Chapter Thirty-Six: Doom's Quest.
Susan Storm could feel excited where she was. There are a lot of people that would give anything to be where she was there. She really wished that she had a few more sets of eyes. She just wanted to take in the majesty, the wonder, of everything that was around her. It drove her breathless. To think that she was invited to go to the fabled Fortress of Kal-El of Nova-Roma.
The science here was enough to cause a girl's head to spin. While she wasn't distracted by the shiny as much as Reed was, she could feel excited.
"So I take it that you approve," Kal commented. Sue turned towards him and gave him a momentary smile. She got up on her tip toes and she glanced into his eyes. She gave him a kiss on the lips.
She took a second to pull away and give her honest opinion. "Kal, I love everything here. I'm not going to mince words. It's amazing."
"I'm really glad that you approve but I didn't invite you here for the tour," Kal commented. Susan raised her eyebrow. She wondered what Kal had up his sleeve. "Trust me when I say this, we're going to have a nice little tour around this place, but I was wondering if I could have your help with something else."
"Oh, what would that be?" Sue asked. It went without saying that she would help him for anything.
Kara turned up at the door and greeted Sue with a smile. "We're going to bring my mother into her new body today."
"Wow, that's just….that's just amazing," Sue said. She racked her brain about this. "Now, I remember how you told me that the hard light holograms were pretty good in holding people together but this is just…..this is just different."
"Providing it works," Lara added. She had tested all of the variables. She had Gwen here to help her as well.
"Oh my God, you're Susan Storm!" Gwen yelled. She took a breath and tried to subdue herself. Still, she came face to face with a real living legend. Her breathing escalated when she looked at him.
"Yes, and you must be Gwen," Sue commented. She tried not to look too amused but the excitement bubbling through this girl's face nearly caused her to break out in amusement.
Kal cleared his throw. Gwen stood up straight and threw her head back. She nearly fell over. Kal reached over and held her up.
"Easy does it," Kal offered her. "You wouldn't want to get too excited, would you?"
"No, you wouldn't want to pass out before you see scientific history," Kara answered. She nudged Sue and grinned at her.
"Well, I'm glad to see someone who appreciates what I've done," Sue said. She stepped over. She was excited as Gwen was.
'Do I need to get a fire hose or are they all good?' Emma asked. She spoke in her usually charming voice.
'Don't worry, Emma, I'm sure that they're fine,' Kal answered. He offered a dry chuckle to them.
Sue and Gwen stood up straight.
"Alura, I'm ready if you are," Lara called to her.
"Yes, I'm ready, I want to be able to stand in a new body," Alura said. "We checked all of the variables to make sure my new body doesn't go all Bizarro."
Kal nodded. He recalled that his aunt mentioned that new clone bodies often went a bit wonky when they were transferred over. It was honestly a Kryptonian thing.
"Mother, I'm sure that it will go right," Kara said. Her, Kal, her mother, and Lara worked on this project for months.
Sue whistled at the scientific process. Kal walked her through a bit of it but it was just really something else. She brimmed with the greatest excitement.
"Stand back," Kal warned both Sue and Gwen. Both of the girls nodded and stood back.
The glass chamber to the side of them lit up. Everything started glowing around them and a body formed around them. The blonde hair was visible first as the smoke cleared. The soft skin and the curvy features continued.
Kara smiled, she forgot how much of a MILF her mother was. She could see that Kal would agree.
"Checking vital signs," Lara added. "So far so good, and now time for the neural transformation, in ten seconds."
Lara pulled some switches and the neural transformation began. The mind of Alura transferred from the crystals. They did keep a backup in the central computer. Lara kept an AI copy of herself and Kal and Kara both made AI copies of themselves. You could never be too careful.
The glass chamber opened up. Alura stepped forward. She assimilated her new surroundings and breathed in and out.
"So, how are you feeling?" Kara asked.
"I feel alive," Alura added. She was handed some clothes to change into. "Once my physical is over, I'm sure that we can give this new body a test run."
Alura gave Kal a bright smile and a suggestive wink.
"Shouldn't take too long, although there's a barrage tests to do to make sure everything is put together nicely," Lara said. Her eyes swept over Alura's body. Her first observation was that she was put together fairly nicely.
They could always go with a second opinion.
Maria Hill thought that she had been given a shift on SHIELD watch where she could just kick back and relax.
Her inner Nick Fury yelled at her that there was no rest for the wicked and they would always need to be vigilante. She tried to ignore the inner Fury when she could.
She did work for SHIELD long enough to know then when things went this quiet, then it was likely a good idea to be calm.
Maria could hear a buzzing sound. She went to answer the internal communication. She frowned. It was coming from Latveria. That didn't make sense. Doom had vanished months ago. His country was in the midst of a civil war.
"For months you have wondered where I have departed from," Doom commented in a surprisingly understated voice. There was more monotone to it than the usual boisterous nature that he had. "There is no need for to wonder, for Doom has returned."
"Track the signal!" Maria yelled.
"I'm certain that SHIELD is going to attempt to track this signal," Doom commented. Maria tried to access the internal communication links but she couldn't. "There's no need for you to do so, because I'm in control. You should just sit back and enjoy what's going to happen. SHIELD assumes that they are secure, with their flying fortress in the sky. They think that they are above Doom's law."
Maria could see the auto pilot controls engage. There was a rushing from behind her. She turned around and a frantic looking agent stood from behind the door. He sounded like he was out of breath.
"The hellicarrier is….moving on its own!"
"Yes, I'm aware of that," Maria said. She knew that there would be only be a matter of moments for them to reestablish control.
She wondered what Nick Fury would do in a case like this. Something drastic no doubt.
"Evacuate, now!" Maria yelled. She would have to think of something.
"And evacuation is not an option," Doom continued. There was a wicked tone to his voice when he spoke. Maria's eyes got completely wide. "This is the first of a new world, a new world that will be under Doom and only Doom."
Maria leaned back against the wall. She drew a deep breath in her body and she tried to figure out what they could do next.
"Is there any way to override the computer systems and cut the power and reboot it?" Maria asked. One of the agents shook his head. "Do you mind telling me how Doom got control?"
The SHIELD agent looked completely baffled. Maria wondered about some of these agents sometime. The Agent of SHIELD drew her breath and thought about it. She made her way forward with some agents following her.
She used her security guard to access another control room. Thankfully Doom did not tap into this city.
The hellicarrier jerked in mid air and caused everyone to fall over hard onto the ground. Maria got up to her feet and she wondered if Doom was going to crash the hellicarrier or had other sinister plans in mind.
There were several metal pods launching through the air. They latched onto the hellicarrier and slammed their way through the glass. A shower of glass exploded and the Doombots dropped down. There was a series of thuds when they landed hard onto the ground.
The Doombots pointed their arm cannons at the SHIELD agents. They started to fire at them.
Maria threw herself behind a console. This was absolutely insane. She remembered exactly what she didn't miss from the regular field work. The getting shot at part wasn't a real picnic to be honest. Her heart kept racing when she held herself against the wall.
There were a series of loud bangs that echoed inside. Maria wondered what was doing.
One of the Doom Bots walked into the next room. There was a silver rod that emitted from his arm.
One of the SHIELD agents rushed the Doom Bot. The agent was slammed down to the ground by a second one that lurked in the shadows.
"The only law that exists is Doom's law," the Doom Bot said. He held the agent on the ground. That allowed the Doom Bot to step towards the console.
The silver rod was inserted inside. The virus inside was transited to the world's computer systems where the Hellicarrier was.
"Do not worry, the Hellicarrier will only crash once I have crippled every single computer system on Earth," Doom continued. "They will all comply to Doom's will and Doom's law!"
Alura sat calmly. She was an impatient woman but she knew that there were some things that were worth waiting for. She could see Lara complete the scans on her.
Sue, Gwen, Kara, and Kal waited. Gwen slowly turned towards them and smiled. "So?"
"So what?" Kara asked. She wondered what was going through the mind of the devious blonde. Then again, she could be considered a devious blonde. She saw Gwen's eyes dancing with absolute mischief and the grin got wider on her face. "I don't like that kind of look on your face, it looks like….it looks like…"
"She's been choking for it for a long time," Gwen said in a blunt voice. Kara looked, she was mostly taken off guard because of Gwen just jumping in out of the blue and saying it. "Oh, you know that I'm right."
"There are certain things that you just don't come out and say," Sue said. She leaned her head down and shook her head. "I guess there are just some things that…..well some people just don't have the filter in their mind that blocks out the things that you shouldn't say."
Sue honestly didn't have any idea where she was going with this one. Kal leaned towards her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She could feel his hands rub her shoulders. She closed her eyes.
"I find her honesty to be quite refreshing."
"Yes, it's very refreshing," Sue admitted. There were just some people who didn't do honesty all that well these days.
"And you are pretty much good to go," Lara said. Alura opened her mouth. It was a measure of how well she knew her friend that Lara cut her off. "Yes, seriously, I know that you're ready to go."
"It's about time," Alura said. She didn't have that much of a chance to react.
There was an alarm that went off. A blaring sound continued to resound and she frowned.
"Oh please tell me that's not the alarm that I think it is," Alura whispered. She could see Kal look at her in a sympathetic manner.
"Afraid so," Kal reported to her.
"Yeah, I figured as much," Alura said. She figured that she wouldn't be able to be that lucky tonight.
"It's Doom," Sue whispered. That was something that caught her off guard. "What does he want?"
Kal didn't know. There was any number of possibilities with what Doom would have been after. The sensors on the Fortress were going completely insane. There was a loud round of blips and bleeps.
"Dare I ask what any of this means?" Gwen asked. Kal turned towards her.
"It means that he's trying to compromise the Fortress," Kal answered. He was frowning and he wondered how could this be even possible. He turned to Lara and his mother's mother hung open. "This shouldn't be possible, should it?"
"It isn't possible," Lara agreed. There was supposed to be nothing that should be able to penetrate the Fortress. He wasn't completely inside yet but he shouldn't have even gotten far enough to trip the emergency walls. "Not without any help."
"Who or what can help him?" Sue asked. She leaned towards the computer. She recognized a huge part of Victor's handiwork but there were also more parts on this that seemed to be utterly foreign to her. She continued to frown when she looked on in. "Do you have any ideas?"
"A few," Lara agreed. She moved in. Alura moved in next to him. "We have the alarm sensors so we should be able to add some more activity to the network to boot him out."
Lara's fingers flew across the keyboard. She was a fast typist even for a super powered Kryptonian. She needed to be to counteract the virus that was threatening to cripple the systems.
"The virus could spread all over the world, although I'm tracing the main access point, there's actually two," Lara said. She blocked any foreign influence out. She had to crash the systems and reboot them.
The Fortress went completely dark for a second and booted back up. The quick restore program of the Fortress finished in a split second and all traces of Doom was outside.
"He's in the Latverian embassy in New York," Sue answered. Her frown grew deeper. "Doom would be someone who would hide in plain sight."
"Yes, he would," Kal said. He got a message from the Black Widow.
He sent a pretty quick word back that he would be there as soon as he can. His shoulders shrugged down when he took a deep breath.
His communicator blipped. He was halfway out the door before he answered it. Kara and Sue followed him.
"Yes, Oracle," Kal said.
"The computer systems all over the world are going nuts, I'm guessing that yours hasn't been compromised yet," Barbara said. She frowned when she got word back. "Helena has her own computer system on a separate network."
"Smart woman," Kal commented.
"Yes, but she just barely booted him out as well, and my system went wonky before I got it back up," Barbara said. "We've got reserve power but if Doom cripples the main power grids, we're screwed. I know you run off of crystal power.'
Barbara paused.
"How did he hack high tech crystals?"
Kal smiled. That was a question that they would soon learn the answer to when they tracked down the one and only Doctor Doom.
There was a lot of insanity going on in the world. Time was most certainly not on anyone's side the more it passed.
There was a reason why Natasha Romanov, better known as the Black Widow, was one of the premier spies in the entire world. She was able to locate certain threads that many people weren't able to locate. Doom's broadcast crippled all of SHIELD. And now a virus was spreading through the entire world.
It was obvious as a spy what she needed to do. She needed to swoop in and cut off the source. The rest would fall from there. That was easier said than done. The woman's frown grew even deeper when she approached the situation.
There was a thumping of foot steps. Natasha held out her gauntlet and unleashed a Widow's Sting. She was actually surprised that there was only a solo Doom Bot. She knew Doom and he was always in the business of excess.
The palace doors opened up and Natasha stepped inside. She could feel the heat. Something inside of Doom's main office was generating some extremely powerful heat. Her skin tight cat suit clung to her breasts.
The woman took half of a step forward and saw Doom encased in a golden energy bubble.
"Yes, the fabled Black Widow, I wondered when you would arrive, but you should know that your attempts to fight me are extremely futile," Doom commented. His voice rumbled when he shifted within the magical bubble. "You will find that there is nothing that you can use to penetrate my shell."
"A challenge, you better stand down," Black Widow said. "You won't be able to hide beneath your diplomatic immunity for this one."
"When the entire world is mine, then diplomatic immunity is just minor," Doom commented. The man heated up the bubble and he controlled a huge set of lasers on the wall.
The lasers fired towards the Black Widow but a blur shot in and knocked her out of the way. They harmlessly slammed into each other.
Natasha could feel breathless when Ultraman showed up.
"I wondered when you would show up," Natasha commented. She looked at Kal. A part of her was appreciative with what he did. Another part of her was simply annoyed. "You should know that I had this all well under hand."
"So you think," Kal said. He wasn't about to argue with a woman regarding something like this. "But you can't deny that any extra hand is appreciated."
"No, I can't," Natasha commented.
She would have to agree with that and she absolutely hated it when someone like that was right.
"So, you thought that you could stop me."
"There's no thinking about it," Kal said. He raised his hands into the air and clapped his hands.
Doom was rocked within his own bubble. His armor protected him from going down completely hard.
Kal needed to calculate the force that he needed to burst the bubble. All he needed to do was to time this one properly. Any mistake and he would have broken every bone in his body or burned his entire office.
He had the technology to regrow it but it hurt like a bitch and a half. He took aim with his arm and fired a rocket buster of a punch.
His arm slammed into the side of the bubble. He could feel a racking bit of pain escalate through his arm. It was beyond anything that he ever felt in his life.
He was knocked backwards and slammed onto the ground hard. It could have been far worse. The bubble burst and now it was time to stomp Doom down to the ground.
He rushed Doom and grabbed him around the neck. He knew immediately what he was dealing with.
"Let me guess, it's a Doombot,' Natasha commented dryly.
"You are a fool if you think that you can stop, Doom, alien," Doombot said in Doom's voice. "I have a new partner and he has just about as much reason to take you down as well."
Kal decided to take the consolation prize for what it was and rip him in half. He got the communication from Kara.
"The Hellicarrier is safely to the ground," Kara commented.
"And Doom isn't anywhere else," Sue reported in towards him. "He has to be somewhere in the world, isn't he?"
"He's exactly where he wants to be," Kal commented in an absolutely grim voice. Time was not certainly on their side.
There was no use in controlling the world when it was absolutely destroyed. That was something that he could take to the bank.
He needed to find Doom. Time was running out and it most certainly wasn't on his side or anyone else's side.
Doom's plan was beginning to unfold but he didn't know where to begin. That was something that he would have to piece together on his own much later.
The rumbling echoed above his head. There was another crash and a louder boom. Kal could tell that there was chaos in the world. His hearing picked things up but there were too many places to go at once.
Gwen was honored to touch the powerful super computer, much less help with trying to locate the source of the extremely mysterious virus.
Kara returned and stood over her shoulder.
"I feel like I'm back in typing class at school," Gwen commented. Kara rested her hands on the chair. "But I think that I've got it….it leads to ESU and there's something that leads back to Milton Fine."
"Fine?" Kara asked. She was completely taken aback by this and why wouldn't she be? Fine had assisted Magneto but had turned on him and drove him completely mad.
Or did Fine turn on him really? Fine seemed to be one of those people who was playing a far more elaborate game than most were. Kara shuddered to think what that man was capable. He was capable of something, that was for sure. The blonde didn't really understand what that was but that didn't matter right now for time was running out.
Kara saw something else peculiar. She gasped just as Kal-El showed up behind her.
"What's wrong?" Kal asked. He had never seen Kara so distressed. Her eyes were glued to the screen and she frowned.
"I've never seen anything like that on my life, at least not on Earth," Gwen though. She was surprised. No wonder anyone couldn't figure out this computer virus because it was written in a language that no one could comprehend.
She had to amend that because it was obvious Kal and Kara understood it. Kara was a bit slow to answer, which surprised her. She did answer though after a moment.
"Yes, you wouldn't have seen it anywhere, because that language is Kryptonian, it's written in Kryptonian," Kara said. She frowned. "That means that Milton Fine….is Kryptonian."
"Are you sure?" Gwen asked. She had read about Doctor Fine and while the number of books that he put out a year were super human, she figured that he had a team of ghost writers. But if he did that himself, then he was an alien.
"There's only one way to find out," Kal replied.
"Go to the source, and get some answers from Fine," Kara said.
"Do you think that he's working for Doom willingly?" Gwen asked.
"He's done enough odd things recently to make him worthy of investigation," Kal said. Gwen suited up and realized that the two of them were gone.
"I hate when they do that," Gwen grumbled. She was left embarrassed and choking their dust.
To Be Continued On January 12th, 2015.