by Alex Irvine
They caught her up on events since her last unfrozen moment, and she shook her head. “So Doom’s got all the power of the Beyonder and Galactus, and we’re all still here. Doesn’t look good.”
Scott turned back to Spider-Woman. “Okay. You ran into the Hulk. And then what?”
“He was sleepwalking. I tried to stop him. Then he pushed me out of the way, and…” She looked confused. “Then I was down here. I don’t know what happened in between. Does that make any sense?”
“Nope,” Wolverine said. “Not a damn bit.”
“Well, that’s what happened,” Julia snapped.
“I can vouch for the sleepwalking part,” Hulk said. “I woke up in the hallway when I heard her yelling.”
“I believe both of you,” Scott said. “The way things look now, Doom can do pretty much whatever he wants. If he wanted you to come down here and find Klaw for him, he could make you do that.”
“Sure, but he could have just found Klaw himself,” Captain America pointed out. “And how do we explain what happened with the Hulk?”
“There is another power involved,” Xavier said. He was hollow-eyed and gaunt. Scott thought he looked like he hadn’t been sleeping, either.
He looked back up at the wall, reading the message Doom had left:
YOU ARE SUMMONED TO THE TOWER OF DOOM AT DAWN.
“What tower?” Reed wondered.
“Might want to look out the window, Stretch,” Ben said. He pointed.
They all turned and saw an immense golden structure that had not been there the day before. It was so tall, clouds gathered around its tip. It was at least as high as the chunk of crust Molecule Man had torn loose the day before.
“I’m guessing he means that one,” Ben said.
“Well, now we know where we will be dining tomorrow, nicht wahr?” Nightcrawler said.
Scott had been taking a head count, to make sure everyone was all right. Now he noticed that they were down two members.
“Reed,” he said. “Is Johnny a heavy sleeper?”
Reed looked around. “Not especially.”
“Colossus isn’t, either,” Scott said. “But neither of them is here.”
FIFTY-SIX
PETER knew it was wrong, but he could not stop himself. If Doctor Doom had won the game, did that not mean that they were…well, doomed? They would never leave Battleworld. If Doom had any intention of ending this game and sending them home—if in fact he could do that—surely he would have done it already. That was enough to tell Peter that Battleworld would be his new home. If so, he had to make the best of it.
He had to say goodbye to Katya. Forgive me, my love, he thought as he brought the airbike down into Zsaji’s village as quietly as he could. We are torn apart by the actions of those mightier than ourselves.
No light shone within Zsaji’s hut. It was very late, only an hour or so before dawn by Peter’s reckoning. He moved aside the curtain in her doorway and softly called her name. In the darkness, he saw her stir. She turned on a lamp by her bed, a small marvel activated by her touch, not electricity. Peter sat on the side of her bed. “I am sorry to awaken you,” he said. She watched him, those beautiful eyes wide and her pewter hair tousled with sleep. “We have lost the Beyonder’s game. Either Doom will annihilate Battleworld when he returns to Earth—if Earth still exists—or he will abandon us here. In either case, I wished to see you again.”
She said something in her language. He thought it sounded like a question. “I wish I knew what you were asking,” Peter said. “This may be the last time we see each other. Or it may be the beginning of a long life together.” As he had always imagined a long life with Kitty Pryde. Was it betrayal to acknowledge the finality of the separation? Peter could not see it that way. And though he knew his thoughts were somewhat confused by the effect of Zsaji’s healing touch, Peter nevertheless believed he had a true understanding of the reality of their situation. All of them had to begin to let go of the places they had come from, for their future held either Battleworld…or nothing at all.
“If we survive the next few days, I will stay with you. I know you cannot understand me, but we will teach each other our languages and grow together in that way as well as others.” Colossus smiled. Zsaji smiled back. Outside, dawn was breaking.
At least that’s what Peter thought when he first noticed the light outside. Then he saw shadows moving and realized the light was too bright to be the first rays of morning sun. A moment later he heard the sound of footsteps outside Zsaji’s hut and the voice of Johnny Storm. “Hey, loverboy,” Johnny said. “Come on outside. You and I need to talk.”
Peter stood. Zsaji touched his arm and said something. “Do not worry, love,” Peter said. “We will speak only.”
Outside he saw that it was still mostly dark, but light was beginning to show in the sky opposite Doombase. “Johnny,” Peter said.
“Sneaking out at night,” Johnny said. “What’s Daddy Xavier going to say?”
Peter stood in the doorway. “Perhaps the same thing your brother-in-law Reed might say.”
“Ooh, zing. Except I don’t have a gorgeous super-genius mutant girlfriend waiting for me back at the mansion, do I?” Johnny riposted. “So maybe our situations aren’t quite the same.”
“No, they are not. Because you see yourself as a conqueror of women. Zsaji is one more conquest to you. But to me, she is—”
“Cut the crap,” Johnny said. “I know exactly how you feel. She doctored me up, too, remember?”
“That changes nothing about who you are. Just as it changes nothing about who I am.”
Johnny grinned as if Peter had just given him a gift. “That’s right. And you know who you are? A quitter. You’re suddenly committed to Zsaji because you need something to hang on to now that Doom walked off with the big prize. That’s what a coward does. You’re quitting on Kitty Pryde because you gave up on getting out of here. That’s not about her, or Zsaji. That’s on you, Pete. I’d heard a lot of things about you, but nobody ever told me you were a quitter.”
Colossus had determined not to come to blows with a comrade, but that resolve melted quickly in the heat of Johnny’s words. “Quitter?” he echoed, his flesh gleaming and becoming organic steel. He stepped forward, out of the doorway of Zsaji’s hut.
“You heard me,” Johnny said and burst into flame.
A crippling wave of pain swept through Peter’s head; for a moment he went blind. When the pain passed, he saw that Johnny had similarly suffered. Both men clutched their heads, too unsteady to renew their hostilities.
Both of you stop at once. Charles Xavier’s unmistakable telepathic voice. The situation has changed in your absence, and you are needed back at the base. Immediately.
Professor—
No. Do not make me compel you.
Johnny shot one more furious look at Peter and then flamed away into the predawn sky. Behind him, Peter heard Zsaji’s voice. He could not bear to turn around and look at her. “Farewell,” he said as he straddled the airbike and fired up its engines. “I must answer duty’s call. Know that I love you.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
JOHNNY STORM and Colossus arrived separately. Xavier did not confront them about where they had been. He had no desire to embarrass them in front of the others. He did, however, hope that the two men would leave the alien woman alone now. Her healing powers were surely enough of a burden without making her the focus of competing attentions.
Every hero assembled and marched to the strange new tower. They were quiet and somber. Even Xavier could not predict Doom’s next action.
Klaw, made whole again, met them on the stairs outside the grand doors at the base. “Welcome to the tower! This is the hour. You see the power of Doom, who awaits in the room, oom oom.”
“Doom didn’t fix his head when he put the rest of him back together, did he?” Wolverine muttered. They climbed the stairs onto a broad plaza and then continued into a giant gallery that led to a huge, largely empty room.
Really, Xavier mused, a throne room is the only word for it. Doom sat on the throne, raised on a dais.
“Greetings!” Doom said. He did not invite them up to the dais, nor come down to meet them. “I shall get down to the important matter at hand—which is that in assuming the power of the Beyonder, Victor von Doom died. In a way. I am still Doom, but I am not as I was before. Petty human rivalries, ambitions, jealousies…these no longer have meaning to me. I am complete and serene, and I have brought you here to offer you a gift.”
“Beware of villains bearing gifts,” Nightcrawler murmured.
“I have transcended the concerns of mortality, and of mortals,” Doom went on. “Yet I am conscious of unfinished business from my mortal existence. I cannot undo the works of my former life without unraveling much of the fabric of the reality you inhabit. However, I can set right some of the errors and crimes of these few days immediately past. Observe.”
Doom held out a hand, palm up, and lifted it slightly as if beckoning something forth. A ripple of energy appeared at the base of the steps and coalesced into the form of Kang the Conqueror, in the middle of a sentence. “…realize that Kang is essential to—” He broke off and looked around. “Where am I? What has happened?”
“Return to your time, Kang. Return home.” Doom turned his hand over and pushed his palm infinitesimally forward. Kang vanished.
“Didn’t you kill him?” Captain America said.
“Yes, he was dead. But as you now see, Steven Rogers, there is more to life and death than is dreamt of in your philosophy.” Doom paused. “If you will permit the misquotation. I have set right my mistreatment of Kang. Galactus, too, is now being restored to health, having been found drifting in space by his loyal herald. This leaves only you, who have suffered much hardship as a result of my actions on this world. I would grant each of you a single boon. Whatever you wish, as atonement for the suffering you have endured. You played the Beyonder’s game faithfully, and you deserve the reward he offered, despite the fact that you never could have won.”
“You go on and ascend to your higher plane,” Captain America said. “We don’t want anything from you.”
“Are you so certain?” Doom asked. “Perhaps your colleagues feel differently. Pray consult.”
Captain America gathered with the others in a tight group. “Professor,” Captain America said quietly. “What’s your read?”
“Doom’s mind is unreadable,” Xavier said. “Whatever decision we make, I can provide no guidance.”
Though he spoke to Captain America, he was watching Spider-Woman. She had been behaving quite strangely since they found her in the Doombase laboratory, like her thoughts were elsewhere. She was observing Klaw while the rest of the team barraged Captain America with suggestions. Spider-Man spoke for several of them when he asked, “Why don’t we just ask him to send us home?”
“After he finds Lockheed for us. Kitty’s never going to forgive us if we come home without him,” Nightcrawler added.
“I can get us home,” Reed said.
“Is that right? How?” Wolverine asked.
Captain America caught Reed’s eye. Reed gave him a subtle nod as if to say Yes. I was serious.
Through the interference from Doom’s virtually limitless powers, Xavier could only hear the general tone of their thoughts. None of them trusted Doom, but many of them were willing to take a chance if it meant getting home. But Reed seemed confident. Xavier decided to trust in that confidence. “My belief is that Doom’s offer is sincere,” he said. “However, I doubt his control over the ramifications of whatever so-called wishes he might grant. In other words, we might well find ourselves suffering side effects.”
“So, what, we’re going to walk away when he’s offering us a free ride home?” Wasp said. “That’s crazy.”
“Do we all know what each and every one of us will wish for?” Xavier asked.
“Mind-reading is your department,” Johnny Storm shot back.
“Precisely. Yet Doom’s presence, his power, prevents me from doing so now. So unless we are perfectly certain that each and every one of our wishes would interact with each other without catastrophic counter effects, I believe our choice is clear,” Xavier said. “We cannot risk the potential damage to reality.”
“Xavier is correct,” Reed said.
“I still think we ought to give it a try,” Ben Grimm said. “C’mon, are you saying you don’t want to take a chance so we can get home?”
“I will not await your decision any longer,” Doom said. “Choose.”
Xavier nodded toward Captain America. “Captain Rogers will speak for us.”
He noticed several of the others frowning, but none moved to interject.
“We want nothing from you, Doom,” Captain America said. “Although we appreciate the offer.”
“Very well,” Doom said. A glow surrounded him, and his form began to grow less substantial. “Then our dealings are ended…forever! Leave as you entered. Soon I shall be gone from this plane, but mark! Until my ascension, I will suffer no disturbance. Do not seek to enter my presence again. Need I elaborate on the potential consequences?”
“We get the picture,” Captain America said.
Xavier became aware of a different consciousness as Doom vanished completely and Klaw said, “Looks like you better go go go since you said no no no.”
“Looks like it,” Wolverine agreed.
Xavier tried to isolate this new mind, but it was constantly shifting, camouflaging itself among the other minds within the group. His attempts to track it also were confused by the psionic static emitted by Ulysses Klaw. He could not get a firm sense of who or what it was, and was more than a little inclined to believe he had begun to sense the consciousness of Battleworld itself—not simply its tendency toward desire, but its whole complex, kaleidoscopic essence.
They were outside, moving toward the ship, oddly subdued considering the magnitude of the events they had just observed. Reed Richards was already consulting with the Hulk about possible ways to reconfigure some of Doombase’s machinery to transport them back to Earth. “We have to determine where Earth is, first,” Hulk was saying. “How do we find it with no stars to use for navigation?”
Captain America, meanwhile, was taking a head count. If they were unable to return without risking Doom’s retribution, he needed to be sure everyone was present and accounted for. “Where’s Spider-Woman?” he asked.
Reed stretched up as Spectrum blinked and flickered. “She’s not here,” Spectrum said. “I just did a circuit of the tower and didn’t see her anywhere.”
“I’ll go back in after her,” Captain America said.
“If Doom were true to his word, she will already be dead,” Xavier pointed out.
“I’m not leaving anyone behind,” Captain America said. He turned to head back inside.
“Everyone else to the ship,” Reed said. “We don’t want to provoke Doom any more than we have to.”
Ben looked up at the tower, so tall that it was impossible to see its top. “Don’t dawdle, Cap. I don’t like this place.”
*
Following the constant flow of babbling from Klaw, Steve found Doom unmasked and sitting lost in thought in a chamber just off the throne room. Perhaps most of the tower was only for show. How much space could one man need?
“Doom,” Steve said. “We’re trying to leave but Spider-Woman must have gotten lost along the way. I came back to look for her.”
“I see,” Doom said. “Klaw. Find her.”
Klaw scrambled away, and Steve looked around the room. “Nice place,” he commented. “Not quite what I would have expected from a guy who’s transcended humanity. I mean, that’s your mother, isn’t it?” He pointed at a series of larger-than-life portraits running along one wall.
“Very perceptive, Captain,” Doom said. “Though I have nearly left humanity behind, I am not immune to the tidal pull of emotion. You refused my gift before,” he went on, reclining in his chair,
“so instead I will offer you a story. It is a short story, and you have in all likelihood heard a variation on it before. In it, a woman with certain skills sells her soul to a powerful demon to save someone close to her. That someone, a child, grows into adulthood knowing his mother is imprisoned by the demon. Then, years later, he realizes he has grown powerful enough to face the demon and return his mother to the land of the living.”
“So you’re going to take on…what’s the demon’s name?”
“Mephisto. Once I have restored my mother to life, my last bond to the world of human affairs—or indeed any mortal affairs—will be severed.”
“I don’t know, Doom,” Steve said. “You look pretty human to me.”
“Of course,” Doom said. “I maintain this appearance because my physical form contains the limitless energies to which I have access. I hold it, ever vigilant, because a moment of inattention on my part would unleash destabilizing forces that might cause untold damage. Even a slight movement of mine, if careless, might end the lives of millions…or billions. I do not wish this.”
Klaw ran back into the room. “She’s out in the hall, all in all, next to the wall, but I find a problem in my mind, I don’t know what’s going on, on, on…”
Doom rose. “Go and escort Julia Carpenter from this tower, Steven Rogers. We will not see one another again.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
THE ENTIRE team was together and gathered around a long table in Doombase for the first time since Magneto had departed shortly after their arrival on Battleworld. Peter Rasputin, troubled by his own thoughts, sat at the far end from Captain America, who had called a meeting to discuss what he had learned from Doom.
“I’ll get right to the point,” Cap said. “Doom may have the powers of Galactus and the Beyonder now, but he’s still thinking like a human being. He’s still driven by the same things that drive the rest of us…in this case, love.”
Love, Peter thought. Is that not what drives us all?
“Doom? Love?” the Thing cracked. “What’s he doing, writing sonnets in his tower?”