Worm - Fire Circle 1.2
"Talk to me, Stark," a short-haired woman in a SHIELD uniform ordered as she walked over.
The armored Avenger turned her. His face plate flipped up, much to the mostly hidden surprise of Eidolon, Legend and Alexandria. "What do you want me to say? We managed to barely run off major threat for the death of several heroes, numerous civilians and foreign heroes?"
That got the hard-nosed woman to back off slightly. "Who did we lose?"
"Not we. Me. Black Widow, Shang Chi and Sunspot are all KIA. Steve is in critical condition, along with Spider-Woman. M and Armor of the X-Men are seriously wounded, but should recover," Tony Stark said. He jerked a thumb at Legend. "According to our new friends, that's incredibly light casualties for us. They normally lose at least one-quarter of the heroes and villains that show up."
Maria narrowed her blue eyes. "And villains?"
"Over half of the people that were here fighting were villains. The Endbringers require a truce so that they can be driven off," Legend explained. "I'm Legend. This is Alexandria and Eidolon. We are the Triumvirate and major leaders of the Protectorate."
"Which is the United States Government sanctioned super teams with branches in all major cities and even most larger towns," Alexandria explained with her fists on her hips, looking quite dramatic. "Legend is in charge of New York City and the Protectorate over all."
Director Hill noted that Eidolon wasn't really saying much. "You are going to cook up a gizmo to track down the monster and figure out a way to exploit its weakness, Stark?"
"It lives at the bottom of the ocean and can travel at hypersonic speed. So no, I'm not going to whip up some simple sensor to track him down. I'm going to have to talk to Stingray and some underwater specialists. Have you already let Atlantis know that this thing is out there? Namor's tough, but he's not that tough even at his best underwater," Tony said. His brows were knit in deep concentration.
"I have, while alerting the United Nations to the threat. They are doing the normal finger pointing and demanding we incarcerate all the new arrivals to be interrogated." She gave him a shrug. "That's not going to happen. This is U.S. soil and SHIELD jurisdiction."
"Pardon me, but what is SHIELD?" Legend asked curiously.
"Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate. We're the people that you call when your super crazies are trying to destroy the world or when one of the many super terrorist organizations pop up to attack civilization," Maria said proudly.
"And they only have to call the Avengers to do the heavy lifting sometimes," Tony said with a smirk.
That earned him a glare. "Stark, don't go there," the director of SHIELD said.
"I've been in your seat before, Director, so I know what I'm saying," he drawled out. "But I've got some things to do. Reed is on his way to see what we can do to open a portal back to their dimension. Don't you have important fiddly logistics directives to do?"
She just narrowed her eyes angrily. "Yes. I do. I'm declaring this city to be under SHIELD jurisdiction. Two more helicarriers are on their way. Call me later, Stark, with an update on Steve."
"You aren't much for secret IDs, I take it?" Alexandria asked.
"It really didn't help much when they wanted to kidnap me for inventing the Iron Man armor. Or helicarriers. Or everything else. Oh well. Back to work." With that he headed off to talk to Storm.
The three leaders of the Protectorate shared a look at that.
Ego, much?
Skitter lay on a cot in her own curtained off area of Arcadia's high school gym, her arm very crudely splinted and in a sling. Her other wrist was handcuffed to her bed, but as she'd actually seen everyone handcuffed down. Even heroes.
She felt like she ached everywhere.
The curtain was pulled back with a dull swish, revealing the bedraggled form in matted white robes. "Oh. It's you," Panacea said in a angry, sullen tone.
The young villainess tried to shrink in on herself. "Sorry."
Brown eyes glared at her. "You aren't really sorry."
"Huh?" the wounded girl asked. Her eyes were wide behind her goggles.
Panacea studied her, taking in her broken arm. "What exactly were you doing out there with your bugs?" she asked in a soft, scathing tone.
"First aid?" Skitter said. Her eyes narrowed angrily at the insinuation.
Panacea had walked up to her side. Her brown eyes had gone wide at that. "What? Really? I-"
"Save it." Skitter paused as she tried to think of a witty response. "Just save it.
"I need to be able to touch your skin," Panacea explained as she looked over the costumed villain, not finding a single thing uncovered but her hair. "I guess I can cut part of the costume away." She reached under her robes for a set of medical scissors.
"That won't work. Tougher than kevlar." Skitter felt her stomach drop. "Just pull down the top of my mask a bit." One broken arm and one cuffed meant she couldn't really pull off part of her body stocking too easily.
The healer blinked as she took in the costume a little bit closer. "What is this made of?"
"Black widow spider silk. It wasn't that hard once you get the hang of it." She tried to shrug, only for her left arm to scream in pain. "T-That was a bad idea."
Panacea pulled down the mask slightly, revealing just the upper half of Taylor's face. Idly she noted that there were lenses glued into the goggles. She had brown eyes, just like her. Panacea then put her fingertips on the girl's temples, cataloging all the wounds. More than she expected. The broken arm, bruises, exposure and... depression? Chronic stress and heavy depression. She wouldn't touch that, but she had rarely dealt with anyone that badly off that wasn't hospitalized for suicide.
"There you go." Panacea pulled up the mask. "Tattletale's still a bitch."
"I'm-" Skitter paused for a moment. "I'm not going to apologize for her, even though I think it was pretty cruddy what she did. She only has words to defend herself or use for the team. I'm not sure she really meant it to go that far."
"I'm never going to like her," Panacea said firmly. She stood back up and then leaned back, trying to stretch her shoulder and neck muscles.
She was just stepping out of Skitter's little area when the main doors to the gym banged open.
"-you can't go in there," a man was saying.
Masked heads all turned to take in the sight of people in tight navy blue uniforms with military style patches on them walking in the main doors.
"You will find out that yes, I can. Oliver, if he interferes again, shoot him. With a stunner," SHIELD Director Maria Hill told her assistant even as more SHIELD agents with high tech looking rifles started to move in and take position. "All right people. I am Director Hill of SHIELD. We're something like your world's super police. You are all going to submit to being detained while we sort out villains from heroes. No one is going to be hurt. This is just for everyone's safety. Do not do anything stupid. It will just get you hurt."
"What the fuck are you talking about? There's an Endbringer truce on!" a man in a black cape and gray bodysuit said.
"The Endbringer truce was on your world, not ours. So hands in the air where I can see them," she snapped out.
"This is bullshit! We put our lives on the line to fight Leviathan and you just come in here to arrest us?" the Empire Eighty Eight cape Othala said angrily. "Some of us have died fighting it!"
A very fat cape with a huge shotgun in his hands appeared from behind some curtains. "You don't want to break the truce. You're Earth has an Endbringer now. You're going to need everyone to fight it now," the Chubster shouted out.
"You're not arresting me," a very irate sounding Bitch called out. Two of her horse-sized dog 'monsters' were at her side. "I'll fucking rip you apart." Grue, Tattletale and Regent were behind her.
"Director Hill, what the hell do you think you are doing?" a new voice called out as a blonde man with bandages wrapped around his chest stepped out into the main area. Captain America, sans mask, looked like he had gone three rounds with world heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko.
"You need to rest and let the regeneration finish fixing you up," Othala said worriedly, trotting over.
"I'm capturing dozens of villains before they can be unleashed on our Earth, Captain America," the leader of SHIELD retorted.
"Are you trying to start another registration civil war? You know that the Earth Bet heroes might step in to protect them? You're smarter than that!" the battered sentinel of liberty berated her, pointing a bandaged finger at her.
"Brockton Bay is under SHIELD's directive. We are rescuing the civilians, restoring order and will maintain that order under my watch. I am not going to let another Genosha or Madripoor plant itself on US soil," Maria replied tightly.
"Wow, she's one angry bitch that has to prove she's as good as her legendary predecessor," Tattletale said with a smirk on her face. "She knows she doesn't have a legal leg to stand on either. All of our crimes happened on another world. About the best she could legally do is eject us from this Earth."
"Who the hell are you and how the hell do you know... anything?" the director snapped out defensively.
"Name's Tattletale and I'm psychic," she replied. Her eyes flickered over to the unmasked Captain America and blinked for a second in surprise. "I mean, she's just going to throw us in some concentration camp and lose the key."
"Bullshit. I'm trained to resist psychic interrogation and my uniform has low level jammers built in," the director of SHIELD said as she narrowed her eyes at the young teen.
"Maria, this is the wrong way to go about this," Captain America said as he pulled on his armored uniform top. His round red-white-blue shield was right next to him.
"Seems par for the course for SHIELD," the redheaded Marvel Girl said as she stood up from leaning against a wall. "Got some Sentinels on their way to loom over everyone and shoot anyone that tries to escape?" Her hound marks were very visible as was her anger.
"These are criminals. They are not heroes," Agent Oliver said to stand up for his boss, trying to hide his nervousness. All of the SHIELD agents had their guns almost raised up level by this point.
The shriek of boot jet nearly started a fight as Iron Man landed outside and then walked into the gym. "Director Hill. You have a call from the President. He's not very happy that you are trying to start a superhuman war here in a refugee camp."
Maria Hill gave him a truly angry glare and then headed out, her troops following behind her.
Tattletale just shook her head. "Talk about a frustrated woman. She had some sort of fling with Mr. Red and Gold, which just made it worse."
Iron Man's helmet tilted ever so slightly.
"Oooh. And he doesn't know? How the heck does that even work?" Tattletale muttered to herself. She almost jumped out of her skin.
'It's not a good idea to pretend to be something you aren't,' Marvel Girl telepathed to her.
SHIT!
"Okay, situation defused people," the PRT relief coordinator called out. "If you are no longer in need of medical assistance, go outside to the waiting area or head home if you are locals."
Captain America shook his head sadly. "Tony? Got a moment?"
"Half of one somewhere. Come on, soldier. I need to introduce you to the Protectorate leaders."
The two of them headed out and Skitter released her long held breath. She had managed to free herself from the handcuffs and headed over to her friends. "So what was that all about?" she asked.
"This world has a different set of rules for their capes. They don't care as much about secret IDs and they don't have the whole Endbringer truce dynamic. At least formalized," Tattletale said in an absent minded manner. "We should probably lay low for a bit."
Everyone nodded at that.
"I'm sorry, Collin. I've run out of time," Dragon said to Armsmaster about a hundred feet away. "Please back away so my self destruct does not harm you."
"What do you mean?" he stepped back. "Why did you activate a self destruct? Eject! DRAGON!"
Smoke started to curl out of the Dragon armor, then exploded. Armsmaster but up his armored gauntlets to protect his head, but no shrapnel actually hit him. A wall of ice had appeared in front of him.
"And Ice Man for the cool save!" said the mutant. "What happened to her?"
"I'm not sure," the Tinker admitted. That had been Dragon, but that had been the selfdestruct to keep her armor from being captured. "Can you put a wall around this area? I need to salvage everything I can to take back to my base."
"No problem," Ice Man said with a huge grin on his face.
A blur zipped up to Armsmaster. "Hey, you wanted to be informed if that expert on dimensional portals showed up, right?" Velocity asked his boss.
"Right. Where is he?" his leader asked.
"He's that old guy in the white uniform without a mask. Can you believe he's never worn a mask? I guess his Fantastic Four team never bothered. He's another Tinker, but they don't know what that means," the speedster said helpfully.
Armsmaster trotted over there, which ended up being an empty field between a couple of warehouses. "Mister Fantastic?" he called out as he got closer.
"Armsmaster, right? Please, call me Reed. I've brought a whole bunch of sensors to help figure this problem out. I don't think we can return the whole city, but we should be able to make a temporary portal at least," the scientist hero said with a pleasant smile on his face as he stretched out his hand to shake Armsmaster's hand.
He shook back automatically. "I thought your parahuman power was building items?"
"Ah, no. I and my family were accidentally bombarded with cosmic rays in space. That gave us each different powers, but 'building things' is actually just some engineering and physics knowledge," Mister Fantastic said. "So I can stretch like rubber. Which has useful combat uses, but a keen mind is the most important thing."
"So your Earth doesn't have people with the superpower of building super-tech?" Armsmaster asked as it dawned on him potentially why this Earth would have flying super-carriers.
"Doesn't that guy in Omega Flight, Box, do that, Reed?" the Invisible Woman asked.
"That's right, Sue. But he's been working on his engineering for quite a while, so he's gotten quite a bit better."
"YAWN! Boring. How's that coming, Reed?" the Human Torch asked as he leaned against the battered wall.
"Just waiting for Ben to carry over the gravitic infometer from the ship," Reed said with a laugh on his face.
Said superhero was carrying a multi-ton gizmo on his shoulder as he walked over.
Armsmaster turned to the woman. "So Iron Man isn't what we call a Tinker? He actually invented that Iron Man armor on his own?"
"Oh, Tony Stark? I think he has the superpower of making money, but technically he's just a playboy, philanthropist, engineering genius millionaire. Although I guess he's a cyborg these days," Sue said, then laughed at his slack-jawed expression. "Sorry, he and Reed have been competitive since college. Those 'Atomic Knights' were all crazy." Her expression turned grim. "Of course, a few of them ended up as major villains."
Reed had been stretching around while he assembled his sensors. He had it turned on and then started looking at the nearly incomprehensible information on the screens. He blinked as it gave a simple, clear return.
"That can't be right," Reed muttered. He started to adjust things and checking his diagnostics.
"Is there a problem, Mr. Fantastic?" Armsmaster asked intently, pushing away his distress. "Is your sensor not working?"
"No, it's working perfectly fine." Mister Fantastic turned away from his screens. "It's just telling us that you are from beyond the Kirby-Plank barrier."
"And what does that mean for those of us without multiple physics degrees?" Johnny asked in frustration.
"It's something that I originally thought had to be a subset of alternate realities when I first started, but no one could ever actually travel to them. So I had thought it was actually a flaw in my theories. But according to this, Earth Bet is smack dab in the middle of this. And if I read these numbers right, the barrier has actually become even more impervious." Reed had adopted a thinking pose. "It would take phenomenal amounts of power, cosmic tier even, to just pierce through the barrier."
"Um, like who?" Sue asked him.
"Probably at least a Celestial, unless I'm misreading how the barrier functions. But now I have proof that it can be traversed, so it might just require a better tool to get past it," the scientist said.
"So how long are we looking to get back to our world?" Armsmaster asked in a subdued, worried tone.
"Oh, hopefully only a few months. That going to create even more problems of a security concern. But that's SHIELD's problem. Don't worry, Armsmaster, we'll get you home." Reed gave him a smile in encouragement.
"We'll enlist any Thinkers and Tinkers to help, of course. If you don't mind, I have to report to my superiors." Armsmaster's thoughts were awhirl.