CHAPTER THREE
THE SECOND WAVE
Victor relaxed has he watched his network of screens. Now that Otto's battery and Luthor's stealth field had both been installed Eobard wasn't needed as a deliveryman so he came and went as he pleased, rarely talking to the Latverian doctor. He was alone in the World Station and watched those he had selected with avid interest.
Sirius Black and this woman, Daisy who had agreed to not just take him to Carson City but help him get all the way to Washington. They had arrived a couple of weeks ago but had uncovered nothing of what the Primarch was up to. Both Victor and Daisy were entertained by his magical abilities, he mainly being intrigued with its healing potential. Now they walked through one of Washington's national parks, discussing what they should do now, unaware they were being watched by someone other than Doom.
Corvus had worked efficiently with the FBI, singlehandedly tackling some of the largest drug smuggling and people tracking operations in South America. He showed no signs of slowing down or being broken by his situation. He killed mercilessly and efficiently, taking no prisoners and leaving few survivors.
Boba Fett had adapted the most to the world, he'd purchased himself some fake paperwork and upgraded his car, taking a few smaller jobs for wealthy, disgruntled and sleazy friends of the Sheriff. Victor had seen through the Doom Drone observing him that he had been building his own case file against Corvus Corax, the only public oddity. Von Doom wondered if perhaps forcing the subjects into the public would spice things up.
For the mean time however, he had his own work to attend to. Rising from his viewing station he moved to the World Stations engine and quickly typed in two sets of multiversal coordinates and picked up a new experimental teleporter he had decided it was time to test it in the field. First, to his old universe, but not to barren Earth, to the heart of the Kree Empire.
Enter: RONAN THE ACCUSER
Defeated again, the damned Guardians of the Galaxy. That arrogant fool Star-Lord and his pathetically hand-made team. Now to inform the Supreme Intelligence of his failures, recharge the fuel source of his armor and prove himself for yet another time worthy of his position. No one made eye contact with him as he stalked through the halls of the Kree fortress and it was good for them that the aides and lesser beings lowered their faces or steered clear of his path to the Supreme Intelligences sanctum. His armored fist clenched around his hammer, he wanted to crush the first thing that brought him even a glimmer of annoyance.
He pushed two wide doors open and stomped down a wide, gold lined stairwell. His pace slowed before it halted, his eyes narrowed, something was wrong. The elite guard who watched over the doors to the sanctum lay in heaps, crumpled and dead in their armour across the floor. "Hello Ronan." An unfamiliar voice said behind him but before Ronan could turn a wave of green energy crashed into him and sent him flying down the stairs.
Ronan rised to his hands and knees, taking up his hammer he rose to his feet to face what had hit him. Levitating a foot above stairs towards him was a man in silver armour with a hooded emerald cloak flowing around him. "You dare attack the Supreme Intelligence!" He dived at the intruder, swinging the glowing hammer with all of his force. The newcomer clicked his fingers and the full weight of Ronan moved through him and hit the stairs, the hammer creating a thundering boom as it fractured the stairs. "Now you hide behind an illusion, coward!"
"Not an illusion, it is phasing." He was informed smugly. Another click of his fingers and the Kree Warlord felt his limbs get heavier but despite this he hauled himself to his feet. What was happening to him? Then a signal arriving at his helmet told him, his power armor's battery had been syphoned away.
"Remove my energy? I am still the Accuser!" He roared defiantly, swinging his hammer back at his new found enemy. Defiant as ever, he was much slower and weaker now, at least in comparison to his competitor. The hammer was caught by the handle and a powered gauntlet wreathed in green electricity crashed into his face separating the weapon from his grip.
Ronan groaned, spitting out sapphire blood and opening his eyes. The figure in green's feet had finally touched the tiled floor of the fortress next to his hammer and it crouched down to collect it. Purple sparks surged around it, lashing at the stranger. "Fool." Ronan spat but he was ignored. The man tried again, gripping the handle as hard as he could, taking the lightning strikes between gasps of pain. "My hammer is synchronised to my armour." He growled and pulled himself to his feet, struggling slightly between the weight of his armour and the injuries he had gained from his fight with the Guardians. Ronan charged the man in green and experienced something new. His own hammer striking him backwards.
The lightning had stopped, now the green man wielded the hammer with two hands, bathed in a warm purple glow. "H-how?" Ronan asked, slowly trying to get to his feet but he realised the chestplate of his armor was dented and wouldn't take another hit like that.
"Adaptive nanotechnology." He said with a shrug. "I can simply convince your hammer I'm wearing your armour."
"T-that's sacrilege!" Ronan yelled. "Who are you to come here?"
"Doctor Doom." It was put simply but Ronan recognised the name from his battles with Earth.
"Earthling?" Ronan said. "You do know that your planet is gone? Got wi-" He was interrupted by Doom's wrist flickering and a metal square striking him in the arm.
"-and let me guess, when you found out that we were all gone, you laughed?" Doom asked him, pulling a receiver from a compartment in his armor.
"I did." Ronan admitted, he picked at the silver square, now held to his armor by magnetism.
"Then this should be incredibly entertaining." Doom said with a short laugh and pushed the button on his receiver.
In: THE WORLD STATION
Eobard had watched Doom leave into the World Engine and had immediately allowed himself access to the room. He watched what Victor was doing briefly, using his magic to quickly and quietly slaughter blue skinned alien guards. Weird the speedster thought briefly before flickering away from the screen and that universe all together. He enjoyed looking through Victor's multiverse, there wasn't a monument to the Flash in sight. Flickering through the different Earths he felt nausea swell inside him. Eobard clutched his stomach and staggered backwards catching himself against the cold wall and slid down to the soothing temperature of the ground's metal. His body pulsed with speed force vibrations for a moment then he was still. He looked at his fingers and tried to vibrate them, weakly, they buzzed. At one point he could punch that through someones chest without so much as a drop of sweat.
He hated himself for having to admit it, it made him feel all the more weak but he needed a Flash, he needed a speed force if he was to survive. Even on End-Time, the barren earth he had met Victor on, he had a limited connection to the source but here he had nothing. As the nauseau receded for the sixth time that day he looked up at the screen and found someone who could help him.
Enter: BRUCE BANNER
Bruce had been free of the responsibility that came from being the Hulk for two entire months and they had been the most relaxing and anxiety free months of his life. Although he had spent the first couple of weeks worried he wasn't really cured. Then he tested himself by going into situations where the Hulk would usually run free. Bruce had even built up the courage to try to connect with Betty again. Then he came. General Thunderbolt Ross they called him, the father of the woman he loved. He had been a massive adversary to the Hulk's and by extension, Bruce's life. Abomination had returned, apparently stronger than ever, appearing and reappearing across New York in brutal attacks. A couple of the Avengers had tried to stop him, it hadn't gone well, Steve Rogers was in the hospital. The General had known exactly what to say to him. Tell Bruce Abomination was his fault to begin with, tell him that his friends were getting hurt and that the Hulk was the only person that could stop him. Those statements for the most part were true.
Bruce agreed for the one time deal, the Hulk would return to defeat Abomination. When he calmed down, Bruce would use the same cure he had developed with Reed Richards to make sure the Hulk never rose again. Ross had flown him across the country in a military plane to a SHIELD laboratory where they had in secret and against Doctor Banners greatest wishes reconstructed the gamma beam device which had cursed him with the Hulk in the first place.
Furious with Ross, Nick Fury and Maria Hill though he was, he was more nervous about what would come next. As the base was evacuated he double checked the reconstruction of his former work. As he feared but also needed, it was perfect. He wondered if they'd tested it. He shook the thought out of his head, if Ross had a different Hulk option available he would have used it by now.
Bruce received the all clear of non-essential personnel and set the timer on the device before standing in its path, in five seconds he would be three times his own size, green and enraged. There was a ear-splitting crack and his eyes shot open. This hadn't happened before. Everything was black around him, and then it wasn't. He was in a dark room of metal, bright strips of light illuminated the area. A small bed across one side of the room, next to it a small stack of books.
"Bruce Banner is it?" A mans voice said behind him, stood in the doorway was a man in a yellow and black suit. His mask was pulled back to reveal his face but Bruce didn't recognise him as any hero or villain he'd come across before. He looked tired. "My name is Eobard Thawne. I believe you could help me with a problem I'm having."
"I was kind or having my own problem back there." Bruce said, picking himself up and dusting himself down.
"And you can still help out with that, I can send you back to the exact time and place that you left." Eobard told him. "After you've helped me."
"You're a time-traveller?" Bruce asked, almost casually. He picked up one of the books on the bedside table, looking at the back of it. "This was published in twenty-fiftyone."
"Yes, although that book probably won't exist in your timeline." Eobard said with a tired shrug.
"Why not?" Bruce asked turning it over, a man in a red suit grinned on the front cover.
"It's about the Flash, he's apparently a my multiverse exclusive." Thawne only half explained. "But he will be your focus of study."
"Why?" Bruce questioned, although he didn't trust the man in yellow. He slightly appreciated being needed for his brain power and not the Hulk's destructive force. "What exactly do you need my help with?"
"Hmm." Eobard thought for a second. "I'll try to put it simply. The Flash simply existing creates an energy called the speed force which I need to live. So I'm going to create a Flash in this multiverse. I need you to help me create a localised dark matter generator and find out who in this universe when exposed to it will generate speed force."
"If- if you can grab me from another universe, why not get yourself a Flash?" Bruce pointed out, putting the book back down on the bedside table.
"Every Barry Allen, Wally West, Jay Garrick and every other member of that bunch are on some watchlist, if one of them goes missing the rest'll come looking. I wouldn't stand a chance while I am this weak." He said disdainfully.
"Look so- if I help you, if-"
"No Bruce." Eobard interrupted him. "We're both men of science and I want to be reasonable, read those books and have a good hard think, I'll come back tomorrow and see what you think." He turned to leave.
"Hey Thawne! Don't-"
He turned back with a glare, his arm crackled with red lightning for a split second. "If you don't keep quiet though, I won't think twice about coming down here to kill you."
Later, In: THE WORLD STATION
Doctor Doom poured over screens in the World Stations teleportation engine. After returning from fighting Ronan and sending him to Texas, the exact same spot he had sent Boba Fett too. He thought that would shake things up, if only to a degree. Once he had unlocked the secrets of his hammer, one of the Kree 'ultimate weapons' he would be sure to use a weapon of his own design to put him in his place again.
He searched for a threat, something monstrously dangerous. It would force the subjects of his experiments to come together for survival and lead them in circles when it came to tracing all of this back to him. Victor grinned beneath his mask as he found the perfect things to stir the pot in Corvus Corax's universe. Orks. Even a handful of them would be an incredibly public menace.
Enter: WARBOSS ARRGARD
He hated the cracking that surrounded him and roared at the darkness that erupted around him. He heard his brothers roar with him, they were behind him in this at least. When reality returned he was in a forest of green trees and a dirty, leaf covered clearing. Small pink skinned creatures screamed and ran at the sight of him, it made him smile.
"Oomans!" He heard Ilgrur, one of his Kommandoz yell and begin to open fire into the screaming crowd.
It took a few seconds for Arrgards eyes to focus, but there were indeed humans. Dozens of them unequipped and fleeing with all their might. "Mob up!" He roared, turning to see that instead of the Waaagh he had brought with him was now an almost pitiful group of six. "Where's da Rokk?" He shouted at Zhikkod, his chief pain boy. "What happened?" He spat at Ghulgraz, a well known Mekboy.
"Dis is a miff! Some warp magic!" He heard the metallic voice of Duzka as the immense Deff Dread stomped into view on his metal legs. These machines were immensely powerful and rare weapons of war, the size of a small tank and with just as much destructive power.
"Where are we?!" Arrgard roared but expected no answer. "On some Ooman world without our gubbinz or kannonz! Only da shootahs in our 'and! Not even a runt to 'old my ammo!" He punched the tree closest too him with his own immense power claw which crunched through it like it was a toothpick.
After it collapsed to the ground a silence followed, none of the Orks wanted to incur the wrath of Arrgard. Eventually it was broken. "Wha' do we do Unki?" Barlud asked, the second of the two Kommandoz who had been sent here with him. He stabbed at the corpse of a near by human with the tip of one of his knives.
"Need to find a place to grow fung and squigs." He snarled resentfully. They had been on a warpath, hundreds of thousands of Orks strong, months had been spent preparing for an endless war and now they were forced to start again. "Painboy." Zhikkod looked up at him. "Find a place... An' if its naff I'll crush ya head." Arrgard barked, fully serious with the consequences. The Painboy began to look around, a slight edge of panic in his green face. The warboss kicked him, sending him stumbling forwards. "Lead da way runt an' boyz, kill any Ooman you see."