Marvel: Tomorrow Universe
In
"Technical Difficulties"
Chapter One: "And It's All Downhill From Here"
Disclaimer: The characters in this non-profit work of fiction are, unless stated elsewhere, are the property of Marvel Comics where applicable, and Rider Paladin (considering this is set in his Tomorrow Knights ongoing series of fanfictions), while Raver and others are my creations. As well, there will be characters from and based on other serieses, belonging to (either entirely or in the form of a character based on another) such groups as the BBC, Toho Co. Ltd., IDW Comics, Hasbro, Mirage Studios, 4Kids, Columbia TriStar, and others, and will be noted when they appear. There is no intent in the writing of this fanfiction for any kind of profit making or anything outside of the simple want to write and entertain an audience.
Author's Note: This fanfiction is set between chapter 4 of Tomorrow Ultimatum and its next story arc, and as such will reflect this in the course of events here.
Fearless was on patrol through the streets of New York - making the rounds, so to speak - when she first heard the commotion. It rang in her ears like someone had just set off a bomb less than ten feet away from her, nearly making her fall off the bike, or swerve off the road, until she hit the breaks and skidded to a halt. A painful sensation, to say the least. And it definitely sounded like someone set off a bomb. The location was, of course, more than ten feet away - specifically, in the area between 20 and 30 feet, the reverberations from...whatever it was...spreading through the street. Reaching down to touch the pavement, she located where the noise was coming from, and began speeding off in that direction. Soon, she found herself at the partially-boarded up entrance to an abandoned subway station. Parking her bike nearby, but out of sight, she took out her 'batons'/energy blades, and smashed open a wider passage for herself, and carefully made her way down the damaged, dirty, worn steps...until another very loud explosion-like sound echoed. Except, on later reflection, while it did seem to have the properties of the SOUND of an explosion, it was also...alive.
The young woman finally made her way into the old terminal, which had certainly seen better days...even if those better days were less than an hour ago - it showed signs of damage from a pitched battle. A pitched superhuman battle. There were claw marks everywhere...in some places, four large gashes paired together, and in other spaces, rather family looking three neater cuts. To add to that, there were a series of recently dug out holes, looking as though done by hand, yet at the same time, looking like something an animal would make.
That was the point that the humanoid form flew past her, and smashed into a bank of emptied, broken-glassed candy machines with the sound of wet meat. Fearless turned her head quickly, but then, her own unique variation on the famous radar sense belonging to the original Daredevil indicated that something large was heading in her direction. She looked, and was astonished to see what looked like a miniature T-Rex charging - the creature was black, scaled, with a large chin, and jagged dorsal plates running down its back, starting large at its shoulders, and decreasing in size as they went down its back, becoming small, like the plates in the centre. It had four 'fingered' clawed hands, clawed feet, a long tail, and very nasty looking teeth, with yellow and red eyes locked onto the crumpled blue and white form it was charging at. The dark-haired young woman flipped through the air, striking the creature in the left side of the face with one baton, making it roar deafeningly, nearly crippling her with agony, before it lashed out with its tail, something she narrowly avoided by jumping over it. However, she was unable to avoid the tail's return, which slapped her across the stomach and sent her rolling across the dirty floor of the terminal. The reptilian creature 'walked' over to her slowly, snarling, and was about to attack when its original victim suddenly appeared on its back, apparently punching it in the neck and causing it great pain.
This newcomer had short black hair, with a touch of red gloss on it, wearing a white midriff and shoulder bearing shirt, matching white pants with white heeled boots, long white gloves with smaller, darker gloves over them, a golden skull-like ornament at her forehead and on her belt, which supported two holsters with what appeared to be two firearms, and rather familiar blue skin and yellow eyes. Blood was flying from the 'punches' and splattering over the blue girl and the creature, who struggled furiously to dislodge its victim-turned-attacker from its back, with little success, her legs locked in place around its long neck, until finally, as Fearless arose, regaining her weapons, smacked it in the snout with the base of her batons, causing it to buckle and throw the young woman on its back off of it, making her smash into a nearby wall. Bleeding a surprising amount for something that had only been punched, it bellowed furiously, and then ran for it, heading for one of the tunnels that had been dug, and letting out a burst of fire from its maw, causing the entrance to the tunnel to collapse, preventing Fearless from following it for the moment. However, she found her attention drawn to the somewhat-blood soaked woman who was once again rising, a foul look on her face.
"F*** me..." she swore, rubbing her arm, where a rather large gash could be seen, sealing up at a fairly rapid place. Owing to that, and the resemblance to a certain mutant terrorist (not helped by the skull ornaments she wore), Fearless showed no sign of relaxing. The blue woman saw this, and gave the dark haired girl a look. "What, now you're going to start on me too? Like I haven't had enough trouble being chased by that damn lizard through half the city's subway tunnels? Well, come on then, whoever the hell you are...let's go." With a seemingly-weary expression on her face, the blue woman took up a stance, frowning for a few moments before sighing, and dropping her arms. "Screw it. I'm not in the mood to fight you." she held up her arms, out to Fearless, in a somewhat familiar, and cliched, way of surrender. "Take me to your leader, crazy hottie." Fearless gave the strange woman a look, and then regarded her seriously - she didn't appear more than 18 years old, and despite being shapely and well formed, certainly didn't match the default appearance Mystique was known to take on as her base form, being at least two cup sizes too small in that respect, and being too visually young...not to mention the hair. "I'm wearing a pair on the back of my belt. Help yourself."
"Just don't try anything, and we'll get along fine...you're not registered, are you?"
"Right on the money. That's why that thing was after me. The crazy bitch controlling it sicced it on me because I wouldn't turn myself in. Then again, I wouldn't do that because I don't trust the lackeys of the government of 'our' United States of America, not to mention the information I have on them. And judging by the costume, you're Fearless...meaning you're just the person I'm looking for."
"And why's that?"
"'Cause I'm looking for either you and your guys, or, failing that, the X-Men." The blue woman wore an almost inviting smile now, an almost predatory look on her face. "My 'codename' is Raver, though you can call me by my nickname...Lulu. But that's only 'cause I like you..." One eye would wink, and a playful purring-like sound would be heard as the blue woman sauntered over, and cocked her hips, placing her hands on them. "So, lead the way...I'm assuming you're on a bike or something, considering if you were on the roofs, you wouldn't have gotten here when you did..."
With a bit of a sigh, Fearless motioned for the strange woman to follow after her, though not really trusting her at this point...but at the same time, it wasn't like she was helpless on her own.
Several blocks away, and on a rooftop, an armored figure could be seen observing the entrance to the subway terminal as the two women exited, and got on Fearless' bike. The armor wasn't powered armor, but rather, advanced body armor, like you'd see on a military operative, with a tail-like attachment at the base of its spine, large boots, and bands and pouches scattered along the chest, arms, and legs of the suit. A rounded helmet finished the ensemble, with a slight bump at one point, the helmet larger than the head of the person wearing it. As the figure watched, the creature that had been attacking Raver emerged from the street below, and made its way up the side of the building, to join the armored being, who spoke in a audio-distorted voice.
"Did the bad freak hurt you, precious?" The tone was almost mocking, but the simple minded creature just snorted, and crouched at the armored being's feet, prompting it to sigh in disgust. "You're useless sometimes. I suppose we'll have to mobilize the entire team now, if we're dealing with these 'Knights' brats too. Come on then." The figure began to levitate in the air, and began to lift the other creature telekinetically as well, propelling the two of them away from the rooftop they were on, and along the cityscape, heading to the harborfront district.
50 years ago...
"Well, thank you, again," a man with messy, wild brown hair and wearing a brown overcoat, a blue suit with brown pinstripes, red and white trainers/sneakers, a dark shirt, and a blue tie, with a pair of square-rimmed spectacles on, a smile on his face as, under his arm, he held what at first glance appeared to be a metal ovoid, but was in reality a metallic head with a ghoulish jack o'lantern face, currently deactivated. This man was the time-and-space travelling Time Lord known as the Doctor, and the head belonged to an incarnation of the genocidal sentient AI-android Ultron, who had, until recently, been the leader of the Phalanx in deep space, until its destruction, and a subsequent reactivation on Earth in an attempt to once again escape death. However, this time, it ran across the Doctor who, with the not-quite-asked-for help of the current line-up of New Warriors, managed to shut it down, and removed the head, with the core AI still present within, to keep within the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space), his amazing-if-out-date-relatively-speaking time-and-spaceship. And so, came the denouement. The Warriors were heading back to their base, save for one - Wondra, formerly the X-Man and GenX'er known as Jubilee, who regarded the Doctor with a curious look on her face, before pulling her lower face mask down.
"So you can really travel in time?"
"And space, yeah," the brunette replied, rubbing his eye with the palm of his free hand, a broad smile on his face. "I guess I owe you, yeah? Alright, come on."
"Huh?" The chinese girl looked at him, slightly puzzled.
"I'm going to take you on a trip to anywhere, anywhen, you'd like, in return for the help you and your friends gave me today. So, care to go?"
With a grin, the young woman nodded, and ran up to the Doctor, who began walking down the street, taking out a simple looking key, and then entering an alley, where his marvelous ship awaited, in the form of a blue police public call box. He inserted the key into the yale lock of the wooden-seeming door, and opened it, stepping inside and motioning for the former mutant to follow after him. She stepped inside, and was immediately floored by the sight she beheld - despite the outside's amazing compact outside, the inside was massive, the console room itself almost as big as the X-Mansion's living room, the entire ship being far larger than Jubilee's old home, even including the underground bits. Everything was metal - the floor was fine metal grating, the walls were curved metal with honeycomb-shaped lights affixed in honeycombed recesses in their surfaces, and metal support structures were set up some distance from the console itself, which consisted of what appeared to be a glass column in the center, with moving innards, and a complex-appearing circular bank of switches, toggles, buttons, and even handbrakes, levers, and seemingly mismatched machinery, with a slim monitor on a moving arm set up on one side. "Holy..."
"Yeah, I know...that's everyone's first reaction."
"But the inside is..."
"Yeah."
"And the outside is..."
"Yeah-huh."
"Wow..."
"I know...marvelous, eh?" he flashed her a grin, and winked, before setting the head of the android down on the nearby 'armchair' like seat, mounted near one of the supports, and began flicking switches, pulling on the handbrake as the ship began to move, a VWORP sound filling the air as the insides of the column began to move up and down, locking together like a key, then moving apart again, the ship dematerializing and entering the Time Vortex. "So, how's 100 years in the future sound?"
"Sounds like fun." The hero grinned, grasping the edge of the console nearest her, as the ship began its rocky approach to the year 2108. However, about five minutes into the voyage, something seemed to protest this journey, and a shower of sparks erupted from the console, shooting into the air as the fabled TARDIS was pulled out of the Vortex too soon. "What the hell?!"
"What? It's something...interfering with the TARDIS...but what...oh, I'm thick!" The Doctor pushed away from the console, and grabbed the nearby head of Ultron, taking out his Sonic Screwdrive, a thin, pencil-length device with a blue LED-like light set in the tip, and set it to setting 1401-D, and began pressing the button, the device buzzing. Almost immediately, the lights that were Ultron's eyes flashed to life, and a mocking laughter filled the console room. "Oh, that was clever...hiding like that so I'd bring you in here."
"Indeed. But organics, no matter how evolved, are still pathetic animals who do not know any better. I knew you creatures would try to isolate me, to prevent any further resurrections...so I prepared myself, and now I can function though this head."
"But how on Earth are you going to do that? You've got no legs!" The Doctor said, genuinely puzzled, until suddenly, metal began to emerge from the neck stump attacked to the head, forming robotic spider legs. "Oh, that's very clever." At that note, the TARDIS landed, and promptly the door swung open. "Huh? You're in the TARDIS' controls? But that's impossible...you're just 20th Century technology...ow!" As the Time Lord was speaking, an electrified charge shot into him, making him release the head, which promptly skittered out of the door, and into...wherever the landed. "Lee, we've got to stop him!"
"On it!" Jubilation pulled up her mask, then dove for the head, which evaded her just as she made it to the door. "Damn! He got past me!"
"Then follow him, for Pete's sake!"
The Present
In the Headmaster's office of the Claremont-Gruenwald Academy, said Headmaster, one Ruby Summers, was in the midst of a bit of paperwork, when a sudden, and grating, whooshing noise filled her ears, and her office. In the midst of the noise, a shape began to form in the middle of the room - a blue rectangular box. Before the ruby-skinned woman could react, the door to the box flew open, and a metal head on spider legs emerged...and promptly blew a hole through her office door with high-powered eyebeams.
"What?! Stop right there!" She said, ineffectually, as the head scurried out of the room. As she rose from her desk, a man wearing blue and brown, followed by a young woman in a black and yellow bodysuit with glowing gauntlets followed after him.
"Come on, Lee! He's getting away!" The Doctor cried out, his Sonic Screwdriver in hand, now on setting 2456-A, which meant it was now tracking the head, the two running after Ultron's head, chasing it through the halls, and pass the classrooms, and into the gymnasium, Ultron making his way through the obstacles with ease, while the Doctor and Wondra were left running along the outside.
"Damnit...the f***ing robot's getting away!"
"Don't blame me! I didn't know he could do that! And watch the language; I don't approve of cursing. And there are children present." The Doctor protested, just as Ultron ran up the side of the wall of the gym, prompted the Doctor to stop running, a dejected look on his face. "Well, I didn't expect that, either. Drat." Wondra stopped next to him, panting, and gave him a dirty look...as best she could with her hands on her knees.
"Drat? Drat? DRAT?! We just let one of the worst supervillains out there escape into...I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TIME WE'RE IN!"
"Calm down, Lee. We'll find him. And...judging by the location, the rooms we passed, and everything else, we're in the Claremont-Gruenwald Academy, in New York, in the year 2058. Not a bad time...but not exactly a good place to be if you're an unregistered superhuman." That prompted Jubilee to give the immortal a look.
"What...? You mean....?"
"Yes...I'm sorry. For all your fighting in 2008, for all your effort, and the effort of others like you...the Initiative continues to survive, for at least another 50 years. It will end...but not in your time. Not for a long time, I'm afraid."
"...." Jubilee fell down on her backside, blinking stupidly up at the Time Lord, who just pocketed his screwdriver, and reached down to give her a hand.
"You'll get over it...they always do, in the end." The Doctor helped her up, and began to lead her back to the TARDIS...only to run into Ruby. "Oh...right. Uh...give me a moment." He reached around in one of his pockets, the infuriated woman standing in front on him, upon which he produced a card holder with a sheet of blank paper, holding it in front of her. "John Smith...with UNIT. Sorry, can't go into the details."
"That card is blank..." Ruby said, not really impressed with the Doctor.
"Oh, right, sorry. I meant this one." He produced another card holder, this one holding...a UNIT identification card reading 'Doctor John Smith, UNIT Special Advisor, Extraterrestrial Affairs.'
"I AM going to have to verify this identification, you do realize?" Ruby said, eyeing the card suspiciously, trying to judge if it was actually what it appeared to be. The Doctor just spread his arms, then put his left one around Wondra's shoulders, pulling her in close.
"Of course! We're heading back to your office anyway. We're trying to stop an insane genocidal AI from wiping out all life on the planet Earth, you see - that was the head we were chasing. You can verify that too...just look up the name Ultron." That provoked a somewhat bemused look from Ruby, who raised an eyebrow curiously.
"I see. And judging by your associate's reaction...it was you two who lost him here, wasn't it."
"Ah. Yes. Yes it was. A bit of an oversight on my part, I'm afraid. I thought I had deactivated him, but it seems he just pretended to be shut down...at which point he hijacked my frankly magnificent ship, and brought us out of the Time Vortex about 50 years too early. We were going to 2108, you see. Didn't mean to end up here. I don't really like it here. It's a mean time." The Doctor went on, somewhat rambling at this point. Ruby gave him a look, as though he were insane. She gave Wondra a look as well, the chinese girl just shrugging helplessly. "Oi! I saw that! I'm not blind, y'know. Just wonderfully magnificent." He tugged on his jacket lapels, grinning a bit.
"And a bit full of yourself as well, it seems."
"Well, that's what everyone says before they get to know me."
End Notes: And there you have it. My latest fanfiction's opening chapter. In case anyone is wondering, this isn't the entire set up. In fact, while I can't guarantee its length, this will be a fairly long story, dealing with more than one set up. This can be considered as the opening shot across the bow, so to speak. And to answer any questions to anyone not in the know, the Doctor and the TARDIS come from the BBC's classic science fiction program Doctor Who, a very long running and inspiring series that, while the current licence belongs to IDW, once had comic adventures published by Marvel Comics' UK division, and thus had contact with other Marvel characters from time to time, usually Death's Head I, Death's Head II, and Captain Britain's alternates, amongst others, depending on the story and who was cameoing in it. Some of the later appearances of other characters will also be former Marvel licences that now belong to other companies, as well as those that have never actually been part of Marvel before, but have been inspired by some of the classic hero origins, as well as the other characters in the Marvel: Tomorrow Knights series.