by Alex Irvine
They were all out of commission. “If I were as cruel as you guys, I’d keep going until you were all dead,” Jennifer said. “But I’m not.”
“But we are, Greenie,” came a husky female voice from the other side of the room.
Jennifer looked up and saw the Absorbing Man, Doc Ock, and Titania. “Ready for the main event, She-Hulk?” Titania said.
“You bet I am,” Jennifer said, assuming a crouch.
KRASH! Titania leapt forward feet-first. Jennifer dodged, dropping to the ground, then caught Titania in the stomach with a fierce punt, kicking her straight up into a steel beam. Both Titania and the beam hit the ground as Creel started in on Jennifer.
“I got some anger to work out, Greenie, and you’re just the one to do it on,” he said.
“You and me both,” Jennifer said. She saw him glance past her and hesitated for the briefest moment—was it a ruse? Creel skidded to a halt right as something hit Jennifer from behind. She somersaulted and hit the floor flat on her back as pieces of the beam flew across the room. Before Jennifer could get up, Titania was on her again, hitting like the Hulk. Jennifer tried to counterpunch but couldn’t get her arm back for a swing with Doc Ock and the Absorbing Man piling on her. The Wrecking Crew was back on its feet, too. Suddenly, the odds were seven to one.
The last thing Jennifer saw was Creel’s iron ball sweeping in an arc toward her, filling her field of vision.
AMORA
Doom had failed, as mortals must. She had not anticipated his defeat would come so rapidly, but it had been inevitable. The being Galactus was inscrutable even to her, though she might have drawn his attention at will and held it long enough to negotiate with him. The Beyonder? Of him, she knew nothing save his handiwork. Doom could not hope to control his fate in the hands of such powers.
She, too, was considered evil by some, but she did not consider herself so. She wanted only what she wanted, and who was to say desire was evil? Actions, certainly. Inactions as well. But desire itself was elemental—beyond considerations of morality, of good and evil. Battleworld itself was a place created of the Beyonder’s vast will, and desire permeated through it. Each sentient mind that touched its soil found desire germinating there. For power, for death, for loss. For love. Why else had Xavier grappled with an impulse toward tyranny, and Magneto toward solitude? Why else had Benjamin Grimm seen his form change from stone to flesh and back? And on and on. They suffered from their wishes coming true.
Amora, too, had suffered that pitiable fate. Thor, seeming to answer her desires, had freed her. She had brought him to a lovely bower, a place where no man could resist her—yet he had, and she loved him the more for it. She had become a canard, the woman whose passion was stoked rather than quenched by refusal—she, who could turn the head of any mortal with a glance!
The Odinson was no mortal, though. Even so, he would be hers. If not this day, then another. For immortals had only endless tomorrows—and given enough days, all dreams must in time be realized. The Beyonder could not extinguish her essence, nor would she deign to be part of his little game. She had her own games to play, and her pieces were already in motion.
You and I shall rule, Odinson, she thought. You and I.
THIRTY-EIGHT
STEVE ROGERS sat alone on the crest of a ridge that afforded him both a view of the village and Galactus on the mountain beyond. Steve couldn’t tell whether the world-destroying machine was complete, but Galactus hadn’t moved for several hours. Reed might have been able to offer some insight, but he was tinkering with different pieces of equipment, trying to repair and augment the team’s gear as best he could before they once again had to square off against Doom’s forces.
If they had to square off against Doom’s forces again. Steve thought it was more likely they’d have to face Galactus first. And it was unlikely they would survive that encounter, he thought grimly.
“Hey, Cap?”
Steve turned to Hawkeye, who approached from the path that led back down to the village. “Clint,” he said.
“Hate to bother a man when he’s thinking,” Hawkeye said, “but She-Hulk’s missing. Nobody’s seen her all day. And one of the shuttles is gone.” When Steve didn’t respond for a moment, he added, “She can’t take them all herself, Steve. We have to help her.”
The Hulk had followed Hawkeye up the path. “Jennifer is my cousin,” he said. “I need to go after her, even if you don’t send a team.”
“I can’t send anyone,” Steve said. “We have to stay here. Galactus needs to be our focus.”
He heard more sounds from down the path. The whole team was heading up—except Colossus, who was probably still convalescing down in Zsaji’s hut. “Don’t suppose you’d consider putting it to a vote?” the Hulk said.
Steve knew what had happened. They’d all gotten together and decided on this before Hawkeye and Hulk came up to pretend they were asking his opinion. He understood—one of their friends was in danger—but the pretense and second-guessing still stung. Steve stood and faced the whole team—the assembled Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man. “I’d vote yes in a second…if I was voting with my heart,” Steve said, meeting the eyes of his friends. People he’d fought for and would again. “But there’s too much at stake. Too many innocent lives. The universe is on the line, plain and simple. I’m sorry, people, but that has to be more important than any one of us…or all of us put together.” He faced them with his hands open, his expression somber, and hoped they would listen. If he couldn’t keep them together, he couldn’t keep them safe.
But voices immediately jumbled as they started to object along all the lines he would have anticipated, too many of them trying to answer at once—and then another voice intruded on the argument, cutting right through because it was only in Steve Rogers’ head.
Captain, this is Charles Xavier. You are in danger of suffering an irreparable schism in your team.
Tell me something I don’t know, Professor.
I have only recently experienced the same among my own X-Men. The breach is repaired, but we cannot afford to spend time repairing another. Thus I come to you with a proposal: the X-Men and I will observe Galactus. We will strike at him the moment the occasion demands it. This will free you up to embark on your rescue mission…should you choose to go.
Steve didn’t know why Xavier was making this offer. Maybe it was as simple as what he’d said—that he was changing tactics in the interest of unity. Or maybe he had another motive, as had seemed to be the case the whole time they’d been on Battleworld. Xavier had chosen isolationism when Steve had offered companionship, for reasons he still didn’t understand. But either way, Steve didn’t have the luxury of choice, and he knew he could trust Xavier to keep his word.
Deal, Xavier. Thanks.
His head cleared, and Steve realized his team had stopped clamoring. Now they were all staring at him with expressions of either impatience or worry. “Cap, you planning on answering any of us?” Spectrum asked. “You looked like someone scrambled your brain for a minute.”
“The plan’s changed,” Steve said.
“Changed how?” Spectrum asked.
“I’ll explain later,” Steve said. “Right now, let’s go get She-Hulk.”
THIRTY-NINE
DOOMBASE loomed ahead of them, reminding Steve Rogers a little of the Kremlin—if the Kremlin were the size of Moscow. Various rounded or oval structures topped a complex of towers, which in turn were connected along their lower floors into a single massive block, miles on a side. She-Hulk was somewhere inside.
They didn’t waste any time on reconnaissance. Once the team was off the ship and on the ground outside Doombase, Thor simply threw Mjolnir, blasting a thirty-foot hole in the closest exterior wall. “Go!” Cap said.
Spectrum flashed out ahead to find She-Hulk while the rest of the group invaded Doom’s fortress on a search-and-destroy mission. Rhodey, blasting ahead of the ground force, was the first to make contact with the enemy, a
nd it was some heavy contact. The Wrecker’s crowbar, seemingly coming out of nowhere, dealt a blow that would have cut an unarmored man in half. Rhodey hit the ground.
“My flight system is down!” Rhodey shouted. Cap ran for him, but Rhodey sat up and blew the Wrecker through the nearest wall with his repulsors, leaving the villain’s crowbar to clang onto the floor. Steve helped him up as he rebooted his flight system.
“Back in action,” he said, and Cap could hear the grin behind the mask.
Spider-Man ambushed Piledriver from above, laying him out with a single punch that knocked off his helmet. Spidey’s red-and-blue costume flashed as he turned the follow-though into a pirouetting leap away from the Absorbing Man’s ball and chain, which smashed a four-foot-thick steel pillar in half.
“Careful, big guy. Don’t hurt yourself!” Peter taunted.
“Pretty fast, squirt,” the Absorbing Man said. “And you must be stronger than you look. Piledriver don’t have a glass jaw.”
“I’m full of surprises,” Spider-Man said as he sprang out of the way of the Absorbing Man’s next swing.
“Ben!” Cap shouted, and the Thing stepped in to grapple with Absorbing Man. “Howabout you pick on someone as ugly as you are, pal?” he said.
Then, without warning, the orange rocks of his body melted away, leaving an ordinary man of flesh and blood in Creel’s grip. The Absorbing Man grinned. “Ben Grimm,” he said. “In the flesh. Ha! Tough luck, ain’t it?”
He tossed Ben up into the air with one arm while he readied his ball and chain with the other. “Play ball!” he shouted.
But he never completed the swing. Before Steve could intercede, Spider-Woman caught Creel’s arm and swung him around. She planted him in the closest steel wall, which crumpled around him. He struggled to wrench himself free.
“Why’s this gotta happen now?” Ben Grimm said from where he’d hit the ground. “It’s the proverbial revoltin’ development.”
Spider-Woman made sure Absorbing Man stayed where he was by smashing his own ball and chain into his face. Creel slumped unconscious, still stuck in the crater in the wall.
While Cap’s attention was on Thor, who had wrapped up Doctor Octopus in his own tentacles, Piledriver crept up behind Spider-Woman. “Hold off there, Piledriver,” Hawkeye warned. The eagle-eyed archer never stopped scanning the field. He had an arrow nocked and leveled.
“Hold off yourself, Robin Hood,” Piledriver said, turning away from Spider-Woman to face Hawkeye. “Even bullets can’t hurt me. What do you think your arrow’s gonna do? Don’t make me mad.”
“I warned you,” Hawkeye said, and let the arrow fly.
It pierced Piledriver’s shoulder just under the collarbone. He stumbled, shocked. “What the—? Me? Wounded?” he said plaintively. He sank to his knees, one hand on the arrow’s shaft.
The Hulk was busy doing what he did best: smashing. Cap followed close behind as Hulk tore through a series of walls, searching for Doom’s quarters. Then he stopped short as they encountered the Enchantress. “Why, Hulk,” she crooned as she batted her eyelashes and took a step toward him. “Please come in.”
“Keep your distance, sorceress,” the Hulk said. “I know what you can do.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do,” she said as she turned to the angle she likely knew would show her figure to the best advantage. “But knowing is not the same as resisting. Come to me, Hulk.” She reached out a hand, and the Hulk took a slow step toward her. Cap tried to grab Hulk’s arm, but the green giant shoved him back.
“I—” Hulk began, drawing closer to Enchantress, but he never got to finish. The Enchantress reached up and caressed his cheek as she whispered softly. “Mortal cretin.”
At her touch, the Hulk crumpled to the floor.
“What have you done to him?” Captain America demanded. Shield at the ready, he stood in the hole the Hulk had smashed through the wall, keeping a safe distance from the Asgardian.
“He sleeps, dreaming of me,” the Enchantress said. “But alas for him, he can never possess me. You, however…am I not beautiful to you, Captain America? Come to me.”
“Give it a rest,” Captain America said with an exasperated shake of his head. He didn’t move.
The Enchantress’ eyes flashed as she conjured twin blasts of magical energy powerful enough to stagger Cap. “Your will is strong,” she said. “But your body is not strong enough.”
Captain America dodged the salvo of magic bolts. “Surtur’s teeth!” Amora spat. “You move like the cats of Skornheim!”
He lunged at her, leading with his shield. “You wouldn’t—” she began, but the impact of his shield stopped her short.
“Hit a woman?” he said over her supine body. “Only if I don’t have another choice.”
Then he headed deeper into the base to find Doctor Doom.
*
Reed, Rhodey, Spider-Woman, and Thor moved as a team through one of the base’s upper levels. “We’ve still got a lot of Doom’s people to account for,” Reed was saying. Rhodey was in the lead, peering into an open doorway ahead on their right.
A fiery blast from inside the doorway caught him unprepared, nearly broiling him alive in the Iron Man armor before its cooling system kicked in. He charged through the heat, which winked out just as he collapsed against some kind of invisible barrier. Molecule Man and Volcana were inside a force field. “How do you like my little sphere of protection, Iron Man?” gloated Molecule Man.
Thor flung Mjolnir directly at Molecule Man, but even Asgardian strength could not penetrate the barrier. Mjolnir richocheted and returned to Thor’s grasp. Rhodey struggled to stand back up. His heads-up display showed depleted energy levels, with all power diverted to temperature control.
“Make me another firing porthole in the barrier, Owie,” Volcana said. “This time Iron Man’s going to be just a little puddle of slag.”
*
Titania and Spider-Man were playing cat-and-mouse—and Spider-Man was mostly the mouse. Titania kept coming after him with giant steel beams, and he’d duck out of the way, trying to keep all his bones in one piece. Now they were doing their tango across a wide, open space somewhere in Doombase’s upper levels. A wall of windows looked out over Battleworld.
Dodging the latest forty-ton steel beam Titania was using to try to squash him, Spider-Man launched a zigzag parkour sequence up and over, landing behind her with a neat little flip. “Initiative always changes hands eventually,” he said. “I mean, don’t you play board games?” Before she could whirl around to meet him, he bounced her head off the edge of the beam with a roundhouse kick.
Then he danced back from her counterpunch. Now Spider-Man was the cat.
“You can’t hit me,” he said. “Good ol’ spidey-sense. How do you think little old me has stayed alive all this time playing with the big boys?”
“You’re playing with a big girl now,” Titania said. “And you’re going to lick the floor when I get you down.”
She swung again and missed. Spider-Man dropped and scissored her legs out from under her. “That’s the thing, though,” he said, popping a couple of quick punches to the side of her head to daze her. “You’re not going to get me down. Because what you are is a bully. You talk big and beat on people who can’t handle you, but you know what? I can handle you.”
He lifted her off the ground and added, “You know what else? I don’t like bullies.” Then he threw her out the window.
*
At full stretch, Reed Richards pulled Rhodey out of the way. Volcana’s plasma would’ve cooked Rhodey even inside the Iron Man armor. The blast vaporized several walls and part of the floor in the next two adjacent rooms. “Missed,” Volcana complained.
“Don’t worry, my love,” Molecule Man said. “We’re safe behind this handy invisible barrier. They cannot touch us, and you can pick them off at your leis—ulp.”
Spectrum had unexpectedly appeared inside the sphere. She wrapped an arm around Molecule Man’s neck. “Oh, it’
s not invisible,” she said. “It’s transparent. So light passes through it.” She gave Molecule Man’s neck a little squeeze. “Now back down.”
Molecule Man cried out in pain, and the force field immediately dropped. Spectrum looked down at him in surprise. “What are you whining about? I hardly touched you.”
“He’s wounded!” Volcana said. She returned to her normal form. “Don’t hurt him any more.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt him at all,” Spectrum said.
Thor loomed behind Volcana and gripped her arm. “Do you yield?”
“Yes! Just let me get to Owie!” she said, tears streaming down her face. “Can’t you see he’s hurting?”
He let her go, and she collapsed at Molecule Man’s side. “That’s two more checked off the list,” Reed said.
*
Captain America, with Johnny Storm fired up and flying alongside, searched the base’s upper levels. “Doom has to be around here somewhere,” Cap said.
“Here’s Piledriver,” Johnny said as they came around a corner. The beefy, red-masked villain lay unconscious with Hawkeye’s arrow still sticking out of his shoulder. “Wonder where he was trying to go?”
“Hard to tell—whoa!”
A particle beam blasted from the far end of the corridor, nearly disintegrating Johnny in midair. Ultron! He pivoted abruptly as the robot fired again. Cap dropped into a crouch behind his shield.
Johnny flashed by and engulfed Ultron in a fiery blast. “Stay clear, Johnny!” Cap shouted.
“Too late,” Ultron gloated. “Not even the heat of a sun could melt my Adamantium body. I am invincible.” He reached out and caught Johnny’s fiery leg. “Can you say the same…organism? I think not.”
Ultron got a hand around Johnny’s throat. “Torch!” Captain America called. “Use your nova flame!”
“You’re too close!” Johnny gasped. “It’ll kill you!”
“Do it!” Captain America shouted as he ran for the nearest corner.