I do not own Dragonball Z, Justice League, Batman Beyond, Teen Titans, X-Men Evolution, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Bleach, or Yu Yu Hakusho
****Chapter 17: Revival****
Charles Xavier's eyebrows rose slightly as the rumble of the white and black sports car shut off in front of the large manor. Tony Stark got out of the vehicle and walked over to the main door with a casual swagger. As was consistent with popular media of the man, he was dressed in full and expensive looking business suit and over large designer glasses covering a good portion of his face with a smile bordering on a smirk.
"Good morning, Mr. Stark," Charles said, greeting him as he walked up the steps. "What brings you here?"
"Morning, Wheels," Tony said, removing the glasses from his face and squinting slightly into the morning sun. "Got a couple of questions about mutants. Figured you would be the best person to talk to."
Charles nodded slightly, ignoring the greeting. "Perhaps a phone call would have surfaced?"
"Not for something this sensitive," Tony said.
"In an alien invasion you're worried about tapped lines?" Charles asked with a hint of amusement.
"Not mine," Tony said, walking past Charles and into the mansion. "Yours."
"Alright," Charles said, turning and following Stark into the manor. Several feet into the manor, Tony rounded a corner to find Logan leaning casually against one wall.
"Hey, buddy," Tony said with a smile and pat on his shoulder as he walked past. There was a muted shink, and Tony came to an abrupt halt as Wolverine's three blades rested across the front of Tony's suit. "Logan, right?"
"That's right, bub," Logan said, meeting Tony's eyes unblinkingly. "I know who you are. S.H.I.E.L.D.s little puppet."
"I don't know about that," Tony said with an easy smile. "But actually, you knew Captain America, didn't you?" Logan snarled, his claws pressing a little harder into Tony's chest. "Why don't you join us?"
"Maybe I will," Logan snarled, retracting his claws allowing him to pass.
Charles nodded slightly, raising a hand to calm him down.
"Nice piano," Tony said running a hand over one side of the burgundy instrument. "Steinway?"
"Cristofori," Charles corrected.
"Ah," Tony said, bringing himself around to the front and sitting down at the keys. Lifting his hands, he began to play. It was a classical piece but definitely no Beethoven. Still, from everything he had heard about Stark, Charles wouldn't have guessed that he would know something that could be considered refined.
"Let's get down to it," Logan said. "What is it you want?"
"Trying to learn something about the X-Gene that makes a mutant a mutant," Tony said, continuing to play. "Got a little project going on and Jarvis could only pull up limited information on what I need. Thought you might be a better source."
"I will do what I can," Charles said. "How specialized are you looking for?"
The music stopped as Tony ran a hand through his hair and turned a more serious attention toward the two mutants. "Fury has asked me to do something that I am not really sure how to feel about."
"What is it?" Charles asked.
Tony's eyes flicked to Logan. "He wants me to resurrect Captain America."
"WHAT?" Logan roared.
"Hold on," Tony said, raising a hand to prevent Logan from diving off the deep end. "Firstly, Fury didn't come to this decision lightly but with the world the shape it is in, we figured that the world could use a hero like Captain America back."
"We?" Logan snarled.
"Fury," Tony corrected. "I happen to think he might be right. We need all the help we can get."
"You listen to me," Logan said taking a step closer to Tony. "Rogers is sick. You can't just let him wake up in the state he is in. He will die."
"Which is why Fury came to me," Tony said. "He gave me all the specs available on Operation Rebirth and everything he has on Captain America's condition. Unnatural Amyloid rooted itself into his cells causing cellular degeneration that cannot be cured by any conventional means because it is an artificial variant. There are other factors but the bottom line is that it affects normal humans but not mutants." Tony shifted his eyes back to Charles.
"And you need to know how to recreate mutant DNA." Charles ran a hand over his bald head
"You have got to be kidding me," Logan said, still angry.
"You said you would help however you could," Tony reminded Xavier. "Were those just words or did you mean it?"
"You are going to be fine, John," Shayera said, resting a hand on John's slumped shoulders for the umpteenth time.
"No, I'm not," John said, again for the umpteenth time.
"Sure you will," Helena said, walking over to the two and lightly straining the water out of her hair. "Besides, that ring doesn't make you the warrior. You have proved that countless times in the past."
"But the ring gave me the power I needed in order to fight," John said. "Without it, I could be the most talented fighter in the universe and it still wouldn't matter."
"I don't believe that's true, John," Shayera said. "You can always make a difference, whether you are fighting or not. The ones who aren't always fighting make the biggest difference."
John put a hand on Shayera's. "Thanks." Shayera smiled down at him and hugged him hard.
Helena rolled her eyes slightly, knowing from experience that these two would begin swapping spit any second. They had been doing that for the last five days now and frankly, she was sick of it and that annoying sucking sound that went with it. Why God had to create such a sound was beyond her but it would seem that both God and the universe loved to find new ways to torment her.
She settled for straining the rest the water from her hair with her back to the two on a large rock nearby, then drying it with a controlled wave of energy. It was a trick she had learned while under Slade's employ since he was never the type to catered to female necessities in his training camp. Like all things in her life, she had either made do with what she had or had found a way around them.
She stood, ready to ask Shayera what their next move should be, but the sounds of sucking loud enough that could be mistaken for one trying to eat the others face off their head held her tongue. With a snort of disgust, Helena walked back down to the river.
Morning had come not more than an hour ago yet the sky was alive with vibrant oranges and yellows that reflected off of the calm water of Pristine Lake. Lifting herself gently from the sand, she glided over the water, allowing her left big toe to drag lightly through the liquid coolness. Morning mist still rolled lightly over the water, slowly obscuring her from the beach. She continued forward closing her eyes and allowing her other senses do the driving. She frowned, her stretched senses picking up a hissing sound around her. She opened her eyes and tried to spot the source, thinking maybe a snake or something was nearby but there was nothing obvious.
That was when something huge and heavy fell on her, forcing her down into the water with a spectacular splash. A burst of bubbles exploded out of her mouth by the unexpectedness of the attack, obscuring her vision of her attacker with a flurry of bubbles but even without sight, the massive hand closing around her neck was all the indication she needed.
She swung a hand up, the movement seeming agonizingly slow under the water, and trying to break the aliens grip but was forced to move her head instead as the aliens face arced forward, snapping at her face. With a blast from her other hand, she blew the alien off just as they reached the bottom of the lake.
She bounced off the lake bottom slightly as the alien itself landed heavily on its feet and she immediately pushed off toward the surface and air. She had barely started upward when the alien's hand reached up, grabbed her by the leg, and slammed her back down to the floor. Bouncing back up to her feet, Helena's hand reflexively went to her throat as the lack of air started to get to her. She looked up as the alien started forward, a cloud of fish scurrying out of the way as the beast kicked up clouds of mud in its wake, its eyes locked onto her and ready to prevent any more attempts to reach the surface. That left one option.
The edges of her red hair glowed yellow as her eyes glowed blue. All around her, steam bubbles rose around her even as the water itself began to swirl around her. On the surface of the lake, the calmness that had been the hallmark of Pristine Lake was now roiling and swirling. As her transformation took hold and her yellow aura blazed around her, the water burst away, standing high in a full circle around them similar to the stories of Moses as her power forced it away.
Air engulfed her and she gasped for a moment, stumbling slightly with the sudden return of gravity as the buoyancy that gave her the feeling of weightless evaporated. At the rim of the towering water, Helena could see Shayera circling above out of her peripheral vision but paid her no mind. Shayera was ineffectual against these things and John was currently ringless. That meant it was up to her to kill this alien.
She rushed forward, skidding to a stop just short of the alien and missing its vicious first swing. She countered with back fist and simultaneously blocked a kick from the brute. She ducked a counter blow and swung a right kick up and around that landed hard along the alien's armored neck. She was forced to continue to rotate, a bad position as it put her back to the alien, to dodge another blow.
As she finished the turn, she swung her left hand down and blocked the kick she knew was coming, slapping it away and bringing her right hand up in an uppercut. The alien moved its head just enough to make her miss and brought both of its arms around as if trying to smash her between them. She brought her own arms close to her body and blocked the crushing attack with her forearms. With her left hand, she grabbed hold of the aliens right arm tried a palm heel strike but the aliens foot struck first.
The blow sank into her stomach with such force that her legs where nearly knocked out from under her. She reached a hand down briefly to help keep her balance but before she could ready herself for another attack, the alien's hand had gripped around her throat and it helmeted head lanced forward and crashed hard into her forehead.
She reeled backward as the force of the blow had knocked her out of its own hand and she felt blood run down her face just before the tower of water that her power had been holding back broke and crashed down on top of her. The water swirled and threw her around like being flushed down a toilet for a few moments before something grabbed her and hauled her from the unsettled lake by the waist. It was a green vice.
The vice set her down gently on the ground at the edge of the water just as Shayera flew over and John ran down to her as the green vice faded away. Helena shoved Shayera away and wiped a hand to clear the blood from her eyes just in time to see the glowing green figure hovering in the sky shoot another beam of green into the water and haul a struggling alien out of the water. Lifting it above the green figure, the alien was shot out of the atmosphere in deep into space.
Helena struggled to her feet and stood shoulder to shoulder with John as the figure flew over to them. It was another Green Lantern, this one human like John but with wavy brown hair and mask that covered his eyes and nose. His eyes looked Helena up and down for a moment with a slight smile on his face and ran his hand unconsciously through his hair before turning his attention to John.
"Hey, John," Kyle Rayner said with a big smile. "Been a long time."
"No kidding," John said, reaching out and shaking hands with his fellow Lantern as Kyle landed. Then John's face saddened. "I guess you're here to replace me."
Kyle continued to smile and reached a hand outward. "Not quite." Opening his hand palm upward, Kyle revealed a single power ring. John stared at it for a moment before returning his gaze to Kyle. "The Guardians are unsure as to what happened with your ring or even how it was even possible but they seem to think that if you are still worthy of the ring, then you are still welcome as a Lantern."
Helena looked at it hard for a moment before reaching forward and grabbing the ring, and placing it on the ring finger of her left hand. It subsequently popped off as if spring loaded and landed back in Kyle's hand.
Kyle grinned at her even as John and Shayera both sent disapproving looks her way. "Don't worry, babe, not everyone was meant to be a Lantern."
Helena met his eyes and shrugged slightly. "I'm alright without it." With that, she lost her transformation, her golden hair reverting back to red and her eyes back to green.
Kyle watched her with curiosity, seeming fascinated with her before John cleared his throat and lifted his right hand. He concentrated hard, willing the ring to come to him. For a few moments, the ring didn't move. Then it quivered, rose slightly in the air, and flew onto the middle finger of John's right hand.
Warmth flooded through John, not the physical kind like hot and cold, but the kind of warmth that is received from seeing an old friend again, filling a small part of him. Green glowed around him for a moment before erupting around him. Unlike the Saiyans aura, this one was non destructive. It was a beacon, a signal.
Lifting his right hand, John closed a fist. The light that had spread around the group retracted rapidly back to the ring, then burst into the sky in a beam that could be seen high into the atmosphere, into space, and traveling back to Oa as a sign that John had been accepted once more.
Nick Fury ignored the constant clattering of rotor blades as he looked southeast and saw a beam of green light shoot into the sky for a moment before vanishing out of sight. He barely noticed when the S.H.I.E.L.D. chopper settled down on the grounds of the Xavier Institute. He doubted very much that it had been of the invaders design and even if it had been, there was nothing he could do about it now. Lifting a hand as the ramp lowered to the ground, he replaced his shredding tooth pick with another between his teeth.
The X-Men were already waiting for him as he walked down and it came as no surprise that Logan was in the front of the group, his face blank. Behind him, the full assembly of the X-Men stood behind Xavier. Most of them anyway. One seemed absent, the one they called Cyclops. In the past, he had always seemed to be the leader under Xavier. According to Kitty Pryde, he had some sort of break down when his wife had died a few years ago.
He reached the bottom of the ramp and placed one hand on his hip and the other played with the end of his tooth pick. "Charles," he said, nodding slightly to Xavier then turned the attention of his eye to Logan. "I need to borrow your boy, here." Charles nodded back, resting his head silently on his fingers.
"Let's go, Logan," Fury said and turned without another word and walked back up the ramp knowing that Logan would follow. Sitting down on the seat, he leaned back to allow Logan to pass by. Gently, the chopper lifted off and headed back to S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters.
"Alright, Patch, what is it you want?" Logan asked.
"Keeping on old promise," Fury answered.
Logan looked sharply at Fury. "You mean Stark found a way to heal Capt.?"
"It seems so. We are going to be waking him up once we arrive."
Logan leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "Over fifty years."
Fury rested a hand on Logan's shoulder. "If wonder boy does his job right, you'll see him again in fifty minutes."
"Ok, now that everybody is finally here, we can finally unfreeze the iceman," Tony said, clapping his hands together and making the goggles on his head jiggle slightly as Logan and Fury settled themselves into place next to Captain America's still frozen body laying atop a medic sized bed. Small holes had been drilled in the ice that had been encased around him as backup during the transport for wires that would eventually track the heart beat and other vitals had been fed through. "Come on, come on, we haven't got all day here, right? Kinda have an emergency out there, don't we?"
"Just get it started, Stark," Fury growled.
"Your recommendation is noted," Tony said with a grin. "And, in fact, already acted upon. The injection to cure the Capt. was administered nearly two hours ago. All that's left is to melt him out." Fury gestured impatiently toward Captain America and Tony bowed exaggeratedly. "Jarvis, fire up the heaters. I want him outta there as quickly and safely as possible."
There was a gentle hum and four machines lowered themselves from the ceiling. They were not heaters, of course, but highly sophisticated lasers that would simultaneously rid Captain America from the ice, but also thaw him without harming him. A trickier process than it sounded. Slowly, the ice melted and puddled on the floor and into a drain and Captain America was finally and for the first time in nearly six decades, free. With one more machine, the Captain's heart was jump started. The attached monitors all jumped to life as, with a gasp, Captain America returned to the living.
"One resurrected super hero as ordered," Tony said as with a flutter, Captain America's eyes opened.
To be continued...
Finally, John got his ring back! Not only that, now we have Kyle Rayner has joined the team as well. And Captain America is finally awake and the Avengers' last member is now in play. As the world grows more desperate, the strongest teams are formed. Let us see what they can do.
And speaking of teams, where have Yusuke and Ichigo's team been? Perhaps we will see what Shonen Jumps' characters have been up too.
Thank you all for your reviews everybody. I am really glad to see what you guys think. It means a lot to me.
Thank you, Kobez2.0 for the beta read! You are the best.
I am going to try and post every Friday now. See you in one week!