A quick note of explanation for delays in parts: I want to write professionally for a living. When my brain will do it, that means that I'll be concentrating on original, saleable fiction. That's been going on for a couple of weeks. When that fountain shuts off, though I'll work on this and on DC Unified. Sorry for the delays, folks- and thanks for reading!
Marvel Prime 011
"You know, this isn't really a healthy response to trauma, Miss—"
"Fabian. I pay you to make me weapons, not to headshrink me."
"Yes, but—"
"Fabiannnnn…!"
"Yes, Miss." The man turned back to his workbench. "By making the shafts and fletching one solid piece, made of titanium-tungsten-steel alloy, I can guarantee you that carrying a lot of arrows won't damage them. That solves the crowded-quiver issue— fletchings pressing up against each other won't ruin the arrows. They're very probably the most expensive arrow shafts ever made, but it's your money to spend as you wish.
"The bow itself… I can make it collapsible, but not without sacrificing some of its durability." Seeing his employer open her mouth, he raised his hand. "I'm an engineer, Miss. I can't change the laws of physics.
"However; what I can do is, rather than making your bow collapsible, make you a spare one that is. It won't have the punch of your regular bow, but it will be concealable, and it should do in a pinch."
"That'll do." The young woman smiled and said, "You know, the night you broke in here was maybe the best thing that happened to either of us lately, Fabian. I got so fascinated by your tools while I was looking them over that I couldn't quite make myself call the police."
"And you do pay well," Fabian said. "I just wish that you'd… well, go to the Olympics in 2016, or something a little less dangerous."
"Fat chance," she said, picking up an arrow and eyeing the peculiar construction of the tip; it was an ovoid about the size of her two thumbs pressed together, with a lot of holes cut in it. She grinned. "Okay. Now we finish up the rest of the gadget arrows and I learn their layout in the quiver. Then… I make my presence felt."
"You should probably decide on a codename," Fabian said, "and make yourself a costume."
"Codename's settled," she said. "Costumes… I've got eight done already. I just have to decide which one to wear first." At Fabian's eye-rolling look, she said, "Hey, I'm not wasting that education I got. Parson's School of Design isn't cheap, you know."
"What are you planning for a codename, if I may ask?"
"First time I brought home an archery medal from camp— gold, no less— Daddy gave me a nickname," she said, her eyes far away. "That… that's my codename.
"I came home, he hugged me, I showed him the medal, and he laughed and said, 'Well, I guess we'll have to set up an archery range in the back yard.'
"Then he did it. And every time he came out to watch, he'd ask, 'How's it going, Hawkeye?'
"I'm going to be Hawkeye.
"Daddy would like that."
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"Danny, are you sure about this?" Jean Grey asked her boyfriend.
"I'm sure," he said. "You heard Roman. They're going to pressure me to use it for movies. That's… using my skill to entertain, that's one thing. But the power… I went through way too much to get it to use it for something so… frivolous."
"He'll blackmail you, Danny," Jean said. "He will— he's an absolute asshole."
"Would you blackmail a man who can put his hand through a bank vault door without hurting himself?" Danny Rand asked in return.
"No, but I'm not a greedy damned idiot like Roman Nabokov, either," Jean said. "Danny, if this goes bad—"
"Jean," Danny said, taking her hands in his. "Jean, I want him to out me."
"You— wait, what?"
"I can't fire the little toad," Danny Rand said, smiling a little, "until he violates the terms of the contract we signed. He hasn't, yet. I've gone over it really carefully with help from… a friend who used to be a lawyer, and he says that me going out and being a superhero is in no way a violation of that contract.
"But if I go out there and be a superhero and Roman Nabokov outs me to try to control me, it's a violation of the privacy clause in my contract, and I can fire him, quit working for Hoboken Studios, get a real agent, and maybe some real movies. Stuff that isn't made on a shoestring and aimed at two weeks in the theaters then two more weeks to DVD.
"I'm not expecting to be nominated for an Oscar or anything, but movies with better plots, maybe some costars who can actually act, and just possibly—" He pulled Jean close and kissed her, "—enough of a budget that I can engage in some nepotism, and make the studio pay my girlfriend to write and perform a song for the soundtrack."
"Oh," Jean said, smiling widely. "Daniel Thomas Rand, for a chop-socky movie star, you're pretty darned smart.
"I approve— just so long as you're careful. You come home to me, every night. No broken bones, no getting captured by bad guys, and most definitely no getting killed."
"That's the plan," Danny said. He kissed her once more, then stepped back and put on the last piece of his costume, the gold-colored, tie-on cloth mask that covered everything but his eyes. "You know, I'm glad you convinced me to go with this instead of the one that only covered the upper half of my face. I just… never really thought about people recognizing me."
"You're insane," Jean said, rolling her eyes. "Danny, the reason you have so many fans in the twelve-to-sixteen crowd is because of teenage girls. I do pay attention to the crowds at premieres, you know.
"Okay, one more question; what are you going to call yourself?"
Daniel Rand stood up straight, and the green, subtly scaled-patterned cloth of his shirt hung smooth, showing the golden dragon patterned there. The loose pants he wore bloused into thin-soled gold-colored boots were the same deep green as the shirt and had the same scale pattern to them.
"Hmm. Golden Dragon?" Jean guessed.
"No, that's just to acknowledge where I got the power," Daniel said. "I'm going to call myself after the power itself.
"I'm going to be Iron Fist."
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"Mein gott!" The little man stared at the television, not really believing what he saw. "Es ist der amerikanische Supersoldat!"
He watched the entire news program, listened carefully, compared what he saw and what was said with his own memories of the hated American, and decided that it might well be him. Damn Zemo and his incompetence— he should never have used an energy weapon anywhere near a dimensional portal, the fool.
The news program ended. He stared for a moment longer, then went to his lab. He'd been working on the solution for a long time, but now he had to take risks. If he did not wake him soon— very soon, after seeing the verdammt Captain America— the punishment would be too horrible to contemplate when he did awaken him.
"I will need… supplies. And there is only one place where I even might obtain them swiftly. I will need to hire someone to cause a distraction, a very large one. Even so… robbing such a facility may be very difficult.
"I must be careful. I dare not fail."
The man sat down at his computer— a top-of-the-line research model, heavily expanded and modified— and called up the schematics he had long since obtained.
"Roxxon Biochemical will have what is needed," he muttered as he studied the floor plan of their Manhattan facility. "All I need to do is create a large enough diversion that I can procure everything without interruption or capture.
"I think a breakout of some of their more… dangerous experiments would be the way to go…."
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"I… I'm standing in a room with Captain America," Tony Stark said, a slightly stunned smile breaking across his face. "My grandfather talked about you a lot, sir."
"Your grandfath— holy cats, you're Robert Stark's grandson." Captain America shook his head and said, "Mister Stark, it's a very small world. Your grandfather made this shield." Cap hefted his left arm a little. "He also helped Doctor Erskine with the physics part of the super-soldier process."
"There was a physics— no, never mind," Tony said. He turned to Shadowcat. "Ma'am, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'd like to thank you— both of you, in fact— for saving my friends yesterday." He shivered once. "That was… ugly. Mary Jane and Peter both say that they'd have been killed if you two hadn't shown up, and neither is subject to exaggeration, so… thank you both. Very much."
"It was a pleasure," Captain America said. He then took off his mask. "I'm Steve Rogers. You can call me Steve, Mr. Stark."
"Peter and MJ trust you," Shadowcat said. "In fact, you made Peter's armor— and MJ says you made her costume." She took off her mask. "I'm Katherine Pryde. You can call me Kitty."
Tony blinked. He frowned a little, then snapped his fingers. "Computer sciences, hardware a specialty, good with software, but prefer the engineering end of things.
"Good grief. You were an applicant for my intern spot, too."
"That's just weird," Peter said from the nearby workbench where he was doing something to the Iron Man helmet. "Tony, please, tell me that Flash Thompson didn't even try to apply for the internship. Eugene Thompson, I mean. I couldn't handle it if that schmuck got super powers."
"Ditto," MJ said from the workbench nearer Tony, where she was hooking a computer up to several odd peripherals.
"You're safe, guys," Tony said. "I don't know the name."
"Steve, you weren't kidding. The world is positively tiny, on occasion. And I'm Tony— to both of you, please.
"Okay, Kitty, I'm going to drive you crazy asking you to desolidify yourself in various and sundry ways over the course of the day. Just so you're forewarned."
"If I'm a good girl, can I have a look at the control code for Peter's armor?" Kitty asked brightly. "You know, instead of a lollipop?"
Tony snorted a laugh and said, "That seems fair. MJ, get Kitty a diagnostic suit, show her where to change.
"Ca—Steve. Steve, it occurs to me that you might have trouble getting work, even ID. I can help with that, I think, if you're willing to… ah, sidestep the law."
Steve Rogers frowned. "I'm not sure… I mean, I'd like to have an ID that I can use, sure, but… I'm not really comfortable with stepping outside the law more than I absolutely have to."
"I guess I can understand that," Tony said. "However… Steve, have you heard any of the government officials that have been asked for reactions to your return?"
"A few," Steve admitted, a frown creasing his face. "I'm grateful to the President for… well, for saying that he wants me to be left alone, but the things said by others before that…."
"I don't know which bugged me more," Tony sighed. "Secretary of Defense Shaw maintaining that you're actual military property, or Attorney General Frost saying that if you don't turn yourself in, you're guilty of desertion."
"President Obama stepped on both," Steve said, shrugging. "I'm not worried. Much."
"Is it just me," MJ asked as she went back to work on hooking everything Tony wanted up to the computer, "or does it take a special kind of stupid to talk about a person being property when you work for a Black president?"
"I hadn't even thought of that," Tony chuckled. "Point, MJ— and a good one.
"Anyway… Steve, I can help. Yes, it's illegal— but right now, I refuse to call it immoral to set you up with solid ID that will withstand even deep background checks. You may have a very real need for it."
Steve hesitated for a long moment, then looked sideways at the bathroom where Kitty had gone to change into the unitard Tony wanted her to wear while he examined her.
She's… my little sister. I'm responsible for her, in a way. I owe it to her to stay free, to stay active, to help her out as Captain America, and as just… her big-brother figure. Her friend.
"Set me up," Steve said. "You can do whatever you like for a middle and last name, but I'd like to keep 'Stephen' for a first name, please. Oh— and we've sort of established a history for me that explains my lack of familiarity with the modern world." He quickly summed up the story that he and Kitty had come up with.
Tony nodded. "Soon as I get the scan on Kitty started. Peter and MJ can handle most of the tests, but they won't have to do so for long— fixing you up won't take much time."
Kitty came out in the unitard, Tony started the scan, then told his interns to handle stage two while he "set the good captain up with an actual identity."
In twenty minutes, Steve was Stephen Thomas Mauer, and had a complete packet of necessary documentation that dovetailed neatly with his fictional background.
"Mauer?" Steve said, laughing a little. "That's… I like it."
"No one would expect it of Captain America, would they?" Tony said, grinning. "And it makes sense given the German ancestry of a lot of Amish folk."
"Thank you, Tony," Steve said. "Hopefully, I can find a way to repay you."
"You could tell me all about the super-soldier process, that'd more than pay me back." Tony grinned. "Science Lad wants to know everything, don'tcha know?"
"I'm game," Steve said. "Another time, though— I want to be able to stop worrying that Kitty's going to get stuck in her ghostly form, or worse."
"And on that note," Tony said, "time for me to go to work.
"Okay, MJ, where are we in the test cycle?"
They broke for lunch, eaten in the lab, then finished Tony's tests, including some he thought up after seeing the results of others.
By two o'clock, Tony had finished his tests. He looked at Kitty, surrounded by the others, and said, "You're going to be fine. No danger of getting stuck phased— you're phasing slightly out of reality and even more slightly out of the actual present— or of disintegrating or anything."
Kitty let out a big sigh, mimed mopping her brow, then said, "Okay, wait; phasing out of reality and out of now? How's that work?"
"The phasing out of reality… you're re-aligning your entire molecular structure to some tiny percentage of a different… for lack of a better term, a different angle of reality." Tony grinned. "I may have to invent some more science just to explain everything completely.
"The time thing… when you phase without added concentration, you are also moving your body roughly… seven one-hundredths of a second into the future. Your body, because of passing through the temporal gate that brought Cap forward, is adapted to that. Other people's bodies? Not so much. Thus the pain you cause while passing through another person— temporal shock. When you do it to a head… it's worse. Because the brain is more complex, you are likely to knock out any non-super who is not trained in exceptional mental discipline— special forces types, some cops, even some martial artists— whose head you pass through with even just a hand."
"Oh." Kitty looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "Well, that certainly is a relief. I was trying not to worry, but you know, weird powers, no idea why… a little creepy."
"Try getting spider-powers and not knowing if you're going to need to have jeans made with four extra legs," Mary said brightly. "The relief is huge, isn't it?"
"Pretty much," Kitty said. "Okay. Can I get back into my costume, now?"
"Sure," Tony said. He grinned. "I need to have a lab accident, I think. You guys are really good at what you do, and I want to help."
"So, building the armor that I use to save lives, keeping it in good repair, modifying it to do the job efficiently, that's not helping?" Peter asked. He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Then there's helping us figure everything MJ can do and making her costume. Then we get to agreeing to test someone who helped us without so much as looking annoyed, and you don't think you're helping?
"You're weird, Tony."
"Score one for Peter," Kitty snorted. "Nice one, Parker."
"Thank you, thank you," Peter said, bowing slightly. "I'm here all week. Try the veal!"
MJ, Kitty and Tony all laughed. Steve just looked puzzled.
"Never mind, Steve," Tony said, still chuckling. "It'd take a long time to—"
An explosion sounded somewhere outside, near enough— or big enough— to rattle the windows of even the top stories of Stark Technologies, some eighty stories above the street.
"They're playing our song," Peter said after glancing out a window and seeing a column of smoke some blocks away. He moved to the corner of the lab where the Iron Man armor stood even as MJ grabbed her backpack and headed for the bathroom.
"Yeah, well, if this turns out to be a super-powered Flash Thompson, you're in big trouble, Peter Parker," Mary said as she crossed the lab.
"What she said," Kitty agreed, following MJ into the bathroom. "Don't leave without us, guys."
"Hurry," Captain America said, pulling his mask back on.
In less than a minute, the four heroes went out the window, Iron Man carrying Captain America on his back, Spider-woman swinging at speed, and Shadowcat trying something that she'd been assured would work, and had decided to test while the others were around to catch her. She simply jumped, let gravity work its way on her for long enough to accelerate to about seventy miles an hour, then phased, and turned all of that momentum into forward motion. It worked, and she was able to accelerate by solidifying again when her momentum bled off.
Iron Man and Captain America arrived at the source pillar of smoke first, and Iron Man said, "Well, Tony's going to have a field day with this."
The Roxxon Biochemical building that had been the source of Mary Jane's superhero career had several large holes— Iron Man could see five— in its side at various height, three of them pouring lots of smoke into the air. The lowest was about four stories up, the highest more like fifty, so two-thirds of the way up the seventy-five story building.
At first, nothing dangerous could be seen— just people coming out of the Roxxon building in droves, many of them coughing or choking. Iron Man touched down, Cap dropped off of his back and started towards the main entrance. "Can you check the problem areas higher up, Iron Man?"
"On it." The armored hero lifted from the ground and started for the hole that was four stories up. He saw Shadowcat arc into a hole at about ten stories, moving at about the speed of a running man, and grinned. She couldn't exactly fly, but Tony's thoughts on harnessing momentum and her ability to stay airborne were plainly working.
Iron Man went in the hole that started at the fourth floor, went up into the sixth, and sealed the armor as he did so that he wouldn't be breathing any smoke. He landed, scanned around with infrared, found the source of the fire, and headed that way. The automatic sprinklers in that area had failed, but there were fire extinguishers on the walls, and he grabbed three, tucking two under his left arm, using the third with his right.
In short order, Iron Man had the main fire out, and he saw no people moving anywhere. There were two human forms nearby, though, and he could tell that both were still alive. He did a quick scan of each with the vibratory sonar that Tony had used to scan MJ back when she'd first gotten her powers, saw no broken bones on either man's form, and scooped them up. He flew out with one person over each shoulder, landed next to an ambulance, and let the EMTs take the people off of his shoulder to begin treating them.
"No major bones are broken," he said as the EMTs started work. "It was smoky in there when I started, they've probably inhaled a lot of it."
"All right, thanks, Iron Man," said the nearest EMT as he slipped an oxygen mask onto the fortyish man he was examining. "Firefighters are only— never mind, there they are."
Several fire trucks pulled up, and Iron Man went back up to the second smoking hole, the one that Shadowcat had gone into.
He was just in time to catch her as something or someone threw her out of the hole, unconscious and solid.
"Holy crap," he said. He clicked over to the communication device that let him speak to Spider-woman, said, "Someone or something hostile inside at the hole on the tenth and eleventh floors, northwest face, Shadowcat's injured and uncons—"
"I'm okay," Shadowcat stirred. "Not even hurt bad— I rolled with the blow, saw it coming. It's that Doctor Octopus guy. Get us in there, he was looking for something."
"Shadowcat's okay," Iron Man corrected. "Doctor Octopus is on-scene, we're going after him. I'm going to switch frequencies, let the police know, ask them to tell Cap."
"Got it," Spider-woman said. "Iron Man, there's some… thing up here with me on thirty-four. I keep hearing it, never quite see it— but whatever it is, it can move on ceilings as well as I can."
"I'll see if the Captain can come back you up," Iron Man said. "Stay sharp, Spider-woman."
"Spider-sense is keeping me safe, and I'm properly paranoid," she assured him.
Iron Man clicked over to the police frequency, said, "This is Iron Man, please be advised that Doctor Octopus is somewhere on the scene. Also, we have at least one other… being on the premises with non-human abilities and unknown intentions.
"Could someone please pass a message to Captain America that Spider-woman needs backup on floor thirty-four?"
"Roger, Iron Man, and thanks for the warning," said a police officer. "Captain America has been advised, has a firefighter's key to override the elevator shutdown, and is on his way to thirty-four."
"Thanks, sir," Iron Man said. "We'll keep you advised."
Iron Man clicked the radio to Spider-woman's frequency and said, "Cap's on his way, Spider-woman."
"Acknowledged." She sounded annoyed. "This thing's starting to piss me off— it's throwing things at me. Big things. I think that last thing was a mass spectrometer."
"That sounds irritating," Iron Man admitted. "Going dark now, and after Octopus."
Shadowcat had long since phased and stood on air facing the hole. As Iron Man switched to just ordinary speakers, she said, "I've got three of his bodies in there. No fourth. Can you scan for them?"
Iron Man did as asked, found three moving people, all the same height and build. "Just the three. How do you do that?"
"Ninja training," Shadowcat said idly. "Well, ninja-ish, anyway.
"Okay, so what's the plan?"
"He's strong, but I don't think he's a threat to me, and I know he's not a threat to you, now that you know he's there," Iron Man said. "I show one to my left, one to my right, one nearly straight ahead. How about I go left, you go right, and whoever finishes first gets the middle guy."
"Good deal," Shadowcat agreed. She started walking through the air towards the hole.
Iron Man went in and left, found the Doc Ock he was supposed to take out rooting through a series of file cabinets while whistling some odd, bouncy tune that sounded vaguely familiar. Past him, Iron Man could see a lot of glass cages on the wall, mostly about the size of a large dog carrier— and all open. Even as he muttered, "Uh-oh," something dropped from the ceiling and landed on the back of his armor, long, scaly arms reached around his head— and wrapped across his eyes.
"The hell!?" Iron Man said, surprised into saying it rather loudly. He tried to pull the what-ever-it-was off of his back, but failed abominably— the thing was fast, agile, and in a superior position.
"Honestly," Doctor Octopus said from nearby, "I'm not really sure myself. It appears to be some sort of monkey-lizard thing. I suspect the intent was to make something that wouldn't show up on infrared scans, but had high dexterity.
"By the way— goodnight!"
Something nearby made a popping noise, something like when an electrical device shorts out—
—and the armor went offline, powered down while Iron Man had both arms up and behind his head, trying to dislodge the monkey-thing that was back there.
"This," he said to himself as he realized that he couldn't even move, "is so not good."
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Shadowcat moved with every bit of the stealth that Keiko Logan had drilled into her and got right behind Doctor Octopus without him realizing that she was there.
Turnabout's fair play, she thought, remembering how he'd cold-cocked her from behind.
Without giving him any warning, she desolidified her entire right side and lunge-punched the Octopus-body's head, her fist and arm up to her shoulder passing through the duplicate's brain. He slumped to the ground without a word— and promptly vanished.
"Win," she said to herself as she solidified and started towards the Doc Ock body nearer the middle of the floor. She took a step, then froze. A shadow had passed over her, moving quickly, and she glanced up. Nothing… but she felt like she was being watched.
"This," she muttered, "is starting to creep me out."
Something hit the back of her head and she fell forward, barely caught herself on hands and knees. She tried to phase, but couldn't concentrate, and someone kicked her hard in the stomach.
"Still solid, good," said an unfamiliar voice. "Gute nacht, fraulein."
Shadowcat rolled sideways, under a work table, and something hit the floor where her head would have been, hit it hard enough to send a spray of tile and concrete chips up from the spot.
"Do not fight," said the voice, and a pair of metal-booted feet turned to point at the table. "That will only insure that your death takes longer. Does not a swift death seem better to you?"
A funny little sound from behind her distracted Shadowcat, and she glanced backwards— then smiled and dove that way even as whoever-it-was flipped the table away from where she'd been. She thought she saw something long and flexible vanish away from the unconscious guard she was now headed for, and she wondered if Roxxon had been experimenting on snakes.
I really hope not, Shadowcat thought. I'm not scared of snakes— normal ones. But not-so-normal ones, that's a whole 'nother proposition, as Keiko liked to say.
Her hand landed on the holstered Taser on the unconscious guard's hip, and she pulled it from the holster, stood, aimed it at the man who had attacked her— and froze, staring in something somewhere between horror and fascination.
"What's the matter, Schattenkatze?" asked the figure. "Have you never seen a cyborg before?"
The man looked more like a robot than a cyborg. His arms and legs were articulated metal, armored over the joints. His torso she could not see, save that it was misshapen, bulging in odd places under the simple, toga-like garment that was all he wore. His head… she'd never seen anything so disturbing in all her life as his head. Old, older than that, and older than that yet again, and encased in some sort of metal framework, like you sometimes saw on people with spinal injuries, though this one was more boxlike than round, and had glass in all four sides. Small mirrors had been mounted so that he could, presumably, see behind himself.
"I realize that I am rather… unusual in appearance, but surely I am not as hideous as all of that?" the cyborg said genially. She didn't answer, simply stood and stared, and he spoke again after a moment. "Ah, the rudeness of youth. In my day, you answered when your elders asked you a question.
"No matter. Time to die now, fraulein."
Shadowcat was still standing there, seemingly paralyzed by the site of the cyborg before her. It threw a metal lab stool at her, and the thing moved much, much faster than any normal human could have thrown it.
It passed right through her, and Shadowcat laughed as she leapt at the cyborg, phased through it, and turned to watch it fall.
"That was… painful," the cyborg said, standing there and looking at her through slitted eyes. "I have not felt pain in some years. I must thank you for the sensation."
"Crap," Shadowcat said— and moved towards the center of the room again, running full out and phasing through chairs, tables, desks, work stations, all of it.
She saw an Ock-body ahead of her, leapt at him where he bent over a computer, passed enough of her out-of-phase mass through his head to knock him out. As he fell, he disappeared, and Shadowcat kept going. Ahead of her, near the far wall, she saw an unmoving Iron Man, his hands reaching up and over his shoulders, trying to get at some sort of monkey-thing that clung there. A Doc Ock body stood nearby, looking through filing cabinets. Then she saw that the light at the center of Iron Man's chest-plate had gone dark, and figured that he'd somehow run out of power.
"And here I am with a fifty thousand volt Taser in my hands." Shadowcat grinned under her mask, and when she got close enough to her fellow hero, she fired it at him.
Almost immediately after the Taser buzzed in her hands, Iron Man's chest-plate lit up with the customary light— and she heard the whine of something, though he didn't move yet.
EM pulse of some sort? She thought. Well, that's okay, I'll give him a few seconds to reboot.
She leapt at Ock, but he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and jumped clear of her attack. She managed to brush her phased fingers through his right arm, making it go limp below the elbow and eliciting a snarled curse from him. She landed, solidified— and something hit her like a freight train. Again, she fell to the ground, both hands clenched across her stomach, where the old-fashioned electric typewriter had hit her.
"Foolish child," the cyborg said. "You spend too much time solid, trying to take advantage of you no-doubt-impressive martial arts skills. A very bad idea. Too bad you will not learn better."
"Shall I kill her, sir?" asked the Ock-body.
"No, continue looking for the information I require." The cyborg stepped closer and loomed over Shadowcat. "I haven't killed anyone in months— and this one is a Jew, if my information is correct.
"I haven't killed a Jew in… too many years."
Iron Man plainly still couldn't move to intervene, but Shadowcat heard snarled curses and threats from the direction of the armor, and tried to move. If she could move, avoid this for just a few seconds, Iron Man could finish restarting, and she could survive this.
Her stomach felt hot and tight, and her back hurt something awful. She could barely roll at all, couldn't even go from side to back. The cyborg picked up a desk from one side of the cabinets that Doc Ock was searching, raised it overhead in both hands—
—and something flew into the cyborg, wrapped around it's glass-enclosed head. Kitty had an impression of something long and purple, heard the frantic scratching of claws against glass, and managed to force a deep breath. That gave her the energy to rolls sideways, closer to the cyborg. It managed to slam the desk down on the spot where she'd been, just missed her, and reached for its face.
The whatever-it-was suddenly leapt— no, flew, it had wings— away from the cyborg's face, even as Shadowcat phased through them and finally used her head; she dove through the floor and down to the next level.
"What in the hell was that thing?" the cyborg snarled. "Where did it go?"
"I don't know what it was, I never got a good look at it." Doctor Octopus stood up straight suddenly. "Ah. My prime has what you seek. He is recalling me."
"All right," the cyborg grumbled. "I will meet you at the extraction point."
The Ock-body disappeared with an inrush of air, and the cyborg raised one hand. He pressed several buttons on the inside of his left wrist, and a square of energy seven feet on a side appeared in front of him. With a muttered curse, he stepped through— and the energy field vanished as he did so.
Less than ten seconds later, Iron Man suddenly started moving, and he fired a low-power repulsor blast at his own back. That was enough to send the lizard-monkey-thing running, and he looked around, saw no one near him, and activated his public address system, ran the auto-hack on the building's intercom system, and said to every room on his floor and the ones immediately above and below, "Shadowcat, this is Iron Man. They're gone. Please come back to the tenth floor if you can."
A moment later, Shadowcat appeared out of the floor some distance behind Iron Man, said, "Well, that was a disaster," and dropped into a chair, one hand massaging her stomach. "I'm embarrassed. And a little freaked. And embarrassed. And pissed off. And did I mention embarrassed?"
"Yeah, right there with you," Iron Man said. He went to stand beside Shadowcat, ran a thermal scan and a vibratory scan on her, then whistled. "Okay, you're officially on the sick list, 'Cat. In fact, I want… the brains of the operation to look you over. Way too much heat in your stomach. No broken bones, I don't think, but I'd feel better if the brains looked you over to be sure."
"I feel… yeah," Shadowcat sighed. "Okay. Not gonna be stupid about this, Cap would just lecture me and look at me all disappointed if I did that.
"Hey, did you see… whatever it was that saved me from the cyborg guy?"
"Nope," Iron Man said. "Couldn't even turn my head, there for a while. Thanks for the jump-start, by the way— I got E-M-P-ed, don't know how or by what.
"I'm going to check in with Cap and Spider-woman, one sec."
For a moment, Shadowcat could only dimly hear Iron Man's voice, then he switched back to standard speakers and said, "Okay, they've beaten down their… problem. Which I'm glad I missed. Seems that somebody crossed an insect of some sort with a mountain gorilla."
For a moment, Shadowcat only stared. Then she shook her head and said, "That's wrong on so many levels that I feel like I ought to get a party together and loot that dungeon."
Iron Man snorted laughter and said, "Listen, stay here— I'm gonna get that guard over there out to the ambulances, check for any civilians anywhere near trouble spots, then come back down."
Shadowcat nodded, and Iron Man flew off and out the hole in the building. He hadn't been gone for very long when Shadowcat again got the feeling that she was being watched. There didn't seem to be any malice to the observation, but she knew that someone was looking at her. Slowly, she spun in the office chair she was in, and she froze at about two thirds of the way through her spin.
Sitting on top of the file cabinets, on the one closest to Shadowcat— or, she thought, more likely the one farthest from the cages on the wall— was a… a….
"You," Shadowcat said very softly, "are a small, purple dragon.
"You saved my life, little guy. Thank you."
The thing leapt off of the filing cabinet, spread wings with a span of about five feet, flapped once, and glided to a landing on the desk that Shadowcat sat at. It sat just out of arm's reach and stared at her, cocking its head and eyeing her with golden, slit-pupiled eyes.
It looked to be around three feet long, maybe a dash more. Its tail made up a good third of that length, maybe a little more, and its neck another third. The head seemed a little large for the rest of it, and the mouth… those were the teeth of an omnivore. Sharp at the front, slightly enlarged canines, and flat molars towards the back of its slightly open mouth. If he had scales, they were too fine to see, but his skin did look smooth.
"Wow," Shadowcat said. "You're a cutie. And you saved my life. I really, really don't want to leave you here.
"You want to come with me? Get away from here?"
The little dragon, which had been sitting up on its hind legs, leaned forward and walked slowly towards the heroine on all fours. She didn't move until he stopped right in front of her, sat up, and shoved his head forward to nudge her hand. At that point, she took off her right glove and stroked the little creature's head lightly. It made a little rumble that she knew— somehow— was a sound of pleasure, and she stroked its length, slowly. The skin was smooth and slightly cool, and it wiggled a little, seemingly in delight, when her hand passed between its wings.
It stepped closer again, she stroked it again, and by the time Iron Man returned for her, it was sitting in her arms like a cat, making a happy bubbling noise as she scratched between its wings, and rubbing under her chin with the top of its head.
"Uh, Shadowcat," Iron Man said slowly. "That is… a very small dragon."
"Uh-huh," she said. She looked up at Iron Man. "He's coming with us. He's way, way too smart to leave him here to be caged like an animal, and he saved my life. And possibly yours. He's the one who called my attention to the downed guard that I took the Taser from."
"Uh, Roxxon might object," Iron Man pointed out cautiously.
"Screw them," she said flatly. "Listen, dragon— we need to show Iron Man here— he's my friend, and I want him to be yours— how smart you are.
"Iron Man, ask him to do something."
Iron Man stood silent for a moment, then said, "Okay. Listen, little guy, when they worked on you, they probably got out a bunch of paper from one of these cabinets. Can you show me which one?"
Immediately, the dragon hopped from Shadowcat's arms to the desk, then flew over to the second filing cabinet and raised up on its hind legs to nudge the second drawer up from the bottom. Iron Man went over and opened the drawer, flipped through the file folders there, and, after a moment, lifted one out. He opened it, looked from the first page to the dragon, now back in Shadowcat's arms, and sighed.
"Okay, he's coming with us," Iron Man said. He walked over and handed 'Cat the file. "Hide this under your jacket. And… listen, I'm going to take you two up a couple-three thousand feet then let you do the power-glide thing to base, Shadowcat. Okay? I'm pretty sure your little buddy there can keep up."
"Deal," Shadowcat said. "Thanks, Iron Man."
"Yeah, well," the armored hero sighed. "Anything smart enough to know where its file is kept is too smart to leave to a bunch of morons who'd make a gorillasect and a monkeyzard just because they could."
Shadowcat laughed, and Iron man did as he'd suggested, took her and her new friend ups to around four thousand feet and let them go. When he went back down to grab Cap and talk to Spider-woman, Kitty had let the dragon go, and he was gliding along above her, following her toward Stark Technologies.
Forty minutes later, Tony Stark sat staring at the little dragon, who was draped around Kitty Pryde's neck, seemingly dozing as she chatted amiably with Mary Jane. He'd consented easily to a swab of the mouth for DNA sampling— once Kitty had asked and promised that Tony was her friend, and wouldn't do anything to hurt the little dragon. That analysis was running even now, but Tony had finished reading the file on the creature, and been both horrified and impressed.
"Kitty?" Tony called, and she and MJ got up and came over to where Tony and Peter had read the file while Steve checked the news on the incident at Roxxon on the internet.
"Whatcha got, Tony?" she asked.
"Your little friend there was supposed to be an aerial spy," Tony said, tapping the file. "His genetic material, according to this, was mostly lizard and cat, with dashes of chimp and human."
"They used human DNA for— do they know how many— they can't do that!" Mary Jane said.
"I think that you're living proof that Roxxon doesn't much care for rules, MJ," Tony said dryly. He shook his head and said, "Thing is, they succeeded better than they knew. The IQ tests they gave your pal, there? He's at least as smart as a very bright human being, and there's some indication that he was… ah, throwing the tests. Failing some of them on purpose."
"No way," Kitty said, her eyes wide. The dragon lifted his head from her chest, looked her in the eyes— and unmistakably nodded. "You… wow. That's just… I mean— okay. You are not a pet. You're a friend. A non-human friend, but a friend nonetheless. Which… cool as hell.
"Listen, do you want to stay with me? Live with me at my house? You'll have to stay home alone some, when I'm at school, but I'm sure we can find something for you to do.
"How about it?"
Again, the nod— this time a rather emphatic one.
Kitty laughed, kissed the top of the dragon's head, and said, "Okay then. You need a name. Tony says you were basically supposed to be a living spy plane, so… how about Lockheed?"
In response, the dragon head-bumped Kitty's chin, and she giggled in delight. "Everybody, this is Lockheed. Lockheed, these are my friends…."
Once the introductions were done, Steve said, "Okay, this is great."
"Really?" Kitty said. "You really think so?"
"Yes," Steve said, and he nodded at Lockheed. "Because your new pal, there? He means that I just won an argument, Katherine Anne Pryde.
"Now you have to tell your mom that you're Shadowcat."
Kitty looked stunned for a long moment, then she nodded very slowly and said, "Oh. Crap. I guess you're right." She looked down at her new friend. "Well… he's worth it."
At that, Lockheed gave Kitty's cheek an affectionate nuzzle— and she laughed again.
