The Start of Something New (August 2012)

“Hmm, I think this is going to be difficult to figure anything out. Plan ‘B’,” he said and rolled over the emergency crash cart. “Unfortunately I’m going to have to attach these leads to you. Can you take off your shirt?” he asked. He knew she might feel awkward about it but he was her father. When she did he attached the white, red and blue leads to her shoulders, her chest, stomach and temples.

“Ok, what these will do for us is tell us if your body is cannibalizing your own energy reserves. What we want is for the gauntlets to be so efficient that you do not use your internal energy ok?” he asked. When she nodded he directed her to stand away from him so it was just her and the crash cart. Remotely he would be able to read the telemetry from a small monitor near him. He tested first with the laser outside of her shield. That appeared to work. Her shield, because she was actively creating it was able to absorb energy. The gauntlets began to collect the energy, store it and use it to keep the shield up. He turned the laser down and continued to turn it down until it looked like her body was beginning to show signs it was using its own energy and then turned the laser as far as it would go. The problem here was that once the gauntlets and her body took in all the energy she could handle the shield began to grow. It knocked over the laser first then he had to jump free of where he sat as it knocked over his work table. When the laser fell though the power was cut off and she was able to shut down the shield. Prior to that she found she couldn’t shut it down nor control how it expanded. The excess energy had to go somewhere and because she was creating a shield, thats where it went.

They tried to repeat that to see if she could lower the shield and produce an energy blast but she couldn’t. If she didn’t make a shield, energy crackled around her and dissipated into the room. Unfortunately that energy charged other things nearby and the different components he had near her began to pop and burn out as if an energy surge had passed through them. He had to use a fire extinguisher to put out the small fires.

After everything was settled and Serena put her shirt back on Tony took off the gauntlets. “Well, that was some helpful information Serena. Not a wasted first try at all,” He said. “I’ll have to confer with Peter on our findings but I’ll have to explain it to him, we’ve destroyed the video camera drone,” he said as he looked at where it landed. It smoldered on the floor nearby.