diversified | they've got modified features and software brains [ psl ]

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they've got modified features and software brains [ psl ]

WHO Victor von Doom (

nerdfight) and Misha Hunt (

interspace)
WHAT In which science is done, a country is conquered, and Misha has to deal with a narcissistic asshole hellbent on revenge.
WHEN About a year after the sequel
WHERE Various places
WHY because fuck you Richards, that's why

It was something that had been bothering him for a while, a question that had been left unanswered and one that he was finally deciding to spend his time on now that he had to build up his resources and wait instead of attacking. Who was the girl who had appeared out of nowhere and integrated herself with his greatest enemies? She was an unknown variable, a puzzle to be solved, a threat to be destroyed. He needed to figure her out so he could properly dispose of her and move onto his real targets.

That would take time and research and since his last defeat, he'd take things slower so that he could do things properly. First, he watched from afar through cameras and finding videos of her exploits. Her flight was unnatural, something that couldn't be explained like how he and the others could be. Then, he had to take readings where he couldn't be caught. It was easy enough, send a small drone out to take the readings during a fight, with everyone distracted enough to not notice yet another spectator to the match. That was when he noticed it. He needed to study her in person, he had to know if the readings were correct.

So he set up a plan. A test run of his newly created Doombots would do nicely. Five points of attack to separate everyone so that he could grab the little insect like a flytrap, snatch her up in such a way that nobody could save her from his grasp. It was a beautiful day for an attack too, bright and sunny with no chance of rain. Donning his mask and outfit, Doom went out with his army of Doombots and waited on a skyscraper for his target to pass on the way to one company of his Doombots. When she arrived, he would be ready.

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It was pretty much like any other day for Misha. Another afternoon, another attack. What was setting off all of her alarms was that these were very, very obviously Doombots. The others wouldn't quite catch the significance until they got closer to the threat and realized it wasn't some twisted villain's attempt to throw them off with the face of their first enemy, but in fact narcissism in its purest form. ALFRED was set to tap into all the local satellites and measurement devices to try and locate Victor while the others went off to pummel the distractions.

"Guard up, guys," she said through the communicators. She and Johnny were on the same path to start, planning on branching out once their targets were too far away to make it feasible, the other three splitting off in the Fantasticar. "I get the feeling this isn't as simple as it looks."

"A feeling, or a feeling?" Johnny asked pointedly. Their ground had been well-repaired since her little secret had come out, but sometimes it did seem to have left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Misha grimaced to herself and split off perhaps a bit early.

"Just be careful."

"Let's focus," Reed reminded them. "We don't know who's controlling these things or what they're up to. Head's up."

They were splitting up just as he had planned. Good, he could move on to the next stage of his plan and work on separating them completely. He knew they had to be in communication with each other in case they had to split up like this, so he had factored that in. This time, he would definitely succeed. They had no idea what was about to happen.

"Let's see how you deal with this, Richards," he said to himself with a smirk before he opened up a line of communications to his Doombots all across the city. "Jam their communications and begin the diversion."

He didn't have to look to see his mechanical minions setting off their jamming devices, hearing the crackle and squeal of the devices doing their work over his own radio. There wasn't any fears of his Doombots failing. After all, this was a good way to test just how well their AIs could work to his standards without his input. For now, he just had to wait for the right moment to make contact with his target.

They had already begun their usual round of banter over the comms when the sharp whine and crackle of static burst in their ears. Four of them reacted, visible motions in their patterns being disrupted, while Ben smacked at his ear like a fly had gotten into it. Misha put her hands to her head and stopped mid-flight to order, "ALFRED, comms off! Comms off!" before quiet rolled in. Her music never stopped, never wavered but it seemed like their signal was being fucked with and that just made her even more worried.

This was some kind of trap. She could feel it in her gut, and considering the subjects of the distraction she could guess who was at the helm of it: Victor von Doom. That man terrified her on a very real level now that he was also very real. From afar (as in, an entire universe of distance away), he was an interesting character to behold and psychoanalyze as a fictional construct. As a person? He was horrifying for the sorts of things he would do without a second thought, especially to people who got in the way and he had no reason to try and show off for. The Fantastic Four all had the dubious honor of having Doom's attention; Misha was a complete and total unknown, and completely unprotected. She did not want to meet Doom alone ever if she could help it.

On the other hand, that did go a ways to reassuring her that the distraction was merely to tear all of them apart in an attempt of divide and conquer rather than anything aimed at her. Slowly she let go of her ears, looked across the city and around what obstructions she could to see the rest of her teammates continuing on despite the forcible disconnect. They could do that, they were a good team, the sort that could operate even without solid lines of communication. Misha still had her own doubts about what she could do alone, but hell if she was going to let them show during an attack by Doctor Doom. Hell no.

"ALFRED," she instructed, glancing about one more time to get her bearings before she would move on, "keep an eye on local uploads and security cams. See if you can't warn me if any of the others get in danger, all right?" At least she knew ALFRED was still there to listen. It wasn't a communication channel over an encrypted network like the Four were using, but merely speaking to the bracer right there on her bicep.

Electricity filled the air as the Doombots started their diversion. Loud cracks of thunder boomed through the city as they fired off electricity at the Fantastic Four. That would keep them busy long enough for Doom to move onto the next phase of the plan: capturing the insect. She was in range now and he only needed to go through the math quickly to get the perfect vector to get her while she was still in that position.

With that finished, Doom backed up a few feet before he ran forward as fast as he could and leaped off the building, angling himself right so that he could tackle Misha in midair and grab a hold of her so that she'd start falling with him. The drop wasn't going to be a problem for him, thanks to being made of metal, but he couldn't exactly slam her into the ground, so he twisted them both in the air for a better landing position.

To make sure she didn't try anything, he gave her a low enough zap to cause her pain, but not enough to cause any permanent damage. He really didn't want to deal with her struggling against him to try and get away. He only had so much patience for this. "Struggle and I will not be so kind," he said sharply into her ear. Hopefully, she'd obey.

It was to both of their fortunes that Misha was invulnerable to the damaging effects of diverted momentum. Instead of snapping in half or breaking her spine, she merely let out an instinctual shriek at the skydiving supervillain. It transformed into a pained and aborted yell of pain when the electricity coursed through her nerves. She could do little but hold on to Doom as they fell, fell, fell and her head swam with unbridled panic and fear.

She was shaking, trying to pull herself out of the unyielding arms despite the echo of electricity teasing along her spine. Her power was still going, pulling against the rate of descent with little effect for how much Doom weighed now that he was made entirely of metal. She had no chance but she was far too scared to remember her phasing, to do anything but try and struggle free, her mind a complete blank for the panic covering everything else. "Let go! Stop it! Stop it!"

For a moment, Doom was annoyed that the girl wouldn't stop struggling before he realized that she was panicking over being knocked out of the sky. That was definitely information to file away for later as something to use against her in the future if he needed to deal with her.

He kept his hold on her tight so that she wouldn't be able to free herself while they were falling and prepared himself to land. Hitting the street hard, the asphalt crumpled and cratered underneath his feet as he made sure Misha didn't make contact with the ground. He didn't want her to be too injured and having seen her physical reactions to being hit, she would be able to handle the sudden stop.

Not moving for a long moment to make sure that the girl was uninjured and hopefully calming down, he let electricity crackle over his hand as a threat and he looked down at her as he started to head towards the unengaged group of Doombots that he had used only to make the team split up in the first place. "Let's try this again. You struggle and I will hurt you."

A powerful wave shuddered through her body at the impact. It was nothing more than water rolling off her back thanks to the cosmic energy inside of her diffusing the reaction, but she could still feel what should have been. Oddly enough, it seemed to quell her immediate motions of panic and she clung to whatever solid surface she could while she gasped for breath in the thoughtless moments following the easing of her attack. Her head wouldn't still and the aftereffects of such a freakout would stick with her for several hours if not the rest of the day, but there was something itching and fighting to break free under the muddling fog.

That crackle of electricity near her back helped jumpstart what that something might have been. She swallowed hard, forcing herself to pick up a single thread of coherency, and shifted her death grip from Doom's shoulder to his mask. Even if it was just a meaningless motion of resistance while her body was too much jelly to really fight, she could at least try to remove the mask from the man and do something about the fact that she was apparently being kidnapped. Which, yeah, that was weird as fuck come to think of it, but her brain was too scrambled to process it. So she was just going to try and mess with Victor in whatever way she could possibly get away with just short of getting herself killed. Totally the best plan there, Misha. Go get 'im.

Nobody can ever say that Doom didn't warn her multiple times. When she went and grabbed his mask, he reached up with his electrified hand and grabbed hers, giving her a zap hopefully strong enough to get her to let go. He was very sensitive when it came to his face, especially after it had been damaged in the accident, and his mask was an extension of that. "Don't you dare touch my mask."

That spurred him on to getting back to his Doombots quicker and when he got there, all of them turned his attention to him. As he moved past them and to the helicopter he had waiting, they parted for him so he wouldn't have to slow down. "Send up the flare and prepare for my escape," he ordered loudly so all of the Doombots in the area could hear. Then he turned his attention back to the girl, zapping her again with his free hand. "I have a surprise for you."

Such a current was definitely enough for Misha to let go, enough to go rigid from the shock before she fell limp in pain. Her muscles were contracting on their own, small spasms where she was losing control and attentiveness. Her brain was willing to shut down and the abuse to her body was only encouraging it further. She stared blankly over Doom's shoulder at the 'bots as they passed; it was uncanny and frankly unnerving to watch them.

She had unintentionally let her head come to rest on the pauldron of Doom's armor when he zapped her again. She grunted, intentionally kicking out because she wasn't even doing anything this time dammit! "What," she said, flat and through gritted teeth. What kind of surprises did supervillains prepare for their kidnap victims, anyway? Company? She didn't think she could bear the thought, much less the slowly growing pit of dread in her stomach.

"Behave, insect," he chided as he carried her to the helicopter and got into the pilot's seat, repositioning Misha in his grasp so that she sat on his lap sideways so that she wouldn't get in the way as he started his preflight checks. As he finally got to starting the helicopter, a Doombot shot a flare into the sky and the others started moving to the crater where Doom had landed with the girl.

The helicopter went airborne and he carefully guided up above the buildings where they could see the fighting between the Fantastic Four and the other Doombots more easily. Other flares had been sent along a path towards the areas of fighting and Doom took a moment to glance at the girl. "Pay close attention to your friends and you'll see what the surprise is." A moment after he said that, multiple explosions went off where the fighting had been, the Doombots having self-destructed in the middle of combat.

There wasn't much point to physical resistance anymore. Victor had her well and truly in his grasp and the lingering panic from her attack coupled with the fuzz of multiple shocks meant she couldn't even try to fly much less attempt to phase to safety. She was terrified of what Doom meant to do with her, fear mixing with the rest and keeping her entirely off her game, and all she could do was follow the instruction to look outside when it was given.

What she saw was enough to steal her breath away. Her heart pounded in her ears and she reacted, lashing out as if she could get out and right into the action, as if there would be anything to save by the time she reached the epicenters. She was fast, but not fast enough to get there before the explosions at all. Even her ever-staunch logical fragment of common sense was completely out of commission, unable to remind her that Ben would be fine, Sue could protect herself, Reed was too smart not to get to safety, that Johnny wasn't so brave as to sit still right in the middle of a self-destruct sequence. There was none of that reassurance, just flame and smoke and more panic than she thought herself capable of feeling. "No! No!" She twisted with whatever angle she could, pounding ineffectively on the armored body under the heavy robes. "You motherfucker!"

Doom was expecting a reaction and he held on tight to her as she hit him to no effect. The helicopter turned away from the explosions as he focused on the girl. She would not be any use to him awake on the trip back. "It's time for you to take a nap," he said before zapping her enough to knock her unconscious. Now he could actually focus on escaping and getting things prepared for his study of this rather annoying subject.

It took a couple modes of transport, but Doom had finally gotten the girl back to start on his study. He placed her in what looked like a glass cell in the corner of a very sterile looking medical facility and he wasn't cruel enough to force her to rest on the floor, having put her on a serviceable cot. Currently, he was sitting on one side of the room, hunched over a table with numerous pieces of machinery on it with ALFRED being in the middle and Doom working on it while angrily muttering under his breath, having ditched the armor and mask for something a bit more normal. One couldn't exactly work on things in that ridiculous outfit, after all.

It was a while before Misha would wake again. More than long enough for Doom to get his little plot set up and have his frustrations out with Reed's pet project that was ALFRED's core programming. The encryption was top-notch, even if the actual sophistication of its internal processing and data reconciliation could be better. It was definitely not a real AI, just something meant to mimic one.

Misha opened her eyes slowly, every joint and muscle moaning to her as a reminder for what had happened. She laid there for a long moment to try and let it sink in, then swallowed back the pain both physical and mental, and stood. Seeing Doom right there was enough to make her keep quiet, keep off the floor, and move to the edge of the glass confinement to try and figure out what he was doing. When she spotted ALFRED in the middle of his mess, she frowned. Oh no, no way, he was not going to fuck with ALFRED. That asshole was about to drop the last straw.

Not even thinking about what she was doing, Misha wrapped herself up in her power and came through the glass all the way to the table where she snatched up ALFRED's core and held it to herself. "That's mine," she said strongly. "Go get your own cyber butler!"

Edited 2015-01-01 01:12 (UTC)

In Doom's eyes, ALFRED was a disastrous piece of machinery that needed to be fixed immediately before he could even think about giving it back to the girl for her own use. So he was completely caught by surprised when she grabbed ALFRED from him. He instinctively turned and grabbed her by the throat with one hand while the other grabbed ALFRED's core to yank it out of her grasp.

"I wasn't done fixing that yet," he shouted angrily, looking as if he was daring her to do anything to make him shock her again. It took a moment for it to click that she was out of her cell. Well, that was going to be annoying. "And what do you think you're doing out of your cell, little insect?"

Okay, yeah, Misha should have honestly expected such a violent reaction. Unfortunately for her, she was still running on low and finding it hard to think when placed in the center of attention by an archnemesis who should have wanted nothing but her dead before him. One hand instinctively went to hold at Doom's wrist, while the other reached to reclaim ALFRED once again. More than anything else, ALFRED was her current lifeline to sanity in a universe where she didn't belong and she didn't dare imagine what would happen if ALFRED were corrupted or his base programming was used by Doom for some other nefarious purpose.

He was, after all, just a figment of her imagination made real to keep her company.

She kicked her legs out, glared down at Doom, then closed her eyes and concentrated. It was harder when she was in contact with other things, especially living things, because she needed to form her power around that—through it, really. Her power wasn't something she felt so much as something that she had to acknowledge despite the lack of physical stimuli to accompany it. "I think I'm getting the hell out of here," she said, pulling herself back and free from his grasp before making a dive to grab her computer's core. No way was she going to leave ALFRED in Victor von Doom's hands, fixed or unfixed.

To be fair, Misha wasn't running on all cylinders at the moment while Doom definitely was. When she phased through his hand, he took note and immediately moved to turn on the pulse emitter on his wrist while playing keep away with ALFRED. She wasn't getting it back until Doom was done working on it and not a second earlier. Right now though, he was going to punish her for interrupting him and thinking she could escape.

Grabbing her shirt, Doom yanked her forward as he stood up and slammed his knee into her gut. He was not in the mood to play games with this little insect and he was going to make sure she knew it. "I don't think so," Doom snapped at her, his tone very obviously annoyed. "You're going to behave for once by getting back in your cell and letting me finish fixing Richards' mistakes in your device."

That... that shouldn't have been possible. Only Johnny was able to make contact when Misha was phasing thanks to his temporary power-scramble after interacting with the Silver Surfer's board. Not even Reed had been able to fully replicate the phenomena... but as Misha curled forward, breath stolen and mind teetering on the edge of consciousness—she remembered that thing on Doom's wrist. That thing that let him harmonize with the Surfer's board must have had the same effect with her phasing. But how did he realize it would work? Even Misha hadn't thought that far ahead.

She groaned with no voice to it, her own grasp on her power fading while she crumpled from the blow. Her vision was fading in and out, the strength behind a metal-coated attack just kind of wrecking through any training Misha had taken on withstanding hits. He had far too much of an advantage on her in both mental faculties, physical prowess and being on his home field. This was not going in her favor and she had blown her chance at escape because of sentimentality. It didn't even turn out to be worth it because Doom still had ALFRED, and that was just not fair. "Don't... don't break him," she said weakly. It was a threat and a plea, and she didn't doubt Doom would disregard either. Still, she had to try.

It really helped that Doom had a completely different perspective on Misha's powers than she or even Reed does. He came at it realizing that it was similar to the Surfer's board instead of being like his own powers. Truth be told, he had no idea that it was actually going to work, but he figured that something was going to happen when he activated the emitter and used it on her.

"I already told you that I'm going to fix him," he grumbled as he placed ALFRED back down on the table carefully so that he could pick up Misha and carry her back to her cell. Placing her on the cot, he then looked down at her with some annoyance and disappointment. "It's not my intention to harm you. Now stay here and things will proceed smoothly for you."

This was really going to get at her if things kept up. Doom obviously wanted Misha alive for some reason, and the longer he continued to prove that by not blasting her to smithereens, the more she had no idea what to expect from him as she pushed his buttons both intentionally and not. He wasn't making a whole lot of sense to her right now and that made this whole thing incredibly dangerous. Considering Misha was still alive despite her continued state of stupidity, she was kind of all right with that, but it was the principle of the matter, really. If she couldn't understand what Victor was up to, she couldn't predict him and that was going to end up with her dead.

Once she was set back onto the cot, Misha moved to her side and curled up into the most comfortable position that she could manage. Give her enough time and she could simply ride on out of the lab or whatever this place was, give no fucks to Doctor Doom getting pissed off at her, and return to the Baxter Building—to what? She paused, startled by her own thoughts. Those explosions... She realized now that the team had probably survived, but what would be the fallout? Especially since Misha had obviously known who was behind the attacks. God, they were all going to be so pissed.

Taking a few deep breaths, Misha turned up and regarded Doom before he could leave. "Why?" she asked. Words were coming more easily as she managed to breathe through the pain and awakened aches. "I mean, please, spare me the monologue. Just... why?"

There was a moment before Doom could respond where he looked at her as if she was stupid. He thought his reasoning was obvious, but it seems for someone like her, it actually wasn't all that clear. He sighed. Of course he would have to be stuck dealing with an idiotic child who had the powers he so desired to study.

"You're a mystery. You showed out of nowhere, claim to be Richards' niece, and then gain powers that give off the same energy as the board," he explained patiently, an edge of annoyance still present in his voice. Thankfully, he hasn't reached peak annoyance or anger because the lights haven't started to flicker. "I want to study you, see how you came to get these powers, and perhaps answer a few questions about who and what you really are."

"Ah," said Misha, softly. She was a curiosity to Doom. In retrospect it made far too much sense and her expression turned pained when she realized it. Everything that she had done to blend in with the rest of the world, bide her time and try whatever opportunities she could manage in order to get home, all of that worked on the world, but not the one person outside of their group who would be able to see their rouse for what it really was. Her luck just so happened to dictate that the one person would be Victor von Doom, who would take the enigmatic stranger as an insult to his pride and intellect.

She turned from him, rolling onto her other side and pressing her face partway into the pillow. "You've got some work cut out for you," she said. There was no way she was going to tell Victor what she knew. That would put everyone in danger, not to mention that the things she knew in the hands of a genius like Doom would probably be much more enlightening to him than to Misha. It was why she still had things she never really got around to telling Reed for fear of unleashing something she couldn't understand. Once she was recovered enough, she absolutely had to get herself out.

That was better. Now she realized what was going on and hopefully that would at least make her at least stop trying to attack him over a faulty device. He was smart enough to know that she was going to keep trying to escape and he already had ideas forming in his head to stop her from escaping, at least for the near future.

"It wouldn't be very fun if it was going to be easy getting answers out of you," Doom replied, annoyance replaced with amusement. He liked having a project to work on and Misha was perfect for that now that Doom had nothing else on his plate for the moment. After all, he didn't have the pieces in place to depose the current Latverian king nor could he take down Richards once and for all just yet. Studying Misha would be a good distraction until he had everything in place for either of those plans. "I don't have to worry about the others looking for you any time soon. They think you're dead."

There were still going to be fights over ALFRED until the computer was returned to her. Misha was far too protective of it and dependent on its functions and presence to really be able to sit back while Doom did who knew what to her companion. He had said fixing but that could really mean anything in a super villain's vocabulary. The sooner she got ALFRED back, the sooner Misha was going to have to move.

"You weren't trying to kill them," she realized, biting at her lip where Doom couldn't see from his angle. Now that things had slowed down for the first time since the alerts of the Doombots' appearance had started to roll in, she was finally able to collect some of her wits. That, and it really wasn't hard to understand what Victor was getting at. She really did have to get herself out of there sooner rather than later. "Those explosions... just a smokescreen for taking me."

For once, Doom was honest about his plans when it came to ALFRED. All he wanted to do was improve its functions because as it was right now, it was an insult to mechanical engineering. He'd kill Reed just for thinking of giving something so faulty to a child to use. It was like he wanted the girl to die or something, but he knew from experience that he wouldn't actually want to kill an innocent child. No, the one person he wanted dead was Doom. This device was just negligence on his part.

"Gold star for the dragonfly," he said while clapping slowly for her. Since they were going to be dealing with each other for an extended period of time, he didn't feel that he needed to keep posturing when she knew his power from experience and he didn't have to show off to keep her under some semblance of control. "It wasn't my best attempt, but it will fool Reed and the rest of them long enough for me to get done what I need to."

Despite whatever impressions Doom had formed through his collection of information or their brief face-to-face interactions, Misha was no fool. She knew which fights to pick and which would be suicide to even try, and she knew better than to try and honestly push herself past her own luck or wellness in some kind of heroic stunt. Everything was just so far out of whack right now with Doom focusing his attention on her, something that should never have happened but definitely had thanks to her acceptance of the Fantastic Four's aid... It stuck in her throat, the fear of what was to come in such a completely foreign scenario. None of her movies or books or TV shows had ever given her an idea of what the characters would do when faced with Misha Hunt.

"That long, huh?" It was jab at Doom, at jab at Reed, a jab at anyone she could reach right now. She was tired, she was scared, she was hurt. Everything was still spinning around in her head and her body wasn't doing much better thanks to the dear Doctor there. Although the descent had been slow, finally her mind succumbed to the pull of much-needed rest and she was out before her captor could reply.

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