June 10th, 2014

Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

A day after meeting the X-Men, the Brotherhood, and finally Mystique, I sat down in the Nelson, Murdock, and Walters office with a document laid out before us. I wasn’t reading it. Just watching the three before me react to it.

Jen, Matt, and Foggy looked as though someone had murdered a cat and laid out the organs before them.

“This is more than just stupid,” Foggy said. “This might as well be criminal. Forget the rest of the world, this goes against how many amendments?”

“At least six,” Jen said. She was in her green form with her hair held back into a ponytail, a pair of glasses on her face as she sat back in her chair. “To start. You see one of those rules going against my boyfriend and me?”

“Oh yeah, that one is funny,” I chuckled.

“More illegal honestly,” Matt said, though he still smiled as he read it outloud. “‘No individual may take a form outside the human norm without submitting a permit, to be signed and released by an approved individual, with a specific time and place noted in the permit.’”

“They literally want to make it illegal for me to quick switch in the middle of a fight,” I said. “Worse, they don’t want me to change at all without it being planned out. And who the hell will be approving?”

“A government-approved member of the nation you reside in. Also in order to travel and use abilities, the authorization of your native government authority and the one from the country being visited when on foreign soil.”

“So now me, Jen, Bruce, and who knows who else, all can’t change without someone we don’t know signing off days beforehand. And what the hell is a ‘human norm’ anymore between the enhanced, mutants and who the hell knows what else might come up in the future?”

“And what about us who currently can’t switch at all, and have a law degree to sue with?” Jen asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Pretty sure it's made purposely broad and vague so that there is very little wiggle room to argue against it.” Foggy suggested.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Matt smiled. “That’d be the pizza girl.”

“Pizza girl?” Foggy said incredulously. “Oh come on! I bet you know if she’s hot or not, too.”

“How would I even know that?” Matt said as he pointed to his glasses.

“Because you always do!”

I got up and opened the door, finding a pretty and short Latina woman in a Joe's Pizza uniform holding three boxes. “Hey, you guys the law firm?”

“That we are,” I took the pizzas in hand and passed her some cash. “That should cover it. Keep the change.”

“Whoa, what!” she blinked, shocked at the fold of bills I’d handed her. “A-Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I won the lottery,” I closed the door in her face (making sure to smile politely before I did). As I left, I heard her voice through the door.

“Are you an Avenger!?”

I returned with the pizza and placed it on the designated snack table, where Foggy and Matt had placed the piles of food their clients sometimes gave them in lue of money.

“Ohhh, nice!” Foggy snapped up to his feet and rushed over, placing a pepperoni slice on his plate. “So, was she cute?”

“Am I allowed to answer that?” I asked Jen.

“Only if you think I’m insecure.”

“She was pretty, but not my type.”

“Ohhh, good answer.”

“How do you always know?” Foggy asked Matt, who only chuckled.

Jen took her own thick crust pizza, something Foggy stared at in disgust. “God, I can’t believe you. Living in New York City, and you order that? Might as well spit on the Statue of Liberty.”

“I’m from Cali, I don’t like floppy pizza.”

“Your honor, my opponent is clearly insane.”

“Guilty,” Matt jokingly added.

We all chuckled. Then I looked around briefly, swallowing my chunk of four-cheese pizza. “I knew this shit would be bad, but I thought we’d have more time to fight it.”

“We do have time,” Matt said. “This is just a proposal. They bring out the tough sell, try to force what they can. But there’s going to be a lot of people fighting this. If Tony Stark doesn’t have an army of lawyers fighting it, BRIDGE will.”

“Same with us, honestly,” Foggy lifted another paper. “According to this one ‘Any enhanced individuals who does not sign will not be allowed to take part in any legal, police, military, or espionage activities, or to otherwise participate in any national or international conflict, even in their own country’. And legal meeeeeeans,” he snapped his fingers and pointed at Jen.

“I’m not allowed to practice law,” Jen shook her head. “Forget the Constitution, that violates the Fair Employment and Housing Act.”

“Technically the Americans with Disabilities Act too,” Matt took another bite of pizza.

I rubbed my eyes. “Okay… we’ll do what we can legally, huh? Or, you know, the bevy of trained professionals will. And I know a few of us that are best at public speaking will be talking it over. Goddamn, and after I met the X-Men.”

“The X-who? Is that a band or something?” Foggy asked.

“Don’t get me started,” I leaned forward grimly. “I have another meeting later on. Meeting a frie-...Former enemy? Guy who tried to kill me in his alternate persona but is apparently an okay guy in the other one?”

“You might be overthinking that,” Jen said gently.

“Maybe. Anyways, before I go, you guys gonna be busy today?”

“Technically we already are,” Matt slowly began gathering the papers before him, looking somewhere to the right of my head. “We have hiring today.”

“Hiring?”

“It’s something we’ve needed for a while,” Foggy said, sounding a touch excited. “It’d be nice to have some real help around here.”

“How many people do you need to hire?”

“6-10.”

I hadn’t expected that. “So many? I thought you guys were staying small for a bit.”

“Dude, that is small.”

Jen finished off her pizza and continued on from Foggy. “Law firms need a lot of maintenance. Don’t need someone for our computers, since we cheat with X’s help,” she waved vaguely at the computers. “But we each need a secretary and paralegal to assist us. Then we want to hire some associate attorneys, and even if we only hire two they still need a shared paralegal and secretary between them.”

“Don’t forget if we add a summer associate or a law student doing an externship,” Matt pointed out.

“God, do we really want a law student? They’re so tiny and annoying,” Foggy groaned.

“Foggy, we just stopped being law students ourselves.”

“All the more reason not to add one more!”

I was once again reminded of how little I understood about the law and lawyers who defended/prosecuted people. Even for all my recent research into the topics.

“I’ll leave you guys too it then,” I scarfed down the last of my pizza, tossing the empty box in the trash.

“Whoa, did you finish that whole thing already!?” Foggy asked.

“I burn calories like a nuclear engine,” I kissed Jen on the lips. “See you at home?”

“Maybe, depends how long this takes us,” she chuckled. “Good luck!”

With that, I headed to the Raft.

The Raft was a huge round facility hidden in the middle of the ocean, built to be damn near impossible to find or escape from. I flew in through the top and entered right as the facility sank under the waves again.

A BRIDGE guard guided me through the halls of the Raft. Men and women were rushing through the corridors with various tools, with sounds of banging, drills, and welding all around us.

“Sorry about this, sir,” the tall man said as we moved around a pair of scientists. “We’re still putting her together. Water damage would be hell without the improvements we’ve been getting. Plus, the new guy, Flux? Keeps having fits and trying to find his ‘mommy’.”

“If anything it’s a miracle it’s functional enough to sink under the waves,” I noted. “Is he dangerous right now?”

“If he is, nobody told me,” the man sighed, stopping at a door and nodding to me. “Through here. He’s excited to see you.”

I raised an eyebrow.

On stepping inside, two things stood out to me. One was the force field. Shining a bright transparent yellow, looking like the one the US Army had been using to contain Hydra in Siberia. I pressed a hand to it, blinking at the feeling of static barely buzzing from it. The second thing that stood out to me chuckled.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Karl Lykos, formerly Sauron, eyed the field. I once more was reminded of Raul Julia. “This side of it is far more painful, believe me.”

“You can’t absorb it?” I asked.

“I haven’t tried,” at my disbelieving look he shrugged. “I don’t want to leave honestly… How are you?”

“Good... Kind of… Lots changed, some of it bad.”

While I spoke, I took in our surroundings. Behind the field, Lykos had been given a desk with a computer, two bed behind walls, a large table, and another private section in back. Nice digs for a cell. He was wearing a pale blue jumpsuit, the kind all BRIDGE prisoners were given.

“The Registration Act,” he nodded. “We’ve been talking about it.”

“‘We’?”

“WAAAAAGH!” a head poked out from the private section. I stared at the goblin as he approached, noting that my Omnitrix flashed yellow. So, not one I’d encountered… oh fuck me, did he say WAAAAGH?

“Ah yes!” Lykos waved the guy forward. He was green, with hair pulled into a ponytail, pointy ears, and intelligent-looking brown eyes. He joined Lykos. “A fellow scientist. One of the visitors from that unfortunate Rio Incident. He has quite the noteworthy intelligence! Mind like a steel trap, eh Wrugaz?”

“WAAAGH!”

“That means-”

“No, I understood that,” I said with a wave of my hand. The Omnitrix’s universal translator was truly op. “How are you both caged up together?”

“Special permission from the director,” Lykos said proudly. “We are consulting!”

“WAAAGH!”

…So many questions, not the least of which was what was the world coming to. Better make sure that I took care of as many as possible before I left.

“Okay? Well uh… Dr. Lykos, I was told you wanted to meet me?”

“Indeed, young man,” Lykos looked me over. “I imagine that by now you’ve met my old friend.”

“Charles Xavier.”

“The very same! I imagine you’ve been having long conversations with him?”

“One, actually. More in the future though.”

“Oh,” he frowned. “He was so excited to speak with you, I thought the two of you would be best friends!”

“Trust me, things ended well, but we’re gonna have a few more long conversations,” I popped down into a chair set aside before the forcefield. “Registration being a new one. I’m worried about what will follow that. And once the news comes out about the Savage Land…”

“Ah, yes. My former domicile. Of sorts,” he chuckled. “I must admit, the nomenclature escapes me for what you call a place your other half ruled over.”

“Partly. Savage Land has other kings,” I said, thinking of Ka-Zar and Hauser.

“Ah yes, you did end up taking rulership yourself.”

“What?”

“Hm?”

We stared at each other, confused.

“What are you talking about, rulership?”

“Ah… you didn’t realize,” he began to pace. “You may have made a mistake. My dear hero. You must know. When you fought your way out of the Savage Land, from the clutches of my… hm, better half?”

My eyes traced his path, the goblin watching as well. “I believe that you may have had an effect you didn’t realize. My memories of that magnificent land are clear. Well, somewhat. Feelings, impressions, basic facts of life. And one thing I know is that the cultures of that world look to leadership in a very different way than we do. The kingdom of the Savage Land is one that reaches for tyrants. It’s what made Sauron so effective at such things. Especially the Saurians.”

I thought of Gresh.

“But if you didn’t take rulership of them, then the city Sauron ruled over may continue as they did.”

“There wasn’t much chance we could have stopped them without dismantling the whole society. BRIDGE isn’t exactly the kind of organization to do that. Ideally.”

“You should have, my dear hero. You should have,” he shook his head. “It may be that you’ve left a sleeping dragon in that land.”

I opened my mouth.

“No, not that magnificent beast from hell.”

I closed my mouth.

“You should have taken over. As it is, Styro was killed. I imagine, with Sauron and him dead. Stend will be alive. And if no one else can take over, then he’s the one willing to do so.”

Stend. That asshole. Even with the heat that filled me at the thought of him, a bit of Nat’s training pushed through. Putting the pieces together with his psychology.

“Sauron left something, didn’t he?”

“Dozens of things,” Lykos shook his head. “Textbooks, metals, technology, some of it stolen from the ruins of ancient civilizations within the Savage Land. Stend will get his hands on it.”

He rubbed his forehead. “I shudder to think what could follow. All that power, in the hands of him? My other half at least wished to release things at a slow and even pace. Stend will have no such discipline.”

I thought about that. Then I chuckled.

“Oh!” Lykos leaned forward, a smile on his face. “It seems my words haven’t disheartened you! Good news I hope?”

“Yeah. Kind of. It’s just. If Stend does end up causing trouble. The Savage Land has its own heroes to defend it. It has its own Avengers. But thanks for warning me.”

“Of course. I’m more than happy to aid you,” Lykos smiled. “This world. It’s become very interesting recently. I shudder to think what new surprises will come around the corner. And yet, that tense sense of fear is joined with a certain excited anticipation! What an intoxicating combination of emotions!”

“I’ll have to keep you apprised I guess,” I frowned. “So. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about, doctor?”

“Allow me to consider that question! Let me see. We discussed my old friend. My current roommate-”

“WAAAGH!”

“My old home seems to be in good hands. Did I have anything else to speak with you about?” he chuckled. “Ah yes! I’ve spoken with BRIDGE before. They’ve requested my knowledge on certain things. But I wish for more. I have a lifetime of knowledge I wish to put to use. Dial. I wish to ask. Would the Avengers be looking for another pair of minds to join them?”

Well fuck. Didn’t expect that at all.

“Ah, it seems I’ve shocked you quite a bit!” Lykos laughed boisterously. “What a fun result, my friend!”

“WAAAGH!”

I told him I’d think about it and left. I walked through the halls of the Raft, my thoughts racing. Fact was, Lykos was smart. Very smart. Even Tony was impressed by him. Having access to his mind for the long haul could be great. What he was asking for was a direct line to the Avengers. A way to aid us in any scientific research, and to speak with us. As of now, BRIDGE had him under tight lock and key.

His forcefield was just stage one. If that failed, then massive metal doors would smash down around him. His vents were filled with incinerators just in case that goblin was a spore kind (as far as we knew it wasn’t), his communications were monitored, and since meeting Charles, Tony had started working on figuring out a way to block psychic stuff (he wasn’t having much luck so far).

He was a complicated problem then. Lykos, by all accounts, was a nice guy. Enthusiastic, dramatic, and very much in what I imagined it was like to interact with Raul Julia.

Sauron though… he was a monster. He’d stood against Creel, Fantasma, and me, and almost won. I didn’t know if that was in line with his comic version or not, but it was for sure powerful. If Lykos ended up getting enough energy to transform back, we were all in trouble.

And of course, the Goblin. Intelligent. Fiercely so, speaking with a familiar British accent I remembered from the WH40K series. I didn’t know much, but I knew the Warhammer ones could make more of themselves through spores. This one didn’t. Instead, he somehow made the laws of physics work for him. Just like Jury Rigg.

Now I had his form. No idea what to do with it though, since Jury Rigg was already in the watch, but maybe it would pop up at some point.

I’d talk to the others about it later. I couldn’t make a decision for all the Avengers after all.

“Hey, you,” a female voice drew me from my thoughts. I looked to my right and blinked. For a second I was reminded of Komodo, AKA Melati Kusama, the reptilian scientist who’d joined Coulson’s team. This woman had a scaled appearance as well.

It was the guy in the cell next to her that made me realize who she was. After all, the Abomination doesn’t need an introduction, and neither does the Aberration.

The two scaled superhumans watched me approach, Abomination leaning casually against the massive metal bars just behind a yellow forcefield, while Aberration rested on her bed.

“Emil,” I said to Abomination. The ten-foot tall man grinned. “Rana,” Aberration grunted. “How are you guys doing?”

“Bored,” Abomination grunted. “I was hoping you were here to go a couple rounds.”

“I don’t feel like knocking you out today.”

He chuckled. “You really think that’s how it would go?”

I shrugged. He leered down at me, but I only smiled back before looking over at Rana.

“I’m getting out soon,” she said, though she looked nervous. “Gonna join the Grapplers.”

“Good for you.”

I was honest about that. Still, she looked nervous. “I’m supposed to… but I heard about the Registration. I want to do good, Dial. I want to redeem myself. Am I going to be able to do that, or am I going to stay here?”

“...I can’t make any promises, Rana.”

“See?” Abomination chuckled. “We’re all in the dark, baby girl. Guess you and I are stuck here forever, huh? Leaves me more time for lessons?”

“What are you learning, piano?” I said sarcastically.

“Knitting. Hahaha!”

I ignored him to focus on Rana. “This Registration is something I knew was coming for a while. We’re fighting it, and BRIDGE has plans for it. And a few of the bigger countries will veto it from being the rule of law across the world. But if we have to, we set up some contingencies.”

“What, are you going to run away?” Abomination asked sarcastically. I looked up at him. He blinked. “Wait. Is that really it?”

“No. But it’s one thing we’re considering,” I said sadly. “We’ll make sure anyone trying to do good can do just that. Beyond that, we aren’t going to force anyone to accept us. So don’t worry about it, Rana. You’ll be fine.”

I walked away sadly. Yeah. If a country decided we weren’t worth helping, then maybe we couldn’t stay there. Not as heroes anyways.

This whole thing was stupid and was only going to get worse.

Steve Rogers/Captain America

“I’m just saying, I wasn’t willing to give my suit to the government before, why would I want to do it now?” Tony asked Steve as he set up a camera. The pair were in Tony’s penthouse floor of the Avengers Tower, Steve sat down on a far too comfortable couch with a milkshake in his hand and his shield laid down next to him.

Steve sighed. “Tony, it’s not about giving our powers to the government. You know that. I just know that people are scared. I want us to try, just try, to create reasonable laws. To adjust the system to make sure people like us can’t abuse them.”

“And I’m saying that’s fine, but not what we’re dealing with now,” Tony adjusted the camera and moved to grab himself a drink from the bar. “What we’ve got is a bunch of government idiots trying to monopolize us. I know that I apparently agreed with that in another universe for some… unfathomably stupid reason. Probably guilt, that tracks with how I work.”

Steve watched as Tony poured himself a glass of whiskey. “But here it’s a bunch of idiots.”

“They’re scared, Tony.”

“Yeah, people keep telling me that. You know scared people can be stupid too right, it’s not like they get a license to make dumb decisions? Nobody cries when Jason kills the dumb teens in a horror movie.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “That’s not what this is. I agree that the act they’ve suggested is far too restrictive, but laws need to be adjusted. It’s not just one guy a little stronger than others anymore. We have telepaths, storm makers, Dial even mentioned a guy who could manipulate luck.”

“So we change the laws a bit. But for now, I think we can agree. If this new act becomes the law of the land, then you and I, buddy? We might need to start looking into new jobs.”

“Aren’t you a CEO?”

“Nah, that’s more of a sidegig.”

“Oh right,” Steve smiled just a bit. “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Right?”

“Heh. Yeah. Yeah… I know what you’re thinking. You want everyone to sit down around apple pie, talk things out, come up with a way to koombaiya. But that ain’t gonna happen. The guys behind this aren’t just doing it out of fear now. They’re politicians.”

He took a swig of his drink before continuing. “These guys, they can’t be seen changing their minds no matter how logical it is. They got a precious image to hold on to. The people behind the act? Guys like this Nadeer woman, like Ross? They didn’t put out this damn act because they thought it would pass. They knew it wouldn’t. So ask yourself. If they knew that, what’s the act they really want to put out?”

Steve thought about that idea. The idea that the draconian laws they were pushing for were so blatant because they planned for more insidious versions of those laws to replace them. Instead of wrist and ankle trackers on superhumans, a digital census. Instead of indefinite prison time without trial, years worth of time for using a superhuman power. Worse replaced with bad.

“There,” Tony pointed at him. “That, right there. The things you’re thinking of? I’ve gone over it in my head a thousand times, Steve. Going over every angle. So yeah. I don’t care how scared regular people are. I’m worried about the guys making a show for voters. Guys using fear to get power. Because if Dial and his team don’t get enough allies in space for us to be ready for the next invasion, the politicians aren’t going to be the ones laying their lives on the line. They’ll be the ones complaining the rules they made that restricted our freedoms also kept us from doing our damn jobs.”

“...A cold war, then,” Steve said sadly.

“You and I know that the world needs defenses. But what’s the point of that if we need to sacrifice the freedoms of everyone? You and I, we made that choice, we decided to step up to the plate. But kids like the ones at Xavier’s school, people like Melati who just want to be scientists, prisoners who are actually looking for some kind of redemption like Wanda? They need to have someone looking out for them.”

“...All right then. I’m in.”

“I knew you were,” Tony finished his drink. “Now. You ready?”

Steve felt some of his good nature return. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“Good,” Tony moved to adjust himself on the couch next to the seat. Then he waved a hand and a large screen appeared before him. The camera began recording.

“What’s up you nerds?” Tony said to the camera. “Thanks for joining the Capsicle and I on this whole thing. It’s been, what, a month?”

“A little more I think.”

“Yeesh. Time flies. Then again, we did have a little thing. Small war, got in the way of all this.”

“I think it’s a little bit thematically appropriate,” Steve said with a hint of humour. “We stopped the series at the finale while having a finale of our own.”

“Hey, ours had Godzilla, so this one has a lot to live up to.”

“It wasn’t really Godzilla,” Steve chuckled.

Tony rolled his eyes. “He was a giant lizar- Oh, I can’t with this argument again. Anyways! Avatar: The Last Airbender. Sozin's Comet. This show has been a fucking blast to watch, and I can’t wait to see how it ends. I already bought the company that makes Korra too.”

“Wait, wha-”

“Anyways, let's start.”

“Tony, I think that’s a conflict of interest.”

“It better be, I’m voicing a character in the final season.”

“Tony-”

“Start!”

The two friends began to finish the show together. As they did, they let go of the thoughts of doom and gloom.

For now. Only for now.

The Beginning and the End

In an AIM base halfway across the world, a computer played the live stream of Steve and Tony watching and responding to the show. It then flipped to traffic cam footage showing Dial in Bayville. Records of the Registration Act. More footage. Hulk. Aliens. BRIDGE. Watchdogs.

Thousands of records compiling. AIM’s systems were being taxed, but that didn’t matter. He was making more. AIM was expanding. Forcefully, in some cases.

The Evolution Project was growing. Among it’s files, new folders opened, with small addendums being made as new data was found, a project that had been continuing for some time. The words ‘Gamma Gene’, ‘Mutations’, ‘Alien Additions’ came up at various points.

Yet another folder was opened for one simple project. Magic. Fantasma was in that folder, hundreds of hours of footage of her. But along with it, was another name.

Kulan Gath. The newest guest of AIM.

Research was ongoing on both.

In another base, blueprints were being followed. New technology.

And within the base the computer was working in, a single tube sat. It was stolen. Not the actual tube, but the design for it. It had been created by a woman named Helen Cho. A brilliant Korean doctor. It was missing a component. But that was fine. That could be stolen as well.

He was coming.

The computer froze on Dial’s image. A bearded man, smiling in a group of heroes, mid-transformation into a monster. He was muscular, matching the super-soldiers around him for sheer size if not in height. His beard gave him a savage appearance despite his happy smile. For all the speed of the computers, they held onto that image of a man with an Omnitrix for a prenatural amount of time.

A single image flashed throughout AIM, on thousands of servers and screens.

A scarlet face like fire, set with a pair of glowing white eyes.

Then it disappeared in a flash. A series of 1’s replaced it in a digital cloud of many angles. AIM continued its work.