June 11th, 2014

Conan the Barbarian

Conan put down the witch girl once they had reached the other battle. The Cimmerian’s eyes swept the field, taking in everything as a whole picture before parsing the details, a trick he had learned through many battles.

Then he dived forward, swords held high. The men before him wore black clothing armored with some strange material, and carried those metal sticks that fired arrowheads without shafts. There were fifteen, two of them firing at the steel boned one.

Conan landed before one of them, ducked under his aimed weapon, and sliced into his gut, just under the black material the man wore as armor. His sword ripped through cloth and flesh, entrails steaming as they met the cold air. The man screamed, only cut off by Conan’s other blade slamming into his throat in a spray of red on the white snow.

14 men now. 12, since the steel-boned one had torn into two others with those sneak knives of his.

In truth, he preferred this battlefield to the one he had left behind. While the honorless warriors here fought with strange sticks that blasted thunder and released hyperfast beads of iron, at the end of the day they were the same as any archer. Stay out of the way of the arrow, and you would not be struck.

Mephits, while something he was familiar with, sat firmly in the realm of things Conan was wary of. Lesser spirits they are, but Conan felt more comfortable fighting men of flesh and blood than he did those elementals.

Let the shapeshifting demon deal with those. Conan had blood of his own to spill.

But not alone. As he approached the next soldier, he ended up with the steel-boned man at his back. He ignored him, focusing on his opponent.

Dodge from the path of the soldier's weapon as his hand tightened around the trigger. Swing his sword at the man's fingers, slicing them off. Followed with a stab to the throat, twisting as he pulled out.

The steel-boned one landed in front of Conan, taking a hail of arrowheads into his chest. Rather than dying, he roared, a true roar, a sound that reverberated in the air and sang to Conan’s warrior blood. The short man charged forth, biceps and forearms bulging as he stabbed deep into the soldier, slashing upwards in a bloody spray that curled in the air.

Conan moved to cover the other man’s back, only to shudder when the witch-girl passed through his chest. She ran through the steel-boned one as well, before landing a clumsy punch to the face of one shocked soldier. Another more prepared soldier shot the girl in the face. She yelped, ducking back despite not getting harmed in any way.

What a useful ability. Conan sliced the man who had shot the girl, metal passing through his elbow and sending his forearm flying through the air. The man screamed before a trio of unnaturally sharp blades impaled his face.

Conan looked around. There had been 12. Now there were nine. Very well.

The barbarian and the steel-boned man rushed forth. The witch-girl followed.

Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

Thank god Conan, Logan, and Kitty were far away. I didn’t want to risk irradiating them. Sure, Logan could take it and maybe Kitty’s powers could protect her, but still! I didn’t want to give anyone cancer or worse.

I took a moment to enjoy the irony. These creatures of magic, the power of the ancient world, fighting a being of radiation, the power of the modern world.

I discarded the thought to focus on the fight.

There were dozens of mephits, as Conan had called them. They had a bevy of abilities. Earth ones dived into the ground before showing up again, while ice and water ones could do the same with snow. The earth ones were also physically strong, hitting me not just with stone projectiles from their mouths but with rocky fists. Air mephits were the most elusive, constantly hitting me from just out of range with balls of air with similar force to a punch from Nat.

So to counter most of it, I unleashed the heat of my body in full. Radiation blew from my hands and feet, surrounding me in an aura of nuclear energy. Only the earth golems could approach me without just evaporating after a few moments in my vicinity. I slammed those with punches, full body slams, grabbing one by the face and melting it with a palmful of fire.

The other mephits got blasts of poisonous fire. I fired them carefully, aiming away from the battlefield where Conan, Logan, and Kitty were at. Some mephits tried to head over there. I ignored a bolt of ice that hit me in the back, instead smashing my hands into the ground.

In front of the mephits trying to head for the others, a volcano of pure radiation exploded upwards, molten rock flowing back towards us and cutting off the other battlefield. With that, I went back into the fight.

This battle was worrying. The mephits weren’t very tough compared to NRG. Compared to a lot of aliens, really. But for a normal army they would have turned most battles into a massacre. I could cook the air ones with my radiation, but they were able to shift to be almost as intangible as Kitty, then come back with claws of pure air.

Earth ones could dig under the ground as though it were water, and hit as hard as a car. Ice ones could freeze things in their tracks just by passing through them. Water ones could drown a man in their bodies.

To me, they were a challenge. But there were dozens of these things. Whoever had summoned them might be able to replicate that. And this was just one of the magical species. BRIDGE had to be informed.

I covered myself in my aura of radiation and dived forward. The next few minutes were a blur. My fists shatter elemental heads and torsos, with more ephemeral mephits screaming as they were cooked alive either by my aura or my blasts. I felt like I was doing a real life horde mode. They were weak, compared to me, but there were so many. At points, they’d dogpile me, covering me enough that I couldn’t see anything but their bodies for a few feet.

I kept punching- Kept blasting. The mud and snow turned to hardened earth as my heat cooked it, radiation soaking the ground like poison soaking into cake. The sound of mephits squealing filled the air, like a variety of guitar strings being abused, cut, and oiled.

The noises were grating. My armor ringing with hits, the squeals of the creatures, claws scratching at me…

“Otyebis ot menya!” I finally roared. I ripped open the helmet of my armor up and the real NRG came out.

The Mmphits died. They died merely by being next to me. I didn’t hold back beyond the bare minimum to keep my radiation to my own battlefield. Earth, snow, air, and water spirits burned.

In the form of pure fire, I flew forth, passing through spirits and leaving burning holes in my wake before they dissipated. The ground cracked and split under the heat.

And the mephits all around began to fall apart. I flew through a couple more, but stopped when I realized they were all simply fading away.

One, an ice one still melting, grinning. For a moment, its eyes were… not alive. You couldn’t call something with those eyes alive. I felt, for a moment, like I was meeting the gaze of a shark. An ancient apex predator.

Then the look faded. The ice spirit melted and the battlefield was empty.

And chock full of radiation.

“...This is big problem,” I said, crossing arms of radioactive flame. I flew over to my armor and hopped into it. After the hood was closed, I began absorbing the radiation, cleaning it as much as I could.

I also sent a signal out through the Omnitrix. Time to get out of here.

Conan The Barbarian

“They’re pulling back!” Conan roared at the short man fighting alongside him. He swung his sword in a downward arc, cutting off an arm, then stabbing with his other sword.

The man said something in that strange language of his, but his tone sounded like agreement as he sliced through the weapon of a soldier. As well as his armor, trisecting the man in three pieces.

Conan felt some envy for those blades. They seemed to cut through anything with ease. Other blades, armor, those metal weapons. To have a sword of quality similar to those sneak knives.

More soldiers shouted in the distance. They began to back up. Conan, to his frustration, took cover behind the smaller man. While the other man was smaller, Conan had seen him heal in mere moments without a scratch, while those arrowheads bounced off of his metal skeleton. It galled Conan, to take cover.

It was why he called these soldiers honorless. None of them were willing to fight like godsdamned men. They attacked from afar, shooting at him in cover, surrounding him in numbers. If he was not Conan the Cimmerian, he would have been dead long ago.

A head popped up from the ground next to him. The witch-girl. The brown-haired girl had used her powers to sink into the earth as though it were a pond. A few soldiers had been pulled into the ground as well, their upper bodies wiggling as they tried to escape. She said something to the short man. The steel-boned man scowled and nodded, then looked up at the sky, ignoring a bullet that bounced with a ‘spang!’ off his chin. Conan kept his eyes on the treeline, watching as the soldiers retreated.

Then the wind picked up. Conan raised his gaze and scowled.

A flying machine. Conan had seen a few since coming to this strange land. Metal constructs that flew faster than any horse, falcon or dragon. This one was different from ones he’d seen, birdlike but with those twisting blades built into the wings.

“Hn,” Conan spat to the side, ignoring the witch-girl watching him in disgust. “Atlantean trickery.”

The flying machine twisted so its buttocks faced them. The buttocks opened to reveal a hole. Like a castle dropping a drawbridge. Inside, the shapeshifter stood, holding one of those weapons.

“Inside, now!” the man called in a butchered version of Conan’s tongue. Still, he made himself understood.

Conan leaped upwards, landing inside, the steel-boned man and the witch-girl following.

“Going, going now,” the shapeshifter said, running to the front of the machine. The door shut behind them as Conan followed, stopping to watch the man sit in front of a set of windows. Ah. A saddle for the machine then. A comfortable looking one, with pillows across it.

So the many buttons and sticks were the reins.

“Conan, sit!” the man shouted.

“Don’t order me around,” Conan grumbled. Still, he listened.

He sat down. The shapeshifter flicked some buttons.

“AAAAAAAAAAGH!” Conan screamed when they suddenly zipped off. “Crom!”

“Wooo!” the witch-girl shouted.

The short man spoke calmly, as though they weren’t moving at demonic speeds. The shapeshifter nodded. “First, drop off both you. Then, take Conan safe after. Bridge see him.”

Both you? Safe after? His grasp of grammar was atrocious. And how could a bridge see Conan?

Conan the Barbarian grimaced, holding tight to his seat, looking at the shapeshifter. “Explain. Now.”

Lyle Getz

Escaped. They’d made it out. Of course they had.

Dial was a goddamn Avenger. He had no idea who that girl and man with him were, but they’d displayed impressive abilities of their own. Damn BRIDGE, for somehow managing to consistently pull in superhumans.

Well. He’d have his own soon enough.

Lyle sat at his desk, staring hard at his computer. This. This was good, in some ways. They had more raw data on the Omnitrix now. They’d gotten some pings on the network whenever Dial transformed. They knew about two more assets of BRIDGE. And Kulan Gath…

No. That last one worried him more than anything. Kulan had, with the sacrifice of a calf, summoned dozens of elemental spirits. Creature of air, earth, and water. They had barely scratched Dial. They would have annihilated most soldiers.

Kulan was not on AIM’s side. Lyle repeated those words over and over like a prayer for a moment.

Then a message came in. He opened it.

“...The Benefactor,” Lyle mumbled. The mysterious person providing all their new advancements. They’d passed on something new. Something…

Three, maybe four months. He could build this. They just needed to gather some tech, make some chemicals. And then. Well. Kulan Gath would be a footnote.

Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

“Explain. Now.”

A voice like stone rumbling down a mountain peak echoed. I looked over at Conan. The man looked almost comical, holding onto his seat as the ship rocketed forward. Almost. He was still a 6+ foot man covered in muscle and radiating power. As well as irritation. Lots of that last one.

“What’s Schwarzenegger asking?” Logan said.

“Thaaaat’s who he looks like!” Kitty said. “That old movie actor, the funny one.”

Logan and I stared at her. She stared back. “What?”

“Old?” I said, feeling a deep pain in my soul.

“Yeah, from like, the 90s. He was in that movie where he wanted to get a superhero toy for his son?” Kitty looked closer at Conan, who leaned back from her. “Wow, that’s like, totally crazy.”

“...Kitty, have you seen Terminator? Or Commando?”

“No. Those movies are like, ancient and grody!”

Oh dear lord, save me from Cali teens… Wait, I was a Cali teen once. Valley Kids then, save me from Valley Kids.

I pushed back the inner nerd rage. “Okay, well. I’m guessing Conan here is an ancestor of Schwarzenegger. Thus why he looks like him.”

“An ancestor?” Conan frowned. “Hm. Home, I return to.”

He said that with some small smidgen of relief. That was a good point. Conan being here was part of a whole bevy of problems.

“...Okay,” I hit autopilot. The ship began to guide itself towards the X-Mansion. As it did that, I brought up comms and texted a message to Maria, Agatha, and Thor. Agatha likely wouldn’t answer, but she did keep a smartphone to keep in touch.

“Conan, I’m going to give a brief breakdown of the last… Ten thousand years? No, let me actually start with my theory on how you got here. It all started in a place called Rio de Janeiro.”

As I spoke, the back of my mind was focused on the implications of everything else. Conan in the modern age was somewhat normal. We were used to it. But those paramilitary guys and the mephits?

Marvel Canada would never stop with its bullshit. Meme or not, it was true this time.

I broke the news to Conan. As I did, I wanted to sigh. I just needed a break. A nice long break where nothing happened to me beyond the usual routine…

July 19th, 2014

High above the Earth, the International Space Station, known by many as the ISS, floated peacefully, orbiting the planet below. The astronauts within were simply enjoying the moments before a quick lunch. Experimenting, studying, doing some light exercise.

Since aliens had proven to be real, the ISS had become busier than ever. Hundreds of scans, experiments, and hours of surveillance footage, all done from there.

It was quiet despite the business. Peaceful.

Until there was a knock at the door.

A knock. At the airlock door. In space.

The astronauts, one woman and two men, shared a look of horror.

“...Uh-”

“Don’t look at me,” one of the men, Victor, shook his head, his dark bald head shining in the light. “I’ve had nightmares about this kinda shit.”

“And yet, you became an astronaut anyway,” the woman, Wang, snarked, just a hint of a Mandarin accent to her voice.

“You know how many people want to date astronauts?”

The other, paler, man, Douglas, leaned to look out the window. “Uh. It’s one of ours. I think.”

Wang looked out, Victor following. The three looked out.

A blue-gray ship. But one out of science fiction. It was huge, the size of a large house, shaped like a disc with a main body and two structures on the sides. A large gun rested on the top. More importantly, three symbols rested on it, on each structure and one more on the top.

A BRIDGE eagle. An Avengers logo. And a large number 42. Under the number was a name.

The Defiant Reborn.

The ship had an airlock tunnel extended out to attach to theirs. Lights shone across the ship. And another knock came. A series of them. Victor hummed to the tune of the knocks.

“Shave and a haircut… two bits.”

“I’m gonna say they’re human,” Wang said just before the doors slid open on their own.

Behind them, the famous face of Dial grinned. “Ola, astronauts. We brought lunch and a gravity field. Wanna partake?”

The astronauts shared a look. Victor was shocked. Douglas pinched himself. And Wang stared at Dial.

“Um… are you real?” she finally said.

Dial’s smile fell. “Wait, did you guys not get a message about this?”

Just then, a large man with short shorn hair came floating around the corner. Alexander, a large bald man, with a wide grin on his face. He spoke in a German accent. “My friends, we are going to have vis-” He stopped. “Oh, you are here already!”

Dial nodded. “Yep. And I brought gifts.”

“Wunderbar!” Alexander said in excitement, the German man floated over to Dial, landing heavily when he entered the airlock. Right. Gravity field.

After some hesitation, the other three followed.

The inside of the ship was huge. Well, compared to the ISS. It had more in common with ships from Star Trek. Large halls big enough to walk through with head room. After so long in the comparatively cramped ISS, it was a relief.

Took time to get used to the gravity though. After months in space, the astronauts had to get their earth legs. Just beyond the airlock, a pair of heavy metal doors slid open, a glowing pair of turrets in the ceiling tracking their movements. Past those, a locker room rested, filled with weapons, armor, breathing equipment, and small packets labeled MRE’s.

“What is all this?” Wang asked, trying to understand what was going on. “The Avengers built a spaceship?”

“Correction. Tony Stark and a team of scientists built a spaceship. For legal reasons, this belongs to me as a private vessel.”

“Because of that registration crap?” Victor asked.

“Registration?” Alexander said.

“Don’t get me started,” Dial said. “Anyways, we needed to take a flight test, and a little birdy named Chris said you guys might enjoy a fresh meal.”

“Hadfield?” Douglas barked out a laugh. “That man is way too nice.”

They entered a kitchen and dining room. An actual one.

With food. Tons and tons of food.

“Dig in! Got all your favorites! Pizza, Chinese, pies, chicken wings-”

The four astronauts were already digging in. Food. Non-dehydrated, fresh, nice smelling food! Dial smiled, turning and leaving the group to eat.

Wang looked around briefly with pizza in her mouth, swallowing. “You think we can get one of these?”

“God I hope so.”

With a whole army of questions ahead of them, they focused on food for now. Later they could interrogate the superhero. For now, the chicken wings were calling.