#maybe he will never allow himself to die but the doombots can

[the-faultofdaedalus]

IDEA. AIRON MAN BESTIES WITH A ROGUE DOOMBOT WHO'S JUST TRYING TO BUILD THEIR OWN PERSONALITY AND LIFE OUTSIDE OF THEIR IMPLANTED MEMORIES..........

COULD BE AN ACCIDENTAL GAINING OF FREEDOM OF CONSCIOUSNESS, LIKE W/ SENTIENT ARMOR, BUT I ALSO THINK IT COULD BE RLLY NEAT IF THEY WERE A PROTOTYPE DOOMBOT THAT ENDED UP HAVING MORE FREEDOM AND CAPABILITY FOR GROWTH THAN INTENDED AND THEY'VE BEEN LIVING THEIR OWN LIFE SINCE (IDEALLY W/ VICTOR'S SUPPORT BC RESPECT FOR THE AUTONOMY OF HIS CITIZENS AND CREATIONS AND ALL THAT)

BONDING OVER THE TECHNOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF THEIR FORMS, THE PRESSURE TO APPEAR A SIMULACRUM OF A BIOLOGICAL ENTITY AND THE FEAR OF HOW OTHERS WOULD VIEW AND REACT TO THEIR TRUE SELVES, THE "I AM CONNECTED TO MY CREATOR, BUT I AM NOT HIM IN THE WAYS HE WAS HIMSELF AND I AM MORE THAT WHAT HE MADE ME FOR," THE STEMBOY SWAG, ETC........

I ALSO THINK IT COULD BE FUNKY TO EXPLORE LIKE. I AM AN INDIVIDUAL DISTINCT FROM MY CREATOR BUT I AM STILL TIED TO HIM. DO I FEEL OBLIGATED TO ONLY DRAW FROM HIS VISION? DO I FEEL GUILTY FOR ADDING ELEMENTS OF MY PERSONALITY TO HIS DESIGN OF ME? WOULD HE BE PROUD OF WHO I'VE BECOME?

TRULY THIS WAS JUST MEANT TO BE A VAGUE NOTION OF A POTENTIAL CHARACTER BUT I STARTED THINKING AND GOT HOOKED DJSLHFLSHFLS BUT YES HELLO

oh there literally are already feral doombots just Around. thats canon. they are... already sapient as far as im aware (but like, sapient in that they have enough of victor's memories and personality to successfully pretend to be him and sometimes for them to not know they aren't him. also they can feel pain. questioning why victor has made ten thousand cannon-fodder robots with also his whole brain in them which also can fully feel pain is a different post) but yeah feral doombots my beloved

there’s like…. at least two i know of. the one with the fancy coat and the one calling himself vincent that actually looks like a human, i love them. i have so many thoughts about feral doombots just Around and Vibin and its not like victor gives a shit. he can make new ones. whatever.

but also ;-; that's So good, especially if its somehow pre-reveal for iron man being Known as anything other than like, a human in an armor so perhaps he meets a doombot somehow (maybe it's stealing replacement parts from SI and when IM realizes that its not... actually taking anything dangerous hes like. oh. oh. because he's smart enough to also know why he isnt just going to get repaired like normal) and it's just, this sense of Recognition that iron man cannot say anything else

i think it would be good if it was like. iron man offers to help fix the bot. oor just, helps him. no expectation of anything else. and the doombot is supicious because of course it is, it was programmed by Paranoid Bastard Supreme, and it's not like iron man can even tell it why he wants to help it so badly, because even if he doesn't think it's actively a danger that doesn't mean giving it the information that he isn't human like everyone assumes wouldn't be... an incredibly bad idea. it's still attached to a supervillan, after all

(also sidenote but i am frothing at the mouth about potential doomquest in this universe it would be SO funny,,,,,, king arthur sends a pretty lady to iron man's room for "companionship" and iron man is just like. ah. ok. i dont know what is expected of me right now. also doomquest is very good to me, specifically, because its one of the only early comics things where almost anyone has more respect for tony than for iron man, which i enjoy, i think it would be SO good for airon man au especially if iron man is like. in danger of just... running out of power. technicallyyyyy i think this should also be a problem in canon, i think doomquest happens during chestplate era, where hes largely not able to go more than about a day without Dramatic Wall Outlet Time and yet hes fine just vibin in camelot (famously deprived of wall outlets) for at least a couple of days, but YEAH SEND AIRON MAN TO CAMELOT i think hed be both freaked out and also. sad that tony couldn't experience it. i think the background radiation of iron man's life is just... sadness that tony cannot experience any of the cool things he does)

but like... him continuing too help this doombot. maybe the doombot also helps him out somehow, as well. maybe subtly interveening in some fights. maybe giving iron man some neat lil tech tips. maybe a;klsdjfasdf the doombot still wants like. Something To Do and not just sit idle all the time or something so iron man hooks 'em up with a fuckin. tech support job. or like, product testing, for SI. something where he can just fix shit thats been broken in the stupidest ways or, try to destroy other things. who knows i dont. but maybe theres an attack at SI and iron man deals with it but hes damaged, and normally he'd like. hide away and do a quick n dirty patch job just so theres not obvious holes into nothing, but. the doombot follows him. and finds him. and its just... looking at eachother. knowing "oh fuck we're the same" and also "oh fuck he knows"

i think they should help fix eachother up and be buddies anyways it'd be good

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe: The Fantastic Mutants chapter 6: Frightful Finale (originally posted on April 7, 2021)

AN: It's been far too long since I entered the world of Marvel Gems. What with Steven Universe: Alternate Future, the holiday season and my return to college, I've just kinda got distracted from my big crossover universe. But no longer! I will resolve Fantastic Mutants and maybe get to work on the next stories in this trilogy, no matter the cost.

Also, one disclaimer before we start. My deepest concerns go out to the family of Tom Kane, who I imagined voicing Magneto in here in a reprisal of his role from Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Wolverine & the X-Men. Keep in mind that I came up with the cast long before he had that possibly career-ending stroke. Anyways, let's get a move on at last.

--

The moment that the Blackbird landed in Doomstadt, the Ultimate Alliance immediately charged to Castle Doom, ready to rescue Steven and stop Doctor Doom & Magneto.

"Hang on Steven, we're coming!" Connie yelled while riding atop Lion. Deadpool was behind her on the big cat, hoisting a boombox over his head that blasted 'I Need A Hero' as the heroes drew closer to the castle.

However, armies of Doombots dropped from the tops of the castle walls to defend their master from the invaders. The robots began firing lasers while setting up protective shields around the entrance to their namesake's palace, to keep them from breaking in.

"Oh great, Doombots." The Thing groaned, but then began getting himself pumped up. "But then again, I've been waiting this whole adventure to say this! Y'all know what time it is?"

"It's only 2:50 pm, Ben. Why?" Pearl answered quizzically.

"Dumbass, he's gonna say the thing!" Deadpool yelled excitedly.

"You got it!" Ben grinned as he turned to the Doombots. "IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!" Right off the bat, the ever-lovin' blue-eyed beast began tearing Doombots apart, which excited Amethyst greatly.

"Now this is more my style!" Amethyst cheered, and she joined Ben in tearing the robots apart.

"Good, you two keep them distracted while we break down the doors!" Wolverine commanded as the rest went to beat down the entrance. However, with every Doombot taken down, more began popping up.

"They don't seem to be stopping!" Amethyst said. "Can this get any worse?"

"As a matter of fact, it possibly can." Garnet predicted with her future vision, just as the castle entrance went down and the Frightful Four emerged from behind it.

"The doctor has ordered us to keep you from getting in his way." The Wizard announced. "But it seems we might have our work cut out for us with this many intruders."

"Just as long as he still does whatever he wants to do with that dumb kid he had captured." Mole-Man responded.

"We'd rather die than let you harm Steven!" Peridot yelled, taking up arms with the remains of some Doombots nearby to form a massive sword.

"Ah, who cares?" Trapster shrugged. "He's got more where they came from anyway."

Even more Doombots emerged to fight the Ultimate Alliance, and they seemed stronger than those before them.

"Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and I will take care of these villains!" Connie began planning. "The rest of you take on the rest of the Doombots!"

"You got it!" Lapis obliged. "Hey, where's the Professor?"

"I am staying behind in the Blackbird, but I shall assist in any form I can from here." Xavier announced from the plane using his telepathy.

With a nod to each other, Connie and the primary Crystal Gems prepared for battle against the Frightful Four.

--

All around the operating room that Steven was forced into by Doctor Doom, various medical devices surrounded the boy as Victor experimented on his hybrid nature. Doom had taken blood samples, X-rays, extractions of saliva, but it was nothing short of a breakthrough.

"There has to be something I could use." Doom muttered to himself as he examined his gathered data. "I've been working tirelessly, yet still nothing is working!"

"You'll never win Doom." Steven said weakly. "No matter how hard you try, my powers will never be used for your evil deeds."

"Famous last words Steven." Doctor Doom scoffed scornfully at the boy, but then he began gazing upon his gem. "Wait, that's it! I'll just have to take out your gemstone! I have yet to decide on what to do after that, but I believe I just made a breakthrough!"

A dull thud sound was then heard throughout the operating room.

"What was that?" Doom asked quietly.

The thudding got even louder and louder until finally, Juggernaut's fist broke through the wall and allowed Kitty Pryde & Mystique to leap through the hole.

"Kitty!" Steven cried happily. "And Mystique?"

"No time for questions." Mystique said to Steven. "Creed, now!"

On Raven's command, Sabretooth leaped into action and used his adamantium claws to break Steven free from the operating table he was restrained to.

"Wait, why are you helping me?" Steven asked the Brotherhood members as he lifted himself off the table.

"It's because of you, squirt." Sabretooth answered. "Magneto was all like, 'Ooh, we can't let him harm a fellow mutant even if he promised to help us with our cause', all thanks to you. But then again, he did basically have the same endgame as your X-Men friends anyhow, just with more violent extra steps."

--

Back outside the castle, Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl & Connie were all pitted against the Frightful Four, one of them fighting one member each.

"So what's your origin Wiz?" Amethyst asked the Wizard. "Were you laughed at because of your poor fashion sense?!"

"Oh haha, very funny." Bentley Wittman scoffed. "I'm merely jealous of the Four's fame, especially that infernal Human Torch!"

"Oh, so classic jealousy then?" Amethyst replied before using her whips to tie up the Wizard and spin him around. "Geez, grow some dang humility!"

Meanwhile, Pearl was pitted against the Puppet Master, who had decided to defend himself with animated statues of his current boss.

"My puppets are unstoppable!" the Puppet Master boasted, but Pearl proved him wrong by cutting them down with her spear. "What?!"

"You should consider thinking before you speak." Pearl snidely replied before the statues simply put themselves back together. "Wait, how?!"

"It's puppetry, I don't have to explain it!" Phillip Masters shrugged.

"Kinda like how no one can explain your girlish features!" Deadpool jeered the puppeteer's appearance, which caused a puppet to punch him in the face.

"So your gimmick is that you have this gun you use to trap people with?" Connie asked the Trapster while expertly dodging his special glue.

"Yeah, I mean, it's in my name." Petruski replied and aimed his paste gun at her.

"Didn't you go by a different name in the past?" Connie remarked, making the Trapster frightened and then furious. "I think it was Paste Pot Pete, right?"

"SHADDUP!" the villain formerly known as Paste Pot Pete yelled angrily, and he wildly fired his paste gun everywhere he could point it at, covering random spots with his glue. "DON'T CALL ME PASTE POT!"

Connie thought quickly and just as Pete was about to fire his paste at her, she cut the gun in two, disarming him.

Finally, Garnet was pitted against Harvey Elder, aka the Mole-Man, who despite his abnormal height and poor vision, he was able to keep up with her with a fighting style resembling bojutsu that he used his staff for.

"We won't let you keep us from Steven!" Garnet yelled while the leader of the Moloids ran circles around her. "Why are you throwing your lot in with Doom, anyways?"

"He promised us things in exchange for our services!" the Mole Man declared. "Very special things, riches, glory, our own castles!"

"Well, my future vision tells me he won't actually give you those things." Garnet informed Harvey. "Instead he'll just run and hide once defeated while you're left to be arrested."

"WHAT?!" Harvey exclaimed in shock, leaving him open to get punched in the face.

--

"I thought I could trust you Erik!" Doom exclaimed as he stared down the master of magnetism. "Now you dare turn on Doom for that boy?!"

"He is essentially a mutant, just like I." Magneto boldly declared as he defended Steven and Kitty. "And I refuse to allow you to do him any harm."

"This is my land you mutated ingrate!" the doctor roared. "I can do whatever I please here, and you are powerless to stop me, lest you incur the people's wrath for endangering political immunity!"

"When has political immunity ever stopped the Brotherhood?!" Magneto boomed, floating up as a show of power. "Men call me Magneto, master of magnets! And I welcome you to die!"

Using his mutant abilities, Erik made everything in the operating room float in the air with a raise of his arm, and threw that arm down to launch them all at Doom. "Go children, find your friends! I shall handle things from here."

"Right." Steven obliged before he and Kitty fled the battle, leaving the leader of the Brotherhood to combat the king of Latveria.

Doctor Doom burst from the pile that Magneto had trapped him in, and retaliated with a powerful electric shock and that sent Magneto flying into a wall.

"Damn you!" Lehnsherr growled, creating a barrier around him to defend from further damage and unleash electromagnetic shocks from the barrier.

"Come here!" Doom roared, lunging at the mutant terrorist.

--

"The Gems have got to be outside the castle!" Steven exclaimed as he and Kitty ran from a slowly growing army of Doombots chasing them down.

"How would you know that?" Kitty asked.

"I remember when the Doombot said that the castle had intruders, that must be them!" Steven reminded his mutant pal while a Doombot tried to grab him. Suddenly, that same Doombot was stabbed through the neck by Lady Deathstrike's claws.

"Can't believe we're resorting to this." Deathstrike muttered before turning to the children. "I suppose you are looking for those Gems, correct? Go, we'll handle things from here."

As the pair continued running, Avalanche and Pyro appeared beside Yuriko to fight. With a confident nod, Avalanche stomped his foot and caused the castle to cave in on the robots, crushing them to bits.

As for Pyro, he was busy melting more Doombots into liquid metal, which gave the Blob an opening to run them all over with his immense girth.

"Oy, wait up ya squirts!" Juggernaut yelled as he bolted through the wall, covered in Doombot remains. Behind him, Toad and Mystique joined the massive mutate as Steven & Kitty finally reached the front of the castle, where the Crystal Gems, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the X-Force, Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver were waiting.

"Steven!" Pearl yelled excitedly as she wrapped her arms around Steven, and Garnet, Amethyst & Connie followed suit. "We were so worried sick, are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Steven answered. "He just took some samples of my blood and saliva, that's all."

"Steven, long time no see!" Spider-Man cried, giving the half-Gem a high five.

"Peter, Wanda, Pietro!" Steven replied, seeing the web-slinger along with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

"Ah, so you brought my children along?" Magneto asked as he suddenly appeared behind Steven with the Brotherhood behind him. "How quaint."

"Magneto!" Wolverine yelled, and he and the X-Men got ready for a fight, but then Xavier strolled in on his wheelchair. "Uh, Chuck?"

"Erik." Charles politely greeted his archrival.

"Charles." Erik replied in kind. "It seems we are once again at a point where we must align our interests for a common good."

"Indeed it is." The Professor examined thoughtfully.

"Uh, I guess this is pretty common, right?" Amethyst asked the pair of elderly mutants.

"Quite so Amethyst." Xavier declared. "Now then, what brought you to turn on Doom?"

"It was that boy there." Magneto revealed while pointing at Steven. "He convinced me that I could never allow a fellow mutant to be harmed, and I allowed him and Ms. Pryde to flee while I contended with Doom."

On that topic, the Frightful Four rose up to strike back against the Gems. "Et tu Magneto?!" the Mole Man yelled. "Well, we'll see who has the last laugh when the doctor comes for you all!"

Just then, loud mechanical wheezes and groans came from deeper within the castle. Everybody gathered turned back to the front gates and decided to go inside, hoping to see what was up.

--

"That helmeted fool shall rue the day he ever crossed me!" Doctor Doom muttered hatefully to himself as he tended to a massive machine until a security screen brought up the Ultimate Alliance making their way through his castle, now joined by the Brotherhood of Mutants. "Excellent." Doom purred before he pressed a few buttons on one of his metal gauntlets, causing the machines to turn on. "If Steven won't let me have that gem, I'll rip it from his corpse!"

Four gigantic purple and blue robots slowly stood up straight as their eyes began glowing four different colors, blue, red, green and white. The Sentinels Victor had been waiting to complete were finally ready, and he couldn't be happier to unleash them on his foes.

--

Phew, so glad I finally finished this! This took ages to write, since I intended to finish this chapter in February but then Alternate Future and college got in the way, plus I'm starting to get a little burned out since I have to balance two massive Steven Universe fanfictions. Hopefully I can at least get the next story started in the summer. But I'm getting ahead of myself, sorry to keep you waiting!