by Greg Cox
Inner gloves of flexible gold foil covered his hands as he reeled Rogue in. She fought back at first, testing the steel cables to their limits, but he had designed his grappling system to stand up to stress of several orders of magnitude. He diverted the bulk of his power reserves, freshly replenished by Storm, into the high-speed motors rewinding the cables. Despite Rogue’s strenuous exertions, Iron Man pulled her all the way back until, the tungsten lines completely retracted, his gauntlets clicked back into place upon his hands. He immediately added his own muscles to the grapples’ grip.
Her invulnerable limbs strong enough to withstand his iron grip, Rogue pulled one foot free from his gauntlet, even though she had to leave a layer of skin behind. Ugly red abrasions upon her right ankle, she twisted in the air so that she was facing Iron Man. She clawed incessantly at his helmet, her prying fingers digging into his eye and mouth slits, determined to get through to the vulnerable human tissue inside. Her nails scratched the reinforced plexiglass lenses shielding his eyes, yet she still couldn’t employ her vampiric touch against the human being inside the iron suit.
Trust me, he thought with bitter humor, you’re not missing anything. The best you could absorb from me would be a bad heart. Committed to keeping Rogue away from the other X-Men and Avengers, Iron Man altered his trajectory to send them both, locked together like binary stars, through the ad-hoc entrance the Hulk had hammered out with his fists. Glimpses of the desolate lunar landscape, visible through the transparent wall of the dome, poked their way past the pale white fingers probing his eye slits. I should let her steal my natural strengths and weaknesses, he thought. It would serve her right…
* * *
THE whoosh of powerful jet engines roared in Iceman’s ears as the tussling figures of Rogue and Iron Man raced by overhead. Several yards away, the Hulk and Wolverine competed to see who could growl the loudest and the most savagely, while Captain America and the Beast used all their athletic prowess to stay one leap ahead of the Scarlet Witch’s unpredictable hex bolts. With all of the Leader’s brainwashed pawns caught up in the chaotic free-for-all, Iceman realized with a start that he had a clear shot at the big-brained baddie himself!
Like a frozen flying carpet, a self-generated glacier bore him down the corridor toward the Leader, bridging the yawning chasm separating him from the criminal genius responsible for all this violence and suffering. “I’m coming for you, mister!” he threatened. He gripped his ice-mace in one hand and a clear blue shield in the other. “Get ready to get put on ice!”
According to the Hulk, the Leader had to touch someone to take over their mind, so Iceman figured he was safe inside the icy armor he had crafted over his physical body. For a second he wondered how the heck the Leader had managed to touch Rogue without getting drained of all his smarts, but then a wall of emerald flame erupted between Iceman and his sneering target, forcing the refrigerated X-Man to put on the brakes to keep from skating right into the inferno. “What?!” he gasped, his crystalline jaw dropping in surprise. Where in the world—or the moon—did that come from?
Waves of scorching heat poured from the blaze, melting the weapons in his hands to ice water. Crackling tongues of green flame licked the ceiling; through the fire, the Leader’s sinister visage seemed to ripple like a mirage. Iceman backed away from the terrifying conflagration. He could feel the awful heat liquefying his armor, stripping away his defenses and threatening the very integrity of his frozen body. Must be a couple hundred degrees Fahrenheit, he thought in amazement. If I get any closer, I’ll be nothing but a puddle myself!
A firm, resolute voice called out to him. “Iceman!” Captain America shouted. He sounded like he was still back where the Beast and the Scarlet Witch were. “What are you waiting for? Stop the Leader!”
Iceman was confused. Couldn’t Cap see the flames? “I can’t!” he blurted. His armor was totally gone now, the melted ice streaming down the surface of his body. He watched in horror as his fingers and toes succumbed to the terrible heat, his hands and feet dissolving into icy stumps. “The fire—it’s too hot!”
“Listen to me, Iceman,” Cap insisted. “I don’t know what you’re seeing, but there’s nothing there. The Leader can project illusions with his mind.” The patriotic Avenger sounded reassuringly confident and certain. “You can do it, man. Don’t let the Leader fool you with his tricks!”
Illusions, huh? Iceman squinted skeptically at the lowering wall of fire. The dancing flames looked and felt convincing enough, but Iceman knew just how believable a good illusion could be. Mastermind used to try to fake me out this way all the time, he remembered, back when I was just a dumb teenage kid.
He closed his eyes, but he could still feel the heat of the emerald flames turning his body to slush. He ignored the unnerving sensation of his limbs swiftly streaming away, and slid headlong into the blaze. There was a moment of searing heat and pain, then he was through the fiery barrier—and back in one piece. Frosty eyelids snapped open, and he found his “melted” limbs and armaments restored to their original solid state. Way to go! he rejoiced.
Now it was the Leader’s turn to blink in surprise. His bushy black eyebrows arched halfway up his billboard-size brow. The convolutions of his bulging brain (blobbed like the swollen domes of the evil telepaths in that old Star Trek episode, the one about the alien zoo. “Impressive,” the Leader admitted in a haughty tone. “There must be some degree of intellect in that sculpted ice cube you call a skull, although I must admit that I don’t see anything resembling gray matter there.”
“You like messing with people’s brains?” Iceman said heatedly. “How ’bout I return the favor?” His club and shield at his side, the arctic Iceman didn’t lay one frigid finger on the Leader, but the scheming super villain clutched the enormous hemispheres of his bloated noggin in agony.
“Arrgh!” he gasped. His fungus-green eyes bulged from their sockets. “Wha—what… are y-you … d-doing… to me?” For an alleged megagenius, he seemed to be having trouble stringing words together.
“Freezing the flow of blood to your brain,” Iceman explained with relish. He had once used the same trick to bring down another know-it-all telepath, the White Queen. The Leader dropped to his knees, writhing in pain. Done in by the mother of all migraines, the Leader didn’t look so arrogant now. “That’s for what you did to Rogue and the others,” Iceman said harshly. He wondered how much brain damage it would take to get the Leader back down to his original, unmutated I.Q. Bobby was tempted to find out.
That’s that, I guess. Iceman savored his easy victory over the infamous mastermind—until a blast of searing heat struck him from behind. His icy physiognomy melted and boiled away, sending a traumatic shock through his entire body. Instinctively, he shifted back to human form to avoid evaporating entirely, but the strain, combined with the blistering heat, was too much for him. One thought raced through his brain an instant before darkness swallowed up his consciousness:
Hadn’t the Leader said something about a partner?
CHAPTER SIX
“WHAT the—?”
For a second there, Captain America had thought the tide of battle was definitely turning in their favor. The Beast and Iron Man were holding their own against Wanda and Rogue, respectively; the Hulk was standing up to Wolverine’s frenzied claws, while Iceman definitely appeared to have their true enemy, the Leader himself, on the ropes. Then an unexpected figure materialized behind Iceman, cowardly shooting the frozen X-Man in the back with a bright red burst of flame. Cap watched in alarm as the mutant youth transformed rapidly back into flesh and blood before collapsing onto the floor. The former Iceman lay sprawled in a pool of his own melted substance.
But who had bushwhacked the X-Man? At first, Cap was surprised to see Wolverine appear from nowhere, looking just as he had before the Leader’s trans-mat beam snatched him from the quinjet, even though yet another Wolverine, the one in the orange jumpsuit, was still sparring with Hulk as his uniformed double stood over Iceman�
�s vanquished form. Captain America guessed that the hypnotized berserker slashing away at the Hulk was the Real McCoy, so who was this new arrival? An illusion, a Sentinel, or…?
Jigsaw pieces came together in the Avenger’s mind as the answer hit him with all the force of an old V-2 rocket. That blowtorch bit is the giveaway, Cap thought; all of a sudden, he knew exactly who the Leader’s alien partner was.
“Super-Skrull!” he accused the bogus Wolverine. “I should’ve known you were mixed up in this the minute we saw that saucer.”
“Hah!” the imposter barked cruelly, spinning around to face the star-spangled Avenger. “It took you long enough to figure it out, human.” Before Cap’s eyes, the short, stocky form of the Canadian X-Man morphed into someone else completely. The duplicate gained in height, becoming at least six feet tall, while Wolverine’s distinctive yellow uniform darkened to shades of black and purple. The X-Man’s mask disappeared and the face below took on a more reptilian aspect, with flaring pointed ears and lime-green scales. Deep furrows segmented his lower jaw, while inhuman red eyes glared at Captain America with undisguised malice. A black skullcap formed a widow’s peak above his protruding brows. His right fist, the one that struck down Iceman, smoldered like burning coals. “Are all humans so blind,” he taunted, “or only their so-called heroes?”
“It’s been you all along,” Cap realized, his mind swiftly reviewing the events of the last few days. “Ever since you joined up with us at Avengers Mansion, right after we got back from Niagara Falls.”
“Of course,” the Super-Skrull gloated. “It was the work of a mere hatchling to infiltrate your allied forces, the better to monitor your pathetic attempts to locate and rescue your captured teammates.” Behind the imposing figure of the Skrull warrior, the Leader gradually recovered from Iceman’s ingenious attack. Holding a pale green hand to his stricken cranium, he staggered slowly to his feet while casting a venomous gaze at the unconscious Iceman. “I deceived your planet’s primitive intelligence operatives as well, when they interrupted my investigation of the X-Men’s headquarters.”
Cap nodded grimly. He recalled receiving a brief report from Nick Fury about S.H.I.E.L.D.’s violent altercation with “Wolverine” at Professor Xavier’s mansion in Westchester. A lot of odd occurrences now made a lot more sense. No wonder “Wolverine” was able to beat Rock so quickly down in Freehold, Cap realized; we had the Super-Skrull fighting beside us and we didn’t even know it!
Now the masks were off, though, and the Leader’s silent partner stood revealed. Cap repressed a shudder at the horrendous thought of the Leader and the Super-Skrull working in concert. Ordinary Skrulls were bad enough, given their cunning and innate shape-changing ability, but the Super-Skrull was the most dangerous exemplar of his treacherous breed: a ruthless soldier imbued by Skrull science with all the unique super-powers of the entire Fantastic Four. The combination of the Super-Skrull’s raw power with the Leader’s corrupt genius made for a genuinely awesome alliance. Then again, he thought, that’s what they said about the Axis Powers, too, back during the Big One, but the courage and ability of good men and women prevailed in the end, as it always will.
“We did all right against your saucer,” Cap reminded the Skrull, “just as the brave people of Earth have always overcome the Skrull Empire’s devious plots against our liberty.”
A frown added to the Skrull’s malevolent appearance. “Do not mock the Empire, primate,” he warned ominously. “True, your armored comrade cost me a vessel and a squad of loyal soldiers, but it takes more than a lucky shot to destroy me, the supreme embodiment of Skrull military might. My personal force field protected me from the explosion while my gift of invisibility allowed me to retreat unobserved.”
It’s ironic, Cap thought. In his own twisted way, the Super-Skrull saw himself as the symbol of his Empire’s strength and resourcefulness, like the Skrull version of, well, Captain America. But I represent freedom and decency and equal opportunity for all, not a vicious empire that measures its greatness upon the oppression of other races. “Your force field? Your invisibility?” Cap challenged the Skrull. “Sound like the powers of Sue Richards, the Invisible Woman, to me.”
The Super-Skrull’s lips curled back in a snarl, and Cap knew that he had hit a nerve. “My special abilities may have been modeled on the freakish talents of the Fantastic Four, but that makes them no less mine! I have mastered all my gifts, exceeding their aboriginal origins, for the greater glory of the Skrull Empire!”
Having regained his composure and conceited attitude, the Leader joined his extraterrestrial ally, stepping over Iceman and the puddle beneath him. “You must forgive my partner’s patriotic declamations, Captain,” he said archly. “He gets carried away sometimes—but look whom I’m talking to!” He glanced up at the Super-Skrull, whose scaly hide was a brighter shade of green than his own, closer to the Hulk’s chartreuse tint. “If you’re quite through exchanging bon mots with this flag-wrapped relic, I assume you’re capable of eliminating our uninvited visitors before they cause any more damage to this facility.”
The Skrull bristled visibly. “Watch your tone, human,” he threatened, his voice much deeper than his partner’s supercilious tones. “I am no lackey to leap at your command.”
Cap was encouraged by this sign of strife between Earth’s foes, but the Leader hastened to put his partner at ease. “No offense intended,” he assured the glowering alien. “I simply meant that the sooner our mutual enemies are disposed of, the sooner we can proceed to the completion of our grand endeavor.”
The Skrull’s red eyes widened. “You mean…?” he asked anxiously, his ire at the Leader’s preemptory manner apparently forgotten.
“That’s right, my martial associate,” the Leader said with a self-satisfied grin. “My experiments on our captives have yielded the results we sought. All that remains is to complete the enterprise.”
“Excellent!” the Skrull enthused. He lifted a smoking fist in front of his broad chest and hammered the air triumphantly. “Then the future is ours!”
I don’t like the sound of this, Captain America thought. Anything that gladdened the hearts of the Leader and/or the Super-Skrull couldn’t be good for humanity. “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “What sort of nefarious scheme have you cooked up between the two of you?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” the Leader teased unhelpfully, then addressed his partner. “A few irritating loose ends remain.” He gestured dismissively toward Cap and the other heroes. “If you please…?”
“Very well,” the Skrull said readily. “In truth, I have been eager to abandon the masquerade and face our opponents as a warrior should— in combat.” He fixed a hostile gaze upon Captain America, and his clenched fists expanded until they were the size of boulders. A thick, lumpish carapace—mimicking the rock-like armor of the Thing— covered his fists and lower arms, but that was just the beginning of the Skrull’s preparation for battle. The stony, orangish cudgels ignited spontaneously. Crimson flames, reminiscent of those flaunted by the Human Torch, raged over the Super-Skrull’s hands until each rocky fist resembled a meteor burning up as it crashed through the atmosphere. And like meteors, the Skrull’s fists flew at Cap, rubbery arms stretching behind them like the elastic limbs of Mr. Fantastic.
Captain America dived out of the way of flaming fists. He’d gotten as much information as he was going to get from the two villains; the time for talking was clearly over. “Heads up, people!” he warned his teammates, still engaged in battle against the brainwashed mutant trio. Not counting the Beast, whom he considered an Avenger, he noted that their X-Men allies had all bitten the dust. Cyclops and Storm were out cold, along with the Vision. It’s up to us now, Cap realized. “Avengers Assemble!”
He wasn’t foolhardy enough to go hand-to-hand against the Super-Skrull. The bionically-enhanced alien was at least as strong as the Thing, which made him only a little less powerful than the Hulk. Instead Cap concentrated on the Leader, w
ho was physically the frailer of the pair. Cap’s ever-ready shield soared dependably at the Leader’s mushroom-shaped brow; if nothing else, the mad genius’s huge head made a remarkably easy target.
Right before the spinning edge of the shield collided with the Leader’s skull, however, an unseen force halted the flying weapon and sent it whirling back at Cap, who concealed his disappointment as he plucked the shield from the air with one hand. His shrewd mind took strategic note of the Leader’s seemingly miraculous escape; telekinesis, it appeared, could be numbered among the would-be tyrant’s mental powers. That’s going to make things a little harder, he concluded.
He recovered his shield just in time to defend himself from a blazing stream of lire directed at him from the Super-Skrull’s rocky fingertips. Although comparable in temperature to that produced by an acetylene torch or flamethrower, the white-hot flames didn’t even scratch the polished surface of Cap’s venerable shield. “Is that the best you can do?” the Avenger asked defiantly. The streaming fire swept down toward his legs and Cap leaped high in the moon’s low gravity, clearing the spurting flames by more than ten feet. Adrenalin mixed with the Super-Soldier Formula in his blood, bringing him to peak fighting condition. “Listen, mister, I knew Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch, and I’ve fought beside Johnny Storm, too. And I can tell you one thing, you’re no Human Torch!”
“As though I would ever aspire to such a demeaning label!” the Super-Skrull retorted. A fist of burning granite pounded against Captain America’s shield as the veteran hero landed on his feet. He found his durable buckler, forged from a unique adamantium-vibranium alloy, on the receiving end of what Ben Grimm, the real Thing, colorfully called “clobbering time!” The shield on Cap’s arm held up to the piledriver blows, but he could feel the impact all the way through to his bones. “I am more than human, primate,” his attacker bragged. “I am Skrull!”
