Children of Earths (Multicross in Ice Age Fantasy) 1 (Patreon)

Date Unknown

Location Unknown

Late Afternoon, 2 Hours Post Arrival

Antoinette “Toni” Stark carefully modulated her repulsor’s output before pointing her palm at the bundle of sticks, twigs, and bark fibers. Firing with the lowest setting she’s ever used, Toni smirked as the kindling caught fire.

“Who was it that said I wouldn’t be able to start us a fire? Hmm?” Toni asked with a smirk as she turned to the four other people in the cave with her. She only kind of recognized one of them, in that they resembled someone from before she found herself in the forest outside.

“I never said you wouldn’t,” the blonde woman dressed in pure patriotic red, white, and blue colors with the iconic shield responded. “I said that I didn’t think my Stark had ever had to start one in his life.”

“Suuuure. Anyway,” Toni turned and hollered back towards the far end of the cave. “How’s Tintin looking back there?”

“Still unconscious,” the voice of a predominantly brunette teen with a stripe of white hollered back, followed by the honey tones of a woman in her thirties.

“No signs of a concussion, and REM indicates that he’s experiencing some sort of dream or vision. We’ll be able to find out more when he wakes up,” the woman in low-key armor, like a bat-themed mix of Cap and Thor’s back home, said as she walked up to the front of the cave.

“Assuming that he knows anything more about what’s going on here than us,” Toni pointed out, gesturing to the unconscious boy with a soldering pen she’d pulled out from the tool kit she kept in her armor.

The bat-focused brunette gave a nod, conceding the point, as there was a cloud of blue-black smoke at the entrance to the cave before the final member of their odd collective returned. If she was feeling less than generous, Toni’d say that she looked like a blue furred, adorable demoness.

“No sign of civilization, just forest and mountain,” she reported as she stepped close to the now strong fire.

“Unfortunate, but given the complete lack of any sort of radio signals not too surprising,” Toni mused as they started consolidating their combined food and water resources. Most of it was from girly Cap and bat chick, but the hardware store bag that Tintin had next to him had a candy bar and a box of potatoes meant for planting. Which, depending on how long the six of them were stuck there would come in rather handy, but not in the immediate future.

“So… shelter and warmth are solved,” skunk hair girl said, to break the quiet. “My name’s Dani D’Ancanto, while in the field I’m called Badger. I’m a mutant, I heal fast, have weak parasitic powers, and can pop two claws from each hand.”

She held up her left hand, two foot long metal blades extending from between her knuckles to illustrate her last point. Adori-demoness blinked in surprise, “Wait, are you Logan and Rogue’s daughter?”

“I am, I’m guessing your last name is Wagner? You look like someone that spent time at the Institute for a little while.”

“Javol, my name is Katharina Wagner, Rogue is my sister. It is… strange to think of her having a child with Logan, since we are still in high school. But I’m a member of the X-Men, and am called Nightcrawler.”

“Sounds like we’re all from different Earths,” Girly Cap said aloud, rubbing at her chin.

“Either that or Steve Rogers got a lot less masculine since the last time I saw him,” Toni couldn’t resist quipping.

“Stephanine Rogers, also known as Captain America, but I go by either Steph or Cap.”

“Toni Stark, the Iron Maiden, and no I’m not telling you what it’s short for.”

Cap… Steph chuckled with a knowing glint in her eye, but didn’t say anything as the last conscious member of their group carefully looked at each of them, before saying, “Brenda Wayne. Batwoman.”

Conversation petered out after that, as the five women took collective stock of the supplies that they had between them as clouds rolled in from the south. Toni had her Mark XLIX armor (just another week and she’d have had the prototype of the Mark L ready) along with her mini tool kit she’d started incorporating into every suit ever since the fiasco with Killian. Steph had her shield (which to Toni’s surprise wasn’t vibranium, but something called ‘proto-adamantium’, whatever that was) and a small collection of boy scout type emergency supplies and tools. Dani and Katharina just had the clothes on their back.

But Wayne… a grapple gun with over a hundred feet of line, bat-shaped throwing stars, smoke bombs, lock picks, handcuffs, a taser, fifty MRE pellets, collapsible gas mask, knock-out gas, mini-explosives, flashlight, cutting laser, glue pellets, bolas, electronic scanner, an ultrasonic beacon that attracted bats, cryo-grenades, napalm packets, thermite charges, a small packet of pellets labeled “Crane”, a compass, water purification packets, and a lead box that she refused to open.

“You know,” Toni mused as she looked over the collection of tools from the utility belt. “Gimme a day or two back home and I could probably whip up a micro fabricator sized for that armor of yours that would let you make most of this on the fly.”

Wayne shook her head, “I’d considered it, power requirements are too intensive and any sort of power source that could run it would be an unacceptable weak spot.”

Toni shrugged, Wayne seemed to be more the ninja type anyway, “Your loss.”

As the group started setting up makeshift beds, there was a crack of thunder outside, soon followed by the gentle patter of rain on rock. Toni quietly sighed, looking out past the cave entrance. Thankfully the slope of the entrance didn’t result in them getting flooded. The crink of leather and kevlar made Toni glance at Steph as she sat next to her.

“No offense, but seeing you is going to take some getting used to,” Toni stated.

“None taken, it’s the same for me,” the blonde super soldier said. “I think the first words out of Tony’s mouth when we met was something about my chest being in remarkable shape for an eighty five year old.”

Toni snorted, “I think I told Steve that he was pretty hunky for spending seventy years as a Cap-cicle.”