Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies.

This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.

Hammer To The Head

Falling out of the end of quantum gateway we crashed into one of my labs. “You insect!!” The black thing cursed as it tore through the chest piece of my armor. Its claws digging deep into my mid section, I felt its razor thin nails graze my heart, even as it sent me crashing into expensive equipment, my expensive equipment.

Given a moment of respite, the deep gashes along my chest were beginning to knit back together. I stared hatefully at the piece of shit that caused it; A seven foot tall, obsidian skinned demon with long lethal quills for hair, sinister blood red eyes that stared back a me in rage and a serpentine tail that swayed behind its digitrade limbs. There was a constant mass of shadows that distorted and writhed around the demon’s feet as though it were alive.

The little shit had hitched a ride on my bridge out the mirror dimension, not only was it not thankful but it tried possessing my body, the ungrateful bastard.

“Surrender now mortal and I will make it less painful” It's voice sounded like a broken modulator, alternating between deep demonic pitches. It made a point of showing me its glinting claws. “Blackheart demands your body, you do well to give it”

This demon was making demands to me, in my own house. The backup core of my armor came online, I gave my commands to Eve, activating the weapons I could on the secondary power source and I aimed.

“Woe is me motherf**ker” My weapons spat fire, the demon laughed as piece of its body burned, disintegrated or broke apart. When the barrage of fire stopped, its disfigured smoking body stood still. The shadows began suffusing into its gruesome wounds, mending them at a ridiculous rate.

“You will suffer” it stated in a deeper octave, the anger in its voice almost palpable.

I was already on the move. “Eve, how are we with the M-shields?”

“Still on it boss. This is all still conceptual.”

“Do it faster” I said, rolling under an overhead swipe that shaved away strands of my hair.

“Boss, that would mean disabling all safety measures, diving right into implementation stages without extended simulation analysis. That gives us a 75% chance of failure upon activation”

“Go ahead”

“Aye, aye sir”

I vaulted over instruments, jumping from one end of the twisting passage into another, running the calculations in my head as I created footholds in the side of the walls to ascend, descend and propel myself as the facility’s defensive weapons slowed the demon. If I wasn’t super human, I was a spider monkey on steroids with the unholy acrobatic moves I was pulling.

The demon snarled in frustration at the incessant weapon fire unleashed on it or maybe at the fact that it was still chasing me like a hound on blood. I weaved through doorways, maneuvering through sections like a fish in water. I led the demon deeper and deeper into the facility, taking it right into my trap.

I knew I had made a mistake when I saw the demon disappear into the shadows of a dark passage. I would pay for it.

Wickedly sharp spears of darkness dug deep into my body. They would’ve skewered all through me if my body had been un-enhanced. The spears had hooked ends, and with me refusing to stop my momentum you can imagine the gracious bites they took of my flesh. I promise to get this demon to repay me with its bones and life.

The shadows have been growing smaller, they lessen with each use. The demon’s power is limited.

“Ahh truly delicious” it moaned in the dark. I was at the shadowy section’s end, groaning in pain as my healing factor worked to rebuild my injured body. I sat with my back to the wall facing the demon that began to slowly inch over.

“Deploying M-shields” I’d never been more glad to hear Eve’s voice.

Light from the materialized energy shields flooded the dark section of the passageway in a deep blue. When the demon noticed what had occurred it snarled in fury, raising its claws to swipe against them. I wanted to comment on how that’d be useless, but Eve’s next words left me stumped.

“Boss, shields are rapidly destabilizing. Largely caused by an un-harmonic resonance”

That’s why we do simulations Hammer, luck is fickle. I mentally kicked myself.

“Configure the BadGuy’s shield generators to resonate with the frequency. Localize shields to gantlets and externalize, that should function for a while on secondary power” I ordered, acting as fast as my mind could work.

“Done.”

“Keep trying to create the large scaled version”

“Kk, Bossman” I silently chuckled at her tone, it brought a strange sense of perspective for me. I went from threatening a sorcerer to fighting a devil’s son. Oh, how far I’ve come. I have much more to do, places to be, things to see, powers to take, people to kill and much, much more. I will not be dying like this.

“Looks like we’ll be doing this the hard way” I said to the smirking demon as white translucent energy blades buzzed to life over the metal knuckles of my gloves.

The demon bounded, aiming its claws at my chest. I brought my arm up, letting it dig its razor nails through my forearm, I whizzed my energy blade downward on its extended arm. I saw it sneer at me, doing nothing to defend itself. That expression changed to preplexion when it looked at the stump that refused to regenerate.

See it thought that it was responsible for bringing down the M-shields. The M-shield was quite different from the super stacked defense shields I had employed in my defense against the Quantomic bomb. The M-Shields, were excited particles sharing the same vibrational frequency as that of the mirror dimension. Granting it most of the properties that allowed the mirror dimension to resist and restrain the magical beings held within.

How did I obtain the frequency? Remember when Eve created the bridge? The processes involved allowed us to get a pretty good haul on that one. When did I have the time to direct Eve towards all this? When this damned demon who hitched a ride on my bridge tried taking over my body, while we tumbled through the quantum realm, there were times when we almost fell through a time-storm vortex.

The demon roared in anger or disbelief, I cared not, but it was no longer willing to play, it hurled the shadow mass at me. Tapping both energy blades was enough to create a momentary wide shield, the already small mass of shadows evaporated away upon contact with the glowing shield.

Blackheart lurched for me, raining down as much of a barrage as a single arm, legs and a tail could. I felt like I was getting hit by a speeding truck over and over again. The ground cracked beneath my beaten, bruised and bloodied body, the relentless barrage continued.

“Activation #12 stable and successful”

I was patient. Patient enough to bob and weave between attacks, patient enough to take the beating when I couldn’t dodge, patient enough to get a grip on the tail that tried to strangle me. I gave back as much as I received. White blade buzzed, a writhing tail fell. “AaarRRGGghhh” The demon cried out in pain.

From my low position, I lashed at those digitrade limbs, turning them into seared stumps. I ignored the sweet cries (after suffering for so long, that’s how they sounded to me) of the grounded demon, as I took away its last limb.

My flesh for your bones.

“When we meet again mortal, your soul will be burning in the eternal flames of hell” It spat at me, the last remaining mass of shadows around its form swirled into a vortex that it rolled into. “ARRRgGggHHH!” I laughed when it cried, the shadows finally dispersing revealing the badly scarred body of the demon.

“You think I’d fall for that cliché? Blackheart, buddy you just met your doom.” I said, not hiding the dark glee I rightly felt, “I’ve got plans for you big guy, big plans” I proceeded to carefully separate its head from its body, taking extra care to not damage the nerves and other required organs. All the while it kept crying and screaming; saying how his dad was gonna come for me and whatnot. It did finally shut up when I liberated it’s head from its body.

Staining my floors with black caustic bile that was its blood. I held it by the quills and walked towards the Re-animation section of my lab. Passing the five gestation pods that housed floating adult bodies with varying amounts of metal implants in them.

I tossed blackheart’s head into one of the pods, watching the delivery tubes and nerve electrodes find their way into the severed section of his neck. An electrified lattice structure forming over the pod.

“Bossman, that was so metal” I smiled at Eve’s statement. Offering her praises of my own.

“Good job, Eve. You saved our asses back there”

“Wouldn’t be your number one girl if I couldn’t even do that”

“You’ve always been my number 1 girl” I reminded her in good humor.

“Oh really, I thought that was Halle Berry”

That one had me stunned for a moment. She’s jealous. That raises a lot of implications, she as an AI has progressed to the point where she can express emotions. I truly have created life. Is this how god feels like?

“Eve, my darling, you are perfect and you know I mean that,” I’d pet her if I could. “You have a special place right here.” I pointed at my heart. The tubes and electrodes had successfully connected to blackheart’s head, I was watching it twitch and convulse, slowly being reanimated.

“Well if you say so, Boss” she said, trying to come off as unimpressed but I could tell she was anything but.

“Boss, you have a call…it’s from Shield”

“…”

***

“It’s Viktore!” Valeria early jumped out the creaking wooden chair when her aged mother suddenly cried, pointing at the man on the Tv.

She sighed, this was happening too many times to count, “No mamma that’s Justin Hammer,” she reminded her mother “Mamma, have you taken your medicine?” Valeria reached for the top drawer of the degrading cupboard, dipping her hands into the mess of aged trinkets and unknown items, searching for her mother’s meds.

Valeria would sometimes drift off in her imagination, dreaming of leaving this squalid, run down pen room they called home. Dreaming of a place where she could take care of her mother and feed her something more than mashed potatoes and hard bread. She wondered if she too was not suffering from the same mind sickness her mother was, why else would she think of even meeting the world’s richest man?

Her mother had been telling her stories these days. Of how she had a brother and how he was taken by a child service official after he was bribed by an American couple. Valeria knew she had a brother once, her father had confirmed such before he passed.

But he was lost and never to be found again. She didn’t know how it happened and had never thought to ask after her father slapped her for trying when she was still young. That was the first and last time he had laid hands on her. Viktore was dead and gone. He was not Justin Hammer. Because not only would that be ridiculous, it would also be impossible.

The vice-like grip with which her mother held her woke Valeria from her reverie “Listen to me my child, I know Vonne Doom blood when I see it. Our family is steeped in history, your great grandfather was king of Latveria before the Germans came to take our lands. Your grandmother was a free sorceress who died in their hands. The foreigners called us gypsies and branded us outcasts when they stole all that was ours. Even my boy, my good boy. I know my boy when I see him, I can feel my blood in his veins. I can see my eyes in his. Just look, my child, for once just look!”

And so she did. His eyes, a deep black like hers...and any other person in the world. “Take your medicine mamma” Valeria said. Watching her mother fall back defeated into her chair, repeating that he was her boy. Valeria felt something ache in her heart, who wouldn’t want to believe that they were related to the wealthiest man alive? But who would believe her? A poor Sokovian girl and her sick mother? She shook her head, it was all just her mother’s delirium, she consoled.

She raised her head and she prayed. Prayed that if what her mother said was true, that she might… what? Meet him? “hah” Valeria laughed in melancholy. There was no god.

Cynthia shook her head at her unbelieving daughter. She had once dabbed in sorcery, introduced by her mother, but she died before Cynthia could be properly initiated. All she had now was a feeling of things. One that she had never felt so strong before. That their lives would change, that the man on the Tv was her son, her stolen son, Viktore Vonne Doom