by Greg Cox
* * *
IT had required the vast strength of the Thing, plus repeated verbal commands from the Leader, to pull the rabid Wolverine off the Hulk and convince him to switch partners, but the Hulk didn’t care about that. He was just severely ticked off at having his heavyweight slugfest with Wolverine interrupted. “Come back with that mutant!” he roared as Rogue carried his fierce sparring partner away. “I’m not done smashing him yet!”
“Forget that primitive creature,” the Super-Skrull instructed. In his black-and-purple uniform, the alien invader stood only a few inches shorter than the Hulk. His hands on his hips, the Skrull posed proudly before the jade giant. Yellow flames licked his stony fists. “Now you face the unrivaled might of the Empire’s proudest warrior!”
“Big whooping deal.” The Hulk looked unimpressed. “I’ve whipped your sorry carcass before and I can do it again.” He sneered at the bateared Skrull soldier standing between him and the Leader. “So you’re as strong as the Thing, huh?” He stepped backwards, crudely feigning terror by placing a meaty slab of a hand over his mouth. “Ooh, is that supposed to scare me?” He snorted loudly. “Right.”
“Do not mock me, barbarian!” The Super-Skrull lifted his hands and unleashed a scorching gout of flame at the earthborn behemoth. He raised his voice to be heard over the angry crackle of the fiery blast. “Fortune may have granted you victory before, but no such capricious twist of fate will save you this time. Now is the hour of your ultimate defeat!”
“Blah, blah, blah,” the Hulk responded. The raging firestorm engulfing him did little more than irritate his chartreuse hide, like a really bad sunburn. His skin reddened for an almost subliminal second, then immediately returned to its usual shade of green. The smell of burning hair contaminated the once-pristine atmosphere, but the Hulk acted none the worse for wear. “That’s the best part about brawling with Wolverine,” he griped. “Unlike the rest of you windbags, he doesn’t mouth off when he gets down to business.” He snuffed out the ineffectual flames by clapping his hands together with stupendous force. “You wanna rumble? Shut up and fight!”
“Hell-Hounds of the Black Nebula!” the Super-Skrull swore vehemently. “You will pay for your insolence, Terran!” His boots remaining firmly planted where they were, the Skrull stretched toward the Hulk, seeking to ensnare the green giant in those very same coils that had so effectively immobilized Captain America. The alien’s elastic torso wrapped tightly around the Hulk’s gigantic form, but the gamma-spawned monster was infinitely stronger than the star-spangled Avenger, and he pulled the thick, purple strands of Skrull away from him as if they were made of well-chewed bubble gum. No matter how relentlessly the coils squeezed their prize, they could neither restrain the Hulk nor even restrict his movement.
Reluctantly acknowledging the failure of his ploy, the versatile Skrull abruptly switched tactics. Quickly unspooling from the Hulk, he resumed his usual proportions several feet away, then focused his will on the advancing ogre. “Prepare to surrender, Hulk,” he warned. “As you shall see, I need not even touch you to vanquish you utterly!”
Like the Beast before him, the Hulk found himself enclosed in an invisible force field, yet holding the ever-incredible Hulk was an altogether different proposition than trapping one loquacious Avenger. Seven feet, one thousand pounds of unfettered fury hammered at the transparent cage, each cataclysmic blow sending an excruciating pulse of psychic feedback streaming back to the mind of the Super-Skrull. Slimy perspiration broke out over the Skrull’s lime-green brow and his lizard-like eyes bulged from the grueling mental exertion required to maintain his force field against such awesome opposition. “Wraiths of the Void!” he cursed under his breath, his chest heaving in exhaustion. “This is impossible! My powers are drawn from the raw cosmic energy of the universe itself. They cannot be overcome by mere brute force!”
“Ain’t nothing mere about it, Skrully,” the Hulk grunted. Bulging veins stood out like cables atop his grotesquely exaggerated musculature. Locking his immense fists together, he delivered a double-handed blow to his unseen prison. The Super-Skrull gasped out loud from the transferred impact of the titanic wallop; it was like the alien’s own brain was being pounded upon and not just an invisible energy construct. Ramming his shoulder into one side of the besieged bubble, the Hulk threw his entire weight (or the closest lunar equivalent) against the crumbling force field, which shredded into insubstantial wisps of bio-electricity as the huge monster stampeded through the barrier and grabbed the shaken Super-Skrull by the throat. Trembling from fatigue, and wheezing through his snout, the Skrull emitted a hoarse, choking sound.
“You know, I never noticed before—” the Hulk began, lifting the Skrull off his feet like Darth Vader interrogating a recalcitrant rebel soldier. Unlike the stunned Skrull, the jade giant wasn’t even breathing hard. “— but you’re almost as ugly as my old pal, the Abomination. All you need is a few more warty bumps on your head and you’d look just like him.” A malicious grin bared the Hulk’s great white teeth. “That’s going to make knocking your block off a lot more fun.”
Prior to carrying out his threat, however, a scarlet radiance fell over both the Hulk and his intended victim. The roseate glow made the two combatants’ green skin look like differing shades of muddy brown instead. “What the—?” the puzzled Hulk asked, blinking against the bright red light. “Where’s that coming from?”
Looking away from the gasping Skrull, the Hulk spotted an auburn-haired woman standing next to the unconscious body of the Beast, her slender fingers extended toward the pair of inhuman monsters. Even though she was wearing an unflattering orange jumpsuit in place of her usual gypsy duds, the Hulk recognized the Scarlet Witch—and wondered what exactly the brainwashed mutant babe was up to. “You’d better not be pulling one of your stinkin’ hexes on me, witch!” he hollered. “’Cause no hocus-pocus hoodoo can stop the Hulk, and I’m not above proving it by stomping you flat!”
Despite his churning anger, a peculiar sensation came over the irate Hulk. His heart began to pound less violently, his pulse slowing to something close to resembling ordinary human circulation. The swollen veins along his arms and shoulders retreated beneath his chartreuse epidermis, which no longer seemed to be stretched quite so tightly over his densely-packed muscles. If I didn’t know better, he thought, I’d swear it was the Change starting!
But that wasn’t possible. Was it?
His right hand still gripped around the Super-Skrull’s throat, the Hulk lifted his other hand up before his face. Was there something screwy about its color? At first, the Hulk hoped that it was just the scarlet glow of the Witch’s hex sphere that gave his upraised palm a disturbingly pinkish tint, but the more he stared at his open hand, the more obvious its transformation became. “No!” he bellowed, but his voice lacked its customary depth and volume. “Not now. Not now!”
Emerald eyes, rapidly fading to brown, widened in dismay. Groping his face with shrinking fingers, he felt his jawline narrow, and the beginnings of a scruffy beard begin to sprout from his chin. The sloping forehead straightened out. A squat, pug nose grew thinner and more refined, until the Hulk couldn’t even recognize his own profile. There was no denying it now; he was turning back into that spineless weakling, Banner! Puny, helpless Banner!
His outstretched arm could no longer support the Super-Skrull’s imposing physique. The Skrull gasped for air as he dropped from his stricken captor’s weakening grasp; he was now considerably taller and heavier than his shrunken opponent. With the last vestiges of the Hulk’s legendary rage, a thin, greenish figure howled and shook his scrawny fists at the heavens. “This can’t be happening!” he cried out, his fearsome roar dwindling to an indignant yelp. “Not at a moment like this!”
“It does seem rather improbable,” a languid voice said with obvious amusement. The Leader strolled across the floor to smirk at his longtime nemesis, whom he could now look directly in the eye. “But then, making the improbable inevitable happens to be
the specialty of our own dear Specimen #2.” He nodded approvingly at the mesmerized Scarlet Witch. “Her singular talents prove more useful all the time. I really must seriously consider cloning her one of these days.”
Clutching his scaly throat, which still bore the imprint of the Hulk’s huge fingers, the Super-Skrull looked Banner over with a visible mixture of relief and regret. The slender physicist grabbed onto his oversized trousers to keep them from sliding to the floor. “This pathetic human is the Hulk?” the Skrull asked, shaking his head in disbelief. He towered over Banner, who squinted up at the warlike alien through weak, myopic eyes.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” the Leader confirmed. “Now do me a favor and beat him senseless.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE Super-Skrull hated being on the moon.
Ex-Commander K’lrt, once the greatest hero of the glorious Skrull Empire, repressed a shiver of superstitious dread. Ten million Earth-years ago, on this same barren satellite, his revered ancestors had been savagely massacred by the treacherous Kree, commencing ten thousand millennia of bitter enmity between Kree and Skrull. Even though the Kree themselves had recently fallen beneath the sway of the avian Shi’ar, that primordial bloodbath yet loomed large in the cultural memory of the Skrull Empire, thus accounting for K’lrt’s unease. The sooner he and the Leader left this accursed place behind, the happier he would be.
“I could have defeated the Hulk on my own,” he insisted once more. “You had no right to let your mutant thrall intervene in our contest.”
He paced impatiently about the Transformation Chamber, soon to be the site of his long-awaited apotheosis, and the first way station on his road back to the Empire—and to redemption. The Chamber, located two levels below the bottom of the great crater, occupied the entire sub-basement and was the size of a municipal arena on one of the Empire’s lesser colony worlds, such as Morani Prime, say, or Kral IV. The matte-black floor of the Chamber rose like an inverted bowl toward the illuminated platform at the center of the room, around which the Leader’s three mutant slaves stood at attention. It was upon that platform, K’lrt knew, that he would finally achieve the power that would allow him, after many long cycles of exile and disgrace, to reclaim a place of honor within the Empire. He could scarcely wait for the historic experiment to begin.
“My apologies,” the Leader said, sounding less than repentant, “but there were larger matters at stake than your personal honor as a warrior. I could not afford to endanger our grand endeavor just so you could test your mettle against a mindless menace like the Hulk. Trust me, I know too well how the best-laid plans can be reduced to chaos by that meddlesome brute.”
Loudspeakers transmitted the Leader’s voice from above, where the mutated human resided in a lighted control bulb overlooking the entire rotunda. Glancing upward, K’lrt could discern the swollen cranium of the Leader through the transparent walls of the blister, which was affixed to the ceiling directly above the central platform. The Leader’s hands danced over an intricate control panel as he made the final adjustments to his apparatus in anticipation of the crucial experiment to come.
“You think like a scheming palace courtier, not a warrior born,” K’lrt reproved. Even after many weeks of plotting and preparation, including the excavation and construction of this lunar base, it still felt odd to be allied with a human, of all creatures, even if the greenish cast of the Leader’s skin made him slightly more presentable in appearance than the rest of his barbaric species. “But I am willing to forgo my satisfaction as a soldier in this instance, provided you can truly deliver on your promises—and give me the power I desire.”
“We desire,” the Leader corrected. “And have no fears; careful study of our original specimens, along with the data we appropriated from the Mutant Research Centre in Scotland, has brought certain success well within our grasp.” Lighted indicators flickered on and off around the base of the transformation platform as the Leader keyed in the last few settings. The steady hum of computers underscored the quiet of the chamber. “I certainly hope your esteemed Empress appreciates all we have accomplished under her royal patronage.”
“The Empress is wise,” K’lrt said simply. In fact, the all-powerful Empress of the Skrull Empire had no knowledge of their operations these past few weeks, for it had been far longer than that since the Super-Skrull had last held his rightful place among the elite of the Empire. Cruel reversals of fortune, invariably brought about by the stubborn resistance of Earth’s super-powered defenders, had reduced the once-proud Commander to a homeless exile, a Skrull without an Empire. The memory of past failures sullied his reputation, making him hunger to restore his good name, but the Leader knew none of that.
Although skilled in the mysteries of science, especially for a primitive Terran primate, the Leader had no way of tracking the fickle caprices of imperial politics. K’lrt had led the human to believe that he had the full backing of the Skrull Empire behind him, whereas, in truth, he commanded no more than a small handful of faithful supporters, such as the loyal soldiers who’d perished when the human called Iron Man had the temerity to fire upon their scout ship. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten, my fallen comrades, he resolved. When I am restored to power and glory, I will see to it that your names are duly entered into the annals of the Empire’s heroes.
All the more reason not to let the Leader know that he had been misled until the experiment was complete—and K’lrt had the power to return to the imperial court in triumph. Would the Empress then honor the promise the Super-Skrull had made on her behalf, granting the Leader a world of his own within the Empire’s vast borders? K’lrt resisted the temptation to smile at a private joke; frankly, he doubted the Leader would ever have the opportunity to raise the issue with the Empress. Once their work together was concluded, he fully intended to dispose of his gullible human “partner.” Why give the dishonorable Terran renegade a chance to share his scientific secrets with any other Skrull? To ensure his preeminence within the Empire, the power they unlocked must remain K’lrt’s alone.
Intent on changing the subject, the Skrull wandered away from the platform to inspect their latest prisoners of war. A series of vertical plastic tubes were embedded in the circular wall of the rotunda. There were twelve lubes in all, eight of which contained a defeated member of the ill-fated rescue mission. Tranquilizing gas filled the interior of each tube, ensuring that the captives stayed unconscious and that, perhaps most importantly, Bruce Banner remained pink-skinned and powerless for the time being. Secure metal cables ran from the base of each suspension niche, connecting the tubes to the central platform like the spokes of an enormous wheel. All had transpired just as the Leader had anticipated, and so their prisoners had a vital part to play in the upcoming experiment.
He paused before the translucent cylinder containing the Terran android known as the Vision. “It is unfortunate,” K’lrt commented, “that this irritating mechanism had already been defeated by the time I saw fit to reveal my true identity. Not too long ago, he interfered with an important mission I undertook in the service of the Empire; I would have enjoyed personally revenging myself for that past indignity.”
A weary sigh escaped the Leader’s loudspeakers. “Has anyone ever told you that you dwell too much on yesterday’s defeats?” The human’s hectoring tone offended K’lrt. “You need to keep your extraterrestrial eyes on the future, my morose friend. A new day is dawning … figuratively speaking, of course. Here on the moon, the sun won’t actually rise for another 27 and two-thirds earth-days, but I trust you get my point. Leave your checkered past buried in the ashes of history. Tomorrow belongs to us.”
Your memory is long enough where the Hulk is concerned, K’lrt thought silently. From the beginning, the Leader had insisted on factoring the Hulk into all their calculations and strategizing; indeed, he seemed constitutionally incapable of conceiving of a master plan that did not include the destruction of the Hulk as a major component. So be it, the Skrull reflected, incl
ined as ever to indulge the mutated Terran scientist on this particular matter. After all, K’lrt himself bore no great love for that monstrous savage. Let the Leader have his revenge against the Hulk, so long as he completes the work at hand.
“How much longer must I wait?” he demanded. “I thought all was in readiness.”
“Patience,” the Leader replied from above. “This is delicate work, requiring the precise calibration of my instruments. Rest assured, we shall proceed imminently.”
That had best be the case, K’lrt thought balefully. Such forced inactivity chafed upon his nerves. He was a soldier, a Skrull of action, not a self-professed intellectual like the Leader, content to tinker with his scientific toys until the heat death of the universe, or so it seemed. Spying on their enemies in the guise of Wolverine had kept K’lrt fruitfully occupied while the Leader conducted his preliminary experiments on the kidnapped mutants, but the time for reconnaissance and research had long since passed; he was eager to reap the bounty he had awaited for so long.
He marched away from the niche holding the Vision, and his gaze fell upon the mute and motionless form of the real Wolverine, waiting with his fellow thralls for the Leader’s next command. Although his eyes remained open, he appeared to possess no more animation or volition than the anesthetized prisoners in their suspension tubes. If only all humans could be so docile and easily managed, K’lrt thought; it occurred to him that he would have to deal with the Leader’s mutant pawns once he eliminated the Leader. A simple enough task, once I attain the supremacy I seek.
Of the dozen tubes nestled in the wall, four remained empty; proof that not even the Leader’s amplified intellect had been able to estimate the exact number of Terran champions who would arrive at the moonbase in search of their absent comrades. Contemplating the unoccupied tubes, K’lrt regretted that Nightcrawler had been injured too badly to accompany his teammates on the rescue mission; the mutant’s ability to teleport short distances without the aid of trans-mat devices could have added to the harvest ahead… Still, at least the extra tubes could be employed to store the remains of the Leader’s mind-controlled puppets. K’lrt looked forward to presenting the bodies of Earth’s impertinent protectors as trophies for the Empress. What a proud and triumphant day that would be!
