Revamped!
[Regarding Ragnarök: I have a Ragnarök storyline (again, also made it up before the movie) planned for this story but I don't think it will be anything like the movie itself. I'll get back to this once I watch the movie]. [2020: It's not like the movie at all. I have some of it planned already and it'll fuck me up].
Chapter 11: MojoWorld Part Two
PNG Quinjet - 3:31 AM
It's been six hours since Merida and Daniel vanished from their mission.
Angela and Xavier have been on the phone with several agents in command, discussing their current problem and explaining their current plans for solutions and if they have any advice. They had no current resolutions but lied to the other agents, saying that they had the issue under control and that the footage was tampered with to throw off the ones who were shooting them. James, however, was being a wreck when it came to thinking about how their friends could have actually vanished (which was the only explanation they have but couldn't tell the other agents that).
"I just need more time," James tells his remaining teammates. "I swear that I can get to the bottom of all this and we will get our friends alive. I mean, there's no way in hell Merida would let herself or Daniel die on a mission let alone dissipate."
James rambles on, running his hands through his already-messy hair. As of now, he resembles an actual mad scientist and nobody knows when the last time he drank something that wasn't caffeinated. He paces in his lab, staring at the holograms set before him and talking at a rate as fast as his flapping wings. One holographic screen shows the video of Merida and Daniel's disappearance on loop and the others have an endless array of equations to try and express what happened in terms of science and not plain magic. Angela and Xavier watch him, patiently, trying to keep up. They feel guilty because they can't help the way Daniel could. Daniel probably has a damn Ph.D. in all this. All they could do is listen and be confused.
"My dad tried to give me a crash course in electromagnetism," James continues, pointing to some variables on the board. "Frequencies, radiation, wavelengths, ultraviolet, ionosphere - do either of you know what an ionosphere is?"
The twins shake their heads.
"Me neither," James says with a clap of his hands. "I mean, I didn't know it until my dad explained it, and now, I think I know what it is. The ionosphere is a part of the atmosphere. It's basically nature's forcefield. Radio waves bounce off it. You get it?"
"No," Xavier flatly states, being honest.
"Keep going," Angela encourages James, ignoring her brother.
"So," James says, erasing everything on the holographic board with one swipe of his arm. "My dad knows the basics of how all this works. The problem is that all the attainable data from the video is written in a code that we can't even crack yet, in a language that none of our technology is programmed to work with. Not even Stark has anything this advanced in her purse and my dad's happy about that."
"What are you getting at?" Xavier asks. "How does this explain how Merida and Daniel just poofed?"
"My guess is teleportation but even that's a stretch."
"I thought -"
"Quit screaming at me!" James yells although the twins have said nothing in such a loud and harsh tone. "I can figure this out!"
Angela and Xavier back away and let James continue to understand the impossible.
"James," Angela mutters. It's not that they doubt James's abilities but he spent his Academy days shoving his hands inside of Pringles cans instead of getting. "Maybe we should call Stark."
"Bad plan," James says, "you want to tell Emily we lost her fiancé?"
"What makes you think I want to do that?"
Xavier and James put their fingers on their noses.
-o-
Location Unknown - Time Unknown
Every sound around Merida drowns out.
Daniel transforming into his Hulk happens through her blurring vision. She tries to help her friend since she's aware of how scared this makes him but Daniel kept on swatting her away, yelling at her to stand back. Merida stops arguing and backs away, the only noise in her ears being her pounding heart which starts to accelerate the more she sees Daniel turn from the small man to the giant, green monster.
Suddenly, the audience erupts into cheers and chants. Merida just looks around, her vision slowly clearing. Her eyes veer up to the Hulk, who doesn't take one look at her. Instead, he scowls before roaring which silences the crowd. Merida slowly backs away, remembering everything that happened when Daniel's hulk came out during graduation. The Hulk turns to face her and Merida flinches, her stunned expression appearing on the JumboTron.
"Welcome to MojoWorld!" A loud voice from above announces. "From the arena, we will have a fight with the sensational, incredible Hulk and his human hitchhiker versus the almighty Kongo!"
From across the arena, a marine blue monster, like a mutated merman about the size of the Hulk appears. His feet stomp on the ground, dust blowing around. It's at that moment when Merida sees that it's actually a cyborg with one robotic leg and matching opposite arm. Her mind has stopped functioning. It pounds its two fists against its chest, radiating its adrenaline to the audience to get them more pumped than they already are. The Hulk sees its competition and holds its fists up, ready to fight. Merida continues to back away, keeping her bow up at her chest. The Hulk turns to face Merida again and when their eyes meet, his expression almost softens.
"Fight!" The voice says as a bell rings, signalling the start of the battle.
The Hulk turns back to Kongo and narrows its eyes at the cyborg. However, the cyborg has its eyes on Merida and charges towards her instead. Merida has her bow up but she's too frozen from an unexpected fear she has never experienced before. The Academy never had training exercises like this. Instead, her eyes widen as she looks up at Kongo pouncing on her. She only watches but doesn't react.
To her luck, the Hulk punches Kongo out-of-the-way. Although she wasn't hit, Merida felt the wind being knocked out of her. She watches Kongo fly into the audience but hits a forcefield that divides them. The cyborg slides to the ground and gets up again, eyes on the hulk. The Hulk spits on the ground, snarling its teeth as it begins to charge at Kongo. Kongo does the same.
When they meet in the middle, the Hulk grabs Kongo into a chokehold. Kongo breaks free and punches the Hulk repeatedly. The Hulk kicks Kongo over and the cyborg disappears. It reappears above the Hulk and pounds him to the ground by surprise. He does the same again but this time reappears in front of the Hulk. Before the Hulk could react, Kongo sends one powerful blow his way. The Hulk flies off, breaking through the coliseum's walls and floating away into what looks like oblivion.
"No!" Merida exclaims, attempting to run over but stops when she sees no point in that.
Merida can't help but stare, watching her friend float away. It's at that moment when Merida starts putting the pieces together. The sky she saw above was a sky but wasn't dark and starry because it was nighttime. The Hulk was floating away because there was no gravity out there. Not believing the puzzle she has so far, Merida takes a closer look at the crowd - each of them a different colour with different limbs from hers. They're aliens of all different kinds.
She's in outer space. She lost Daniel in outer space.
She's in outer space. She lost Daniel in outer space. She can't breathe. The audience is aliens. Real aliens.
"The incredible Hulk goes down that quick?!" The announcer from before yells rhetorically and in a forced shock for special effect. "Let's hear it for Kongo!"
The crowd claps and screams as Kongo gloats with its robotic arms in the air, pumping its fists.
"Now, let's see how this human placeholder holds up against our champion!"
Merida stands still, not moving even the slightest. She sees Kongo snarling at her, ready to rip her to shreds. Merida's mouth quivers, she looks down at her hand that holds her bow and sees that it's shaking.
[People are probably wondering, "why is Merida so scared? That's so OOC" and stuff like that but reasons for that will be revealed in the next chapter].
