to him. The witch-girl. The brown-haired girl had used her powers to sink into the earth as though it were a pond. A few soldiers had been pulled into the ground as well, their upper bodies wiggling as they tried to escape. She said something to the short man. The steel-boned man scowled and nodded, then looked up at the sky, ignoring a bullet that bounced with a 'spang!' off his chin. Conan kept his eyes on the treeline, watching as the soldiers retreated.

Then the wind picked up. Conan raised his gaze and scowled.

A flying machine. Conan had seen a few since coming to this strange land. Metal constructs that flew faster than any horse, falcon or dragon. This one was different from ones he'd seen, birdlike but with those twisting blades built into the wings.

"Hn," Conan spat to the side, ignoring the witch-girl watching him in disgust. "Atlantean trickery."

The flying machine twisted so its buttocks faced them. The buttocks opened to reveal a hole. Like a castle dropping a drawbridge. Inside, the shapeshifter stood, holding one of those weapons.

"Inside, now!" the man called in a butchered version of Conan's tongue. Still, he made himself understood.

Conan leaped upwards, landing inside, the steel-boned man and the witch-girl following.

"Going, going now," the shapeshifter said, running to the front of the machine. The door shut behind them as Conan followed, stopping to watch the man sit in front of a set of windows. Ah. A saddle for the machine then. A comfortable looking one, with pillows across it.

So the many buttons and sticks were the reins.

"Conan, sit!" the man shouted.

"Don't order me around," Conan grumbled. Still, he listened.

He sat down. The shapeshifter flicked some buttons.

"AAAAAAAAAAGH!" Conan screamed when they suddenly zipped off. "Crom!"

"Wooo!" the witch-girl shouted.

The short man spoke calmly, as though they weren't moving at demonic speeds. The shapeshifter nodded. "First, drop off both you. Then, take Conan safe after. Bridge see him."

Both you? Safe after? His grasp of grammar was atrocious. And how could a bridge see Conan?

Conan the Barbarian grimaced, holding tight to his seat, looking at the shapeshifter. "Explain. Now."






Lyle Getz

Escaped. They'd made it out. Of course they had.

Dial was a goddamn Avenger. He had no idea who that girl and man with him were, but they'd displayed impressive abilities of their own. Damn BRIDGE, for somehow managing to consistently pull in superhumans.

Well. He'd have his own soon enough.

Lyle sat at his desk, staring hard at his computer. This. This was good, in some ways. They had more raw data on the Omnitrix now. They'd gotten some pings on the network whenever Dial transformed. They knew about two more assets of BRIDGE. And Kulan Gath…

No. That last one worried him more than anything. Kulan had, with the sacrifice of a calf, summoned dozens of elemental spirits. Creature of air, earth, and water. They had barely scratched Dial. They would have annihilated most soldiers.

Kulan was not on AIM's side. Lyle repeated those words over and over like a prayer for a moment.

Then a message came in. He opened it.

"...The Benefactor," Lyle mumbled. The mysterious person providing all their new advancements. They'd passed on something new. Something…

Three, maybe four months. He could build this. They just needed to gather some tech, make some chemicals. And then. Well. Kulan Gath would be a footnote.








Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

"Explain. Now."

A voice like stone rumbling down a mountain peak echoed. I looked over at Conan. The man looked almost comical, holding onto his seat as the ship rocketed forward. Almost. He was still a 6+ foot man covered in muscle and radiating power. As well as irritation. Lots of that last one.

"What's Schwarzenegger asking?" Logan said.

"Thaaaat's who he looks like!" Kitty said. "That old movie actor, the funny one."

Logan and I stared at her. She stared back. "What?"

"Old?" I said, feeling a deep pain in my soul.

"Yeah, from like, the 90s. He was in that movie where he wanted to get a superhero toy for his son?" Kitty looked closer at Conan, who leaned back from her. "Wow, that's like, totally crazy."

"...Kitty, have you seen Terminator? Or Commando?"

"No. Those movies are like, ancient and grody!"

Oh dear lord, save me from Cali teens… Wait, I was a Cali teen once. Valley Kids then, save me from Valley Kids.

I pushed back the inner nerd rage. "Okay, well. I'm guessing Conan here is an ancestor of Schwarzenegger. Thus why he looks like him."

"An ancestor?" Conan frowned. "Hm. Home, I return to."

He said that with some small smidgen of relief. That was a good point. Conan being here was part of a whole bevy of problems.

"...Okay," I hit autopilot. The ship began to guide itself towards the X-Mansion. As it did that, I brought up comms and texted a message to Maria, Agatha, and Thor. Agatha likely wouldn't answer, but she did keep a smartphone to keep in touch.

"Conan, I'm going to give a brief breakdown of the last… Ten thousand years? No, let me actually start with my theory on how you got here. It all started in a place called Rio de Janeiro."

As I spoke, the back of my mind was focused on the implications of everything else. Conan in the modern age was somewhat normal. We were used to it. But those paramilitary guys and the mephits?

Marvel Canada would never stop with its bullshit. Meme or not, it was true this time.

I broke the news to Conan. As I did, I wanted to sigh. I just needed a break. A nice long break where nothing happened to me beyond the usual routine…






July 19th, 2014

High above the Earth, the International Space Station, known by many as the ISS, floated peacefully, orbiting the planet below. The astronauts within were simply enjoying the moments before a quick lunch. Experimenting, studying, doing some light exercise.

Since aliens had proven to be real, the ISS had become busier than ever. Hundreds of scans, experiments, and hours of surveillance footage, all done from there.

It was quiet despite the business. Peaceful.

Until there was a knock at the door.

A knock. At the airlock door. In space.

The astronauts, one woman and two men, shared a look of horror.

"...Uh-"

"Don't look at me," one of the men, Victor, shook his head, his dark bald head shining in the light. "I've had nightmares about this kinda shit."

"And yet, you became an astronaut anyway," the woman, Wang, snarked, just a hint of a Mandarin accent to her voice.

"You know how many people want to date astronauts?"

The other, paler, man, Douglas, leaned to look out the window. "Uh. It's one of ours. I think."

Wang looked out, Victor following. The three looked out.

A blue-gray ship. But one out of science fiction. It was huge, the size of a large house, shaped like a disc with a main body and two structures on the sides. A large gun rested on the top. More importantly, three symbols rested on it, on each structure and one more on the top.

A BRIDGE eagle. An Avengers logo. And a large number 42. Under the number was a name.

The Defiant Reborn.

The ship had an airlock tunnel extended out to attach to theirs. Lights shone across the ship. And another knock came. A series of them. Victor hummed to the tune of the knocks.

"Shave and a haircut… two bits."

"I'm gonna say they're human," Wang said just before the doors slid open on their own.

Behind them, the famous face of Dial grinned. "Ola, astronauts. We brought lunch and a gravity field. Wanna partake?"

The astronauts shared a look. Victor was shocked. Douglas pinched himself. And Wang stared at Dial.

"Um… are you real?" she finally said.

Dial's smile fell. "Wait, did you guys not get a message about this?"

Just then, a large man with short shorn hair came floating around the corner. Alexander, a large bald man, with a wide grin on his face. He spoke in a German accent. "My friends, we are going to have vis-" He stopped. "Oh, you are here already!"

Dial nodded. "Yep. And I brought gifts."

"Wunderbar!" Alexander said in excitement, the German man floated over to Dial, landing heavily when he entered the airlock. Right. Gravity field.

After some hesitation, the other three followed.



The inside of the ship was huge. Well, compared to the ISS. It had more in common with ships from Star Trek. Large halls big enough to walk through with head room. After so long in the comparatively cramped ISS, it was a relief.

Took time to get used to the gravity though. After months in space, the astronauts had to get their earth legs. Just beyond the airlock, a pair of heavy metal doors slid open, a glowing pair of turrets in the ceiling tracking their movements. Past those, a locker room rested, filled with weapons, armor, breathing equipment, and small packets labeled MRE's.

"What is all this?" Wang asked, trying to understand what was going on. "The Avengers built a spaceship?"

"Correction. Tony Stark and a team of scientists built a spaceship. For legal reasons, this belongs to me as a private vessel."

"Because of that registration crap?" Victor asked.

"Registration?" Alexander said.

"Don't get me started," Dial said. "Anyways, we needed to take a flight test, and a little birdy named Chris said you guys might enjoy a fresh meal."

"Hadfield?" Douglas barked out a laugh. "That man is way too nice."

They entered a kitchen and dining room. An actual one.

With food. Tons and tons of food.

"Dig in! Got all your favorites! Pizza, Chinese, pies, chicken wings-"

The four astronauts were already digging in. Food. Non-dehydrated, fresh, nice smelling food! Dial smiled, turning and leaving the group to eat.

Wang looked around briefly with pizza in her mouth, swallowing. "You think we can get one of these?"

"God I hope so."

With a whole army of questions ahead of them, they focused on food for now. Later they could interrogate the superhero. For now, the chicken wings were calling.

Author's Note: Next chapter, some brief time will be spent on things like Kitty's reaction to everything she saw, Conan seeing New York City, then some stuff about what other people went through during the month time skip. Nothing too crazy, just want you guys to know that no one was twiddling their fingers or something.

After that though. Dial assembles his crew, and heads out into the cosmos. Two of the members are easy to figure out, one he's never met, one is a mascot, and the last is easy to figure out as well.

I missed writing this. Sorry for the late update, I was out of the house for the last couple of days. As always, the next chapter will be on my patreon, but the next story to update will be Rotten Eggs. In the meantime, stay safe everyone.
 
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