Marvel Cinematic Universe is owned by Disney. So are the Royal Dirty Dozen (what my daughters call the Disney Princesses).
Nighttime, Project: HELIOS, Undisclosed Location, Calais, France, September 5, 1888
Director Jonathan Mel Smith was less-than-pleased with the state of current events. That usually had people scrambling to turn his mood around or bad things happened.
Smith looked at the woman, easily as tall as he, his eye noting that this was no ordinary woman even if her entrance hadn't been something to note. She wore armor on her arms and shins, an ocean blue-tint kind of steel bracers and greaves that one saw on medieval armor or in historical plays. A belted loincloth draped over her intimates and inner thighs, but not her exposed abdomen. A steel corset adorned her upper torso the same ocean blue color, patterned to look like scalemail, small disks that looked like the scales of fish that also lifted her breasts up and together. A stole and cape hung from her armored shoulder pauldrons, this time more royal blue in color as the woman with white hair wore a tiara that doubled as a protective face mask, a strip coming down to protect the nose, seemingly made of gold. Her face was unlined or marred by age, hinting that she was neither a youth no reaching middle age; a woman in the full bloom of her beauty. Yet the color of her skin was pale, very pale, as if it had never seen the light of day. If Smith had to put a name to that color, he would have called it fishmeat white. In her left hand there was a polearm, a halberd; a curved spear-like blade that could impale, slice, or chop into its foes, and the opposite end had a large metal ball for bludgeoning armored opponents to break bones underneath armor. The crystal that dangled from her neck and in between her breasts glowed an aquamarine color, illuminating her in a watery light.
The woman was regal. She was standing tall. And there was no mercy or thought of conversation in her demeanor as her head lifted up, her face sheened with sweat as she smiled with a sinister aire.
"Ma'am? I need you to please put down the polearm." Smith called out as hie right eye noted that four DISNEY Agents were already converging on the spot where the woman stood, their .303 Mk. I cartridge Magazine Lee-Metford bolt-action Service Rifles pointing at the woman as the four red-coated men approached with armed caution. They never said a word, letting the gun barrels emphasizing the point they wished to make.
Smith's words had an effect on the newcomer as she looked at the polearm that was in her left hand, seemingly noticing it in her grasp for the first time with a look that was either bewildered or in wonderment as her blue eyes cast over the halberd. She then looked up with pitiless eyes as the jewel at her breast glowed with intensity and the woman thrusted the halberd forward.
And something shot forth from its heavy head.
The Director felt himself getting knocked to the side as the blast sailed over him, striking a table with beakers filled with chemicals as Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov tackled him to one side, the Orphan sparing him from being hit by… whatever it was that the woman had fired from a damn bladed stick. He landed on his back as the four armed DISNEY Agents immediately responded with gunfire without needing to be told, four rounds of three-line caliber rifle bullets striking the woman almost in unison. To Johns' amazement, the woman only jerked slightly aback as the rounds struck her armor… ricocheting right off. The white-haired trespasser then leapt forward, easily clearing a dozen paces with her polearm ready to strike as the Agents worked their bolts to chamber another round as she landed in front of one red-coated Agent, impaling him with the spearpoint of her halberd in his chest, the man crying out in pain as she shoved the bladed lance downward to bring him to the ground on top of the Agent that had been beside him. The two Agents who stood opposite of the strike fired again, the rounds ricocheting once more as the woman removed her spearpoint from the downed Agent, spun about as her right hand casted forward. Smith got to his feet as he saw two dagger-like… spines… jutting out of his mens' necks, the both of them falling from their injuries.
The halberd fired again, striking towards one of the laboratory assistants as two more DISNEY Agents ran forward with their Lee-Metford Rifles at the ready as Anastasia came up with a Smith and Wesson .44 Russian Revolver in hand, hammered cocked back as two three-line caliber bullets fired from bolt-action rifles as the Orphan fan-fired her six-shot revolver, actually staggering the assaulting woman. Smith finally got to his feet, his hand slipping to his own 1873 Colt .45 Single-Action Army as his eye settled on the actual thing that mattered; DJINN. Using the confrontation as a distraction, the Director moved over to the fallen brass lamp, using a part of his long coat to cover his hands when he went to pick it up. Bad things happened when people rubbed its surface, and he wasn't taking chances. He watched the battle as he retrieved the lamp, seeing the woman firing another bolt that struck a DISNEY Agent, turning the man into ash and cinder instantly, crumbling to the ground. The woman didn't stop as she kicked the other Agent in the chest, sending him flying back to crash into the cavern wall an easy dozen paces away, the sound of snapping bones accompanying the impact as he fell the rest of the way to the ground.
The woman stood there with her halberd pose, looking for the next threat.
As Smith was slipping DJINN into a small wood container for protection (both its and himself), he saw the white-haired woman rush Romanov as she got up from avoiding being struck before, pulling out another .44 Russian Revolver as the attacker blocked the former Czarina's arm to prevent herself from being shot, gripping Anastasia's wrist. Even from where he knelt, putting a lid on the small container, John could see the pain in Nikolaevna's face, trying to free herself but unable to do so. Smith found a cord to tie the lid to the container and began wrapping it around the small wooden box.
"You… have spirit, daughter of Nikola." The white-haired woman spoke for the first time, her tone harsh, grating, with an accent the Director didn't readily recognize. As he wound the cord around the container and began to tie it, he watched as the assailant press the tip of her halberd into the Russian woman's bosom as the necklace glowed, light infusing into Anastasia's chest.
"B-bozye moy, izvinitye!" Nikolaevna gasped as a look of fear entered her face as she looked at Smith as the light that entered her chest crawled up her neck, onto her face, and into her eyes, turning them completely white as her face went slack, the fear draining away as the woman let go of Romanov's wrist.
Anastasia holstered her loaded revolver at her hip without word or qualm, her pupil-less eyes and emotionless face looking right at the woman as if in expectation of orders.
Director John Smith couldn't believe what he was seeing as he finished binding the rope around the container as he saw the woman press the halberd into another DISNEY Agent, the same light entering the red-coated man as it had with Anastasia, his eyes going white as the former Royal Marine ceased struggling against the assailant. I need to leave, Smith thought as he secured the small wooden box and quietly moved away from the situation.
"Please don't. I am in need of that."
Smith stopped in his tracks, being addressed by an accented feminine voice.
"This doesn't have to end well." Smith tossed off the causal threat as he assessed the woman, not liking what conclusion he had come up with. With what he had seen and what he had at the moment, flight was his best option; not something he was proned to doing.
"Of course it doesn't." The polearm-wielding woman replied with a sense of satisfaction, as if that was what she wanted. "I've waited too long for anything else." The white-haired woman's proclamation didn't comfort the Director one bit, especially with the sight of her cruel sneer and her rather fantastical-looking armor. She looked to have stepped off of a play or some fairy tale.
"I am Empress Kidagakash Nedakh, rightful ruler of Atlantis and the Seven Seas." The woman proclaimed in her strange accent, her too-blue eyes looking at Smith as if he were insignificant.
"And I have come burdened with glorious tidings."
In the middle of a laboratory where an old physicist was crouching down to check upon the life of one of his assistants, an Admiral stood holding onto a small wooden crate, a red-coated man armed with a rifle stood motionless along with a Russian woman carrying several revolvers, and a white-haired interloper wearing unusual armor and bearing a halberd and some sort of glowing jewel dangling from her neck. There were at least four bodies laying upon the ground, two having been impaled by the bladed long arm and another two with quill-like spines coming out of their necks as Rear Admiral John Smith found himself facing against a woman who had appeared courtesy of a magical lamp with two of his men standing as still as statues instead of engaging the obvious threat or standing at his side as he carried a small container housing something truly dangerous.
"I am Empress Kidagakash Nedakh, rightful ruler of Atlantis and the Seven Seas. And I have come burdened with glorious tidings." The white-haired woman in scale armor that looked to be akin to fish scale proclaimed proudly, standing majestically in the laboratory.
"Kida? Sister to the Sea King Mahannan? Aunt to the Princess of Tides?" Doctor Carl Fredrickson said in a shocked tone as he knelt beside one of his assistants, the woman in question laying injured and unconscious from a blast from the halberd when it had struck a research table. The elderly Physicist was looking at the woman in question as her too-blue eyes glanced over to the elderly man with a vicious face, as if the reminder didn't sit well with her. Smith knew well of the incident involving a golden trident, a lost 'sailor', and a gigantic octopus-like monstrosity that struck and nearly destroyed the town of Londonderry, Ireland if not for the intervention of four seaborne warriors and a woman claiming herself to being the Princess of Tides.
"We have no sanctions against the Kingdom of Atlantis." Smith declared truthfully, knowing of the lost continent and its people thanks to a celebrated national hero nearly a century prior who had won the heart of a mermaid who had taken to England's side during the Napoleonic Wars, the Wolf of the Nile securing many a victory on the seas thanks to the Princess of Tides. Yet Atlantis was a Kingdom, not an Empire, and the Admiral feared something dreadful might have happened beneath the waves of the world. Considering Atlantis was the de facto authority of the four oceans and seven sea, not to mention that sailing and steaming the seas was of vital necessity to so many nations on the world, a regime change could only spell disaster.
"A minnow has no sanctions against a shark." The so-called Empress declared, her tone smug.
"Are you planning on chomping on us?" Smith asked, feeling a very realistic fear flooding his veins. And he wasn't a man to frighten easily as his remaining eye went on Romanov, who still stood there looking at him with her colorless eyes, transfixed.
"I come with bountiful tides." The white-haired woman replied with a sinister smile as she graced the laboratory, her eyes briefly on Doctor Fredrickson as he stood with help from his walker as Kidagakash moved towards Smith by a few paces, her face alight with authority. "Of the surface world made equal." The armored woman informed, her tone too cheerful.
"Equality? From what?" John asked, not believing the droll woman in the least.
"Equality itself." The Empress replied, smiling deeply as she faced the one-eyed man. "Equality is the Gods' greatest deception, their greatest lie told. Once you realize that, in your heart," Kida turned and thrusted the tip of her halberd towards Doctor Carl Fredrickson, pressing it against his chest as her jewel glowed, a white light piercing the Physicists' chest.
"E-Ellie…" The old man whimpered in sorrow as the light crawled up his skin, his eyes turning white as his wrinkled face relaxed, the same thing happening to him as it did to Agent Anastasia Romanov.
"…you will know content." The interloper delivered with a harsh whisper, Smith seeing Carl standing like the others who had been corrupted by the halberd.
"You say content, but I think you mean quite the opposite." Smith replied, noting that there was the sound of groaning metal behind him, a sound he knew of well; the sound of a over-pressurized boiler. Considering the size of it, its rupture would in all likelihood collapse the entirety of the cavern with Project: HELIOS along with it. If it buried the woman and the dangerous object in his hand to where no one could ever mess with it again, he wouldn't mind that particular outcome. He was an Englishman; it was his duty to serve God, Queen, and Country, to give his life if necessary for the benefit of Britannia.
"Your Majesty, Admiral Smith is playing for time." Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov spoke, walking towards the so-called Empress, eying the massive boiler the size of a sixth-rate frigate as it continued to groan, the hiss of steam escaping microscopic weak points. "That boiler is about to explode and bury us all within this cavern. He means to entomb us all."
"Like the Titans locked away in Tartarus." Smith replied, his turn to level a smile at the white haired-woman.
"He's right, the boiler is reaching critical temperatures and pressure." Doctor Carl Fredrickson replied, looking to a series of gauges close by, adjusting his spectacles. "We have perhaps a few ticks of the minute-hand before it reaches the red zone and either boils us alive or fills us with metal grapeshot."
"So be it." The Empress merely turned to look at the Orphan, who without word, order, or even looking at the woman who declared herself the Empress of Atlantis, quick-drew one of her Smith and Wesson .44 Russian Revolvers while cocking back the hammer with her opposing hand at the same time and shot Director Smith right in the center of his chest, the Rear Admiral losing the container he was holding onto as he fell back from the gunshot, laying back on the floor of the laboratory. Smith felt himself lying on his back, consciousness fleeting as he gazed over to see Anastasia picking up the small crate containing DJINN as Kida, Doctor Fredrickson, Romanov, and another DISNEY Agent walked towards the exist of the laboratory as the massive boiler within continued to groan with pressure as the Director blinked and fought off to stave merciful blackness as his hands tore open his dress shirt to reveal a thick weave of spider silk underneath, the .44 caliber round having struck the expensive weave and stopped it before it penetrated his body and heart. John sat up slightly and pulled the bullet from the Hong Kong-imported bulletproof vest with a grunt, the pain of being shot still there without the addition of having a bullet in him as he looked over to a device that should have been activated at the off-set but the situation having spiraled out-of-control before anyone realized their folly as John staggered up on his feet, feeling all of his sixty years as he stumbled towards the table where a device with a rotating handle laid.
And he began to spin the handle of the sea raid siren, its piercing cry echoing throughout the cavern.
Author's Notes: The plot thickens!
DISNEY FACT: Dumbo is the only main character in the Disney Franchise not to have a voice actor, considering he doesn't talk. A not-talking animal in Disney? Who knew?
MARVEL FACT: In the mid-90's, despite the host of television shows and the amount of groups running about in the comics, Marvel Entertainment filed for bankruptcy.
REAL-WORLD FACT: Stanley Lieber (Stan Lee) was a World War II Veteran, joining the United States Army and the Signal Corps in early in 1942 (as many did after the Attack on Peral Harbor). He ended up working along with not only Frank Capra (an Academy Award-winning director), but also Theodore Geisel. That's Dr. Seuss, by the way. He use to repair telegraph and telephone wires and communication equipment, but later went on to write scripts for military propo films, training manuals, slogans, and even cartooning. Stan Lee would also invent the 'ricochet' of Captain America's shield in 1939 Timely Comics' Captain America #3, something that he would use later in in the late-60's when reviving the icon.
Kidagakash 'Kida' Nedakh - The female protagonist from Atlantis: The Lost Continent. While (technically) a Disney Princess, she isn't included due to the fact that the movie bombed. So you get a failed Princess as a bad guy, and since there is another seaborne Princess with a sea king father in Disney lore… Kida is now the aunt of a certain mermaid.
Bozye moy, izvinitye! - (Russian) Dear God, forgive me! (This is as close as I could get to 'Romanized' Russian. I didn't want to scare people with Cyrillic.)
I mention this universe's version of Thor, who aided England during a time of war nearly a century prior, whose heart had been won by the Wolf of the Nile. For my British readers who get this reference, yes, that is a clear indication of Lord Horatio Nelson being the one who fell in love with a mermaid known as The Princess of Tides.
Bulletproof vests before Kevlar - In the 1500-1600's, when knights on horseback was still a thing, smiths would make bulletproof breastplates for knights and nobility, shooting it with a pistol to 'proof' its effectiveness. Unfortunately, powder became more effective with better materials and mixtures in the 1700's, and armor was almost negligible (and expensive even for nobility). In the late 19th Century, with trade with Hong Kong being supplied by ship thanks to the vast British Empire, spider silk was created as another means of stopping a bullet. You might laugh, but Kevlar was based off the tensile strength of spider silk, which gave but didn't break. Archduke Franz Fernanidad, Crown Prince of Austria, who was assassinated and kickstarted World War I, had himself a spider silk shirt but forgot to wear it on the day he was shot and killed. Whoops.