by Stan Lee
“You’re no Tiger,” he said.
Then he whirled around and pressed a hidden stud next to an ornate doorway. The entire wall swiveled, taking Malosi with it.
In less than a second, he was gone.
Steven paused, catching his breath. I could leave him here, he thought. He’s wrong—I am the Tiger again. And my friends need my help.
But he had unfinished business. And somehow he knew: If I’m going to beat Maxwell, Malosi is the key. I have to defeat him.
I have to tame my other self.
He took a last look around at the House of Karma: its wide doorways, its beautiful oak furnishings, the gas lamps shining from its walls. It felt like a trap. A guilty indulgence, an escape from his responsibilities. A fantasy.
He reached into his pocket and hefted the qi amplifier again. It was warm, like a parent’s embrace. Like a living heart.
He walked to the wall and pressed the stud. The room whirled around him—and suddenly he was in another chamber.
It was dark and musty, filled with ancient weapons—maces, swords. Flaming torches were mounted on the walls. A huge catapult filled one corner, loaded and ready to fire.
Steven looked around, frantic. Malosi—where is he?
Then a sharp metallic sound rang out, again and again. Steven whirled around, the Tiger energy blazing above him.
“The House of Elders,” Malosi said.
Malosi strode forward with measured, unhurried steps. He clanked a massive rusty chain up and down in his hands, whipping the floor.
“You followed me,” Malosi said. “I guess you’re a Tiger after all.”
Steven nodded. “And the Tiger never hides from a challenge.”
For the first time, Malosi smiled.
Steven clenched his fists. He reached deep inside himself, tensed, and summoned the power that was his birthright.
In the dark room, lit only by torchlight, two Tigers rose up and prepared for their final battle.
JASMINE WOKE SLOWLY, as if from a deep sleep. On the hard surface beneath her, a familiar face looked up, meeting her eyes. She blinked, startled, and scrambled to her knees.
All around her, the same expression stared out of a thousand mirrors. The face was her own.
She concentrated, summoning her power. The snakelike Dragon hissed into being above her, its head whipping back and forth. Then a memory of pain bubbled to the surface of her mind and she paused.
Carlos designed this prison specifically with me in mind, she thought. He knows how powerful the Dragon is, and he knew he couldn’t defeat it. So he arranged to use its power against it.
He knows me, too—better than anyone else. If he’s designed a trap for me, it’s unbeatable.
The Dragon faded from the air.
She paced the circular room for a moment, her boots tapping on the mirrored floor. Her mind was a whirl of emotion. Carlos, she thought, how could you do this? How could you betray me like this?
She turned toward the wall and stared into a mirror. She looked exhausted, defeated. Not like a hero or a leader. Just a tired woman who’d been fighting too long.
Then an idea struck her. The Dragon power. It’s not just for combat or brute strength. It’s much more than that.
It transcends time and space.
She reached out and touched the mirror. Zodiac energy flared at her fingertips, sparking on contact with the glass. The image in the mirror—her own face—began to shimmer and change. In its place she saw an old painting, a broken pot, an antique table cracked in half…
…and then she saw Steven, grappling with a muscular man in his twenties. Above their small forms, two Tigers raged and clawed at each other.
She studied the image for a moment. Steven was battling for his life, but he and his opponent seemed evenly matched. What about the others? Liam, Roxanne, and Duane? Carlos had threatened them by name, vowed to kill them.
Jasmine cast a last glance at Steven. Hang in there, kid, she thought. I’ll get back to you.
She waved her hand in front of the mirror, and the image changed again.
It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing: the elevated platform, hovering in the night above the glowing domes of the Vanguard complex. She concentrated, zooming in on the image. A large hologram of Maxwell rose up from a shack in the center of the platform.
She zoomed in closer…
“Oh, no,” she said aloud. “No, no, no.”
Snake and Monkey were leading a line of helpless captives toward the shack: Duane, Roxanne, Ox, and Liam. They seemed passive, defeated, barely looking up as they marched past the giant Maxwell hologram.
Instantly, Jasmine knew: They’ve lost their powers. They’re beaten.
Monkey swung open the door to the shack. Inside, a strange web of crystal circuitry rose up from the floor of the platform. That’s it, Jasmine realized, the gizmo that keeps that huge disk in the air.
Duane, Roxanne, and Ox filed inside. But Liam hesitated. He glanced up at the giant Maxwell hologram, and a devilish look crept into his eye.
Liam reached out and punched the holo-transmitter mounted on the side of the shack. Maxwell’s face vanished in a flash of static.
Snake and Monkey jumped on Liam.
Jasmine watched, helpless, as their fists pummeled her teammate. Zodiac energy started to build on her hand, rising along with her frustration. Without thinking, she reached out and let loose a bolt of Dragon-fire.
The energy struck a mirror and backfired at her, knocking her off her feet. For several minutes, she lay gasping for breath.
When she looked up again, her heart sank. Liam was being pushed into the shack after his teammates.
Jasmine concentrated on the image, following Snake and Monkey inside. She could see, built into one side of the shack, a cramped prison cell with a transparent door. Monkey snapped open the door, and Snake ushered the prisoners into the cell.
Liam, Roxanne, Duane, and Ox stared helplessly at the crystal antigravity machinery filling the center of the shack. It stood mere inches from them, but the clear plastic cell door kept them away from it.
Especially without their powers, Jasmine thought.
She followed Snake and Monkey back outside—and her heart sank. There was one other person on the platform—a man she was trying very hard not to think about.
Carlos strode across the elevated disk, taking readings and consulting his analyzer. He didn’t look like a brainwashed madman. He might have been working in his lab back at Zodiac headquarters, losing himself in some obscure experiment.
But he wasn’t Carlos—not really. Not anymore.
Jasmine felt despair. Willingly or not, Carlos had betrayed her and trapped her in that cage. Now, step-by-step, he was helping Maxwell destroy her friends.
As if on cue, a small figure rose up from the complex below. Jasmine recognized it immediately: Maxwell. He rode a small hover vehicle, much like the one he’d used during the Convergence. He held a small ball glowing with Zodiac power.
Not Dragon power, Jasmine thought. I’ve still got that. This is something else.
Maxwell swooped up gracefully, surveyed the scene for a moment, and then came in for a soft landing on the platform.
Snake and Monkey watched as Maxwell stepped out of the vehicle. Monkey wore his familiar nasty grin, but Snake looked distinctly uneasy at the sight of her employer.
Carlos strode over to greet Maxwell.
Watching Carlos’s smug face, Jasmine felt despair rising again. She told herself: Don’t let them beat you. Don’t despair.
Don’t give up. Get angry.
She waved a hand, dismissing the image in the mirror. It vanished, replaced once again by Jasmine’s own face. All around the mirrored trap, her visage stared back at her from a thousand warped reflections.
She concentrated, and the Zodiac energy began to build.
The Dragon blazed in all directions. It hissed and shrieked, whipped and coiled through the high chamber. No power c
ould defeat it. No trap could hold it.
This is gonna hurt, she thought.
She closed her eyes and screamed.
The blast of energy tore the roof off building five. Shards of plastic flew in all directions, flaming away into the night.
Beneath her feet, the mirrored floor cracked and melted. Machinery hissed and sparked; circuits turned to liquid. Small fires broke out all along the floor.
The pain was incredible. Jasmine nearly passed out. No, she told herself. Keep pouring it on. You have to save them.
You are the Dragon!
When she opened her eyes, she was hovering above the wreckage. The walls were broken struts with jagged pieces of mirror still clinging to their frames. The ground had burned away, leaving a crater almost a meter deep.
The Dragon was free.
Jasmine clenched her fists and shot into the sky.
As she passed over the central dome, she spotted the hole in its roof. That’s where Steven is, she realized.
But the Tiger would have to wait a little longer. Jasmine banked right and headed straight for the floating platform.
She glanced back nervously, suddenly worried that Maxwell might have witnessed her explosive escape. But all she could see was a slight wisp of smoke rising from the ruins of building five. The wreckage itself was blocked from view by the main dome.
The platform hung like a giant coin in the sky. As she approached, Jasmine powered down, forcing the Dragon glow to fade. She didn’t want to be seen.
The first thing she heard was a high, sad cry of pain.
Is that Roxanne? she wondered. Or Duane? But no: they were out of sight, presumably still locked up inside the shack.
The cry rang out again. It sounded like an animal being struck by its master.
Jasmine moved in closer, staying dark and silent. When the scene came into focus, she gasped.
Maxwell was next to the shack, crouched over Monkey. Zodiac energy flowed out of the hairy Vanguard agent through a metallic drainer implanted in his neck. In Maxwell’s outstretched hand, the bronze sphere glowed bright, drinking in the power.
Carlos stood nearby, admiring his own dart gun. “Drainers,” he murmured. “Amazing tech. I am good.”
Monkey looked up groggily into Maxwell’s eyes. “Why?” he asked.
Maxwell looked down at him, past the flow of energy. It traveled in one direction: from Monkey into Maxwell’s sphere. “Because I can,” he replied.
Then he paused and frowned. Jasmine had the strange feeling he’d just caught himself speaking the truth—a truth he couldn’t face.
“It’s…it’s for the best.” Maxwell added.
Jasmine wafted closer to the platform. No one had seen her yet.
The sphere in Maxwell’s hands began to morph and shift. It sprouted mottled brown legs, long-fingered hands, and an extended tail. For a moment, it looked just like a monkey.
Then it grew longer, the tail thickening and stretching. Soon it formed the unmistakable shape of a snake.
Jasmine looked across the platform. Celine—the Vanguard Snake—lay off to the side with another of the drainers in her neck. She was staring straight ahead, muttering to herself in a low voice. There was no hope on her face—and no Zodiac glow around her body or in her normally shining eyes.
He’s already stolen her power, Jasmine realized. It’s inside that thing, along with Monkey’s.
Jasmine couldn’t feel sorry for Maxwell’s agents; they’d made their choices. But the more powerful Maxwell became…
Carlos leaned over Maxwell’s shoulder. He watched in fascination as Maxwell’s sphere absorbed the last of the Zodiac energy from Monkey’s body.
“This is risky,” Carlos said. “We agreed you’d stay in seclusion.”
“You mean you’d rather perform your experiments alone?” Maxwell asked. “The Tiger is occupied elsewhere, so I must perform this task myself.”
They don’t trust each other, Jasmine realized.
Maxwell tossed Monkey aside. The man rolled on the ground and scuttled over to join Snake. His hands and feet seemed smaller, less hairy than before. His power, too, was gone.
Maxwell rose to his feet, staggering slightly. He stared at the glowing, morphing object in his hands. It ran through a spectrum of shapes, a catalog of the Zodiac powers: snake, monkey, horse, dog, ram, rooster, pig, ox.
“So much power,” Maxwell said. “But the Dragon—my birthright—still eludes me.”
As she floated closer to the platform, Jasmine realized she was trembling. The memory of Carlos’s words, his cruelty—the way he’d described killing her friends—came back in a flood.
Steady, she told herself. Sneak up on them. Stay quiet!
Maxwell turned and stumbled into Carlos. As Carlos caught him, Maxwell whispered something into his ear.
Uh-oh, Jasmine thought.
Maxwell stepped aside gracefully. Carlos whipped out his dart gun and turned to smile straight up at Jasmine.
“I have one for you, too, Jaz,” he said, and fired.
Her hand blazed with Dragon power. With barely a thought, she melted the dart in midair, along with the drainer attached to it.
“Give it up, Carlos,” she said, moving in to hover just before him. “Transfer the Zodiac power back to Roxanne and the others, and let’s go home.”
Carlos exchanged a glance with Maxwell.
“‘Home,’” Carlos echoed, his voice tense. “With you? With a group of powered freaks who see me as…ordinary?”
“‘Ordinary’?” Jasmine blinked. “I don’t—Carlos, you’re the smartest, most logical man I’ve ever met.”
“That’s why I’m doing this,” he said. “It’s logical.”
This isn’t working, she thought. Try something else!
“How’s this for logic?” she asked. “You’re working for the biggest ‘powered freak’ of all.” She pointed at Maxwell.
Maxwell turned and glared at her.
“That’s right, Maxwell. I’ve still got the Dragon power, remember?”
“And I have the jiānyù.” Maxwell held up the sphere. “It holds…let’s see…eight of the other eleven Zodiac powers. That might be an interesting contest.”
Jasmine frowned. She didn’t know how the sphere—the jiānyù—worked. But if Maxwell could use it as a weapon…
Carlos is the weak link, she thought. I’ve got to get through to him, and fast.
“Carlos,” she said. “I know there’s some good, some of the real you, left inside. You didn’t kill me back there in the mirror dome.”
“Kill the Dragon? I’m good, Jaz, but not that good.” Carlos paused, examining her. “Still, you escaped my trap. Perhaps I haven’t found the Dragon’s weakness, after all.”
“The Dragon’s weakness,” she thought. You found it all right. But it’s not some hall of mirrors.
It’s you.
“You’re dangerous, Jaz,” he continued. “If I knew how, I definitely would have killed you. Planted you in that red earth so deep you’d never—”
Her Dragon-bolt struck him in the chest. He gasped, stumbled, and toppled forward on his face.
“Well,” Maxwell said, “I guess now it’s you and me.”
She came in for a soft landing directly across from him.
“What are you gonna do with that thing?” Jasmine asked, gesturing at the jiānyù. “Toss it at my head?”
Carlos lay still on the platform’s surface. Snake and Monkey just watched from a distance.
“The Dragon’s more than a match for the entire Zodiac, Maxwell,” she continued. “You know that.”
Suddenly, the platform lurched beneath them. Jasmine stumbled, then floated up into the air. When she looked back at Maxwell, he was smiling.
“I don’t want to fight you, Jasmine,” he said. “The epic good-versus-evil confrontation—it’s kind of a cliché at this point, don’t you think?”
She looked around, disoriented. Wind whipped her face as the platform c
ontinued to move. Below, through the transparent surface, the domes were coming into sharper view.
“Surprise,” Carlos said.
She whirled around. Carlos lay on the ground, holding up a small cylindrical remote control. Jasmine looked from him to Maxwell—then down again. The central dome was just sliding into view.
“This is gonna hurt,” Carlos said.
As the platform passed over the exact center of the Vanguard complex, a series of mighty generators hummed to life.
Then, all at once, a web of energy beams flashed from the sides of the domes. The beams reached out, connecting the small buildings in a massive network of electromagnetic power.
Two beams, from buildings four and six flashed harmlessly into the empty air above the ruins of building five, the mirror trap.
“Seven and eight are offline, as expected,” Maxwell said. “But five isn’t responding, either. Will that short it out?”
“Cutting building five out of the circuit,” Carlos replied, twisting a knob on the remote. “Don’t worry. We’ve got power to spare.”
On the ground, a group of soldiers scurried out of the way as the beams from buildings four and six swiveled away from the blasted-out crater. Their energy met in a blinding flash, just meters from the edge of the central dome.
Jasmine stared at Carlos. “What—” she began. “What are you doing?”
From each of the small buildings, the beams turned to fire at the main dome. Hidden receptors on its outer walls flared and became visible, absorbing and amplifying the energy.
The main dome glowed like a star. A circular hole slid open in the very center of its roof.
Jasmine turned in panic and took off into the air, climbing as fast as she could—
—just as the brightest, most powerful beam of all erupted from the top of the central dome. It stabbed straight toward the platform, passing harmlessly through its transparent surface—
—and grabbed Jasmine like a magnet.
She flailed, Dragon power flaring, and tried to fight it. But it drew her down, face-first, with a steady, inexorable pull. She smashed down onto the platform’s surface, coughing and spitting dirt.
