Target: Kree

by Stuart Moore

  He’s in agony, she realized, somewhere deep inside. He came here to help his friends, and now it’s all gone wrong. The savior has become the destroyer.

  She cast her awareness wide, piercing the darkness. She saw the police cars waiting silently along the edge of the parking lot. Captain America and the Black Widow sprinting toward the road, working with Groot and Gamora to block the Hulk’s escape.

  Drax had doubled back toward the grocery store and was leading his Kree friends in a wide circle around the monster, planning some sort of sneak attack. Rocket crouched down against a stone bench, reloading a contraption on his flying device. Up above, the Guardians’ ship was beginning another descent toward the battle scene, with Peter Quill at the helm.

  Kir-ra turned to look down. On the pavement, not far away, Iron Man and War Machine writhed and sparked. Stark’s eyes gaped wide, his armor glowing bright as energy from the Hulk surged into it. Rhodey’s suit was charred and dented, little fires breaking out in the joints and along the jagged edges where his machine gun had been. Doctor Voodoo sat cross-legged on the ground, his staff held horizontally to touch both men’s armor. He was glowing too, his mouth open in a soundless scream.

  They’re doomed, she knew. All that power will light them up like a torch.

  She gripped her power-rod tight, feeling it crackle to life. Was this finally her chance? The war for which she’d been trained – the battle that had eluded her, all her life?

  The Hulk took a half step away, then stopped. He seemed trapped, held in place, as if leashed by the energy stream flowing out of him. His metal shoulder-plate clanked as he leaned down to glare at a familiar suit of armor.

  “STARRRK,” he growled.

  In a single motion, he reached down, grabbed hold of a lamppost, and yanked it out of the ground. Wires sparked, shards of metal snapped free. Snarling, he grabbed up another lamppost, and another.

  Then he tossed them at Tony Stark.

  Kir-ra leaped, acting purely on instinct. She swung the rod, intercepting the first of the lampposts with a sizzling impact. The post flew aside just as her shoulder slammed into the second one. She gasped and tumbled to the ground.

  The third lamppost slashed past her. No! she thought. Not fast enough–

  A thin repulsor beam lanced out from Stark’s upturned palm. The lamppost sizzled, melted in half, and clattered to the ground.

  She whipped her head around, astonished. Stark was still staring straight up, his face twitching. She crept in close, squinting through the glow of energy. His eyes flickered over to her, the vaguest hint of a smile teasing at his lips.

  “M- Multitasking,” he said.

  A deafening roar filled the air. She turned to see the Hulk glowing, brighter than ever. Clenching his fist, rearing back to bring that axe down on his tormentors. And on her.

  “Attack!” Captain America screamed.

  The Hulk whirled to face the renewed onslaught. Cap led the charge, leaping up to smash his shield into the Hulk’s face – taking care, Kir-ra noticed, to avoid the blazing energy flow. Gamora followed, jumping and slashing, her sheer ferocity startling the Hulk, forcing him back. Groot grabbed hold of the monster’s limbs in thick corded vines; Natasha jabbed out with her stingers, one after the other, in rapid succession.

  Quill’s spaceship shot down out of the clouds, veering around hard to meet the Hulk head-on. Cap ducked away as Quill fired off that red-hot energy beam again. The Hulk cried out and stumbled back, away from Stark and the others.

  “Be careful!” Cap called. “Don’t let the power stream touch you!”

  Drax yelled a few words in Kree, and his friends leaped onto the Hulk, guns blazing. The Hulk reared and roared, throwing them off. Rocket whizzed around in circles above the monster, pelting him with something that looked like patio tiling. Even the cops got in a few shots, but their bullets couldn’t penetrate the Hulk’s tough hide.

  Kir-ra thumbed her power-rod to life again. This is it, she thought. This is why I’m here. All her instincts screamed at her to leap into the fray – to join the fight–

  –but her intellect told her something different. The Hulk faced a massive, powerful attack force: Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Kree warriors, and Terran law officers. Among them, those heroes had defeated everything from common purse-snatchers to galactic-scale threats. Now all that power, all their combined might, had come together to fight a single enemy, a gamma-charged monster powered by the energies of a destroyed world.

  And the monster was winning.

  She took a step back, flinching as the Hulk tossed Captain America aside like a doll. What more could a single warrior add to that fighting force? Especially one like herself, trained primarily in passive fighting arts?

  Rocket dipped a little too close to the power stream, and let out a yowl as it singed his fur. The stream continued to flow from the Hulk down to Stark and War Machine, who lay in a single, blinding pool of energy. Smoke rose from the two suits of armor. Doctor Voodoo lay next to them on the pavement, eyes closed, his hands twitching around his staff.

  OK, she thought. Maybe one more fighter couldn’t make a difference. But her training had other uses.

  She closed her eyes, casting her senses outward once again. Blocked out the bone-thudding impacts, the cries of pain, the searing energies that threatened to tear this world apart. Blocked out, too, the rage and anguish of the Hulk, the desperate fear and courage of Earth’s defenders as they made their last stand.

  And all at once she knew: there’s something else. Someone else. Someone who might still turn the tide.

  The Hulk roared to the heavens. He reached out, tossing Groot and Natasha away, and scooped up the back half of the broken garbage truck. When he swung it into the path of the energy flow, the truck burst into flame.

  Again, her instincts screamed: fight! But she knew that wasn’t the answer. She knew, now, what she had to do.

  She took one last look at Stark and the others, lying bathed in the power that would soon kill them. Then she leaped over them and ran, sprinting across the road toward the houses beyond.

  Chapter 53

  Just as Tony was about to pass out, the Hulk’s roar shocked him awake. Scathing energy surrounded him; his skin was baking inside his armor. He could feel joints melting, smell circuits frying, both in his own armor and in Rhodey’s. Voodoo lay behind them, his eyes and mouth overflowing with power. Tony couldn’t tell whether he was conscious or not.

  The source of that power glared down at them, mouth twisted in a snarl. The Hulk shrugged his huge shoulders, sending My-ronn the Kree and a few of his friends flying.

  Gamora, Rocket, and Groot had pulled back to guard the edge of the parking lot. The cops had retreated too, to take care of their wounded. Cap and Natasha were still picking themselves up, eyeing the Hulk grimly.

  The monster glared down at the energy flowing out of his chest. He dipped a finger into it and howled in pain. He flexed a bicep, showing off the World-Breaker armor, and raised his axe in the air.

  Tony raised his head to look over the energy stream, staring the Hulk straight in the eye. “Hey, big green,” he said, gesturing at the axe. “Everything’s a weapon to you, right? The whole world is… war.”

  A low growl.

  “You would have liked my dad,” Tony said.

  The Hulk hesitated, snorted, and tossed his axe aside. The weapon struck Drax on the head, stunning him, just as he was moving in for another assault. The Kree caught him and hustled him away from the battle.

  Then the Hulk staggered closer, growling at the energy linking him to the two metal men, and raised both hands in the air. Tony stared up at those gigantic fingers, watching as they curled into deadly fists. Which, he wondered, will kill me first? The Hulk’s two-fisted punch, or the stored energies of a murdered world?

  A bright blue boot streaked into view, s
lamming down onto the pavement between Tony and the Hulk. Tony caught a glimpse of a familiar red and blue costume, with a jagged gold stripe running down the center…

  “Heads up, Mister Stark! I mean, Tony!”

  Kamala, he realized. It’s Kamala!

  With a whiff of burning solder, his optical receptors shorted out. All at once he was blind, helpless as he lay on the cracked pavement. The Avengers had retreated, and the Guardians were still playing defense. All that stood between him and the raging monster was one teenage girl, a novice Avenger who’d had her powers for less than a year.

  And yet, Tony found himself smiling.

  •••

  The Hulk roared, stomping both feet. The energy stream linking him to Tony jolted to one side, tugged like a shimmering rope by his heavy, lurching movements.

  “Watch out, kid,” Tony gasped, twitching as he lay on the ground. “The energy… Don’t get in the way of the flow…”

  “I know all about the energy,” Kamala said.

  She danced sideways to avoid the deadly power flow. She’d taken stock of the battlefield on her way in; all the other heroes were either injured, reinforcing the perimeter of the shopping center, or still catching their breath from the last attack. That left a lone girl from Jersey as the last Avenger standing.

  “No problem,” she muttered out loud. “We got this. I got this! Yes, we’re obviously trying to convince ourselves of this fact…”

  The Hulk turned his attention back to Tony, who had gone still. He seemed to have lost consciousness. But that flow of energy continued, from the Hulk into the two armored Avengers.

  The monster roared and raised his fists again. Grimacing, Kamala willed her body to expand, to thin, spreading out through the night air. Then she charged, wrapping herself around the Hulk’s massive fists, pinning them together.

  The Hulk growled in anger, shaking his bound hands in the air. Kamala flailed, dizzy, struggling to hold on. No use, she realized – he’s just too strong! When those fists drew dangerously close to the energy stream, she sprang free, her sheetlike body retreating off into the wind.

  She dropped to the ground, willing herself back to her usual shape. The Hulk shook his head in confusion. At least, she thought, I distracted him from Tony. For the moment, anyway.

  She glanced over at the street. Rocket, Groot, and Gamora stood guarding the sidewalk, but no one else had arrived yet. No one coming across from the housing project. Where are they? she thought.

  The Hulk reached out and grabbed her around the waist. She cried out, twisting to avoid the energy pouring forth from his chest. She willed her body to thin out, contracting enough to slip free, coiling down to land in a pile on the ground. The monster’s hands closed on air, and again he screamed in frustration.

  As she reverted her body to normal, a heavy hand came down on her shoulder. Captain America had crept up behind her. His cast, she noticed, was gone. Natasha stood just behind him, grimacing.

  “Brave work,” Cap said. “But you can’t take that creature on by yourself.”

  “I have to,” she said, glancing again at the street. “For just a minute or two more.”

  “Steve.” Natasha stepped forward, eyeing the Hulk. “He’s gonna go after Tony again.”

  The Hulk let out another ear-piercing roar.

  “Can we distract him?” Natasha asked.

  “Love to,” Cap replied. “But with what?”

  Kamala’s eyes went wide. “I know,” she said.

  Before Cap and the Widow could protest, she turned back to face the Hulk. His armor gleamed in the light from the streetlamps. His flexed muscles were as thick as cables. The energy flaring from him lit the night like a jade beacon.

  Furrowing her brow, Kamala concentrated as hard as she could. Her body began to expand in all directions. As her mass increased, her costume shifted along with the molecules of her organic form. The strain of this, she knew, would wear her out, maybe even nullify the power that was still healing her concussion. But there was no time to worry about that, not now. Only one thing mattered.

  She had to grow.

  When her head was level with the World-Breaker’s, she turned to him and screamed, as loud as she could. He whirled around to look, tethered only by that relentless energy stream holding him fixed to Tony Stark. The monster let out a strange, puzzled noise.

  Kamala knew she couldn’t match the Hulk’s strength. She didn’t have his muscle mass, and she wasn’t powered by the same extraterrestrial energy. She couldn’t mimic that strange armor he wore, either. And she sure couldn’t match him for sheer, savage power.

  But maybe, she thought, I can be bigger.

  As she rose up to tower over him, the Hulk’s expression turned to sheer, unstoppable rage. All at once, Kamala realized her mistake. A Hulk-sized opponent was a novelty for the monster, a potential sparring partner. A curiosity.

  But an opponent larger than himself… that was something the Hulk couldn’t bear.

  Howling, he turned his armored shoulder toward her and charged. Metal, backed by the strongest muscles on Earth, slammed into her, knocking her off her feet. As she fell, she shrank her body down, knowing that a landing at giant-size might seriously injure her. Even at normal proportions, the impact sent a painful jolt up her shoulder. She shook her head, dazed, looked up…

  …and smiled.

  Captain America and Natasha had turned to greet three newcomers. Kir-ra and Halla-ar staggered across the parking lot, supporting an old woman between them: their grandmother, Ann-ya. The old woman looked tired, haggard from the ordeal back in the apartment. But determination shone in her eyes.

  Kamala smiled. I did it, she thought. I distracted the Hulk… just long enough.

  She ran over to help her Kree friends.

  Chapter 54

  Tony struggled to rise. His armor held him down, half the servos were shorted out, and he was still blind. With considerable effort, he swiveled his armor’s half-fused neck joints to survey the scene. Rhodey lay beside him, unmoving. The blazing energy flow still linked the two of them to the looming Hulk. Doctor Voodoo lay on the pavement too, his staff still resting across the two armored men’s legs.

  The Hulk glared down, a low steady growl issuing from his lips. He seemed confused.

  A crunching noise made Tony turn. Ms Marvel and the two Kree, Kir-ra and Halla-ar, moved toward them, along with an old woman who seemed radically out of place in this devastated battleground. The Guardians had begun to gather behind them, along with Drax’s Kree friends.

  “Ann-ya?” Ms Marvel asked. “Are you–”

  “That’s far enough.” Ann-ya, the old woman, struggled free of her grip. “Let me go!”

  As Ann-ya approached the energy flow, a flash of fear crossed her eyes. Then she turned toward the Hulk and took a step forward.

  “Stop her,” Tony gasped.

  “No,” Ms Marvel said. “Captain America! Keep everybody back!”

  The Guardians, Natasha, the Kree – everyone stopped in their tracks. One by one, they turned to look at Captain America. He paused, shield raised, and shrugged. “You heard her.”

  Ann-ya picked her way around the energy stream, stepping over the unmoving form of Doctor Voodoo. Her movements were slow but sure, her expression determined and purposeful. She positioned herself in front of the Hulk, just to one side of the gleaming, searing energy flow.

  “That power,” she said, “the pain. It doesn’t belong to you.”

  The Hulk peered at her, let out a strange, puzzled noise.

  “It’s mine.”

  She reached out a hand and, with surprising speed, jabbed it into the Hulk’s stomach. He arched, bellowing in pain. The energy flow from the Hulk shifted, whipping and sparking in the air. Tony felt his own pain ease, his armor’s temperature dropping as the flow reversed itself. Flowing ou
t of him, out of Rhodey and Doctor Voodoo…

  …into Ann-ya. All of it, every ion of mystically charged gamma radiation, surged into the old woman – from Tony and the others, and from the Hulk as well. She gritted her teeth, shrieked, and began to glow.

  Natasha swore and started running to rescue the old woman. But Kir-ra and Halla-ar blocked her way.

  “No!” Halla-ar said.

  Tony’s armor began to reboot. He heard a sigh of relief from Rhodey. Groot and Rocket reached out and helped them to their feet.

  “Is Earth always like this?” Rocket asked.

  “I am Groot…”

  “No, no, I kind of like it.”

  The Hulk’s emerald halo, too, was weakening. The World-Breaker armor – on his shoulders, across his chest – began to waver. As they watched, it softened and retracted back into his body.

  “Quill was right,” Natasha said, stepping back to watch. “That is kind of gross.”

  Ann-ya cried out again – a high, human noise – as all the rage, the pain of a lost world flowed into and through her.

  “No,” Halla-ar said, “I can’t…” He started toward his grandmother, but Kir-ra held him back.

  “She has to do this,” Kir-ra said. “You know she does.”

  Ms Marvel strode up on extended legs and touched Halla-ar’s shoulder. He grabbed her hand, almost hungrily, and together they stared at the blinding-white form of his grandmother. Tears welled up in his eyes.

  The Hulk seemed to recede, shrinking down to his normal seven feet in height. The World-Breaker axe shimmered and vanished. His howls grew quieter, like the cries of a dying animal.

  The Guardians’ ship came swooping down out of the darkness. Tony squinted. Was that a man on its wing…?

  “Get me lower, Quill,” Drax the Destroyer yelled. “Lower!”

  A chime told Tony his armor was fully mobile again. He realized something else, too: a weight seemed to have lifted, a burden of rage and guilt. The rage of the Master, gone along with the death-power of Praeterus. He watched the last of the energy sputter out of his chestplate, wafting almost casually into the old Kree woman’s body. All he could see within the glow was the outline of her face, sharp high cheekbones topped by hollow eyes.