ya_assemble | [AI] Cold Reboot

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[AI] Cold Reboot

Something had hurt him. He wasn't sure what. He had been doing something. Something something. Getting something for someone. Home. Getting something for home?

He remember crumpled flowers in a puddle in an alley. Broken brick. A fight. He'd staggered around and fought. A suffocating feeling over his face. Energy pouring out. Molten brick, burning the flowers, vaporizing the puddle. He'd gotten free but the world had shattered into a million confusing crystalline shards. So many voices, perspectives, alien images and words in his head.

Crumpled flowers. They were important. They'd belonged to someone. After that, the voices told him to hide. They were broken like him, all of them.

SYSTEM FAILURE +++ ERROR ERROR +++ WORLDMIND GESTALT DATA CORRUPTED +++ REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

They tried so many times to fix themselves to fix him but something was wrong. So the voices told him to hide, to survive. It was still looking for him, trying to take him. The star.

"Star tryin' t'take me," the man said to the older woman doling out soup at the soup kitchen. "Told me to hide. Voices tol' me to hide. Starfish, bad starfish."

He trusted the old woman. For some reason. Something about her face. White hair, reminded him of someone. Another older woman. Flowers.

"I lost the flowers, ma, I'm sorry," he said to her. "But the star - the star got me. Now the voices're saying to hide. Voices."

"Oh, you poor dear," said the woman. "Why don't you sit over there, young man? I'm going to get someone to help you, okay? We have someone on staff here, they're going to talk to you to get you some help."

"Help," he echoed back, taking the bowl of soup gratefully, going over to sit where the woman had pointed him. "Help. Help me."

Someone could help him. Faces. Floating spheres and pink light. Fire. Winged feet. Black and red. Faces. There were people that could help him, good people, but he didn't know how to call them. Couldn't remember their names.

"Help me," he said into his bowl of soup. "Wish you were here, Pete. Always know what to do when things are broken."

They were stuck like this. Surviving. Him and the voices. They didn't know what to do, how to get help. All of them were too confused, too addled, splitting and blending.

REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

"Restart. Need to restart," he said, in between spoonfuls of soup. "How? How do I...? No button. Can't use a button. How? Why can't you tell me? Brother. Brother could. Where's my brother?"

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The woman was back and she had a woman with her, a kindly faced black woman.

"Is this him, May?"

"Yes," the old woman said. "He was saying something about voices. He doesn't seem to be aware of where he is."

"Sir, I'm Linda Glassman, I'm a social worker, can you tell me your name?"

A name. He needed a name. Not his. He was almost sure he knew his but his name had to be secret.

Secret and safe. Secret.

"Ko-Rel," he said. "Ko-rel. Name's Ko-Rel."

That was a name? That was one of his names.

"Okay, Karl. Karl, do you know where you are?" asked the social worker. "And what day it is?"

"City. Big city. Big. Not home. Used to be home, not home anymore. Long island? Crash...crashpad. Space."

A pause. "Not in space. I was in space. I was in space with the green men but I came back and then the starfish. It broke it. Broke...broke the voices."

Broke the minds, all minds, every mind.

"It broke the voices in my head."

He reached up his hand to push it through his oily, messy hair, now grown out too long. Against regs.

"Can't - can't think. Too many voices. We're all so confused. I. I am confused. I'm in charge. But they're broken, I'm broken. We're all broken. Because of the starfish."

"Okay, Karl, listen to me, right now you're at the 8th street soup kitchen in Old New York. We're going to get you some help, okay? There's a halfway house program here with doctors that can give you some medication to make the voices to go away," said the social worker, reaching out for his arm.

The man recoiled from her, away from her touch.

"No. No no no. You can't take the voices away. Need the voices. Worldmind. Keep it safe. I promised."

He jumped out of his seat.

"My voices. They helped me. They help me. Safe. Kept my mind safe. From the starfish. They broke. I keep them safe now. Keep them safe."

He pointed to himself.

"Saved it all. I saved the world. This world, all worlds, the whole galaxy. I saved the whole galaxy, ma'am, you have to understand and the voices helped me do it. Saved 'em. From the bugs. Crawling - I still see the pictures in my head. All the dying, the civilians dying. From the bugs, from the machines. I saved - I saved so much and they helped, I have to keep them. I even tried to arrest Galactus. Extra hours. I gave them."

The social worker and Aunt May both backed away from the man, in case he was about to get violent. Two of the larger volunteers hovered nearby on standby, just in case the man needed to be tackled so he didn't hurt someone.

One of the other vagrants moved away from the man, taking his tray with him, whispering to another vagrant.

"Guy just said he tried to arrest Galactus. Bonkers. Steer clear."

"I'm sure you did a very good job, Karl," said the social worker. "Helping save everyone, but now we're going to help you, okay? We have some doctors that can help you. We just need you to sit down and calm down and we'll be able to get you some help."

"No no, no doctors. No, you don't understand. It's help but the wrong help. Friends. I need friends. My friends."

He slammed his hand down on the table, overturning the bowl of soup, energy radiating out from it.

The table started to melt under his fingers, molten orange and yellow, the smell of scorched plastic filling the air.

"You should call the Avengers. I need the Avengers."

The Avengers were good, they always helped. Captain America, right?

"Or is it the Defenders? I can't - I can't -"

He staggered away, trying to get towards the door.

"Oh dear lord, call the authorities now, tell them we have a mentally ill meta here," the social worker directed one of the volunteers. The various homeless in the kitchen all got up and backed away as the man staggered towards the door.

"Sir! Sir, we need you to stay put. Sir, why don't you come with me and sit down? You don't want to hurt anyone, do you? Why don't you come sit down?"

Edited 2015-03-27 06:22 (UTC)

"Nope. Need to leave," the man said, staring at the energy radiating from his hand. "Need to go. Civilians. Too many civilians."

He started to move faster for the door.

"Ka-teh khan-sol v'eh! Kvth ten-sul kletch ta-va!" he called out.

Had to leave. Civilians. Losing control. It was hard to keep control. He got upset and then split at the seams. Had to leave before he did any damage.

He rushed for the door, pulling the collar of his filthy trench coat closed tight, staggering out into the afternoon sun.

"Poor thing, who do you think he was?" asked May. "I caught a glimpse of what looked like a costume under his coat. There was something...familiar about him. I swear I've seen a superhero with a costume like that on the news before."

"I don't know, but whoever he is, I hope the Avengers get here to deal with him soon," said Glassman, staring at the table, which had melted and collapsed in on itself in a heap of molten plastic.

The man staggered out into Central Park, trying to figure out where to go, what to do. His eyes started to glow as he got more frustrated, and occasionally energy leaped out from his hands to scorch the ground or nearby trees and bushes.

"Not getting anywhere. We keep going in circles. We have to fix this. Can't keep going on like this. Starfish. Starfish will get us."

Between the people in the park calling the Avengers and Defenders hotlines and the police phoning the call in, it wasn't long before both teams sent someone in to respond.

The report was that there was some kind of mentally ill metahuman indigent melting and blowing up things in Old New York's Central Park, but the Defenders and Avengers responding would find far more than they bargained for when they actually arrived.

"Target located." Getting to Central Park was quick. Pinning down the exact location of the threat was quicker, given the energy spikes that kept lighting up his sensors. The energy outputs were enormous in bursts, though there'd be moments of silence in between. What was going on?

"His energy output is fluctuating wildly, though. Attempting to identify."

They were going to have to be careful with this guy, or take him out quick. But given how public this was, Nate guessed option A was going to be Osborn's first choice.

"That's gravimetric energy," Osborn said, as it registered on the sensors of his suit. As they dropped into view of the man, staggering through the park, Osborn let out a little knowing "A-ha."

"Ms. Marvel, if I'm correct about this man's identity, I believe you've run into the target before while he was unmasked. Does he look familiar to you?"

Moonstone grinned a wicked grin. "Yessir, that looks like Nova. He had an altercation with the Thunderbolts a few years back. Oh, I'm going to enjoy this."

She moved as if she was going to fly in on the attack.

"Hang on," Osborn urged her, "We don't want to provoke him. If he's suffering from some kind of mental instability, it would be far better for the safety of everyone involved to bring him in peacefully and see to it that he's given specialized care with whatever he's suffering from."

Specialized care that involved trying to pry the Nova Force out of him.

"Let's try to reason with the man first. By all accounts, he's some kind of hero up in space. We shouldn't treat someone who's protected the planet like a villain, should we?"

Osborn flew down towards Nova, hovering in the air above him.

"Nova, I'm the Iron Patriot, leader of the Avengers. We need you to stand down, son. Your powers are out of control. We'd like to bring you in to give you treatment for whatever it is that you're suffering from. We're here to help you."

"Cap?" Nova said, looking up the red, white, and blue design of Iron Patriot's suit. "No. Not right. You don't...you don't look right. I seen you. I seen you before, I-"

He looked over at Nate and scowled.

"What are you doing here, Stark? $%#@ off. Lousy..."

God, he hated the guy. He remembered that much.

Or was it him?

"You got shorter," he said, confused. Then he shook his head and looked at them pleadingly. The rest of them looked familiar. Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, some of the other side's heroes. "The voices. Worldmind. He's - the starfish broke it. Broke the voices. Too many voices. Tried to reboot, can't get Worldmind to reboot right.."

He held his hands to his head, tugging slightly at his hair, energy spilling out of the vents in his suit, causing the trenchcoat to burn away.

"I don't - I don't know where I am -"

Edited 2015-03-28 06:20 (UTC)

Nate wasn't sure whether he should pretend to be Stark or not, for this guy's sake. He seemed to dislike Tony, which, frankly, a lot of people disliked Tony. Hence why, after the Skrull invasion, many were happy to have a new Iron Man.

For now, he decided to be ambiguous about it.

"You're on earth. In New York City; Central Park, to be exact." Nate edged closer, moving slowly as to not spook Nova. "We want to help you, Nova, but first we need you to calm down. You're spilling energy everywhere."

"Worldmind usually helps me regulate the Nova Force. Worldmind's down. Something - starfish attacked us. Fragmented. Data's corrupted, data - rebooting over and over. Reboot. Can't - my head's filled with it. Fire in my head. So much fire. I can't stand it."

The suit's sensors were still feeding him info in endless streams he could barely parse but he caught a bit of it and his head jolted up in alarm. He pointed at Moonstone.

"You've got the wrong powers. You're not Ms. Marvel. Gravimetrics. I've read you before - you're Moonstone."

He charged both hands with energy, though he kept it under control. Barely.

"You and the Thunderbolts attacked me before. Surrounded by civilians." He looked around the park, trying to see if any were close, that might be at risk. There were some in the park, though most of them were vacating the area. "We've got civilians here. Not here, you lunatics!"

He flew into the air, trying to make a quick escape, so he could at least get away from the city and any civilized areas.

Edited 2015-03-28 06:51 (UTC)

"Avengers, move in!" Osborn called out. "Don't let him get away!"

Great. Juuuuust great.

"On it!"

Nate flew off after Nova, hoping to catch up with him before he got too far.

"Nova! Stand down!"

"Nova!" cried out a voice and then a man appeared right in front of where he'd been around to fly, making him pause in the air. "Nova, our minds are now linked, heed my thoughts. Your mind has been damaged. You must stand down before you cause harm to yourself or others."

It was the Martian Manhunter and he wasn't alone. Justice, Ricochet, and Hulkling had been dispatched with him to help bring Nova in.

Edited 2015-03-28 07:48 (UTC)

The words accidentally echoed the words Rich had heard when he first became Nova, beamed into it his mind by the Centurion that had given him his power.

"Rhomann Dey?" he said, his expression lost. "I tried. I tried to fix it - it's too much. Too much fire inside me. Just a little tiny piece and I was a human rocket but now, now it's all of it and the voices broke. Starfish - broke Worldmind, broke it. Fire inside me, burning me up from the inside out, I can't -"

Another burst of energy poured out from his hands and from the vents in his suit. His eyes started to glow with crackling energy.

"I can't stand it! I can't stand it! Fire - fire inside my head and the voice won't stop but they don't say anything that makes sense!"

Edited 2015-03-28 07:51 (UTC)

"We can help you but you must calm yourself."

J'onn reached out a hand and touched Nova's head.

"Rest now."

Nova's eyes rolled back into his head and he started to drop like a brick but J'onn caught him, gently holding him as he started to hover back down towards the ground.

"The gestalt consciousness that his mind is a host to has been damaged by some sort of psionic attack," he said to the other Defenders. "A crude one, at that, the equivalent of a child taking a hammer to it and his psyche. I should be able to help him by aiding Worldmind in successfully rebooting."

He turned to the Avengers.

"We will take over from here," he informed them.

"You don't have jurisdiction here. He is a class twelve threat and clearly unstable. He'll be coming with us," Osborn said. "We have the proper specialists and facilities to help him recover - and make sure he doesn't cause himself or anyone else harm."

Osborn looked over at Ricochet and Justice.

"After all, the last thing the world needs is another out-of-control New Warrior, especially one at his power level."

Edited 2015-03-28 08:02 (UTC)

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