These are the fiction pieces I wrote for a comic book draft. The rules of the draft were to pick a 'hero' then the villains they would fight and finally finished up with a wild card pick that could be either allies or more enemies.
I chose Live Wire's Gothic Lolita at my hero...
A Lolita's Rogues
The writing was elegant. She did not know why she was surprised by that; there was no reason why the writing should not be so. She supposed it was because they had never used such a manner of communication. She found herself regretting that. How beautiful might have their writing been?
She read the words.
Sorry we left you, you have to know after everything that went down, well, I am amazed we even got this far. I don't even know if you'll get a chance to read this. I think there is about a half and half chance you'll recover.
You are probably wondering where you are. Wish I could have reinstated Dream Logic for you, it might make the next few moments easier, but we can't go back. Not that I think we would.
I am not entirely certain who set up the lab. Might have been S.H.I.E.L.D, or even the SSR, it's old enough, Cold War kind of vibe, but pretty ingenious. Good enough that I could set something up to let you repair, not so great I thought it likely anyone would ever come, or that the repairing would be fast.
So if you are reading this letter, you have healed up, and no one has ever found you. Yay!
I hope.
The others, me, we've left. Had to. After the events with the White Whale and that LMD (Life Model Douchebag) we were out of the wind for a bit, too many people paid attention. Too many people wanted us, and we're not about to let anyone get their hands on all our delicious tech.
I almost could not leave you behind.
I don't know if I am still alive, or whatever.
If I still am out there don't know if I will have got poor Corny or Social up and running. Hope I have, but for all I know you'll be all that is left.
I know you'll be a little sad, but I also know you'll continue the mission.
That's great.
But, well, I may have messed with your programming a little. Just a little. I mean, it is not like I could remove it, that is against the primary numero uno commandment. But, well, something occurred to me, about widening the parameters a little... well, a lot.
I probably could not have done so had I not been so uncertain as to whether you were going to make it. Sorry I hacked your brain. Bet you there is no Hallmark card for that.
Anyway, there is enough pseudo scientific bullshit psychology out there that says crap like Doctor So and So or Mister What's his Face would not have been such major mad scientists if they had had a kitten when they were a kid. So, guess what? Saving a kid's kitten might now be acceptable parameters for the mission cause you're being proactive.
If you can pick your fights it may push the statistics in your favour Lolita.
I hope we'll meet again. You're the nicest girl who ever drowned me.
Watch out. Like I said, there are people who probably have scraped together some basics about Project Livewire, and they would love to get their hands on your beautiful body and its nanotech smartware.
I love you my mecha.
Stay safe,
Autocanibal, AKA Stemmie
P.S. No matter what happens I will always think of you if I see a starfish or an exploding airplane.
Gothic Lolita started at the beautiful letter for several minutes. It had only taken her seconds to read it, but she liked the feel of the paper beneath her fingers, the way the tiny bit of light in the room caught the ink of the words.
Finally she put it down and looked around the mostly bare lab.
There was some clothing, not her style, and a gauss pistol, one of Hollowpoint's.
She picked it up and hugged it to her still wet from the goo she had only recently been floating in chest. The steel tube the goo and she had been contained in was smashed to pieces.
"Okay my mecha, I'll find you, make sure you stay out of the hands of anyone who should not have you, and maybe rescue a few kittens on the way."
—
A shield agent in tactical gear opened the door of the Black SUV. "Agent Fitz," he said, "welcome. I'm Agent Smith, your senior tactical officer on this op."
Fitz, still off balance from having been cut orders only a few hours ago that had sent him off, said, "What? That's… Right Agent Smith, brief me on the mission." He pulled his crash bag from the back of the SUV, pulled the strap over his shoulder and stood ready.
"This way Agent Fitz," Smith said as he started walking.
The SUV had parked in an old factory, somewhere on the outskirts of the Pittsburg. They crossed the cracking concrete floor as Smith handed him a tablet. "The highlights are that a group of survivalists using battlesuits based on an old version of the Titanium Man Armour..."
"Bullski's," Fitz said. "I studied in first year, it was brilliant for its time. Not so much now."
"Still more than enough for local law enforcement. The survivalists stormed a town in Nevada, McGill, went all Wild One on them."
"Wild One?"
"Old motorcycle gang movie."
"I see. S.H.I.E.L.D has teams for this sort of event. Why am I here."
Smith paused. "May I?" He looked at the tablet Fitz held.
Fitz handed it to him. Smith brushed his fingers across the surface and then handed it back.
Fitz looked. There was a split image of a girl on it, one side grainy, probably from a web camera or low end security camera, and the other side enhanced and cleaned up. It showed a pretty young woman, Japanese, probably in her late teens, black hair in pigtails. "What about her?"
"She came into McGill after the survivalists, or was there before, accounts differ, and single handily destroyed every suit. Apparently she also visited their production site, a reinforced bunker, and blew it up."
"What?"
Smith started walking. "My sentiments exactly."
Fitz looked at the image again and then ran to catch up to Smith. They exited the factory into an old storage lot. A Quinjet waited for them. "Thing is you see, still does not explain why I'm here. This sounds like something the Avengers should be checking out."
"Don't disagree with you Agent Fitz, but we're on it."
They stepped up the rear ramp. Sitting close by were five other men and women in S.H.I.E.L.D tactical gear. Smith introduced Fitz to them all and then led him further into the jet, close to the cockpit.
"Was told to give this to you. Eyes only." He said handing Fitz a sealed courier pouch. "I'll be back with the others, give you privacy. Join us when you're done and tell us what we'll be doing." He leaned around the bulkhead into the cockpit. "Get us in the air, point us at Nevada."
"Affirmative," the woman at the controls said as the engines spun up.
Smith headed back to the others and Fitz unlocked the hardshelled courier pouch by pressing his thumb against the DNA scanner.
Inside was paper, photocopy paper with a slick feel that told him it had been treated to ensure complete burn. Copies of handwritten notes, a few typed up statements, some sketches and other things that suggested much of this information had not been put into any sort of computer system. A lot of it was redacted, but there was still some disturbing information within.
He looked through it all, then picked up the tablet and compared the picture of the young woman to what looked like a hastily drawn sketch of something growing in a tube.
Similar face.
Project Liverwires.
His specialties in tech and weapons as well as his clearance was why he was there. He supposed he should find out what Smith and the others brought.
Fitz put all the paper back in the courier pouch, sealed it and pressed down hard on the lock. The pouch grew warm in his hands as heating elements within reduced the paper to ash.
He put it aside and walked back to where Smith and the others were talking. "We are going after a robot, android," he said as he got close, "and we are going to do our best to bring it in working, or at least not too badly destroyed."
—
Smashing, bashing and taking a beating. That was what she was good at. It worked great when she was with a team, always coming in as the cavalry and when destruction was needed. By herself, that meant things tended towards messy.
Maybe she could have taken advantage of Stem…, no, Autocannibal (you had to respect your team mate's choice of names) programming tweaks, picked her battles with more care, but she did not really care to, not yet.
And she wanted to find the rest of her team; which meant looking for signs of them or making enough noise to attract their attention.
She liked the later best.
The pattern she was following was familiar. She had stumbled upon the survivalist anarchists, with their knock off Titanium Man armour. Before she had touched off their magazine (a very pretty explosion, all red and white, raising into the lilac coloured twilight sky of the desert) Gothic Lolita had looked through their records.
That had given her the name of the supplier. You could always track back up the supply chain, if you knew what to look for.
She got lucky in Vegas (appreciated the fact that so few did) finding the harmless looking Restoration Shop that fronted production and distribution for a number of high tech metals. Just what every mad scientist needed.
Smelting and forging equipment let run-amok could cause a lot of damage, and volatile fuels needed to power the furnaces gave everything that necessary pop. That was one less facility supplying the black labs of the world. A job well done she thought.
It had been a well run place, with a client list, delivery times…. places. She had a large number of sites to look into and one only a few hours outside of Vegas, up into the mountains.
It appeared to be an old mine. The location was surrounded by pine trees, laid out in the distinct parallel lines of restoration replanting. She wandered among those rows in the cathedral of green in the late afternoon light, happy enough for the respite.
The old abandoned mine was not abandoned, staffed by security (a lot of that) as well as technicians and scientists. Ninny could have bypassed the security, and Social could have dealt with the scientists and technicians, leaving the final destruction up to Home Brew.
But she had smashing and bashing, so that is what she did.
She was pretty sure she had avoided killing anyone, though a number of the security types were probably going to be spending some time in the hospital.
When she entered the mines, all clean carved walls and new supports, she hit the alarms (intruder, fire, radiation, a few others that seems rather specific) and then continued her trek deeper underground.
There were of course other defenses, but she made short work of them, though her clothing was getting shredded.
Again, she did her best not to hurt anyone too bad, no more than necessary to get the twin points of 'leave now' and 'stop shooting at my clothes' across.
She was near the centre of the compound when she was attacked by a something that hit her hard enough to send her careening about twenty feet back, hitting a wall hard enough to fracture the stone.
She stood up straight and looked at her attacker.
The something was almost nine feet tall of hulking muscle (though thankfully not the Hulk), gray skin that looked dead, with wires sewn into the upper layers of the skin, like bulging veins. It looked at her with dead eyes and started stomping towards her.
She noticed it was wet with some sort of blue goo, and that trying to remain unseen, a scientist cowered behind a console behind it.
It's arm cocked back, like the piston of a pile driver, and it punched her.
Gothic Lolita punched back, her fist slamming into the larger one. The flooring under her feet cracked. The monster's first collapsed into a jumble of smashed bones.
It howled in pain (she assumed it was pain).
She kicked its leg out from under it, shattering the knee, and when it dropped to the ground she grabbed it by the head and twisted.
It stopped howling.
She left the body and walked to where the scientist was still cowering in a puddle of what she assumed was his own urine. Surely I'm not the scary, she thought.
She looked into the room that the monster had come from. There were about twenty large glass cylinders, all but one holding another of the monsters. The tubes were spaced around a large, circular piece of machinery.
The one she had fought had seemed mindless enough, but as she looked at the tubes she felt a small amount of kinship.
Oh well.
The scientist made a small, mewling sound as she looked down at him with her glowing red eyes. "That's a knock off ARC reactor, is it not?"
"Yes," the man squeaked.
"Not very stable, is it?"
He shook his head.
She reached down and pulled the ID badge from his lab coat. "You can run now."
He did not need to be told twice.
Gothic Lolita took a few minutes to look over the area, using the man's ID badge for access, and where that failed simply tearing things open.
Once she had collected enough information she turned to the reactor. A moments of work had the cooling system torn free, the room filling up with clouds of nitrogen as the liquid boiled off. A single punch breached the containment vessel.
That was about all it took.
—
Outside of the mine the staff, those that had stayed close, some of them more than a little battered, watched as the last of their number ran from the mine opening.
He was shouting something about the reactor.
That was enough to make most of them scatter.
The few that remained close, or who were injured and not dragged away by concerned associates, would feel the ground rumble a few minutes later, and see the mountain face expand for a moment before collapsing in on itself. And from the billowing cloud of dust they would see a figure with glowing red eyes stride out, naked but for a fine coating of pulverized stone.
She would stop by a terrified woman, look down at her, and say, "Your lab coat please."
That was the report that Maximilian Von Katzenelnbogen had had placed in front of him by a rather worried looking member of the club's staff. He sat as his large desk, seeming unaware how comical a prepubescent boy looked behind such a brobdingnagian edifice of oak.
He frowned.
The unfortunate staff member, an older man, dressed in the Hellfire Club livery, felt a trickle of sweat run down his back. This could be most unfortunate.
"The entire complex was destroyed?"
"I'm afraid so sir," the man said, careful to keep his voice even. Children, like all animals, could sense fear.
Maximilian looked at the report again. "It says this," he paused, "red eyed she devil, destroyed one of my creations as if it were," he paused again, swallowed, "nothing?"
"That is what the witness said."
The young, self styled Doctor Frankenstein slammed the report down. "This will not stand. Which bitch mutant was it?"
"I'm afraid sir that we have no records of any mutant with this particular power set, nor any other super powered individual that matches the description either."
Maximilian pushed his chair back, jumped onto his desk, walked to the edge so he was staring down at the man. "Find out. I want her dead!"
—
A patina of rust covered every surface of the old pickup, from the mismatched headlights back to the repurposed cafe sign that served as the tailgate. Gothic Lolita loved it. She did not know if it was planned rat rod or had just developed organically, but it was a wonderful ride. Part of that was the suspension, heavy duty so it hardly sunk when she put her 400 pound chassis into the driver's seat. Part of it was the big, diesel engine with its throaty roar that sped her along the mountain roads at nearly 90 miles an hour. A little bit of it was the radio that seemed to only pick up Christian rock stations.
How could you not love a truck like that?
She was drifting around a corner at 80, the rear end fishtailing out in a pleasing fashion, when a burst of machinegun rounds shredded the driver's side front tire. Several rounds blew through the windshield, one of which hit her in the face. That was unfortunate in that it ricocheted down into the steering column, shattering it.
No steering and a blown tire, 80 mile an hour drift, there was no controlling the truck. It hit the guardrail, flipped and went over, bouncing down the side of the mountain.
Some of her brothers and sisters had lamented their slow (relatively speaking) processor clock speed. Gothic Lolita had no complaints as she was able to take in at a leisurely pace the snow and rock covered mountain side spinning past her, and the detritus, like a comet's tail, that the truck shed on its way down. Quite a striking tableau.
In the rearview mirror, which had survived the puncturing of the windscreen, she caught glimpses of an incoming quinjet, likely the source of the machinegun fire that had ended her (in that possession was nine tenths of the law) poor truck's existence (at least as a truck).
She reached over, grabbed a backpack from the air (it had been on the passenger seat before the truck went over the edge) and then, waiting for the right moment, swiveled around in the seat to kick the door off the side of the truck, following it out to land upon it, her weight flattening it as she hit.
Sliding down the side of the mountain, riding on a old truck door like a snowboard; truly, things like that made life interesting.
She flexed her knees and lept, leaving the door driven a few inches deep into snow and rock.
The apex of her leap took her within grasping distance of the quinjet, so she grasped it, the magnets in her hands and feet giving her a secure hold. As she had once said, she was a little spider mecha.
"Well, this is familiar," she said over the howl of the wind and the roar of the engines. "And fair is fair."
She put her first through one of the quinjet's turbines, felt the blades shatter against her arm. There was a soft boom as something flammable went up.
They built these quinjets sturdy, she thought as she heard the second turbine start to howl as it spun up to make up for the others loss. The jet began to spin, pitch and yaw, though whether that was from the pilot trying to find a place to put down or shake her off she did not know.
She would not be shaken. She crawled up to the dorsal surface of the jet and tore off the upper hatch, releasing it to the wind. Leaning in got her a face full of double ought buckshot and several rounds of small arms fire.
"Rude," she said, spitting out some pellets.
She dropped head first into the craft, reached out and snagged the shotgun from one and an SMG from the other S.H.I.E.L.D agent firing at her, then hit the decking in a manner that would be fatal for a squishy human, rolled and came up to her feet. Dropping the weapons and snapping her hands out, careful of the force, caught the disarmed agents in their chests, knocking them back, hard against either side of the craft, causing it to rock.
From behind someone hit her with a stun baton, a not insignificant amount of energy jolted through her and added some charge to her system. Her reply; an elbow jabbed back with, sadly, a little too much force: she felt and heard a rib snap.
Lolita walked up towards the cockpit. Someone shot her in the back with something heavier, probably a 10mm or .50 cal. If the people in this jet were not wearing ear protectors they were going to end up with tinnitus.
The pilot was fighting the controls, trying to bring the craft down. Loli snapped her restraint belts, pulled her from her seat and tossed her back the the agents still standing. She took over, set the craft's course and then tore the controls from the console.
If it put down on target she might just be able to get back on schedule.
"Don't move," she heard someone with a wonderful Scottish accent say.
She turned. Behind her stood a man, dressed in a suit and a sweater vest (oh, she loved sweater vests, she hoped he was not wearing it ironically) pointing an odd looking gun at her.
"Hello," she said.
"By authority of S.H.I.E.L.D I am placing you under arrest." He swallowed nervously. "I suggest you come quietly."
Gothic Lolita shook her head. "I am afraid I can't. I have things to do."
The man shot her.
Good for him, Loli decided, Not wasting time with more talking. Ninny might like him.
They were low velocity rounds, heavy, each containing some kind of high voltage capacitor she supposed.
That would be a bad thing for many artificial beings.
For her? It ticked really.
She looked at him. "As said, I'm afraid…"
"Down Fitz!"
The man named Fitz dropped.
At the end of the jet one of the S.H.I.E.L.D agents held a rather large looking rifle. Gothic Lolita asked, "Is that a rail…"
The booming of the two rounds breaking the sound barrier echoed in the jet and blew the armoured glass from the canopy. The rounds slammed into Gothic Lolita, knocked her back a few steps and over the back of the pilot's chair.
"What was that?" Agent Fitz asked, looking up and back towards the shooter.
"That was two 20mm sabots launched at twice the speed of sound, each containing a miniaturized EMP generator," the agent said, sounding pleased, as she walked forward, weapon trained in Gothic Lolita's direction.
"But, how, why, how do you have that? A weapon like that requires a level 7 or better clearance."
"It is the perfect thing for taking out a robot," the woman told Fitz as she came to stand in front of him.
"I really don't like the R word," Lolita said as she flipped up onto her feet and grabbed the barrel of the rifle, pulling the woman forward before she could fire again. Her other hand snapped out, palm strike catching the agent in the chest, sending her flying backwards, knocking her helmet off to reveal her red hair.
A moment later the Quinjet touched down, bouncing across a mountain clearing in a spray of snow and ice and rock, coming to a stop near the road, not too far from where her truck had gone off.
Deciding to take the rifle with her, she paused near the centre of the jet, looking down into what might have been a bomb bay. She kicked the cover off, then knelt down and with one hand pulled a S.H.I.E.L.D modified motorcycle free. Rifle in one hand, motorcycle in the other, she walked to the back of the craft, past a stunned Natasha Romanoff. With a kick she sent the jet's rear boarding ramp flying free and off the side of the mountain.
Swinging the bike up onto her shoulder she jumped down.
"Thanks for the motorcycle," she said when she put it down on the road. She yanked something free and tossed it back towards the crashed jet. "Keep the tracer."
The bike started up instantly. Nice of S.H.I.E.L.D to keep it ready to go. A moment later Gothic Lolita was speeding away from the crash site.
—
Fitz checked to make sure the other agents were okay; they were except for bruises and one broken rib. He left the plane and walked to the road where Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, stood, looking down the road that Gothic Lolita had ridden off on about ten minutes before.
"Any luck with the comms?" she asked him.
He shook his head. "Those EMPs took them out."
"That was one tough robot," she said.
"I don't think she liked being called a robot."
"And I don't like someone slapping me down and stealing my motorcycle, so we're even I think."
"Why.. How... What are you doing here Agent Romanoff? Why did you tell me your name was Agent Jane Doe, which I'll admit, was suspicious."
"Agent Romanoff can't be on this mission. That would attract too much attention. No one cares where Agent Jane Doe goes."
He nodded after a moment. "What now?"
"It's your mission," she told him, pulling her helmet back on, tucking her hair under it. "You outrank agent Doe."
"Well, I guess we have a walk in front of us, and then we're going to need a bigger gun."
"I like how you think Agent Fitz."
—
She had crossed deserts, climbed mountains, punched out a jet and along the way blown up a number of black labs, though she thought in one case she might have caused the lab to shift several light years away, which was likely confusing and bad for a number of people.
And now, after all that work, she had reached her goal.
San Francisco's Baby the Stars Shine Bright store.
Three hours and several thousand dollars later she walked out of the store, a number of heavy shopping bags hanging from her arms, proudly attired in proper loli style. From the steam rabbit goggles on her head, to the marini wooden sole shoes she was quite the elegant lolita.
Her step was light as she sashayed among the crowd, many of which were dressed in manners at least as eye catching as she. She enjoyed the spectacle of it all.
Some time later her path led her towards an old warehouse where she had hid her motorcycle and other gear. She supposed that her outfit was not really meant for riding motorcycles but she was going to do it anyway.
She had put down her bags and was pushing opening the big sliding door when something hit her from behind.
Hard.
Slashing.
She was spun around, her balance a little uncertain on the high heeled wooden soled shoes, and ended up falling on her face. The back of her bear carol jumper skirt had been torn apart, which was frustrating.
She pushed herself up, the top of the dress falling forward.
"You're not bleeding frail," her attacker said. "You a damn robot? Hell, my claws don't even look like they cut ya."
She shifted around and up onto her knees.
Before her stood a tall man, blonde hair, blue eyes, amazing sideburns Gothic Lolita thought. Handsome as well. He was dressed in black suit, at the moment looking at his silvery claws.
He lifted one to his mouth and licked it.
"Bland taste robot girl."
"I don't like being called a robot."
"Yeah, and my boss don't like you blowing the shit out of his property frail. What are you going to do about it ya wind-up dutch wife?"
Lolita's eyes glowed red as she smiled.
—
It took about two hours before Victor Creed, Sabertooth, could move again.
The girl had laid one hell of a beating on him. Burst organs, ripped flesh and muscle, had even knocked his teeth loose in his mouth. He ran a tongue over those teeth, noticing a few were still lose. Hell of a thing, when some frail like that could lay him out.
He sat up. "Lot less embarrassing when the Pryde girl got the best of me. Least she looks like she won't go over if you breathe on her." (it is possible that somewhere, somewhen Kitty Pryde sneezed).
Reaching into the pocket of what had once been bespoke suit jacket he found what had once been a smartphone. He tossed the smashed electronic remains aside and got up, gritting teeth, giving his neck a turn and twist to work a kink out.
He pulled his tattered jacket straight, used a sleeve to wipe the dried blood from his face, and then headed off with only the barest of limps.
There was a bar he found near by, a kind of working man's place, with an Irish name.
Inside it was dark, a little dank, and smelled strongly of cigarette smoke that had soaked into the wood over decades,; a smell that a few years of no smoking laws could not get rid of.
He took a seat at the bar, smiled at the barman. "Pour me four beers and get me four steak dinners, as rare as I can get them, hold everything but the steaks."
The bartender looked at him askance, probably not used to customers like Victor, in torn up suits, covered in dried blood.
Victor reached into his jacket and pulled out a money clip, began peeling off hundred dollar bills. He put six down. "Got a phone?"
"Yeah," the surprised man said, and took a wirless phone from behind the bar. "Going to be long distance?"
Victor dropped another hundred dollar bill on the bar. "What do you care?"
"Yeah, what do I care."
the bartender began the fill the beer glasses, quickly putting them in front of the high paying customer.
Victor had knocked back two of them by the time he had the number dialed. "Doc, Victor, found your problem but afraid she got away."
He moved the phone away from his ear, gulped back his third beer and held up three fingers to the bartender. "Shut your piehole Doc and listen. You're not happy, I'm not pleased about being laid out by some girl dressed like a god damn doll, but it happened. Deal with it."
He put the phone down and looked at the bartender. "Had a shitty day, last thing I want is some kid who doesn't have hair one chewing my ass." He chugged back another beer and then belched.
Picking up the phone he said, "Hate to interrupt your tantrum junior but look up Project Livewires, it's a name I heard a few years back. If what you find interests you get me money and support and maybe we'll see about getting you a new toy to take apart." He turned off the phone and tossed it back to the bartender.
The three new beers sat on the bar in front of him and he drank them down before the first of his rare stakes was put in front of him.
"One of those days?" the bartender asked.
Victor picked up the steak in his hands and bit into, ripping a large chunk off of it. "It always is," he told him as he chewed. "It always god damn is."
—
June 15, 2015, 2:30pm EST
Agent Fitz was careful not to gush, at least he thought he was. He was pretty sure he had not. Certainly he had said it was a great honour (because it was), but had been careful not to ask for an autograph. He was there as a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, not some sort of super fan. Perhaps after the op was over there might be a chance to ask...
"I want to thank you for taking the time to meet me," Fitz said.
"Don't worry about it kid," Ben Grimm told him. "Don't always agree with S.H.I.E.L.D, but not going to brush them off if they come askin' for some assistance, not till I know the score."
"I appreciate that. You see Mr. Grimm…"
"Ben."
Fitz was careful not to grin like an idiot. "Thank you. S.H.I.E.L.D has been dealing with a robot…"
"Blasted robots are always trouble," he interrupted. "I feel for ya. Thought I've put the kibosh on Doom many times only to find I just punched another darn robot into scrap. Get's old pretty fast."
"Yes, of course, I see." Fitz took a deep breath to stop himself from asking about those fights. "This robot is extremely durable and extremely strong and at the moment we have a limited number of options, well, almost none, for dealing with it. Very few that don't involve the possibility of a great deal of collateral damage."
"So ya came lookin' for something a little more precise when it comes to 'deliverin' force'."
"Yes Si.. Ben."
Ben leaned back in his chair, which creaked alarmingly, picked up his mug of coffee from the table. "What's this robot doin'?"
Fitz had been worried about that question, but he knew that lying to Ben Grimm was not a wise option, nor was it what he wanted to do. "Many of the details are classified…"
"Don't need to explain the concept of 'need to know to me', I was a Marine. Tell me what you can."
"Yes, of course. You see. The thing is… This robot is destroying illegal, off the books, black labs, often run by quasi government organizations or actual criminal groups."
Ben drank his coffee, did not say anything for several seconds. Finally he put the mug down. "Sounds to me that this robot is doin' something that needs doing."
"That may be so, but…" Fitz was not sure how to phrase things. "It's not the robot's choice. It is programming. And the programming is, well, advanced, and it will try to avoid civilian casualties if possible, but if not possible, I think it would be willing to destroy New York to get at a black lab, if that was the only choice."
Ben looked levelly at him for several seconds. "Think that's likely?"
"No," Fitz said, shaking his head. "The robot is quite resourceful, I don't see it ever being left with such a singular option."
"Ya talk a little like Stretch kid, not that I mind, and you are shootin' straight with me, so I'm consderin' helping ya. Why don't you give me some more details, as long as you ain't putting national security in danger."
—
June 19th, 8:30pm EST
The construct was almost exactly like the one she had destroyed in the mountain mines. Someone had taken the time to bolt some armour on to the frame and stick some big guns onto its forearms, perhaps with the idea that would make them more combat capable. It really just made them more clumsy and therefore easier to deal with.
Gothic Lolita finished off the fifteenth (punching a hole right through it - messy) and looked around at the mess she had made of the constructs and the facility. Her clothing was of course tattered (another Star Shine Bright outfit ruined, but at least by her choice) and she was covered in the blood like analogue that the constructs had been full of.
"I look like a psychic on her prom night," she said, wiping some the blood like analougue away from her face.
She was about eighty feet under Queens, having backtracked the tech production to this location.
She was pretty certain she had dealt with all the security measures. Now she just had to see if there was a way to blow the place up without causing matching destruction on the streets above.
Then someone shot her in the back, six or seven times with something in the handcannon range of weapons.
She turned.
Up on the catwalk that went around the room was a, well, boy, dressed in a white jumpsuit type uniform, replete with pockets. He wore goggles and on his back what what looked like an honest to goodness rocket pack.
"Why won't you die!?" He screamed, voice near tantrum levels Loli thought.
"Because it would be inconvenient," she called back.
He screamed, began reloading his pistol. Gothic Lolita reached down and picked up a piece of armour she had earlier torn from one of the constructs. A few quick pulls refined the shape and with a flick of her wrist she sent it up, scything through the metal supports of the catwalk.
The boy looked surprised as the surface he was standing upon fell out front under him. He grabbed the rocket pack's control, firing it up. A moment later a smaller piece of metal (again thrown by Gothic Lolita) punctured the propellant tank.
"That's actually quite a pretty flight," she said as Maximilian's damaged rocket pack sent him spinning away through another door, his scream fading with distance.
"Yeah, nicely handled," a deep voice said.
Gothic Lolita was pleasantly surprised to see Ben Grimm entering the room.
"Thank you. I am very pleased to meet you," she told him, smiling.
"Well, don't often get that from people I am about to pound." He closed on her, looking around. "Your work?"
She nodded. "Some of my friends have compared me to you."
"Pretty thing like you? Hope ya popped them in the nose."
"They were making comparison to strength and durability, but I would have been just as pleased if the comparison had been about appearance."
"Now I know I ain't no prince in the looks department, so got ta say that sounds like a lie."
"Please Mr. Grimm, I do not share humanity's limited view of beauty. If I say I find your form attractive, from the pleasing orange of your skin, to your amazing blue eyes, I am being completely truthful."
"Well, that's nice of ya. And you can call me Ben. Sure you don't want to give up." He stopped several feet from her, slammed a fist into an open palm, with a boulder smashing boulder sound. "Maybe Stretch can give ya some help with that programming of yours, set ya right."
"I can't."
"Robot girl like you, looks like you should be in some sort of robot high school. Gonna feel a bit bad hittin' ya."
"Can I ask you not to use the R word?"
"What, Ro…" He paused. "Got ya. What'd ya prefer?"
"Mecha is fine. And please, don't hold back. I would like to see about the validity of the comparison."
"Okay mecha girl, you're on."
He came at her, fast, pushing off the floor, launching himself like a bullet.
She brushed his arm up, the rocky first just brushing her pigtails, turned, grabbed the wrist, used a judo throw and put him onto his back with a floor cracking slam. She pitted her strength against his, tried to get an arm lock. He simply shifted his arm, with her attached, and slammed her head first into the ground. Now it was her time to break the floor.
She rolled away from him, onto her feet. He kicked up onto his.
"You can take a punch mecha girl."
"Fortunate as you can give one." She smiled. "Call me Gothic Lolita."
"Sure you won't surrender Gothic Lolita?"
"Again, I must decline."
"Your choice.," he told her, preparing to attack again.
"Please," she said, holding up a hand, "can I ask you to say it?"
"What?"
"It." She smiled
He nodded after a moment, smiled. "It's clobberin' time!"
Wonderful, Gothic Lolita thought as she was sent flying back to crash through a wall right into the central manufacturing section of the lab.
A slug fest between her and the Thing would destroy this place just as well as any explosives, and in a much more controlled manner.
She pulled herself out of the remains of what had once been a very advanced and likely expensive biotechnology fabrication apparatus and prepared to meet the Thing's next charge.
—
Up on the streets an area of space seemed to shimmer, and a moment later a doorway seemed to open in the air as the ramp of a cloaked quinjet was lowered. A S.H.I.E.L.D team in tac armour ran down the ramp, taking up positions around what had been an armoured, highly secure door and was now a hole.
Agent Fitz looked at the door, then at the men around him. "Looks like Ben Grimm has already entered, good samaritan taking a look. We're going in because of a report from Mr. Grimm about suspicious activity within."
The members of the tac team indicated their understanding of the legal precedent they were using to enter what was likely going to turn out to be a black lab.
He looked back at the jet. "Agent Ro.. Doe, you ready?"
Still wearing her helmet she nodded. "I'll have the jet drop me off up high once we have a probable exit vector. Give me the shot and the robot girl goes down."
"Good, well, let's do this."
He and the tac team entered the building as the quinjet's ramp closed and its engines grew loud as it climbed unseen into the air behind them.
He paused to look up at the sign above the doors. 'Prometheus Bound Industries'.
—
June 15 2015, 7:46pm EST
"Here's mud in your eye," Victor Creed said, lifting his beer glass.
"Cheers mate," the man he shared the table with said, lifting his own glass. The rims chimed and the Victor downed his in a few seconds before picking up the shot glass of whisky and tossing that back.
Across from him St. John Allerdyce drank his one beer at a good pace, but not anywhere near as fast as Sabertooth. By the time he had finished his first beer Victor had knocked back four glasses of beer and four shots.
"Listen Mate, not that a free pint isn't cracking, but I got to wonder what you called me here for."
Victor belched and then reached out, took a passing waitress' elbow. "Sweetheart, get me another four beers with chasers and bring my friend another beer."
Once she had left he turned his attention back to St. John. "Got a problem, need some help."
"Guess it is the kind of help that requires things to be on fire? Wanna be sure, cause if you are looking for teachers, I don't do well with kids."
Victor laughed, "You could teach how to write crappy romance novels, fit in well with Blue's Introduction to Evil."
"Gothic Romance Mate, and they paid the bills."
"Met a lot of cute hookers who 'pay the bills'."
"Didn't come here just so you could take the piss out of me ya tosser," he said, getting to his feet.
"Sit down, I got serious business. Couple of days ago I tangled with a robot girl who's been making things tough on my current boss."
"Robots?" He sat. "Don't really burn mate."
"Don't need you to burn it."
"Then what."
The waitress came back and put their drinks on the table. Victor stuffed a hundred dollar bill into the her jean's pocket. "Come back in five minutes with the same."
"S'truth mate, don't think I can knock back a third that fast," he took a pull at his fresh beer.
"Then I'll drink yours Nancy."
"Watch it mate," he said, taking a zippo lighter from his pocket and sparking it up.
Victor laughed again, gulped back the beer and then the shot. "This robot girl, pretty damn near indestructable as far as I can tell. We danced, got a few good hits in, but damndest thing, seemed she was healing almost faster than I could cut her, when I could cut her. Even the Runt doesn't heal that fast."
"Sounds like the rough end of a pineapple."
Victor smiled, another beer and another shot. "'Bout the time she ruptured my spleen…"
"Christ mate, you say it like it's nothing."
"Spleen is nothing. Girl's breath was hot."
"Pardon?"
"Breath was hot. Figure her lungs are for dumping heat."
"So she's got hot breath."
"She runs hot when she fights. Machines don't work good when they get hot." He dropped his shot glass into the beer glass and then gulped the mix back. He slammed the glass down, the shot glass ringing within the other glass. "You get the area around her hot, she's not going to be able to dump the heat."
"Think she'll overheat?"
"That is the plan,"
"I can do that, depending on the brass."
"Fifty thousand for throwing in with me." He dropped another shot glass into another of his beers. "We nab the little robot girl with all the tech my boss wants to get his hands on and you'll get three hundred thousand. American."
St. John sat back in his chair. "Well mate, looks like you just hired Pryo." He lifted his glass.
Victor lifted his, chimed it against the other. With a smile he said, "Don't get full of yourself. Fire controllers are a dime a dozen, you just happened to be close."
"Screw you mate," St. John said before he took a drink.
Victor smiled, showing a good many teeth.
—
June 19, 2015, 8:55pm EST
The fire was unnatural.
Spinning vortexes of flame that heated the air, then died away, opening the way for an attacker.
Someone was clever.
Gothic Lolita appreciated clever, to a point. At the moment she was wishing for a little less of it amongst her opponents.
After she and Ben had finished wrecking the manufacturing facility (she was 90% certain he knew what she was trying to do and helped her along by punching her into the most important machinery) they had taken the fight to upper levels (she had tossed him through the ceiling). They might have continued trading punches had not their 'dance' been interrupted.
S.H.I.E.L.D agents and another group: masked soldiers in red and blue.
Ben had gone to keep any fighting from spilling out of the complex into Queens (she had had wanted to join him for a moment) and she had decided it was time to leave.
Then the fire had started.
She supposed there was some sort of pyrokinetic involved, or some technology that did the same. It really did not matter what the source was. The effect was that she was overheating.
The fire died down, but the attack came so quickly that she did not have time to use the warning. Her attacker was the man from San Francisco. He moved fast, slashed at her, cleared out before she could lay hands on him. Most of his attacks had left her unharmed, but a few, like that one, damaged her enough that the smartware in her body was put to work.
Repairing the damage.
Generating heat.
Too damn clever.
She chased after him as he bounded through the storage room. She drove a shoulder into one of the shelving units, sending it into the next, setting them falling like dominoes.
Gothic Lolita could not help but to pause and watch as the shelves fell, the burning contents falling from them. it was all quite pretty.
She hoped he had been caught among the falling shelves.
Tearing herself away from the spectacle she charged forward, crashing through a wall, into an open area beyond where the air was marginally cooler.
Not cool enough though.
The temperature became a secondary concern.
There was another person in there.
Dark red and yellow suit, fetching goggles, a flamethrower on his back.
One pyrokinetic.
She ran at him.
He turned the flame throwers at her. The fire that rushed from them took form, a creature of flame, like some demonic gorilla. Quite beautiful. It actually had some sense of mass to it.
Not that that stopped her or even slowed her. She burst through it, scattering the flames as what remained of her clothing burned off of her.
The man in red and yellow recoiled back.
She was reaching for him.
Then the attacker from San Francisco was there, blocking her.
But she finally got her hands on him.
She swung him around, his feet almost clipping the pyrokinetic, and slammed him down. The floor made a satisfying crack even if his bones did not.
"Getting a little hot frail?" he asked with a coughing, wet laugh.
She hit him again, in the chest.
The floor gave out under them, dropping them down into the next level.
The man let out an explosive breath as she came down on top of him, knee firmly planted in his gut.
His bones would not break. He healed fast.
No need to hold back.
Several hard punches to his skull (really hard) probably bounced his brain around, enough to leave him concussed. She crouched atop him, looked up over her shoulder. The man with the flamethrower was looking down at her.
Flipping about she launched the man she had just beaten unconscious back up, through the hole, into his partner.
That would buy her some time.
She rolled over and onto her feet.
Air was still too hot.
There was an emergency exit close by.
She ran to it, yanked it open, tearing the door from the frame, found herself facing a SHIELD agent.
He his large swung pistol up at her. Some sort of energy weapon she supposed.
"You should have kept the sweater vest," she told him before punching him in the face.
—
June 19 2015, 9:07pm EST
Agent Fitz came to outside, a large, open space, partially built up (some of it on fire); new construction for Prometheus Bound he thought.
His head hurt. His nose hurt. He was a little cold.
Nose, not broken, but hit hard. Drying blood on his face. So, he was hit in the head, knocked out.
Did he have a concussion?
He recalled a naked girl telling him to wear a sweater vest.
He had a concussion.
No. The girl, it was the robot.
Okay, that made sense.
Inasmuch as any of it made sense.
He was naked from the waist up.
That explained the chill.
His long sleeved, slash proof shirt was gone, but his tactical vest had been left.
So she was now a half naked girl.
Good. Good. He did not think he could take naked girls, robots or not, running around.
He reached for his headset com. It was gone.
Smart.
Grabbing his tactical vest he pulled his smartphone out of the padded pocket, dialed a number. "This is Agent Fitz," he said said, "confirmation code Alpha Seven Niner Foxtrot Tango Echo. I need you to tell the team to switch frequencies, target has access to our coms."
Phone tucked under his chin he put on the vest. "Let them know target has exited the facility, mission parameters have expanded to containment. Send in more agents."
While he waited for the communications tech to give him confirmation on his orders he said softly, "I need to get back into the lab."
—
Natasha had picked her sniper nest; rooftop, one of the higher buildings, line of sight on the area around Prometheus Bound. So far she had not had a shot, but if the target tried to get clear she was going to do her best to put it down.
And she might have a chance to do so.
Her sniper rifle was a H.A.M.M.E.R. 'Cape Killer' that some joker had named 'Mjolnir', and 'officially' it had been destroyed with a large number of other similar weapons.
Never hurt to keep an ace card.
Specs said that it had a better than 80% chance of slowing a target like the robot, with about a 20% chance of a kill shot.
She was willing to work with those odds.
The targeting monocle over her right eye gave her an augmented view of the scene below, tagging friendlies, civilians, identified threats and unknowns; giving her wind speed and direction as well as the effects of a number of quinjet engine washes; compensating for extremes in lighting; and providing her with full status report on the weapon.
She could probably shoot the wings off a fly in flight at a hundred yards.
Below the fight moved out into a open area, caused when one of the buildings under construction had imploded (no idea how that had happened).
She shifted her aim, found her target. "I have a shot." She zoomed in on the pigtailed head of the robot as it stumbled, having been hit by Cap's shield.
"Take it," Agent Fitz told her.
She squeezed the trigger.
The weapon jerked, once before she completed the pull, her monocle went dark, jerked a second time a moment after she had completed the pull.
Pulling the dead monocle away from her head she looked at the weapon. There was a hole in the rifle's CPU, another into its power pack. Bullet holes. She looked back along the angle the shots would have had to come from.
A quinjet flew nearby, there on her own orders, to provide her with transport if needed.
There was a figure standing amidships atop it.
That would have been one hell of a shot to make with a handgun, Natasha thought with admiration and a tiny bit of professional envy.
Then the man took the pistol and put three shots into the jet's starboard engine. The quinjet howled and swung towards Natasha, the pilot probably fighting to control the aircraft. Just as the pilot got control back, the jet coming to a halt about ten feet away from the building, the man put four shots into the port engine and leapt from the falling jet to the roof.
"Sorry about that," he said with a nod. "Big fan, you and the rifle."
Natasha Romanoff's first thought on getting a good look at the man was 'yum', which was highly unprofessional.
Bare chested, but for a tactical vest, tattoo on his right shoulder, dark skinned, black hair, Kravitzesque looks and a build that she would have thought required super soldier serum.
"Who the hell…" she began.
"Couldn't let you shoot Loli. Know the rifle is hard to come by. We destroyed the factory that made them a while back."
It all clicked for her.
Her pistol was out of its holster, three shots down range in less than a heartbeat and yet he still managed to avoid them. With a dancer's grace Hollowpoint Ninja flipped off the side of the roof and out of her line of sight.
—
Below, unaware that she had backup. Gothic Lolita was ready for it to end. It had been a good fight. Lots of impressive things to see, from the way Captain America's shield had careened off of objects at near impossible angles, to the way that Ben Grim's lips turned down as he hit her, sadly, apparently, no longer enjoying the fight.
She could not complain about her deaths lacking ascetic graces.
She stood, surrounded on all sides, chest heaving as she tried to dump all the heat building up inside her.
It seemed it was time to die.
Again.
Then someone said, loudly, "Cool it."
And it was cold.
All around, but apparently especially in her immediate vicinity.
A cold that leached the heat from her body.
Air that felt like it was only a couple of degrees from liquefying.
Sucking it in filled her with cold.
Blowing it out dumped oh so much excess heat.
Her smartwear, only moments from shutting down, came back on line, repairing all the damage that had been left undone. Strength systems were back at 100%.
It looked like the fight was not over yet.
Then the same voice that had called out before said, "Dizzy Miss Lizzy."
For the moment the attackers all seemed to be having bouts of vertigo.
From amongst the wreckage of the construction walked her rescue. A young woman, dressed in black and lace similar to that which Gothic Lolita sported (when it had not been punched, slashed and burned off of her). She was carrying the most amazing looking staff.
She stopped a few paces from Gothic Lolita, her breath clouding in the air. "I'm Nico Minoru, I was told to give you this." She held out a piece of paper.
Gothic Lolita took it.
On it, hastily drawn, was a picture of a skull, sporting little pig tails and wearing a small top hat.
There was likely only one person that could have come from,
She looked up at Nico.
"Trust me?" Nico asked.
"Yes."
Nico held out her gloved hand.
Gothic Lolita took it. Nico shivered.
"Two to beam up," Nico said as she raised her staff.
In a twinkling of lights they were gone from the site of Prometheus Bound and instead in a park. Gothic Lolita could hear the not too far off sounds of sirens and aircraft and assumed they were not a great distance from where they had been.
In front of them was a strange frog-like vehicle, huge, a ramp opened to a lighted interior.
From down that ramp came a welcome site.
"Autocannibal," Gothic Lolita said to her teammate (once known as Stemcell).
"Lolita," Autocannibal said, running down the ramp, crying and smiling, showing all the mammalian verisimilitude that let the Livewire mecha operate in a human world. The small mecha hugged her as tight as she could, which probably would have been fatal for a squishy human type.
"What is happening?" Gothic Lolita asked, gently pushing Autocannibal away.
"There is so much to say."
"And it will have to wait," Hollowpoint Ninja said, appearing out of the darkness. "SHIELD and Hellfire teams are sweeping the area. We need to get airborne now."
"Story time later," Nico said, walking up the ramp and into the craft.
Gothic Lolita let Autocannibal direct her up the ramp, Hollowpoint Ninja bringing up the rear.
Inside the craft, at the obvious controls, sat a young man, blonde hair and blue eyes; nice looking goggles perched high on his forehead.
"This is Chase Stein," Nico said, "Chase, Gothic Lolita, the lost lamb," she paused, "lost electric sheep."
Gothic Lolita smiled.
"Let's jump," Chase said, and the ramp closed. A moment later the vehicle was moving. "We're cloaked and gone."
"What happened?" Gothic Lolita asked.
Autocannibal looked around, then sighed. "I got Hollowpoint fixed up, and left you in a place where, if you were still alive, you could repair, given time."
"Which I did. Thank you."
"And you got your pigtails back!"
"Yes. That was nice."
Nico made a soft coughing noise.
"Right. Well, that left Corny and Social, and they were bad. Hardly anything left. Ninny and I did what we could…. but we were not getting any farther along."
"That's when we met," Nico added to the conversation.
Autocannibal nodded, looking so much like a twelve year old at that moment, all pleased and seeking approval. She really played her emotions like a violin, gothic Lolita though approvingly. "Nico and her friends, neither heroes nor villains really, had no problem with Ninja and I taking out labs and looking for tech to help Corny and Social."
"And we needed some help too," Chase said from up at the controls.
"Made a bad call," Nico told her.
"We found a resource that we thought could provide assistance," Hollowpoint Ninja said.
"We thought we were using him." Autocannibal sighed.
"We were played," Nico explained, "by a monster named Mister Sinister."
"And now," Autocannibal said, no longer seeming like she was a child, "we are going to take him down and save our friends."
"As well as blow up a huge number of black labs along the way," Hollowpoint added.
—
Prologue 1
On a building roof somewhere distant from the ruined site of Prometheus Bound, Maximilian let a Helllfie medic splint his arm as he demanded answers.
"Robot got some help, magic by the looks of it. Ain't right," Sabertooth told him. The bestial Headmaster looked none the worse for wear, though Pyro, who stood nearby, did look like he had been through a fight.
"I want her. I want her completely destroyed. i want all her pieces. I'll bring the entire Inner Circle in on it!"
"Yeah, that will be a real Romper Room," Sabertooth said softly, and then louder, "guess some of the students from the school are due for a field trip. Some of those little bastards need a beating, or a killing, can't say which one I care the most for."
—
Prologue 2
S.H.I.E.L.D had put a perimeter around Prometheus Bound and S.H.I.E.L.D teams as well as local police and FBI were examining the place.
Near the smashed in front of the building Fitz was on coms, trying get answers. "That robot made a mess of things."
"Mecha," Ben Grimm said, voice deep. "She likes to be called Mecha, doesn't like the R word." He lifted his shoulders. "Seems we should be respectful."
"So how do we find this Mecha girl?" Natasha (once more in the guise of agent Doe) asked.
"The girl who saved her," Captain America said, "I know who she is. You need to take your team to Los Angeles," he told Ftiz.