Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

The floor began to slant, turning into a wall. I created spikes on the bottom of my feet, allowing me to stick the wall. Laura did the same thing, a horn coming from her forehead that she slammed into my chest. I grabbed her by the waist and ripped her from the wall, tossing her bodily towards a room that had opened up across from us. She fired some crystals at the floor she was about to land on, creating a crystal bowl that she flew up out of to land on the ceiling. I clutched at the hole she’d stabbed into my chest as it healed, looking around.

“Yo, why the fuck is this happening!?” I shouted angrily, smashing a hand into the wall I was against as it shifted into a ceiling. “Did Aperture Science make this place!?”

Laura jumped towards me. I pulled on the spikes in my feet to fall towards her in a spin, firing a blade from one hand that she swiped out the air. That little interference worked though, since it slowed her in the air enough for me to punch her in the face, sending her hurtling to the ground. I landed as well and fired more crystals at high-speed around her, creating a makeshift cage in the shape of a tent, gaps between the crystals to let me see her.. She screamed, rolling to her feet and slashing outwards, that dull humming sound filling the air as she began trying to claw her way out. More crystals grew from her shoulders, elbows, and knees, blood dripping just a bit before she healed around them.

“Damn it, will you calm down for a sec!?” I shouted, looking around the shifted room. “Why is this place Inception-ing!?”

She didn’t answer, instead raising her claws and slashing down into the floor, creating a hole that she then dropped down into, disappearing into darkness.

“Fuck!” I slapped the Omnitrix. Hulking crystals were replaced by the fluid form of a green single-celled organism. “Goop!”

I flowed forwards, my grav disc helping me move through the gaps of my makeshift cage. I flowed into the hole Laura had cut through the hole. My plan was simple. Diamondhead could fight Laura. Maybe beat her. But Goop could surround her in adhesive, trap her in place, and was immune to all her blades. If freezing a bit at what was beyond.

“Okay,” I said in Goop’s strange voice. “This is ridiculous.”

I was in a space between dozens of moving platforms, walls, and ceilings. They moved on rails, were lifted on arms, making new configurations. Through a gap, I could see Black Panther pouncing from wall to wall as he battled a super-soldier.

“You like it?” an echoing voice filled the space. Strucker. “I must admit, when I paid for it originally, I was skeptical. But the crazy ginger bastard I hired really did impossibly good work.”

“Arcade!” I said immediately. He’d shown up in comics a lot. I had trouble remembering all his appearances, my head hurting when I tried, but the redhead was a constant problem. He was famous for making places he called Murderworld, massive and complex deathtraps. It had only worked once. When he’d killed a bunch of teenage heroes.

Yeah. I could see that asshole making a place like this.

Strucker chuckled. “See… things like that, Dial? Those things make you my worst problem. Everything else, I can account for. Tony Stark’s intelligence. The gods like Thor and Ares. Steve Rogers and his idiotic idealism. Black Widow, on a good day. Even the Hulk is something I can plan for. But you? How could you have known, based on a single clue, that a man who has somehow hidden his existence even from SHIELD and Hydra, had made this place?”

“I have a vivid imagination,” I snarked.

Then, a diamond blade stabbed into my chest. I ignored it to spin around, spraying adhesive from my arm as the blade sliced through me. Laura raised a diamond shield, blocking the adhesive, and slashed at me again. I let her slash through me and surrounded her body in a moment, trapping in my body. She screamed, bubbles rising through my gelatinous body, before she exploded into crystal shrapnel, firing it all about her. The force of it tore me apart, sending pieces splattering across the moving wall around us. My anti-grav disc zoomed past Laura as she took gasping breaths, scooping up the pieces of my body back together. When she noticed the grav disc collecting portions of me, she leapt forward, stabbing at the anti-grav disc. It dodged her stab, diving around a robotic arm moving a wall out of the way.

“The Omnitrix, a device with an alien for every possible scenario. Knowledge that you shouldn’t have. Chaos that follows you wherever you go… And of course, the relationships you’ve established. Of all the Avengers, I want to kill you the most.”

“You know how to make someone feel special!” I snapped out a stretchy arm of goop towards Laura as my body finished coming together. The long arm wrapped around her ankle, then pulled back towards me. I spun as she approached, throwing her into a wall, then sprayed her with a blast of adhesive goop, trapping her against it.

“Yaaaaah!” she screamed, struggling to escape. I was about to tell her to calm down, but stopped myself. Not much point in talking down a brainwashed person. Better to take out Strucker-

Crystals snapped out of her skin again, ripping through Laura’s clothes. She screamed as it grew into a sheet of armor around her body, turning her into a blood-soaked miniature version of Diamondhead. The blood mixed with the adhesive goop, clouds of red inside green, before she fired off dozens of shards from herself, slashing through the adhesive. She dropped dozens of feet, a glittering crystal in the darkness. I followed, dropping down with her into the shadows as the walls closed in around us. I shifted and flowed through every crevice I could, following her down, down, down.

Suddenly, the darkness opened up into a light filled room. Laura smashed into the center of the room, cratering the concrete before rolling to the edges of the room. I splashed onto the ground next to her, then flowed up into a bipedal shape again, raising my hands in a fighting stance while looking around.

We were surrounded. Dozens of men in lab coats, all facing us. The room was in the shape of a dome with lights pointed at the circle in the center that I stood in.

And Strucker was standing just outside that circle, next to what looked like a speaker, the Scepter of Loki dangling from an armored hand. Laura stood beside him, the diamond armor she’d created sinking back into her skin, the massive cuts on her body healing in moments.

I spun to aim my hands at Strucker. Laura raised a blade. To her throat.

I froze, staring at her.

“Thank you, Laura,” Strucker said, smirking. He met my eyes. “Dial… Let me make this clear, shall I? If you make a move on me, Laura will kill herself. If I die, she kills herself. If you attempt to escape, I will watch as she surrounds her own throat in a ring of razor sharp crystal, and removes her own head.”

“...You fucking bastard,” I snarled, hate filling me like acid in my veins.

“Oh, believe me, I take no pleasure in it,” Strucker said grimly. “This young woman, as dangerous as she is, is not an asset I wish to lose. But you give me no choice. I need a hostage you will care to defend. And your actions make me think she is it.”

“See. That shit, right there? Calling her an asset to lose? Rather than an innocent girl that you took over? That is what makes me want to kill you,” I said softly.

“But you won’t,” Strucker said casually. “In fact, I think you won’t do anything of the sort. Not if it threatens her life,” I didn’t say anything. He took that as confirmation. “Dial. I’d like to offer you a deal. Transform into your Diamondhead form. And simply stand in this circle.”

“...” I stared at the speakers around me. About ten, spaced evenly out, each the size of a fridge. Oh god... I could figure out what was happening.

“Yes. I see that you’ve realized it,” Strucker smirked, his monocle jostled by the motion. “My deal is simple. Survive. Survive in this room, without moving. Do that. And I’ll let her go,” he raised the Scepter in his hand. The blue jewel on it was glowing in an… odd way. Almost… there was a hint of something there. Like I could feel it, at an extremely low level. “I will release her mind from my control. Oh, I will still attempt my escape of course. But I doubt I will ever get a better chance at attempting to kill you.”

I thought about that. I knew something Strucker didn’t. But even without that… I couldn’t let Laura die. She didn’t deserve that. After months under his control, years caged by Hydra, her family killed by them… And that connection I felt earlier. What kind of hero could I be, if I didn’t do what I could to save her? If I didn’t sacrifice myself for her?

The blade at her throat trembled. Just a fraction. Barely noticeable. She was staring at me. Even without her face showing a single movement, her eyes never wavering…

I wanted to kill Strucker. But I wanted to save Laura more. My Blight form, the symbiote form, might have been an option to try and manipulate her mind. But I wasn’t sure. I knew I could combine my mind with others, but I’d never tried to cure brainwashing with it. And if it didn’t work… she was dead.

I had a plan, of sorts. As I said. I knew something he didn’t. But even without that, I knew I still would have done what I had too.

Her yellow eyes opened a fraction when I reached for the Omnitrix. I pressed a solemn hand to the symbol. In a flash of green, my body shifted back to my favorite form. I kept my eyes on Laura’s as, for the first time, she showed something other than blank emotion or fury. Her eyes, instead, were filled with shock and horror. I think, internally, she really thought I was going to let her kill herself.

“Do it,” Stucker said, not wasting time. I braced myself. The speakers lit up, a song I couldn’t understand playing. Waves of sound ran across my body.

And I screamed.

I tried to hold it in. But it was like nothing I’d ever felt. The closest I can compare it to is dozens of spiked mauls slicing into my skin with brutal swings, smashing into my crystal form.

“GAAAAAAH!”

My diamond skin began to crack, then splinter apart. I fell to my knees, screaming. Laura looked over at Strucker. The monocled asshole was smiling.

I felt my right eye shatter, spilling yellow fluid across the floor. I couldn’t hear anything, feel anything.

But I’d been trained for this. Ares wasn’t the type to let a weakness remain permanent if he could help it.

I focused myself, forcing my regeneration to go into overtime. I pushed it to specific parts of my body. As the sound waves cracked my body, crystals grew to replace them. The process wasn’t neat. The crystals that grew in my wounds were like using knives to stitch together gaping wounds. They grew from cuts across my body, filling the gaps and rising out of my face, chest, back, and arms.

The sound suddenly stopped. I gasped in pain, snapping my head up towards Strucker.

“Now that… is interesting,” Strucker said, staring at me. “I had assumed that you would be destroyed much faster than this.”

“...Sorry to disappoint,” I coughed up some blue-green liquid, shards of crystal shoving itself out of my throat as I coughed.

“Again.”

The speakers turned on again. I grabbed the ground, trying to focus as the shattering began again. Then, under the horrific sound, something else began to happen.

The Omnitrix on my chest glowed.

“By the way!” Strucker said over that horrible sound, his smile positively radiant. “The moment you transform into anything else, Laura kills herself! Fair warning!”

I screamed, grabbing the Omnitrix on my chest as it whined. “No! Omnitrix, lifeform lock, code 0910!”

“Warning! Current Lifeform in Critical Condition!” my own voice said from the Omnitrix. “Failsafe must be activa-”

“No, damnit!” I kept my hand on the Omnitrix, fighting the pain and trying to keep the transformation from coming through. My right index finger exploded apart. I felt like my mind was splitting apart. I could feel something under the pain. The Omnitrix, the part of it that was connected to my thoughts, trying to force my transformation. I held it off, staring at Laura. The sonic attack breaking my body, fighting the Omnitrix trying to protect me, forcing my body to continue haphazardly growing crystals to pull me apart. I felt the right side of my chest split apart. The Omnitrix began to glow!

“Diamondhead! Diamondhead, Diamondhead!” I slammed my other hand into the ground as I shouted out.

“Really? You’re so desperate to save her?” Strucker sighed, lowering into a squat to meet my eyes. “I admit… My thought was that either you would die, or allow her to. I hadn’t expected this level of suicidal idiocy. What is the point of allowing this level of pain,” he said as a long crystal blade slowly grew in the place of my popped eye. “For a girl you don’t know? A woman who tried to kill you. Tried to kill your friend?”

“Guh,” I swallowed. “Asshole. You realize the point of brainwashing is you don’t blame the person being forced into it?”

Strucker chuckled. “Yes, I suppose. Still, I believe a reasonable person would have given up when their fingers began to explode.”

“Heroes aren’t reasonable,” I growled out. “That’s the point of heroes. Always meddling in things that aren’t our business. Helping everyone who needs it. We.. I’ll take the pain. I’ll break. If it’ll make sure she doesn’t die.”

Laura looked between Strucker and I. He didn’t notice. Instead he scowled.

A,,,

“...How positively… I’m not sure I have a word for how much that level of foolishness sickens me. The power of gods, riches beyond imagining, all of it. Belonging to a man who would give it up for an enemy,” Strucker rose from his squat and waved a dismissive hand. “Turn it up.”

“It goes up…?” I mumbled to myself. Then I grit my teeth as the sounds somehow got worse.

My other eye shattered moments later, blinding me. My left arm blew apart, a long spike of haphazard crystal shoving itself outward to replace it before that began to crack as well. Laura fell to her own knees, still clutching a blade to her throat even as she cried silent tears of pain.

The Omnitrix fought me desperately, trying to change me. I whispered to it over and over, trying to use a voice command to override it. Please. Please. I had to hold on. Until someone could stop this.

“¡Basta!” Laura screamed, still on her knees as she stared at me. I felt my forehead crack apart, my chest falling into chunks. Strucker looked down at her, then dismissively looking back at me

“God, you really don’t have the decency to just die, do yo-” Strucker began to say casually.

There was a sound. It could barely be heard over the noises shattering my body. My right eye reformed enough to see where it came from.

A single arrow, stabbed into a speaker to my left.

Strucker’s eyes widened. “No-!”

Nine other arrows, each stabbing into the exact center of the speakers. Then, BOOM.

Shrapnel and smoke filled the room, the speakers falling apart. I gasped, sweet relief filling me. And he arrived.

Hawkeye dropped down from the ceiling on a cloak of purple, bow held high. He fired with the speed of a machine gun, firing two-three arrows at a time. The blades of his arrows stabbed into the throats, chests, and foreheads of the scientists and guards around us.

He landed beside me. “Hey Dial. You’re looking spiky.”

Thank god for Clint Barton.

It had been the plan from the start. Steve. Tony. Me. Even the Hulk. All distractions. Drawing Strucker’s eyes, plans, to us. And letting Hawkeye move in for the finale.

“Kill him!” Strucker shouted at Laura while ducking behind cover. He tried to run for a doorway behind him, only for an explosive arrow to explode the roof of the place, sending debris down to block it.

She spun to face him, dropping her blade from her throat. Then, an arrow hit her in the chest, opening up into a gripping claw. Pale green electricity flowed from the claw and into her chest, the poor kid’s eyes rolling into the back of her head as she fell to the ground. The arrow, made just for her, continued to pour electricity into her, keeping her from killing herself or anyone else as it paralyzed her.

Strucker snapped to his feet, raising the Scepter and firing it at Clint. The archer ducked aside, firing another shaft at Strucker, running across the room and leaping upwards to avoid another blast from the Hydra leader.

I ignored them. Instead, I grabbed the ground. God. I felt like I was dying. My entire body was falling apart. Hot and cold seemed to ebb and flow throughout me. Heat that seared me alive, then cold that burned.

My right hand, missing two fingers, pulled at the ground, slowly dragging me forward. My left arm, now an insane spiked blade, stabbed the concrete and then angled to bring me closer to my goal. Finally, after dragging myself for a few feet, I rolled over to my back. I looked to my left.

Laura, lying on the floor, convulsing, stared in my eyes, face to face with me.

“...I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “But you’ll be okay. We’ll get you out. I promise.”

Her mouth gaped open, pain in her eyes.

“Come on, Strucker, you know you can’t beat me!” Clint said, diving behind a destroyed speaker as he fired another arrow into the eye of Hydra scientist that tried to shoot him. “Tell you what, if you stand still, I’ll make it quick! Two arrows in the head, nice and easy!”

I turned my head over. My body was healing, slowly. I could see Strucker now. The bald man was hiding behind a pillar of stone, clenching the Scepter tightly in one hand. He was panting, staring around. I could see it then. The moment when he lost all hope. His jaw clenched. He lifted the Scepter up. The blue jewel reflected in his eyes. He grabbed his monocle, ripping it off and tossing it aside, the glass shattering as it landed.

He grabbed the jewel in that gauntleted hand of his. “I suppose I can’t beat you, Barton!” Strucker shouted. “...Not as I am!”

He clenched his fist. The metal of the Scepter bent and tore. The jewel cracked apart like glass. And something yellow shone out from the Scepter.

Then he was in our minds. Clint froze, falling to his knees and gasping in horror. The surviving scientists did the same. I could feel him. A mind pressing against my own. Laura tried to scream, but her mouth only opened and closed wordlessly.

“...Months of work,” Strucker whispered. In our minds, in my ears. “Studying the Scepter. Training myself. Creating a gauntlet that could channel it’s power. And yet… I underestimated its strength.”

He stepped over me, heading over to Barton. “I thought I understood it. But now, I wonder if even Loki understood what he held.”

Strucker’s gauntlet. It held… oh god.

I felt him reach out to Barton. My friend screamed as yellow energy flowed around his head. My own mind began to tear.

So. I let go. The Omnitrix began to spark, then exploded into green light.

“YAAAAAA!”

I exploded into light.

------

Clint Barton/Hawkeye

Clint felt his mind break. Strucker was in his head! Pulling him apart!

“Now that is interesting,” a smug voice said. No. Thought. Clint’s wife floated before him, her image hazy. His children ran up to her. “What a secret to hide, Barton. I wonder. Will your children show the aptitude you do for this kind of work? I should take a hold of them after this. Once you’re dead, they will need a father figure after all.”

He almost lost his grip at that. Clint tried to raise his hand, to grab at Strucker, only for his mind to be battered down.

“Now now. Don’t be too mad. Once you and your wife die, I will take good care of them. I promise.”

Clint wanted to scream. To rage. But all he could do was gasp in horror.

“I can feel the other minds around me… A sea of souls extending around us. A battlefield of powerful minds,” Strucker laughed. “This stone… it isn’t just a limited bauble. This is a weapon of gods.”

Strucker came to a stop before Clint, leaning down. He spoke, both aloud and in Clint’s mind. “With this. I no longer need to fear the Avengers. They will be mine. My soldiers. Hydra will surviv-”

“YAAAAAAAA!”

The room exploded in green light, then a shockwave hit them all. Clint was buffeted aside, sent rolling. Strucker somehow created a forcefield of yellow light around him, weathering the shockwaves.

It surprised him so much he almost didn’t notice that he was no longer paralyzed. When he finally realized, he spun to his feet, lifting his bow and staring in the direction the explosion had come from.

Smoke was gathered around that area, a green glow shining amongst the clouds. Laura, who had been rolled away by the explosion, staggered to her feet. Strucker stared into the smoke, his lips tight. Clint slowly raised his bow.

A sudden pressure began to mount. It felt… like the one Strucker had done. Gentler, less oppressive. But still. A mental presence within Clint’s mind.

A single long, thin arm reached out of the clouds of smoke. It had long winnowy fingers and slightly long claws. Still, it was well muscled, healthy, despite the silvery skin tones. The arm waved outwards. And the smoke acted as though a gigantic fan had been waved. A telekinetic wave of power, Clint thought to himself.

With the smoke gone, the green light within faded as well, revealing the figure within. Hawkeye slowly lowered his bow.

He was tall. Tall as Thor, maybe a little taller. His body was worryingly thin and a bit too lanky and spindly. But at the same time fit and with not an ounce of body fat on him. His muscles taut and chiseled like those of a martial artist across his arms. All four of them. He wore thin white robes that seemed to float over his body, a black strip going up the front of it before turning into a ‘V’ across his shoulders. His chest was glowing with a red, orange, and yellow set of hues pulsing. The same pulse of light was coming from his eyes, those warm colors gazing upon them. He didn’t seem to have a mouth, his face a smooth dark grey, his head elongated with a crest of sorts on the top, that pulsing glow coming from the back of his skull.

And on a sash around his waist, rested the symbol of the Omnitrix.

“...Do it,” Strucker said to Laura.

Her face paled. She snapped her hands to the sides, creating a pair of long crystal blades, before reaching for her own throat. Clint raised his bow.

The new form of Dial raised a hand. Laura was suddenly surrounded in violet energy. She struggled to slash her own throat, held in the grip of psychic power. He looked at her as she struggled, eyes briefly glowing violet. The energy flowed up her body and into her head. Her eyes glowed the same violet.

Laura’s eyes rolled into the back of her head. She fell backwards, only to be carried on violet waves of energy. Dial waved his top right hand, Laura gently carried on those waves of energy until she was in front of Clint.

“...Take her,” Dial said softly. His voice was soft. But it echoed gently in Clint’s mind.

Clint quickly reached out and held her in a cradle. As he took a hold of her, a man rose up in the back of the room. A scientist, carrying a gun. He lifted it up and shot at Dial.

The bullets bounced off a violet field. Dial waved his lower left arm, sending the man crumbling to the ground screaming, violet surrounding his body, but his eyes never left Strucker’s. “Clint. Leave. Now.”

Clint tucked Laura close to his chest and ran for the hills. Just as he left the room, the explosions began, and two minds pressed against his own.

What the fuck was going on!?

------

Ben Tennyson

Another universe away, Azmuth sat atop Ben’s shoulder, watching a screen with him. Depicted there was Rook, the blue catman interrogating someone in a small room within the Plumber base they were sitting in.

“Psychic power, you say?” Azmuth asked Ben.

“Yeah, like Xylene could do,” Ben said, referencing the Uxorite his Grandpa Max used to (shudder) have a thing with. “They were mind controlling people too. It made them real tough to fight when they kept making everyone go evil. I think thats how they were controlling their army too.”

“All in the name of finding a race that could combine physical strength and mental fortitude to their liking?” Azmuth scoffed. “Idiots. Their genetics are a complete mess as well! Amatuers testing and manipulating their own DNA until they became a sterile and useless version of themselves.”

“Kind of remind me of the way that the Highbreed used to be,” Ben said casually. “Anyway, the Muton’s, Sectoids, Chryssalids, all those other idiots, are still causing trouble. I’m going to head out and help the Opticoid’s with fighting them off. Do you need anything?”

“If I do, I will let you know,” Azmuth hopped off Ben’s shoulder, landing on the desk in front of him. As Ben turned and walked out, he heard Azmuth muse to himself. “Still… I wonder how Paradox’s boy will deal with the new forms…”

------