Author notes: This is a plot bunny (and a probable one-shot) that just needed to get out of the warren. Please do not hesitate to give me your opinion on it.
Just a few points regarding the story
As this a merged Buffyverse/Marvel universe, expect differences from both, among other things regarding the path some characters, organizations and countries (fictional or not) took, like the fact Latveria annexed Symkaria. Timelines on the Marvel side have been adjusted, in good part to take care of the 'sliding timescale' of the original comic books. One of the major historical changes happening before the start of the story is the fact that Yuri Andropov didn't die in 1983, thanks to a mutant healer on the KGB's payroll. I hope I gave in-story enough elements to make it hold together and be enjoyable.
One main point regarding the above is that the Buffyverse supernatural community has, at the beginning of this story in 1985, so far managed to absorb the nascent mutant population. far as the Marvel timeline is concerned, this is an alternate world to the comic book one (Earth-616). Mostly, a similar approach of the cinematic universe regarding delaying the arrival of super-humans (compared to Earth-616 continuity) has been used. In-story, this is a consequence of the crossover, as the Buffyverse supernatural community manages to absorb the Marvel weirdness for a while.
In this story, there will be no 'Reed Richards is useless' (to those who don't know and don't want to be sucked into that black hole called tvtropes, it's the idea that, in superhero stories, super-scientists do not share their toys). I understand the storytelling-based reasons why this trope exists but as someone who likes to build coherent story worlds, I don't like it. Instead, I chose to slow down the arrival of super-science similarly to what was done in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Overall technology is more advanced, thanks to people like Howard Stark, but not much. To make a rough comparison, the story's 1985 technology more like the one of the end of our nineties.
Thanks to Narsil for betaing this chapter
Summary: Merged Marvel/Buffyverse AU. Sometimes, a small decision can change many things. In this case, a college student chose one boyfriend instead of another. This could have been inconsequential, had this woman not been the mother of a girl often called Buffy. Destinies were changed by this simple act and they helped to change the world in turn.
Rating: FR18
Disclaimer: fandoms I do not own anything of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Anything related to the Marvel multiverse
The Romance of the Investiture of the Gods
- New York, 12 March 1985 -
As far as most people were concerned, Midsummer Night's Books was a bookstore situated in an old three-story in Forest Hills, Queens. Its owner was Mrs. Daji McGowan, a Chinese girl who met Angus McGowan while he was deployed to the Pacific during World War Two and married him in 1943. She immigrated to America at the end of the war and settled with her husband, taking over the family bookstore. After her husband's death, she had continued and was pretty much a fixture of the neighborhood, often seen smoking from an old, jade inlaid, oriental smoking pipe.
The shop had two permanent employees, both young women with a rather interesting background. Joyce Reynolds was the single mother of a little four-year-old girl called Elisabeth, but usually nicknamed 'Buffy'. What was unusual with her was that Joyce's fiancé had disappeared after some kind of freak lab accident, before she even knew that she was pregnant. She was also a history of art graduate, something she had tweaked into a deep appreciation of bookbinding, illuminations and the like.
The other employee, one Greer Grant, was a little more out of her element in a bookstore. A former lab assistant in a university in Chicago, she didn't talk about the events that led her to work in a bookstore, only saying that Mr. McGowan had been one of her father's squad mates and that Mrs. McGowan was helping her to get back on her feet. She had managed to turn her knowledge of fields like chemistry to book expertise and restoration… or so it looked.
"I think I hate Akkadian," said Joyce as she rubbed her forehead.
She was currently in the 'lab' part of the shop, a place officially used for things like book restoration. The shop had closed early today due to various tasks the three ladies had to cater to, tasks that had little to do with bookselling. In Joyce's case, they had a lot do about the unofficial part of her job: being Mrs. McGowan's apprentice.
"Mommy?" asked a little voice.
Joyce turned around to look at her daughter. The four-year-old was taking great care not to touch anything without permission. Mrs. McGowan knew very well how to impress some rules on a kid.
"Hello, sweetie… oh, my! It's already five," she replied, looking at the wall clock.
"Auntie Greer came fetch me at the kindergarten. She said you were lost in nerdland… she meant you were busy with magic stuff Auntie Daji told me to not tell anyone about, right?"
"You can speak about it, but only with me, Auntie Greer or Auntie Daji. I'm sorry, Buffy, but there are no children your age in the community," she said, lifting her daughter to sit her on her knees.
At least none I feel safe letting you play with…
"You see those kind of scratch marks, it's a very old alphabet called cuneiform," she continued, pointing the text she had been studying. "The original of this text was written a long time ago in a place called Ur. It describes a ritual to protect a house. I'm learning how to do it."
"Can I learn too?"
"When you're a little older, sweetie, I promise," she said hugging her daughter.
They were interrupted by a flamboyant redhead entering the room as she yawned ostensibly.
"Feeling like taking a catnap, Greer?" teased Joyce.
"Very funny," replied the redhead.
"Aren't you gonna change, auntie Greer?" asked Buffy. "Auntie Daji said it wasn't good to stay…"
"I know, Buffy," cut in Greer as she squeezed the tiger-head jade pendant around her neck with a sigh.
Greer winced as her flesh started to ripple, covering in orange, white and black tiger fur while her ears became more feline and her nails toughened to become claws. Thankfully, her jeans had been refitted by a tailor from the community who knew how to accommodate for things like the striped tail that sprouted out of her back. Around her neck, the pendant now displayed a human female visage.
Joyce could only think that, a few years ago, she would have been really shaken by what had just happened. That had been before Buffy's father introduced her to that part of the world most people blissfully ignored. She remembered very well what he had told her then: "This is part of what I am, Joyce. If you want to be with me, you will have to accept it and accept that it will be a part of our children." Leaving him and forgetting about it would have been easy… but she realized that it wouldn't be right. True, there were many terrifying things and monsters in the world of magic but there were also good thing and good people, like Greer and Daji.
Even if Daji… well, three thousand years sealed in a jade urn would make anybody reflect on their wicked ways, I suppose… plus the fact Angus McGowan treated her right after he accidentally freed her and activated that 'genie lamp' clause.
"Do not worry, Greer," said Daji as she entered the room. "Just give it a few decades and you will find it very easy to shift between forms."
"A few decades, sure…" replied the catgirl with a pout.
Daji had a laugh as she underwent a change herself. Her elderly human form became the one of a young woman as her hair shifted from dark grey to silvery white and her eyes became scarlet. Nine white, foxy tails came out from under her skirt as her ears became more vulpine. The foxwoman sat in levitation, completely uncaring about a 'minor' thing like gravity.
"With practice, you will be able to decide how much you transform from tiger to human and maintain a given shape as long as you want to. But as with any 'muscle', this is something that needs to be built little by little and you need to stay in your natural form to rest. "
"Will I be able to do that too, Auntie Daji?" asked Buffy.
"Contrarily to me, you are human, Buffy, and it makes things more difficult… and no playing with cursed artifacts like your aunt Greer. Can you tell me why?"
"She was very lucky that her Dad brought her here before that nasty demon guy could make her think all wrong," replied the little girl, remembering a past explanation from a rather hysterical Greer one day she had said it would be fun to be like her.
Joyce kissed the top of her daughter's head. She remembered what they had uncovered since Greer's father had come to beg Daji to help his daughter and brought them an almost feral catgirl. She had been cursed to become a member of a species of demons called the Cat People. While not originally evil, they had been enslaved by a demon lord called Belasco a few centuries ago. Daji had been able to shield Greer from Belasco's influence and was teaching her how to deal with her new nature.
"Very good. You will have to be patient, my little kit. Learning magic too early is not good."
"Why?"
"Good question. Being a sorceress is a very serious job, like being a doctor. You mess up and people can die."
"That's why Mom said that she cannot do magic without you watching?"
"Exactly. Your Mom is a very good student, Buffy. She has learned more in the last three years than many in twice that time, but she has still a lot to learn before I can consider her a fellow Mistress of the Mystic Arts. If you decide to become my apprentice, I will expect the same from you. Now… Greer, can you go upstairs with Buffy and get dinner started? I need to talk with Joyce."
"Sure. Come on, Buffy, it's time to get you out of those heavy clothes."
Buffy slid back to the floor and scurried behind Greer toward the stairs leading to the upper floors. The four of them were actually living together in Daji's house and Joyce readily admitted that it was nice. She didn't feel like marrying just to give Buffy a father figure and this way she had in-house help to raise her. Sure, she had tried to date. One with Hank Summers, a guy she met in sophomore year, had ended with her wanting to hex him. After a few more disappointing experiences, she realized that 'normal' people would not do it for her, not after her fiancé.
"How is Mrs. Parker?" she asked, remembering that Daji had been out to offer some comfort to an old friend, one unaware of the supernatural, who just lost her husband.
"May is better than I would in her circumstances, but young Peter is devastated, feeling as if it was his fault… If my Angus had been shot like Ben… no use delving on that: even if my stories have been well deserved, I promised Angus I would be a good girl."
Joyce knew there was no use delving into that. Daji was pretty much immortal and she had always known that what joy and happiness she would have with her human husband would be fleeting. She had told her once that Angus had refused Daji's proposal to extend his life, preferring to live fully once.
"Maybe we could hire Peter for a part-time job? We could use the help and it would be a way to help the Parkers without offending."
"Hmmm… yes, that could do it, but I need to speak with May about it as we wouldn't want Peter's grades to suffer, with him being in his senior high school year. But let's come to the reason I wanted to talk to you alone. Carl sent me a package with a message: he met your fiancé."
"Magnificent Oshtur!" swore Joyce, but before letting out a little giggle. She had definitely read too many things about the trio of mystical entities called the Vishanti lately.
"Glad to see that my teachings are taking root in your very soul," replied Daji with a kind smile. "I know that you still love him…"
"I cannot deny it… I tried to tell myself that he was probably dead, but my heart knew better. I still want to give him a piece of my mind for abandoning me like that… but I'm not mad at him anymore. I mostly want to understand why. Where is he?"
"In a very remote place in Tibet, so no need to scramble to catch the next plane. My son had been paying his respects to the Ancient One and he heard a story from his servant about a man with a hideously scarred face coming to ask about the monastery of the Blue Clouds. He remembered it because the Ancient One actually received him and told him how to access the monastery.
"The thing is that I know about that monastery. It already existed in my time and it was built by an immortal to stand watch over a fallen sky chariot. It was said that it had crashed following a great battle between two families of gods, one with blue skin and the other one with green skin. I'm sure you can translate this into modern, technological terms."
"A spaceship shot down during a war between two alien species," replied Joyce. "After all I learned about contacts between Earth and other dimensions, space aliens are not even that surprising… and Victor would definitely be interested by that. He worked very hard on linking magic and science."
"As I often told you, back in the old times, we didn't consider that there was a difference between the two… but this was a different age, where man and yaojing openly lived together. Who knows, maybe such an age will come again? Staying hidden is sure becoming more difficult with each passing year, with the number of wild talents arising lately."
Joyce nodded. During the last two millennia of what was sometimes called the Piscean Age, magic had been clearly divided between Light and Dark. During the last few decades, however, 'wild grey talents' had been popping up all over the whole planet, going from a rarity to something the supernatural community struggled to absorb. Some sorcerers thought that it was the sign of the dawn of the Aquarian Age, other spoke about Kali Yuga nearing its end. Maybe more importantly, the tabloids had even started to talk about those wild talents, though under another name: mutants.
What was certain was that the growing instability of the supernatural community had pushed many governments to take an unofficial interest in it, with various degrees of success and ethics. In America, a clandestine agency called SHIELD had been busy setting itself up as a paranormal police force. The 'grey' and 'light' elements of the American community were still wary of the new agency, but they were ready to give it a chance, as some of the old organizations had either a problem adapting to the modern world or seemed stuck in a 'humans good, demons bad' mindset.
"Anyway, my son managed to go there and talk with your fiancé. He brought this back," she said, handing her a small package. "No offense, but I took the liberty to check it for curses. What I can say is that it has been charmed with a blood key.
"None taken… yes, Victor and I talked about that spell," she said, as she tore open the paper of the package to reveal a small diary and leafed through it. Apart from her fiancé's family blazon on the first page, its pages were empty.
She put her thumb on the coat of arms and felt a sting, knowing it was checking her. Dark red ink started to spread from the crest, seeping through the pages and organizing into an elegant handwriting that made her heart race. She started to read.
Dear Joyce,
I have no excuse for what I did, and I will not ask for any forgiveness. I only ask that you read this letter until the end and hope that you will understand why I left you without a word and stayed silent for the last five years.
You know my past. You know why I fled my home country and that I have enemies. More than that, you are one of the very few people who knows about the Faustian bargain my mother was tricked into, damning her soul for a fleeting, illusory gain.
The 'accident' was no design mistake, contrarily to whatever Richards may have pretended. It was sabotage. Richards himself was fooled just as I was. The real culprit used our rivalry as part of his plan and doctored the documents Richards saw in a way that made our quarrel inevitable. My enemies turned my pride against me, hoping to send me after some senseless revenge against Richards. While I freely admit that Richards is everything I hate in those sheltered, privileged western academics ignorant of the realities of the world, being so petty is beneath me. Who knows, maybe chance will allow him to become more than he is… but I digress.
When I left, I was too angry to think rationally, a side-effect of the sabotaged machine that let some hellish essence seep into my soul instead of letting me safely scout the hell dimension where my mother's soul is suffering. Had I been left alone, had I not known your love, with only my willpower and my pride to anchor me… I shudder at the monster I could have become.
It was thanks to you that I reacted correctly when I met Kasumi Asakura. Without the compassion you taught me, I would have abandoned her, or worse, used her. Kasumi is what is called a Potential Slayer. I'll let you research more if you wish as it would be a very long explanation. What is important is that she was kidnapped as a child and raised to become a disposable weapon for the Watchers' Council. Even sadder, when her mutant powers awakened, the Watchers decided to use her obedience toward them to turn her into a guinea pig. She only managed to escape by pure chance after years of torture.
At first, I only intended to give what medical help I could, but I quickly realized that she was totally unable to live alone and was all too likely to be caught again. I took her with me and became her Master. I knew it would take time, but I was sure that I would be able to teach her to think by herself, with your help.
This made the hellish fog in my mind fully disperse and I immediately started to travel to come back to you, thinking that we could have the family we dreamt about, with Kasumi being some kind of adopted little sister… but I was 'intercepted' by two other women. Before you start to worry, you have my word that there is nothing romantic there. First, my heart belongs to you and our daughter. Second, Irene and Raven are a happy lesbian couple. As for Kasumi, well, when she learnt that she was descended from an old samurai family, she decided to consider me her daimyo and to live by the Bushido, because it gave her the structure she needed. While this is already an improvement, I know I still need to work on her… and another digression. It is as if writing here made me think like we did during our discussions, talking and researching whatever topic suited our fancy.
Irene is a powerful Seer and she showed me many possible futures. She showed me that your and our daughter's safety depended on my silence. Those behind the accident, a trio of demons called the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart who hold my mother's soul, were watching you, ready to strike had they understood that their plan to turn me into a force of evil failed. Irene also showed me the chaos that would happen once the supernatural world could not hide itself any longer and how I could make it so that this dreadful future where you and Elisabeth are sent to an extermination camp for being magical never comes to pass.
Following Irene's counsel, I forbade myself from even observing you from afar, thinking that you would find someone less dangerous than me to build a peaceful life with. I convinced myself it was better for our Elisabeth to never know her father. I carried on with my plans, soothing my heart with the knowledge that all of it would be so that our daughter had a planet where to grow up.
Years passed and while I often regretted my choice, I held firm in my belief… until a half-demon called Carl McGowan arrived at my retreat a few days ago. He told me about a beautiful woman who lived at his mother's place and refused his advances, showing him her engagement ring. He told me about a wonderful little girl who was missing her father. Her mother had told her many stories about her missing father, telling her that he was a great man of science and that he surely had a reason to be away.
He told me that you tracked the magic books I ordered to that bookshop in New York and asked the lady Daji to take you on as an apprentice. I was elated to learn that, as the Ancient One himself holds her in high esteem. Joyce, please make sure to make her know that I owe her a debt of honor. I shudder at the thought of what could have happened if you had fallen into the clutches of an envoy of Wolfram and Hart.
As my guest finished his story, I knew then that your love and loyalty demanded an answer, that I could not stay silent any longer. As my guest was going back to America, I wrote this and bewitched it so that only you could unseal it. I hope it will reach you in time.
In time, because the first public step of my plan will happen on the Ides of March. Yes, I found it fitting as it will see the fall of a tyrant. As you can surely guess, I am planning to carry out a coup in my home country. Do not get me wrong, I will not bring them democracy. Not only are the people of Latveria nowhere near ready for it but it wouldn't work for what I need to do. There are things that a king can do that a president, even a dictatorial 'president-for-life', cannot. The Lady Daji can explain why.
I intend to make Latveria an example of what the world could become if it treats its para-human community right. Will you and Elisabeth come with me and help me build that dream, Joyce? I won't lie to you: this road will wind through blood and darkness for there are many forces that want me to fail to make the world a better place. Some will even be misguided forces of Good, unaware that they are sacrificing the future for an illusion of freedom.
I will understand if you decide to stay safely away. Take time to decide and apply your skill to decipher art to the play I will soon stage. See my real intent, beyond the spin that the media will likely give to the events. I will contact you after the coup, once I have cleaned house in Latveria, so you have that time.
I love you, Joyce. Tell our little Elisabeth how much I love her too.
Victor von Doom
"Anything I should know about?" asked Daji as she saw Joyce close the diary.
"Three things actually. First, he asked me to tell you that he owes you a debt of honor, for taking me as an apprentice. Second, he disappeared to protect me from Wolfram and Hart's attentions and third he is going to carry out a coup in Latveria," she replied with a sigh.
"Our favorite evil law firm. Why am I not surprised…"
Joyce could only nod. Any sorcerer worth his salt knew that the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart were the truth behind the legend of Mephistopheles. Given what Victor had told her about his mother when they dated, she had studied very thoroughly the matter of infernal pacts, their consequences and who she should never trust.
"As for the coup, it's again not really a surprise. From what you told me, he went into exile because of his rebellious activities against the tyrant Fortunov."
Again, a nod. At the end of World War Two, the Fortunov family had managed to stay in power and keep a degree of autonomy from the USSR. As Stalin had other, more pressing matters to address and Latveria was safely enclaved between Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania, he just let it be. When Yugoslavia decided to not join the Warsaw pact, its Latverian neighbor did the same, staying neutral in the Cold War.
The problem was that Dimitri Fortunov, the current president for life of Latveria, was a degenerate tyrant who wallowed in vice and oppressed the population to the point that Victor nicknamed him 'Baron Harkonnen' after he read Dune. The population lacked the means to do more than a few partisan actions, but she was betting that Victor had people in place everywhere, just waiting to hear the right message coming through some clandestine network, much like the French Resistance with those Verlaine verses during Overlord.
All that in only… no, not in only five years. Victor regularly corresponded with the Zefiro through a network of couriers while he was in America and he had been a partisan for years in Latveria before he was forced into exile. It's more like he is Lenin, with a whole Bolshevik movement waiting for him to come back and depose the tsar. Speaking of monarchs…
"Daji… what is the difference between a king and a president, magically speaking?"
"I see that your fiancé read books about hearth magic and extracted some old gems out of them," replied the foxwoman with a smile. "Can you give me a simple example of hearth magic?"
"The fact vampires cannot enter a home uninvited… I think I see. In the Excalibur movie, Percival tells Arthur that he is one with the land, that when he drinks from the Grail, he will be reborn and the land with him."
"Continue your line of thought," replied Daji as she put tobacco in her pipe and lighted it with a flaming finger.
"As far as hearth magic is concerned, a king's relationship with his country is similar to a home and its owner. On the other hand… a president would be more like the administrator of a public building?"
"Correct but with one caveat: contrarily to what happens with a home and its effect on vampires, the bond between a monarch and the land is not automatic. In fact, most monarchies deliberately refused to establish it. Elisabeth the First of England and Louis XIV of France were the last European monarchs to use it."
"And the Arthurian legend tells us why: it's a double-edged sword. The health and virtue of the king reflects on the land, for better or worse. There is no way Victor doesn't know that, but he decided to go for it anyway… well, if there is one thing he always had in spades, it's confidence."
"Indeed. When does he carry out his coup?"
"On the Ides of March. Knowing him, it will be an attack at dawn."
"Yes, he's definitely aiming to create a legend. So, I suppose we will have a long night next Thursday. Have you decided what you will tell Buffy?"
"Have her sit with us while we watch and explain what her Daddy is doing. The von Doom name is about to become very public and she will hear a lot of bad things… some will probably try to say he is a madman and all, while he is just behaving according to values that make sense in our world. If… no, when my fiancé succeeds, he will be king, and Buffy will be a crown princess magically bonded to the kingdom's throne."
"And you, dear, will you be a queen?"
"I… I don't know yet. First, we need to see how he handles it."
- Undisclosed location, 15 March 1985, 3 AM (GMT) -
The fifty soldiers assembled in the auditorium were following the briefing given by the silver-haired mustachioed man with rapt attention. All of them were wearing a rather old-fashioned uniform consisting of black cavalry boots, white fitting pants and gloves and a forest green jacket with coattails and golden decorations, including fringed epaulets for the officers. A more thorough examination would have revealed that the fabric was definitely not standard, being made of weaved spider-silk sandwiching a layer of 'scales' that hardened upon impact.
The flags hanging on the sides of the screen were likewise unusual. One could be understood as it was the symbol of the unit taking the briefing. In heraldic terms, it was vert a panther incensed argent. The white panther drawn on the green background was no feline however, but a fire-breathing, demonic-looking composite creature. People knowing medieval traditions would however know that its appearance was misleading. The panther's composite nature carried more of an idea of harmonious diversity and it also warded against evil. The Knights of the Silver Panther had chosen this emblem for those reasons.
The other one was more problematic. It was the flag of a nation that would exist very soon, if everything went according to the plan. Its lower half was black and the upper half green, with a heraldic rampant red lion in the upper right corner. Someone versed in European heraldry may have, with a lot of luck, recognized it as a variation of the family crest of a minor branch of the House of Habsburg fallen into obscurity: the von Doom.
The Knights themselves were a roughly equal mix of both genders, with an added twist: several of them would have difficulties going unnoticed in the streets of most Earth cities. For example, the woman standing on the side of the estrade had night blue skin, stop sign red hair and golden eyes. All the people in the room also knew that the Knight Commander Raven Darkholme, the unit's chief of intelligence who was often nicknamed Mystique, was extremely good at her job and had more than a century of experience. The fact she was a shapeshifter precise enough to impersonate existing people didn't hurt either.
Contrarily to her, the Knight Captain giving the briefing was a 'standard homo sapiens' as he sometimes jokingly said, despite a slight genetic quirk that had most members of his family being born with silvery hair. His name was Ernst Sablinova and his family had many reasons to be there. In fact, all of the Knights had reasons to be there and play along with being knighted, despite an often colorful background.
For Sablinova, one of the reasons was historical and linked to the many waves of conquest that plagued the Balkans over the centuries. When the Ottomans invaded it during the sixteenth century, the sultan decided to put the neighboring countries of Latveria, Symkaria and Rotruvia under the authority of the same bey. The area soon became a 'greater Latveria' as far as the sultan was concerned. When the country was conquered in turn by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they continued to be a single province, though each region kept its own particularisms.
The problem was that when the Empire disintegrated at the end of World War I, Latveria became an independent country under the rule of the Fortunov family who quickly eliminated what little was left of the Symkarian nobility. The Sablinova barely managed to flee to England. Ernst had grown up hearing stories about how the butchers working for the Fortunov slaughtered his aunt, uncle and cousins.
He had been a member of the SAS but left after he discovered the supernatural world during a clusterfuck in southeast Asia. He became a mercenary to fund his demon hunting activities, not trusting the old organizations like the Watchers' Council. He had even managed to make things profitable enough to have a company and his enthusiastic teenage daughter had many ideas on how to expand their operations… or she did before that day when Victor von Doom came to them with an offer they couldn't refuse.
Doom had needed someone he could trust to turn a ragtag band of rebels and mercenaries into something more. Ernst had accepted the challenge for several reasons. Oh, he knew very well that von Doom would not give Symkaria its independence back and he didn't want it. Thanks to his mercenary experience, he knew how dreams of independence could turn into bitter disillusionment once independence came and devolved into chaos. No, Symkaria would fare much better by being a province of the new Latverian kingdom. Doom had promised him personally to reestablish the same cultural autonomy it had when a part of Austria-Hungary and he was a man of his word.
The other had more to do with his pride as a soldier. He would field troops unlike any others, with equipment right out of science fiction. Hell, he had to write the book on whole new sets of tactics and he sometimes mused that his name would one day be taught in military schools alongside Patton and Zhukov. Even more: today's battle was only the start. The Knights would have a lot of work keeping their country safe in the future.
As he was concluding the briefing, the screen suddenly changed to reveal a nighttime landscape of forested hills. A man was standing there, clad even more strangely than the knights. His body was covered in some kind of science fiction take on a knight's plate armor. He wore a forest green tunic harboring the same red lion as the flag over it and had a medieval knight's sword at his side. A forest green cloak completed the ensemble, its cowl drawn over the head and revealing only a robotic-looking metal mask, if not for the human eyes that could be seen behind the mask's eyeholes.
"My loyal knights," said the man on the screen as the gentlebeings in the briefing room all rose and stood at attention. "Today will be remembered as the first day of a new age. We all know the risks we are taking. We know that many will not understand why we are putting an end to the Age of Ignorance. We know better. We have seen the rot under the polished surface: from the offices of Wolfram and Hart where forces planning the fall of mankind are turning our own civilization against ourselves to the mutate factories of Genosha where sapient beings are reduced to branded cattle. Those who should have fought to change it are either shackled by obsolete rules or have become corrupt themselves.
"We cannot accept it. Yes, it will be hard, and things will be worse at first, as they do when you open a festering wound, but we know the alternative, the choice so many have made: to pretend that everything is all right and let the rot spread until it reaches the heart. By acting today, we will be the surgeon opening the wound to clean it, rather than let some accident burst it open. By acting today, we will force the world to awake and replace the nightmare it had been sinking into with a dream to follow.
"Latveria, my country, has been sinking into this very nightmare. I have seen vampires stalking the ruins left by the butchers of the tyrant, in search of families left without a home to protect them. Doom says enough! When the sun goes down tonight, the Latverian people will know that there are noble knights to protect them, that the forces of magic are not only a thing they should fear, but a beacon of hope.
"Fight well and with honor, my knights. The world is watching us."
The knights saluted, and the screen turned back to black as Sablinova dismissed them. Leaving the briefing room, they soon reached their vehicles in the hangar bay.
"I will miss this place," said one of the knights as he knocked on the metal of the hangar's walls. "It was so cool, like being in Moonraker and all. What do you think, Avalanche?"
"Two things, Pyro: First, it's already a miracle that Lord Doom managed to make this ancient wreck fly and stay cloaked that long. Second, you can bet that Latveria will have an official space program very soon… but I somehow don't think they will be too keen on having someone nicknamed 'Pyro' onboard."
"He! I can restrain myself just fine!" he replied with fake indignation that soon turned into a laugh as they strapped themselves in a shuttle.
Dominikos 'Avalanche' Petrakis had a smile. Since his seismic powers awakened, he had lived in fear. He controlled them well enough but what would happen if some bigot decided to attack him or his family? Even worse, his little Clio seemed to already have water-related powers despite still being a baby. He had no certitude, but his wife's family had a legend about being descended from Poseidon. It was possible that she had some trace of water demon blood and that it jump-started his daughter's powers when mixing with his mutant genes.
In the end, it didn't really matter. What mattered was that when von Doom had come to offer him a homeland where his little girl would be safe, where he wouldn't have to live in fear, he had known what he had to do. Now, having spent so long training with his fellow knights, seeing how humans, mutants and demons could do so much more when they all worked together, he was proud to call them his brothers and sisters.
He knew it was different for St. John 'Pyro' Allerdyce. Before he joined the Knights, the Australian man was a journalist and a writer of trashy swashbuckling novels. He joked about how joining allowed him to be the dashing hero instead of writing about it, but Avalanche knew better. He had seen Pyro's haunted eyes when he told them about the horrors he saw in Genosha, horrors no serious journal would publish and that went unpunished because of the Masquerade.
"I wonder how Amy is doing," said Pyro. "You know she's not…"
Avalanche shook his head with a smile, thinking about the woman his friend had a huge crush on. Amy, or rather Amelia Voght, had been a nurse working with Doctors Without Borders before joining them. She was also a mutant teleporter and had been smuggling people and equipment into Latveria for the last two weeks, Doom included. The reason the rest of the Knights had not joined them the same way was because the plan needed them to kick the door in very loudly, to make sure the whole world would be looking at them.
"Don't worry," cut in Avalanche. "First, old Silver Sable cleared her for field duty and you know that our Knight Captain knows his stuff. Second, Asakura is with them."
This time, Pyro shuddered. Sure, Kasumi Asakura was a total babe in his books but there was a reason why some of the Knights nicknamed her the Terminator. It was a little different for Avalanche. His wife Helena had seen the broken bird behind the badass samurai and tried to give her the motherly affection she never had, often inviting her to have a good family meal and to make her bond with the little Clio. He had done his best to help.
A minute later, the shuttles were launched and the ancient Kree starship wreck that had allowed Doom and his Knights to take quite a few shortcuts left orbit on autopilot, aiming for the Moon. There wasn't much left in it anyway, just as their Himalayan refuge was an empty shell now. Doom would probably have a use for the ship later but for now the most important thing was to put it out of reach of 'standard' technology.
- Moscow, Lubyanka Building, 15 March 1985, 4h40 AM (GMT) -
Alexei Mikhailovich Vazhin poured himself some tea. He was really becoming too old for these all-nighters. As the chief of the KGB's paranormal branch though, he had felt like he simply could not do anything else today.
The thing was that the KGB had to monitor quite closely a few things happening in the Himalayas. The area had always been a hotspot of mystical activity and the KGB didn't exactly trust their Chinese colleagues to share the relevant information with them. So, he had a few assets in place and they had spotted some people well-known on the paranormal mercenary scene going to a remote valley and staying there.
His people's investigation left him with a huge dilemma. If he informed Beijing about what was happening there, it would be a huge mess. Thankfully, the freshly elected General Secretary was a former KGB director who had insisted on being notified – and by that he meant him privately and not the Politburo – about such occurrences. It was not like he could ignore it after all, as a mutant healer in Vazhin's service had been the one to cure his renal problem. So, he went directly to him and the orders from high on had been very clear: the Chinese could not get a hold of the alien technology likely to be present in that valley.
This led Vazhin to send an emissary in the valley and later to go visit the master of the place in person. After a long discussion, he had reluctantly agreed with him. Better to demolish a derelict building in a controlled way than to wait for it to crumble on top of the inhabitants. The General Secretary, who was thankfully a pragmatic man, had also agreed with him and asked him to devise solutions for the aftermath.
This was the reason why he had put an all-nighter. Thanks to the cordial visit where he ended up playing chess with his host, Victor von Doom had the courtesy to give him a call twenty-four hours ago. It wasn't disinterested, of course. Vazhin had spent a lot of time on the phone with the General Secretary and the people in charge of strategic surveillance in the Red Army. No need to have them panicking when it all started.
As for Fortunov… well, the bastard could rot in hell as far as he was concerned, and he knew that several people in this building would take the vodka out once they learnt the news. Even if Doom was problematic for the USSR ideologically speaking, they would quickly understand that he would be no friend of the West, while the info they had showed that Fortunov had been trying to cut a deal with the Americans to better fund his decadent lifestyle.
In the end, doing nothing is the best strategy for now. Once Doom is in the open now…
He looked at his screens. They were displaying information feeds coming from radars aimed at the sky and whose task was to detect ballistic reentries. Vazhin silently thanked Anton Vanko, who had known how to take full advantage of the economic reforms initiated by the General Secretary in the last two years and brought Soviet computer science almost back to speed with what Stark Industries could churn out in the West.
It was thanks to that that the computers of his colleagues had taken mere seconds to determine that the objects were not ballistic missiles but something bigger that maneuvered more like a returning space shuttle. Vazhin knew he was witnessing from afar the first orbital airdrop in human history. He was betting that now, a lot of people in the Stavka were looking at screens like he was and asking for satellite coverage on the area. No doubt that the West was…
"I wonder how long it will take for Nikolai Yakovich to call me…" he said, looking with a smile at the red phone linking him with his American counterpart. It was another reason he was thankful to have a General Secretary aware of the things that lurked in the night. He understood that you didn't have time to ask for permission when there was an apocalypse to stop and allowed for this line.
- Somewhere in Manhattan, 15 March 1985 -
"Holy shit," said the cigar-smoking man with an eyepatch as he looked at the images a satellite was sending them. "We knew Doom was up to something, but that…"
The man was Nicholas 'Nick' Fury, director of an agency called SHIELD. He was older than his apparent four decades, being a veteran of World War Two and he wasn't even sure that he was still completely human since he took a remedy which owed as much to magic as science, back in '44. As for his agency, it had grown on the ashes of an organization called the Demon Research Initiative and it was America's response – clandestine of course – to supernatural and other 'fringe' threats.
Sometimes, he thought that in a slightly different world, he would have been able to ignore, or at least dislike all that mystical mumbo-jumbo. With pests such as vampires being so widespread, he didn't have that chance. Thankfully, there were also some good supernatural groups he could work with and his number two was a lot more comfortable with all that stuff than he would ever be.
Fury remembered a recent assessment of Latveria the CIA had sent him. His colleagues from Langley had been trying to either find a way to make Fortunov align his country with the West or find someone more respectable-looking to replace him. Some idiot thought that giving Fortunov information about the rebels would be a good way to get into his good graces. It resulted in all the CIA assets in the country being suddenly wiped out. The only vague thing they had managed to learn was that 'Doom demanded it'. The CIA had asked SHIELD if they had something… and this led to a few interesting discoveries about someone recruiting mutant and honorable demon mercenaries.
What do they have there… aging but still serviceable material of Soviet origin, decent number of men and tanks given the country's size and population… yeah, a little over a million inhabitants on a surface half the one of Switzerland. Only a few jets, not that they need many of those as they're safely enclaved between Yugoslavia, Romania and Hungary. Training is adequate… but it will be a cold day in hell when I call those butchers soldiers. Hell, Fortunov makes his Romanian neighbor look almost decent by comparison. But why Moscow… hell, they just have to know! No raised alert level according to the NORAD. They're just moving satellites to watch the show!
"Get me Vazhin on the phone, now!" he yelled to one of the operators, asking him to call the director of the KGB's paranormal section.
When he arrived in America ten years ago, Victor von Doom had been an almost nobody, just a Latverian refugee who seemed to want to start over. He had come up on the SHIELD's radar because he was a probable magic user, but the initial checks had revealed nothing requiring their intervention. Contrarily to many occult dabblers his agency had either to neutralize or to save from their own foolishness over the years, Victor von Doom knew exactly what he was doing… as least until that accident which led to his expulsion from college.
The present was a whole other can of worms. The attack had begun at dawn, with thirty-two vehicles diving from space onto the main Latverian military bases while a country-wide partisan attack took care of the city garrisons. The Latverian Air Force had been destroyed before the pilots even had the time to get out of their barracks. Their problem was that the orbital troops were technologically consistent with their means of arrival. He could see hexapod tanks agile and fast enough to dodge an incoming RPG and that fired with what he suspected to be a railgun. Even worse, he was wondering more and more if those things had a pilot. Other machines were human-shaped and seemed to be fifteen-feet-tall suits of powered armor. For those, they had caught one open and a human pilot talking with partisans.
They must be drooling on their screens in the Pentagon…
"Say what you want about Doom, but he really knows how to ham it up," said his number two, a short, cigar-smoking man with a funny haircut.
"What many people are going to ask is where is the factory that produced those robots, Logan."
"Add to this how he got them into the country. We know he has a base somewhere in the Himalayas and it's a long way from Latveria… it makes me wonder about that file we have about the Nazis looking for aliens there. What if Doom found a technology cache?"
"Possible. Back during the war, we found some strange…"
The operator made a sign to him and he punched a button to put the call on loudspeaker and another to close the glass wall separating his mezzanine office from the command center below.
"Good morning, Nikolai Yakovich," said Vazhin's voice, russifying Fury's name as he often did during their calls. "I suppose you're having your satellites watching the show in Latveria."
"Alexei, I want an honest answer: did you know about that mess? Usual fare."
Contrarily to some other branches of their respective countries' intelligence communities, he didn't have any problem sharing information with his Russian counterpart. Sure, they had their disagreements, but they were both professional enough to know that they weren't worth jack if Earth went literally to hell. To keep things civil, they had set up a simple barter system: a question for a question.
"That he would stage a coup, definitely. How he would do it, that's a surprise for us as well. We expected more… esoteric means."
"What do you mean?"
"Ah… normally it would be my turn, but I'll put today on your tab, Nikolai given what happened to those poor CIA agents in Latveria. The first time Victor von Doom came to our attention, he was meeting with Raven Darkholme and Irene Adler, two names I am sure you already heard about, though maybe under the nicknames of 'Mystique' and 'Destiny'. They are working for him now, as are several other mutants and normally neutral demons… I think you should ask your people to look at the army base north of Ainiana, then at the royal castle in Hessenstadt. My own satellite people tell me the show is impressive."
"He didn't…"
"He did, Nick," cut in Logan, pointing the screens next to his desk.
On one of them screens, a bird of fire was burning soldiers as they tried to reach their vehicles, while a tank that was turning its turret toward them suddenly fell into a chasm that opened below it. Fury's eyes easily tracked the two persons responsible for it: two men in the same old-fashioned uniform, one who stood in the fire as it was just a comfy place to be and the other creating literal waves in the ground as he pushed forward.
He turned his attention on another screen as Logan was zooming on a helipad with a Hind attack helicopter. There was again one of those people in the old-fashioned uniform, a woman this time if the long black hair was any indication. She was barring the way to the chopper, a sword in her hand while next to the castle's door leading to the pad, a group of richly dressed people guarded by Latverian military was standing.
Nick thought that this was a hostage situation as two scantily-clad girls – maybe drugged too from the way they were walking, and he really didn't want to think about their age – were now held at gunpoint by the guards who strangely weren't even shooting the woman with the sword. He started to understand why when he saw the rainbow mist creeping around and closing the way behind the escaping group. The people on site had probably no idea but, from above, it was clear that it was the woman that created it…
In an instant, it was finished. Tendrils of mist speared the group from all directions, leaving the hostages unharmed while they killed the guards and restrained the richly dressed people. Latverian partisans then came in, taking the latter into custody and taking care of the hostages… they could see a crying woman hold one of young girls and thank profusely the woman in uniform, making a blessing gesture toward her. With a bow toward the partisans, the woman in the uniform generated rainbow clouds under her feet and flew into another part of the castle where they could see gunfire exchanged between partisans and what was left of Fortunov's guards.
"It's even worse than you think," continued Logan as he manipulated the controls to highlight the TV team that had been accompanying the partisans.
"Fully trained mutant soldiers… and he's making it all public," said Fury as he crushed his cigar into the ashtray. "Thanks for pointing this, Alexei."
"Doom staged the thing to present them to the Latverian people as magical, fairy tale knights who will protect them from the things that lurk in the night, Nikolai," replied Vazhin. "He's… how would you say it? Making them sexy? It is an interesting solution, don't you find?"
"I hope it will be as simple as that… you don't have our religious nuts who will be screaming about children of Satan."
"Still, you received the same letter from Xavier as I did about his projections regarding the number of mutants, and the whole reason why I sent the Rasputin kid to act as a liaison with him: If Xavier is right, we're heading toward a para-human for every thousand humans. Personally, I'm glad that Doom bit that bullet for us… ah, I'm told he is on the central plaza, planting Fortunov's head on a pike. It seems he beheaded the bastard himself, with a sword. We have a TASS agency team on site… and another from the BBC that I am said was smuggled in by the Latverian Resistance…"
"You said it, Alex, it's a fairy tale," cut in Logan. "You need someone to tell the tale and I bet he made sure of that."
"Indeed, Logan… I'm afraid the Comrade General Secretary just called for me. Goodbye, my friends."
- Midsummer's Night Books, New York, 15 March 1985 -
"Mom… that's Daddy, right?" asked Buffy as she looked at the man in armor on the TV.
"Yes, honey, that's your Daddy," replied Joyce while holding her daughter tight.
The news had come far earlier than many would have expected but Joyce wasn't surprised. She and Victor had discussed at length about Napoleon Bonaparte and how he pretty much invented political propaganda. Victor had obviously planned to take advantage of those last years' advances in satellite communication and their consequences on the media. Even the USSR had an international, English-speaking channel nowadays. Joyce didn't mind that last point as it had given her the occasion to follow their Eisenstein cycle.
Right now, the TV was turned to BBC World which 'by chance' had a news team that came to make a subject about the Latverian rebels and their mysterious leader. Said leader even had the courtesy to set up a satellite array and lend them TV equipment so that they could broadcast immediately, as well as an English translation of his speech, which was given in Latverian, a Slavic tongue with a strong German influence. Joyce only knew a little of it but thankfully, German was still considered the language of culture in the country and she could manage fairly well in that… she pinched the bridge of her nose, realizing that her thoughts were already drifting toward the idea of rejoining him.
"Is he wearing that mask because of the accident you told me about?"
"I suppose… Buffy, one thing: when we meet him, do not pity him."
"Got it. Daddy will fix that when he decides to and not before."
Joyce could only laugh at her daughter's tone and face, which led Buffy to make that 'what's so funny?' face that was even more Victor-like.
"Sorry, honey. It's just that you sounded so much like your father… oh!" said Joyce as the severed head of the old king was displayed in all its grisly glory. Too distracted by her daughter's face, they had not paid attention to the anchorman's warning.
"He must have been a very bad person if Dad punished him like that," said Buffy, looking calmly at the head.
Joyce looked at her daughter, shocked by her statement, and then it hit her. Buffy was a child seeing a king and his magical knights, so she applied fairy tale standards to the situation and that meant that things like burning the wicked witch in her own oven was a perfectly acceptable solution. In her little girl's mind, her Dad was the Good King Richard who came to free the land from the Evil Prince John. Even worse, Joyce knew that Daji often told Buffy tales of the magical warriors of Ancient China, a time and place with much harsher morals than present-day America.
I… No. It hurts but I know the truth. Buffy is a von Doom. She will always be part of the magical world, just as I decided to be. Our world is a place where hesitating to kill can very well mean ending up on a monster's menu.
"That's the old king, and yes, he was a very bad person who hurt a lot of people," replied Daji. "Buffy, your father has a huge responsibility now. All the people of Latveria count on him to protect them."
"I understand," replied the little girl. "That's why he did it himself: to show to everybody that he won't hesitate to do the hard stuff to protect them."
"Did it himself?" asked Greer who had stayed silent so far.
"He's wearing a sword, right?" asked back Buffy with a shrug. "For the tale to be right, the good King must fight and defeat the evil King himself."
Again, it was fairy tale logic… but it fit, even more so for a budding sorceress like her. From a magical standpoint, defeating the previous king in single combat and spilling his blood on the earth was not some barbaric throwback, but a very powerful form of sacrifice that would strengthen her fiancé's bond with his land and people. She may not like it, but she understood why it was done.
"That's…" started to reply Greer before she froze, lost in thought.
The catgirl had to admit that the warrior king archetype had its appeal, particularly since she had to deal with a whole set of feline instincts. Thankfully, she had yet to go into heat this spring or she would probably have done something very embarrassing. The problem came from her human side.
"I can guess your conflict, Greer, because I had to deal with it, though in the other direction," said Daji. "Buffy, I will try to keep it simple enough, but you know the drill."
"Sure, Auntie Daji. Listen first and ask questions afterwards," replied the child while she straightened on the couch to listen more attentively.
"Good. When I came to live in America, back in 1945, I was shocked by many things. How this country is governed was one of them. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I wasn't educated enough to know better. When Jiang Ziya put me in that urn, I had already lived for more than thousand years and been a queen for several years… Buffy, I will tell you that story at length when you're older. For now, let's just say that I was not a nice queen and that I know exactly how things can go wrong in a country. During the last decades, I have observed the modern countries' governments and compared them to the ancient kingdoms I knew.
"Democracies have, at first sight, a big advantage. There are more controls in place and if a bad person becomes president, you just don't re-elect him the next time. This is probably what is annoying you, Greer: what if Doom becomes evil? For this, you are right, an absolute monarchy like the one Doom is putting in place or the old kingdoms I knew has few safeguards.
"What people often forget is that democracies have disadvantages too. One thing is that the controls to prevent a president from doing bad things will also often work to prevent him from doing good things. I know, it sounds idiotic, Buffy, but I'm sure you already saw that problem at kindergarten, when you and the other kits have to decide which game to play: people often don't agree and… it takes time until you can convince everybody. Sometimes, it will take so much time that the day will have passed discussing and it's time to go home… without having played anything. Believe me, that kind of things happen a lot in Washington.
"Another important point, is that with all these discussions, you need people to know stuff if you want things to work. To continue with my example, it will be faster to decide to play to a game if everybody already knows the rules. This makes schools very important. If people don't know stuff, don't know how to ask questions and understand the answers, well, what will prevent a good liar from pretending that the game he wants to play is the best one ever? It's sad when it happens, and people discover that it's a bad game only after they started to play.
"This gets us to Latveria. Latveria is a country that suffered a lot under the bad kings. People are angry. Left to themselves, all the groups that managed to fight together against the bad kings would soon start to fight against each other. There are bad people who see Latveria as a treasure they can take and who don't care at all about the people living there. Those bad men would tell the right lies to make the fights worse and worse. I think that Doom understood all that and that he needs to do something about it very quickly. I think that he chose to become king because he loves his country and he deeply cares for its people. That way, he will give them time to grow up."
"He's like a Dad who arrives and tells the kids to behave?" asked Buffy.
"That's a good comparison. A real king is a protector and a guide, just like a Dad."
"Mom… I think we need to go help Dad then. That's a lot of kids and it will be better if they have a Mom too, right?"
Joyce looked once again at the screen. Experts were still debating, though Greer had switched from the BBC to CNN at some point. The White House had announced that there would be a press conference at noon from what she could read. Her eyes fell back on Doom's masked face in a corner of the screen. She could see his indomitable willpower… and she realized that her daughter was right: he needed them. True, he had his knights but… in fact she was pretty sure that without her influence he would never have thought about it. He would have stood alone, not really understanding the power one could muster through compassion and loyalty and let his pride get the better of him.
"You're really thinking about it," said Greer.
"Buffy is right, he needs us."
"I… I think I understand."
"Why don't you come too, Auntie Greer?" asked Buffy. "I'm sure you could join Dad's knights and then you wouldn't have to hide anymore."
"Give me a little time to think about it, sweetie," replied Greer with a weak smile.
"We still have time. In his letter to your mother, he said he would contact us once he…" started Daji before she was interrupted by the ringing phone.
Greer got up to get the old-fashioned cord phone in the hall.
"Joyce! It's for you, someone called Ben Grimm."
Joyce frowned as she went to take the phone. Since she had come to live with Daji, drifting more and more into the supernatural world, she had also drifted apart from her old circle of friends, including Sue Storm, who had been her roommate at the campus dorm and her bestie, and Ben Grimm.
She and Ben had tried dating shortly after Buffy's birth, but they had quickly come to the conclusion that they didn't click that way. It had been a shame in a way because she was sure he would have loved Buffy as if she had been his.
Anyway, now that Victor is back, the issue is moot… hmm, he probably wants to talk about the news.
"Ben, it's Joyce! How are you doing, old bear?"
- Baxter Building, New York, 15 March 1985 -
"Hi Joyce! Long time no see! Yeah, I got your number through your sister Lolly. I think you can expect a few calls from the family today, with what just happened. You know, why don't you come visit? We're at the Baxter Building, Reed's place in Manhattan so it shouldn't be a problem… that thing with NASA in California? Funding was cut. Cannot say more, you know how it is with those government types.
"Sue? Not in the best mood right now but coping, mostly by helping Reed with some new experiments. You know how he is, never stopping. He barely noticed the news until I put pictures under his nose. Hell, what I would give to pilot one of those shuttles I've seen! Even the cargo ones… the way they maneuver, looks more like a C-130 than NASA's old flying brick if you see what I mean.
"You will come tomorrow? Thanks a lot, I will tell the others. See you soon, Joyce."
As he delicately put the phone back on its stand, Ben Grimm let out a heavy sigh. He didn't like hiding so much from her but…
It had all started two weeks ago, when Reed learnt that the NASA was pulling the plug on his experimental drive. It was not because it would never work or that the payoff would be too bad. Hell, even if the thing was not usable on Earth, it would solve for good the problem of having to carry reaction mass into space and majorly increase the lifespan of satellites. No, the reason had been political. The NASA had to fight for its budget and needed something to show to the Congress now. A project that may give something interesting in a few years just wasn't it.
Well, you can bet that they will think twice about sinking the space program now, with what Victor just pulled…
Reed, feeling that he was near a breakthrough, decided to make an unsanctioned test, convincing Sue, Johnny and him to help. They smuggled out the prototype and brought it to a warehouse Reed had rented… then things went weird. Reed had honestly no idea how it could have happened. Probability indicated that with the radiation leak during the incident, the four of them should be dead or at the very least contemplating a very short lifespan as cancer ate them alive. Instead something that they had thought reserved to comic books happened: they gained superpowers.
"Right, my life is a comic book," he grumbled, looking at his face in the mirror.
It had taken him a few days not to freak out at his reflection, at that orange, rocky face, the face of a Thing rather than one of a man. His whole body was like that and he had no idea if he would ever be normal again… even if Reed had decided to put all of his genius into trying to find out what happened and hopefully how to reverse it.
Ben begrudgingly admitted that it was not without advantages. He was strong, probably able to lift tons provided the ground didn't shatter under him when doing that. Learning to not break thing had been surprisingly easy, though he 'blamed' his piloting experience there. He was used to metering his strength very precisely when using controls after all. His skin was also durable enough to stop at least small arms fire – not that they had tested it directly – and his endurance was off-the-charts.
The others had at the same time more and less luck. They still looked human most of the time, but their issue was control. Johnny always kept an extinguisher at hand and slept in a fireproof room, because his fire-based powers had a tendency to flame on far too easily. Reed could stretch his body like a kind of super rubber-band, but the downside was that he had to concentrate to keep a normal shape. Same for Sue: her invisibility and force field reacted to her emotions. They all hoped to devise some kind of training that would help them to at least not be a danger for themselves and others.
What he had seen on the TV today… it changed a lot of things. There were other people like them. Maybe Victor could actually help them… if they managed to bury the past. He hoped Joyce would be able to act as a mediator, as she often did back in college.