The Dragon's Return

by Stan Lee

  “Hey, Maxy!” Steven said. “Surprised to see me?”

  Maxwell stood, glowing. “I’m more surprised to see you,” he said, pointing at Malosi.

  Malosi moved forward, facing Maxwell. “I’ve seen the big picture,” he said.

  Jasmine’s eyes darted from Steven to Malosi and back again. The two stood together, facing Maxwell, their fists clenched in a battle-ready stance. What was Malosi talking about? Had he captured Steven, forced him onto the platform?

  Above Malosi, the white Tiger began to take form. Steven furrowed his brow, and his own Tiger billowed outward to join it. The two Tigers rose up, stared at each other for a moment, and roared in unison.

  Then they came together and merged. The giant energy-cat morphed and twisted in midair, shifting from white to orange, from Malosi’s Tiger to Steven’s and back again.

  Maxwell stared into Malosi’s eyes. “Son,” he began.

  “I am not your son,” Malosi said.

  Jasmine smiled.

  The two Tigers exchanged a glance, then charged.

  Maxwell didn’t step aside, didn’t move to counter their attack. He just stood there, smiling.

  Steven’s mind was racing. There’s two of us, he thought, and only one of him. But he’s the Dragon. Or part Dragon, anyway.

  Before Steven and Malosi had retrieved the jet pack, they’d cut off the power source in the main dome. But there was no way of knowing how much energy Maxwell had already absorbed.

  Once again, time seemed to slow to a crawl. Steven’s limbs pumped slowly, as if he were running through mud. Malosi had slowed down, too.

  Steven looked around frantically. Jasmine was crouched near the shack; Monkey and Snake stood together, watching, and Carlos was near the edge of the platform, staring at his analyzer. All of them were still as statues.

  Only Maxwell was moving. The cruel smile was still planted on his face.

  “Too late,” he said. “You’re too late.”

  Steven tensed for the attack. But instead of turning on them, Maxwell lowered both his arms. He closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and began to glow.

  What’s he doing? Steven wondered.

  Then Maxwell let out a massive burst of Zodiac energy, aimed straight down. The blast passed through the bottom of the platform and stabbed into the main dome.

  Power flashed out in all directions from the central dome, even brighter than before. The energy narrowed, coalescing into five distinct beams reaching out to the remaining smaller domes. They began to glow in response.

  The main dome exploded.

  Time snapped back to normal. The platform lurched, tipping in midair as the shockwave hit it.

  Steven and Malosi stumbled backward and tumbled to the platform’s surface. Jasmine crawled over to them, struggling to keep her balance.

  Malosi climbed to his feet as the platform leveled out. He reached out a hand to help Jasmine up. She hesitated.

  “He’s with us,” Steven said.

  Then Steven saw Maxwell, standing at the center of the platform. His hands were rigid at his sides, aimed down at the remains of the central dome.

  And the power flow had resumed. Energy surged up from the broken dome, radiating from its exposed core in the floor beneath. Twin beams of power stabbed into Maxwell’s hands. The beams were jagged, rough-edged, less sharply focused than before. But they glowed bright.

  Above Maxwell, the Dragon writhed and snarled, growing more solid every moment.

  Steven swallowed. “He doesn’t need the machinery anymore,” he said. “He can absorb the Dragon power all by himself.”

  Down below, the energy feedback continued to spread. Another dome blew open, hurling plastic and metal into the air. A group of soldiers scattered, running to avoid the falling debris.

  Jasmine touched Steven’s arm. “He’s vulnerable,” she said, gesturing at Maxwell. “In a moment he’ll be too strong. You’ve got to stop him now.”

  “She’s right,” Malosi said.

  Steven nodded—

  —and then something stabbed into his neck. He whirled, stumbled, and saw Carlos holding his dart gun.

  Carlos smiled. “My last dart,” he said.

  Even as Steven reached for his neck, he felt a familiar, cold sensation. It’s another blasted power drainer, he realized. Like back in Maxwell’s lab.

  No. This can’t happen now. It can’t!

  But it was. And even worse: when he turned back to Carlos, the scientist was holding the bronze sphere—the jiānyù. Tiger energy began to flow out of Steven and into the sphere.

  Not again, Steven thought. Not again!

  He glanced over at Maxwell—who glowed like a star, his gravity pulling in every trace of the Dragon power. With each passing second, he grew stronger. And Steven grew weaker.

  Steven reached inside his pocket for the qi amplifier and pressed its button. Nothing. It was exhausted, out of power.

  Malosi reached out and slapped the jiānyù out of Carlos’s hand. Carlos cried out as the sphere clattered to the platform—but Steven’s power continued to flow into it.

  “I can stop you,” Malosi said, turning to face Maxwell.

  Maxwell’s eyes glowed bright. He cocked his head one way, then the other. He seemed overwhelmed, dazed by the power.

  “I am father to the world,” Maxwell said. His voice boomed in the air. “And the world needs discipline.”

  On the platform, the jiānyù surged bright.

  Malosi cried out and fell to his knees.

  “No!” Steven yelled. He staggered toward Malosi. But Carlos was standing over the second Tiger, watching as Zodiac energy fled from his body.

  “The drainer’s already inside him,” Carlos said. “We’ve been planning this for a long time. Did you think we’d build a Tiger without giving him an off switch?”

  “Oh,” Maxwell said. “Oh, my.”

  Above him, the Dragon blazed bright. It snarled and reached a wing toward the jiānyù. The bronze sphere lay on the platform, glowing with the full energy of the Tiger.

  Steven watched the jiānyù levitate. As the Dragon beckoned, it swooped up and around, then landed softly in Maxwell’s outstretched hand.

  Like a single being, Maxwell and the Dragon turned to stare at the jiānyù. Again, it began to melt and shift in Maxwell’s hand, morphing into the other Zodiac signs, one by one. The ram. The rooster. The slithering snake. The snorting ox.

  Zodiac power surged from the bronze artifact—leaping through the air like a bolt of electricity. The Dragon opened its mouth to receive the energy.

  Maxwell stiffened. The glow around him doubled in intensity. He stared into the cloud of energy, almost hypnotized by its power.

  Yet another dome exploded below. Fires were breaking out all across the complex. Soldiers rushed around, grabbing fire extinguishers and dragging injured comrades to safety.

  Jasmine touched Steven’s shoulder. He looked over at her in surprise and saw that Malosi was with her. They were both staring at the glowing, reeling Maxwell.

  “What’s happening?” Steven asked. “It looks like the Dragon is taking control of all the other powers.”

  “That’s not all it’s taking control of,” Jasmine said. “We’re about to have an even bigger problem. No time to explain…the point is, he’s disoriented.”

  Malosi grimaced. “We tried attacking him once. And we had the Tiger power then.”

  “I’m not saying this is a good option,” Jasmine replied. “But the rest of the team is being held captive in that shack.”

  Steven thought quickly. “If we provide a distraction, can you free them?”

  Jasmine smiled. Strangely, Steven felt a wave of relief. She seemed like the old Jasmine, the woman who laughed at danger.

  “I’ll do more than that,” she said.

  Steven turned to Malosi. He thought of the blows they’d traded, the vicious battle they’d fought just minutes before, down in the main dome.

  Before we were
Tigers together, he thought. Before we were brothers.

  “Together?” Malosi asked.

  Again, they charged.

  Jasmine ran for the shack—then veered toward Carlos. He turned in surprise as she jabbed a rigid hand into his neck. He made a strangled noise and went down.

  When the Tigers collided with Maxwell, Steven felt like he’d slammed into a wall. The energy, the combined Zodiac power, flared through Steven like a high-voltage shock. He heard Malosi gasp in pain.

  The energy was blinding; Steven couldn’t even see. He felt something hot and metallic brush against his hands. The jiānyù!

  He grabbed it, wrenching it free of Maxwell’s grip. Zodiac signs filled Steven’s field of vision, flickering in and out, winking and shimmering in the thick ion field. The roaring pig, the charging horse, the laughing monkey.

  Maxwell was still on his feet. Still absorbing the energy, Steven thought. Burning out his whole complex, every machine in this base. Whatever it takes to absorb every bit of the Dragon.

  We’ve got to keep pushing. Knock him down, stop him any way we can. Nothing else matters.

  Not even our lives.

  “NO!” Maxwell roared.

  Energy exploded from him, feeding back into the sphere in Steven’s hands. He cried out and threw it in the air. He watched, dazed, as the jiānyù continued to change shape in flight: tiger, rooster, ram. It blazed bright, power flowing back and forth from it to Maxwell, building and glowing like a star—

  The shack exploded.

  Steven blacked out.

  When he came to seconds later, Roxanne was helping him up. “Welcome back, boss,” she said.

  Steven looked around. Roxanne stood with Liam, Duane, Ox, and Jasmine. Malosi stood just past them, over Carlos’s unconscious form.

  Maxwell was barely recognizable as human. He glowed white-hot, hovering a few inches above the platform’s surface. The beam from below had stopped, and the jiānyù lay discarded on the platform.

  Liam frowned. “I don’t trust that soldier boy.”

  “I think we have a more immediate problem,” Duane said.

  Beneath their feet, the platform let out a loud creak and tipped violently. Steven stumbled into Liam, knocking him into the others.

  Steven followed Duane’s gaze. The shack lay splintered and strewn across the platform, a mass of wood and plastic shards. And in the center of it all, the crystal circuitry lay shattered. Tiny fires flared, arcing like electricity across the exposed wiring.

  The platform lurched again, in the opposite direction.

  Duane pointed at the sparking remains of the crystal circuitry web. “That,” he said, “was a null-gravity generator.”

  Steven looked at him blankly.

  “It was keeping us in the air,” he explained.

  The platform wrenched violently again, to one side and then the other.

  “Uh-oh,” Steven said.

  THE PLATFORM HURTLED across the sky, tipping slowly downward. From a distance, it looked like a plate that a child had flung through the air—a plate that was, inevitably, falling to earth.

  Maxwell stood rigid on the tilted surface, perfectly still, as the glow around him slowly cooled and faded. Above him, the Dragon rose up, proud and sinewy. But it, too, was still in the fierce desert wind.

  Steven frowned. What’s Maxy up to? He looked at Malosi, and the other Tiger made eye contact with him briefly. Then Malosi turned back to study Maxwell.

  Steven had a moment of doubt. With a bit of help from the qi amplifier, he’d managed to convince Malosi of the danger Maxwell posed. But as he stood watching, Steven realized he didn’t actually know Malosi very well at all.

  Is he watching Maxwell for us? Or has he been playing me all along? Could he still be working for Maxwell?

  Where are Malosi’s loyalties, really?

  A crunching sound at Steven’s feet made him look down. Duane sat amid the tangled mass of burned circuitry that had been the antigravity generator. His hands moved dizzyingly fast, sorting circuits and laying pieces of wire in neat rows.

  “I think I can fix it,” Duane said.

  Steven crouched down next to him. “Without your powers?”

  Duane turned and gave Steven his usual shy smile. “I was pretty smart, even before I got them. And I was watching the generator work, from our cell.”

  The platform lurched again, tilting almost forty-five degrees. Steven stumbled and tripped over a chunk of the broken shack’s wall. By the time the platform leveled out, Duane was hard at work, stripping wires and plugging cables into ports.

  “HELLLLLP!”

  Steven looked around, searching for the source of the cry. Carlos lay on the surface, still unconscious. Malosi and Maxwell hadn’t moved, either.

  But Liam, Roxanne, and Jasmine were running toward the edge—where Monkey hung by his fingers from the platform, dangling over the ground far below.

  “Help!” he called again. “I’m slipping!”

  Snake lay flat on her stomach near the edge, stretching an arm toward him. “Quit squirming!” she said.

  As Steven approached the platform’s edge, he caught a glimpse of the chaos below. The energy beams had halted, leaving destruction in their wake. Four or five domes had exploded completely, and another was in flames. A thick burning smell filled the air.

  Even worse, the platform was arcing downward more sharply. The burning wreck of the main dome loomed dead ahead. They were hurtling straight toward it.

  Monkey reached a trembling hand up. Snake grabbed it—just as the platform swerved violently.

  Steven stumbled into Jasmine, and they both fell to the surface. Liam and Roxanne reached for Jasmine and managed to grab hold of her. Steven grabbed frantically at the plastic surface of the disk, barely slowing his progress.

  As he rolled toward Snake, he saw her slip over the edge. “No!” he cried. He grabbed hard at the platform surface, stopping just short of the edge, and reached down.

  Snake’s hand clasped onto his arm.

  Steven looked down. Snake dangled from his grip now. And Monkey hung from her, flailing and panicking as the domes whizzed past.

  Steven grimaced in pain. He felt himself slipping, sliding closer to the edge. I can’t hold them, he thought. I can’t hold both their weight. Not without the Tiger!

  On the ground, the soldiers were beginning to back off. An amplified voice filled the air. “All hands, Condition Seven. Abandon base. This is not a drill. Secure all classified materials and abandon base. Condition Seven….”

  “Grab hold,” Steven called to Snake. “Grab on to the edge of the platform!”

  “Do it!” Monkey yelled.

  “I can’t!” Snake replied.

  The main dome drew closer. Steven could see inside, past its cracked white walls. A thick column of black smoke rose from the burned-out machinery in the floor.

  “Hey, kid!” Snake called up. She sounded oddly calm. “If we both survive this? Look me up in six or seven years.”

  “What?” he said.

  “When you’re old enough.” She smiled. “We’ll have that drink.”

  Then she let go.

  “No!” he cried.

  The disk twisted hard, away from the main dome, and almost flipped over. Steven slid toward the center, scrambling and clawing for balance. He braced himself, lying flat on his stomach, and crawled back to the edge.

  The big dome passed underneath, its black smoke filling the air with a burned-electronics smell. There was no sign of Snake or Monkey. Steven shivered. Did they fall into that?

  Roxanne tapped him on the shoulder, hard. “Steven?”

  He whirled around and looked up. Maxwell was striding toward them, the Dragon blazing above his head. Energy leaked out of him—his eyes, his mouth, his pores. He held the jiānyù; it had subsided to a sphere again, but it still glowed with concentrated Zodiac power.

  Liam, Jasmine, and Roxanne had gathered around Steven. They took a step back from Maxwell,
toward the platform’s edge.

  “Between the Dragon and the pavement,” Roxanne muttered.

  Steven turned to look down at the ground. It was even closer, whizzing past in a near blur.

  “This might be the end,” he agreed.

  “Look,” Jasmine said. “Look at him.”

  Steven followed her outstretched finger. Maxwell had stopped and was staring straight ahead. He seemed rigid, cold, almost in a trance.

  And the Dragon…the Dragon above him looked different, too. It seemed more solid, more real than ever before—as if it belonged there around Maxwell’s body and it would never leave again.

  “He’s not there anymore,” Jasmine explained. “Maxwell, I mean. The Dragon has taken him over completely.”

  Steven frowned. “Are you sure?”

  When she turned to him, her expression made him shudder.

  “It’s what I spent the past twelve months trying to avoid,” she whispered.

  A cold feeling washed over Steven. He remembered watching Jasmine disperse the storm back in Dubai and wondering: Will she become the Dragon?

  With a sudden movement, the Dragon spread its wings. Steven and the others flinched. Liam almost toppled over the edge, but Roxanne caught him.

  “Is he—is he leavin’?” Liam asked.

  “He is.” Malosi stepped forward, next to his glowing boss. Steven moved to meet him, not knowing what to expect.

  “And I’m going with him,” Malosi continued.

  Steven darted a glance at Maxwell. The Vanguard leader rose off the platform a few inches. His eyes were utterly blank, his body bathed in Zodiac energy.

  “So you are still working for him,” Steven said.

  “No.” Malosi gestured at Maxwell. “You’re right about him. I know what he is—what he’s capable of. But…”

  “But you owe him.”

  Malosi nodded. “Like you owe your mother.”

  Liam turned to Steven. “What is that bloody tin soldier talking about?”

  “Maybe I can change things,” Malosi said, staring at Maxwell. “Guide him onto a different path. Hey, Steven?”

  “Yeah?” Steven said.