by Alex Irvine
The world dissolved in fire. Crouched behind his shield, Cap held his breath lest he scorch his lungs. After a moment, the nova blast dissipated. He leapt to his feet to see the blast had melted a tremendous crater into the center of the room. He ran to the crater’s edge.
“Johnny?”
“Down here.”
Johnny, no longer aflame, stood inside the crater over the unmoving Ultron. “His outside might be Adamantium, but something inside wasn’t,” Johnny said. “But I sure hope the fight’s over, Cap, because I’m all flamed out.”
“We’ll see, kid. Rest for a minute. I’ll keep going alone.” Captain America vaulted over the crater and landed outside a doorway. He proceeded stealthily down a short hall, through an antechamber, and into a larger room.
Victor von Doom sat sprawled on a couch in the center of the room, slumped forward with his head in his hands. His armor was seared and still smoking. He did not look up or acknowledge that he knew Captain America was present.
“Doom,” Captain America said.
No response came from the Latverian dictator.
Cap tried again, to no effect.
This was the last thing in the world he’d expected: to fight through all of Doom’s underlings and then find the man himself catatonic.
Well, Captain America thought. I guess we won.
FORTY
THE AVENGERS and their associates had left the village with only a brief word to Peter, telling him to be patient, that the rest of the X-Men would be arriving soon. Before he could ask any questions, they were gone. He did not know where they went, and did not ask. If his friends were returning, that was all he needed to know.
He had been trying to walk, to gain strength. What he needed, he thought, was another of Zsaji’s treatments—or perhaps that was just what he desired. Her touch was all Peter could think of, try as he might to keep Katya in his mind. He cursed Battleworld for tearing him away from her and entangling him in temptation. Peter knew his feelings for Zsaji were partly due to her empathic healing powers, but knowing this was not the same as ignoring it. He avoided Zsaji, keeping to himself and willing his strength to return. Not just physical strength, but the strength of character he would need to remain steadfast. He loved Kitty Pryde despite his infatuation with Zsaji, and Peter Rasputin was not going to succumb to a passing infatuation. He refused.
But it was one thing to say “I refuse,” and quite another to do it. Still, he persevered. He watched Galactus. Peter knew he would be helpless to do anything should Galactus act, but he was grateful for something to hold his attention. He walked, and he thought of Katya, and he waited for the X-Men to arrive. Several hours passed, and they were the longest hours of Peter’s life.
As he was completing a circuit around the village, approaching Zsaji’s hut and once again steeling himself to pass it by, he saw her stagger out into the sunlight. She looked terribly sick and weak, her skin yellow and a film dulling her eyes. Peter’s resolve evaporated. “Zsaji!” he said, and ran to her, catching her just before she would have fallen.
She murmured in her language. “Zsaji, what has happened?” Peter asked uselessly, knowing she could not answer, though she had picked up a few English words. He hoped…but no, she sagged in his arms.
Peter turned to her door, anger building in him. Who had done this? They would suffer for it. He carried Zsaji to a grassy area near her hut and laid her out of the sun. “I will return,” he said. Her eyes fluttered closed. He started toward the hut, but the sound of a ship reached his ears. Peter turned to see Hawkeye and Spectrum approaching. “Xavier didn’t show up yet?” Hawkeye asked.
Peter shook his head.
“Well, we kicked some villain butt at Doom’s base,” Hawkeye said. “It’s ours now, and we’re moving there. Tell Xavier when he gets here. Galactus do anything while we were gone?”
“No,” Peter said. “He is as he was when you left.” He tried not to show his irritation at being left behind by these companions and his friends.
“We’re here to pick up Janet’s body,” Spectrum said. “We’ll take her to the base and…” She paused and rubbed her face, as though this might remove the memory of Janet’s death. “I don’t know what we’ll do, but at least we’ll all be together,” she finished.
Hawkeye was the first to notice Zsaji. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
“I do not yet know,” Peter said, “but I am soon to find out. She came from her hut, ill to the point of death, it seems. Something in there…”
Light flared in the palms of Spectrum’s hands. “Let’s go check it out,” she said.
Hawkeye readied his bow. “I got you covered,” he said. “Long as you hold the curtain open.”
Peter shifted into his organic steel form, feeling strength flood through his body. He was beginning to recover from the remaining effects of the Wrecker’s beating. Perhaps he would not need another treatment from Zsaji. He hoped not, even as he simultaneously longed for her touch. “I will lead,” he said.
He threw open the curtain and took a big step inside, looking left and right in search of whatever had so gravely debilitated Zsaji. Spectrum came through as well, the light from her hands illuminating the hut’s interior as if it were broad daylight. Peter heard Hawkeye shifting his position outside to keep a clear line of fire.
The hut’s simple furnishings were undisturbed, its candles still burning in their holders. Nothing was out of the ordinary. No struggle had taken place here. On the pallet where they had laid her when Spider-Woman arrived, the Wasp lay silent.
Janet stirred and opened her eyes.
Peter froze. He heard Spectrum’s sharp intake of breath as she, too, saw the motion. Outside, Hawkeye said, “What? I’m coming in.”
He pushed in between Peter and Spectrum, both still gaping at the sight of Janet as she stretched and rubbed her eyes.
Sitting up on the edge of the pallet, the Wasp said, “Oh. Are we…how did I get here? This isn’t the base.”
Broad smiles broke across Hawkeye’s and Spectrum’s faces. Peter smiled, too, but with less enthusiasm. He was already piecing together what must have happened. The Wasp was awake again and healed, while Zsaji was so depleted of strength that her life was in danger. Surely this was no coincidence.
“Long story, Jan,” Hawkeye said. “Man, it’s good to see you up and around.”
“We have to tell everyone,” Spectrum said.
“Where are they?” Janet asked.
“Well, they’re all hanging around at Doom’s base waiting for us to come back with your body,” Spectrum said.
“Doom’s base…wait. My body?”
“Spider-Woman brought you here,” Hawkeye explained. “She found you dead, more or less, in a swamp. Um, near Denver.”
Wasp looked from one of them to the next, more confused the more they told her. “Spider-Woman? Denver?”
“We’ll fill you in on the trip back to Doom’s base.” Spectrum reached out a hand and Wasp took it, standing up, then bouncing down into a crouch to test her legs.
“I feel…well, I feel good,” she said. “Did you say I was dead?”
“Zsaji healed you,” Peter said.
Again, she looked confused. “Who’s Zsaji?”
Peter led them outside to where Zsaji lay, unconscious. “This is Zsaji,” he said.
Wasp knelt beside her and touched Zsaji’s arm. “How can I thank her?” she asked quietly, and Peter shook his head. Wasp was crying a little as she pressed her hand over Zsaji’s. “She has to get better,” she said.
“I believe—I hope—she is only in need of rest,” Peter said. He did not say what he feared, that Janet’s life had come at a terrible price, but Janet understood. She nodded and stood up. She struggled to compose herself as she turned back to Hawkeye, and Peter understood why this woman led the Avengers on Earth. Her will and compassion were obvious.
Peter bent down to Zsaji. Other villagers gathered to watch as he picked her up, cradling
her gently. He carried her to her hut and laid her down where Wasp had been a minute ago. He touched her cheek. “Come back to us,” he said softly, before going back outside.
Hawkeye and Spectrum were getting Wasp up to speed. “So now we’re trying to figure out how to handle Galactus when he fires up the machine he built,” Spectrum was saying.
“But Doom is out of the way? Is everyone else all right?” Janet asked.
“She-Hulk was badly hurt when she went…ah, how do I put this?” Hawkeye said. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, but she went on a solo revenge mission to Doom’s base after you, um, died. It didn’t turn out so well.”
“Oh my God,” Janet said. “We have to go there. Come on. We have to go right now. Peter, you come, too.”
“No,” he said. “I will await the rest of the X-Men. They will be here
shortly.”
“You sure?” Hawkeye asked. “Hate to leave you here by yourself.” He shot Peter a look, and Peter knew Hawkeye was also cautioning him against doing anything about his feelings for Zsaji.
Was he that transparent? Perhaps so.
“I must wait for Professor Xavier,” Peter said again. “I am glad to hear you were successful against Doom. We will meet again.”
“Absolutely,” Hawkeye said.
Peter watched them go, trying not to feel that Zsaji may have traded her life for the Wasp’s. That if Zsaji could be well again, she could be his.
No. I love Katya.
Again Peter started to walk.
CLINT BARTON
The arrow. Clint had it back in his quiver, clean and ready to be used again. He wasn’t sure he would, though.
He could shoot like nobody else. Even Bullseye. He was smart, tough, loyal—and surrounded by colleagues who could move mountains, bring down lightning, and cobble together next-gen technology using paper clips and bits of string. He didn’t belong. When the chips were down and the bad guys had super-powers, Hawkeye was still a carnival act. Always had been.
Until Battleworld.
He’d been scared when he saw Piledriver coming at them, because he’d picked the wrong arrow. He didn’t have one that would shock Piledriver like a whole police department’s worth of Tasers, or one that would explode, or any of the other fancy ones he’d spent years assembling. He’d just had a plain old broadhead, like he was about to take down a deer instead of a charging member of the Wrecking Crew.
Clint had seen Piledriver shrug off automatic-weapons fire. He’d seen Piledriver stand up again after taking a punch from the Hulk. Whatever you thought about his fake country-boy schtick, Piledriver was one tough SOB. His skin was almost Luke Cage-like in its ability to resist puncture. That wrong arrow should have been a fatal mistake.
But the arrow had punched right through Piledriver’s shoulder. Like magic.
A dream come true.
It hadn’t been a mistake at all, he realized. It had been Battleworld, giving him a taste of what it was like to be granted his fondest wish.
FORTY-ONE
SO EVERYTHING’S pretty hunky-dory, Spider-Man thought.
Spectrum and Hawkeye had returned with Wasp, good as new and spoiling to get back at the Wrecking Crew. It was too late, though, since they were all stuck in cells before she got there. She-Hulk was in some kind of healing tube Reed had found. Hulk was still mad at himself for falling off the watch, but that wasn’t too unusual. Hulk was always mad at someone.
Cap had apologized to the group for not having paid close enough attention to She-Hulk’s concern for Wasp, but Reed straightened him out. Everyone was on the same page, pulling together. And Doom was staring into space in his cell like he didn’t know any of them were there.
Kind of like Galactus, Spider-Man thought. But that comparison kind of made him think Doom was just biding his time—like Galactus surely was. He didn’t like the negative thought—but the truth was, it had been pretty hard to keep a smiling face since Reed had cannibalized his web-shooters for parts down under the mountain, and now Reed had priorities besides replacing Peter’s lost equipment. He didn’t feel like he could really contribute, even if he had managed to handle Titania. His spider-sense couldn’t do much if he couldn’t swing out of the way.
At the moment, though, they had a breather. Reed was fixing Iron Man’s armor and adding a few new flourishes of his own thanks to the super-advanced technology suddenly at their disposal. Spider-Man couldn’t help but laugh at the way Reed simultaneously complimented Tony Stark’s brains and tried to outdo him at his own game. When they got back to Earth—Spider-Man was an optimist, or tried to be, and he had to believe they’d figure out a way to beat the Beyonder at his own game and go home—Tony was going to see this new armor and disappear into one of his workshops for weeks until he could come back out with something even better. Egghead rivalries. Spider-Man was smart, but he didn’t have that competitive juice on which guys like Tony and Reed seemed to thrive.
Anyway, his biggest problem right then was that his suit was shredded from the fight with Titania. He didn’t think a place like Doombase—they really needed a new name for it—would have a needle and thread lying around, but he was looking anyway because he didn’t have anything better to do.
He bumped into Thor and the Hulk during the course of the search, and noticed that Thor’s cape looked good as new. Even the ragged edges of the Hulk’s pants seemed sharp somehow. “Hey, fellas, where’d you find the tailor?” he asked.
“The Hulk discovered a machine,” Thor said. “It restored my garments as if it knew somehow the way they should appear.”
“Yeah,” the Hulk said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s right down the hall.”
“Score,” said Spider-Man, and headed that way. Finally, some luck. He could get his costume fixed up without stabbing himself in the thumb with a needle like he usually did.
He found the room Hulk mentioned by virtue of it being behind the only door down that hall. There were a bunch of machines in it; one of them had a spot where you could sit down, kind of like a backwards barber chair, with an inverted bowl over your head. That had to be the one—none of the others looked large enough to take a human being’s measurements. Spider-Man sat with his head under the bowl. For a few seconds, nothing happened. He concentrated on a mental image of his costume, all spiffed up and ready for crimefighting.
The machine emitted a brief humming sound, and a small black sphere about the size of a golf ball materialized on the console in front of him. “Huh,” he said. “That sure doesn’t look like a costume to me.”
Maybe there was a step Hulk hadn’t told him about. He picked up the little black ball, and two things happened at once.
One, his spider-sense started tingling like mad.
Two, before he could let go of the little ball, it morphed itself into a skin-tight black coating that wrapped around his hand. “Hey!” he said, like it could hear him. The black covering crawled up his arm. In another few seconds it had completely covered his body, just like his old costume—only this one was all black. It was a slicker, more urban-style look than Spider-Man had contemplated. The spider design on the chest was different, too—all white with legs that extended over his ribs in a zigzag pattern, similar to the emblem on Spider-Woman’s costume.
“Man,” he said. “I didn’t know I was thinking of this, but I kind of like it.” He was, after all, a New Yorker.
He caught a look at himself from different angles in the shining metal surfaces of the machines surrounding him. Yeah. I look good. Time to go show the rest of the gang so they could admire him. Spider-Man 2.0, baby.
He reached the doorway just as an earthquake shook the base, nearly knocking him over. Or was it an earthquake? Were they under attack? There was nobody left to attack them but—
Everyone! This is Charles Xavier. You must come at once! It has begun…Galactus is devouring Battleworld!
Right, Spider-Man thought. Just what I was about to say.
FORTY-TWO<
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THE TIME had come, as Magneto had known it would.
They had arrived and found Colossus sunk in a morass of self-pity in the village. He recovered sufficiently to take part in their preparations, but those were as yet unfinished when Galactus powered up his planet-destroying machine with a rumble that shook Battleworld to its core. In the village, huts collapsed, and the villagers ran to open ground. The X-Men and Magneto gathered and hastily sketched out a plan.
Storm took to the air, accelerating to an altitude well above the mountaintop where Galactus had begun his work. Rogue flew straight at Galactus on Xavier’s telepathic order, while the rest of the team drew together for a direct assault. Even through his helmet, Magneto could hear echoes of Xavier’s commands. Such was the force of his telepathic power—and the intensity of his fear.
For fear it was. Xavier knew they could not defeat Galactus. So did Magneto. They were insects fighting the sole of a boot.
He had hoped that Galactus’ activities were a diversion, that he was pretending to prepare for Battleworld’s destruction as a way to draw out the Beyonder. Apparently this was not the case, and now they faced the prospect of trying to interrupt the process directly.
Magneto held out little hope that this endeavor would be successful.
Still, he watched and made himself ready as Storm hovered in the distant sky. Thunderheads gathered around her, swirling and black, with lightning flickering inside them. Galactus took no notice. His absorption in the operation of his machine was complete. Storm raised her arms and brought down lightning on the mountaintop. The accompanying thunder deafened Magneto for a moment, and the flash of the lightning left jagged afterimpressions in his vision. Hundreds—thousands!—of lightning strikes, in the space of a few seconds, pounded Galactus and his machine. Titanic rockslides that shook the ground blasted away much of the mountaintop.
But when the maelstrom cleared, Galactus still stood at his machine. Even Storm’s mightiest assault had not distracted him.