Author's Note: Welcome to the second chapter of Fathers and Daughters. I'll be honest and admit that this took me longer than I would've liked, especially since it's a wee bit shorter than Chapter 1, but there's just been a lot going on lately. Hopefully the wait was worth it those of you who've been wanting to see how the story plays out. With that out of the way, let's pick up where we left off last time and get on with the show. I hope you enjoy it!
Earth-92131
Fort Lee, New Jersey
The Next Avengers' reality traveling ship flew through the skies above the city of Fort Lee, where Spider-Man believed they could find some answers about the original Jackal. Sometime before they had even found the other ships in Doom's lab, they had given it a facelift so it would no longer resemble the late Latverian ruler's mask, which made it easier for it to not cause a panic.
"Okay," Spider-Man said leaning back in his seat within the vessel. "So let me see if I've got this right; Stark, Banner, Thor and the Vision are the only living members of your world's original Avengers?"
"That's right," Francis somberly confirmed. He was at the controls of the ship, since he was the one with the most experience. All the others were seated behind him with Spider-Man. "Tony is the only one with us though."
"After Vision was restored, he left for space to prevent alien threats to our Earth. We only occasionally hear from him, but he's apparently made friends out there who help him out," Azari elaborated. "The Banners prefer a life of solitude and Thor rules Asgard. We don't even know if they were turned to dust or not."
"And Thor's daughter is the one leading the second team you mentioned?" Spider-Man asked.
"That's right. James stuck behind with our friend Iqbal to help Tony, but the rest are with her in some other universe," Chun-hwa answered. She looked at Ciara, who was silently staring out the window. "Uhh…So, Mr. Parker, have you ever fought Plantman?"
"Nope. He's one of those British supervillains. Not my usual stomping grounds." Spider-Man shook his head.
"Well, I guess that makes sense…Wait, Plantman is British?!" Chun-hwa looked shocked. "Pedro said he was Korean! That's why he gave me a Korean name…"
"Ha! That's the Multiverse for you, Plantgirl." Spider-Man chuckled a little. "You know, when I searched for Mary Jane with Madame Web, she mentioned spying on a universe where it was Peter Park who got bitten by the spi-"
"Hey, webslinger, look down." Francis cut Peter's musings short. They were just above a small, unmarked storage warehouse. "Is this the place?"
"Yes, this is it," Spider-Man nodded while looking down at the house. "This is where my world's Miles Warren relocated after the mess with Hydro-Man was done with. I kept tabs on him after, but he died a couple years ago."
Ciara got up and stared down at the house. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Everyone looked at her in concern.
"Ciara, are you gonna be okay?" Santo asked.
"Don't…Don't worry, everyone," she smiled sadly. "It's just that…He was a version of my father who was never the Jackal and was never obsessed with my mother. I…I guess I like the idea of him not having to be a monster…"
Peter thought about what he had been told about Ciara and the other children who Warren had grown in his lab, like Chun-hwa and the others. Everything he had been told about the man disgusted him, particularly his unseemly obsession with Gwen Stacy, who had been their Peter Parker's girlfriend, even though he had never dated or even met his world's version of Gwen. He perfectly understood why the group wished to capture the man and make him answer for everything he had done. He and Rockslide shared a look with one another. Without even speaking a word, Peter now understood why the rock-skinned mutant felt he had to come along as on this mission with the Next Avengers. They weren't only looking for Warren, but for Hildegard as well. Hildegard's biological mother was Hope Abbott, aka Trance, a student of the X-Men's whose physical body had been destroyed, surviving only in an unusual astral form. After they had learned of Hildegard's existence, Rockslide had promised Hope that he would make sure the girl was safe and happy. If she was with Warren, she would never be either.
"Ciara, we're here for you," Chun-hwa said. She placed her own hands over hers and kissed the blonde on her forehead. "And I promise we always will be."
Azari looked at the scene with a frown tinged with sympathy. He knew what it was like to never get to meet the father he wished he had grown up with. That was part of why he had left to join up with the survivors in Wakanda, so he could do for them what the deceased T'Challa would have. He looked at Francis, who looked like he had been about to say something, only to stop himself. After giving Ciara a couple more moments, he landed the ship on the ground and the group got out in front of a roll up garage door.
"Okay," Francis said. "Let's-"
The door then rolled up on its own, without any of them having done a thing. Within was a cluttered workshop full of broken machines, beaten up boxes, and large items under dark blue tarps. A sickly pale, brown haired young man wearing a black t-shirt and worn out jeans sat back with his legs up at a folding table.
"Hey there. About time someone got here," he nonchalantly greeted them. He got up, looked at the ship right outside, and smirked knowingly. He pressed a button on a digital wrist watch he had on. "Oh, you brought me a present. How thoughtful."
Spider-Man and the Next Avengers members looked at one another in confusion.
"Who are you, kid, and what are you doing here?" Spider-Man questioned.
The stranger's eyes honed in on Ciara, but then he shook his head and shot Spider-Man an amused look.
"Oh, so you didn't already have this part figured out? I guess it shouldn't surprise me that I have to spell it out for you," he motioned at himself. He then bowed theatrically. "Miles Warren, at your service. It's nice to meet you, Peter."
Everyone looked absolutely shocked by what Warren had just revealed.
"Impossible." Peter's eyes widened behind his mask.
"No, Spider-Man, it isn't. He somehow put his mind in a new, younger body!" Rockslide pieced together. He pounded his fists together.
"It is you!" Ciara all but snarled. She whipped out her claws and scowled, her eyes suddenly angry. "Take him down!"
Ciara sprang forward, with Azari and Rockslide following suit. Francis drew his bow and Spider-Man readied his web shooters. Chun-hwa began to try and hone in on any nearby plant life to command. Warren quickly clapped his hands together and a hulking, gray humanoid with a lumpy, brick-like head bursted out from one of the tarps. It jumped over Warren and in the way of Azari, Ciara, and Rockslide, who fell to the ground with a loud thud after colliding with it. Francis instinctively shot an arrow at it, but it bounced off of it harmlessly. Spider-Man shot as much webbing at it as he could, but he knew it wouldn't stop the being for good. He knew what it was by reputation.
"It's the Awesome Android! It once nearly destroyed the Fantastic Four a few years back!" the webhead expounded.
"Oh that's not all, you popinjay!" Warren cackled. He threw back his head and stretched out his hands. His eyes became dilated and buggy, his nails grew into claws, his pale skin and brown hair turned into clashing harsh shades of green, fangs appeared in his mouth and his ears jutted out sideways into sharp points. "This body was designed specifically to counter Spider-Men. I'm more dangerous than ever, baby!
Warren, now in his improved Jackal form, slashed at the webbing on the Awesome Android with his claws. Azari shot an electricity blast at it, giving Rockslide and Ciara a window to attempt to get their hands on the Jackal, but he leapt up and clung to the ceiling with his claws. The Awesome Android brushed off Azari's attack and went on the rampage. Chun-hwa just then managed to summon large, long dormant roots that busted up through the concrete floor, which she commanded to tangle up the Android's legs.
"This won't hold it back for long! Try to destroy it! Hurry!" Chun-hwa shouted.
The others all heeded her words, save for Spider-Man, who ascended up the warehouse wall and onto the ceiling at rapid speed to go after Warren, who had been heading in the direction of the rolled up door while they defended themselves from the Awesome Android. Spider-Man shot webbing at Warren's wrists, causing him to dangle from the ceiling by them. The two began to speak as the battle raged on below them.
"Out of my way, Peter!" Warren scowled. "I've already spent enough time in this reality as it is!"
"Obviously, you creep! We thought you had already gone!" Spider-Man pointed a finger at him.
"What…? Oh. Oh I get it now…How funny it is that the very thing I needed is what led you to me." Warren smiled to himself. "They used the automatic log in one of Doom's ships to follow the path of the one that was stolen from me!"
"Someone stole it from you? So that's why you're still here!" Spider-Man recognized. "But who stole it from you, and why?"
"If you must know, some masked do-gooder I didn't recognize stowed away on my ship! Then she stole it, along with my last surviving test tube child!" Warren squeezed his hands into fists. His claws dug into his own palms, drawing yellow blood.
Down below, even as they fought their massive opponent, the five travelers from Earth-555326 had heard everything.
"He must be talking about Trance's daughter!" Azari exclaimed.
"Hildegard…" Rockslide whispered.
"That means she must be on the next world!" Chun-hwa added. Her eyes widened and she could see that Ciara's eyes had done so too. "Wait, did I hear that right?"
"You did," Ciara nodded. "He doesn't recognize us..."
Back up on the ceiling, Warren continued to rant aloud.
"I've been stuck here ever since…but then I detected the ship entering this universe! Now, thanks to it, I can finally take my revenge on that bog-trotter!"
"I have no idea what a 'bog-trotter' is, but you must be crazy if you think you're gonna steal their ship," Spider-Man commented. "After all, I've already got you webbed up."
"I'm afraid you're mistaken on the first account, Peter! I have more than one way to get through your web fluid!" Warren laughed. His yellow blood came in contact with the sticky snare around his wrists and instantly ate through it.
"No!" Spider-Man gasped.
Warren fell to the ground, where he landed gracefully several feet away from the fight between the Next Avengers and the Android. He and Ciara briefly locked eyes, but couldn't do anything thanks to her team's opponent. Warren stood next to another large item covered by a dark blue tarp. Spider-Man jumped down and landed in front of him.
"I told a fib, webslinger; you were wrong on the second account as well! You see, I've got this bad boy!" Warren grinned wickedly.
He yanked off the tarp, revealing a ship identical to those from Doctor Doom's testing lab, only designed to evoke Warren's original Jackal mask.
"He built another one!" Francis snapped.
"I didn't build it, young man. People are my specialty, not machines." Warren spoke as he held up the tarp. He threw the tarp at Spider-Man and it gleamed with energy as it pinned him to the floor. "You can thank the Mad Thinker for these devices."
"You hired…ugh…the Mad Thinker?" Spider-Man groaned. The glowing tarp felt so heavy on top of him.
"Of course. I still had the plans for the ship, so I just needed someone with the know how. All he needed was some space to work, which I provided in the form of this place. The prized creation wouldn't fit in the tiny apartment I had, so I brought him here after my counterpart died," Warren gestured around the room. He watched the Next Avengers and Rockslide battle the Awesome Android, looking bemused. "Killing him for that blockhead has proven to be worth the trouble. It kept you all stalled long enough for my ship to download the log from yours. Thank you so much…"
The download he spoke of had started the moment Warren had touched his digital wrist watch, which was, in truth, a remote control for both the Awesome Android his ship's advanced computer, which had worked its way into the computer bank of the Next Avengers' ship and copied the log of the other ones, including the one stolen from Warren.
"We're not gonna let you get away!" screamed Ciara. But there was nothing she could do so long as the Android stood in her way. "You may've create m-"
"You won't be able to follow my ship," Warren scoffed, ignoring her. He pressed some more buttons on his wrist mounted controller. "The Android will be demolishing your's in just a moment. Toodle-oo, you mooncalves!"
She and the others could do nothing but watch as Warren entered his ship. Within seconds, it vanished in an enormous burst of blindingly bright light. After it was gone, the Android abruptly ran away from its opponents and out of the building, heading in the direction of the ship. The four Next Avengers and Rockslide scrambled to stop it, only for something surprising to happen; The Awesome Android didn't even lay a finger on their ship, and instead ran past it. It turned its head around to look at them before continuing to flee the area.
"So much for that order it was given." Francis said.
"Yeah. He's free now." Azari nodded. Then he remembered Spider-Man's current predicament. "Oh! Hold on, Mr. Parker!"
Azari sprinted back into the warehouse, where Spider-Man was still pinned under the glowing tarp. The young man's tattoos glowed as he put his hand to it and countered its energy with his electricity powers, which ended up disabling it. Spider-Man stood up and he and Azari rejoined the others.
"We have to follow after him. We have to find Hildegard before he does." Rockslide insisted.
None of the Next Avengers argued his point, as they had all been thinking the same thing. Warren had shown them all that he was dangerous and needed to be stopped. The group began to enter the ship.
"Goodbye, Mr. Parker." Azari said.
"Thank you for your help," Chun-hwa added. "It was nice to meet you and y-"
"No. I'm coming too." the wallcrawler spoke up. He held up his left hand and gestures towards his wrist. "You all saw what I did back there; Your world's Warren can slash and melt through my webbing. I can't stand by while someone like that is running wild!"
"Spider-Man, this is our mission. Pedro told us about the whole 'great responsibility' thing, but you aren't responsible for my father or what he does." Ciara reasoned.
"My point still stands." He walked past the group and sat down in the same seat he had been in earlier. "
"Fine by me," Francis shrugged. He went to the controls while everyone else strapped in. "…If we hadn't come to this world, Warren would've never even found out where to go, but there's no use in beating ourselves up over it. We've got a job to do."
The ship then took off into the sky and departed not just Fort Lee, but that universe entirely.
Earth-78227
Sydney, New South Wales
"Oh you've got to be kidding me!" Spider-Man groaned.
He and the Next Avengers had just stepped out of the ship, which had landed in the middle of a road, only to be greeted by the sight of a teenage girl wearing an orange and purple costume with elements that made it easy for to guess what she called herself.
"Let me guess," Spider-Man said. "You're…Spiderling."
"Uh…No. I answer to Spider-Girl." Spider-Girl responded. She looked over at Spider-Man and gestured at him. "Who's this supposed to be? Captain Spider?"
"Spider-Man, actually," Azari answered. He looked around at his surroundings. The other members of his group were doing so as well, save for Spider-Man, who was muttering to himself about his bad luck. "What city is this?"
"I think we're in Australia." Francis said. He pointed at a restaurant that had a sign that conveniently advertised that it was the home to the best meat pies in Sydney. Wow the quality of their food was absolutely a lie, the location wasn't. "Sydney, to be exact."
"Get out of the road!" A man shouted in the distance.
Car horns were going off in the street and everyday people standing nearby had their varied handheld devices out to get video of what they were seeing.
"We don't have time to stand around and talk!" Ciara spoke up.
"Right!" Rockslide agreed. He looked down at Spider-Girl. "Listen, just forget that you saw us."
Betty raised an eyebrow under her mask, bemused by what he had just told her to do. After all, it was hard to simply forget what appeared to be a man made of rocks, another spider-themed individual, and four young people in atypical outfits step out of some kind of large rocket pod. Them dashing back into it and taking off into the sky in a hurry didn't make her lose interest either. She was as in the dark as all the normal people around her who were openly questioning what was going on.
"Getting back to the others can wait. I'll chew out Peter and Ned later." she said to herself.
She promptly shot a long strand of webbing at a nearby tall building and began to swing through Sydney in pursuit of the strangers' ship. As she did, Betty couldn't help but think that this could prove to be an even more effective distraction from the incident with the Grizzly. Unfortunately for her, she would soon be proven wrong.
"I can't believe we just saw the Spider-Girl!" a young man exclaimed. He was one of the locals who had stopped to look at what had just occurred. He was walking alongside another young man.
"I know! Did you see some of those flips? First-rate!" his friend smiled. "No wonder they call her breathtaking!"
The two then heard some thunderous thuds of metal hitting the pavement. It was coming from behind a slightly shorter building in the near distance. The two looked at one another and wordlessly confirmed that they had both heard it. The sound was followed by a booming growl, and then shrieks of terror from at least five other people. It was then that the two young Australian men saw what was responsible for what they heard; The Grizzly, returned, fully repaired, and now walking upright on its hind legs.
"Spider-Girl…Spider-Girl…" The Grizzly growled in a deep, distorted masculine voice. He stomped down the sidewalk and people scrambled out of his path in fear. All except the two young men, who he looked down at.
"Aaah! Don't hurt us!" one of them screamed.
"Please! Don't!" the other one fell to his knees and begged.
"I'm not after you fools! Scram!" The Grizzly knocked them aside.
The two watched the metallic, bear-like menace as he moved onward in the same direction as both the Next Avengers' ship and, more importantly to him, Spider-Girl.
"I don't know how you found out I was coming here, webslinger, but you'll be sorry you did! I'll show you why!" The Grizzly fumed to himself. "The world may've mocked the old me, but it will soon marvel at the amazing might of…The Grizzly!"
An apartment building
A woman and a young girl walked through the front door to their apartment building. The woman carried a large paper grocery bag and the girl carried a thin carton of juice.
"Mum! Look, Mum! Mum, look at me!" the girl hopped up and down.
The girl was a light skinned brunette with deep brown eyes and was wearing a red shirt and yellow pants. She looked up at the woman, her mother, and saw her smiling down at her. She was a full figured woman with a head of bouncy ginger curls and pale green eyes and was wearing a beige and green striped blouse and gray trouser pants.
"Please be careful, sweetie," the girl's mother chuckled. She had an identifiably Irish accent. "We're not going back for another one today."
The girl pouted for a moment, but quickly got over it. After all, it was true that she didn't want to spill the juice. Her mother tussled her hair with her free hand.
"Let's take the lift up," the woman said. "That way you won't miss the beginning of that show you like."
"Admiral Pillow? Yay! Set sail for Cushion Island!" the woman's daughter cheered.
The two walked into the complex's elevator to go up to the floor that their apartment was on. As it brought them up, the mother thought about everything she had been through that had led to her having this life, as well as the life she once had.
"Mum, you look sad, I think." her daughter observed.
"What? Oh…It's nothing. Everything is fine," the woman reassured the girl. She thought up a little white lie to help with that. "I was just thinking about what to make for dinner tonight.
"But tonight's Daddy's turn!" the girl chirped.
"Oh. That's right. Silly me." the woman shook her head.
Following a short pause, the elevator arrived on the floor of their apartment. The two walked out of it and down the hallway, where the woman noticed that the door was cracked open just ever so slightly. This made her stop in her tracks. Her husband never left the door open. She held her daughter back.
"Stay here. No questions." she said firmly.
The girl didn't understand what was going on, but she nodded and stayed put anyway. Her mother only spoke like this when it was serious, and that was enough for her. She watched her mother walk cautiously up to their apartment door.
"Sweetheart? Are you home?" she called out. She opened the door wide open and what she saw made her eyes widen and her blood run cold. "…No…Not you!"
Inside her apartment, the woman saw her husband, an average and unassuming Vietnamese-Australian man, seated on their used couch. Sat next to him was a satisfied looking Warren, still in his freakish green Jackal form and with his claws held up to her nervous and terrified spouse's sweaty neck.
"M…m…Molly? Wh…Who is this? What's hap…happening?" he only barely managed to ask. He looked at his wife with worried, panicked eyes. "Wh…Why does he want Hildegard?"
"You've got a nice set up here, Mrs. Fitzgerald-Duong." Warren bared his fangs. He looked at her intensely "Hmmm…That name doesn't really roll off the tongue. I think I'll stick to calling you…Shamrock."
*Dramatic Music Sting!* I've been wanting to get to using these ideas for a really long time now, so I hope you like them. The next chapter will see the Next Avengers, Spider-Girl, and Spider-Man have to face off with both the original Jackal and the Grizzly. That's gonna be crazy, so keep an eye out for that. But before that I'll be posting a fun new one-shot. That should be ready to read very soon. And now...
Some Notes:
- I thought it was high time I explained what happened to Earth-555326's Vision, Thor, and Hulk, since I didn't acknowledge them much at all in my previous stories featuring the Next Avengers.
- The Korean Spider-Man named Peter Park is a reference to these drawings by Twitter user CreesArt (Link here: /creeesart), where he depicts exactly that concept. I imagine this Peter looks like how they drew him and that he is still fairly young, like in his late teens or early twenties, and not familiar with the Multiverse either.
- Peter's mention of the superhero name "Spiderling" is a reference to Annie Parker from Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows. Likewise, Betty's "Captain Spider" comment is a reference to the version of Flash Thompson from a story in What If Vol. 1 #7, which is the very same comic where the concept of Betty Brant being Spider-Girl originates to begin with. I thought that would make for a fun inclusion for those who'd recognize it.
- If some of the Grizzly's dialogue sounds vaguely reminiscent to some from a famous Silver Age comic...Well, I won't stop you from trying to make the connection and figuring out what it means.
- The color of Hildegard's clothes are a self admittedly half-baked shout out to Disney's version of Winnie the Pooh.
- "Admiral Pillow and the Search for Cushion Island" is a fictional kids' educational puppet show (in the vein of Sesame Street) that exists across multiple Earths throughout the Multiverse. It was first mentioned in my Danny Phantom/What If...?/Shattered Warrior crossover story His Hazelnut Heart. I gave a look at the show itself in the fourteenth chapter of Infinity Crisis: Glimpses. I'm hoping to turn it into a bit of a "running gag", though I'll probably only push it if anyone else gives it a nod in another Infinity Crisis work.
- I'm not sure how I first came up with the idea to have Molly Fitzgerald/Shamrock be the hero who escaped with Hildegard and raised her as her own. Maybe it has something to do with my liking for obscure characters, or maybe it's just that I like doing the unexpected in my fanfics. What I do know is that it has been what I've had planned since I conceived of the "Test Tube Children".
If you have the time, please feel welcome to leave a review to let me know what you thought of this. Have a good one, and best of luck in everything you do.