Morden Man

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two

@Master Bruce and I have previously discussed having a lengthy break between Seasons Two and Three in the event that we do make the end of this season, so I think it's reasonable to expect more time to get your affairs in order between seasons going forward.

With that being said, I've no interest in going on hiatus as is, partly because I don't think it's fair on those active posters, though fewer than there have been in the past, to have to wait around in the hope of other people who have dropped already to maybe come back. That doesn't sit quite right with me.

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two

I should have a post up tomorrow

@HenryJonesJr

They don't come more reliable than you, Henry.

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two

New Atlantis, Atlantis

There was a broad smile across Sue Storm’s face. The man she loved with her whole was about to propose. At least, she presumed as much – why else would Reed Richards be on one knee with ring box in hand? There was a bashful grin on his face, prouder than any she had ever seen on it before, as he tried to summon up the strength to speak the words he’d clearly rehearsed a thousand times, if not more. The quiet corner of Central Park they had carved out for themselves was so quiet that even at a near-whisper Reed’s voice was still audible.

“Susan Victoria Richards, over the past four years, we have shared more adventures than I can remember and in that time you have proved to be the best friend – and though Ben and Johnny certainly wouldn’t thank me for this – the best teammate that I could have ever asked f-”

A sudden blast shook the park. In the distance a blinding light shone. Sue looked towards it and let out a gasp as its light came charging towards them. She looked towards her fiance, who was scrambling around for the ring box he had dropped the ground, and let out a piercing scream as Reed’s face was torn apart by the blast as if his skin were made of ash. She was still screaming in her dream when her eyes awoke.

She was no longer in Central Park and Reed Richards was nowhere to be seen. In his place was a figure that was as discomforting as the thought of Reed was comforting. It took only one glance at the man’s purple and grey armour to identify him. For whatever reason, however she had ended up there, Orm Marius was standing guard over Sue Storm’s hospital room. He did not look at all happy to have been relegated to such a lowly duty but he stood sentinel still all the same.

Sue stole a glance at him through eyes that were bruised and blackened. Her whole body hurt. Orm glanced over his shoulder in her direction and Sue’s eyes shut again. She couldn’t bear to feel the weight of the general’s gaze on her – there was something about him that made Sue feel comfortable, something that she knew to distrust, and those orange lenses did little to convince her otherwise.

A voice devoid of emotion forced its way through Orm’s paper-thin lips and slithered across the room. “I know you are awake, surface-dweller.”

Sue’s blood ran cold at the sound of Orm’s voice. Her body was still so battered that she could barely keep her eyes open long enough to see the Atlantean general skulk from across the room towards her bedside. Yet she could feel his shadow looming over her and feel the sound of his armour moving gently as he breathed.

Her eyes still closed, Sue tried to summon up the strength to speak. When she did, her wavering voice was coarse and quiet. “Where am I?”

“You are safe,” Orm sneered. Sue didn't need to see his face to feel the contempt dripping from his every word. “Sixty-two Atlanteans lost their lives in the attack, the princess’s life hangs in the balance, but it appears that your powers shielded you from the worst of the explosion.”

The number struck Sue in the chest like a sledgehammer and she felt wet on her cheeks. It took her a few moments to realise she was crying. The tears stung against the scratch marks on her face. Sue began to try to piece together what had happened but her memories were hazy.

“I’m sorry, Orm,” Sue murmured as she forced upon her teary eyes to look up at the Atlantean. “I’m so sorry.”

“General Marius,” Orm responded icily.

“The girl,” Sue whispered almost to herself rather than the general. “One moment she was smiling and then the next she … she exploded? Who was she? None of this makes any sense.”

From behind the orange lenses set into his helmet, Orm’s eyes narrowed. There was no anger in them, only a steely, emotionless judgement. The large gauntlets wrapped around his hands wrapped around the edge of Sue Storm’s bed tightly and he leant towards her ever so slightly. He was close enough now for Sue to see the shoots of black hair beneath his helm and to make out the beady, brown eyes locked on her.

“Of course it doesn’t make sense to you. Why would it? This is not your world. You know nothing of our people. The history of Atlantis is not in your blood, as it is in mine and was in theirs, and still you presume yourself qualified to advise our king on the affairs of the Atlantean state.”

One of Orm’s gauntleted hands released its clutch on the side of Sue’s bed and reached towards her frail form. She felt the Atlantean’s armoured fingers wrap tight around the collar of her bedgown and tug her slightly towards him. Her heart raced and her palms grew sweaty with shock. She was too weak to stop him, she knew that, and her powers seemed to have been sapped by protecting her from the explosion.

“The girl was with the Drowned," Orm spat the last word like its presence in his mouth disgusted him. "Manta struck at the heart of Atlantis – at our very capital – and because of your weakness, our kingdom is shaken to its very core. All of Atlantis saw you bid the king invite the girl onto the stage. And yet while freeborn Atlantean men lie dead, you still draw breath. Where is the justice in that?”

Sue fought through the pain to lift one of her hands towards her collar and attempt to prize Orm away from it. “I want to speak to the king.”

“No, I think you have done enough damage," the general sneered as he slapped Sue’s hand away like a gnat.

Something seemed to turn on in Orm’s brain. The brown orbs behind the general’s lensed helmet lost their frigid cold and instead became fiery hot. He lifted his other hand from the side of the bed and clamped it around Sue’s neck. She let out a pained sob as it tightened around his throat. Orm reinforced it with his other hand and began to squeeze until Sue’s already-bruised face began to turn red.

“Once I am done scalding Manta and his adherents from the face of our kingdom, your world will be next, Susan. Know that your actions have guided the king’s hand towards war with the surface world more readily than any of my treatises ever could. Even now, my men make their way towards Maine to destroy that pretender to the thr-”

Sue’s nails were busy scratching helplessly against Orm’s gauntlets when a sudden knock on the door made the general release his hold on her neck. She took a sudden, desperate breath of air as the Atlantean let her body flop weakly back onto the bed. Orm sneered down at her as the door crept open and a young woman, no older than seventeen or eighteen from the look of her, appeared in the doorway of the room.

Her fiery red hair seemed to have a life of its own. Atop her head was rested what looked like a crown, though Sue had never seen any princess other than Namora since arriving in Atlantis, nor heard talk of one, but from the way the girl carried herself it was clear she was nobility – or at least used to be. Upon noticing Sue struggling for breath she pursed her lips and looked towards the ground, perhaps afraid of incurring the general’s wrath.

“General Marius, the king requests your presence.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed Orm’s face. He stepped back from Sue’s bed and his eyes seemed to revert back to their usual emotionless state. Sue rubbed at her sore throat as she watched the general match across the room towards the messenger girl. He stopped in front of her and looked her up and down.

“Xebellian vermin,” he muttered and let out a mouthful of spit that landed loudly at the red-haired young woman’s feet before exiting the room.

The young woman until Orm was out of earshot before making her way towards Sue’s bed. Without asking she pulled up a seat beside Sue and began inspecting the choke marks around her neck. Once the Xebellian had seen enough, her fingers began to glow with a blue energy that Sue didn’t recognise. The Invisible Woman drew back in her bed somewhat but the young girl reassured her with a smile and slowly the bruising on Sue’s neck disappeared.

With that the girl turned to leave. She was halfway across the room when something that Orm had said seemed to stick in Sue’s mind. Maine.

“Orm said you were from Xebel?” Sue called out to the young woman. “Is that right?”

The girl turned to face Sue and nodded guilty in her direction. “Yes, I am.”

“I didn’t realise that there were any Xebellians left.”

The softness in Sue’s voice seemed to catch the red-haired woman off guard. It was almost as if she was suspicious that Sue’s interest was a trap of some sort. When she spoke next she adopted a posture and a tone of voice that seemed to indicate that she was simply going through the motions – as if she had been forced to account for her people for many years.

“My people were rightly punished for siding with the traitor Atlan during the Glorious Reclama-”

“Stop it,” Sue said firmly. She beckoned the girl to return to the seat at her bedside with a smile. “You don’t have to do that. Not with me.”

Hearing the words leave Sue’s mouth was like a weight lifted off the young woman’s shoulders. She sunk into the seat by Sue’s bed and let out a heavy sigh of relief at not having to live a lie for the briefest of moments. Sue pulled herself to the edge of the bed and placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder with a maternal squeeze.

“What’s your name?”

From the way that the young girl looked at her it was clear that no-one had thought to ask her name in a very long time. “My name is Mera.”

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two

I went ahead and added clarification. It is no trouble.

@Pirouette

Since there seem to be no other objections from anyone else, I think we can call your application approved.

Feel free to move it over to the character tab and get started IC as you please!

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two

<Snipped quote by Morden Man>

Ray Palmer isn't The Atom, he is Yellow Jacket in Hope's story.. Hank Pym is Van Dyne in this case, yes.

From what I read on Ray Palmer was some type of mutation survival after zapping himself with a shrink thing? Hope and Ray used Pym Particles exclusively in my take on this.

@Pirouette

Apologies! I think the "The Atom" beside his name earlier in the "Ultimate" section threw me off a little there. My mistake.

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two

Hi! So you guys need some players, huh?

The Wasp

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two Application

Character You're Applying For: Hope Van Dyne, the Wasp

Powers And Abilities:

Size Manipulation: Hope was able to reduce herself to the size of an insect by using Pym Particles in the belt of the suit to distance her atoms, effectively compacting her physical structure and allowing her to shrink down whenever necessary. She still maintained her regular sized strength and durability while in a reduced scale as the process amplifies the amount of force she can generate and increases her density. Basically, Hope is granted super strength and durability while shrunk. Additionally, the process of altering size compresses force and energy, manifesting as brief shockwaves of vibration around the target, which briefly augments her force and momentum as she returns to normal size.

Flight: By utilizing four artificial insect-like wings, Hope could fly at impressive speeds and maneuver with great agility with ease.

Energy Projection: Hope can fire bolts of energy from the wrists of her gauntlets. They are powerful enough to blast burning holes in reinforced materials and knock a man unconscious.

Van Dyne Prodigy: With her parents both being geniuses in discovering Pym Particles and paired with a college education, Hope is very intelligent in matters of science, Pym Particles, and business.

Training Exercises: With her being ousted from the business and losing custody of her daughter, Hope found solace in training herself for long portions of the day. She prepared herself for the day that she would become the Wasp.

Origin And Backstory:

There was a time when Hope had an ordinary life but that began shaping her into something more was the death of her mother. No thirteen year old should have to see their mother die slowly from cancer and it was this belief that drove Hope to do something about this. She excelled in school and got into Ivy University, a prestigious scientific school. From there she took a series of difficult medical technologies curriculum, still determined on developing that cure to cancer.

Her time at the university had brought on another event that shaped her life drastically. Raymond Palmer a man of equal potential had been Hope’s classmate and close friend throughout her grueling years of academia. Their relationship would only blossom into something more, falling in love and eventually marrying shortly after graduating. They had a child, Nadia, early in their marriage. For a nearly a decade, they had happily developed Pym Industries together alongside Hope’s father. Pym Industries had flourished into a serious medical developer and had become a household name for the medical profession.

Despite life going well, Ray Palmer wanted more out of life believing his brilliance was wasted by not expanding upon the original idea of Pym Particles. It was about this time that Darron Cross came into the picture, suggesting and influencing Ray to pursue weaponizing Pym Particles. He manages to design a suit that is capable of shrinking and effective weaponry to be used alongside the suit. In an attempt to convince Hope, he tried presenting the suit and the untapped capabilities of Pym. Hope despises the idea, the two argue, and in a desperate attempt to control the meeting, Ray accidentally fires a shot from the suit that hits Hank’s chest. The shock to Hank’s system put him in cardiac arrest and he died before help could be administered.

Hope would try and move on from that event in her life, confiscating Ray’s work and trying to keep him honest. However, Ray developed a new suit in secret and was planning on defecting to Darron Cross’s company. Hope tried to stop Ray but failed initially due to his new suit, forcing Hope to wear the prototype suit to pursue. The two would fight a miniature battle out in the street, people unaware of what was occurring around them. Hope accidentally caused Ray’s death by knocking him into a the tire of a moving car where it was presumed he was squished. She was arrested on suspicion of murder and forced to resign in the company. Despite Hope’s reservation against weaponized Pym, she feels it is the only option to stop Darren Cross from obtaining original schematics left over by her father and husband.

What Makes This Character 'Ultimate'?:

So I did a lot of reading to get to this point but I think I have a story that utilizes some very interesting avenues. I did some research and put together a group of shrinksters and then built a story, and by extension Hope’s character, around those individuals.

Ray Palmer, the Atom, is the villain to Hope’s origin story. With similar motivations as Yellow Jacket in the movie, he became obsessed with Pym Particles wanting to militarize this technology. Naturally the Hank and Hope would disapprove as they wanted to work on developing medical applications in honor of Janet with the most iconic development being shrinking tumors down to become virtually non-existent. There was never any intention on weaponizing Pym but Ray Palmer worked in secret, developing a prototype and revealing it to Hank and Hope looking for approval. He wouldn’t get that approval and in a fit trying to demonstrate the usage of Pym Particles, he killed Hank.

Obviously this would traumatize both, Ray and Hope, and in an effort to make amends Ray promised he would give up his obsession. However, their marriage was never the same scarred by that event and in anger Ray would turn to the whispers of Darron Cross, promising to reveal the secrets of Pym application. Ray’s resumed obsession would have him working on a new suit to present Darron which would go noticed by Hope and when confronted, he would reveal his intention saying he was through with her. In an attempt to stop Ray, Hope would use the prototype suit to confront him. There confrontation leads to Ray’s accidental death.

Now with two mysterious deaths/disappearances being centralized around Hope, she would be arrested and then tried. With no intent on revealing Pym applications, she had little evidence to support herself. Darron was likely involved in some shady dealings to get Hope hit with the book but due to some clever work by Pym Industries paid lawyers, Hope got off easy. Unfortunately she lost custody of her daughter but Ryan was there, ready to adopt to keep Nadia close.

Ultimately, Hope is on her own dealing with stress and grief of her past. However, she knows that Pym Industries is in good hands with Ryan and besides, she still suspected Darron hadn’t given up his own obsession with Pym Particles. In an effort to stop him as well as redeem herself and the weaponized Pym, Hope tries to take the mantle of the Wasp.

Supporting Characters:

Hank Van Dyne: Father (deceased)

Former S.H.I.E.L.D scientist, he left to join Pym Industries to work alongside his daughter. He is credited for the discovery of Pym Particles and the many medical applications that came after it. He lost his life in an effort to stop Ray Palmer.

Janet Van Dyne: Mother (deceased)

She passed away from cancer shortly after Hope’s thirteenth birthday and her memory became Hope’s motivation to find that elusive cure for cancer.

Ray Palmer/Yellow Jacket: Ex-Husband (deceased)

Ray Palmer was a long time friend of the Van Dyne family ever since meeting Hope in college. Hope and Ray would eventually marry and produce a daughter, Nadia. He joined Pym Industries and helped Hank, his now father-in-law, to develop uses for the Pym Particles. However Ray’s work with Pym Particles consumed him and eventually turned against Hope and Hank. He is presumably deceased after Hope confronted him.

Nadia Van Dyne: Daughter

At only fifteen years old, Nadia is the daughter of Hope and Ray. Following the events of her father’s death, Hope was adamant about changing their names back to Van Dyne in light of Ray’s betrayal. Due to legal reasons, Hope is not allowed custody of her daughter but was adopted by Ryan Choi.

Ryan Choi: Friend

Hope’s business partner for Pym Industries, he managed the business end of the company while Hope, Hank, and Ray lead the development of the Pym applications. He was instrumental in keeping Pym Industries operating after the Ray Palmer incident and one of the few that knows the truth. He still assists Hope in whatever way he can.

Darren Cross: Business Rival

The potential corrupting influence of Ray Palmer by promising massive amounts of wealth for military applications of Pym. The failure of Ray Palmer had caused him to become quite bitter towards Pym Industries, vowing that he’ll ruin them eventually.

Character Picture:

Costume

Sample Post:

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!”
Andy Williams quietly caroled from the speaker of a small hand radio. Trapped in a small lab, this cherished Christmas song became background noise that broke the silence in between the quiet mutterings and sounds of delicate work taking place. Hope Van Dyne had been so preoccupied in her work that she hadn’t realized someone approached from behind.

“Even on Christmas Eve, huh?” Ryan Choi queried with a friendly smile, getting a bit of satisfaction from Hope’s surprised lurch from her seat.

“Ooh God--Ryan! You scared the shit out of me!” Hope exclaimed as she pressed an open hand on her chest. “Seriously, why do you even do that to me?”

Ryan shrugged, “Someone has to keep you on your toes. More importantly, it is the smallest amount of punishment I can give you for not being with Nadia on Christmas Eve. You should spend time with your daughter.”

Hope’s gaze dropped, failing to meet Ryan’s as she turned away and back to the bench where her suit laid. “...I know I should but she is being so difficult lately. I can hardly get a conversation out of her.”

“She’s a teenager with a dead grandfather, a dead father, and a distant mother. Why wouldn’t she difficult?” Ryan’s reply left the two of them in a prolonged silence as they considered the weight of that statement.
“I feel like… she blames me for all of it. She never explicitly says it but-” Hope began, taking a pause as she tried word her feelings but Ryan quickly interjected. “I’m going to stop you right there and say I honestly believe she doesn’t. You want to know why I know? It is because she still asks about you, like you are going to be there at Christmas Eve dinner. She is a smart kid, just like her mother. It would take more than paid off judge to fool her.”

Hope winced at her friend’s words, suppressing her urge to breakdown here and now. Her hand covered her eyes as she took a deep breath. “...Thank you, Ryan.” It was all she could find the strength she could find to say without breaking down. It would have been easy to become a mess, complaining about her reality.
She felt Ryan’s hand press on her shoulder, squeezing it as he came to her side. The two remained in silence for a moment as Hope considered just throwing herself into his arms but she still felt she was required to appear strong. Thankfully it was Ryan who pulled her out of any desperate action with his amused observation.

“Look at this!” He chimed as she picked up a sleeve of Hope’s new and improved suit. “It’s like your a real superhero now! Hurry up and start saving people from burning buildings and stopping bank robberies so I can say I’m friends with someone the likes of Superman.”

Hope turned to him, smiling now, “Come on, me? A superhero?” Hope asked sounding like she couldn’t believe it herself. However the thought had her heart lurch forward in excitement for just a brief moment...

@Pirouette

I like the thrust of this application but I may have introduced Jean Loring as The Atom already – though she is a teenager at this point. I'm not sure how to square that with what you have with Hank Pym (who you have down as a Van Dyne?), Roy Palmer and Hope here, if I'm honest.

Also, the one hundredth post belongs to me. Mwahaha.

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two

Castle Doom, Latveria

The inaugural class of the Future Foundation stood in the throne room of Castle Doom with mouths agape. A mere six months ago the spacious hall had once been Lucia von Bardas’ inner sanctum but now served as a makeshift office for Latveria’s newly-elected president. Though Reed’s life had changed a great deal since the breakout at The Raft, life in Latveria had been relatively stable. Victor von Doom had seen to that. After two decades of suffering, the last thing the Latverian people needed was more of it. Once the nation’s former dictator had stood trial later that month, the process of healing could begin – though Doom had done anything but rest on his laurels in the interim. It was why Reed had chosen Latveria for the Foundation’s first field trip.

Richards stood with his arms gently crossed across his chest whilst Doom made his way up towards the large desk in the centre of the doom. The eyes of Reed’s students followed his every move. He had to admit that there even in this world there was a magnetic quality to the man. His well-tailored suit hung off his limbs freely and the deep green waistcoat complimented it perfectly. Once he’d climbed the steps to his desk, he lent against it in a carefree manner that was almost unbecoming of a head of state.

“Good afternoon to you all. My name is Victor von Doom. I am the president of the Democratic Republic of Latveria and I also happen to be a close personal friend of Professor Richards. When he informed me that he was starting the Future Foundation, I was ecstatic. There are few people on Earth that possess the kind of vision that Professor Richards has – and I knew that no one was better equipped to help craft the minds of the next generation.”

“Well, no one except President Doom but as the five of you may have noticed, he’s a little busy running an entire country at the moment.”

Victor shot Reed a grateful smile for the compliment.

“Latveria is currently undergoing one of the most rapid development programs in the history of our planet. Having liberated my country from oppression, retaken its wealth from foreign corporations, and finally put the natural resources of our bountiful countryside to use to ensure that all Latverians get a fair chance, my country stands transformed – and we have only just begun.”

With an easy click of his fingers, holographic images that illustrated Latveria’s progress under Doom appeared around the throne room. Reed’s students let out an impressed gasp at the fluidity of the holograms – and the achievements that they documented. The Thinker’s white eyes rested on a hologram of a young woman with a cleft lip. She had piercing green eyes and black hair that ran the length of her back. He reached out to touch it but hesitated at the last moment as the image was transformed. Her cleft lip was gone. In its place was a perfect smile.

“For this weekend, all of Latveria is open to you," Doom said with a welcoming smile. "You are free to go wherever you choose. The mountains, the hills, the rivers, they are yours to explore. I want my nation to become a global hub for cutting-edge science – and only by inviting talent like yours to experience Latveria, to see its transformation in person, can we ensure that the rest of the world isn’t left behind.”

There was a smattering of applause from the teenagers, led enthusiastically by Kamala Khan and very slowly joined by the others upon Reed’s insistence. Victor shot them a disarming smile and waved off the applause after a few seconds. He ceded the floor to Reed who looked as if he may have already been regretting accepting Victor’s invitation to bring the Future Foundation to Latveria so early into its lifetime.

“Of course, by “free to go wherever you choose”, President Doom means provided that the five of you stick together and don’t cause any major international incidents that result in the Future Foundation being closed down in disgrace.”

Victor nodded as a comradely show of support for Reed’s concerns. “Of course.”

The statement was met with muted silence from his five students. He’d become accustomed to that over the past week. Though he was only in his late twenties, the second Reed had self-identified as their “teacher” he had become an authority figure – and, perhaps outside of Kamala Khan, his students treated him as such. He was no longer “Reed” but “Professor Richards” and with that came a necessary distance. It also meant that Reed could no longer fool himself into thinking that he was young anymore.

Despite being close in age, there was something about Victor that was still boyish. He could tell from his student’s eyes that they didn’t consider Doom in the same way that they did Reed. Perhaps it was because his armed struggled in Latveria had been splashed across every newspaper in America for the past two years. Perhaps, though Reed hated to admit it, it was because he was simply cooler than he was.

As Doom approached his students, Reed directed him towards the Future Foundation’s first recruit. “Victor, this is Michael Holt.”

Doom extended his hand towards Holt. “Ah, yes. I understand that you’re a dab hand at making weapons, Mr Holt. In fact, I’ve been lead to believe that half of all the stick-up artists in America have you to thank for their equipment. That’s certainly some claim to fame.”

“Yeah, well, people change,” Holt said as he shook it reluctantly. “Once upon a time, you were just some nerd with a silver-spoon in your mouth that spent all his time sat in the Baxter Building reading books. Now you’re president. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be president one day.”

Holt had lost none of the spikiness to his voice – nor the chip that he seemed to carry on his shoulder everywhere that he went. In different company, that spikiness might had caused some discomfort. Victor von Doom seemed unperturbed by it. He shook the boy’s hand and inspected the athletic young man closely with his dark brown eyes. A wry smile appeared on his face after a moment or two as if he had found some quality in Holt that confirmed that he was a kindred spirit.

“Maybe you will,” Doom shrugged. “Though, I am compelled to correct you on one point, Mr Holt. I may well have been a nerd and I certainly attended the Baxter Building with Professor Richards, but silver spooned? I was an orphan. And I can assure you, to be an orphan in Latveria is several measures harder than in America. So perhaps next time you should avoid making judgements without having all of the evidence available to you. It would hold any political ambitions you might have in future in good stead.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Reed murmured as he lead Victor away towards Amadeus Cho but found Jean Loring planted firmly between them.

“Jean Loring,” the teenager said as she thrust her hand out towards Doom expectedly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. President Doom. I can’t say that I agree with your politics, but my father always taught me that there are two kinds of people in this world: men of action and me-”

It was the first time in Loring’s life that someone had looked through her. Her Ivy Town upbringing had not prepared her for the embarrassment she would feel at being all but ignored by the president. Doom passed her by and instead approached the dark-skinned fifteen-year-old that had clapping raucously after he’d finished speaking. With every step towards he took, the girl seemed to shrink with nervousness.

“And who might you be?”

“Me?” Kamala asked as she looked around the throne room with shock. “My name is K-... my name is Kamala Khan.”

Victor placed a supportive hand on the girl’s shoulder to help calm her nerves. “It’s wonderful to meet you. Professor Richards has told me so much about you. I understand your powers work similarly to his. You’ll make a formidable superhero one day if you take his tutelage to heart.”

Despite all of Doom’s encouragement, Kamala seemed to shrink even more into herself with every second. Reed took a step towards them, hoping to help her find her voice, but an assured glance from Victor kept him planted to the spot. He placed his other hand on Kamala’s shoulder and lent towards her with a paternal smile.

“Is something wrong, Ms Khan?”

“Wrong? What? No, no, there’s nothing wrong,” Kamala babbled incoherently. “Absolutely nothing wrong at all, gorgeous, woke European president with rippling muscles. Why would anything be wrong? Oh god, did I say that out loud? Please tell me I didn't say that out loud.”

An oversized hand came stretching across the room and ushered Victor away from Kamala before the president could respond. The proud smile on his face was matched only by the horror that Kamala sought to mask beneath her thick black locks. Loring had almost instantly set about tearing into Khan for interrupting her conversation with Doom once he’d moved on but the younger girl seemed too busy wishing she was dead to humour it. Finally, Reed brought Victor to a stop before the Thinker and Amadeus Cho.

“And you must be the Thinker,” Victor murmured as he inspected the hologram. “Which would make you his trusty sidekick, Amadeus Cho.”

>>>#STATEMENT: THAT IS CORRECT#<<<

The fourteen-year-old was so distracted playing with the coyote pup between his hands that both Doom and the Thinker’s statements had been lost on him. It was only several seconds afterwards that Cho heard the words ‘trusty sidekick’ playing back in his head. It was clear from his face that he strongly disapproved of the suggestion – and any deference to Doom came a distant second to his consternation.

“Wait, what? No, I’m not Think’s sidekick,” Cho protested as he used the puppy in his hands to gesture towards the hologram. “If anything, Think is my sidekick. And anyway, what would that make Kirby? Because if I’m a sidekick, there's no way I'd have a sidekick of my o-”

>>>#STATEMENT: VICTOR VON DOOM IS MAKING AN ATTEMPT AT HUMOUR#<<<

Cho’s annoyance at the Thinker cutting across him seemed to melt away upon realising that the hologram was right. The playful smile on Doom’s face confirmed it. More than anything, it appeared that Cho was disappointed in himself for letting the joke pass over his head at great speed. It wasn’t a sensation that the boy genius was used to.

Amadeus made no effort to disguise his disappointment. “I can’t believe that you were doing a thing and the disembodied AI that can’t speak without saying ‘STATEMENT’ or ‘QUERY’ before it opens its mouth got it before I did. Wow, I’m really good at this first impressions thing.”

“You are an impressive young man, Mr Cho," Doom demurred. "I wouldn’t concern yourself with first impressions. They’re rarely as important as people make out. What matters is grit – tenacity – and I understand that you have both qualities in abundance. Especially for a sidekick.”

For the first time since arriving at the Franklin Storm Institute, Reed saw a sincere smile flash across Amadeus Cho’s face. The boy offered no quip in return, but instead seemed to accept Victor’s compliment in earnest. With the gruelling set of introductions done, Reed was about to suggest that he and Victor retire to their conference as planned, but the sound of an alarm from the phone in Doom’s inside pocket seemed to achieve that for him.

“President Doom and I need to get going. We’ll be gone for around eight hours. It bears repeating that I do not want to exit the conference to “BREAKING NEWS” from this little outing of ours, so try to behave yourselves. Not many outsiders, let alone teenagers get given the opportunity to explore Latveria with the expressed blessing of its president. I’m choosing to trust you. Please don’t make me regret it.”

One again, Reed failed to receive the reassurance that he’d hoped from his students. They stared at him, varying degrees of unimpressed by his constant reminders to behave themselves. Could they blame him? Holt had gone out of his way to insult Doom, Kamala had very nearly expressed her dying love for him, and the Cho-Thinker double act had made a pretty caustic assessment of Victor’s sense of humour – all this in less than five minutes. What would they get up to with an entire day to themselves in Latveria? It almost didn’t bear thinking about.

As they made their way towards the exit, Doom felt the need to end on a more positive note. “What I think Reed is trying to say is: have fun.”

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two

Hey, y'all. I'm bowing out the game. Free time has become a premium for me since I started a new job last month and I have an additional writing project/RPG I'd like to work on so, UOU drew the short stick. Best of luck with the game, folks. And for the love of god keep on posting!

@Byrd Man

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two

Seymour, Indiana

In the small motel room that passed for Rachna Koul’s temporary Seymour residence, Johnny Storm was observing the pieces of evidence the scientist had brought with her to Indiana. There were journals, almost half a dozen of them, and folders full of pictures. It was almost too much for Johnny to take in. His blue eyes ran over the words, daubed in a handwriting that felt faintly familiar to him, trying his best to hear his father’s voice in his head. Every now and then he would have to remind himself that the words weren’t coming from the mouth of his Franklin Storm, of his father, but in the moment it didn’t seem to matter at all.

There was no smoking gun amongst all it all but it was clear that foul play had taken place. SHIELD were keeping tabs on Franklin. The man was a genius, maybe the second most intelligent man on Earth, so if he felt the net closing in around him, chances are that he wasn’t making it up. The pictures of unmarked cars following his every move, the financial irregularities, the autopsy notes that had been tampered with.

Koul seemed to sense that Johnny Storm’s mind was opening to the possibility that SHIELD had murdered Franklin. “Do you believe me now?”

“Holy shit,” Johnny whispered as he inspected one of Franklin Storm’s journals. “You weren’t making it up. SHIELD were up to something.”

“I don’t know that something quite does it justice, Johnny," Koul murmured as she produced the most recent journal. "These journals arrived at my parent’s home last week. In all my years at the Baxter Building, Franklin never even met my parents. I don’t know when he sent them but if he did, it was because he wanted me to know what was going on. The last entry is from the morning Franklin apparently committed suicide.”

Johnny saw Koul’s lip quiver somewhat as she flicked through the journal's pages. The scientist tried several times to read from it and each time her voice died in her throat. Johnny had been so busy thinking about his own strange non-familial relationship with this world’s Franklin Storm that he’d forgotten that he’d been like a father to Koul. He could only imagine how traumatic all of this must be for the scientist.

“SHIELD are watching me. I know that. I feel their eyes on me. Nowhere I go is safe. Not even my own home is safe. It is not enough that they have taken my children from me. Now they are intent upon ending my life. If you are reading this, they have succeeded. Be careful, Rachna. They will come for you and Victor too eventually. They will come for all of us. Be careful.”

It didn’t make for pretty reading – or listening. Johnny gritted his teeth through it. It was either the paranoid ramblings of a delusional man still reeling from the death of his children or a desperate cry for help from beyond the grave. Perhaps it was both. Johnny didn’t know what to think. Coupled with the other coincidences scattered through the documents, it was hard to deny the weight of evidence staring him in the face. Yet the mention of one name amongst the passage Koul recited seemed to pique his interest more than the rest.

“Victor?” Johnny said with a suspicious look. “As in Victor von Doom?”

Koul nodded. “Yes, Victor von Doom. He studied alongside us at the Baxter Building. A brilliant scientist – though he seems to have traded it all in of late and become something of a leftist firebrand in Latveria. Not that I’m surprised. There always was a crusading zeal about him.”

“And you’re sure that there’s not some way that maybe Doom was involved? Not to completely disregard old Franklin’s words there but Doom being behind this all seems to make a lot more sense than Nick Fury holding the smoking gun.”

“What?” Koul sighed as the scientist's face seemed to crumple with displeasure. “No, Victor would never do that. He and Reed were like best friends. They worshiped the ground that Franklin walked on. There was no way he would ever turn on him. Loyalty was kind of Victor's brand.”

To see the way that Rachna had leapt to Doom’s defense was to think that Johnny had insulted Mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi. Koul seemed so offended by the prospect of Victor turning on them that Johnny was reminded just how difference this world was from his own. The Fantastic Four could barely sneeze without stumbling into some deathtrap set for them by the iron-masked Latverian. In this world though, Victor was anything but a villain. Though he hated to admit it, having read up of Doom some more since leaving Latveria, Johnny might have admired him – if he’d not had a lifetime of experience that told him that anything and everything connected to Victor von Doom was evil.

The pointedness in his response seemed almost reluctant. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that old Doom turned heel on us out of nowhere.”

“What am I meant to do? Pretend that I don’t know all of this? I work for SHIELD. I’ve built a career within the organisation that murdered a man who meant everything to me. Am I supposed to walk away from this and act like it didn’t happen? It doesn’t feel right. Franklin sent me this because he wanted the world to know what SHIELD had done to him – because he wanted justice.”

“Or maybe,” Johnny began quietly. “He sent it to you because he wanted to protect you, Rachna. Maybe he wanted you to get out whilst you still could. I mean, it’s right there and black and white, isn’t it? ‘Be careful’ – I really don’t think he wants you to go all Snowden on this one.”

Johnny watched as tears welled in Rachna’s eyes. He wanted to cross the motel room and reassure her that everything was going to be alright, but he couldn’t do that anymore. He wasn’t sure that things were going to be alright. His world were gone, the Fantastic Four had disbanded and one of these days Darkseid was going to arrive looking for retribution for what Thor had done to his herald. The days of distributing hugs and comforting words were gone. Instead he watched whilst Koul’s tears wet the pages of Franklin’s journal.

“What would you do?” Rachna asked as her bloodshot eyes fixed on Johnny Storm. “Tell me what I’m meant to do with this information.”

“Look, I don’t know if I’m the right person to be asking this kind of thing. I’m not exactly famous for my self-restr-”

Koul lobbed the journal across the room. It smacked into Johnny’s chest and then fell to the ground in front of him. “What would you do?!”

“Is that what you want, Rachna? You want me to give you permission to not give a damn?” Johnny shouted. “Or maybe you want me to tell you that it’s alright for you to throw your life away after a man that’s been dead for two years. That it’s worth risking having whoever murdered him coming after you just so you can have a clear conscience?”

There was no answer from the scientist. Johnny suddenly raising his voice had shocked her into silence. There was fear in her eyes. Johnny felt a pang of guilt hit him as he realised he’d managed to terrify the woman that had travelled halfway across the country to confide in him. If Sue were here, she’d never let Johnny hear the end of it.

“I’m sorry,” Storm whispered as he knelt down to pick up the journal. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”

Koul shook her head and a weak, waifish voice escaped from her mouth. “It’s okay, I shouldn’t have come here. You left New York to get away from all of this, it was wrong of me to try to drag you back into it. I understand that now. I understood it before too but I guess I just ignored it.”

Johnny handed Koul the journal. As she clasped it with her prosthetic hand, Johnny’s hand remained glued to it. He looked at her shattered features and realised too late that the tears in her eyes were far from the first she had cried this week. That only served to intensify his guilt.

“I mean,” Koul sniffled feebly. “I don’t know why I expected you to care, really, he wasn’t your father after all, and he definitely wasn't mine.”

It was true. It wasn’t his Franklin Storm. But then, even Johnny’s Franklin hadn’t quite been his. He’d died when Johnny was so young that he could barely remember him. For all intents and purposes, Sue had been both his mother and father growing up. Yet stood there staring into Rachna’s teary eyes, Johnny felt the pull of responsibility across time and space – as if the Johnny of this world was imploring him to act. He tugged the journal out of Koul’s hand and waved it in front of his face.

“You want to know what I’d do? I’d keep pulling on these threads until the whole damn thing unravelled. SHIELD? Fury? The government? I’d take them all on – and more – if it meant finding out what happened to the person I loved. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

The scientist’s teary eyes beamed with joy as she heard the words leave Johnny’s mouth. “You’re serious? You’ll really help me?”

“I’m serious,” Johnny nodded. “Though if you ever refer to anything other than base villainy as being Victor Von Doom’s brand again, you and I are going to have a major problem. Do we have a deal?”

A confused expression appeared on Koul’s face but she shook Johnny’s hand all the same. The pair of them made their way to Rachna’s bed where all of the evidence was piled and began to sort through it. Johnny tried his best to lay it out in a way that was sequential. Even once it had all been assembled, there wasn’t nearly enough to get either of them the answers they wanted.

“It’s not going to be enough,” Koul sighed as she inspected it all. “If we want to find out what really happened, we’re going to need people that can substantiate Franklin’s accusations – put some real flesh on the bones of all of this conjecture.”

One of Johnny’s eyebrows cocked at the talk of witnesses. “That doesn’t make any sense. I mean, if there were witnesses, we’d know about it already – or SHIELD would have got to them too. Who could possibly know more about this situation than we do? We’ve got Franklin’s entire back catalogue right here in front of us.”

It was clear that Rachna had the answer to Johnny’s question. Clearer still from her face was that she knew that Johnny wouldn’t like it. He couldn’t bring himself to ask for the name on the tip of her tongue, but eventually the scientist sighed and let her head fall into her hands.

When she spoke from the edge of the motel bed, Johnny’s fears were all but confirmed. “We’re going to have to speak to Hector Hammond.”

Ultimate One Universe: Season Two

TFW you're @Morden Man who has worked his ass off planning this Season's MME with @Master Bruce and @Byrd Man and we assholes aren't posting.

@Lord Wraith

I mean, I didn't want to say anything but if this game doesn't reach at least 500 posts, I fully intend to visit a plague upon all of your houses.