Ultimates Vol. 1 Arc 2 Part 2

Arc 2: Savage land

Part 2: Gathering the Ultimates




S.H.E.I.L.D. File on Anthony Stark

Height: 6’2”

Weight: approx: 179

Hair: Black

Eyes: Blue, glasses needed for reading fine print

Race: Caucasian

Mr. Stark started out as nothing more than an average boy, son of a mechanic. He was involved in the first Gulf War where he was taken and kidnapped for ransom but showed up a few days later having somehow escaped his captors. Once home he took full advantage of the military’s college program and got a degree in engineering. After several ground breaking patents, several in the weapons industry, he became quite wealthy. Eventually he entered into a contract with the government to supply then with the latest in high-tech weapons but after his contract was over he split from the government despite several hundred million dollar raises in the contract and refuses to develop any more weapons. Since that time he has continued to grow in wealth through more patents in technological advances and several wise investments, including in young Dr. Reed Richards, now a close friend.

Triskelion

Fury gnawed on his cigar in frustration. Why did these nerd types always seem to have a flare for the dramatic build-up? They probably thought it impressed him, but in all actuality all it did was annoy him. Hank was thirty seconds late for his presentation and the bay windows overlooking his lab were covered with white curtains. Nick Fury looked at his satellite watch again. Fort-five seconds late now. Suddenly the curtains were thrown back. An S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist was plastered against the window, his mouth open in shock and horror. Fury automatically tensed for action, his hand going to the gun that was always strapped to his side.


The curtains were ripped away completely. The lab was sound proof so Fury couldn’t hear what was happening inside, but he imagined the sound of the curtains ripping. What he saw next surprised him. There were very few things that could still do that to him.


In the middle of the lab crouched Henry Pym, completely naked, but that wasn’t what surprised Fury. It was the man’s size. If the scientist was standing up he would have stood somewhere close to fifty feet tall. Somehow Doctor Pym had figured out how to increase his body mass exponentially.

Something else caught Fury’s eye. For a second it seemed it was a wasp, but Henry seemed to be grinning at it and talking to it. Fury raced over to the control panel and pressed the speaker button.

“Pym,” he shouted in there. “What’s that in there with you?”

Fury pressed the listen button. “That’s Janet!” Hank grinned even wider than before. “She can shrink.”

“I see that,” Nick Fury responded. Hank had quite a talent for pointing out the obvious. He was awkward and nerdy, not very good for the public, but obviously a genius. They couldn’t afford not to hire the scientist. He supposed that meant they would have to hire Ms. Van Dyne as well.

“What do you think?” Pym asked in an excited voice.

“I think you’re hired!” Fury smiled at him as warmly as he could manage. “Welcome to the Ultimates team!”

“Janet did you hear that!” Fury heard just as he cut the feed from the testing laboratory.

He smiled. His Ultimates Initiative was finally coming into full fruition. Though, he thought, to complete the team he may have to bring in some of his old friends. He doubted he would be able to drag Dugan out of retirement, but the current Howling Commandos deserved to get some spotlight. He would also have to find a suit for Pym to wear. Maybe he could convince that young scientist Reed Richards to do it for him. He was an expert on unstable molecules.

“We’re almost ready for a press release,” he mused to himself as he walked out of the laboratory section.

Antarctica

The chairmen of the board stared out at the scene that lay before them. There was a steep slope at least twenty-five feet tall and then what should have been a landscape of ice and snow, but it wasn’t. Palm trees and tropical flowers lay in a thick carpet below. There was nothing cold about the land; it seemed they were in a tropical paradise. This was much more like what any one of them would have chosen for a vacation spot.

“Mister Stark!” one of them called out, finally remembering their boss. They glanced about looking for the young billionaire.

“Here I am!” a voice called out. They finally spotted him. Tony was far below in his thick Antarctic gear. It looked ridiculous amongst the tropical plants and flowing streams below. He had thrown back his hood and struggled up to his feet. His hear was dirty from his fall. He had rolled down the twenty-five foot slope and come to stop just beneath a palm tree.

All of them looked at each other to make sure that everyone was seeing the same impossible thing. Then, they began to grin from ear to ear. With a laugh they slid down the slope on their buttocks or stomachs.

“What are you all doing? I think you had better stay up there. I don’t know how we’ll get back!” Tony called out trying to talk some sense into them, but he was far too late for that.

“This is a real vacation spot!” one cried out in excitement once he reached the bottom.

“Not at all, I’m afraid,” Mr. Stark admonished. “My compass doesn’t work, and since no one seems to have noticed this paradise before I rather doubt anyone will be here to rescue us.”

“What are you saying?” Mr. Gamin asked. At least one of them had sobered up at his comment.

“We could be stuck here for good, unless we can get back up that wall,” Tony reiterated.

“That shouldn’t be a problem for a great engineer like yourself,” one of the board members dismissed the issue.

“Without any tools to use, I’m afraid you’ll find my skills seriously lacking,” Tony shook his head.

“You can do it, Tony,” one of the men said in full confidence. “We have faith in you.”

With that last comment they ran into the friendly looking jungle, quickly ripping off their outer clothes. They giggled like boys leaving school.

Tony shook his head. Everyone knew that he was the one not to take situations seriously, not his members of the board. Though Tony may have had such a reputation, and much of it was true, when it came to truly bad situations he was the first to buckle down to tackle the problem head on. You just first had to convince him it really was serious.

Tony looked at the rock and dirt wall. It was too steep of a slope for anyone of them to climb on their own, at least any one of his men. He glanced about to make sure there were no board members watching and then unbuttoned his shirt just over where his heart was.

A small metal device was implanted in his chest. It was an artificial heart that he himself had designed with the help of one of his best engineers, James Rhodes. He glanced at the wall again and looked at the device in his chest. With the board members acting like teenagers they would need a quick solution.

Tony sighed then twisted the device ever so slightly. The veins in his neck and on his head suddenly stuck out and became flushed. With a grimace Tony suddenly sprinted toward the wall, moving faster than any normal human. When he reached the wall of dirt and stone he plunged his hands into its surface as if they were made of nothing more than clay, though they came out bloody as he clambered his way up.

He grunted and cried out quietly as possible as he climbed up the wall. Finally as he gasped he reached the top and pulled himself into the cold and ice beyond the mist of the Antarctic. He lay for a second on the snow, panting. He fumbled at his chest with bloodied hands. Finally, he succeeded in turning the device back into the position it normally occupied.

He pulled out a phone from his pants pocket. “Rhodey, do you read me?”

“You’re a bit fuzzy, but I can hear you,” came the deep voice on the other end of the line.

“Do you have my position on the locater?” Tony asked as he gasped.

“Is everything alright there Tony?”

“Not really, but nothing I can’t handle for now,” Mr. Stark reassured his friend. “Now, do you have my position?” If Tony didn’t hurry this call he would freeze to death or die from exposure.

“Yeah,” James confirmed. “I have it on the locater, but it’s not very strong. I thought you made these things extra strong?”

“I did,” Tony told him. “Now, lock onto me and get out here as quick as you can.”

“Already getting ready,” James said.

“While you’re at it, patch me straight through to Nick Fury if you could,” Tony asked.

“Sure thing,” James sounded like a man taking orders from his captain.

“Oh, and Rhodey,” Tony’s teeth were chattering by now. “Bring me my suit, my special suit.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just do it, Rhodey,” Tony confirmed just before his phone slipped from his cold grasp. He recovered it and clutched back to his ear.

“Fury here,” came a voice on the other end.

“General,” Tony managed. “You are not going to believe this!”

Triskelion

Fury smiled at the phone as he hung it up. He could barely believe his luck just as he gained a couple new members their first chance for publicity landed straight in his waiting lap. Tony Stark had handed him a bigger gold mine than even the billionaire had expected.

“General Fury,” a young soldier approached him cautiously. No doubt he had heard on General Fury’s infamous temper. “There are some operative who came here to see you.”

“Well,” Fury growled. “Go get ‘em.”

The soldier snapped a salute and then hurried away towards the entrance. No doubt it was Barton, Natasha and Dane all returning from Iraq. They wouldn’t be happy about getting saddled with a flashy group like the Ultimates, but if their ranks continued to swell as quickly as they were now they could be faded out of the team. For now he needed some real operatives on the team.

Captain America aside he had a few scientists with delusions of grandeur. He would have to get to replacing them with soldiers willing to take or do whatever it was that allowed the two scientists to change sizes like they had. Meanwhile, he would have to use the real thing. He hated to use scientists when he should be using soldiers. Scientists didn’t follow orders well.

Clint Barton approached, followed closely by Natasha Romanov and Dane Whitman. In search of a new type of super soldier the government had poured large amounts of money into these three, all thanks to General Fury. Clint had had his eyes replaced with optical machines that worked better than binoculars and as well as a common microscope. He was an excellent athlete and had always been the best shot in his squad.

Natasha Romanov was a trained spy and athlete. They had given her plastic surgery to make her as beautiful and deadly as possible. She was on the short list for the super soldier serum once they had perfected it. She knew how to use her looks and her weapons.

Dane Whitman was a superb athlete and had mastered nearly every weapon available to man. The military had given him some sort of brain booster that allowed him a perfect physical memory. Once he had perfected a move then it was almost impossible for him to forget it.

Nick Fury himself was a force to be reckoned with. It wasn’t just his temper and his reputation as honest to a fault that got him to the position he held now. He was much older than he looked, or felt for that matter. Long ago he and a close friend had found the secret to the infinity potion, a serum that, when taken, vastly extended your life. It also helped him to be in peak physical condition. He had trained with his three companions when they had gained their abilities.

Thanks to his years of experience in combat and his determination along with the infinity potion he was the closest thing to a super soldier that anyone had seen since World War Two.

“You called us?” Clint asked. Of course they knew he had called them or they wouldn’t have flown all the way in from Iraq.

“I was calling you to ask a favor of you, but I think I have a new favor to ask,” Fury explained.

“Huh?” Dane liked things explained out plainly for him, even when he understood them.

“As you all know,” Fury began, motioning them to follow him as he walked. “Part of my involvement with S.H.I.E.L.D. is the super soldier program that I started with the three of you.”

“Get to the point,” Natasha had almost as little patience as Fury himself. “We were in the middle of a good fight.”

“Well,” Fury continued, ignoring Natasha’s interruption. “Just a few months back you know that Banner went AWOL on us when he revived Captain America. When we recovered him and the Captain both of them were drafted into a brand new program, the Ultimates initiative.”

“We knew all this,” Natasha informed him loudly.

“You all know how hard it is to find even a few super humans that aren’t mutants,” Nick continued.

“We’re black ops,” Clint stated forcefully. “We don’t do the whole spotlight and public meetings thing.”

“I understand that,” Nick sighed. He had known the discussion would go this way. “However, an opportunity has just come up that is too good for me to pass up. I need to establish the Ultimates now.”

“You’ve been working on this project for a while now,” Clint reiterated. “If you can’t find people to fill in the positions now, what is our guarantee that you can find them later?”

“With Captain America revived we have made several advances on perfecting the super soldier serum,” Nick Fury hated to explain himself, but if anyone deserved an explanation it was these three. “I also just got a hold of a new technology that lets an ordinary man change size.”

The three looked at each other. They owed Fury for what he had done for them, but would this be worth it. They knew that if they entered in the Ultimate their Black Ops status would be permanently revoked. They would become too public for black ops and their careers as they were now would be over.

“I don’t know about these two chickens,” Natasha stated as she advanced on Nick. “But I will help you out, Nick.”

“Don’t think that this makes us even,” Dane told Nick. “Now it is you who owes us.”

“Glad to have you on the team,” Nick only acknowledged that they had accepted he avoided admitting to be in their debt.

“If you try any of your bureaucratic bull crap on me, Nick, I swear I will jam one of my arrows down your throat,” Clint finally relented after his two comrades had agreed. Clint was always the one to take the longest to decide, but once he committed himself there was no one that could get in his way.

“Where are we going and why?” Dane was the first to ask.

“You had all better suit up for the cold,” Nick smiled devilishly. “We’re headed to Antarctica.”