Disoriented » Captain America

chapter thirty three

33 x doom versus all of time and space

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"You brought me to my own ship."

I released the hold I had on his kitschy cape, pushing away from him and ignoring the energy that fizzled out of him and attempted to zap at me. It wasn't effective, surprise surprise, and I crossed my arms over my chest, giving the room we were in a once over.

It was exactly where I'd wanted to be. The control room of the giant airship that was currently helping wreck havoc on the tourist city below. I turned back to Doom, expression severe, eyes dark. He was gradually beginning to realize that blasting at me with energy wasn't doing anything. I was gradually getting more and more pissed off.

"Who are you?" he demanded then, hands clenched to fists, irritation the only emotion present in his eyes.

"I'd say 'your worst nightmare,' but that would be at risk of sounding like a cheesy movie, so instead I'll settle for the last person you'll ever see," I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Sounds like an empty threat to me." Doom regarded me, practically oozing annoyance.

I shrugged, spreading my arms then, tipping my head to one side as a cocky grin tugged at my lips. "Have at it, then," I encouraged. "Because really, this ship's coming down . . . and we're both going with it."

Doom scoffed and shook his head to himself for a mere moment before he put both hands together and let out a huge burst of energy my way. I didn't so much as stutter in my posture, didn't flinch, didn't blink. My smile turned wider, almost manic as I relaxed my muscles and pushed out with a forcefield, throwing him clear through a wall and an entire portion of his control system in the process.

He emerged quickly, lunging at me physically this time, and I let him. He didn't know me well enough to realize what big of a deal that was, nor how much he should be worried.

It worked in my favor, though. When he grabbed at my neck, I let out a breathy laugh and grabbed his wrists. I was still breathing just fine, and the way his eyes narrowed revealed he was not pleased at my complete passivity -- or the fact that I was basically laughing in his face.

Okay, not basically, I was definitely doing that. I am the literal embodiment of laughing in the face of danger.

"How are you doing this?" Doom demanded, attempting to grip harder at my throat.

It was still ineffective. "I'm a boss, obviously," I replied, still devoting more than half of my attention to diverting his energy around the room with forcefields.

It was working, and I still wasn't sure if that was exciting or terrifying.

"Also, you may be unaware of this," I made sure I had a more secure grip on his arms as I said this, "but you're destroying your own ship."

It was only then that the warning lights began to flash, bathing the room in red as a monotone voice declared "WARNING, WARNING, DOOMSHIP UNSAFE, WARNING, WARNING, SYSTEM SHUTTING DOWN--"

Doom cursed so colorfully in a mix of English and some other languages that if I was his mother, I would've washed his mouth out with soap. But I wasn't his mom, I was currently his enemy, and I had to make sure he didn't escape the damn ship.

So when he tried to yank away from me, I only held on harder. The worst part, I knew, was on it's way, but we had a few minutes. I could feel that much.

"Let go of me, you insufferable--"

"My name," I said loudly, "is Jo. I know all about your time travel, Doom! Why do you think you're finally meeting me?"

His eyes widened in recognition once I told him my name, my own features turning to a devilish grin. "You can't be!" he shouted in response, both in evident outrage and effort to be heard over the system warning. "You--"

"Were in the nineteen hundreds when you tried to alter history to your liking?" My smile only widened. "Frick yeah I was! I'm the master of time and space, and I'm the one that's going to cut you clean out of existence!"

"You can't," it was Doom's turn to grin as the same information that had occurred to me earlier now occurred to him. "If you do, you'll disrupt the entire time stream! If you're truly who you say, you would know that."

I released one of his wrists then in favor of grabbing him by the front of his cape, and I pulled him very close to me. "Listen, Doom, and listen well. My name is Jo Wilkes. I am the master of time and space. Time is currently in a state of flux right now, like I've never seen it before in my life, and I'm going to use this opportunity to wipe you out without effecting the space time continuum. So you can struggle and whine all you please -- but these are your last words. Use them well."

I could feel the shift begin to plummet then, and as the look in Doom's eyes flickered to one of horror, I realized just how much fire surrounded us. I hadn't noticed before, had been too distracted with my own inner rage, but now . . . everything was burning. A portion of the ship fell away first as everything tipped to it's side, and no matter how much Doom fought and yelled at me, I stayed strong.

I saw for a moment what I knew to be the Human Torch, his entire form glowing with heat. He paused, open mouthed when he saw me in the ship, and I shouted "Jonathan Storm, you get outta here, now!" before he could protest or try to save me.

Then everything was falling, falling, falling so fast and hard that my brain kicked into it's temporal instinct, giving me an internal countdown.

I knew there was a good chance I wasn't going to live through this. Even though I was still maintaining my forcefield state of being, the shock of altering a timeline so severely could do me enough damage, it might be lethal. Taking someone out without erasing their complete essence was a complicated matter . . . and it could very well kill me.

I'd known that, though, when I'd snatched Doom away from Sue and Vision.

Heck, I'd known that way deep down when I left Steve on the battlefield.

We had ten seconds left when Doom shouted, "You don't have to do this! You can't!"

Five seconds when I withdrew any forcefield that wasn't in my person.

And two seconds when I looked Victor Von Doom dead in the eyes and said, "Game over."

My clock hit zero and the world went black.

--

[ Third POV ]

It was Johnny who landed, desperately trying to explain that Jo was in the ship. He was shouting for help and drawing a scene that Steve and a handful of the other Avengers arrived on a mere minute before the ship made impact.

Johnny had just gotten out, "She was still in there! She had Doom, was making sure he couldn't leave--" when Steve began to full-on sprint at the ship.

It was Logan and Bucky both who stopped him.

The entire team of heroes stood in silent horror as the ship full-on crashed. The bots had stopped before the ship had begun falling, and the Brotherhood had been taken care of before that.

There was screaming coming from somewhere when the ship impacted the ground with a fiery whoom that made everyone's eyes widen in fear. No one realized until much later that that screaming had come from Steve, and even then, no one ever mentioned it.

The only thing said aloud was, "She's gotta be fine, right? She's Jo."

No one answered.

Logan and Johnny both went into the wreckage to find Jo. It was the quietest the two men had been while in each other's presences since they'd met.