Welcome back to another chapter of Convergence! Last time where we left off, The Doctor and company managed to escape from their glass prisons to which they discover that they are trapped in The Void, a dimension between dimensions. Moving through the ship to evade capture, The Doctor and the others come across another set of prisoners snatched from their respective realities. After setting the captives free and returning them home, The Doctor, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Scooby and Shaggy stay behind to save the multiverse.
Will they succeed? Let's find out. Enjoy!
So… quick recap.
A guy calling himself 'The Master' along with Red Skull and Doctor Doom plans to conquer multiple dimensions using their vast intellect and their allies from the universes they plan to take over. So now here I am, trapped in a ship outside of time and space with Iron Man and a couple of other individuals from different universes. Who knew that eating a sandwich while sitting on top of a building in New York could lead up to this? I sure as hell didn't.
The Doctor managed to find more prisoners in the same situation as us, one of them being an anthropomorphic platypus in a fedora. As if this day couldn't get any stranger…
Why did The Master need them if he had us? What was his purpose? Is there more to this madman's madness?
My name is Peter Parker and this is how I created a new universe…
(-)
"Zoinks!" Shaggy cried out as he and Scooby-Doo dived towards the wall.
Not long after setting the other prisoners free, the heroes were ambushed by Doombots. None of them saw them coming. The Doctor, however, hypothesised that The Master was going to find out about the freed prisoners sooner or later, he just didn't know when.
"Doctor, how long on that door?!" Iron Man exclaimed as he blasted a nearby Doombot with a repulsor beam.
The Doctor bit his tongue as he fiddled with his sonic screwdriver on a control panel. "Just gimme a minute!" he shouted.
"I'm not sure you have a minute…" Spider-Man remarked as he continued to rapidly pin Doombots to the wall with webs.
Iron Man was soon slammed into a wall by a couple of Doombots, their strong metal hands clutching at his arms and chest to stop him from moving. The Armoured Avenger tried to angle his hands to shoot at the bots but as he moved the Doombots' grip would tighten, so tight that Iron Man's gauntlets started to strain from the pressure.
"Any time now, Doctor!" Iron Man barked, struggling to free himself from the Doombots' hold on him.
"Hold on!" The Doctor grunted, the blue light from his sonic frantically turning on and off from how many times The Doctor has pressed it.
Suddenly the control panel that The Doctor was working on exploded, sparks flying past the Time Lord's face. The door then slid open quickly with a loud crash.
The Doctor soon rushed through the doorway. "Come on!" he called out.
Seeing that the door was now open, Scooby and Shaggy darted out from their hiding spot and dashed towards the door until they hid themselves behind The Doctor. Spider-Man kicked a Doombot out of view before he web zipped to the doorway, stopping to help Iron Man on the way.
"Hey, didn't Doomie ever teach you guys to respect other people's boundaries?" Spider-Man quipped, attaching a web to both of the Doombots' back and pulling them away from Iron Man.
Once Iron Man was free from the Doombots' grasp, the two heroes joined The Doctor, Scooby and Shaggy at the doorway. More Doombots seemingly spawned out of nowhere and began to charge towards the door, their ranged weapons charged and ready to fire.
Seeing that the Doombots were getting closer, The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver to another panel. Once he activated the screwdriver, the panel immediately sparked into life which caused the door to close in front of them. It closed so fast that it sliced the arm of an approaching Doombot clean in half.
"Rhat ras a rose rone…" Scooby huffed, staring wide-eyed at the door.
"Like, you could say that again." Shaggy remarked before he looked at his surroundings. "Where are we anyway?"
"Not sure…" Iron Man replied, knocking at his helmet. "Navigation systems are still fried. Doc, you sure there's no way to communicate outside of this dimension?"
The Doctor shook his head. "Positive. We're outside of creation itself, it would take a massive amount of power to get back. Not even my TARDIS could get through in one piece…"
"TARDIS?" Spider-Man questioned, raising his eyebrow.
"My ship," The Doctor answered. "Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It allows me to travel the universe at any point in time..."
Iron Man lifted up his faceplate. "A time machine?"
"Sometimes."
"If you had access to time travel, why didn't you stop this happening before it happened?!" Iron Man wondered.
The Doctor frowned. "Because I had no idea," he replied. "Before I got abducted, I detected traces of artron energy in a place where artron energy shouldn't be. Then before you knew it, I was attacked by talking hyenas."
Iron Man stroked his chin. "Okay, so let's find a way to get your time machine to the Void then we can stop The Master and the others before their plan even starts," he suggested. "Boom, multiverse saved."
The Doctor rolled his eyes at Iron Man's impromptu plan. "If only it was that simple, Tony…" he muttered. "You're forgetting the potential paradoxes that could make our situation worse. By bringing the TARDIS here, there's a chance we'll make a tear in the fabric of reality. It'll be like glass, one weak point away from shattering completely…"
"Hey it's a plan, isn't it? I don't see the supposed time travel expert coming up with a plan." Iron Man commented.
"I don't see the supposed billionaire genius coming up with a smarter one…" The Doctor murmured.
Before Iron Man could retaliate, Shaggy and Scooby came racing towards them. "Guys, you might take a look at this!" Shaggy exclaimed.
"What's wrong, Shaggy?" Spider-Man asked.
"Rit's a robot ractory!" Scooby replied, slight fear in his voice.
"Robot factory? Where?" The Doctor queried with a sense of urgency.
"Just down there…" Shaggy answered, pointing down the corridor.
Immediately without any further explanation, The Doctor dashed down the corridor with his long coat flapping from the speed of his running. Scooby and Shaggy soon ran after him, calling out his name. Iron Man and Spider-Man, meanwhile, exchanged looks with each other before the latter swung after the others. The Armoured Avenger lowered his faceplate and flew after The Doctor.
It was a short distance from where they were standing but when Iron Man rejoined everyone else, they were all looking out a particular pane of glass looking over a large room of sorts.
"What's going on?" Iron Man questioned, looking over Scooby's shoulder.
"See for yourself…" The Doctor said.
Iron Man looked out the glass pane to see a factory, stuffed with Doombots. At the back of the factory, the Doombots were all lined up on a conveyor belt. As the conveyor belt moved closer to the glass pane, it separated into six rows which were all edging to individual dome shaped-machines.
What was strange was that the Doombots would change once they've entered the machine. No longer did they look like a skeleton version of Doctor Doom but something far, far worse.
Emerged from the machine was a silver mechanoid that resembled Iron Man's armour, it had the arc reactor on it's chest and repulsor gauntlets on the palms of each hand. However the hands were almost claw-like, curved similarly to that of a lion claw or perhaps another member of the cat family. On the shoulders was a symbol that was identical to the watch that Ben Tennyson wore on his wrist. Spider web patterns were also present on the arms and lower legs, much like how the web patterns on Spider-Man's suit.
"W-What is that?" Shaggy muttered, eyes widened at the sight of the mechanoid.
"It looks like your suit, Tony…" Spider-Man said.
"So it does. It looks like they're using our powers and abilities from those they captured and putting them into all those robots…" Iron Man analysed.
"Well… not all of us, it seems." The Doctor pointed out.
"Reah, rhat rare re? Ropped river?" Scooby questioned before he stared off into space dreamily. "Rmm… ropped river."
Spider-Man scratched his head. "They have Doombots to spare and an assortment of allies from other dimensions. Why build another one with all our abilities?"
"To ensure that every dimension is conquered…" The Doctor replied grimly. "But why use us to do it? Surely there are more powerful heroes out there…"
Iron Man turned away from the window. "First we need to destroy the factory," he planned. "No more factory, no more Doombots. Problem solved."
"Let's not and say we did." Shaggy murmured with a nervous chuckle.
The Doctor ignored Shaggy and looked to Iron Man. "There's something off about this. We need to focus on The Master, Doom and Skull. Get rid of them and the robots will shut down with them…"
Spider-Man's spider-sense then suddenly tingled. "Guys…" he said as he turned around to find out why his spider-sense was going off.
But it was too late to react. A large explosion hit Spider-Man, Iron Man and The Doctor and caused them to fly through the window into the robot factory, the glass shattering around them. Scooby and Shaggy meanwhile were knocked to the side of the window by the force of the explosion. Fortunately for them, the Doombots that had fired the large explosion didn't see them get swatted back to the corridor.
Conveniently for The Doctor and the others, the three heroes crash-landed on a platform below. The Doombots on the conveyor belt remained still and offline for the time being, still being moved to be converted into the mechanoids that the heroes spotted earlier.
The Doctor groaned as he lifted himself from the ground. "Is everyone okay?"
"I'm fine," Iron Man muttered angrily, rubbing the back of his head. "It's going to take a lot more than that to take me down…"
"Spider-Man? You okay?"
The webslinger nodded, examining his slightly ripped costume. "Yeah, I'm alright. But sewing this back together is going to be a nightmare…"
The Doctor then frantically turned his head around in a panic. "Wait, where are Shaggy and Scooby?!"
Before anyone could answer that question, Spider-Man's spider-sense went off once again. However the tingling was sharper than normal, as if the threat was closing in around them.
"I think we've got bigger problems…" Spider-Man murmured, looking at the surrounding Doombots.
One by one, the Doombots that were supposed to be inactive started to re-activate themselves. The red light in their eyes started to brighten until the eye sockets were fully engulfed. Some started up almost immediately as they walked off the conveyor belt while others slowly booted up one limb at a time until they were fully powered up.
The Doctor, Iron Man and Spider-Man stood up and prepared themselves for a fight. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver from his suit pocket even though it probably would boast well compared to the likes of Iron Man's repulsors or Spider-Man's webs and spider-like abilities.
"Well, at least those robots with our abilities are still offline…" Iron Man pointed out, sighing with relief.
As soon as he said that, the mechanoids started to power up as a piercing white light filled up the makeshift arc reactor on its chest. The mechanoids then marched their way to the front, equipping cannons that resembled The Doctor's sonic screwdriver from inside their forearms.
Seeing the mechanoids come alive made Iron Man's spirits dampen slightly. "Oh shit…" he exclaimed.
Both The Doctor and Spider-Man annoyingly glanced at the Armoured Avenger as the Doombots and mechanoids began to attack.
"You had to say it…" The Doctor mumbled.
(-)
Above the factory, smoke from the mysterious explosion that sent The Doctor, Iron Man and Spider-Man below still filled the air. A thin layer of dark mist covered the entire corridor, enough to make out the room but not enough to navigate through. All was quiet besides from the sounds of the heroes fighting and the flames crackling nearby.
Shaggy slowly opened his eyes to the bright lights on the roof, quickly raising his hand to cover the light as he rotated around.
Everything was blurry, Shaggy didn't know what was up or down or left or right. He couldn't remember the last time he was unconscious, actually he hasn't been unconscious at all. That's why he felt strange, this was all new to him.
Shaggy turned around once again to see Scooby laying next to him, his squinted eyes barely able to make out if the Great Dane was injured or not. From his limited vision, he couldn't see any blood or anything worse. Seeing that Scooby was okay made a hint of relief flow through Shaggy.
"Scooby?" Shaggy mumbled, shaking the large dog from side-to-side.
Immediately Scooby started to stir. "Ramber rease… rive rore rinutes…" he groaned under his breath, batting Shaggy away with his paw.
While slightly weirded out by what Scooby was possibly thinking, Shaggy ignored it and started to shake Scooby again. "Scoob! Like, wake up buddy!"
Scooby hesitantly began to open his eyes. "Ruh? Rhat rappened?" he murmured.
Shaggy rubbed the back of his head as he sat upright. "I don't know," he answered. "One minute we were, like, looking at a robot factory, the next minute we were blasted in the back."
"Rhere rare re rothers?" Scooby wondered as he looked around, standing up to help Shaggy to his feet in the process.
"They must've gone and stopped whatever fired that explosion…" Shaggy pondered, stepping into the middle of the corridor. "Maybe down here?"
Scooby immediately shook his head. "Ruh ruh, ro ray! Roo reepy!"
"I agree…" Shaggy nodded fearfully. "But if we're, like, going to find the others… then we should head down here."
Scooby couldn't help but whimper as he and Shaggy cautiously made their way down the corridor in front of them, both completely unaware that The Doctor, Iron Man and Spider-Man were currently fighting robots down below.
The two slowly traversed through the cold and slightly dim corridor, Shaggy darting his head around whenever he heard a creak or metal expanding. Scooby, meanwhile, crept quietly behind him. Well, as quietly as he could considering that his teeth were chattering non-stop. The Great Dane's chattering teeth were quite loud, the tiniest hint of an echo could be heard in the metal walls.
After hearing Scooby chattering behind him, Shaggy immediately turned around and placed his finger on his lip. "Scooby shhh! Someone will hear us…" he hissed.
"Rorry, ran't relp rit…" Scooby whispered apologetically.
Scooby and Shaggy continued walking for a brief moment until Shaggy suddenly stopped in his tracks, causing Scooby to slam right into him.
"Zoinks… hide, someone's coming this way!" Shaggy muttered as he and Scooby quickly scattered to a nearby empty ventilation gap that was enough to keep them hidden from view.
After the two mystery solvers hid themselves away from any prying eyes, Shaggy then cautiously poked his head to see who was heading in their direction. Scooby also poked his head, quietly biting his paws anxiously.
Three figures came into view, two were clearly discussing something loudly while the third was strolling behind them as if they didn't want to get involved. These three figures were immediately recognisable to Scooby and Shaggy.
"...Mark my words, Von Doom, the master weapon will be used but not in the way you want it to!" Red Skull exclaimed, his arms firmly behind his back as he marched along the corridor.
"And why not, Skull?" Doom snarled, irritation in his voice.
"The plan is to conquer these worlds. If we destroy them then what is left for us to rule? It's pointless, all of this would've been for nothing!" Red Skull answered, sounding calmer than Doom.
Shaggy and Scooby exchanged fearful looks as the conversation went done. They're going to, like, destroy our worlds? Shaggy questioned in his head.
Doom then angrily grasped Red Skull on the shoulder, stopping him from moving. "Pointless?" he barked. "The weapon will instill fear! Destroy a world then all will bow down to us!"
Red Skull slapped Doom's hand off his shoulder. "They'll be feared with our army and our new Adaptoids. A mere threat is simple enough to force compliance!"
As Doom and Red Skull continued to argue, both being prepared to fight another if needed, The Master watched the chaos unfold between the two villains. He said nothing nor did he intervene, a sly grin appearing on his face.
In the distance, Shaggy noticed this and turned to Scooby. "Like, is it just me or does that Master dude look like he was anticipating this?"
"I ron't rnow…" Scooby shrugged as the two turned back to listen to The Master, Red Skull and Doom.
Before a fight could escalate, The Master stepped forward and placed himself in between Skull and Doom. "Now, gentlemen, we can talk about who's world we're conquering or who's world we're destroying but right now, we have some escaped prisoners to deal with."
Red Skull frowned. "Hmm, you are right Herr Master. No doubt they would've located our robot factory by now…"
"Please…" The Master merely laughed. "Two of your universe's superheroes, a hippie and his dog plus a man who uses words instead of violence against our army? The Adaptoids will crush them for sure!"
Scooby and Shaggy watched as the villains walked out of view. The two sighed with relief as they disappeared completely, Shaggy leaning his hand against the wall while Scooby maintained a more calmer demeanour.
"That was a close one…" Shaggy muttered.
Scooby nodded. "Rou raid rit…"
"Come on, let's go this way," Shaggy then muttered, emerging from their hiding spot as he started to head in the direction that the villains just went through.
Scooby gave Shaggy a confused look. "Raggy, raren't re rothers ris ray?" he wondered, gesturing to the other direction behind him.
"Yes, but we're, like, no help to them fighting robots. We don't have superpowers or have that strange device The Doctor has but maybe we could use our mystery skills to good use," Shaggy answered. "Besides, do you want to go in the direction where those guys are heading now?"
"Rot really." Scooby shook his head in response.
"Well there we go," Shaggy said with a slight nervous chuckle. "Let's go before they come back..."
Quickly and quietly the duo darted down the corridor, being careful not to be spotted by nearby patrols of Doombots walking by. They soon came across another large open room, a stairwell leading down to an assortment of monitors that weren't connected to anything like a form of holograms.
Shaggy and Scooby ducked into cover by the sides of an almost hexangular archway, Shaggy peered around to see if there were any Doombots around on guard duty. It was a surprise to both of the mystery solvers that the room was oddly empty.
"Like, the coast is clear…" Shaggy whispered to Scooby on the other side of the archway.
After a couple of seconds, Shaggy and Scooby advanced into the monitor room and quickly dashed towards the centre of the room. The two looked around at the monitors that surrounded them, mostly all showing them footage of the captured universes. Among the footage was a tall, bulky figure in a hockey mask hunting down a scared teenager, an figure dressed in white robes walking the streets of Renaissance Italy, an explorer of some kind walking in an ancient city in the desert somewhere and a blue jay and a brown raccoon doing donuts in a golf cart.
"Like, this must be footage from some of the universes The Doc mentioned…" Shaggy pointed out as he approached the monitors, placing his hands on the keyboard nearby.
"Rhy rere rey rooking ror?" Scooby questioned, scratching his head.
"Dunno… maybe to see if that world is worth taking over or not." Shaggy answered. "I wonder if they were watching our universe…"
Timidly, Shaggy tapped on the keys on the keyboard. He let out a slight fearful yelp as the monitors disappeared and reappeared into a single large monitor with a handful of files on the desktop. All were labeled with numbers, possibly the presumed reality number of a particular universe.
Shaggy sighed. "Oh man, it's gonna take ages before we find our universe…"
A peculiar folder caught Scooby's eye. "Raggy, rook!" he pointed to the folder not far from the middle of the screen. Underneath the folder read 'DEATHSTARE', a name that made Shaggy's eyes widen in fright.
"I'm looking but I'm, like, not gonna like it…" he whimpered as he shakily moved the cursor towards the Deathstare folder.
Once the cursor was on top of the Deathstare folder, Shaggy quickly clicked on it and the folder opened. Surprised and scared at what they saw on the monitor, Scooby and Shaggy couldn't believe their eyes as they gazed upon what the Deathstare actually meant.
"Ruh roh…"
Shaggy was slightly shaking. "Ruh roh indeed, Scooby-Doo…" he murmured as he quickly clicked out of the monitor. "We need to, like, find The Doctor and the others, they must know about the Deathstare."
"Not so fast…" a voice barked behind him.
Scooby and Shaggy instantly went stiff at the stranger's voice because they clearly knew who the voice belonged to… and it wasn't a friendly one.
()
Back in the robotics factory, more and more of the Doombots piled against The Doctor, Iron Man and Spider-Man. The heroes stood their ground in the centre of the factory, blasting, webbing or sonicing every robot that tried to attack them. The Adaptoids didn't help to improve their situation, counter attacking each of Spider-Man's abilities or overpowering Iron Man's repulsors and vast weaponry. The Doctor, not having much experience fighting enemies directly, was having trouble keeping his portion of enemies down despite his sonic screwdriver being able to short circuit them before they could touch him.
"There's too many of them!" Spider-Man exclaimed. "No matter how much we destroy them, others keep coming!"
"Well, we do know one thing," The Doctor puffed. "The Master, Doom and Red Skull captured us not just to keep us from foiling their plan but to give these mechanoids our powers and abilities to use as a template..."
"They can copy but nothing beats the original!" Iron Man barked as he powered up his unibeam, blasting a large beam of energy directly through the centre of an Adaptoid.
Spider-Man leapt up and he swung towards another nearby Adaptoid, preparing to kick it to the ground. "When this is all over, I'm totally suing-"
Before he could say the rest of his sentence, the Adaptoid used it's sonic cannon to blast the web head directly in the face. This caused Spider-Man's mask to slightly fall off his face as he was sent flying towards the far end of the factory, impacting the wall before collapsing to the ground.
The Doctor's eyes widened in shock. "Spider-Man!" he called out.
"Go! I'll keep them busy!" Iron Man ordered, blasting a few Doombots to clear a path for The Doctor.
The Doctor nodded and sprinted through the now clear path to Spider-Man. The web head's costume now had little tears across the chest and shoulders but only if you look at a really close distance. Spider-Man's mask was slightly unraveled at the bottom left, revealing a normal Caucasian human face.
"Peter, are you alright?" The Doctor wondered, kneeling down and nudging Spider-Man's shoulder.
Spider-Man awoke instantly and went stiff at the mention of his secret identity. "W-wait how do you know my name?" Spider-Man muttered confusingly.
"Well in my universe you're a fictional character, pretty complicated multiverse science going on there," The Doctor answered. "But that doesn't matter right now, there are still Doombots to take care of…"
Spider-Man blinked, looking more confused than ever. "Okay…" The web head only knew of normal science like chemistry or physics, science like The Doctor's was a bit too much for him.
As The Doctor helped Spider-Man back on his feet, more Doombots swarmed towards them. The two exchanged looks before they went back to assist Iron Man.
As the chaos unfolded in the factory, both Red Skull and Doctor Doom watched from above as The Doctor, Iron Man and Spider-Man tirelessly continued to fight the Doombots.
"Where is Herr Master?" Red Skull asked, noticing the other Time Lord's absence.
"Doesn't matter," Doom scoffed. "If he's not here to acknowledge our moment of triumph then that's on him!"
"The heroes are cornered with nowhere to go!" Red Skull smirked. "Your Doombots are working to their expectations, Von Doom…"
"Of course they do, Skull. I invented them!" Doctor Doom frowned before he took notice of how many Doombots were destroyed on the ground below. "But they seem to be winning the battle despite our Adaptoids…"
Red Skull simply straightened up his arms and put them behind his back. "Even if the heroes somehow get the upper hand, they are unaware of what we have in store…"
What Red Skull meant an object located outside of the ship, in between the cold darkness that was known as the Void. It was almost as large as the ship itself, maybe ten or twenty metres short. The object was shaped like a skull and was made of a dark green alloy, the same colour as Red Skull's organization HYDRA, complete with eight metallic tendrils that were on each side of the skull.
It looked inactive, it almost looked powerless or perhaps even dead...
Then the eyes started to flicker on, a large piercing yellow light soon filling the darkness of the Void like the sun rising on a brand new day. Large booming sounds rumbled throughout the object as all of it's systems roared into life.
Operation Deathstare activated…
And… I'm gonna end it here. Seems like a good place to stop.
Not gonna lie… this chapter was so hard to write, not because I wasn't passionate about it or anything. It was more because of lots of stuff going on in my life at the moment and I wanted to focus more on the real world rather than this. (It also didn't help that I was procrastinating or thinking about the other story I'm working on alongside this one.) But I managed to get this finished before the month finished, so that's an achievement.
So the next update to Convergence will be released next year in January as an update to Love of My Life is scheduled in December. So bear with me…
This is TARDIS1039, signing off. Allons-y!