บท 140: Chapter Fifty Eight: Journey to the Center of Kandor.
Chapter Fifty Eight: Journey to the Center of Kandor.
Normally, Harry Potter would be intrigued by what he saw around him, although now he was more than curious to how he got here. Never the less, he saw it in all of its glory. The tall crystalized towers shined brightly, nearly blinding them. It was a hint of what was inside the Fortress but it was ramped up. The surfaces of the towers appeared to be sleek, to the point where there was nothing that could dent them.
Kara's eyes followed them like saucers and normally Harry would be amused by how excited she looked but he was rather excited himself. The glowing crystal structures hummed and Harry kept his eyes locked onto them. His mouth was hung half open and Kara said one word. "Kandor."
There it was, the supposed lost city of Kandor, although he found it. They were trapped in a bottle, just like the citizens of New York.
"You will be assimilated."
That was not a good thing but Kara was not happy with what happened. The robotic drones had also been shrunk and sent into the city, to keep some law and order. The blonde reared back her hand and punched the drone, causing it to crumple just like that.
"Conserve your strength, we're running on fumes," Harry said as he could see the red "sun" above their heads, likely trying to preserve the natural nature of Kandor. Kara nodded, her fist curled, and she swung once again for the fences. She rocked the drones.
Harry lifted his hands high above his head and rained down on his adversaries with the burning spikes that struck his enemies. Just like that, they went down in a heap and his heart drummed a steady beat across his chest.
Kara reared back her hand and clubbed them in the face. The pieces of the enemy blew into smithereens and Kara smiled as she allowed it to fly back. The blonde folded her arms across her chest and she had no doubt in her mind that something was up. The blonde swayed off in the distance, going back and forth, her heart hammering against her rib cage.
"We've got them, I think," Harry said but Kara stood rigid, she did not want to count her chickens before they hatched.
"Okay, did Brainiac just zap us and send us into the city or something?" Kara asked and Harry placed his hand on hers.
"I'm not sure….he could have done it remotely, but I'm going to hazard a guess is that whoever brought us in here….they were able to do it remotely, from inside the city," Harry said, and it did go without saying that he was not sure if that made things much better, or kind of worse. Never the less, the blonde Kryptonian and the dark haired wizard kept moving forward, their minds on the prize and their eyes on the situation.
"Let's go with that," Kara suggested, biting down on her lip firmly as she swayed from one side to the next. Her heart drummed a harsh beat against her chest and she saw something from the shadows.
Harry, noticing the same movement, stood ready for the attack. There was only one word that was said. "Hello?"
"It's you….KARA!" the girl in the shadows stated as she lost her train of thought. Kara's eyes widened, as she saw the girl standing there. Her hair was a deep shade of red, with alluring brown eyes that looked back at her. She was wearing a combination of red and gold robes that fit around her body.
"Thara….I…..I can't believe it," Kara whispered as she rushed forward and threw her arms around the girl. Harry watched as the two girls hugged, he was not about to break such an amazingly alluring act. His smile crossed over his face and he watched them, swaying from one side to the next, patient.
She broke apart from Kara and turned to him.
"So who is…."
"Har-Rell, this is Thara Ak-Var, she was my friend, you know the one that I thought died when Kandor disappeared," Kara whispered to her.
"Well….not many perished, he wants to keep us alive, he gives us enough to live, it's some kind of sick living monument to Krypton, he preserved the knowledge and he also preserved the memories, you do realize that we're now halfway on a ship, along with whatever cities he took from his latest planet, which is going to be destroyed soon," Thara said.
"Not on my watch it isn't," Harry said as he leaned his neck forward. He could see that Earth could be in danger but he refused to get out. "There's got to be a way out."
"If there was….we would have escaped," Thara whispered as they were not allowed at the edge of the bottle. "We managed to rig up something to help bring us out, although it seemed to have only worked in the inverse and brought you in here…sorry about that."
"No problem, if anyone can find out a way out, it's Har," Kara said in a gushing voice but Harry put up a hand. Kara was about to protest being suddenly silent, crossing her arms and pouting. However, there was no time to pout as he heard them.
"Kandor will have order, this is Krypton….."
Harry bolted towards the edge of the city. "You are prohibited from entering the edge of the city."
"Oh, I'm prohibited, am I?" Harry asked as he clapped his hands and a sonic vibration took out the drones. He still had some powers in there.
Kara rushed forward and used her remaining strength to smash the gates shot so more drones could not be brought out. She tried to fly up to the top of the bottle but an energy field struck her and caused her to spiral down, right into the arms of Harry who caught her.
"Not going to be that easy," Harry whispered and Kara shook her head. "Well we'll find another way, have faith."
'I must be nuts, actually I think that I have long since passed being nuts a long time ago,' Peter thought as he web slinged over to Ravencroft. New York was gone and the Asylum had been broken open. 'And that's really not good either.'
Spider-Man realized that a bunch of potentially dangerous super powered criminals had taken advantage of the chaos to escape into the night which caused him to realize that he might not be able to find the person he was looking for.
"I seem to be popular tonight, good evening, Spider-Man," Norman whispered to him and this caused the web slinger to stop suddenly, his heart skipping a few beats.
"You know, I'm surprised to see you still here, Osborn," Spider-Man said as he saw Norman calmly playing a game of solitaire, not bothered by the fact that the web slinger was standing right before him. In fact, he did not blink for several moments.
"I'm not leaving unless it is by my own hand, not because of some opportunity," Osborn said as he smiled. "I wonder what it would be like to be the last man on Earth. I suppose that I will find that out shortly, once that virus that alien computer released kills everyone else on the planet."
"What are you babbling about…."
"Peter, let me spell it out for you," Osborn said, using the web slingers given name to show who was in control and that caused Peter to cringe. "Although I'm surprised that I have to. You've always seemed like such a smart young man, I always thought of you like a son."
"Given how you've treated your actual son, I don't find that a compliment," Spider-Man whispered but Osborn seemed undisturbed by that thought as he kept working through everything. "So…."
"While I am in bad shape, there are trace elements of the goblin formula and the attempts of them to make me Zod's vessel that has given me increased longevity," Osborn whispered to him. "It flows through my veins and therefore as all drop dead, I will keep standing. Perhaps as Earth perishes, I will regret everything, but it will not be done any time soon."
"You've got to….."
"Let me make one thing perfectly clear, I do not have to do anything," Osborn said wickedly as he crossed his arms and he almost challenged Spider-Man to contradict him. The web slinger could not even believe the gall of him. The web slinger kept his eyes locked on him. "Just think about it….there is a chemical compound that might be able to….counteract the virus….."
"Great where is it?" Spider-Man asked and Osborn's wicked smile got even more wicked.
"It is in my lab….which currently got taken away," Osborn told him and there was a chilling gaze in his voice. "You had to ask."
"I had to ask," Spider-Man whispered as he was about ready to grab him around the throat but it was hard to keep himself, it was easy to pummel his enemy into oblivion with just a few blows.
"So are you going to attack me, no you aren't going attack me, you don't have it in you?" Osborn taunted him, his gaze locked onto him. There was a second where the web slinger and the goblin locked eyes onto each other. "That's what I thought."
"He's playing you and you're allowing him to play you."
He turned around and saw the female web slinger. "So, I see that you've survived."
"Yes," she said to him and Osborn watched her, although she walked over to him and grab him around the throat. Spider-Man was surprised about his female counterpart as she choked the life out of Osborn.
"What….what are you doing?" Spider-Man demanded to him as there a moment where she smashed Osborn's head hard into the brick wall. Blood spurted out of the side of his head as she did not even let go of him.
"I'm trying to get the secret of the cure, if he can survive it, there must be something in his blood that could counteract the virus," she said as she captured a sample of Osborn's blood.
"Don't you think it was a bit extreme?" Spider-Man asked her and there was a second where she turned her gaze onto him, a simmering and serious look in her. She nearly swallowed the lump in her throat and her heart beat extremely heavily into her chest. "Yes….I know….it must have….."
"I know what I'm doing," she said without another word as she walked away and left Osborn lying down in the cell, his blood oozing from the side of his wound. "You know, you could have done the same thing….but I'm sure that…well actually I'm not sure if you had it in you."
"Yes….."
"You know that I'm right," the female spider said and there was another person who stood from the shadows.
"So, you had help, didn't you?" Spider-Man asked to her and she nodded.
"We escaped fairly early, although now with Essex out of the picture, we were able to come out from underneath ground," the female spider said. "As you might have guessed, I'm a clone of yours."
"Oh why did it have to be a clone?" Spider-Man complained, there was something about clones that agitated him to no end. The web slinger was patted right on his shoulder and he shook his head. "Yeah, I know….just got to focus."
"That would help," the female web slinger agreed as she saw the girl who stood there. She had dark long hair that was slightly curly, that reached down to her shoulders. A simmering set of green eyes stared back at him. She wore a black shirt that stretched over her body, and a red jacket. She wore tight black pants that molded around her body.
Spider-Man was taken aback, he had only seen that particular shade of green eyes before and it struck him that he was not the only one that was cloned, actually several people were cloned.
Clones were giving him a headache, he was pretty sure that there was some traumatic event that happened in his past life that brought him there.
"Okay, let's go," she said and there was a few nods, as the group prepared for their next move, whatever that would be.
Nathaniel Essex was receiving some extremely strange readings from the canister that Miles Warren sent him. He had no idea what happened but he flipped it over in his hand. There was something in that virus that was very wrong, although he could not put his fingers around it. His mind ran wild with the possibilities as he kept trying to determine what went wrong and more importantly, how it should be fixed.
Nothing, still nothing, all was lost, as he scanned it.
"This doesn't add up," Essex whispered as he could see that his own vital signs were going haywire. This was not something that should happen, given the experiments that he put this body under. His heart thumped against his chest as he swayed back and forth. The numbness went through his body. "This doesn't add up, not even one….it doesn't add up one bit."
Essex screamed although his jaw went extremely numb. His heart hammered against his chest as he kept up his breathing, hot and heavily. He closed his fist and opened it, swaying from one side to the next. His eyes were beady and blood shut, his jaw numb. He could not even believe it.
"Find me Warren….find me Warren," Essex said as black blood spilled from his mouth. The virus seemed to attack him harder than anyone else. "I can't….I won't….FIND ME WARREN!"
Essex dropped down to the ground, there was something in his lab that he could not understand. His heart drummed against his chest as he laid on the cold hard ground. He was left for dead, with all lost. His soul burned with the pain and his fingers grew even number by each passing moment.
The world spun around him as he could hear the echoes of his past victims, children that he experimented on, coming after him. He could feel something scratch his face and his mind….his mind was this close to being pulled down underneath the ground. His heart was about to jump through his throat as he lifted up one hand.
"It won't end like this, I refuse to allow it end like this, no," Essex groaned as he felt his heart continue to hammer through his throat. His eyes blurred over as he suffered double vision, triple vision, all the visions that rocked the back of his head. His mind grew even more numb.
He could not believe it, in fact he could see someone enter the doors on the other side of his lab. He was about to beg for help but he was too prideful to that.
Selene had been fortunate enough to be left outside of the city and she showed up to a grisly discovery. She saw Essex laid out on the ground, blood flowing from his mouth. The Black Queen weathered even more storms then her.
"In your greed, you opened it, and you unleashed a pandora's box," Selene said as he tried to lift his hed up. "Are you too proud to beg for your life, Essex?"
Blood dripped from his mouth and burned the side of his face as he tried to get up, lifting his head halfway to the ground. Then his head thumped as he felt the splitting go through his head. Breathing became shallow and then increased as he tried to lift his arms but they thumped down to his side, like it was nothing.
"He doesn't look too good," Amara whispered as she joined Selene and Illyana turned up, glaring at the downed figure of Essex.
"He never looked too good," Illyana said and Selene would have to agree with that statement. The Black Queen of the Hellfire Club kept he beady gaze down on the face of Essex, understanding that he would perish if he was not allowed to wake up. Not that she was that fussed up about it really. In fact, she would have been pleased with what happened.
"Well Essex, you live by the sword, you die by the sword, there must be something in this lab that could…assist our lord," Selene said, it was by a stroke of luck that both girls and her were outside of the city when it had been sucked into the bottle. "Be careful what you touch."
Essex's blood gurgled in his mouth and he nearly choked on his own blood, blood that burned his throat like acid. All of his cells turned inside, dying one by one. He looked old and withered.
"If I cared about seeing you suffer, I would have killed you straight away," Selene whispered as she stood on Essex's face and managed to access the logs of his talks with Warren, to find anything, even if the clue was miniscule.
So far she did not find anything but Selene was not about to give up after she failed the first time. She was not going to allow the world that she helped set up perish.
"I think I might have found something," Amara said although she looked nervous. "Although I'm not….."
"It will bring us one step closer," Selene said, pleased that her descendant had located a vital clue. She knew that people died, although that piece of shit on the ground being the first to die was something that was music to her ears.
She knew that he had a back up plan and his knowledge was useful, even the man was not. And there were other plans, that Selene put into motion. He would pay for his treachery against Har-Rell. And Selene would ensure that the payment would be with interests.
"In here," Illyana said and Selene followed her into the next room. There was the DNA mapped out of several prominent mutants and it was obvious that he had help.
Selene could read the Kryptonian on the boards, it was something that her beloved had taught her years and years ago.
"I'm beginning to see the light," Selene whispered, hunger burned through her mind and fire burned in the pit of her stomach.
The girls shifted nervously, they had no idea what Selene was up to but it could be positively wicked. Essex already decayed the ground.
"See if you can find any more who might have not been inside the city at a time and send a message to your mother, there is something that I want retrieved from the palace," Selene told Amara and the girl nodded.
Time was not on their side.
Harry was trying to figure out a way out of there, even though it appeared that he was running around in circles. He felt like a hamster on a wheel, with his legs cut off. His breath hitched into his chest and then blew out just like that. His arms crossed against his chest as he moved over.
"I think there might be a way out, if we can somehow…..reverse engineer the device that you brought us in here with," Harry told Thara and Thara shook her head. She figured that statement had to be elaborated on so she did.
"If it was that simple…..well if it was that easy, it would have been done by now, but it's really not that easy," she said fretfully, biting down on her lips to the point where she drew a tiny amount of blood from her mouth.
"I'm guessing that you burned out the device in the failed attempt to bring you out of the city, that brought you into the city," Kara commented lightly as her arms crossed over her chest. The blonde watched her old friend for a reaction and she could see the sighs.
"Yes….and that was the only free power that we could drum up, well other than what he allows us," Thara said, as she spit it out.
Harry was a bit…..well he was a bit concerned. He needed to find a way to contact the outside world and he had been trying to reach out anyone on the bond link. It had been blocked previously to going here however and distance and size…..well he suspected that it had something to do.
However, Harry could hear them approaching once and for all.
"The fugitives will surrender to the will of the BrainInteractive Construct," one of them droned and Harry had one of those "you've got to be kidding me" type of looks on his face. His eyes lit up and Kara grabbed him around the arm to hold him back.
"No, I think that I see the light and I see what I have to do, they have to be run off of something," Harry said, he was not sure how much X-Ray vision he had left, but he had to summon up all of the power that he had left.
X-Ray vision and telescopic vision when combined allowed him to take a peek into the inner workings of these things. He could see the miniaturized power cells that pulsed through them.
"I think I've got an idea, we could short circuit the force field and allow me to get out," Harry said and he closed his eyes.
"Problem though, you might still be tiny and unable to survive on the outside world," Kara said to Harry and Harry placed his arm around his mate's waist.
"I've….I've thought of that as well, trust me," Harry said and they approached them. Harry could tell that Brainiac wanted to keep him in particular preserved like a specimen in a jar so the little drones were not attacking him with any kind of lethal force. He found that a tiny bit curious but he was surely not complaining at all. All he did was keep his focus on them and wave them forward. "Okay, it's time."
"Good luck," Thara said and Kara smiled.
"Yeah, likewise," Kara said, not trusting herself to say anything more than that. Her throat was welling up and she watched Harry moving up against the drones.
"Okay, you want me, you take me down, the hard way, I don't really care," Harry said after a few seconds and he swayed his shoulders back. He managed to pit the drones against each other, bouncing off of the walls. His heart sped up with a few more beats as he avoided the attacks.
The drones smashed into the ground hard and Harry returned fire, blowing into them at a super sonic force. He needed to find a certain kind of module and know he knew that smashing them to tiny pieces would not do any good. His heart beat even harder and he thought one thing to himself.
'Now the moment of truth is at hand,' Harry thought but he wondered what he was going up against. His eyes blazed forward, burning with an even more immense fury that before. He thought that he was going to lose it, but he wondered if he ever had it.
He smashed them down into a tower and the civilians watched, many of them terrified out of their wits. They realized that the one that oppressed them for so long, they might have something to rally behind.
'Okay, not working, not working, not working….found one,' Harry said as he hoped to use it to his advantage. He was going to have to short out the top of the bottle, maybe just for a few seconds to pass through. He was trying to get everything through.
Of course, it seemed like the drones repaired himself which did not stir well in Harry's mind. It was back against them and it was back for the fight. Just another day for Harry Potter.
Brainiac was an android, devoid of any emotion, but if he had emotion, he would be able to crow in his moment of triumph. Despite Har-Rell being sent off the planet all of those years ago, and him not having the satisfaction of causing the complete destruction of Krypton, he had won.
His plans to bring back General Zod failed but Earth would no longer be inhabited. Most of the heroes resided around the area of New York City and there was a crisis, where SHIELD was trying to deal with. The virus slowly killed many and those who were fortunate, it wiped out really quickly.
He wondered if anyone could stop him now. Contrary to popular belief, he did not leave the planet yet. He had a few more things to take care of, a few more loose ends to tie up, and he would be out of his way and off into the night.
"So, long night?"
Brainiac turned around for a moment, amusement spread through his face.
"We have unfinished business to take care of, remember me, remember your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?" the web slinger asked.
"You nearly caused me to develop amusement, arcanid," Brainiac said in a soft voice.
"Well, I'm glad that you seem so amused, you're holding innocent people hostage and you're about to kill many more innocent people," Spider-Man said and the web slinger shifted his weight as he stared down the android.
"You think that they are innocent, well I disagree," Brainiac whispered harshly and there was a second where he stared down at him. "Surely, you could not be so illogical to think that you of all people could stop me?"
"Lack of logic won't stop me from trying," Spider-Man said, hoping the others could whip up the antidote while he attacked him but a shield appeared around the body of Brainiac. The web slinger was punted backwards like he was nothing.
"You should not have interfered, Spider-Man," Brainiac said as he pounded his kidneys with a series of punches but the web slinger dodged his attacks.
"Yeah, I've heard that a few times, imagine that," Spider-Man whispered as he felt an aching go through his kidneys but he shook his head. He spiraled up and landed on the edge of a railing. Brainiac moved forward but Spider-Man webbed his hands to the railing once more.
'The city, it's got to be around here,' Spider-Man thought as desperation boiled through his being. Although he had no idea how to reverse whatever Brainiac did and he could see that they were taking off.
Tentacles wrapped around Spider-Man's arms and legs, as Brainiac stared him down.
"Yeah….tentacle thing….used to it, I should get you and Doc Ock together sometime," Spider-Man said as he tried to twist out of the attack but he coughed as the web slinger tried to get out of the attack. There was an instant where he thought that he was trapped but the web slinger refused to give up. It was not in his make up to give up.
He saw two pipes above his head and inspiration was in his hand. Lifting up his web shooters, he latched onto the pipes and pulled himself up, along with Brainiac and he kicked him off towards the air lock.
Brainiac grabbed Spider-Man around the ankles, as they were heading off into space.
"No, bad touch!" Spider-Man kicked him off into distance and caused him to land with a thud and electrical pulses burned through his body. The web slinger dropped himself down to one knee, breathing in and out. He felt the ringing that went through the back of his head and he walked over, seeing New York trapped in a bottle.
Spider sense went off and he was stopped being stabbed from behind by Brainiac. The web slinger dodged his attacks.
"Yeah….you think….you think…." Spider-Man said but his throat was a bit dry, he could not figure what he wanted to say.
He was ran down with a huge smash and he dropped down onto his knees. The breath escaped his body but as long as there was still one breath in his body, Spider-Man would still be there and he still would be fighting.
"It ends tonight," he whispered to Spider-Man and the web slinger was feeling like he was going to be grinded into paste.
He was not going to die flat on his back.
"Oh, if I had a dollar for everyone who told me that, I wouldn't have to slum it for Jameson," Spider-Man said as he lifted himself out. He was pulled up off the ground and suddenly a sphere shot through the air.
Brainiac's mind was cooked as the burst of energy filled him from head to toe. He staggered back for a second as he nearly made his way back.
"No, error, it won't end this way….."
Spider-Man rushed over and tried to direct the ship back to Earth but there was one problem. Despite his prodigal intelligence, he was not able to figure out this ship at all. The web slinger tried to look over things and he wondered who his mysterious savior was.
'Well, it's too bad that Kryptonian is an elective at ESU,' Spider-Man thought. 'And…..that about figures right…..I've got to focus.'
Helena turned up behind Spider-Man. "Don't worry about that…..I'll figure out a way to redirect it, you free any of the hostages from their pods."
"Pods….hostages, oh that's foreboding," Spider-Man whispered as he reared his shoulders back after a few seconds but he stood in front of the pod. He saw Madelyne Pryor in there, stoic, unmoving. "Oh boy, she's like a walking black cat….no offense to Felicia."
Helena meanwhile tried to hack her way through the systems but Brainiac had downloaded his programming to one of the drones. It lifted up one of its arms.
"Back away from the controls, Batwoman," Brainiac said in a slightly garbled voice and it aimed a stun ray.
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