Devil Dinosaur

“Make way, nerds!” Deadpool shouted as he burst through the doors of the Baxter Building’s research lab. “Deadpool’s here… and he brought a friend!”

Behind Deadpool, a giant red dinosaur ducked his enormous head down so that he could fit through the lab’s entryway. Despite his terrifying presence, the prehistoric beast’s energy seemed far more reserved than the man who had just walked in before him.

Reed Richards looked up from his work, completely ignoring Deadpool as he stretched his elasticized neck across the room to take a closer look at the thunder lizard. The leader of the Fantastic Four couldn’t help but smile when he recognized the anachronistic animal.

“Devil,” Mister Fantastic said. “It’s been far too long, old friend. How have you been? And… where is Lunella…?”

Devil Dinosaur hung his head at the mention of his longtime partner’s name. He wanted to tell Reed all about how he and Moon Girl had been fighting crime in Manhattan’s Lower East Side when the Timestream Entanglement created a rift in time and space that sent the dynamic duo spiraling in opposite directions across the Chronoverse. He wanted to explain how he had ended up alone in the Collector’s Gallery, only to be set free by Deadpool during a heist gone terribly wrong. He wanted to explain how he’d returned to his home timeline and had been living on Staten Island as a citizen of Deadpool’s new Monster Kingdom ever since. He wanted to say how he hadn’t seen Moon Girl in far too long and was desperately worried about her, and that he’d been searching for signs of her every second since he got back. But Lunella was usually the one who did the talking for him, so all that Devil could do was let out a forlorn grumble.

“Eh. Who needs a pre-teen genius as a BFF when you’ve got me?” Deadpool asked, totally oblivious to his reptilian companion’s emotional plight.

“A bond like the one that Devil and Moon Girl share is rare, Wade,” Mister Fantastic said. “It’s almost like they’re two halves of the same whole.”

“No wonder the big fella’s been so restless,” Deadpool said. “He’s just been pacing around on the picturesque shores of Staten Island, letting out these sad howls. But hey, at least they’re loud enough to drown out the constant buzzing coming from that annoying collar of his!”

“His collar…?” Mister Fantastic asked curiously.

“Oh, right!” Deadpool said. “I forgot to mention, that’s the whole reason we took the ferry over to see you. I can’t figure out how the heck to turn this stupid thing off!”

“Hmmm… Let me see…” Mister Fantastic said as he began to tinker with the high-tech device strapped onto Devil’s neck. “Some sort of cross-dimensional beacon! Lunella has always been decades ahead of her time when it comes to her designs. She repurposes everyday technology into extraordinary things. I can’t even begin to imagine what she could achieve with unlimited resources at her fingertips…”

“Wanna find out, Dr. Richards?” a voice unexpectedly replied from the speaker on Devil’s collar.

A wide smile instantly spread across Devil Dinosaur’s face, revealing the countless sharp teeth inside his massive mouth.

“The Dinosaur can talk?” Deadpool said to himself. “I really did not expect him to sound so cute and sassy…”

“Lunella!” Mister Fantastic exclaimed, speaking directly into Devil’s collar. “I’m glad to hear your voice.”

“Yours, too, Doc,” Moon Girl responded, “but I ain’t gonna lie, it’s my baby boy Double-D that I’m most excited to hear!”

Devil Dinosaur let out a joyous bellow in response to his partner’s words.

“Miss you, too, Dev,” Moon Girl said. “It’s been tough out here without you… Way tougher than I expected…”

“Are you safe?” Mister Fantastic asked, concerned for his young ally’s wellbeing.

“I mean, safe-ish,” Moon Girl said. “As safe as anyone can be when they’re being retained against their will by a futuristic megacorporation that’s trying to strip-mine other timelines for their resources.”

“Alchemax,” Mister Fantastic said knowingly. “Of course they’re involved. They’re the ones behind the disruption in Lower Manhattan. As soon as their tower arrived in our timeline, everything began to unravel at an alarming rate.”

“Yeah… well…” Moon Girl said, a bit of embarrassment in her voice, “I may have had a little bit to do with the whole ‘Time Plague’ thing. I was trapped in the future and forced to work on Alchemax’s experiments. I swear I was just trying to find a way back home… but I may have miscalculated ever-so-slightly…”

“As we all do on occasion,” Mister Fantastic assured his friend. “At least the widespread chronal fluctuations have been contained… for now…”

“Hold up… Did you say ‘Alchemax’?” Deadpool asked. “I was just talking to Rogue the other day and she told me that she and her Uncanny X-Pals were unexpectedly attacked by a bunch of weird duplicates of themselves. Pretty sure she said that it was Alchemax who made them.”

“They were part of Alchemax’s top-secret ‘Corporate Raiders’ initiative,” Moon Girl said. “It was the company’s effort to create a strikeforce of super-powered soldiers loyal to the brand. But their test run didn’t exactly go as planned. The X-Men kinda mopped the floor with ‘em. Turns out, no matter how much you technologically enhance a clone, it still can’t beat the real thing!”

“Sure… sure…” Deadpool agreed. “Do you know if they’re planning on using them anymore? Because, if not, there’s no reason to let perfectly good doppelgangers go to waste. I’ve got a whole island full of monsters to feed, after all…”

“Gross,” Moon Girl said as Devil let out a disgusted snarl.

“Fine,” Deadpool said. “Probably better that way. There are way too many variants running around already. Plus, the real X-Men are still pretty miffed about the whole thing. I heard they’re planning a strike on Alchemax HQ.”

“They aren’t the only ones,” Mister Fantastic insisted. “I’ve been gathering allies as well, working on a strategy to eliminate the chronal disruption at its source.”

“Well, as the girl currently sitting right at the center of that source,” Moon Girl said, “I think we need to be super careful about how we play this. There’s a lot of power here that we’re only just beginning to figure out how to harness. There’s this endless energy source that Alchemax managed to tap into. They call it the ‘Punch Dimension’…”

“I’m familiar with it,” Mister Fantastic said. “A reality of pure and unlimited concussive force. I thought it was merely theoretical…”

“The verdict is still out, but they aren’t going to fool me with that theory!” Moon Girl replied. “They’ve got Cyclops trapped here with me and I’m almost positive it’s his concussive energy we’re using. At first, he was trying to save me from Alchemax, but now he’s been fueling most of the experiments here. And I’m pretty sure it’s not by his choice. Anyway, we even managed to infuse some samples of Chronovium with some of that energy. You wouldn’t believe how much it kicks up a crystal’s power levels!”

“You’re right,” Deadpool said. “Based on the place’s name, I would’ve thought it’d punch it up instead.”

“Do you have any data from your analysis of this crystalline variant?” Mister Fantastic asked.

“I’m uploading it to Dev’s collar now,” Moon Girl replied. “For scientists from the future, the Alchemax research time is nowhere near our level, so it’ll be nice to finally have another certifiable genius take a look at it.”

“I guess I could spare a few seconds to read it over…” Deadpool said.

Mister Fantastic connected a cable to Devil Dinosaur’s collar, linking it to the lab’s main computer. Instantly, a string of complex equations began to scroll across the screen.

“Interesting,” Mister Fantastic said, studying the numbers closely. “This could actually be the key to solving a much larger problem.”

“I hope so, Doc,” Moon Girl replied, “because so far, Alchemax is just planning to use this stuff to cause more of them.”

“Ooh! I can almost see the wheels turning in that big brain of yours, Reed,” Deadpool said. “What’s the plan?”

“Tony Stark and I have been working on perfecting our designs for the TRD,” Mister Fantastic began.

“Right,” Deadpool nodded, “good ol’ Trudy. What is that again? It’s been a few seasons…”

“The Timestream Reintegration Device,” Mister Fantastic continued. “It was meant to mend the damage done to the fabric of reality by the Timestream Entanglement, restoring the remaining alternate dimensions to their proper positions in the Multiverse. But though our designs were sound, we struggled to find a reliable energy source.”

“And you think the Punch Chronovium might do the trick?” Moon Girl asked.

“Indeed,” Mister Fantastic replied.

“It does have the power to rip holes between dimensions,” Moon Girl agreed. “That probably means it’s got enough juice to patch ‘em back up, too. But I’ve seen plenty of your inventions, Reed. They aren’t exactly known for being portable. And for this plan to really work, we’d need to bring your TRD into Alchemax HQ so I could plug it directly into the power supply.”

“Couldn’t you just build it in there yourself?” Deadpool asked.

“They’re keeping a pretty close eye on me,” Moon Girl said. “They might not notice me reaching out to you on an encrypted frequency, but they’d definitely see if I started building an unapproved piece of tech. So it’s gonna have to be assembled out there and smuggled in.”

“I’m not sure I can reduce the size of the device any further than I already have…” Mister Fantastic admitted.

“Leave that part to me,” Moon Girl said. “I once made a warp engine out of my dad’s old cassette player.”

“I once made a life-size statue of myself out of mashed potatoes!” Deadpool said proudly, desperate to be part of the conversation.

“Even if we did manage to create a portable TRD,” Mister Fantastic said, “it’s highly unlikely we’d be able to get it inside of Alchemax’s tower safely.”

“You’re almost right about that part,” Moon Girl said. “This place is a fortress with its own army of security guards and some of the most advanced defense systems available in the year 2099. It’s almost impregnable.”

“Trust me,” Deadpool interjected uncomfortably, “anything is pregnable. Just ask the Brood…”

“Luckily, though, you’ve got a girl on the inside,” Moon Girl continued. “I can hack into the defense grid and coordinate your efforts. All you gotta do is keep the Alchemax enforcers and their Public Eye pals occupied while someone gets the TRD to my workshop. And I know just the fella for the job! Whaddaya think, Dev? You up ready to come back to mama?”

“I’m not sure I like that plan,” Deadpool said. “I know you and Devil go way back, but the big lug’s grown on me since he came to stay in my Monster Kingdom. And making him a target like that seems like too big of a risk. I mean, he’s tough… but not ‘step directly into the line of fire against a battalion of futuristic soldiers’ tough.”

“You’re not wrong,” Moon Girl said. “But if we armored Devil up, there’s nothing from any timeline that could stop him. I whipped him up a suit once before, and he could take hits that would’ve knocked out the Thing!”

“I’d appreciate if you could send me the schematics for that armor, Lunella,” Mister Fantastic said. “I’d be glad to construct an upgraded version for Devil. And when you come up with the specs for the miniaturized TRD, I can incorporate it directly into the suit as well.”

“And then, once Dev delivers it to me,” Moon Girl replied, “I can manually fine-tune its parameters and tap into the Punch Chronovium to undo all of the damage it’s caused.”

“And if that works as planned,” Mister Fantastic added, “then we can scale up our efforts and finally fix everything.”

“While you guys are busy buildin’ the MacGuffins,” Deadpool said, “Devil and I can rally the troops and get them ready for the big battle ahead.”

“Sounds good,” Moon Girl said. “But no rush. This might take a while…”

“Ooh!” Deadpool squealed. “I feel a time jump coming on! Flash forward to —”

SEVERAL DAYS LATER.

“Told ya,” Deadpool said, entering the Baxter Building’s lab once again, now followed by a large group of heroes from across realities and timelines — X-Men, Avengers, and more.

“Ah, good,” Mister Fantastic said. “I’ve just put the finishing touches on Devil’s Chrono-Armor. And the portable TRD is assembled, installed, and ready to deliver to Moon Girl.”

Devil let out an eager snarl when he heard his partner’s name.

“Don’t worry, Devil,” Mister Fantastic assured him. “Once we’re done, you and Lunella will finally be back together.”

“Alchemax did a number on my timeline. And now that I’m out from the Vault, it’s back to the mission. But if we get to rescue an innocent kid along the way, even better…” the Punisher said as he looked over at the massive creature. “Whaddya say, Big Red? You ready to go to war?” As his new armor finished locking into place around his giant frame, Devil Dinosaur let out a roar that shook the entire room.

“Then let’s blow this taco stand and get ready to blast our way into Alchemax HQ!” Deadpool cheered enthusiastically.

Devil was well-aware of the danger that awaited him and his fellow heroes, but no one from any era was going to keep him from finally being reunited with Moon Girl after all this time. And anyone who tried was about to regret that decision for the rest of their very short lives!