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

LIKE A HAMMER

Justin Hammer’s Mobile Base–Lab #021.

Location — Olympus Mons,

Mars.

“Damn” I muttered, staring at the pulsating egg grow larger. Large enough to now house a fully grown adult—which obviously one facet of its purpose.

So what exactly was this massive egg? Well, to be honest, it’s an unholy combination of science, crude alchemy and magic. It’s a bio-magitechnical structure that served as a gestation pod, in simple terms it is a womb.

And within this womb was a digital organism being turned into an organic fetus. This fetus would then absorb energy and matter amongst various resources to accelerate its growth and gestation period. And when that was done, Eve would emerge as a biological being for the most part.

Why was my tone somewhat cautious? I created a sentient and self aware digital life form capable of expressing free will. That in and of itself was a miraculous achievement—at least to me it was. But what I was doing now was creating a body, a functional housing for a soul that I created with my own hands!

‘Do you understand the implications behind this Hammer? You basically created life and gave it flesh’

I am literally, literally, playing god. Every action has a resultant reaction, there will be consequences for what I am doing. The thing is; those consequences won’t be necessarily bad ones.

‘What if they are?’ Then I do like I always; I face it head on and bring it to heel.

I am not ignorant, nor arrogant. Ok, maybe a bit of the arrogance, but I don’t let that arrogance blind me. I don’t let any sense of pride or inflated ego, handicap me. My actions are well thought out to extents. I have taken the risks into account and still decided to proceed with this.

‘You’re not omnipotent, Hammer’

I know that. Perhaps there might be an outcome I have failed to prepare for, or a situation I have not taken into account. I can’t know everything, it isn’t possible, not with my current status. So certain things require me to have faith, in nothing but myself and my ability to solve problems.

I know I told Eve that there’d be no secrets between us and all that other ‘trust-me-I-trust-you-spiel’. I am not naïve, in an ideal world, that would be the case, but like I have said earlier, this isn’t an ideal world. There has to be safety measures and contingencies.

I walked towards the egg, watching my steps to avoid stepping on the metallic delivery tubes that snaked all through the lab. I shook my head as the last of the precious Uru metal –I obtained from the Destroyer armor– was devoured by the tubes and sent into the egg. I could tell that it was still starving for more resources and materials, none pertaining to energy/power consumption as those bases were covered by the geo-thermal power plants making use of the planet’s untapped source. That was one main reason I chose to build a lab here on Mars, apart from the privacy and isolation of course.

My Space Exploration Drones and Probes launched late last year were the main reasons I could even build a base on Mars today. The usage of Pym particles was essential to making it all a possibility; its miniaturization properties allowed me to fit an entire lab into a simple drone.

Should incase things go wrong, there’ll be no way for a rogue element to connect to the Earth’s network systems, and I could use as much explosive force as I wanted to without having to worry about collateral or casualties.

…Even guns have safety switches. It would not only be stupid, but irresponsible to not have a failsafe. Eve is unique and powerful and she is about to become even more so. It is because I acknowledge and recognize her worth that I am doing this.

‘I will not limit my creation, but I will ensure that the necessary is done.”

I gave my command to the soul stone and braced myself for the painful recoil that soon rattled my very spirit. A warm orange light flashed and the deed was done. What was the deed? Heh, it’s a secret. I wiped the blood that trickled down my nose. Even with my powerful physique, the infinity gem still demanded a hefty price.

I sighed in relief that it was done with. That was before the chill invaded my environment. The terrible yet inviting cold, hidden behind a ghostly veil of darkness that blanketed my entire lab. The primal fear that all living beings possessed was magnified in its presence.

‘She’s back again’

She doesn’t speak much, why would she need to, her atmosphere told more than words could carry. Her very aura made the draconic aura I exuded seem insignificant.

“What do you want with me” I turned to speak to her presence, which was behind me before I turned and yet wasn’t there anymore as I did. I sighed in relief, thinking that it was just a passing glance of hers that I had felt.

I was wrong; the cold fingers rubbing my cheeks were evident of her presence. The fact that I couldn’t even perceive her movement or her presence prior to her touch was solid proof of just how ridiculously powerful she was.

I grit my teeth and turned to face her. She took a skeletal form robed in an obsidian cloak. The orbital structure that would’ve housed her eyes, were windows to a pitch and endless blackness. It took will and a pulse from the soul stone to secure my own soul from drifting off.

“I’m not Thanos, I’m not a simp, Mistress Death. Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying. You have to let me be in peace” Doesn’t Death have more things to do with her time than fuck with me?

‘You should’ve been more respectful, Hammer’ I chide myself, perhaps I should’ve thought of that sooner.

You created a soul without the proper right to do so. The cost must be paid, darling~ As soon as she spoke that sentence, something lashed through my body. And just like that, every single bit of my god force was drained. It left me momentarily weakened, but not drastically so. It’s just like having your stamina depleted—rest will replenish it.

“I see” I spoke calmly, the rising emotions I felt were stifled and cooled by my beating heart, a wave of clarity was over me. God-force can always be regained, so what if I lost a bit now? I could always accumulate more. I rationalized.

But something wasn’t sitting right with me. Death was grinning, that wasn’t a hallucination, Death was truly grinning. Like she knew something I had no idea about. Something that was bound to fuck me over.

I searched myself from within and without, I was not crippled or disabled, my body was functioning just right. My heart still beat. My spirit was stable and my soul was mine. So why was the mistress grinning.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, moving to grab and don my mask. If shit was about to hit the fan, I’d like to be prepared for it.

You shall learn of it when the time is right~ She said.

“If that’s all, you should me alone then.”

Your unique soul…give it to me~

‘Might as well take the shot. This is an opportunity you can’t miss’.

I pushed every single thing I had in me into my fist. The lack of a god-force to reinforce it would cause the impact force to not be as devastating as I’d like for it to be. But it would be adequate.

—BOOOM!!

When the thunder died down, a trail of fog radiated outwards from the point of impact my fist had with Death’s face. The blazing fiery chi that covered my arm was entirely sustained by my life force. My vitality was rapidly dwindling from the contact point I still maintained with death.

I withdrew my fist. Noticing that the nerves at the ends of my knuckles were dead, and remained so. Death stared at me, and I stared back.

I must be the first person in history to throw hands at the Mistress. At least the first one in history to do so and survive. Oh, I will survive this, I won’t die.

‘I need to stop lying to myself’

I’d like to imagine that behind that skeletal expression, she was dumbfounded and was asking herself why I did what I just did. I also liked to have imagined that she couldn’t sense my dread.

“My soul is mine and mine alone.” Is what I said as a cover up for my actions. But what I wanted was a measure of just how strong death was. Yes, I put my life on the line for an experiment and the results were very satisfactory. I have learned something quite valuable, of course I’d made theories and conjectures but putting them into practice gave me priceless information.

I saw Death raise her bony palm, but never saw it come back down.

—TWAAAAANG!!

After the thunder came the blackness. When the light of consciousness returned, I was bleeding through the eyes, nose and mouth. The pain that accompanied my clarity was beyond blinding.

‘The mask saved my brain…as calculated’

“Jesus Christ” I groaned as my dismantled face restructured itself with my neck twisting back into place. Among many other broken bones. I spied the lab, realizing that the Mistress had long left the vicinity.

‘My fucking spine’s gone.’

I only realized my spine was destroyed when I tired sitting up. So while I let my body heal itself I considered what it was I learned that was so valuable.

Physical force cannot affect entities. No, that is incorrect. Astounding physical force can affect the Entities. But compared to using energy based attacks, it is ridiculously ineffective. Physical attacks laced or backed by any form of externalized exotic energy, will do exponentially more damage than an ordinary physical attack.

Why is that so? Because fundamentally, all things are derivative of one origin energy source hence all things are fundamentally the same. Physical attacks can be likened to using pure brute force, while somewhat effective, are very crude in most circumstances. Considering that most entities have immunity to physical damage or just downright invulnerability. With the application of exotic energy however it can then be compared to wielding tools, which can bypass these invulnerabilities.

But even then, the exotic energy must be very potent in strength or utterly colossal in size to cause significant damage.

So what exactly have I learned? I can harm the Entities if I can harvest and utilize very potent energies. When I say energies I mean things like magic, or chi, or the enigma force or even the power cosmic. You get the gist.

Yes, I am thinking of ways to kill or —at the very least— harm universal level existences. With Death doing whatever the hell it is she’s planning to, I have to be prepared. Even if not her, those beings I saw during my enlightenment were enough motivation to keep me on my toes. After all, I promised myself that I will not be controlled nor conquered, to do that, I’d have to be on speaking level terms with those bastards.

With feeling returning back to my arms, I pried the mask off my face. Observing the thin imprint on its side, one reminiscent of a bony palm.

I am certain death could have destroyed the mask if she wanted to. Even with that, I still had to admit to the durability and the structural integrity of the mask.

“Ughh Fuck me!” I groaned even louder, pushing myself to my feet. I was relying on my body’s biology to completely heal me, a process that became exponentially painful due to the depletion of my God-Force.

Once I was finally back on my feet though, I got cleaned up and decided that it was time to see other things through. Yes, this is me, Mr., no, Dr Doom Hammer, I get slapped by death and here I am about to walk it off. Good times.

I clicked on the upgraded and miniaturized Temporal–Translocational device embedded into my watch—A smaller, more efficient version of my Time Platform, you know, the machine that allows me to precisely traverse the fabric of Space-Time. I entered the coordinates of my destination. I could use magic to get there, but I’d rather let my Doom-force accumulate.

A platform of light materialized beneath my feet, elevating to engulf my entire figure, sending me to my location as it did.

*********************

The Churchill.

Savage Yard,

South Africa

When I materialized out of thin air within the dilapidated ship, the mercenary who first laid eyes on me was too stunned to speak. “Go on, shout for them” I urged the man, he did so enthusiastically. After all, I was here to get things done, and for the pleasure of taking out the embers of rage I held from the strike Death had lashed upon me, on them.

Guns were pointed at me from all physically possible directions. Good, this was going to be Doom’s debut to mortal men, let them witness my power and cower before me.

—Shing! Dark silver claws extended from outwards from my fingers. I took a deep breath– the air was filled with trepidation and tension. I counted one hundred and forty–three hearts beating. Some fast, some steady. But all the same, I could smell the fear they perspired, a fear of the unknown.

I unleashed a fraction of my draconic aura and forty-five hearts stopped beating, I curtailed it from spreading further and making this undertaking too easy. I wanted to get physical.

—BRATATATATA! BRRATATATATAT!

A wave; an endless barrage of bullets tore for me. Some flattened upon contact with my skin, others deflected right off. It felt like having raindrops beat against my skin. A fitting analogy, if the bullets were the rain, then the thunder was the ignition occurring the gun’s barrel to propel them. And let me tell you something, if this was thunder then the crack of a matchstick was the crackle of lightning.

—BRATATATATA! BRRATATATATAT!

This, this is what I worked for. Going from a baseline human to become superhuman. I was super, but biologically the human part was under consideration as I was more, much more. Maybe adequately defined as post human — a line of thought for another day.

—BRATATATATA! BRRATATATATAT!

The pressing question now, was why I had yet to kill them all. I was waiting for the dread to seep into their minds. The kind of dread that comes to a living being when it realizes its entire efforts to stave off its eventual end was futile.

—BRATATAT--click-click

There it is. I can feel it spread through them all like a tsunami unleashed in an enclosed space. The results are astoundingly disastrous; some men crumble to their knees when I gaze at them, others scream hysterically seeking the nearest escape from me, and then there are those who scream and yet approach me. Not out of bravery, but out of a sense of fear so terrible that their only option is to rush towards it for a quick end.

I am man as he was intended to be—a dominator. It sounds poetic, I know. But consider this, what is human kind if not dominators? We seek to master the world and all it has to give, we seek to master the animals that dwell on it, we seek to master even those who are like us. We seek to bring things under our control.

I swipe through the advancers, rending flesh into clean sections. Twenty-eight hearts stop beating.

I have spent time meditating on that facet of our character. Man was made to be in unity with his neighbor, but like a blackhole, his heart can never be truly satisfied– not out of nature, but out of choice. He chooses to hunger for that which he has, and that which he cannot. An attitude borne out of greed — a misunderstanding of his deepest nature to dominate. Like standing too close to a big picture, thinking you can see it all, not realizing that you only gaze at a section.

They run but cannot escape my stride; each glancing blow destroys bones and ruptures organs, sending shards of those very bones deeper into vital vessels. Each touch is fatal, the force behind a finger tap is enough to blow heads cleanly off. Every swipe dismembers, every blow dismantles. At this moment I am a proper personification of my name. Sixty-nine hearts cease to beat.

What man must first dominate is —their ego, their wants, their needs, their angels and their demons— themselves. That is where he grows, the turning point to elevate his being, to connect to the god–flow, to be able to harvest it properly. So he is not consumed by any other. It is a choice, one he can make whenever he pleases to.

Only one heart remains beating. And I am standing outside the vault door, an entrance separating me from my Vibranium.

“Open the door, Ulysses”

“Heh sniff hehe, oh, I don’t think so big bad wolf” The man joked behind the door.

“C’mon tough guy, I’m not gonna kill you, I promise”

“Oy, I’m good here, all I need is your mom to make it better.” That was good, I had to admit. I’ll probably take his tongue for it though.

“Fine, the hard way it is.” I sighed, feeding my watch new coordinates.

Can you imagine the heart attack inducing scare I gave the man when I teleported right behind him? He jumped and squealed. A grown ass man like Ulysses Klaue, squealing. “Hah” I blurted behind the mask. Like the rat he was, he scurried away from me, and raised his weapon—a RPG launcher loaded with a high yield rocket grenade.

“Bye bye” he mouthed, smirking pulling the trigger as he did.

—BOOOM!

“Cough cough! Heh, sniff, survive that big bad wolf cough”

From the smoke, I emerged. The steaming metal fragments of the rocket grenade clinking and clanking as I dusted them off my palm.

“A-ah--”

“Shush” I gestured for silence with a finger raised to the lips. I pointed my watch at the Vibranium cache and fired a concentrated miniaturization beam at it, turning the entire cache into the size of a match box. With that done, I turned to the once stunned man who was now trying to escape, “Listen, I’m not going to kill you. That’s for the Wakandans to do– my gift to them. But what I will do, is take your tongue. I can’t have you speaking of some things you’ve seen here, that is if they don’t kill you where you stand.”

“No, no mate, wait! We can c—ahk!” I pinned the struggling Klaue to the ground. “Mmph! Mphm!” Pried open his mouth, dug a claw into his tongue and slashed. This was a first for me too. He kicked, convulsed and screamed through the blood that filled his mouth. A little heat channeled into my fingers cauterized the cut—the pain was more than he could bear. He went into shock and blacked out.

I still had to spin this to my advantage some more, to make sure The Wakandans would owe me a debt, or at the very least express immense gratitude. I searched the room for writing instruments but could find none, leaving me with one option.

I ripped Klaue’s shirt off. “Nice tats” I praised, channeling heat into my index claw and went to writing my message on his chest.

‘Man, this shit is brutal’

What? You feeling sorry for Klaue? Perhaps it was because the movies never delved in depth into his criminal activities. The downright vile shit he’s done. No, this is not me looking for a reason to justify my actions.

I did what I did simply because I wanted to; it was the most efficient path to achieving my aims. I don’t care about his past, it’s not my business that he sold bombs to terrorists behind the Amsterdam nursery school bombings, knowing what they were going to use it for. But it does help in making my choice easier. Maybe I’m a softie.

“Good” I nodded, rereading my message carved to the man’s chest. I also took his cell, breaking the flimsy encryption on it. I gained access to all his contacts and messages. And would you know it, someone’s been planning to sell my weapons to this guy.

Unacceptable.

It would seem my somewhat prolonged absence and that of Eve’s at Hammer Industries had given someone the impetus to try fucking with me. Okay, it seems I’ll have to set an example.

I pressed on the watch, a glowing platform engulfed the knocked out Ulysses and sent him to his destination and with another press and one materialized beneath me, sending me to my destination.

*****************************

The High Palace.

Birnin Zana,

Wakanda.

King T’Chaka sat on his throne. He listened to each and everything his council members had to say regarding Wakanda’s state of affairs. Casting a side glance at his son, who stood to his right. He could tell that T’Challa was even more attentive to the matters of state and had come up with solutions, not only for problems, but also to increase efficiency.

The king smiled, the glory of Bast shone upon him, his family and his nation, for that he was grateful. Should his demise come upon him this very day, he would accept it in peace, for the kingdom would be left in the hands of capable people.

He would have to answer to his ancestors for his actions, or lack thereof, concerning two of his greatest regrets.

“*Your Highness, forgive my intrusion*” (translated from Xhosa) A border guard intruded, disturbing the discussions of the council.

T’Chaka could feel the urgency behind the man’s action. It was the king’s duty to know of whatever trouble might afflict his realm, whether he may welcome the news or not. T’Chaka braced himself for the grim news and gestured for the man to rise and speak.

“Your Majesty, Ulysses Klaue has been apprehended, alive”

“How?” The king exclaimed, rising to his feet. The council members were as stunned as he was. “Bring him here!”

The Dora Milaje dragged the man T’Chaka had spent more than a decade trying to find into the throne room. The man kept kicking and groaning, his eyes full of hatred and yet could not utter a single word.

“Your Majesty, he was found like this on the border by a patrol.” The Dora said, prying the man’s mouth apart to reveal that he had no tongue. But what drew the attention of all were the Xhosa words carved into his chest. They read; May the glory of Bast shine upon her avatar and his nation for all eternity. Doom, sends his regards.

T’Chaka could hear the cries of the lost souls, slain by the hands of the man delivered to his doorstep. For the first time in a very long time, he could hear the satisfied growl of the panther goddess.

If, Bast, herself approved. Who was he to disprove? The souls of the slain will find peace on this day. The execution of the thief would not be postponed. Past the voices of his council members, past the glad yet critical eyes of his son. T’Chaka wondered just who this person with such a foreboding name was.