He stared at the empty space where the rest of his ship had been. All those cities, all those societies he'd gathered over the years, gone in a few short moments. In his long life, the Coluan had never been defeated so utterly. He'd been repelled many times, his entrapment was another such defeat but never had he lost ground such as this.
Brainiac was merely lucky that this Earth had the technology to maintain the cities without much issue. They didn't have the capability to return them to their original size, nor had they the room to even house the cities on Earth even if they gained the ability.
It was possible that Asgard would try, but he doubted that they would be capable either. They'd been stuck at their, admittedly high, tech level for nearly two thousand years. They were not going to suddenly gain the technology necessary to return the cities and the inhabitants to their proper size.
So losing the cities, while annoying, was recoverable for Brainiac as long as he could escape this dimension before it was too late.
Even split in half as it was Brainiac's ship could still locate any oncoming object or creature. This particular being was cloaked in dark shadows that hid its features even from his technology. The only feature that the Coluan could make out about them was their glowing purple eyes that emitted a fire-like substance from their sockets.
"Ah, think of the devil and they appear," Brainiac was the first to talk between the two, not wanting to give any ground to the creature or its Master. Even in conversation.
"Don't be so petulant," It responded, its voice a whisper that spoke of how little talking the being had done in its life. "My master merely sent me to check if you were stuck here."
"Your master sends you to gloat for him, he knows more about what happens in this place than I do. I am neither amused nor impressed at his laziness."
The flippant nature of Brainiac's response seemed to set the creature off as it growled and its dark form rippled. But no actions against the Coluan, it knew that it was a mere shadow that could never have dared to oppose on its own.
"Watch your tone, there's only one chance at freedom now," It attempted to intimidate him with the threat that his master would rescind the offer of help. An offer that the Coluan had already turned down once before because he knew not to make deals with this creature's master. "Your lone servant on Earth is dead, you no longer have the resources needed to free yourself. My master's coming is soon, your help could speed up the process and we could help summon you to that universe. You'll be left with nothing if you keep your arrogance and deny him."
Brainiac turned from the creature, walking into the parts of his ship that still had doors and ignoring its continued growls. As if he would engage in a lengthy conversation with a mere mockery such as this creature.
He continued to insult by sending those fakes rather than himself or someone of importance.
The Coluan's hands touched the walls of his ship, feeling the cool metal material against his battered fingers. Usually, he'd not bother to walk around his ship, merely teleporting from one section to the next. But Brainiac found walking around his ship, even as broken as it was, to be soothing.
It also helped that the journey didn't take long. He was at a control room within a minute or so. It was only when his ship finally registered that the creature had left the area that Brainiac entered the room.
The creature had been right. His lone organic servant, Doctor Olivia Octavius had died in his latest attempt at freedom. But it had been wrong when it said that he lacked resources. He still had the Doctor's Cybernetic implants after all, and those were capable of remote maneuvering. Brainiac had been capable of sending brief messages to that universe for some time, now he was able to directly exert his will there too. Even if it was a streamed process. Not to mention all his tech that the Earthlings would no doubt attempt to study.
If they thought that they could root out all his protections, all his viruses and worms designed to take any tools created from his technology and turn them to serve him. Then Humanity needed to get a reality check.
(Pat Doyle: Upstate New York Stark Industries' Complex/Brainiac's ship)
I walked along the long rows of cities, inspecting them with a dull stare. My mind hadn't really grasped during the fighting that these had people in them, living breathing people, not until now. Some of them were human-looking, some of them were lizards, some bipedal, others quadruped, and there were some aquatic lifeforms floating in their appropriate habitats.
My amazing sight powers allowed me to see them all as if they were just far away and I was looking at them through a telescope.
Fury attempted to enter the room stealthily, his feet didn't even make any noise as they made contact with the floor. Or at least, they wouldn't have been able to be heard by a normal person, even some of those with enhanced senses would have trouble. But even with that, I could still hear his clothes brush up against themselves in a room otherwise devoid of noise. It would be harder if we were in a crowd or in a city to do this but withonly me otherwise in the room sounding him out was as easy as pie.
"I was told that you wanted to see me?" Fury's tone was something between relief at being taken away from something he hadn't wanted to deal with yet and annoyance at someone summoning him randomly. "Thought you'd be hanging out with the rest of the team after dropping this off, celebrating the hard-earned victory before Thor runs back off with his sicko brother to Asgard with the Tesseract."
"I've got time," Was my answer. It was a given with my speed, since the restaurant everyone was at would be a few seconds away from here. "But more importantly, I've got something to show you. Your eyes only."
There was a risk, trusting Fury. My experiences reading about the man in comics were small in the mainline comic books. But the Ultimate Marvel, a universe created in the early 00s to be more accessible to new readers, Version of him wasn't the straightest of flyers, so part of me wanted to hold that against him.
The only problem I had was, I was short of options. Yes, Stark would help me, but even his money would only get so far.
"Odd place for a meeting."
"It's the easiest place for me to get what I'm saying across," I responded, waving at him to follow me further down the row. "It's also the easiest place for me to scout out for spy tech, human tech sticks out like a sore thumb in a place like this."
"That doesn't tell me much about what you want to talk about exactly?" he questioned softly.
I didn't speak for a bit, instead, I stopped walking when I got to a specific city. It was no different from the rest of the cities, a large glass dome containing an advanced metropolis. The people inside were even just the bog-standard human people that cheap Sci-fi tended to use when they were working on a shoestring budget. Nothing special about them from a glance, but the name embossed below the city marked them so.
"The Bottled City of Kandor," I informed him.
Fury glanced around the room, his eyepatch causing the man to turn himself around in order to do so.
"They're all bottled cities. That's the only thing in this room."
I chuckled.
"Yes, but only this city once sat on the surface of Krypton."He stared at the empty space where the rest of his ship had been. All those cities, all those societies he'd gathered over the years, gone in a few short moments. In his long life, the Coluan had never been defeated so utterly. He'd been repelled many times, his entrapment was another such defeat but never had he lost ground such as this.
Brainiac was merely lucky that this Earth had the technology to maintain the cities without much issue. They didn't have the capability to return them to their original size, nor had they the room to even house the cities on Earth even if they gained the ability.
It was possible that Asgard would try, but he doubted that they would be capable either. They'd been stuck at their, admittedly high, tech level for nearly two thousand years. They were not going to suddenly gain the technology necessary to return the cities and the inhabitants to their proper size.
So losing the cities, while annoying, was recoverable for Brainiac as long as he could escape this dimension before it was too late.
Even split in half as it was Brainiac's ship could still locate any oncoming object or creature. This particular being was cloaked in dark shadows that hid its features even from his technology. The only feature that the Coluan could make out about them was their glowing purple eyes that emitted a fire-like substance from their sockets.
"Ah, think of the devil and they appear," Brainiac was the first to talk between the two, not wanting to give any ground to the creature or its Master. Even in conversation.
"Don't be so petulant," It responded, its voice a whisper that spoke of how little talking the being had done in its life. "My master merely sent me to check if you were stuck here."
"Your master sends you to gloat for him, he knows more about what happens in this place than I do. I am neither amused nor impressed at his laziness."
The flippant nature of Brainiac's response seemed to set the creature off as it growled and its dark form rippled. But no actions against the Coluan, it knew that it was a mere shadow that could never have dared to oppose on its own.
"Watch your tone, there's only one chance at freedom now," It attempted to intimidate him with the threat that his master would rescind the offer of help. An offer that the Coluan had already turned down once before because he knew not to make deals with this creature's master. "Your lone servant on Earth is dead, you no longer have the resources needed to free yourself. My master's coming is soon, your help could speed up the process and we could help summon you to that universe. You'll be left with nothing if you keep your arrogance and deny him."
Brainiac turned from the creature, walking into the parts of his ship that still had doors and ignoring its continued growls. As if he would engage in a lengthy conversation with a mere mockery such as this creature.
He continued to insult by sending those fakes rather than himself or someone of importance.
The Coluan's hands touched the walls of his ship, feeling the cool metal material against his battered fingers. Usually, he'd not bother to walk around his ship, merely teleporting from one section to the next. But Brainiac found walking around his ship, even as broken as it was, to be soothing.
It also helped that the journey didn't take long. He was at a control room within a minute or so. It was only when his ship finally registered that the creature had left the area that Brainiac entered the room.
The creature had been right. His lone organic servant, Doctor Olivia Octavius had died in his latest attempt at freedom. But it had been wrong when it said that he lacked resources. He still had the Doctor's Cybernetic implants after all, and those were capable of remote maneuvering. Brainiac had been capable of sending brief messages to that universe for some time, now he was able to directly exert his will there too. Even if it was a streamed process. Not to mention all his tech that the Earthlings would no doubt attempt to study.
If they thought that they could root out all his protections, all his viruses and worms designed to take any tools created from his technology and turn them to serve him. Then Humanity needed to get a reality check.
(Pat Doyle: Upstate New York Stark Industries' Complex/Brainiac's ship)
I walked along the long rows of cities, inspecting them with a dull stare. My mind hadn't really grasped during the fighting that these had people in them, living breathing people, not until now. Some of them were human-looking, some of them were lizards, some bipedal, others quadruped, and there were some aquatic lifeforms floating in their appropriate habitats.
My amazing sight powers allowed me to see them all as if they were just far away and I was looking at them through a telescope.
Fury attempted to enter the room stealthily, his feet didn't even make any noise as they made contact with the floor. Or at least, they wouldn't have been able to be heard by a normal person, even some of those with enhanced senses would have trouble. But even with that, I could still hear his clothes brush up against themselves in a room otherwise devoid of noise. It would be harder if we were in a crowd or in a city to do this but withonly me otherwise in the room sounding him out was as easy as pie.
"I was told that you wanted to see me?" Fury's tone was something between relief at being taken away from something he hadn't wanted to deal with yet and annoyance at someone summoning him randomly. "Thought you'd be hanging out with the rest of the team after dropping this off, celebrating the hard-earned victory before Thor runs back off with his sicko brother to Asgard with the Tesseract."
"I've got time," Was my answer. It was a given with my speed, since the restaurant everyone was at would be a few seconds away from here. "But more importantly, I've got something to show you. Your eyes only."
There was a risk, trusting Fury. My experiences reading about the man in comics were small in the mainline comic books. But the Ultimate Marvel, a universe created in the early 00s to be more accessible to new readers, Version of him wasn't the straightest of flyers, so part of me wanted to hold that against him.
The only problem I had was, I was short of options. Yes, Stark would help me, but even his money would only get so far.
"Odd place for a meeting."
"It's the easiest place for me to get what I'm saying across," I responded, waving at him to follow me further down the row. "It's also the easiest place for me to scout out for spy tech, human tech sticks out like a sore thumb in a place like this."
"That doesn't tell me much about what you want to talk about exactly?" he questioned softly.
I didn't speak for a bit, instead, I stopped walking when I got to a specific city. It was no different from the rest of the cities, a large glass dome containing an advanced metropolis. The people inside were even just the bog-standard human people that cheap Sci-fi tended to use when they were working on a shoestring budget. Nothing special about them from a glance, but the name embossed below the city marked them so.
"The Bottled City of Kandor," I informed him.
Fury glanced around the room, his eyepatch causing the man to turn himself around in order to do so.
"They're all bottled cities. That's the only thing in this room."
I chuckled.
"Yes, but only this city once sat on the surface of Krypton."