"Target locked, sir. You may fire when ready."
Iron Man glared through his digital reticle at his target, though he admittedly still wasn't sure what exactly he was aiming at. All he could glean was that it was a small, distinctively blue shape traversing across the rainforest, either hopping from tree to tree like a hyperactive Tarzan or dashing through clearings at blazing speeds, creating an instant and massive cloud of dust whenever it launched from the ground.
Tracking the thing from high above the clouds, Tony took the role of a sniper as he carefully lined up his shot via his outstretched arm, making sure to remember to aim where his foe was going to be, not where it currently was. Though that was certainly difficult with the pace his target was moving at.
"Well, here goes nothing." Tony whispered to himself. "Let's hope those classes with Rhodys army buddies were worth it."
Tony shot a small missile from a firing mechanism that popped out from the top of his armors forearm. The projectile blasted across the sky leaving a thin trail of smoke in its wake, and impacted right behind the blue speeding thing. The explosion knocked it straight into a nearby tree, cracking the wood where it hit.
Tony was finally able to properly see what his opponent was, and what he saw certainly surprised him. Having expected either a high-speed drone or a powerful human speedster, Iron Man was instead confronted with something that vaguely reminded him of the Anthros, a small subspecies of humanity descended from Dr. Monreau's infamous experimentations. However, this creature most likely wasn't one of them, as not only was it much too small, it didn't directly resemble any one species as closely as the Anthros did.
This creature was an around three foot tall humanoid… something, Tony couldn't exactly tell. If he had to guess it was some sort of porcupine, as instead of a head of hair it had a collection of long backwards facing quills collected into a series of large pointed spines. Its fur was mostly blue, but the arms, bottom of its face, and an oval in the center of its lean body were instead all colored a light beige. It wore no clothes except for a pair of bright red shoes and the same type of pristine white gloves you'd see on an old-school cartoon character. Overall, if it weren't for its coloration, it'd look right at home alongside Mickey Mouse and company, complete with a built-in gimmick of being quick on his feet which could lead to all sorts of comedic shenanigans.
Before Tony had the chance to regale the rodent with some clever quip comparing it to Speedy Gonzales, he was near instantaneously knocked down to the ground with a heavy crash, leaving a sizable crater where he landed due to the strength of the impact. Before he could even fully process what had happened to him, Tony saw that the perpetrator of the attack was standing right above him on the edge of the pit, a smug smirk on its face as it began to mock the armored avenger.
"Woah, almost got me there." The creature quickly looked over his foe, immediately noticing his red and yellow color scheme. "So what kinda bot is this supposed to be, a fast food fighter? I should go grab some hot dogs or fries if you're going to be shooting ketchup and mustard at me."
"I don't have that, but how about some repulsor ray relish?" Tony retorted with one of his admittedly less witty quips whilst firing his iconic energy beam at the blue annoyance. Tony jumped up out of the hole, started hovering in the air, and fired multiple repulsor blasts at his target, each one the rodent effortlessly dodged as he taunted Tony some more.
"Ooo! A talker! And with a sense of humor too! Just for that, I won't bash you too hard. No need to thank me." Seemingly blessed with extraordinary jumping abilities, the creature repeatedly leaped up at Tony and delivered strike after strike, each one leaving some kind of dent or scratch on Iron Man's armor. No matter how many times Stark tried to parry or attack in turn, the rodent would always be purposefully just out of reach, leaving Tony helpless as he was knocked around across the Brazilian sky.
"JARVIS, analyze his movement pattern." Too slow to counter and tired of being constantly being battered by this quilled menace, Tony had his AI assistant run an evaluation to see where the blur was going to strike even before he knew himself. Due to JARVIS's ludicrous processing power from being programmed by one of the smartest computer geniuses in the world, this was done in a matter of seconds. Information in hand, Tony was finally able to grab the rodent's leg midair and toss him violently to the ground, his furry body skipping across the dirt like a stone cast upon a pond.
When he finally settled into the earth, the spiky creature lethargically got up with a groan, swiftly shook himself off, and then chuckled to himself all while maintaining his self-confident smirk.
"Don't know if that was some special move or just a lucky grab, but I take it you're done playing games."
"Yeah, I haven't exactly been in a fun-loving mood ever since you stole my gem." Tony fired a volley of tiny missiles at the creature from horizontal cannons that emerged from the top of each of his shoulder pads, each projectile automatically tracking the creature's position no matter where it ran.
"Your gem? You would think that wouldn't you?" The rodent easily outran the homing missiles as they went off one by one behind him in a futile attempt to strike him. When there were only four of them left, the creature decided to turn around, grab them, and, before they had the chance to explode, rapidly pitched them all at Tony like darts, causing Stark to be badly damaged by his own attack. This forced him back onto the ground to recover in a half-kneeling position, sparks flying from the various marks on his Mark 7 suit.
"Had enough, condiment crusader?" The creature taunted.
"Not quite, you Beanie Baby reject!" The counterattack had done nothing to diminish Tony's resolve, and he decided that the best course of action was to do some taunting of his own, beckoning the rodent to come at him with a provoking wave of his hand.
Taking the bait with gleeful abandon, Sonic revved up in place like a racecar, the spinning of his speeding shoes making it seem like he had two red spirals where his legs should be. Thankfully, Tony had already put up his energy shields as the blur blitzed across the clearing and got to him in less then a second, causing a burst of wind which swiftly disturbed every nearby piece of vegetation. He crashed into Tony's shield with such a force that it created a thundering boom that echoed all throughout the jungle. Curled up into a spiky ball form bursting with blue energy, the creature spun its body at absolute blinding speeds, creating a buzzsaw like effect that powerfully tore against Tony's shield. Tony held on with all his might, pushing himself to the absolute limits of his body and suit, but it was no use. His energy shields shattered, and Sonic's ball form crashed into him, causing a huge tear in the center of his armor before bouncing away.
Dizzy from the powerful clash, the being stumbled a bit before composing himself and throwing his arms into the air in both celebration and excitement. "Woohoo!!! That was awesome! I never get to go all out like that!" He looked upon his weary opponent. "You got spirit man, I'll give you that, and your defenses are really tough. But I think this is pretty much over."
"Oh, I know it is." Tony said, smirking from underneath his helmet as he pressed a button on his arm. The creature suddenly convulsed on the ground, a wave of paralyzing energy overwhelming him. As he attempted to stand up or even move at all, he noticed a small, glowing device shaped like a triangle attached to him which seemed to be causing these adverse affects.
"I shot that little mouse trap onto you while you were chainsawing me." Tony explained. "More annoying than painful, but it'll keep you in place while I make you take a nap." He readied his arm cannon. "We are going to have a long conversation about taking what doesn't belong to you once you wake up."
As Tony shot what was supposed to be the final strike, a yellow creature suddenly jumped in front of the blue one. Even smaller than the first animal thing, this new cartoonish being wore matching gloves and shoes as his companion, but was clearly a fox instead of some ambiguous species, with his most noticeable physical feature being his twin white- tipped tails. That wasn't what Tony was focused on however, as this canine was packing an arm cannon of his own, a handheld one about the size of the creature's head that had the same coloration as Tony's armor. Tony's repulsor blast went straight into the large barrel of the weapon and, instead of destroying or even damaging it, the cannon absorbed the energy, turned its glow from a light blue to a bright gold, and then quickly fired it right back, hitting Stark right in the shoulder.
"Ow!!! How many of you discount Care Bears are there?!" Tony exclaimed in frustration. "You know what, it doesn't matter! I'm going to knock the stuffing out of all of you!" Tony bent down readying himself to charge at this new opponent, but was stopped by a tiny woman buzzing right in front of his optic sensors.
"Tony, wait! There's been a misunderstanding!"
"Janet, where have you been? I thought we were going to take down this fur ball together?"
"You were going so fast and went up so high we got separated, and then I met Tails…"
"Tails? Seriously, that's the fox's name? Should I start calling you 'wings' now?"
"It's what his friends call him, and that's besides the point! Sonic, the blue one, didn't steal your gem!"
"How can you be so sure? You didn't just believe the fox because he's cute, right?"
"No!" Janet gained a slight blush. "His absolute adorableness may be why I stopped and talked to him in the first place, but that doesn't matter!" She turned towards the mutant creature who was busy removing the paralyzing device from his friend, who was apparently named Sonic. "Tails, come over here and show him what you showed me!"
Tails and Sonic, the later of whom had been brought up to speed on the situation by his little buddy, walked over to the two superheroes. Tails then pulled out two large gemstones out of seemingly nowhere, each one completely filling his sizable hands. The jewels looked exactly the same as Tony's gemstone, with an absolutely identical size, cut, and eminent glow, but there was one major difference between all of them: color. Tony's gem was a dark silver, while the two in Tails hands were yellow and purple respectively.
"We found the yellow emerald earlier this week." Tails explained. "And this purple one was out here in this massive rainforest. That's why we were here, to collect it and keep it safe."
"Emerald?" Janet asked incredulously. "I work with jewelry all the time, so I can tell you that emeralds are only green."
"Hey lady, we didn't name them." Sonic replied, still clearly irritated at having been tricked and trapped by Tony earlier. "That's just what everyone back home calls them."
"Back up, keep them safe from who?" Tony interjected. "And where is your home anyway?"
"Ok, so don't freak out or anything." Tails braced the two humans for this sure-to-be-shocking revelation. "But we may come from another planet."
There wasn't even a moment of silence before Tony responded. "Yeah, that makes sense."
"Dang, you guys don't seem surprised at all." Sonic observed, slightly amused. "I'm guessing this planet has had experience with aliens before?"
"You could say that." Wasp said, not wanting to go into the long and detailed history of Earths numerous and mostly negative encounters with various species of extraterrestrial life.
Tony scanned the two furry creatures and didn't find any other energy signatures matching the gemstones, revealing that those two were all they had in them. He still wasn't entirely convinced however.
"How do I know you guys didn't just stash my emerald somewhere else, especially since you just admitted you're looking for them."
"I guess we can't really prove we didn't, but we can provide an alternate potential culprit." Tails brought out a bulky tablet with the same coloration as himself and pulled up a video that showed several furry creatures like them shooting energy weapons at some kind of being that only appeared as a blue blur, just like Sonic does. The thing quickly bolted straight up to each of its attackers and either rammed into them at a high velocity or smacked them across the room straight into whatever wall or support beam was opposite them. After all its foes were down for the count the creature stopped, revealing itself to be an android clearly built in the image of Sonic, with a few modifications that made it even more threatening. It had sharp spindly claws instead of gloves, glowing red pupils, a sizable dark blue head seemingly made of solid steel, and what looked like a jet turbine in place of a midsection. Having finally noticed it was being recorded, the robot bolted straight towards the camera, ending the video with a sickening scream and abrupt static.
"That was Metal Sonic." Tails explained to the stunned Tony and Janet. "He can move almost as fast as the real deal and can smash through just about anything with his energy spin attack. Plus he works for Dr. Eggman, the mad scientist we're trying to keep these emeralds from."
"Eggman? Your bad guy's name is Eggman?" Janet snorted. "And I thought the villain names here were ridiculous! What, is he going to leave us completely scrambled with his hard boiled machines? I'm sure a fight with him would be over easy!" Tony held back a chuckle at Janet's stand up routine, but Sonic and Tails were less then amused.
"Look, I get his name is super silly; I should know, I gave it to him. But you should never underestimate Eggman, no matter what." Sonic explained, with an uncharacteristic look of pure seriousness on his face. "Last time I got too careless with him, he almost conquered our entire world and nearly killed all my friends. We were all this close to biting it, and even beyond that he can do a lot of damage if left unchecked. I'd rather he not do the same thing to this world that he did to ours."
Janet and Tony were surprised at the impressive resume of their new foe and the sudden earnest grim demeanor Sonic took when talking about him, but still weren't terribly worried about the threat of his machinations.
"Alright, I'm sorry." Janet apologized. "But while I appreciate the concern, I don't think you have to worry about us. Earth has had to deal with everything from giant radioactive monsters to full scale alien armadas. I'm sure we can beat your evil super genius."
"I don't think you understand just how crazy and dangerous Eggman can be, especially if he's collecting the emeralds!" Tails exclaimed, desperate to convey the seriousness of the situation. "On his own he can build fleets and armies that can flatten whole countries, and with the emeralds he can create machines that bend space and time to his will! You all have no idea what you're in for!"
"Then why don't you explain it to us." This voice was new and came from above, and when everyone looked up to see where it was coming from they were immediately in absolute awe. Before them was a flying humanoid in a blue outfit, crimson boots, yellow belt, and a red cape that billowed in the wind majestically, as if the air itself revered the man and wanted to make him look as regal as possible as a result. Right in the center of the man's chest was a large red S within a red bordered yellow diamond, a symbol that burned itself into the mind of all who gazed upon it, with everyone immediately being able to tell its significance even if they've never seen it before and thus had no idea what it stood for. Sonic immediately wanted to quip about this newcomer seemingly wearing his underwear on the outside of his clothes, but the scene before him was so picturesque and the man himself emanated so much power, respect, and a sense of peace and calm just by being there that he near instantaneously forgot about making the jab.
Behind the angelic super being was a humongous flying battleship that reminded Sonic and Tails of Eggman's own armada, only much more grey and less sleek. Tony and Janet knew this as the Helicarrier, SHIELDs floating fortress and mobile headquarters, efficient at allowing large teams of its operatives to go wherever they were needed throughout the world.
The caped figure looked up at the Helicarrier, back down to the group, then smiled with the warmth of a freshly baked apple pie, one so kind and gentle it could make even the harshest of cynics feel as though everything was going to be ok. "It looks like SHIELD wants to know what's going on too. Let's meet up there."
The figure flew off, Tony and Janet quickly followed, and Sonic grabbed Tails's arms as he lifted him up into the sky by using his twin namesakes as helicopter blades to gain elevation. The two humans, while surprised and somewhat flabbergasted, didn't comment on this strange phenomena, as they'd already had come to grips with the bizarre nature of their new alien companions. As they all landed on the Helicarrier Captain America, Wonder Woman, and Batman, who had just parked his jet black jet on one of the various landing pads available on the surface of this mechanical marvel, were all waiting for them.
The brave and the bold were all gathered, and they would soon accomplish astounding and unbelievable feats together for the betterment of all as the greatest team of heroes to ever live. But first, they needed to actually meet each other, and first meetings often come with some particular roadblocks.