A/N: As promised months ago, here's the next installment of The Masters AU, Doom's Day. I'll be releasing the chapters, baring any unforeseen setbacks, once a week. I'll still be working on Untold Stories, also, which will be released on the weekend. Hope you guys enjoy, and don't forget to fave, follow, and review :)
Doom's Day
SOS
SHIELD Helicarrier Delta
March 1, 2017 – 8:15 PM
It had been over a year since the Kree invasion, two years since Ultron's attempted genocide, four years since the Masters of Evil came dangerously close to taking over the planet, and nearly five years since Loki led the Chitauri invasion of Manhattan. Since May 5, 2012, the world had never been the same. Every year, it seemed that a new threat arose to threaten the peace and sanctity of the planet Earth. Every year, a group of heroes arose to stop that threat before it was too late.
The world had been pushed to the brink time and time again. Many, rightfully, began wondering if the next time was the last time the Avengers would be able to stem the tide of evil and protect the people who couldn't protect themselves. It was a touchy subject for a lot of people. So many people had suffered due to villainy; either directly or indirectly. Something had to be done.
That something very nearly was a change in the White House. In late 2016, President Simpson ran for reelection. Her platform was that the country needed continuity and a steady hand to help guide them during this time of great uncertainty. Many in the country agreed with her. However, her opponent, media mogul and reality star Mike Carter, tapped into the nation's fear and burgeoning xenophobia that Simpson herself fanned during her speech after the Kree invasion had been thwarted.
It very nearly led to her downfall. Carter gained a mountain of support in rural areas, as well as people who were fed up with how the world was constantly in danger. His promises to protect them from alien invasions, mutants, and the like appealed to them, even if the more sensible in the population could easily see there was no way he could carry them out. It wasn't until SHIELD found and revealed his strong ties with former Hydra head Baron Strucker, as well as his history with Russian prostitutes, that the US came to its senses and reelected Simpson in an overwhelming landslide.
The next month, with the UN's blessing, the World Security Council was reformed. Comprised of trustworthy members of the hero community – Captain America, Jean Grey, Invisible Woman, Black Panther, Director Coulson, Director Brand, and Tony Stark – they took it upon themselves to make sure that every possible threat was dealt with quickly and efficiently. That word, efficiency, had become a buzzword ever since Ultron. Even then, they knew that heroes needed to shape up or be replaced. Under the purview of the WSC, exactly the former happened.
The world seemed to have turned the corner and was headed toward peace and security at long last.
Part of the process of turning the corner was giving SHIELD another helicarrier. After the fiasco with Hydra and its Insight helicarriers two years ago, everyone was understandably leery. But, Phil Coulson had earned the UN's trust, so they signed off on it.
With Tony's and Reed Richard's help, they constructed another helicarrier. It was the same build as the ones Hydra used, minus the targeting satellite. With the long range cannons, they were able to snuff of powerful enemy threats from thousands of miles away without risking any agents. Finally, it seemed that SHIELD was returning to its former glory.
Which was why it was completely unsurprising that it was under attack on the first day of March, not even a month after it had been in the air. Metal ships that looked more like sleds than anything else fired green energy blasts to cover their approach to dump their cargo on the helicarrier's deck. That cargo was a fleet of silver robots.
Explosions rocked the barely new helicarrier. Scorch marks were burned into the deck. Many of the rail guns had been destroyed.
Coulson was in Washington at the time, which meant that his deputy, Commander Maria Hill, was in command. "What the hell is going on around here?! Where's our air support?! Someone get those main railguns firing! Someone get me Gen. Ross pronto!" Agents scampered from one station to another to follow her orders as quickly as humanly possible.
Suddenly, the video screens in front of Hill came to life. "Maria Hill." It was none other than Victor von Doom in all his glory. He appeared to be sitting casually, with his gauntlet-clad hands clasped together.
Hill's eyes narrowed, but inwardly, her heart rate tripled. "Doom. I'll have your head for this."
"I have no time for empty threats, agent. Surrender your ship to me now, or I shall destroy it."
Of all the times for Phil to accept a dinner date from the President. "We'll see about that." She tapped a comm link on her glove. "This a priority alert to all superhumans. Helicarrier Delta requesting immediate support." When she looked up, Doom was gone. "Shit. That bastard is back for real. Someone get Director Coulson. Now!"
Doom was responsible for the attack on the helicarrier. That was both surprising and unsurprising. She was one of those that believed that he had returned months ago, but had been lulled into a false sense of security when he hadn't made a move yet. They had even been keeping an eye on Latveria, for as much good as that had done. The borders were sealed up tight and pinning Doom down for a heart-to-heart was next to impossible if he didn't want it to happen. After weeks of failed attempts at reaching him, Coulson resigned to just keeping a close eye on them and hoping for the best.
Hindsight was twenty-twenty, but that was an error in judgment that had just cost them. Doom was the highest profile villain on the planet, just edging out Magneto. His intellect and power made him a formidable foe for anyone. The Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and – funnily enough – Luke Cage had all squared off against him. In the end, they won the day, but not without a fight.
In the end, he always got away. It was her resolve to make sure that didn't happen this time around. "Get me the Baxter Building."
On the upper deck, SHIELD agents dressed in their blue jumpsuits and white gloves and boots tried their best to battle the robotic horde that was accosting them and the helicarrier. The robots weren't particularly hardy; but what they lacked in durability, they more than made up for in numbers and firepower. Just one blast was enough to send the normal human defenders flying. "We need air support, right freaking now!"
"Help!" A blonde agent was cornered by five of the drones, with only her assault rifle to fend them off. She had just run out of ammunition, and seemed to be at the end of her rope.
Suddenly, a bright flash of lightning crashed down in the middle of the small robot grouping, branching out on impact and electrocuting the lot of them. The agent was unharmed and wasted no time to retreating to a safer position until she could reload.
Another lightning bolt crashed down, accompanied by a bright flash of light. Thor, Captain America, Spider-Man, and Wolverine were left when it dissipated. They just so happened to be in the same place when they received Hill's SOS call. Immediately, Steve assessed the situation.
Gunships were flying above, filling the sky with their laser ordnance to provide the robots with air support. The most critical thing was taking them out to make the rest easier. Next was drawing them away from the agents and toward where the deck's railguns were situated, on the stern. "Thor, take out their gunships! Spider-Man, draw them toward the stern!"
Thor nodded and flew skyward with a gust of wind.
"You got it, Cap!" Peter attached a webline to a passing gunship and was carried off, whooping like an excitable child. "Gotta love being a target."
"Wolverine—" Steve started before he was cut off.
"Stow it, boyscout. I don't take orders from you." With that, he ran to the edge of the helicarrier and leaped off, claws extended. He landed on a robot riding in a gunship and slashed it mercilessly before moving on to the others.
Thor effortlessly crashed through a gunship, rendering it unable to sustain flight. He was too busy watching it sink to the ground far below them and looking for another target to see them ship coming up from behind him. He was struck in the back by a green blast. While he wasn't hurt, he was incensed. "Soulless machine!" he roared as the sky came to life with flashes of lightning and the roars of bitterly angry thunder. "How dare you strike at the Son of Odin!" A massive bolt of lightning tore through the gunship, reducing it and its half dozen occupants to ash.
Peter shook his head. "Showoff." He crawled from the bottom of the gunship he was hitching a ride on to the interior. He tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Excuse me, is this the ferry to Ferris Island?" When the robot turned around to futilely swipe at him, he got a good look at it. It was an Ultron drone. There was absolutely no denying it. He fought so many during the Ultron saga, their appearance was permanently tattooed on his brain.
As he dodged humiliatingly slow – from his perspective – attacks and retaliated with webshots and powerful strikes, his mind ran through the odds of Ultron returning. He concluded that it wasn't possible. They shut down the transmitter he needed to jump bodies. The body they destroyed was the body he 'died' in, so to speak. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Peter was certain he was right on on this one. He attached a webline to each of the final two drones and yanked them into each other. He slammed their heads together with enough for to tear through both of them to finish them off.
The ship was just about to crash into the deck, forcing him to abandon ship. He landed a few yards from Steve, who was surrounded by six drones. "Hey, Cap, looks like you could—"
Before he could finish, Steve flung his shield into one of the drones in front of him, which carved a chunk out of its head before ricocheting into the one next to it. Steve ripped the head of the drone coming up from behind him and nimbly kicked another one away, caving its chest in. The shield carved through the fifth one and returned to his hand just as he hip tossed the final one to the ground. The drone was decapitated.
"—use some help."
Wolverine's psychotic laughter could be heard before the gunship he was riding in crashed into the helicarrier and exploded.
"That dude scares me," Peter admitted. A ghost of a smile appeared on Steve's lips. The rest of the Ultron drones were mopped up by the agents in short order. With their air support gone, the drones weren't much of a threat. "Someone got a hold of the rest of Ultron's army."
Steve grimaced, as did Thor when he landed nearby. "Aye. It has been long since we did battle with these soulless automatons. You do not think that—"
"I hope not, Thor," Steve said. He almost said more, but witnessed Logan climbing out of the wreckage of his gunship.
Unsurprisingly, he wasn't injured. Quite the contrary; even his clothes weren't too badly damage, other than his shirt being shredded and singed. He tore it off and ripped out the piece of metal sticking out of his side. The wound was healed before the shard hit the ground. "What're you girls lookin' at?"
=Guys, this is Hill. I'm on the main bridge, but I'm not sure how long I'll last. Get here ASAP. Hill, out.=
"You heard the woman, fellas. Let's move!"
The helicarrier was teeming with Ultron drones. Steve, Logan, Peter, and Thor carved their way through the seemingly endless horde of mechanical fodder. The biggest question was where they came from. They were certain when Ultron was defeated two years ago, all of his drones had been melted down and destroyed. It was very unlikely that they rebuilt themselves. Someone had to. The question was who.
There was time to figure that out later. Their main and only concern was saving the agents aboard the helicarrier and getting to Hill before she and whoever was with her were overwhelmed.
The outer path leading from the upper deck to where they currently were was littered with scrap. One thing they could say for certain, whoever sent the drones didn't bother with increasing their structural stability like Ultron did when he coated them with vibranium. "Not that I'm complaining," Peter added when he made note of that very thing.
"Whoever's responsible for this has a lot of explaining to do," Steve agreed.
"Aye. Many lives could have been lost, and the battle is not yet won still."
The way inside the helicarrier and to where Hill was was just up ahead. Once they met with her, they could finally start to get to the bottom of this sudden attack. Unfortunately, there was an obstacle in their path.
Mac Gargan, otherwise known as Scorpion.
Dressed in a dark green battle armor with a long, mechanical tail capable of firing green acid from the tip. He was a longtime enemy of Spider-Man's, and had managed to give him trouble. With that tail and his enhanced physicality, he wasn't to be underestimated, even if he was considered a mid-tier villain.
"Well, well, well. I was hoping to catch someone being a hero," he taunted with a cackle. "Looks like I hit the jackpot."
"Ah, jeez, you," Peter groaned. "Not even five minutes in and they're already scraping the bottom of the barrel."
"Talk all ya want, insect. But, you won't be talking when you find out what the Masters of Evil have in store for ya!"
The Masters of Evil? They all knew that Zemo was still suffering his eternal punishment, handed down to him by Odin himself. There was no way the Masters would have been in a position to orchestrate an attack on the helicarrier, much less anything else of note. Their ranks were mostly comprised of small fry villains once the originals all either disappeared in the wind, died, or were imprisoned. "What do you mean, villain?" Thor demanded. "Baron Zemo is still imprisoned."
"That's the best part. We're led by the man himself, Dr. Doom."
The lower tier villains that comprised the Masters' numbers may not have been able to organize an attack that included a legion of rebuilt Ultron drones, but Doom could. Easily. It had to have been what he was doing all this time. Waiting. Watching. Patiently awaiting the right time to strike. Not when the world was still vulnerable, like it was after the mutant/human war and the Kree invasion, but rather when it was complacent. Such a simple, yet deceptively brilliant strategy. That was why there hadn't been any kind of major disturbance in the year since the invasion. All the biggest players were being collected by Doom.
There was no telling who else he managed to gather under his employ. "What does Doom have planned?" Steve asked.
"Hehe. If you only knew. 'Cause Doom's got a plan that'll shake the heavens!"
"We won't let that happen. We're going to stop you, one way or another."
"You wanna get tough, punk? Good, 'cause so do I." He leaped toward them. His tail arced upward and sprayed a torrent of acid, forcing them to scatter or risk serious injury. When he landed, the tail whipped out and swept Steve's legs from under him, then wrapped around him and flung him into and oncoming Logan.
Scorpion was very low on the totem pole of supervillains. Peter was more than capable of handling him by himself. Adding in the likes of Thor just wasn't fair. Thor routinely walked on the surface of the sun to meditate, so an acid blast to the chest did little more than irritate him. "Pitiful fool," he taunted as he batted his tail aside and flick him in the forehead lightly.
Gargan went flying like he was shot out of a cannon and crashed through the steel door leading the the main deck.
"Well, that was a waste of time," Peter shrugged.
"Indeed. Come. Lady Hill awaits us."