by Stan Lee
Maxwell didn’t even turn to look. The grenade struck the outer edge of his Dragon form and bounced off, short-circuiting with a dull fritzing sound.
“No,” Carlos cried. “No, no, NO!”
Jasmine quivered under Maxwell’s grip. The sounds coming from her grew duller, quieter.
A stab of panic ran through Steven. He had never heard Jasmine sound like that before. She’d always been strong, funny, indomitable. Now she sounded as if all the fight was being drained out of her.
He glanced sideways. Liam, Roxanne, and Kim were struggling, too, held as tightly as he was by Maxwell’s Dragon power. Kim tried to leap up, to poof away, but she couldn’t get up enough momentum. Roxanne fired off a few sonic shouts against the energy barrier, but flinched as they rebounded back to her.
Up above, Jasmine had gone limp. Only the faintest energy glow surrounded her now, while Maxwell blazed brighter than ever.
Maxwell laughed. He reared his head back, and the Dragon rose up above him. Its wings seemed wider, its form more solid, its fire-breath brighter and hotter than ever before.
“Game over,” he said.
Even through the haze of his energy-prison, Steven could hear Carlos’s anguished cry.
STEVEN SQUEEZED his eyes shut, willing his body to move. He visualized the Dragon energy, the force that held him down, as a linked network of metal chains. In his mind, his hands blazed bright, sharp as Tiger’s claws. He reached up and grabbed hold of the chains.
They wouldn’t budge.
Frustration washed over Steven in waves. Again, he felt like quitting. I’m not good enough, he thought. I can’t do this. I can’t escape.
From above, a single muffled sound escaped Jasmine’s lips.
Steven gritted his teeth. I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to be good enough. If Jasmine can’t defeat Maxwell, it’s up to me.
It’s like I told the team: there’s no choice.
He reached deep inside himself, down to his core. To the power that lay within him. It burned like ice and fire, forged from the basic forces of life. Steven dove inside, through the blazing sun of his own heart…
…and saw, once again, the serene face of his grandfather.
Grandfather, Steven cried out inside his mind. I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough.
Yes, you are, the old man replied. Remember what I told you.
About…my heritage?
You are strong because of what I gave you. And what your parents gave you, and their parents, and their parents before them.
And then, just as he had when the energy first struck him, Steven saw the great line of people. The rich and the poor, the farmers and the kings. All staring back at him, all waiting to feed him some piece of themselves, some tiny bit of strength or wisdom that would help him find his way.
Your history is your heritage, Grandfather said. And your heritage is your strength.
A tear came to Steven’s eye as he looked at the old man’s smiling face.
Thank you, Steven said.
Then he stretched out his arms and gathered up all the people, all the power, all the strength he could find. All the heart, the heritage, the memories. The things that had always been inside him, though he’d never known it before.
I summon the power of the Tiger.
The Tiger blazed bright, roaring like fire. Its flaming claws reached out and sliced through the chains that held him. Steven leapt up, free.
At that exact moment, Maxwell let go of Jasmine. She dropped toward the ground, limp and exhausted.
Steven roared, reached out, and caught her.
She twisted in his arms, barely conscious. Her Dragon form was gone. She looked normal, human, just as she’d been when Steven had first met her in Hong Kong when she was pretending to be the museum tour guide.
He started to lower her to the ground. “I got this,” he said.
“Wait,” she whispered. She reached out and grabbed hold of his arm. “Take that.”
She pointed toward the metallic object she’d dropped minutes earlier. It lay on the ground a few feet away.
“What’s that?” Steven asked.
“Phase Two.”
He leaned over and picked up the object. It was a large hypodermic needle, filled with bright green fluid. With a shock, Steven realized he’d seen it before—in Carlos’s lab, back at headquarters.
Above, Maxwell had turned back toward the dragon statue. His chants were louder now, his voice more commanding. “Sha Qi,” he said. “This is the moment. This is the endgame.”
“Hey,” Jasmine said. “I…” She started coughing. “I was…” Her coughing grew stronger. A bit of blood dripped from the corner of her mouth.
Steven stared at her for a moment. She seemed drained, spent of energy, and yet she hadn’t given up fighting.
“Tell me later,” Steven said.
“Just do the job,” Jasmine said. “Don’t be a hero.”
He smiled. “No promises.”
Then, once again, he summoned the Tiger.
The Tiger is fast, Steven thought. It’s agile and strong. But it’s more than that. It’s also crafty and cunning, and its senses are sharp.
He reached out with his eyes, his ears, his sense of smell. And something else, too—an indefinable extra sense, granted him by the Zodiac power. Growling low, the Tiger surveyed the scene:
In the shadow of the zodiac statues, Carlos punched buttons and touched screens on his machine. Jasmine had moved over to help him, and Carlos seemed relieved to see her alive. But the machine had subsided to a low hum, and the energy around it was barely visible. Carlos shook his head in defeat.
Roxanne, Liam, and Kim lay on the ground, still helpless against Maxwell’s Dragon energy assault.
A stalactite fell with a sharp crack, shaking the cavern. Steven looked up past the sharply angled bulk of the Vanguard drill-ship. Above, cracks stretched out from the hole in the ceiling. Maxwell’s arrival, he realized. It’s weakened the whole chamber.
And between the ship and the zodiac statues: the enemy. The Tiger’s prey. Maxwell floated in midair, chanting and shining, glowing brighter and stronger with each passing second.
Fast as a cat, silent as a shadow, Steven ran to the ship and leapt up onto its hull. His hands, the Tiger’s claws, fastened onto tiny dents in its surface, propelling him upward. He felt wild, inhuman, and so very much alive.
In seconds, he stood balanced on the highest part of the ship, the sharp drill-units that had allowed it to burrow its way into the chamber. Maxwell hovered just above, his face turned toward the wall. The statues stared back, the dragon and ram and rooster and tiger.
Steven leapt through the air, snarling. Maxwell half-turned—just as Steven swiped out hard, slashing him across the face.
Maxwell cried out in surprise. He lashed out, Dragon energy flaring from his hand. Steven twisted in midair, but the energy struck him a glancing blow. He screamed and spun away through the air, searching wildly for someplace to land.
Finally he caught hold of one of the carvings on the wall. He tottered for a moment, then looked down at the outcropping beneath his feet. It was a wide carving of a head, cat-eyes wide with hunger, mouth bared to reveal sharp stone fangs.
The Tiger.
“Well, that’s gotta be a sign,” he whispered, smiling.
Then the Dragon energy flashed out at him again. He leapt up and swooped sideways, landing atop the ram statue.
Maxwell hadn’t moved. He hovered several feet away, staring calmly at Steven from inside his raging, glowing energy cocoon. He wasn’t winded. He didn’t even seem upset.
“I only have one question for you, boy,” Maxwell said. “Why?”
Steven gritted his teeth. “Because you can’t be trusted with this power,” he said.
Maxwell raised an eyebrow. “And you think she can?” He gestured down at Jasmine.
If he grabs hold of me, Steven thought, I’m dead. He’s, like, eighty times more powerful than m
e. I’m only gonna get one chance.
Another blast shot out from Maxwell’s hand. Steven saw it coming—too late. He tried to leap, but the energy hit him straight-on, slamming him back against the pig statue. He gasped, struggling for balance.
“You are not the Tiger I’d intended,” Maxwell said, his voice still perfectly calm. “But you can still join me. I know things about you, Steven Lee. I know that a warrior’s blood runs through your veins.”
“Why,” Steven gasped, “why would I ever join you?”
“Well, for one thing…”
Maxwell’s hand swept out, and another energy blast struck Steven—in the face this time. Stars flashed before his eyes.
“…you wouldn’t have to go through that anymore,” Maxwell said.
Steven shook his head, struggling to clear his vision. He glanced at the ceiling. It was quaking now, stalactites and bits of stone falling all around.
“But that’s just a fringe benefit,” Maxwell continued. “Look at the big picture. Society is crumbling. Nations, corporations—everything descends into chaos. Against this miasma, this roiling void, the powerful must band together.”
Steven frowned. “You’ve given up, haven’t you? On the, the future? The world?”
“I want to save the world.” Maxwell held out a hand. “With your help.”
He needs us, Steven realized. All the Zodiac powers together. Me, Kim, Liam—all of us. He needs us to join him.
“I could take you by force—bend your will to mine,” Maxwell continued. “But that’s not how I want it. Can’t you see—”
Steven tensed his legs and leapt, straight up. He reached out, stretching his body as far as he could, and grabbed hold of the lowest-hanging stalactite. He swung his body around, scrabbling and clutching, and kicked out. His feet struck Maxwell’s head, hard.
The Tiger roared.
Maxwell tumbled backward, crying out. As he crashed against the giant drills of the Vanguard ship, the Dragon form around him seemed to flicker.
Steven paused, dangling from the stalactite. “We’ll never follow you,” he snarled. “Never.”
But Maxwell was only stunned for a moment. He whipped his head up to face Steven, his eyes glowing brighter than ever.
“No,” he said, “I see that you won’t.”
Maxwell raised his hand, and a glowing Dragon claw reached out toward Steven. The Dragon writhed, snarling, angrier than Steven had ever seen it before. Fire blazed from its snout.
Steven hissed in a breath, fighting back panic. He scrambled up the stalactite toward the rocky ceiling. But the Dragon fire flared wide, enveloping him. Slowly, the energy began to pull him down.
He struggled to keep hold of his stalactite perch, but it was no use. Maxwell ripped him free, wrenching him down through the air in a pocket of flame.
Then Maxwell grabbed hold of his arms in an iron grip, halting him in midair. He twisted Steven around to face him.
“If you will not be my Tiger,” Maxwell said, “I’ll have to make another.”
As Maxwell stared into his eyes, something deep inside Steven rose up in primordial fear. The Tiger knew it was facing the one creature that could kill it: the Dragon.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Steven asked.
“Drawing the power out of you,” Maxwell said.
Steven looked down. The energy shape around him was fading…and the roaring, the Tiger’s constant presence inside him, seemed fainter than before.
“You can do that?” he asked.
“I’ve done it before, remember?” Maxwell cocked his head, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. “Oh, I can’t hold it forever. Or maybe I can, now? The Dragon’s power is nearly unlimited.”
A strange sensation ran all through Steven. It wasn’t pain, exactly—more like someone was plucking needles out of his skin, one at a time, needles he hadn’t even realized were there. Again he remembered the first time the Tiger energy had made contact with him, back in Hong Kong. That had felt like a billion tiny, ice-cold pinpricks stabbing into him.
This was the opposite.
“Don’t fight it,” Maxwell continued. “You never asked for this power, did you? Remember how simple things were before? Remember your old life?”
Steven felt a twinge of doubt. Things had been simpler back home. Before the Zodiac power dropped this awesome responsibility into my lap. Before the running, the fighting, the constant threats and battles. So easy to just relax…to let Maxwell win, and go back to…to my old life…
My old life. The phrase echoed in his mind. I remember that. I remember having no purpose, no cause to fight for. Never knowing how to act, or what I wanted.
Or where I belonged.
“This,” he croaked. “This is where I belong.”
Maxwell furrowed his brow, concentrating harder. “Who told you that? Jasmine?”
“She told me about you,” Steven gasped. “She and Carlos—they told me about Lystria. The city you destroyed…the people you murdered. Because they got in your way.”
Maxwell raised an eyebrow. He seemed amused.
“You don’t care…about anything,” Steven continued. “Except your own power.”
“I don’t care?” Maxwell seemed shocked. “You’re just a callow boy. You don’t know anything about the Zodiac…about the power that lies within you, within every person on Earth.”
Steven struggled harder. He couldn’t break Maxwell’s grip, but he needed Maxwell to think he was trying. As Maxwell pulled him close, the Dragon’s flame flared bright, engulfing them both.
“You think I don’t know who you are, little boy? I know more than you think. If only you’d bothered to learn,” Maxwell continued. “About your parents. Your heritage. Your ancestors…”
Again, in his mind, Steven saw the long row of people feeding him strength. At the head of the line, his grandfather leaned in and gave him a wink.
“I know enough,” Steven said.
And he stabbed out with the hypo, straight into the scar on Maxwell’s chest.
Maxwell’s eyes widened. He shoved Steven back, away from him. Steven executed a backflip midair, landing in a crouch on the hull of the Vanguard ship.
Maxwell stared down at the needle protruding from his chest. Its green fluid was almost gone now, pumped into his body. The Dragon form surrounding him seemed to flicker and fade.
“You like that?” Steven pointed at the needle. “It’s a powerful…a strong necro—I mean neo—”
“Neurotoxin!” Carlos’s voice said in his ear.
Steven grinned. “Neurotoxin,” he said.
Maxwell scrabbled in panic at the needle. It popped free, clattering once again to the ground. But now it was empty.
Down below, Carlos stepped forward. “Chlorotoxin, to be precise!” he shouted. “Derived from scorpion’s venom, but strongly enhanced by the addition of several—”
Jasmine laid a hand on his shoulder. “I think they get it,” she said.
Maxwell was shivering now, trembling and shaking in midair. The Dragon power flared, impossibly bright, and then subsided around him, reduced to a dull shimmering glow.
Liam, Kim, and Roxanne climbed to their feet. “Ace job, mate!” Liam called.
Steven smiled down at them. “Kim?”
With a soft poof, she appeared next to Steven atop the Vanguard ship. He pointed at Maxwell. “You want to do the honors?”
Maxwell was quivering in midair, chattering inaudibly to himself.
Kim nodded and took Steven’s hands. He reached out and swung her around, back and forth. She kicked out—
—and knocked Maxwell out of the air.
He dropped fast, shooting toward the ground like a missile. Jasmine hustled Carlos out of the way just in time. Maxwell landed hard, right next to Carlos’s machine.
Jasmine, Steven noticed, was glowing brighter again.
“Come on,” he said, and started down the ship’s hull. Just as he touched the ground, Kim poofed down next t
o him.
By the time they joined the others, Carlos had already strapped one manacle to Maxwell’s wrist. Jasmine was fastening the other one to her own arm. Between them, the machine glowed and pulsed, revving up to full power again.
Maxwell’s eyes stared straight ahead. His mouth moved soundlessly. He seemed paralyzed.
“That must be a pretty strong toxin,” Roxanne said.
“It’d kill a wildebeest,” Carlos replied. “But it’s not gonna hold him long.”
“Kill you all,” Maxwell hissed, his lips barely moving. “All the Zodiac. Burn the Palace down and start over.”
“Charming wee fella,” Ram said.
“Just like Lystria,” Maxwell continued. “No second chances, no warning shots. No mercy.”
“He’s starting to glow again,” Jasmine said. “His body is already rejecting the toxin. How ’bout now, Carlos?”
Carlos flipped a switch. On opposite sides of the machine, Jasmine and Maxwell both stiffened, as if an electrical current had been shot through their bodies. Jasmine’s Dragon form appeared above her, strong and fierce. Maxwell’s Dragon flickered, rising up slowly. It seemed weaker now.
Maxwell lurched sideways, staring at Jasmine with an odd look. At first Steven thought it was hatred—but no, this was something different. Disappointment, maybe?
“You have no idea—what you’re getting into,” Maxwell said. “Vanguard has tentacles all over—all over the globe.”
Jasmine closed her eyes, concentrating. Her Dragon stretched up and away from her, closing in on Maxwell’s smaller, weaker-looking energy form. Energy flowed out of the Maxwell-Dragon now in a steady stream.
Maxwell staggered. “You’ll be hunted forever,” he said.
“I’ll be hunted?” Jasmine laughed. “I’ll be the Dragon. You’ll just be another war criminal with a failed IPO.”
Maxwell’s Dragon spread its wings and flapped, a frantic, desperate movement. Jasmine’s Dragon reared back like a snake, hissed, and lunged. It snapped its jaws, whipping and lashing, sucking the life-energy out of its enemy.
Maxwell himself stayed impassive, gritting his teeth. But his Dragon opened its jaws wide and screamed, a chilling, inhuman sound that filled the cavern.
