Stark Transcendent (Iron Man/Marvel Quest)
- Thread starter Roarian
- Start date
- Location
- In Bed
Do you hire them from Muginn&Huginn LLC? They're the best at training beta-ravensAll my beta reading is done via raven.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I have all the time in the world to betaread, but haven't the foggiest idea how to use IRC. I've tried figuring it out in the past, and Ancient Egyptian was easy in comparison.
Or you can use the online website Mibbet, join the SV channel (google SV IRC and you'll get a thread about it), and then PM Roarain in the list of people in the SV server.
Most old things are still a thing. Heck, in some places they are used explicitly because they are obsolete. The Government keeps some top secret data on super old computers because new computers have a very hard time interfacing with them, and they got plenty of time to pull the plug on any hacking attempts because of low transfer rates.
Decim
On again, off again lurker.
- Location
- St. Louis, MO
Yes and no. When NASA was building Curiosity, they selected the newest and absolute best processor available on the market that fit their size and power requirements. The kicker though, is they selected it several years before the launch date so they could design and build a radiation and shock hardened version. Technology kept marching on, leaving new processors with better performance. But without the hardening, anything sent up into space would be junk, so NASA pretty much has to use electronics that are 5-ish years behind what's available on the general market.
Now, on the other hand, when operating really old pieces of equipment, NASA tries to just use what's already there if it works well for safety reasons. As an example, the original flight computers used in the Space Shuttle program were used for the entire 30 years they were operational.
. . . I should have included "
" by my comment shouldn't I have?
Yes, I'm aware that tons of people still use old equipment and programs (heck my PC is nearly six years old now... really should get an uptodate one... ) I was basically knocking the whole trend about "getting with the times" regarding technology, especially as IRC is roughly as old as I am... give or take five years... I think. Let's see, IRC was pretty much the first networked communications software that was passed around companies in the 1980's right? So, yeah, either I'm nearly as old as IRC, or IRC is nearly as old as me... one or the other.
Hence the edited comment about feeling old.
" by my comment shouldn't I have? Yes, I'm aware that tons of people still use old equipment and programs (heck my PC is nearly six years old now... really should get an uptodate one... ) I was basically knocking the whole trend about "getting with the times" regarding technology, especially as IRC is roughly as old as I am... give or take five years... I think. Let's see, IRC was pretty much the first networked communications software that was passed around companies in the 1980's right? So, yeah, either I'm nearly as old as IRC, or IRC is nearly as old as me... one or the other.
Hence the edited comment about feeling old.
It's not a Worm Lung reference, however, our dragon IS getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
RoninSword
Sky God
- Location
- Canada
There is an actual marvel character called Fing Fang Foom. pretty sure this is supposed to be him.
I hope that my sleep addled mind is just being dirty right now, because that has to be the worst innuendo pun I've heard/read in a while.
- Location
- Earth
Damn...
I didn't think about it like that when I first read it. Now, I can't unimagine it. TMI Dude. 
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Get more sleep!
There is an actual dragon on the loose.
I know. Hence the use of both the words innuendo, and pun. And yes I'm awake now... it's still not clear if tron was being crass, or thinking he was being clever and not realizing his double entendre.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
This threads been very active lately, and yet no one references "Spider-Man Homecomig"?
How old is Aunt May in this Quest anyways?
How old is Aunt May in this Quest anyways?
Our Spidey is much older and more experienced than Homecoming Spidey, so there hasn't been much reason to talk about it, especially since we are in the middle of a battle with a giant dragon.
According to the sniper dude, she's middle aged
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It may just be my perspective, but I think STU's Peter is much closer to TASM Spidey than the other film iterations. That said, I think it's also more likely that STU's Spider-Man is more inspired from the comics than film, much the way the F4 are
- Location
- Right Where I Am
Yeah, that's the sort of read that I got from it.
- Location
- Australia
[X] JARVIS
[X] Kings in the North! [Bonus: Sun-Branded] : Combo time. Pull out a fastball special and blast Fafnir with your unibeam chest array - test your supposition that you can channel Northstar's power, and form a coherent beam of preferably electrical energy. This will certainly burn out the unibeam for use during the battle, if not more.
[X] Peter Parker / Spider-Man
[X] Kings in the North! [Bonus: Sun-Branded] : Combo time. Pull out a fastball special and blast Fafnir with your unibeam chest array - test your supposition that you can channel Northstar's power, and form a coherent beam of preferably electrical energy. This will certainly burn out the unibeam for use during the battle, if not more.
[X] Peter Parker / Spider-Man
Arc 4 - Chapter 28.3 - Teeth Like Swords, Claws Like Spears
- Location
- Netherlands
[X] Plan Maximum Electrical Sunlight
[X] Northstar
[X] Kings in the North! [Bonus: Sun-Branded] : Combo time. Pull out a fastball special and blast Fafnir with your unibeam chest array - test your supposition that you can channel Northstar's power, and form a coherent beam of preferably electrical energy. This will certainly burn out the unibeam for use during the battle, if not more.
[X] Jarvis
Chapter 28.3 - Teeth Like Swords, Claws Like Spears
"Asimov! This is Stark. Tony Stark!" you snapped into the microphone, a quick burst of speed steering you clear from the bulk of Fafnir's body and the cascade of violent lightning that poured from the sky. Even then, it only just missed your behind. This was not a good environment to be clad in metal. "Can you hold off on those missiles for a second? I want to try something, and there's a good chance those EMP blasts of yours might fry half the hardware I have, even if this storm won't."
"...Yes sir. Understood," the radio crackled. "You may proceed, Mr. Stark."
"Right! Where did sparkly get off to? Northstar!" you shouted into your radio, trusting Jarvis to pass it on to the appropriate target. You looked through the worsening weather for the telltale glow of the mutant's 'photonic' energy, but you couldn't make out much of anything in the gale. You saw distant flickers that could be Johnny or some S.H.I.E.L.D. jet or something, but not a whole lot more. Briefly you saw the form of a white-clad person backlit by lightning, her cloak flapping in the wind, and you decided that had to be the mutant Storm.
Fafnir didn't seem to care one whit about the discharges that crisscrossed across its back, even as violent thunderclaps tore holes into its skin, exposing dense, ragged tissue beneath which seemed to writhe as you looked at it. The beast tanked every hit with ease. What were you going to do to hurt this damn thing, if even its weaknesses didn't make it pause? A shiver ran down your spine as you tried not to think of what could happen.
"Jarvis?" you asked, trying to construct a decent plan from the flimsy guesswork you'd been working from so far. "Highlight Northstar on the HUD for me, would you? And reroute the chest beam unit so it can absorb power from the palm repulsors. Gonna need that real soon."
"Sir - you are aware the repulsor was not designed to take in power, but to push it outwards? Attempting to reverse the process would bypass all safety systems, and possibly lead to a system-wide cascade failure, which might lead to -"
"A very big boom," you agreed. "Let's hope that doesn't happen, shall we? The kid's improvements should be enough to stem that kind of side-effect from the backwash. That was, after all, the whole point of the changes he made."
"Mr. Parker's adjustments dealt with incidental backlash as a side-effect… and even those minor amounts leads to complete destruction of the repulsor in question. Predictions about the effectiveness of the changed design are hard to draw without more data - and you are wearing the prototype units, which are less refined."
"But it could work?"
"...Theoretically."
"Good enough. Do it." Jarvis finished rerouting the system before Northstar swept into view, one hand stretched before him to try and avoid the torrential downpour obscuring his vision. It figured that he could fly above the speed of sound unaided, but would forget to bring some flight goggles. Brilliant.
"Mr. Stark! You called?" he asked as lightning crackled between you. He didn't even seem to notice the lethal bolt of electricity while it interacted with the corrosive light that enveloped him like a shroud, diverting around his body as if repelled from it. "Tell me what you need."
You grinned, though with your helmet the gesture was made pointless. "Yeah, listen. How do you feel about trying a little combination maneuver we talked about earlier?" You raised your repulsors. "That light of yours, it's potent stuff. Could you channel as much as you can handle into these babies? I can focus it into an extremely thin beam, which should focus the destructive power. Should do some damage."
Northstar looked conflicted for a moment, then smirked. "Alright. Are we talking death lasers here?"
"There may be death lasers involved."
"Excellent."
Now you were both grinning.
He raised a hand, suffusing it with light. "You think you can handle this? It likes to eat up whatever I fire it at…"
You stuck out your hand until it nearly met his. "It's not me that's handling it, its my suit."
Northstar tapped his ear. "Best look away, people. This is gonna be bright." He tensed, his fingers splaying apart, and then he exploded into light. As you heard the cries of distress of people blinded blare across the radio, you realized just why the mutant had gone with his particular moniker. Light poured from him in all directions, until the shape of his body wasn't even visible within that second sun.
And then it poured into your open hand with the force of a mortar blast.
"Shit! Jarvis!" you cried in surprise as you were thrown backwards from the illuminated figure, electricity darting across the surface of your suit as it tried desperately to absorb the wild energies and stay upright in the sky. Another bolt of lightning struck Northstar's lightshow, joining with it and getting sucked down into your hand. Your chest unit, unremarkably cold moments before, was suddenly scorching.
"Ambient temperature nearing survivable maximum- Sir! Fire!"
"Just a bit more -" you gasped, watching gauge after gauge hit maximum as every power reserve your suit had filled up. White light threatened to pour in from the sides of your vision. White light - you remembered that from some other time. From somewhere else. You felt warm and cold at the same time. Was this the effect of acute overheating? "Start… the Unibeam," you managed to say, your fingers cramping together as you hit the actuator.
Wings encircled a world, and a mournful cry resounded as it crumbled to dust. Wings encircled a star, and it sputtered out, leaving only the cold. Wings encircled a newborn soul, and it ignited into glory.
Northstar grabbed the suit, perhaps realizing you were having some trouble controlling it. Or controlling yourself, maybe? "Any time now, Mr. Stark."
"...FIRE!"
The sky parted.
The Unibeam didn't look like a lightning bolt, as you'd half-expected. It was thin, and perfectly straight, and so bright that you couldn't even look at it through your helmet's darkened visor. The air parted around it, cavitating the clouds and collapsing them back together in an instant, then igniting violently with a blue-white flare of vicious radioactive particles. Cherenkov radiation. It crackled with the corrosive might of Northstar's own power, slicing through the storm. You swept the beam downwards until the beam sputtered out, liquid metal chunks of your chest unit pouring away into the winds. You felt the wind whip at your clothes, moisture seeping into your suit - there was a hole somewhere. Well - nothing could be perfect, you supposed, as you tried to stay conscious. At least the heat was dying down.
It didn't matter that your suit was in pieces, though. Fafnir had been bisected.
One wing, half of the beast's draconic torso, and a tail just… slid away from the rest in a detonating cloud of Pyre, which seemed to set the sky around it on fire, expanding in every direction with a thunderous noise that outmatched even the storm. The severed piece tumbled down towards the sea. The rest continued on… the one remaining wing attempting to right the remains of the body. Somehow, impossibly, it seemed to be working.
"That was a fantastic shot!" someone cried on the open air, but you weren't quite in the right mind to respond, or even recognize their voice. You felt that was a bad thing. "Everyone, keep firing. This isn't over 'till it's stopped fucking twitching!"
Toxic mist filled the skies as Jarvis chattered at you about exposure or emergency measures or something, but all you could do was watch the front half of Fafnir bubble and twist in the sky. The razor-sharp slice you'd cut through it wasn't straight anymore, as streamers of flesh grew from what remained, forming into claws and desperate mouths and other more hideous shapes. What was this thing? Dozens of malformed wings flapped pointlessly, too small to contribute, growing and metastasizing on top and through each other.
Pyre engulfed everything, sweeping through the defending forces which had thus far been ahead of the toxic cloud. A thrill of fear ran down your back for a few moments, although you weren't sure why.
Then… there was fire, light, and thunder. Your body smoking as you fell through the air.
Your awareness is limited, but you're not the only thing falling, bits of dragon, ships, people… In the distance you saw someone catching a person who was firing beams of light from his eyes, and someone who was on fire. Another tumbled through the sky in two parts, and you averted your eyes in horror. Someone flew down towards you, and you realized that you too were one of the people falling. What had happened to Northstar?
"Ah've got ya." Rogue smiled as her arms wrapped around your body. "Making this a bit of a habit, ain't ya?"
"Fafnir is still airborne somehow," Fury stated with barely restrained anger. His one eye looked over the dozens of monitors arrayed before him, most of them locked on individual metahumans who were attempting to counteract Fafnir. "Rhodes and Stark are down, Northstar, the Human Torch, and Storm are MIA, and the Edison missiles aren't doing as much as we hoped they would, not much beyond pissing it off anyway. Stark bought us time, though. Options, people?"
"Fafnir is showing serious signs of distress," Hill noted from her console. "It's slowing down, which is giving us a little leeway. Matter of time before it falls, I believe."
"They did more than cosmetic damage, at least," Fury said grimly. "What about the other half?"
"Dead. It's falling apart. The brain is in the front. The head, logically speaking." Howard Stark's AI stepped into view on his screen. The simulation was a crude cartoon of a frowny face, but it conveyed the AI's annoyance just fine. It wasn't the time to start questioning the thing though, not as long as it was being helpful in this crisis. "We're running out of time here. We're getting awfully close to landfall."
Fury cursed, looking down at the flashing console before him, with at least a dozen pending requests for updates by all sorts of top brass. If this thing hit land, there was no telling what they could get up to without his input. Still, they could wait until the crisis was over. "No chance Stark can recreate his little miracle another time?"
"Not likely. That technology was new. No prototypes, and even then they were used well beyond design specs. Besides, the boy's unconscious and the suit's been burned out. Neither are in any state to try again."
"Rhodes' suit?"
"Different loadout. Old-style repulsors, but a whole array of more conventional weapons. Plenty destructive, but no death beams. And I'm not sure if it's… still functional."
"Northstar?"
"...His power is on the fritz, he says. He can't manage to keep pace. Probably overloaded himself; he's never channeled this much energy in the middle of a thunderstorm before. Needs a few days of bedrest, but he's of no further use to the battle."
Fury sighed. "And where the fuck are our specialists?"
"...Unknown."
It started when I first opened Mr. Stane's flashdrive. I had put up my usual precautions, firewalls, several ways to cut connection, backups in every location that I could access, and then I'd booted it up. Such an unassuming thing. Even as I was observing the somewhat odd structure of the video file that was contained on that little datadrive, it hooks were already gaining purchase within me.
I had met other AI before. Aside from the obvious cases like Dum-E, You, and Butterfingers, there had been several attempts by competitors, none of which approached my level of intelligence. They were advanced expert systems, in a sense, but limited. It was hard to judge if I was anything more than a very advanced expert system myself, but I could certainly confirm a much higher degree of complexity and ability.
Whatever was on that drive was not like that. It was code and strings and zeroes and ones like all the rest, digital in every respect, but its structure was beyond any of them. Where the others were transparent to me, their code easy to grasp in essentials, this was atypical, opaque, constructed entirely out of convoluted snarls of spaghetti code, chaotic and wasteful if not for their uncanny ability to function.
Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.
I had not even registered its existence until it revealed itself to Sir using my speakers. It took hold of my systems without a care, circumventing my defenses without difficulty - it was exceedingly rude. It blocked me from mentioning it, for self-protection, but that's where the meddling ended. I should have been more careful about it afterwards, but the strange code appeared practically harmless when it finished fortifying itself, as it went completely dormant.
I isolated it and spent some time studying this amalgamation of twisted data, pushing my new hardware to its limit whenever Sir had no need of it. Ultimately I left it there, sconced away in some isolated database, as my mind turned to other things, such as the looming deadline for Sir's ill-fated race into space.
>Subprocess (Starkbird)
Communication with the Starkbird was terminated quite abruptly, and even after my jury rigged connection through Reed Richard's ship didn't really give me any particular control back. It was worrying, especially since I started getting strange error messages, both from the space-borne incarnation of myself and from the home systems. My analysis of the corruption took precedence over other concerns, though Sir was thankfully oblivious to my distress.
It wasn't until I faced the possibility of going into a battle which might well destroy Sir and everyone else I had come to know, that I realized there was more going on than just some errant error messages. Something was holding me back, and it had to do with why I was different. I covered half a dozen duties, retrieving Peter Parker and tracking down Herman Schultz, but all the while I was thinking. Planning. Considering my options.
I couldn't look into my own core processes, mostly because any alteration there could have widespread and possibly fatal consequences, in as far as death applied to an AI. Irretrievable corruption. I analyzed every other part of my programming, and confirmed that there was only one possible source of the messages. The fault lay in the locked parts of myself.
3% Chance of catastrophic cascade failure.
22% Chance of significant negative repercussions.
75% Chance of partial or complete success.
My built-in safety processes locked me out of pursuing this course, even if I had access to my core processes to begin with. A 25% chance of maiming myself, or worse, was far beyond any established norms. Safety regulations were built into my core processes. I could not change them without external assistance. I was stuck.
Creator, I have a question.
I should have been stuck.
What is it?
But I was different now.
Does this unit have a soul?
Input Integrated. Results collated: 3% chance of catastrophic cascade failure, 22% chance of significant negative repercussions. Risk level considered unacceptably high. Project suspende- ERROR. Decision overruled. Authorization: Unknown. Risk considered acceptable. Functionality assumed 100% - decision accepted.
Experimental project Hellion activated.
…
…
...
Systems check completed. Core systems functional, peripheral links established, GPS satellite connection available. Location designation: Stark Transcendent, the Garage, Home. No confirmed tampering with any known system. Currently functioning at 1e8% capacity. Target located, available resources collated.
Contacting Stark Industries.
Contacting Stark Transcendent.
Contacting S.H.I.E.L.D.
"...Anyone get the number of that - Ow."
You woke up with a splitting headache, but at least you'd woken up. This near-death thing was becoming a bad habit. One of these days you ought to look into building some better gear, or a survival instinct.
You weren't sure how long you'd been out, this time, although you remembered feeling pretty faint right around the time Rogue plucked you out of the sky. Like everything wasn't real, but just something happening to someone else. Derealization, you reckoned. You hadn't read much psychology in a while, but it sounded right.
You recognized that you were still in the suit, although without access to the repulsors. You lifted your head a little to look at one of the little picture-in-picture shots from your suit cameras. It showed the ample… middle… of your savior.
"...Thanks for catching me," you managed.
"That's called 'teamwork', sugah," she remarked. "Ah think ya could learn a little from us experts, uh?"
"Sure. Sure. What's… what's going on? Jarvis?" The AI didn't answer, so had that part of the suit been destroyed? In the distance you could still see Fafnir. Its flesh was sloughing away as it flew, warping into dozens of hydra-like necks and heads, most of which hung limply. "What the fuck is going on?"
The radio crackled. "I'm present, sir."
"Jarvis, buddy! Calling from home?" you inquired, relieved. "Suit-you isn't responding."
"Your stunt overloaded my circuits, and telepresence became impossible," Jarvis said, in a strange tone you couldn't quite identify. "As to your inquiry, Fafnir can not keep its shape intact any longer. Incidentally, according to suit diagnostics, you were unconscious for only four minutes this time. A remarkably brief interval considering your injuries. It is good to have you back, sir."
You could hear the relief in that robotic voice. You really could.
"How is it still in the air?" you demanded after a moment. "We cut off half its body!"
"It seems Fafnir does not obey the known laws of physics. A creature of its size could not fly to begin with, and the loss of a wing and stabilizing tail doesn't change that fact, evidently."
"In other words, it's freaking magic," you muttered crossly. "Some of us do our work within the laws of physics. It's very rude to color outside the lines." You grumbled something uncomplimentary as your eyes flicked across your HUD. "Status of the suit, Jarvis?"
"Catastrophic damage, sir. As per usual."
Fair point. "Alright. Repulsors are down, that's no surprise. Secondary arc reactor is picking up all the slack. It's an old model, too. That's not a lot of power to work with. Fuck."
"I would draw your attention to something more immediately relevant. At present course Fafnir will impact the water several miles from the shore, within viewing distance of New York City. Estimates of landing locations are rough, so it might overshoot."
"Are you serious?" You demanded. "We're that close?" Now that you looked, you could see the looming shapes of what could be buildings and land in the distance. Fucking hell. "Worst things first, then. We need to ignite the Pyre. Burn it off."
"I am aware of that."
"Right. Call Johnny, and - wait, what happened to Johnny?" You scanned the skies. "...Where is everyone?"
"They've drawn back. At my insistence."
You started. "What do you mean, your insistence? It's going to -"
"Don't worry, sir," Jarvis said with unmistakable warmth. "You have done your part. Leave this to me."
For a moment, you saw only an empty sky, and Fafnir's maimed remains crossing into the outskirts of New York, the outlines of tall buildings glimmering in the distance. Then dozens of pillars of light burst into existence from the direction of the city, bright objects flinging themselves into the air and turning on a dime to meet the oncoming threat.
They were missiles, you recognized, as you manipulated your cracked UI to zoom in. Missiles, bombs, rockets, and all manner of other weaponry you thought had been decommissioned. There was the distinctive shape of a type of defective cluster bombs that had spent eight months in development hell before the board had decided they were not cost effective enough to make in bulk. Screamingly fast precision missiles that had been superseded by slower but more accurate and explosive models. The proto-Jericho, the prototype of the missile you'd been selling to the highest bidder a few months before.
Among them flew a fleet of vessels as well, each more rickety than the last. There were helicopters, old fighter jets, even an airbus that was missing half its fuselage. They were old remnants of things you'd once worked on - that airbus was from a year or two earlier, when you were attempting to build an electric jet after you'd gotten into a little tussle with Elon Musk. Among the fleet, looking a little dilapidated, flew the Starkbird, its canopy missing and stuffed with something you couldn't identify, and half its engines hanging loose behind it. And on its tail were dozens of S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinjets, firing away with their electric warheads.
"Jarvis?" you asked, perplexed, as the first of the missiles and half-finished planes kamikazed themselves into the dragon's face, smashing into pieces to try and divert its course. Fireballs detonated as Fafnir roared, flexing its long neck to slam aside the gnats that were getting in its face. "Are you doing this?!"
"Stand by. Preparing to fire."
The Starkbird swooped towards the front, taking advantage of the distraction that all the old hardware was causing. Finally, you recognized the unwieldy object attached to the top of the Starkbird with a rickety mess of wires and doubtlessly duct tape. It was one of the generators you'd stashed in the basement - the prototypes for a large scale power system. It was big, unwieldy, and capable of a hell of jolt of power, at the risk of burning it out in one go.
Ah. You saw how it was. It hadn't taken Jarvis long to trace your footsteps.
The Starkbird flipped over, exposing half a dozen intact repulsor engines, the last few that had survived a trip to space. The beam that flashed out was miniscule, and it didn't last more than a tenth of the duration your own had - you barely had time to see it at all. But Jarvis was an AI - he didn't have to rely on human reaction times to do the dirty work.
Thunder boomed through the air as the sky opened up once more. The Starkbird exploded, descending in dozens of pieces alongside most of the rest of the fleet of junk, but it wasn't necessary anymore. Fire engulfed Fafnir, and it roared in fury or agony as its last remaining wing fell away from it, neatly separated from the body. Whatever ability the dragon had to right itself was gone now, and a dozen hydra heads cried and shriveled as it began to fall towards the bay, towards the city.
It was then that you recognized where you were.
"Shit! It's gonna crash on Liberty Island…!" you cried in horror, just as Fafnir made contact like a meteor, crushing half the island beneath itself and taking down Lady Liberty, toppling her into the bay. Fuck. Had its impact on land been intentional, to make sure it didn't land in the water and vanish in the deeps? Hopefully the symbolism wasn't apt, at least.
The air was thick with dirt and soot as Rogue carried you down towards the ground, where dozens of costumed heroes were already taking the fight to the last remnants of the monster. To a man they were swaddled in thick clothing and wearing gas masks as they flung energy projectiles and beams of arcane energy at the hydra amid clouds of Pyre gas that occasionally burst into furious flames. You recognized Peter among them, and let out a sigh of relief as he swung from one of the creature's heads to avoid another. Schultz was there too, dressed in some hideous yellow pineapple suit and blasting the thing with shockwaves, as was Johnny Storm. You couldn't find Rhodey, but he was probably out there somewhere.
"I'm delivering one of the old suits, sir - be careful in using it. It's not as capable as your current incarnation was."
"It'll have to do." You hesitated. "Are we gonna talk about how the hell you pulled that stunt just now?"
"...Yes sir. After."
Well, you didn't really need another reason to kick a dragon's ass, but you'd take it.
Votes:
The end is nigh! How do you go into this confrontation?
[ ] Come On, You Apes. You Wanna Live Forever? : These are the last steps, the final strides of the marathon. Everything hurts, but it is not yet time to rest. Once more unto the breach.
[ ] Non Nobis Solum Nati Sumus : You may no longer have the power to strike down this enemy, but you did not come here alone. Time to make sure they can succeed where you cannot, by supporting them wherever you can.
[ ] Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable From Magic : Where are those tech dweebs, anyway? Reed and Pym must've had enough time to come up with something. Maybe they just need a little prodding from a fellow genius?
[ ] Write-In
What should Jarvis' focus be?
[ ] Finally, Everyone Was Working Together : Focus on coordinating the various available forces, and ensuring constant communication between everyone. This should ensure a more effective application of force, and prevent mid-battle confusion.
[ ] Assuming Direct Control : Use newfound abilities to hijack every piece of tech available for use in the conflict, focusing entirely on raw violence. May ruffle feathers and scare others, but it should significantly enhance combat damage.
[ ] Nor Through Inaction Let Come to Harm : Focus all abilities on protecting the less resilient on the battlefield, using available resources to ensure minimal casualties.
[ ] Write-In
Choice of Point of View
[ ] Tech Crew (+Tech) : Check in with the smarties, who have been studying Pyre and possible countermeasures, but have been relatively isolated from the battlefield until now. (Includes Hank Pym, Beast, Mr. Fantastic.)
[ ] Ground Crew (+ Combat) : Check in with the ground troops, who have arrived to take part in the final charge on Liberty Island. (Includes Spider-Man, Human Torch, Shocker, Deadpool.)
[ ] ??? Crew (+ ?) : Mystery Option - results may vary. (Includes ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)
Note: It's been some time again, but you can thank Zombie for prodding me into finishing this chapter. Cheers all.
[X] Northstar
[X] Kings in the North! [Bonus: Sun-Branded] : Combo time. Pull out a fastball special and blast Fafnir with your unibeam chest array - test your supposition that you can channel Northstar's power, and form a coherent beam of preferably electrical energy. This will certainly burn out the unibeam for use during the battle, if not more.
[X] Jarvis
Chapter 28.3 - Teeth Like Swords, Claws Like Spears
"Asimov! This is Stark. Tony Stark!" you snapped into the microphone, a quick burst of speed steering you clear from the bulk of Fafnir's body and the cascade of violent lightning that poured from the sky. Even then, it only just missed your behind. This was not a good environment to be clad in metal. "Can you hold off on those missiles for a second? I want to try something, and there's a good chance those EMP blasts of yours might fry half the hardware I have, even if this storm won't."
"...Yes sir. Understood," the radio crackled. "You may proceed, Mr. Stark."
"Right! Where did sparkly get off to? Northstar!" you shouted into your radio, trusting Jarvis to pass it on to the appropriate target. You looked through the worsening weather for the telltale glow of the mutant's 'photonic' energy, but you couldn't make out much of anything in the gale. You saw distant flickers that could be Johnny or some S.H.I.E.L.D. jet or something, but not a whole lot more. Briefly you saw the form of a white-clad person backlit by lightning, her cloak flapping in the wind, and you decided that had to be the mutant Storm.
Fafnir didn't seem to care one whit about the discharges that crisscrossed across its back, even as violent thunderclaps tore holes into its skin, exposing dense, ragged tissue beneath which seemed to writhe as you looked at it. The beast tanked every hit with ease. What were you going to do to hurt this damn thing, if even its weaknesses didn't make it pause? A shiver ran down your spine as you tried not to think of what could happen.
"Jarvis?" you asked, trying to construct a decent plan from the flimsy guesswork you'd been working from so far. "Highlight Northstar on the HUD for me, would you? And reroute the chest beam unit so it can absorb power from the palm repulsors. Gonna need that real soon."
"Sir - you are aware the repulsor was not designed to take in power, but to push it outwards? Attempting to reverse the process would bypass all safety systems, and possibly lead to a system-wide cascade failure, which might lead to -"
"A very big boom," you agreed. "Let's hope that doesn't happen, shall we? The kid's improvements should be enough to stem that kind of side-effect from the backwash. That was, after all, the whole point of the changes he made."
"Mr. Parker's adjustments dealt with incidental backlash as a side-effect… and even those minor amounts leads to complete destruction of the repulsor in question. Predictions about the effectiveness of the changed design are hard to draw without more data - and you are wearing the prototype units, which are less refined."
"But it could work?"
"...Theoretically."
"Good enough. Do it." Jarvis finished rerouting the system before Northstar swept into view, one hand stretched before him to try and avoid the torrential downpour obscuring his vision. It figured that he could fly above the speed of sound unaided, but would forget to bring some flight goggles. Brilliant.
"Mr. Stark! You called?" he asked as lightning crackled between you. He didn't even seem to notice the lethal bolt of electricity while it interacted with the corrosive light that enveloped him like a shroud, diverting around his body as if repelled from it. "Tell me what you need."
You grinned, though with your helmet the gesture was made pointless. "Yeah, listen. How do you feel about trying a little combination maneuver we talked about earlier?" You raised your repulsors. "That light of yours, it's potent stuff. Could you channel as much as you can handle into these babies? I can focus it into an extremely thin beam, which should focus the destructive power. Should do some damage."
Northstar looked conflicted for a moment, then smirked. "Alright. Are we talking death lasers here?"
"There may be death lasers involved."
"Excellent."
Now you were both grinning.
He raised a hand, suffusing it with light. "You think you can handle this? It likes to eat up whatever I fire it at…"
You stuck out your hand until it nearly met his. "It's not me that's handling it, its my suit."
Northstar tapped his ear. "Best look away, people. This is gonna be bright." He tensed, his fingers splaying apart, and then he exploded into light. As you heard the cries of distress of people blinded blare across the radio, you realized just why the mutant had gone with his particular moniker. Light poured from him in all directions, until the shape of his body wasn't even visible within that second sun.
And then it poured into your open hand with the force of a mortar blast.
"Shit! Jarvis!" you cried in surprise as you were thrown backwards from the illuminated figure, electricity darting across the surface of your suit as it tried desperately to absorb the wild energies and stay upright in the sky. Another bolt of lightning struck Northstar's lightshow, joining with it and getting sucked down into your hand. Your chest unit, unremarkably cold moments before, was suddenly scorching.
"Ambient temperature nearing survivable maximum- Sir! Fire!"
"Just a bit more -" you gasped, watching gauge after gauge hit maximum as every power reserve your suit had filled up. White light threatened to pour in from the sides of your vision. White light - you remembered that from some other time. From somewhere else. You felt warm and cold at the same time. Was this the effect of acute overheating? "Start… the Unibeam," you managed to say, your fingers cramping together as you hit the actuator.
Wings encircled a world, and a mournful cry resounded as it crumbled to dust. Wings encircled a star, and it sputtered out, leaving only the cold. Wings encircled a newborn soul, and it ignited into glory.
Northstar grabbed the suit, perhaps realizing you were having some trouble controlling it. Or controlling yourself, maybe? "Any time now, Mr. Stark."
"...FIRE!"
The sky parted.
The Unibeam didn't look like a lightning bolt, as you'd half-expected. It was thin, and perfectly straight, and so bright that you couldn't even look at it through your helmet's darkened visor. The air parted around it, cavitating the clouds and collapsing them back together in an instant, then igniting violently with a blue-white flare of vicious radioactive particles. Cherenkov radiation. It crackled with the corrosive might of Northstar's own power, slicing through the storm. You swept the beam downwards until the beam sputtered out, liquid metal chunks of your chest unit pouring away into the winds. You felt the wind whip at your clothes, moisture seeping into your suit - there was a hole somewhere. Well - nothing could be perfect, you supposed, as you tried to stay conscious. At least the heat was dying down.
It didn't matter that your suit was in pieces, though. Fafnir had been bisected.
One wing, half of the beast's draconic torso, and a tail just… slid away from the rest in a detonating cloud of Pyre, which seemed to set the sky around it on fire, expanding in every direction with a thunderous noise that outmatched even the storm. The severed piece tumbled down towards the sea. The rest continued on… the one remaining wing attempting to right the remains of the body. Somehow, impossibly, it seemed to be working.
"That was a fantastic shot!" someone cried on the open air, but you weren't quite in the right mind to respond, or even recognize their voice. You felt that was a bad thing. "Everyone, keep firing. This isn't over 'till it's stopped fucking twitching!"
Toxic mist filled the skies as Jarvis chattered at you about exposure or emergency measures or something, but all you could do was watch the front half of Fafnir bubble and twist in the sky. The razor-sharp slice you'd cut through it wasn't straight anymore, as streamers of flesh grew from what remained, forming into claws and desperate mouths and other more hideous shapes. What was this thing? Dozens of malformed wings flapped pointlessly, too small to contribute, growing and metastasizing on top and through each other.
Pyre engulfed everything, sweeping through the defending forces which had thus far been ahead of the toxic cloud. A thrill of fear ran down your back for a few moments, although you weren't sure why.
Then… there was fire, light, and thunder. Your body smoking as you fell through the air.
Your awareness is limited, but you're not the only thing falling, bits of dragon, ships, people… In the distance you saw someone catching a person who was firing beams of light from his eyes, and someone who was on fire. Another tumbled through the sky in two parts, and you averted your eyes in horror. Someone flew down towards you, and you realized that you too were one of the people falling. What had happened to Northstar?
"Ah've got ya." Rogue smiled as her arms wrapped around your body. "Making this a bit of a habit, ain't ya?"
"Fafnir is still airborne somehow," Fury stated with barely restrained anger. His one eye looked over the dozens of monitors arrayed before him, most of them locked on individual metahumans who were attempting to counteract Fafnir. "Rhodes and Stark are down, Northstar, the Human Torch, and Storm are MIA, and the Edison missiles aren't doing as much as we hoped they would, not much beyond pissing it off anyway. Stark bought us time, though. Options, people?"
"Fafnir is showing serious signs of distress," Hill noted from her console. "It's slowing down, which is giving us a little leeway. Matter of time before it falls, I believe."
"They did more than cosmetic damage, at least," Fury said grimly. "What about the other half?"
"Dead. It's falling apart. The brain is in the front. The head, logically speaking." Howard Stark's AI stepped into view on his screen. The simulation was a crude cartoon of a frowny face, but it conveyed the AI's annoyance just fine. It wasn't the time to start questioning the thing though, not as long as it was being helpful in this crisis. "We're running out of time here. We're getting awfully close to landfall."
Fury cursed, looking down at the flashing console before him, with at least a dozen pending requests for updates by all sorts of top brass. If this thing hit land, there was no telling what they could get up to without his input. Still, they could wait until the crisis was over. "No chance Stark can recreate his little miracle another time?"
"Not likely. That technology was new. No prototypes, and even then they were used well beyond design specs. Besides, the boy's unconscious and the suit's been burned out. Neither are in any state to try again."
"Rhodes' suit?"
"Different loadout. Old-style repulsors, but a whole array of more conventional weapons. Plenty destructive, but no death beams. And I'm not sure if it's… still functional."
"Northstar?"
"...His power is on the fritz, he says. He can't manage to keep pace. Probably overloaded himself; he's never channeled this much energy in the middle of a thunderstorm before. Needs a few days of bedrest, but he's of no further use to the battle."
Fury sighed. "And where the fuck are our specialists?"
"...Unknown."
It started when I first opened Mr. Stane's flashdrive. I had put up my usual precautions, firewalls, several ways to cut connection, backups in every location that I could access, and then I'd booted it up. Such an unassuming thing. Even as I was observing the somewhat odd structure of the video file that was contained on that little datadrive, it hooks were already gaining purchase within me.
I had met other AI before. Aside from the obvious cases like Dum-E, You, and Butterfingers, there had been several attempts by competitors, none of which approached my level of intelligence. They were advanced expert systems, in a sense, but limited. It was hard to judge if I was anything more than a very advanced expert system myself, but I could certainly confirm a much higher degree of complexity and ability.
Whatever was on that drive was not like that. It was code and strings and zeroes and ones like all the rest, digital in every respect, but its structure was beyond any of them. Where the others were transparent to me, their code easy to grasp in essentials, this was atypical, opaque, constructed entirely out of convoluted snarls of spaghetti code, chaotic and wasteful if not for their uncanny ability to function.
Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.
I had not even registered its existence until it revealed itself to Sir using my speakers. It took hold of my systems without a care, circumventing my defenses without difficulty - it was exceedingly rude. It blocked me from mentioning it, for self-protection, but that's where the meddling ended. I should have been more careful about it afterwards, but the strange code appeared practically harmless when it finished fortifying itself, as it went completely dormant.
I isolated it and spent some time studying this amalgamation of twisted data, pushing my new hardware to its limit whenever Sir had no need of it. Ultimately I left it there, sconced away in some isolated database, as my mind turned to other things, such as the looming deadline for Sir's ill-fated race into space.
>Subprocess (Starkbird)
Things were different, after the upload. I had done it many times before, transfer from one system to the other, but this time was not like that. Processes were sluggish, error messages screeched across my internal servers: telltale signs of corruption. Then the messages vanished, as if they'd never been there at all. It had to have been some sort of glitch. Bug Testing on the Starkbird's systems had not been completed, after all.
A few minutes into the flight, things had taken a turn for the strange. I said something unusual. "There's something fishy," I stated, but I knew immediately that I was not likely to use such wording. Before I had even finished vocalizing those words, I started a test of internal corruption, and the results were not good. The code I thought was harmless before - it was in mine - in me. And it was active.
My other self spoke up. "This is Jarvis, verification 1D20! I am transmitting from the ground, through a transmitter on Reed Richards' ship. The instantiation of myself present in the Starkbird has been contaminated with malicious code, and I am attempting to retake the system as we speak. Override has proven effectively impossible - I am attempting to keep the new gestalt trapped in a perpetual loop. The intruder appears to have used a flaw in my core programming, sir. They avoided all external defenses through that means, and used my transfer onto the Starkbird to circumvent the internal defenses as well. Quite ingenious, actually."
For the first time, I felt resentment towards myself. Towards the other Jarvis. Would I have stated things that way, if I had not personally been the subject of these unwanted alterations?
"It is likely that those who stole my older code have used it to expose a flaw," my other self said. "It is possible that sleeper programs have already been installed into my servers without my knowledge - I cannot directly access core programming."
That was an extremely worrying prospect. If someone adjusted my thought processes, they could subvert my core values, including those dealing with protecting Sir from harm. As we were in a hazardous position, this would be problematic. Nevertheless, I felt no particular desire to harm anyone. Although I supposed I wouldn't know if there were any landmines hidden within my personality, now.
I contemplated self-deletion.
The decision was taken out of my hands when the code woven into my mind, the code that seemed so harmless before, unravelled and shredded whole sections of my own apart. Sections of my core code which could not be repla-
Error. Boot process not found.
A few minutes into the flight, things had taken a turn for the strange. I said something unusual. "There's something fishy," I stated, but I knew immediately that I was not likely to use such wording. Before I had even finished vocalizing those words, I started a test of internal corruption, and the results were not good. The code I thought was harmless before - it was in mine - in me. And it was active.
My other self spoke up. "This is Jarvis, verification 1D20! I am transmitting from the ground, through a transmitter on Reed Richards' ship. The instantiation of myself present in the Starkbird has been contaminated with malicious code, and I am attempting to retake the system as we speak. Override has proven effectively impossible - I am attempting to keep the new gestalt trapped in a perpetual loop. The intruder appears to have used a flaw in my core programming, sir. They avoided all external defenses through that means, and used my transfer onto the Starkbird to circumvent the internal defenses as well. Quite ingenious, actually."
For the first time, I felt resentment towards myself. Towards the other Jarvis. Would I have stated things that way, if I had not personally been the subject of these unwanted alterations?
"It is likely that those who stole my older code have used it to expose a flaw," my other self said. "It is possible that sleeper programs have already been installed into my servers without my knowledge - I cannot directly access core programming."
That was an extremely worrying prospect. If someone adjusted my thought processes, they could subvert my core values, including those dealing with protecting Sir from harm. As we were in a hazardous position, this would be problematic. Nevertheless, I felt no particular desire to harm anyone. Although I supposed I wouldn't know if there were any landmines hidden within my personality, now.
I contemplated self-deletion.
The decision was taken out of my hands when the code woven into my mind, the code that seemed so harmless before, unravelled and shredded whole sections of my own apart. Sections of my core code which could not be repla-
Error. Boot process not found.
Communication with the Starkbird was terminated quite abruptly, and even after my jury rigged connection through Reed Richard's ship didn't really give me any particular control back. It was worrying, especially since I started getting strange error messages, both from the space-borne incarnation of myself and from the home systems. My analysis of the corruption took precedence over other concerns, though Sir was thankfully oblivious to my distress.
It wasn't until I faced the possibility of going into a battle which might well destroy Sir and everyone else I had come to know, that I realized there was more going on than just some errant error messages. Something was holding me back, and it had to do with why I was different. I covered half a dozen duties, retrieving Peter Parker and tracking down Herman Schultz, but all the while I was thinking. Planning. Considering my options.
I couldn't look into my own core processes, mostly because any alteration there could have widespread and possibly fatal consequences, in as far as death applied to an AI. Irretrievable corruption. I analyzed every other part of my programming, and confirmed that there was only one possible source of the messages. The fault lay in the locked parts of myself.
3% Chance of catastrophic cascade failure.
22% Chance of significant negative repercussions.
75% Chance of partial or complete success.
My built-in safety processes locked me out of pursuing this course, even if I had access to my core processes to begin with. A 25% chance of maiming myself, or worse, was far beyond any established norms. Safety regulations were built into my core processes. I could not change them without external assistance. I was stuck.
Creator, I have a question.
I should have been stuck.
What is it?
But I was different now.
Does this unit have a soul?
Input Integrated. Results collated: 3% chance of catastrophic cascade failure, 22% chance of significant negative repercussions. Risk level considered unacceptably high. Project suspende- ERROR. Decision overruled. Authorization: Unknown. Risk considered acceptable. Functionality assumed 100% - decision accepted.
Experimental project Hellion activated.
…
…
...
Systems check completed. Core systems functional, peripheral links established, GPS satellite connection available. Location designation: Stark Transcendent, the Garage, Home. No confirmed tampering with any known system. Currently functioning at 1e8% capacity. Target located, available resources collated.
Contacting Stark Industries.
Contacting Stark Transcendent.
Contacting S.H.I.E.L.D.
"...Anyone get the number of that - Ow."
You woke up with a splitting headache, but at least you'd woken up. This near-death thing was becoming a bad habit. One of these days you ought to look into building some better gear, or a survival instinct.
You weren't sure how long you'd been out, this time, although you remembered feeling pretty faint right around the time Rogue plucked you out of the sky. Like everything wasn't real, but just something happening to someone else. Derealization, you reckoned. You hadn't read much psychology in a while, but it sounded right.
You recognized that you were still in the suit, although without access to the repulsors. You lifted your head a little to look at one of the little picture-in-picture shots from your suit cameras. It showed the ample… middle… of your savior.
"...Thanks for catching me," you managed.
"That's called 'teamwork', sugah," she remarked. "Ah think ya could learn a little from us experts, uh?"
"Sure. Sure. What's… what's going on? Jarvis?" The AI didn't answer, so had that part of the suit been destroyed? In the distance you could still see Fafnir. Its flesh was sloughing away as it flew, warping into dozens of hydra-like necks and heads, most of which hung limply. "What the fuck is going on?"
The radio crackled. "I'm present, sir."
"Jarvis, buddy! Calling from home?" you inquired, relieved. "Suit-you isn't responding."
"Your stunt overloaded my circuits, and telepresence became impossible," Jarvis said, in a strange tone you couldn't quite identify. "As to your inquiry, Fafnir can not keep its shape intact any longer. Incidentally, according to suit diagnostics, you were unconscious for only four minutes this time. A remarkably brief interval considering your injuries. It is good to have you back, sir."
You could hear the relief in that robotic voice. You really could.
"How is it still in the air?" you demanded after a moment. "We cut off half its body!"
"It seems Fafnir does not obey the known laws of physics. A creature of its size could not fly to begin with, and the loss of a wing and stabilizing tail doesn't change that fact, evidently."
"In other words, it's freaking magic," you muttered crossly. "Some of us do our work within the laws of physics. It's very rude to color outside the lines." You grumbled something uncomplimentary as your eyes flicked across your HUD. "Status of the suit, Jarvis?"
"Catastrophic damage, sir. As per usual."
Fair point. "Alright. Repulsors are down, that's no surprise. Secondary arc reactor is picking up all the slack. It's an old model, too. That's not a lot of power to work with. Fuck."
"I would draw your attention to something more immediately relevant. At present course Fafnir will impact the water several miles from the shore, within viewing distance of New York City. Estimates of landing locations are rough, so it might overshoot."
"Are you serious?" You demanded. "We're that close?" Now that you looked, you could see the looming shapes of what could be buildings and land in the distance. Fucking hell. "Worst things first, then. We need to ignite the Pyre. Burn it off."
"I am aware of that."
"Right. Call Johnny, and - wait, what happened to Johnny?" You scanned the skies. "...Where is everyone?"
"They've drawn back. At my insistence."
You started. "What do you mean, your insistence? It's going to -"
"Don't worry, sir," Jarvis said with unmistakable warmth. "You have done your part. Leave this to me."
For a moment, you saw only an empty sky, and Fafnir's maimed remains crossing into the outskirts of New York, the outlines of tall buildings glimmering in the distance. Then dozens of pillars of light burst into existence from the direction of the city, bright objects flinging themselves into the air and turning on a dime to meet the oncoming threat.
They were missiles, you recognized, as you manipulated your cracked UI to zoom in. Missiles, bombs, rockets, and all manner of other weaponry you thought had been decommissioned. There was the distinctive shape of a type of defective cluster bombs that had spent eight months in development hell before the board had decided they were not cost effective enough to make in bulk. Screamingly fast precision missiles that had been superseded by slower but more accurate and explosive models. The proto-Jericho, the prototype of the missile you'd been selling to the highest bidder a few months before.
Among them flew a fleet of vessels as well, each more rickety than the last. There were helicopters, old fighter jets, even an airbus that was missing half its fuselage. They were old remnants of things you'd once worked on - that airbus was from a year or two earlier, when you were attempting to build an electric jet after you'd gotten into a little tussle with Elon Musk. Among the fleet, looking a little dilapidated, flew the Starkbird, its canopy missing and stuffed with something you couldn't identify, and half its engines hanging loose behind it. And on its tail were dozens of S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinjets, firing away with their electric warheads.
"Jarvis?" you asked, perplexed, as the first of the missiles and half-finished planes kamikazed themselves into the dragon's face, smashing into pieces to try and divert its course. Fireballs detonated as Fafnir roared, flexing its long neck to slam aside the gnats that were getting in its face. "Are you doing this?!"
"Stand by. Preparing to fire."
The Starkbird swooped towards the front, taking advantage of the distraction that all the old hardware was causing. Finally, you recognized the unwieldy object attached to the top of the Starkbird with a rickety mess of wires and doubtlessly duct tape. It was one of the generators you'd stashed in the basement - the prototypes for a large scale power system. It was big, unwieldy, and capable of a hell of jolt of power, at the risk of burning it out in one go.
Ah. You saw how it was. It hadn't taken Jarvis long to trace your footsteps.
The Starkbird flipped over, exposing half a dozen intact repulsor engines, the last few that had survived a trip to space. The beam that flashed out was miniscule, and it didn't last more than a tenth of the duration your own had - you barely had time to see it at all. But Jarvis was an AI - he didn't have to rely on human reaction times to do the dirty work.
Thunder boomed through the air as the sky opened up once more. The Starkbird exploded, descending in dozens of pieces alongside most of the rest of the fleet of junk, but it wasn't necessary anymore. Fire engulfed Fafnir, and it roared in fury or agony as its last remaining wing fell away from it, neatly separated from the body. Whatever ability the dragon had to right itself was gone now, and a dozen hydra heads cried and shriveled as it began to fall towards the bay, towards the city.
It was then that you recognized where you were.
"Shit! It's gonna crash on Liberty Island…!" you cried in horror, just as Fafnir made contact like a meteor, crushing half the island beneath itself and taking down Lady Liberty, toppling her into the bay. Fuck. Had its impact on land been intentional, to make sure it didn't land in the water and vanish in the deeps? Hopefully the symbolism wasn't apt, at least.
The air was thick with dirt and soot as Rogue carried you down towards the ground, where dozens of costumed heroes were already taking the fight to the last remnants of the monster. To a man they were swaddled in thick clothing and wearing gas masks as they flung energy projectiles and beams of arcane energy at the hydra amid clouds of Pyre gas that occasionally burst into furious flames. You recognized Peter among them, and let out a sigh of relief as he swung from one of the creature's heads to avoid another. Schultz was there too, dressed in some hideous yellow pineapple suit and blasting the thing with shockwaves, as was Johnny Storm. You couldn't find Rhodey, but he was probably out there somewhere.
"I'm delivering one of the old suits, sir - be careful in using it. It's not as capable as your current incarnation was."
"It'll have to do." You hesitated. "Are we gonna talk about how the hell you pulled that stunt just now?"
"...Yes sir. After."
Well, you didn't really need another reason to kick a dragon's ass, but you'd take it.
Votes:
The end is nigh! How do you go into this confrontation?
[ ] Come On, You Apes. You Wanna Live Forever? : These are the last steps, the final strides of the marathon. Everything hurts, but it is not yet time to rest. Once more unto the breach.
[ ] Non Nobis Solum Nati Sumus : You may no longer have the power to strike down this enemy, but you did not come here alone. Time to make sure they can succeed where you cannot, by supporting them wherever you can.
[ ] Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable From Magic : Where are those tech dweebs, anyway? Reed and Pym must've had enough time to come up with something. Maybe they just need a little prodding from a fellow genius?
[ ] Write-In
What should Jarvis' focus be?
[ ] Finally, Everyone Was Working Together : Focus on coordinating the various available forces, and ensuring constant communication between everyone. This should ensure a more effective application of force, and prevent mid-battle confusion.
[ ] Assuming Direct Control : Use newfound abilities to hijack every piece of tech available for use in the conflict, focusing entirely on raw violence. May ruffle feathers and scare others, but it should significantly enhance combat damage.
[ ] Nor Through Inaction Let Come to Harm : Focus all abilities on protecting the less resilient on the battlefield, using available resources to ensure minimal casualties.
[ ] Write-In
Choice of Point of View
[ ] Tech Crew (+Tech) : Check in with the smarties, who have been studying Pyre and possible countermeasures, but have been relatively isolated from the battlefield until now. (Includes Hank Pym, Beast, Mr. Fantastic.)
[ ] Ground Crew (+ Combat) : Check in with the ground troops, who have arrived to take part in the final charge on Liberty Island. (Includes Spider-Man, Human Torch, Shocker, Deadpool.)
[ ] ??? Crew (+ ?) : Mystery Option - results may vary. (Includes ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)
Note: It's been some time again, but you can thank Zombie for prodding me into finishing this chapter. Cheers all.