"Ozai Chen." The announcement of his name was followed by a powerful echo. Looking around the blank stretch of space dotted with distant stars, it occurred to him that the place was all too familiar.
"It is I, the Grandmaster of the Contest of Champions," another echo rang.
"Grandmaster?" Ozai was admitted to the sight of a figure in white in front of him. "What is this about? Do you need me for another round in the Contest against another arrogant challenger?"
The voice of the Grandmaster was blunt. "No. I have a message, which you must treat with care: something exceedingly terrible is about to happen, & only you & your daughter may be able to turn it around.
Ozai was entertaining a hope that this wasn't happening. "What do you mean 'may'? Can I even trust you that this is real?"
"Are you not concerned for the safety of your friends?" the Elder sharpened his tone.
"This is about the wish I made, isn't it? Ozai conjectured. "How long till it'll be too late?"
"You guessed correct. You will need to time travel back exactly three Earth months, & make it to the lair of Doctor Doom immediately. If you do not hurry, the changes to the timeline & its parallels will be permanent."
A warm light blanketed the Grandmaster before he was gone. Ozai sat up in his bed, fingering the mattress for a minute. He wasn't exactly disconcerted, but something was beginning to turn the tide of the calm state he always seemed to maintain.
In the throne room of the Latverian Embassy, at 4.30AM…
"Miss Von Bardas. Your report."
"My lord, the Timesculptor can now be fully operated. We have made sure all points on the machine are intact & running properly."
"Very, very good." One would tell Doom was tempted to smile under the thick of his mask. "Richards has surely found it a mystery how I have been silent all these months in my pursuit of his destruction. Finally…my patience is about to pay off." He would strike as silently as the serpent, rubbing his hands in glee at the dream made real. The corners of the world were within the reach of his influence, given the effort invested in inventing his precious Timesculptor.
"If I may ask, Lord Doom, what is the grand plan you have put together so carefully?"
"The instant it is activated, what this machine would first do is weld together every timeline in which I exist. I would be able to see my scheme unfold from every possible perspective, & disregard the laws of time travelling which that fool Richards has devised."
In resolute composure, Victor ran the claw-like extensions of his fingers over the adamantium coating. His eyes flashed upward, studying once more the elegant tubes of the machine darting in & out the room. The contraption was in actual fact magnificently enormous for it wove together the most important rooms & quarters of the building in a single network. "This is an event one could call phenomenal, even historical. But for those who are against it - it is no worse than catastrophic…"
Easily comprehended, the Timesculptor was capable of re-moulding time itself. "Let me ask you two questions, Lucia…how much can your past affect your future? & imagine…how much could you change…or correct…if you accessed any point in time?" He laughed at how much he laboured in the months past - to make it possible to abduct somebody from a different timeline with his latest invention.
"Azula! Wake up!" he shook her out of a deep sleep.
"Dad? Why are you in hero mode so early…?" she rubbed both eyes somnolently.
He barked right before dashing to another room, "We can't waste any time - put on your suit & we're running up!" Although Azula's current mood was founded on the lack of sleep, she lifted off her sheets & dragged herself to her closet the fastest she could manage.
Later, they looked for the others frantically. Azula found it was pretty silly running up & down the penthouse corridors when the city hadn't officially rose from its slumber. "Reed! Ben! ANYONE!" Ozai noisily trudged about, the alloy of his armour making small clanking tunes.
In the kitchen area, they flicked on a switch or two, but none of the Four were to be seen. "No sign of them in their rooms. Their sheets have been moved but -" Azula struck a thinking pose.
"Then we're heading to the hangar!" her father hurried on ahead.
"Slow down! What's going on exactly?"
"Is it not completely odd for them to mysteriously vanish from their apartment at 4.51AM?"
"Maybe they had an urgent call. & decided not to trouble us."
Still, Ozai quickly stepped onto the elevator platform with her following behind.
"Call me crazy, Azula, but the Grandmaster called upon me when I was still asleep. All he said was'something exceedingly terrible about to happen'.
"It must've been a dream, Dad," came her chuckle.
"Maybe, but it had much to do with the wish I made after winning the Contest of Champions. Too much. He then instructed that we have to hop into the time machine."
The hangar was very poorly lit, save for the lights on Leopard X's suit & the flickering flame Azula ignited above her index finger. "Hmmmm, the Fantasticar isn't here," she muttered, "Where would they have to rush off to just before sunrise?" Plus - the room was dead quiet - none of the computers were on. "H.E.R.B.I.E. & L.Y. have been shut down. I guess this is the time for me to get worried."
"I will have to settle with turning L.Y. on manually, or else my suit cannot fully work," said Ozai. He tapped a switch under the claw of his right thumb.
"Dr. Ozai!" L.Y. uttered as she came online. "I was deactivated by something I could not detect!"
Her master replied, "It's alright, L.Y. Your manual systems should be working okay." He then spun a little wildly, "There must be a way…We can't time travel without the Fantasticar…unless…unless…" He took out the PDA he could actually store in the back of his suit, & began tapping the buttons on-screen. "Reed explained to me about a warehouse in which he stores partially completed projects. & about an old time machine his father invented."
"Worth a shot," Azula yawned.
Unbeknownst to the two, a Doombot had sabotaged H.E.R.B.I.E. & L.Y.'s main cables earlier. Victor had long since added a function where his robots would go invisible & silently infiltrate the Baxter Building if he wanted them to. With time, he had persisted in upgrading & developing that invisibility mode…until his minions could get past surveillance systems with great ease.
& as for Reed, Ben, Johnny & Sue: Doom had altered a few fabrics of time with his new 'toy', & kidnapped them away from the present timeline in the middle of the night. Without the aid of their temporal stasis devices, the Four had merely disintegrated into thin air. Little did they know they were being taken into a violent timestream, leading to a past battle three months ago.
Doom's intention was to 'replay' that same scene in the main hall of his lair, but instead of wiping Reed out first like he did last time, he'd deal with the other three FF members. He had many mistakes to correct: rounding up more guards, weapons & Doombots; capturing Sue, Ben & Johnny before they'd try messing with the history he altered.
Using Ozai's PDA, the two remaining heroes were able to make their way to the warehouse. Leopard X was left with no choice apart from blasting open the heavy wooden front doors. Inside were half-completed inventions, a few computer consoles under draped old sheets, & many a wooden crate. With a blueprint of Nathaniel Richards's time machine on the PDA screen (Reed had once shown it to him during a scientific discussion), Ozai searched high & low for a contraption that matched the image.
"Hey, it's one of those Doom spiders!" Azula alerted him minutes later.
A little bug-like robot skittering about the floor caught his eye. But he had finally found the time machine, & instructed, "It's been following us all the while! Hold it off while I try get the machine ready!" He groped around for a wrench & blowtorch, then tossed an object to Azula, "& strap this on!" It was the temporal stasis device they both needed badly.
"Okay, it's not gonna be my fault if you press a series of buttons that drag us into the Stone Age!" she teased, putting on the little gizmo.
"You said it was worth a shot!" he strapped on his.
"Very funny." She next got down to sizzling the Doom spider, spinning together a blue wheel of fire then launching it forth. The move almost sliced the little robot in two, but out of the blue, it threatened to use its small but focused laser attack on her. She reacted swiftly using a whip she knit out of her flames.
"Azula! Jump in!" yelled Leopard X. He motioned to her that the time machine was successfully up & running.
She was very pleased to have destroyed the robot, after cracking her whip in a well-judged direction. Dashing over to the moderate-sized, levitating machine, Ozai activated the console & punched in a number of digits to send them away in a vortex. "Is it by coincidence that this thing fits two passengers?" Azula grew excited while they warped into the iridescent tunnel.
That long passage ended in a great white flash. However, stormy skies & eerie, towering skyscrapers greeted them. Although they hadn't seen it before, the Four had told them before about the Statue of Victor von Doom that now loomed over the metropolis. "I can't believe it. Hotshot described how the alternate future timeline they once crossed looked like this," said Azula, eyeing the hollowed eyes of the monument.
"Then I guess that's where we've wound up," Ozai piloted carefully, already on the lookout for aircraft belonging to Doom. The best place for them to land was on the water, near a small deserted dock. The shade of the overhead bridge provided sufficient cover, whilst they contemplated their method of breaking into the villain's lair.
They finally agreed on making it there on foot, except it was inevitable that they were at their most vulnerable. Despite being exposed rather dreadfully, the Blue Dragon bravely rode on Leopard X's back as they sped & leapt in every shadow, dark alleyway or tunnel they could find. At the bottommost floor of the Latverian Embassy they proceeded to climb all the way to the balcony - where the entrance to the main hall was situated.
Leopard X's mighty pericycle attack coupled with Azula's strongest fire blast was enough to weaken the doors. They kicked it open using combined effort - at the far end of the room their opponent was punctually standing by his grand table. At his feet was poor unfortunate Reed, who'd just been rendered unconscious by a neural inhibitor locked around his head. The small edges of the inhibitor pressed painfully into both his temples.
"Doom…," growled Ozai, inhaling to steady his breathing.
Azula saw that the picture wasn't right - nobody but Victor & Reed were present in the hall. Where were the other three missing heroes?