Chapter 18: More Marvels

Dramatis Personae: Frank -––– - Lead character, creator of Alpha Alpha - First Artificial Intelligence

Mobile Copies of Alpha: Beta aka Bayonetta aka Elizabeth Alana Franks (cyborg, from Bayonetta) Gamma aka Jasmine aka Jasmine Marza (cyborg, from Aladdin) Delta aka Elisa Maza aka Elizabeth Marza (cyborg, from Gargoyles) Alphadroid Dorothy aka R. Dorothy Waynewright (android, from Big O) A-Ko aka Eiko Magami aka Epsilon (organic copy of Alpha, from Project A-Ko)

Artificial Women (in order of arrival): Kasumi Tendo (from Ranma 1/2) Daria Morgendorffer aka Daria Morgan (from Daria) Jane Lane aka Jane Lannister (from Daria) Kara Zor-L aka Power Girl aka Karen Starr (from DC Comics) Rei Ayanami aka Rei Ayanami Ikari (from Neon Genesis Evangelion) Anna Marie aka Rogue aka Anna Marie Raffen (from Marvel Comics) Princess Diana aka Wonder Woman aka Diana Prince Walters (from DC Comics) Zatanna Zatara aka Annabelle Tara Zane (from DC Comics) Kara Zor-El aka Supergirl aka Linda Lang Starr (from DC Comics) Blossom aka Belle Underton (from Powerpuff Girls) Bubbles aka Britney Underton (from Powerpuff Girls) Buttercup aka Bobbi Underton (from Powerpuff Girls)

As a comic book and cartoon nerd, I've often felt that I was too heavily favoring DC characters in my household.

Partly it was because of convenience. I had set up my first DC character, Power Girl, in such a way that it was very easy to bring in more characters from her universe. (Plus my relationship with her worked out very well; the way we designed her backstory created a much better connection than I could have dreamed possible, which may have biased me in favor of DC.)

Partly it was because it seems like more female DC characters fit within my list of rules. They tend to look human more often than not and most don't have long- term relationships. Out of my DC harem, only Wonder Woman has had a noticeable, long-term relationship, and even that (Steve Trevor) really isn't in the modern comics very much. (Heck, in modern continuities, he's mostly either much older than Diana or married to someone else.)

Marvel, on the other hand, seems to have a lot of major characters who don't look entirely human or who are married or in long-term relationships, all of which are against my rules. I mean, heck, look at some of my favorite Marvel women: Invisible Woman, who was dating Reed from the first issue. Tigra, who looks very inhuman. Gamora, who has green skin. Firestar ... well, okay, Firestar would work out fine in the real world. Maybe a few from the Spider-man cast would too.

Jean Grey is a major character who might be able to make the transition to the real world, except of course that she's a walking soap opera. ("Oh, I love Scott." "Oh, I'm so attracted to Logan." "Oh no, I was replaced by a cosmic entity pretending to be me who seduced my one true love." "Oh no, while I was dead, my true love married my clone." And that's not even touching her adult 'children' teammates from alternate futures.) Adding her would probably double the soap-opera drama in the household. Scarlet Witch is almost as bad. No, thank you, to either of them.

Of course, I could always pull characters from other publishers. Liz Sherman from Hellboy/BPRD always seemed like a woman I wanted to comfort. Or someone from Image ... I'm sure Image must have a few non-psychotic female characters, right? Like maybe Voodoo? I haven't read a WildCATS issue in a long time, but she was a mostly non-ultra-violent hero, right? Or Velocity from Cyberforce ... same deal, I think. Ultra would probably work. Oops, I forgot about Caitlin and Roxy from Gen13, who could work out pretty well. Or maybe a version of Promethea. (I think some of those I mentioned are now owned by DC, so that kinda negates part of my stated motive anyway.)

But even after looking through my options, I really just wanted a few more Marvel characters. So once the filming for our movie was well underway (see last chapter), I had Alpha start building a few more women for me.

As far as their introductory storyline goes, Alpha and I played around with various ideas but finally decided that the simplest and best method was to follow something similar to what we did with the DC women.

In the middle of October, everything was ready and in place, and we actually decided to do a mid-day introduction instead of our normal middle-of-the-night surprise appearance.

Since filming had been finished and final editing was well underway, I was back at work at AARD most of the time. On that particular Tuesday, I was visiting some of the active labs to see how everything was going. Hearing a crash, I skipped Room 202 and rushed across the hall to 205.

I opened the door to see Kara furiously glaring at a computer screen while Linda looked worriedly between Kara and a small pile of broken electronics that had apparently been thrown to the floor.

"Is everything all right?" I asked stupidly. I could clearly see that it wasn't, but I couldn't stop myself from asking the obvious.

Kara and Linda turned to face me.

"Well..." started Linda, only to be cut off by Kara.

"You know, there are times I really hate this world."

"What's wrong?"

"We've been trying to put together a Kryptonian adaptive memory crystal, but it just refuses to work. It just ... sits there ... taunting me ... like an evil lump of rock."

She glared daggers at the pile of wires and circuits, which upon closer examination, did indeed include a couple clear crystals. Without a closer examination, they really just looked like small, clear quartz crystals.

Linda explained, "It's kinda hard to recreate because while we know how to use them and between us we can remember parts of the structural theory behind how the crystals work, we don't really know enough to create one from scratch."

Kara countered, though I think she might have just been fuming out loud to herself. "I'm sure we could make one; it's just the damned physics in this universe keeps getting in the way. Can't fly. Can't be invulnerable. No heat vision. No X- ray vision. And now no damned adaptive memory crystals."

I was suddenly curious about the pseudo-science Alpha used in creating their non-terrestrial memories, but dismissed the thought to consider later.

Kara was still pretty upset. Her anger was currently focused on the pile of junk on the floor, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to try to calm her down or not, worried that she might refocus the anger on me. Not that she'd hurt me, but still...

"Kara?" I asked in what I hoped was a soothing voice.

"What?" she snapped.

"I think you need to step back from this project for now. Let Alpha crunch numbers on it while you calm down and ... uhhh ... why don't you give me a hand for a while?"

She finally focused on me and her expression softened. "Sorry, honey. I didn't mean to worry you. It can just get frustrating sometimes."

She held out her arms, and I stepped into a calming hug.

"Okay," she said after a minute. "What are you working on that you want to distract me with?"

"Alpha and I are trying to come up with ideas to try for better methods of molecular layering. It's pretty much beyond my area of expertise. Once we're down on that scale, we can't make anything mechanical to manipulate things. Well, not very efficiently or quickly. What we need are ideas for how to do things cheaply and/or quickly."

"And none of your ideas are working out so far?"

"Well, we can manipulate things like nanotubes and buckyballs and graphene sheets pretty well, but it's very expensive and slow, and when we're not using carbon, it can sometimes get a lot more difficult. And now we're looking at precise layering for possible true nanite circuitry and things like that..."

"How about shrinking down your nanites so they can work on that scale?" suggested Linda.

"Yeah," agreed Kara. "Or scale down your nanites and build them with quarks instead of atoms." She kept a straight face, and I couldn't tell if she was joking or not. I really hoped she was joking, because from what little I know of subatomic physics, that was not only unworkably impossible, but also...

Fortunately our conversation was derailed when Alpha interrupted.

Rather than speak through my earbud as she normally did, she started speaking through the room's intercom while a red warning light on the ceiling began flashing on and off. I knew roughly when it was coming, and it still made me jump.

"Alert! There is a security breach at the house. Alert! There is a security..."

"Show us," I said, turning to the nearest computer screen. "And alert the other household members."

"Doing so now."

The screen came to life, showing a black and white security image of three figures in trench coats and hats -- not suspicious in the slightest, I thought sarcastically -- in the main front hallway of the house. They had apparently been on the ground and were just now standing up. All were of different heights and one appeared to be well over six feet tall. The middle-sized intruder had dark skin and long white hair. Only the smallest figure appeared to be Caucasian, though it was difficult to tell with only our black-and-white video feed.

"How did they get in?" asked Kara.

"Unknown. They simply appeared on my screens less than a minute ago. Dorothy moving to intercept. Should I subdue them or call the police? Note: their sudden appearance in that location is similar..."

Suddenly Alpha was interrupted by Anna's voice. "Frank, Alpha, don't fight 'em. Ah think Ah know 'em."

"Who are they," asked Linda. Both she and Kara were obviously feeling antsy, perhaps remembering a time when they could have flown to the house at super-speed in less than a second.

Ignoring Linda's question for the moment, Anna asked, "Can we call 'em and talk to 'em right quick? If Ah kin talk to 'em, Ah think Ah can stop your house from bein' torn up again."

"Alpha?" I queried.

"You are connected via Dorothy," she replied.

The display suddenly split to show the static security feed on the left and moving color video on the right. On the left-hand side, we suddenly saw Alphadroid Dorothy round a corner into view, facing the huddled intruders. On the right-hand side, we saw a color video feed through Dorothy's eyes.

Though in shadow, the tall figure was a woman with light green skin and dark hair with green highlights. The middle figure was a black woman with white hair, and the smallest figure was a younger Caucasian woman with brown hair. This was the first time I had seen them up and about, and I had a familiar rush of excitement as I took in the view.

"Hello? Can ya hear me?" asked Anna. "Kitty? Ro? Is that Jen?"

"Anna? Is that you? Where are you?" asked Ororo.

"Ah'm at work. This here's a robot who was jus about ta start a fight with ya cause ya invaded ma home, so be nice. Ah'll come home directly, but it's somethin' like a half hour drive."

"Who else is home?" I asked.

"Who's that?" asked Jennifer Walters, the tall green one.

"Rei and Buttercup," Alpha answered.

"Who's with you?" asked Kitty Pryde.

"They're mah friends," said Anna. "Frank there owns the house and robot, so be nice."

In the top corner of the security video, I saw Buttercup start down the stairs at full speed, obviously responding to Alpha's alert.

"Buttercup! Stop!" I called out, a little too late.

Buttercup, who had obviously not heard any of this discussion, had launched herself from the stair railing directly down at She-Hulk, who was instinctively reacting to the threat. She reached up and grabbed at Buttercup as she flew through the air, obviously intending to use the Powerpuff's momentum against her and throw Buttercup off to the side.

Buttercup, however, had memories of super-powered fights going all the way back to pre-school. She was used to being smaller than her opponent and was the toughest, best fighter of the Powerpuffs. She grabbed Jen's arms mid-leap and used the temporary purchase to flip herself over while still in midair. She landed whilst simultaneously pulling Jen's arms forward, transferring much of her own momentum to throw Jennifer over her head, into the next room.

"All right, who's next?" she snarled.

"Buttercup!" I said again. "Stop!"

"Stop! They're my friends," called out Anna at the same time.

"What?" she asked confused.

Then she was tackled from behind by the very briefly inconvenienced She-Hulk.

From one perspective, their short fight was very entertaining, though it lacked the eroticism I normally associate with 'cat fights'. She-Hulk was stronger with better reach while Buttercup was a slightly better fighter with better leverage.

From another perspective, Anna and I were yelling at the two of them to stop fighting as they punched holes in my walls and broke some furniture.

They finally stepped apart after about a minute and a few thousand dollars worth of damage.

Meanwhile, Anna was showing a side I had never seen before, with even her Southern drawl getting worse with her anger.

"Jennifer God-Damn Walters! Sit your ass down and stop messin' up mah house or Ah'll shove yo head so far up yo own ass, ya'll be lookin' out the holes in your chest where your titties used to be afore Ah ripped 'em off! What the hell are ya doin' here anyway?" In the sudden silence, I think she stopped to listen to herself for a second and regained a little composure. " ... Not that Ah ain't happy to see ya'll, which Ah am, acourse."

It took us all a moment to digest the uncharacteristic and ... uhh... 'colorful' threats Anna had just delivered.

"Uhhh..." I mumbled. "Buttercup ... ummm ... These appear to be friends of Anna. I'm guessing they're here to try and find her."

Storm, who had stayed out of the fight, rejoined the conversation. "Correct. Gateway couldn't open a portal to where we thought she was, and we couldn't get in touch with any dimension hoppers, so we went to talk to Reed Richards and the Avengers, who agreed to help. Since they had a few people of their own missing, we divided up and ... look ... it's a little strange talking to a robot maid about this. Any chance you could come meet us in person?"

"Sure thing, dahlin'. We'll be there in half an hour. Buttahcup? Could ya please sit mah friends down in the kitchen and get 'em somethin' to eat or drink or somethin'?"

"I'm not a cook," complained Buttercup, still eying Jennifer warily.

"I'm sure we have some of Kasumi's leftovers in the fridge or something," I reassured her. "And Dorothy can help you."

I started walking for the door, then looked back at Kara and Linda. "Coming?"

We all met up in the lobby and sped off to the house in a couple cars.

I made sure Anna and I were in the same vehicle so we could talk on the way.

"So, Anna ... are you doing all right?"

"Ah guess we'll see. What Ah don't understand is why it took 'em so long to find me. Ah mean, I been here five an a half years or so."

"It could be that there's a time difference between worlds, like with Power Girl."

"Ah suppose, but even so..."

"Well, we'll find out in a few minutes. Ummm ... one other thing ... TWO other things. First, you do realize that your friends are probably going to be stuck here like the others, right?"

"Maybe. Could be they'll have someone like Zatanna back home to pull 'em back after a while. Maybe Dr Strange is waitin' to help 'em out."

"Could be. The other problem is She-Hulk. If they ARE stuck here, well, she's not going to blend in very well."

"Well, she ken turn back to human if she wants ta. At least, Ah think she can."

"I'll be interested to see if she can, but I'm going to ask Alpha for help figuring out how to make her pass for human all the same."

"That's fine, Ah'm sure. Ummm ... Frank, darlin', we can put them up for a while if they're stuck here, right?"

"Sure we can, though if we get any more long-term visitors, I may need to have you share a room with someone."

She sighed. "All right. Ah do like havin' mah own personal space though."

"Also, how well do you think they're going to react to our..." I paused briefly, searching for a nice way to put it... "home life?"

"Ah don't know. Ororo can be pretty reserved but she can be pretty ... liberal ... too. She don't think nothin' of walking around in her birthday suit, so she might be fine with it all. Jennifer ... if half the stories Ah've heard are true, Jennifer can be a party girl, sleeping with someone different every night." She briefly lowered her voice to a whisper to deliver a juicy bit of gossip, saying, "Ah even heard she slept with Juggernaut!"

Her voice returned to normal as she continued. "Kitty, though ... not sure about her. We never had the wild sex villains Kara and them talk about. Not sure Ah even believe all their stories. Yeah, we've fought a few that don't bear mentionin', and the Hellfire Club could be a bit kinky, but they was usually all business when we were around. Ah guess what Ah'm tryin' ta say is that Kitty might not ... Oh, Ah don't know. She's had a few different boyfriends, an Ah doubt she's a virgin, but Ah don't think she's ever really..." She trailed off, at a loss for the appropriate words to express her concerns.

"I understand," I reassured her. "We'll try to be discreet for now, okay?"

"Thank ya."

We finally arrived home and we all piled out of the cars and into the house. The newcomers were gathered around the table, eating some of Kasumi's chicken lasagna, which we had enjoyed for dinner the previous night. They looked up at us and as soon as Anna entered, Kitty jumped up and started rushing over to give her a hug. Upon seeing Anna's bare arms and short skirt, she skidded to a halt.

"I'm so glad we found you," she said, with obvious enthusiasm in her voice. "I'd hug you, but ... you know..." Kitty gestured at Rogue's exposed skin.

"It's okay," Anna reassured her, and enveloped Kitty in a hug. After a brief squeal of surprise, Kitty relaxed and tentatively hugged her back.

Storm asked, "Rogue, what happened? Did you lose your power? Or finally get it under control?"

Releasing Kitty, Anna replied, "Well, technically Ah don't think Ah've lost it. It just doesn't work here."

I joined in the conversation. "Actually, in all likelihood, most of your powers, mutant or otherwise, probably aren't working. Super strength seems to still work to a limited degree, but not much more."

"What are you talking about? Of course our powers still work. See?" Kitty waved her arm in a wide arc, smacking it painfully against the all too solid wall. "Ow!"

"Are ya all right?" Anna asked with concern.

"I'm ... fine ... I think." Kitty shook her wrist out and started poking and prodding the wall, then a cabinet, treating them as if they had personally offended her. "What's going on?"

"You are now in a universe whose physical laws do not allow most super powers to work. You can be a little stronger than normal," I gestured toward She-Hulk, "and have senses that are a bit better than normal ... things like that. But you can't pass through solid objects or control the weather. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is."

Ororo had an odd look on her face, concentrating on something. Probably trying to call up a storm or some wind or something. Alpha had given her a special inner ear configuration and a few other goodies, so she was able to sense things like changes in atmospheric pressure, but that was it as far as 'mutant powers' went.

"He's right," Storm agreed. "I can't even raise a breeze right now."

"At least I'm still strong," Jennifer chimed in, flexing a bicep with a bit of relief.

"But probably not as strong as you were," Anna pointed out. Gesturing to me, she said, "Pick him up and see."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why me?"

Kara joined the conversation to explain. "Because you weigh enough to notice but not enough to be a problem. And you don't have and have never had powers, so there's no question of opposing powers confusing things."

"And cause it's fun to see women pick ya up and carry ya around," said Anna with a grin.

"Oh, hah, hah," I said, but I dutifully walked over to the very tall green woman in our midst. I'm just over six feet tall myself. Kara and Diana are maybe an inch taller than me. She-Hulk, on the other hand, was over seven feet tall, with an imposing wrestler/body-builder physique ... with green skin.

Seeing someone with green skin really is odd when you see them in person. It doesn't look real. When she bent over to pick me up, I half expected the color to rub off when our skin touched.

"Huh," she said, holding me with one arm under my knees and one supporting my upper back. She adjusted slightly so one arm cradled me, running the length of my back with her hand cupping my ass.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you weighed over a ton, if not a lot more. How heavy are you?"

"I'm not sure. Probably somewhere around 180 to 220, give or take," I said. This got me a LOOK from every female in the room. "Honestly, I weigh myself maybe once every two years. It's just something I don't pay much attention to."

Yes, I care how I look, but not how much I weigh. Fortunately Dorothy came to the rescue.

"As of three weeks ago, you weighed 201 pounds."

"I can juggle one ton weights," Jennifer said uncertainly, "but I couldn't juggle you right now. Not safely anyway."

"Which is pretty much how it is for the rest of us," said Kara. "Well, at least for those of us who used to be really strong. Since no one else is bothering to introduce us ... Hi, I'm Kara."

Jennifer set me down, secretly giving my ass a squeeze in the process and took Kara's proffered hand.

"Oh, Ah'm sorry," said Anna, chastened by her lack of manners. She then hurriedly went around the room, introducing her teammates to everyone else, leaving me for last.

" ... And this is Frank. He owns the house an' the business where Ah work. If it hadn't been for him, Ah'd probably be livin' on the streets."

"I'm glad to meet you all," I said, shaking their hands, watching their eyes for pupil dilation as we touched. As per Alpha's excellent work, it was there. Kitty actually blushed and looked away. "Welcome to my house of travelers in need."

"Traveler's in need?" asked Ororo.

"Most of us are stuck here," said Linda.

"Stuck here?" asked Kitty.

"From other dimensions, like you," explained Zatanna.

"Like us?" asked Jennifer. I briefly wondered if it really was that common for people to ask questions by repeating the end of a sentence with a slightly raised tone of voice.

"A lot of us are from different universes," explained Blossom. "The physical laws in this world don't allow for our powers or super-science to work properly, so we can't go home, so we're mostly stuck here for now."

"Well we should be all right because we have..." Kitty trailed off, realization dawning on her. "Ororo?" she said in a rather faint voice.

Meanwhile Storm had pulled out an oblong device which kinda reminded me of a tricorder. After fiddling with it for a minute, with the others looking on worriedly, she dropped it to the table.

"Dead," was all she said, an unhappy look on her face.

"It can't be!" wailed Kitty, while Jennifer just looked grim.

"There are a lot more aspects to the situation," I said, trying to sound reassuring. "Your prospects are not unremittingly horrific."

I gestured to the chairs, and Kitty sat down, unconsciously rubbing her wrist. Ororo and Jennifer stayed standing.

"First," I said, holding up fingers as I counted, "please note that this is not a hellish netherworld of a dimension. We have our problems, but for example, there is no persecution of mutants.

"Second, there are no superpowers native to this world. That means you aren't expected to fight crime and there are no supervillains.

"Third, if you are stuck here, you are not alone and we have the experience and resources to help you.

"Fourth ... well, actually I think we need more information before we go much further."

"What kind of information?"

After some back and forth, we determined that from their perspective, Rogue had been gone for about two and a half months, which meant there was possibly an even larger default time differential than with the DC Universe. They had tried a couple different ways to track her down without success before joining forces with Reed Richards and the Avengers. These three were actually only one of five different teams sent out to find different dimensionally misplaced heroes and allies. The fastest they could expect to be missed was in a couple weeks (meaning a minimum of a year our time). And the odds were that any follow-up team would be just as likely to get trapped, since going to a dimension where powers and tech failed was not a common or planned-for occurrence.

I also spent a few minutes convincing Ororo Munroe and Kitty Pryde to wear street clothes and to avoid declaring themselves X-Men. Their characters weren't defined by their costumes or their codenames, so that part was much easier than it had been for almost any other 'superhero' woman Alpha had created.

Turning to She-Hulk, I said, "You're going to be a problem."

"Not to a cutie like you, I won't," she flirted.

"I mean your skin tone."

"What? Are you prejudiced against Gamma-Americans?"

I was certain she knew what I meant, so I just gave her a smile and waited.

"All right, all right. Just give me a second..."

She closed her eyes and seemed to relax. If this were the comics, she'd probably be shrinking down to human form, an ability she had for ... I don't know ... probably for at least half of her career.

"Jennifer," I said quietly.

"Ssshhhh, I'm concentrating."

"You can't gain or lose mass at will in this universe," I said in a stage whisper.

"My cousin's the expert, but he says we actually don't gain or lose it or violate ... some physics law or other ... we just borrow it from extradimensional energies or something," she said in an equally loud whisper.

"All the same, I'm pretty sure you're stuck as She-Hulk for the duration. If you had arrived in human form, you'd be stuck like that instead."

She opened one eye slightly. "I'm not shrinking, am I?"

"Nope."

She sat down heavily in a nearby chair, which was fortunately strong enough to take it despite creaking a bit, and looked at the rest of us. "Any suggestions?"

"Make-up?" offered Bubbles.

"We could wrap your head up in bandages," suggested Buttercup, perhaps still a bit hostile toward her earlier sparring partner.

Turning to Dorothy, I said, "Alpha, have you come up with any ideas?"

I heard Kitty whisper to Linda, who was sitting next to her, "I thought her name was Dorothy."

Linda whispered back, "Dorothy is the robot. Alpha is the master computer."

Dorothy said, "If Ms. Walters is willing, I can use my medical nanites to bleach the color from her skin. That should last anywhere from a week to the entire length of her visit, depending how her body produces the pigment."

"Can't we just wait til we find out if there's a different way for us to go home?"

"As long as you don't go out in public, you can stay green for as long as you want."

That was a lie. We had at most a week before She-Hulk's dyed skin started reverting back to normal. The simplest method to give Shulkie her green skin was to use something pretty close to food dye in her epidermis. The drawback was that her body would gradually process and shed and otherwise remove the dye, leaving her a normal Caucasian pink. So if we wanted to pretend to bleach her skin, we had to do so within a week. On the other hand, Alpha had a pseudo-science explanation ready if Jennifer refused the skin bleach and her green skin started fading on its own.

I continued, "One big problem I foresee if you stay green is getting clothes for you. Once we determine if someone is going to be stuck here for a while, I generally take them shopping for a new wardrobe. Your size is going to make it difficult to buy clothes for you unless you're actually there."

"And my green skin makes it so I'll scare people?"