"Where does this go?"
"To the blue connector my lord." Valeria said as she gestured to where I was supposed to insert the cable. Which was on the back of the metal slab that had empowered Jennifer to She-Hulk, except the one strapped down on it now was Sterns; trying to say something through the tape we put on his mouth.
Not that we cared.
"Are you sure that this will work friend Damian?" Hercules asked as he carried a generator to the room while looking at Sterns. "I do not mean to doubt your or friend Valeria's intelligence but can this machine, which was designed to empower someone with Gamma, really be modified to do the reverse so easily?"
"Pretty sure." I said with a shrug. "I mean, even if it doesn't work or if it explodes, it's not like we're risking anything important." I said with a smile as Sterns started to thrash harder. "Just not sure what we're going to do with the Gamma. Just leaving it laying around doesn't sound too smart."
"Definitely not." Valeria said as she fiddled with the mini computer on her arm. "I propose that we keep it in reserve and train animals to obey our every commands before using the gamma to enhance them and create our own army."
"I propose that we don't let Valeria have it." Storm said with a frown directed at the cute little maniac of our group before turning to Hulk, who was holding the still unconscious She-Hulk in his arms. "The best option is to wait until Doctor Banner is back in control and ask him for his expertise."
"Speaking of asking, I have a question." I said with a frown as I turned to them. "What happened to those clowns that Herc here was so proud about ditching? And am I the only one weirded out about how they didn't come knocking here already?"
"You do not have to worry my lord." Valeria piped up with a satisfied expression. "When Sterns tried to teleport out, I had the systems target those two instead of him. Vapor and Vector are in his safe house. Though I doubt they will remain there for too long."
"And where is this safe house?"
"South Pole." Valeria said with a shrug as she held up the remote Sterns had tried to use. "As far as I can understand, it's a relay point. Whenever he uses this device to teleport, he arrives at the safe house and is then sent to his target location or he just stays there."
"Guess this means we won't see those two for a while." I said with a frown. The thought of two supers with a possible grudge against us just walking around freely did not sit right with me.
Especially since I had, probably, rendered their teammate and I really didn't want to deal with the remaining U-Foes becoming recurring villains of my story.
"The conversion device is ready." Valeria called out. "Beginning the process... now." And then she pulled down a lever and Sterns' cries and struggles grew even more frantic as green arcs of electricity started to dance around his form and then he began to transform.
I had thought that my prior experience of seeing Bruce Hulk-out had prepared me for any bizarre transformation sequences I would witness but I found myself realizing that I was wrong as huge veins bulged on Stern's equally large forehead before his head started to shrink down.
Like a balloon deflating, the man's head shrunk further and further till it became the size of a normal head. Losing its green color throughout the process till he ended up with a pale skin.
At this moment, Samuel Sterns looked just like any other person you could pick from the streets.
He could only think like them too.
Once one of the smartest beings in the world, he was now back to his old high school dropout janitor intelligence. And going by the tears flowing down his cheeks, I reckoned that he realized that too.
I walked up to him and ripped the tape off of his mouth. Looking down at the former gamma mutate who couldn't even form a single coherent word. Whether that was due to his ugly crying and sobs or the possibility that we may have taken all of his intelligence with the draining was unsure.
Yet I found myself uncaring of it.
"Whelp, I think it's time we left for somewhere safer. Preferably somewhere we can have miss Jennifer be calm when she wakes up."
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"How... interesting." Victor von Doom, the ruler of Latveria and the widely recognized by the world as the villain Doctor Doom, said as he watched the recording of one Samuel Sterns, who had arrogantly named himself 'the Leader', losing his gamma enhanced powers.
It was quite amusing to watch, he had always found the man who had his intelligence only because of a freak accident to be a nuisance at best. Though his existence had been quite useful for Doom to practice his self control.
It took a lot of self control to not send the little man to hell whenever he dared to claim himself to be the smartest man in the world.
A ridiculous notion, as the gamma mutate was intellectually inferior to Reed Richards. Which meant he was vastly inferior to Doom in intellect. But still, as he watched the pathetic bug cry over the loss of his powers, Doom decided that the life of Samuel Sterns was not one without value.
He did make Doom laugh with his pathetic act just now after all.
On more important matters, Doom wanted to know who exactly had managed to contact this frequency as it was supposed to be secure with him being the only one who knew how to access it as well as of it's existence.
The blonde girl, who kind of looked like Susan Storm, had looked straight to him through the screen several times. She did also appear to be the smart one and the one who re-engineered the machine to drain Sterns of Gamma radiation. What did the other one call her, Valeria?
It was a beautiful name. Belonging to someone that Doom would be keeping an eye on.
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