by Alex Irvine
“I did. Nerd. You’re Doom’s little whipping boy, do whatever he says, and you’re a nerd. First girl ever looked at you, you get all aw-shucks and start blushing. What about it?” Piledriver responded with a shrug.
“I’ll show you what about it,” Volcana interrupted. She was starting to heat up, both literally and figuratively. Owen feared she would lose control, but she did not. Instead, she stepped up to Piledriver and slapped him in the face.
“That’s it!” Piledriver said, standing up and balling his fists. “I ain’t afraid to hit a girl if she’s got it coming, and I’m gonna—”
“No, you’re not,” Owen said. He felt his powers gather and simmer as he faced down Piledriver and the rest of his cronies. “Because I control molecules, and I am the most powerful person in the universe. And I say you won’t.”
“That so? C’mon, guys, it’s time for the most powerful person in the universe to have his face molecules rearranged.” Piledriver sneered and stepped forward—then turned around to see his friends had abandoned him. They were all facing the other direction, studiously noting the details of the garden’s plantings and design.
Owen opted for humiliation over harm. With the merest thought, he transformed the molecules of Piledriver’s bodysuit, mask, and boots so they were hard and inflexible. “What the—I can’t move!” Piledriver said.
“No,” Owen said matter-of-factly. “You can’t.” The push of a few air molecules against Piledriver’s back toppled him face-first into a bed of red flowers.
Volcana laughed and stepped forward. “That’s it, Piledriver. Eat a little dirt.” She slammed her right foot back and forth on the back of his head, grinding his face into the garden bed. His protests were muffled but quite energetic, Owen thought, and would doubtless have been profane if they could have been understood.
“Anyone else have something to say?” he asked the rest of the group. “Anyone else want to call me Doom’s errand boy, or that…other word? Anyone else think they want to flex their muscles and show me how tough they are? Hm?”
“Nope,” the Wrecker said.
Owen raised a hand, which was pulsating with charged power. “I think what you mean is ‘No, sir, Mister Molecule Man.’”
“No, sir,” Absorbing Man said. His eyes were wide with awe. “Um, Mister Molecule Man.”
“Very good. Perhaps you should assist your friend,” Owen said. “He seems to have fallen.”
They walked on. Owen felt a little thrill of pleasure. Those guys had obviously needed a lesson in courtesy, and he had his powers. Why not use them, especially when using them made Volcana look at him that way?
*
Perhaps Molecule Man is getting carried away with his newfound confidence, Doom thought. He’d watched the dispute unfold via surveillance cameras. Doom needed Reece to have faith in his powers—but he also wanted a compliant Molecule Man, subservient rather than cocky. This was a delicate management endeavor. If Reece challenged Doom’s authority, he’d be difficult to control. Volcana was a mixed blessing. She had helped Molecule Man surmount his self-imposed inhibitions, but her adoration was also encouraging him to arrogance.
Doom would need to consider and address this problem at the proper time. Meanwhile, he continued to watch the Wrecking Crew and Absorbing Man. They mocked Piledriver’s humiliation as he blustered and swore bloody revenge on Molecule Man like the simple-minded blowhard he was. Then Doom turned to the monitors showing the great length of Battleworld. The sky had gone silver, blotted out by the great ship of Galactus. Doom had known it would appear sooner or later—if the Beyonder had not annihilated the entire universe beyond Battleworld. The appearance of the ship confirmed he had not, and in the process also reinforced an essential part of Doom’s plan. Timing would be critical. Assets had to be deployed in the correct fashion.
He activated the Doombase communications systems and opened a public-address channel. “Prepare yourselves for battle, servitors of Doom! From now, you must be ready to strike at a moment’s notice! Do not fail me…unless you would suffer the same fate as Kang and Thor.”
He snapped off the mic as Amora approached him. She tilted a hip and thrust one shoulder forward. “Doom. A word?”
“My orders were clear, Enchantress,” he said sternly. “Obey them.”
“You cannot deceive me. I know the odds against us…and I am afraid,” she said, casting her glance downward in a show of false humility.
Doom did not believe this even for as long as it took her coquettish mouth to form the words. He debated cutting her off, but opted to hear what she had to say. The longer she spoke, the more apparent her true aim would become.
“I am a goddess,” she said, raising her eyes to meet his. “What have I to gain from this war? Yet a barrier prevents me from returning whence I came.” She leaned over the table and lowered her voice to a husky purr. “You…with your mighty talent, and the powers of your mind…you could surely find a way for both of us to flee this place and let the Beyonder play his game with those more fit to be his playthings.”
Ah, seduction, Doom thought. So predictable. “No,” he said.
“You spurn me? You care not for my beauty? Well then, consider your own.” She cooed, reaching out to touch his mask. “I could heal the scars that have made you hide your face.”
“Save your tricks for the soft-headed,” Doom said as he pushed away her hand. “I can guess the price you would extract for such a gift. Now prepare as I told you. I will have need of your powers in the battle to come.” He turned away from her.
“Please, I am an Asgardian—a goddess to the likes of you!” Amora cried. “Can you imagine how it feels for one such as I to face the possibility of…death?”
Doom waited a calculated beat, and then said, “Are you finished?”
“You shall regret this, mortal,” she said imperiously, rising back up to her full height after a pause of her own.
“Begone, Enchantress.”
“Very well, madman. You have made your choice.”
The Enchantress spread her arms and murmured a spell. She vanished in a surge of magical energy.
“Madman? That is where you are wrong,” Doom said aloud. “It is not madness for a man of my genius to strive for a seemingly unattainable goal. It is striving for that which is eternally just out of reach that prevents madness from overtaking me.”
He would not have been surprised to see Amora reappear to try some new gambit in her attempt to beguile him, but she did not. Good, he thought. He did not fear death. Nor did he fear the wiles of Amora the Enchantress.
TWENTY-SIX
REED RICHARDS found himself in the unusual position of not being able to invent or think his way out of a problem. The team’s headquarters had been destroyed, leading them to seek refuge in a village inhabited by aliens from a pre-industrial civilization. And Galactus had brought his ship to Battleworld, most likely to prepare the makeshift planet’s destruction. Reed put everything he had into solving the many problems they faced. He consulted with the others on the most immediate: stopping Galactus from eating Battleworld. All their ideas were unworkable, or outright insane.
He settled on the obvious. “I once saved Galactus’ life,” Reed said. “Maybe he’ll listen to me.”
“Listen to you? You planning to stroll up to him and talk about the weather?” Captain America asked.
“That’s about the size of it. Except I’ll stretch up to him, not walk.”
“That’s…” Cap trailed off.
“Suicidal?” Reed said. “I don’t think so. Galactus isn’t deliberately violent. The most likely outcome is he’ll completely ignore me. There’s a small possibility that he will deign to converse. Or…”
“He’ll kill you before you’re done saying his name,” Cap finished.
“There is a small possibility he will kill me, yes. Which he will also do during the course of draining Battleworld’s energies.”
“If that’s what he’s planning,” Johnn
y Storm said. “I mean, that’s usually what he’s planning—but nothing here seems to go as expected, so who knows?”
“Exactly, Johnny,” Reed said. “I’m going to try to find out.”
A few minutes later, he stretched himself up, up, up—Reed wasn’t completely sure how far he could stretch himself and still keep his body coherent. He knew it was a long way, but he was pushing his limits when his face was finally level with Galactus’ eyes. He started talking.
“Galactus, listen to me,” Reed said. “I think I know what you’re planning, and it’s madness. It won’t work, and it will guarantee your death…along with all of ours. You must know this. But there’s another way. You’re our only hope. You, and that ship, may be able to approach the Beyonder. If we can do that—if you can do that— maybe we can put an end to this insanity.”
Galactus gave no sign of having heard Reed, but something had apparently drawn his attention. He glanced momentarily at the distant distraction—too far away for Reed to see—and Reed felt the echo of a powerful psionic blast. He blinked at the impact in his mind, just a brush of a power that would have annihilated him had he been its target. A response, he thought. A hostile response—but not directed at me. He wondered briefly who possessed such power. It could only be Xavier. Doom was otherwise engaged, and Galactus’ psionic response suggested that the initial distraction had been telepathic in nature. Again, that pointed to Xavier. He—and Magneto—must have undertaken their own approach to Galactus.
Reed knew the X-Men were capable of taking care of themselves— they had made that point clear—but he worried for them nonetheless. Galactus’ response was potent, and Reed had no idea how much psionic tension Xavier could handle. And sooner or later, the X-Men would be needed. To survive Doom, never mind the Beyonder, they would have to stick together. That was also the message he had to convey to Galactus…now, before he was too absorbed in his work again. Perhaps Reed could make Xavier’s intrusion work in his favor.
“Galactus!” he shouted.
Galactus looked down at him. He met Reed’s gaze. Reed saw no trace of recognition or acknowledgment.
A moment later, a telekinetic shove sent him hurtling back down to the surface.
He hit the ground in the village center, his elastic body deftly absorbing the impact. “Whoa,” Spider-Man said. “What happened?”
“Something in the distance disturbed Galactus,” Reed said. “When he responded to it, he noticed me as well. You saw the rest.”
“Well, you tried,” Spectrum said. She, Iron Man, and Hawkeye were looking up at Galactus, who again stood motionless. “No harm done.”
Reed snapped himself back into shape, feeling his limbs and torso return to their natural state. Even after all these years of stretching himself in every conceivable way, he preferred a regular human-sized form. He stood up, shaking himself like a dog coming in from the rain. “You don’t understand. He knows we’re here now. He sees us as pests on the surface of a planet he’s probably planning to consume.”
“What’s he going to do, sic his cat on us?” Hawkeye joked.
“Well—” Reed started to say, but then a beam of coruscating light lanced down from Galactus’ ship right into the village, landing with an explosive burst where Reed had been a moment before.
The blast lasted only for a moment. When it was gone, a monstrous robot stood on the stones of the central plaza. It was four times the height of a human, with a gleaming sheen to its metallic hide and tripod-like toes. Its head—if that’s what you would call it—was covered with an egg-shaped helmet topped with a single fin. The robot crouched, its claw-like hands pulled back as it prepared its attack. “There’s the cat,” the Hulk said. “Or whatever analogous creature Galactus uses to control vermin.”
“Don’t just stand there yakkin’, Hulk, buddy,” the Thing said. “It’s clobberin’ time!”
RRAAK! The robot hit the Hulk before he could act on this suggestion, sending the hero flying across the square.
“I think we’re in trouble,” Hawkeye said. He fired a series of arrows, but they all glanced off the robot’s armor. The creature slapped away Iron Man while it pounded the downed Hulk with its other arm.
“Get back!” called the Human Torch. “Give me some room to go nova!”
“ARRHHH!” She-Hulk yelled. The robot had scooped her up in a crushing grip. She struggled in its tightening fist. Spider-Man swung up to help her, landing on the robot’s thumb.
“My spider-sense is going bonkers, guys!” Spider-Man yelled from his perch just as the robot’s mouth clanked open and a thick, sticky spray shot out in a cone that covered most of the team. They dropped, temporarily stuck in the goo, leaving only Captain America, the Thing, and the Human Torch still in play on the ground.
The Thing jumped up behind the robot and caught one of its arms, twisting it into an armlock. “Hope they didn’t teach wrestling moves in the Galactus Robot Academy,” Ben grunted as he twisted some more. Metal popped and squealed.
On the other side of the creature, Captain America got a clear shot and hit it square in the face with his shield, denting the left side of its head. Its mouth was stuck partly open, the paralyzing gel leaking from its chin. Cap’s shield was stuck in one of its eye sockets.
“Open wide,” said Johnny. He flew close, pulled up, and poured all of his energy into a fiery nova blast aimed straight into the robot’s mouth.
The explosion knocked free Cap’s shield. Then another, larger explosion sounded from deep inside the robot’s torso. It reeled and fell backwards, nearly crushing the Thing. When the robot hit the ground, it didn’t get back up.
“Lookee there,” the Thing said.
Human Torch landed next to him. “Bet Galactus isn’t used to people treating his toys like that,” he said.
Captain America surveyed the surroundings, then looked up at Galactus’ ship. No more messengers seemed headed their way. “Status,” he said. “Everyone okay?”
The goo had melted, so the team could move again. Thor, Spectrum and the rest sounded off one by one. Everyone had gotten through the scrape unscathed. Then Spider-Man cocked his head and said, “Guys? My spider-sense is still tingling. There’s something—”
“Look!” Hawkeye pointed across the village.
Charging up the path that led to Zsaji’s village was the full complement of Doom’s forces. Most were on foot—but Doc Ock, Piledriver, and Bulldozer were riding in a mobile turret that was even bigger than the one Hulk had destroyed in the first battle. A huge gun emplacement built into its underside enabled the villains to rake the area with indiscriminate fire. The villagers fled as the heroes dodged for cover—except Rhodey in his Iron Man armor, who charged ahead with repulsors blasting. He slowed their advance just enough for the battered heroes to find cover.
“Fall back!” Captain America shouted. “Slow them down!”
Reed agreed. If they could survive the initial thrust, he figured Doom’s team would do the same thing they did last time—overextend themselves, leaving an opening for a counterattack.
Doc Ock leapfrogged to the forefront of Doom’s forces. He pointed one of his tentacles at Captain America. “Cut down the star-spangled leader first!” he shouted. Cap ducked behind a rock outcropping as the villains’ opened fire. Bullets chewed away at the stone and the rest of the team clustered with Cap.
Ultron’s energy beams intersected with the plasma flares fired by a new member of the team, shattering their rocky cover in a single explosion. Reed didn’t recognize her, but Cap had told him of the two new women among the villains’ forces. Reed hadn’t found time to consider how they came to be on Battleworld, or how their powers had manifested. How was Doom recruiting? Had he found a way to build humanoids—or had he put the alien technology on Battleworld to work in some other, more nefarious way?
Fairly soon, it wouldn’t matter. They were overwhelmed and exposed, and Doom’s team was fresh and closing in.
Then a commanding voice rang
out from behind Doom’s advancing team. “X-Men! Attack!”
Reinforcements had arrived! The X-Men assaulted Doom’s forces from behind. BAMF! Nightcrawler teleported into the center of the fray as soon as Xavier issued his order and yanked the Enchantress off her feet just as she was casting a spell. Wolverine slashed at Ultron, Adamantium claws meeting Adamantium armor in a screeching shower of sparks. The other addition to Doom’s forces—a statuesque woman in red—flung one of the village’s huts into the sky at Rogue, who met it with the full force of a flying punch. KA-BWHAMM! Rubble showered the battlefield.
Reed spotted Colossus in his full fury, holding Piledriver in the air with one hand while he wrenched one of Octavius’ tentacles with the other. Colossus swung Octavius around, flattening Thunderball and Bulldozer. “You are all keeping me from returning home to Katya!” he bellowed. “No longer!” Reed understood. He missed Sue and Franklin desperately, just as Colossus must miss his beloved Kitty Pryde. If Reed thought fighting like a berserker would get him home to them any sooner, he’d have been battling at Colossus’ side. But Reed fought his battles differently, knowing that his physical strength was no match for the likes of Colossus or Hulk.
Storm, hovering on the winds high above the battlefield, gathered thunderheads and called down lightning to strike at Doom’s forces. They fell back, but Colossus was still in their midst. The Wrecker rose up behind him and drove his crowbar into Colossus’ ribs. Even the organic steel of Colossus’ mutant form was not immune to that level of force. Peter Rasputin cried out and dropped with a thud. The Wrecker hit him again, twice, before Cyclops raked Doom’s forces with an optic blast, forcing them to retreat.
“They fight as though possessed,” the Enchantress cried, engulfing the group in a magical barrier. “The day is theirs!” Doom’s forces were gone with a puff of smoke, carried away by the Enchantress’ Asgardian magic.
The lull following their disappearance was brief. Reed saw Xavier and Magneto standing together. So, he thought. Magneto stayed on our side…after a fashion. The battered heroes gathered themselves—except Colossus, who lay unmoving where the Wrecker had struck him down.