Yes, I am back again! I do hope you all enjoyed the last chapter. In this one, we get Lumic being more badass than the original, the appearance of a certain guy in the chair and a Big Red Button, a little foreshadowing, and several shout-outs. So, without further ado:

"Right," the Doctor announced as they crested a hill, and the factory came into view. Barry shaded his eyes from the late morning sun. "According to Spidey-boy, the whole of New York's been sealed off, and the entire population's been taken inside that place. To be converted."

"We've got to get in there and shut it down," Barry agreed.

"Okay, how?" Michelle put in.

"Oh, I'll think of something," the Doctor shrugged.

"You're just making this up as you go along?" Peter asked.

"Yep. But I do it brilliantly."

"No one better," Barry smiled, then sobered again. "So, how do we get in?"

"I might have something that can help!" Peter exclaimed. "Karen, can you show me schematics of the factory?"

At the puzzled looks from the two time travelers, he explained that Karen was his suit's AI.

"Nice!" Barry nodded. "Doctor, why don't I get a suit AI?"

"We can build you one."

"Oh, cool!" Peter added. "She says there are cooling tunnels underneath the plant! Big enough to walk through. Like ventilation shafts!"

The two nerds high-fived as Michelle rolled her eyes at the Doctor, who smiled sympathetically.

"Right," he said after a moment, and Barry turned to look at his mentor. In a moment, the cheerful jokester had disappeared, and the veteran of the

greatest war his universe had ever seen was present. He held up his sonic screwdriver and pointed it in the direction of the power station. "Lumic's

transmitting the control signal. It must be from over there. Yep, there it is. On the zeppelin, you see? Great big transmitter. Good thing he likes showing

off. Barry, reckon you could take it out?"

The speedster nodded grimly.

"Take Peter with you. Watch your backs."

"I'm always careful," Barry protested. "Well, almost always. Well, mostly always…"

"Right. Anyway. Michelle…"

"MJ."

"MJ. Fancy a trip into the cooling tunnels?"

"Well, I didn't have anything else planned," she shrugged. "How could I turn down a chance to help save the world?"

"That's the spirit!" the Doctor grinned. "We attack from above and below. Get to the control center, stop the conversion machines. Barry, Peter, give us a

few minutes to infiltrate the building first, then act. Once you've destroyed the transmitter, find us. We need to hit him hard and fast."

"Got it."

"Good luck."

About five minutes later, an observer (had there been one) would have noticed a brief streak of reddish-orange lightning flash across the surface of the building, run up the side, right past the guards, who never batted an eye, and come to a halt within the zeppelin.

"So awesome," Peter enthused. "Dude, you should totally get into a speed-eating competition! You would crush it."

"Nice idea!" Barry grinned at him as they moved towards a console. "Let's see, okay, great big computer console."

"Yeah, this should…holy shit!" Peter exclaimed as he spun around, spotting a Cyberman in an alcove. The boys shared a glance as they approached it closely.

"It's dead, I think," Peter breathed. "Or…inert. I have this danger sense, like, it tells me when I'm being attacked, and it's not going off."

"Right, your Spidey-sense," Barry nodded as he turned back to his console.

"Hey, I like that! Aunt May calls it a Peter tingle."

"Ooh, yeah, Spidey-sense is definitely better."

Barry smirked to himself as they turned back to the console.

"Looks like the transmitter controls are sealed behind here," Peter said after a few moments. He pulled back a fist and drove it into the metal paneling,

which buckled.

"Proportional strength of a spider," Barry grinned.

"Wait, how did you know that?"

"Well, uh…so you're actually a fictional character in my universe. There are comic books about you."

"Wait, so I'm a comic book character?"

"Uh, yeah." Barry coughed and cleared his throat. "So…ooh, look! Big red button! I love big red buttons!"

"Me too!"

"Press it together?"

"On three. One, two…whoah!"

Both of them ducked aside as a metal fist swung through the air, narrowly missing their heads.

"Thought you said it was dead!" Barry complained, dancing backwards in a shower of sparks.

"Yeah, but a robot's still—whoah!—a robot!"

Peter dodged another swing from the now very active Cyberman, wove underneath, and came up with a punch that went right through its helmet. Literally,

right through—as Barry watched, his fist went straight through the metal, leaving the entire Cyberman hanging by its head from Peter's wrist. Barry

cracked up. "Oh man, that's embarrassing."

"Ah! Ow, dude, bit of help here?"

"Right, yeah, hang on."

Having removed the Cyberman, thrown its remnants aside, and pressed the big red button with great aplomb, they turned to the controls. Peter tapped a

couple of buttons, and a screen popped up, showing people running in all directions out of the factory.

"Ha!"

They high-fived.

"Oh man, is that Ned?" Peter asked, leaning forward to squint at the crowd.

"Who?"

"Ned Leeds. He's my best friend. Well, aside from MJ. And Doctor Strange. I thought I told him to hole up in his apartment! Can you…"

"Sure."

Barry zipped out in a gust of wind, and returned moments later with the teenage boy he'd seen.

"Whoa! Dude! What was that? That was awesome! Oh my God, Peter, I'm so sorry, I was just looking at the earpods, trying to figure out how they worked,

and then I put them in for just a sec, and…"

"Whoah, man, breathe," Peter ordered as the two shared their secret handshake. "This is Barry. He's a friend."

"Hey."

"Whoah! Is he like one of the Avengers?"

"He is right here," Barry pointed out.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry."

"No, actually, I'm…from another universe."

"Whoah! So the, the theory of the multiverse? That's true?"

"Oh yeah. Big time. My friend the Doctor and I came over here by accident, and now we're trying to stop Lumic from taking over the world."

"Wow, man! Peter, this is like that campy British sci-fi show we like, you know, from the '60s with the time-traveling…"

"Focus, Ned," Peter interjected, with the tone of one who has had to say this a lot.

"Right. Yeah. Sorry. Wait, oh my God, where's MJ?"

"She's fine. She's with the Doctor. Can you pull up security footage?"

"Can Iron Man fly?" Ned shot back, his pudgy hands a blur over the keypad. "I'm, like, Peter's guy in the chair," he added to Barry. A screen popped up, showing a Cyberman sitting on an elaborate throne.

"That like the Cyber-King or something?" Ned whispered.

"Gotta be."

"And…oh man!"

The Doctor and MJ were led into the control room, both looking around defiantly. Barry gripped his friend's shoulder.

"We gotta rescue them!" Peter insisted.

"At least they're alive. And they look okay," Barry told him. "'Sides, the Doctor says it's good to get captured. Takes you right to the center of things."

"Right, right." Peter took several deep breaths. "But…"

"If it even looks like they're gonna attack, I'll get them out of there in a flash," Barry promised.

"Okay."

"Right now, best thing we can do for them is be the ace in the hole."

"Dude, your super speed is like, so cool. I am gonna have so many questions for you once this is over," Ned promised. Barry grinned at him.

"I have factories waiting on seven continents," the leader of the Cybermen intoned, unaware of the young men watching and listening. "If the ear pods have failed, then the Cybermen will take humanity by force. New York has fallen. So shall the world."

"That's Lumic!" Peter gasped.

"Looks like he tested his upgrade on himself," Ned agreed. "Man, that is so typically villainous."

"I will bring peace to the world. And unity and uniformity."

"Peace in our time," Barry muttered.

"I have brought peace, freedom, justice and security to my new Empire," Peter agreed, and the three nerds high-fived one another without taking their eyes off the screen as the Doctor argued with Cyber-Lumic.

"You are proud of your emotions."

"Oh, yes," the Doctor agreed.

"Tell me, Doctor. Have you known grief, and rage, and pain?"

The Doctor's face stilled, and Barry's heart ached.

"Yes. Yes I have."


"And they hurt?"


"Oh, yes."


"I could set you free. Would you not want that? A life without pain?"

"You might as well kill me," the Doctor said quietly, and Barry could've cheered.

"Then I take that option."

"It's not yours to take!" he exclaimed. "You're a Cyber Controller! You don't control me or anything with blood in its heart."

"You have no means of stopping me. I have an army. A species of my own."

Barry sniggered. "If I had a dollar for every time some super-villain said that…"

Peter nodded, smirking.

"You just don't get it, do you? An army's nothing. Because those ordinary people, they're the key. The most ordinary person could change the world. Some
ordinary man or woman, who could parkour right past any obstacle."

Peter jerked his head up as the Doctor looked straight at the camera.

"All it takes is for him to find, say, the right numbers. Say the right codes. Say, for example, the code behind the emotional inhibitor."

"The what?" Ned asked.

"The thingy that turns all the Cybermen's emotions off," Barry told him quietly. "Stops them from going insane when they realize what's happened to them."

"Wait, what?"

"Those Cybermen? The metal dudes? They used to be people."

Ned said a four-letter word which neither of Barry's dad would have approved of.

"Yeah."

"The code right in front of him," the Doctor continued, casting a glance up at the camera. "Because everyone knows how to use computers these days.

Knows how to get past firewalls and passwords," the Doctor rambled on, as Ned pulled the keyboard towards himself and started typing furiously. "Knows how to find something encrypted in the Lumic Family Database. Anyone could park themselves down and find that code. Cancellation code. And he'd keep on typing. Keep on fighting. Anything to save his friends."

"Just about got it…" Ned muttered. "Yeah!"

The code flashed up on the screens, and they fist-bumped. "Now all we have to do is send it somehow."

"Well, it's not like we're sitting in a giant transmitter or anything," Peter drawled.

"Oh! Right! Hang on. Uploading, transmitting the cancellation code…Pete, you want to do the honors?"

"Barry, why don't you?"

"Thanks, man." The speedster reached out and smashed his fist onto the button. And utter chaos erupted.

The heroes watched as, throughout the factories, Cybermen moaned and clutched their heads in pain.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said quietly.

"What have you done?"

"I gave them back their souls. They can see what you've done, Lumic, and it's killing them!"

"I have defeated the Avengers," Cyber-Lumic ground out. "Do you really think I don't know the value of backup plans?"

He pressed a button on his throne. "All Cybermen—kill the intruders. We will take this world by force."

Slowly, unwillingly, every one of the Cybermen straightened, turned, and converged on the Doctor and MJ.

"Oh-kay," Peter breathed. "We're in trouble."

Barry held out his ring-bearing hand. "I got this."

In less time than it takes to say it, a burst of lightning swept through the factory, swept up Michelle, and deposited her on the grass outside. In the time it took the Doctor's hearts to beat once, he had similarly been picked up and run outside. Moments later, Ned and Spider-Man joined them. Behind, the normal sounds of New York began to pick up; ahead, an army of Cybermen advanced.

"What do we do now?" Ned squeaked.

"Ah…" the Doctor started. Peter cocked an ear. "Wait. Does anyone else hear…music?"

"Is that AC/DC?" the Time Lord agreed, turning his head slightly.

I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will/
'Cause I shoot to thrill, and I'm ready to kill/
I can't get enough and I can't get my fill/
I shoot to thrill, play to kill/
Yeah…

"Such a drama queen," Michelle sighed.

"Hey, Underoos!" a robotic voice boomed, as something rather like a meteor shot across the sky, then came to a three-point landing between Barry, his friends, and the approaching army. Iron Man straightened up and tossed a glance over his shoulder.

"What kind of trouble you getting into nowadays?"

A Quinjet swooped in to hover above. Captain America—yes, Captain freakin' America!—leapt out of the jet, flipped, and landed lightly, shield hefted and ready to go, and stood beside Iron Man. Behind and around him gathered Hulk, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, War Machine, and the Falcon. Up in the cockpit, the pilot (Barry assumed it was Black Widow) unlimbered the minigun.

"Avengers!" Cap shouted, and Barry very nearly squeed. "Assemble."

With a roar, Earth's Mightiest Heroes charged.


"So," Barry said once he'd recovered his breath, the Avengers having gone inside to mop up. "That was pretty awesome."

"Man, that was totally awesome," Peter corrected him, and they high-fived.

"Yeah dude, you kicked their butts," Ned told them.

"Eh," MJ shrugged. "Not bad."

She smirked at the outraged looks the three boys gave her. Peter turned to Barry. "Can you show us your time machine now?"

Bonus points to whomever gets the Neville Chamberlain shout-out. Please, PLEASE take 30 seconds to leave a review. Thank you!