Boys Will Fight

The Scarlet Witch looks at Iron Man and the Thing, battering each other like colliding trains.

She thinks about it. The Thing is said to be basically a good guy, bruiser with a heart of gold, like that. Whereas Tony Stark is the Devil.

So she first attempts to wipe the madness from Ben Grimm's mind.

The Thing blinks, a sound like chunks of mulch being rubbed together.

"Hey, Shellhead," he says. "What wuz we fightin' over? In all the hysteria, I kinda forgot."

WHAM!

Iron Man clocks him but good, sending chips of orange brick everywhere. The Scarlet Witch yelps and jumps, stung by a bit of flying gravel.

"We're fighting over who's the better man," says Stark, flexing his wrist and shoulder. "Took most of my battery reserves, but I think we've answered that one."

The Vision floats toward Iron Man.

"Oh, you want some of this?" Stark demands. "Bring it, Casper. I'm wise to your density-control trick. The lighter you are, the more your atoms magnetically attract each other -- so you can walk through walls, but not a handy-dandy .." whirr-buzz "polar repulsion field."

The Vision's eyes are dark. (In a brooding Heathcliffe way, not actual darkness.)

"You have hurt Wanda," he explains carefully. "You will hurt no one else."

And so saying, he lays hold of Iron Man's suit, holding him fast by the wrists. Iron Man kicks the Vision in the side, but the clunk it makes sounds like he was kicking a bridge support.

"Okay, high density instead of low. Junior's growing up fast," says Stark. "But didja ever think --"

"No," said the Vision. "This isn't a time for thinking."

And the yellow jewel in his head lights up.

A beam of sizzling yellow energy blasts into Iron Man's forehead, or just about. Actually it hits a polar repulsion field just short of him.

"Please stand back, everyone," the Vision advises. "This could take some time."

"You think your little light show's going to put Iron Man down for the count? This is the Mark Fifty-One, Rudolf. My forcefields can take whatever you dish out."

"Rudolf?" says the Vision. "I do not understand."

"Red skin? Glowing nose, sort of? It's a stretch," Stark concedes. "And hey, how 'bout a threat to your soft-skin teammates? Don't look now! Because you're Cyclops, and anything you look at is street pizza."

A hatch opens on Iron Man's shoulder.

The Vision flicks his yellow beam over it, causing all the little smart missiles to explode!

Iron Man gasps in pain. Bits shower off the Vision, who turns his beam back to Stark's head.

"You will at some point run out of battery life," the Vision explains. "At that point, my beam will begin cutting its way through your armor. When the inner surface becomes too hot, you really should consider surrendering, although I understand you have intrusive code running in your wetware just now. I will try to shut off the beam before it kills you."

"You'd kill me? Jarvis -- I'm your buddy! I MADE you!"

"I am not Jarvis," the Vision insists firmly. "And you have threatened my friends."

"How SURE are we that the Vision's not still angry?" says Machine Man to everyone. "I mean, yes, he's angry, but the Collector's madness is off him ..."

The yellow beam strikes smoke and blue sparks from Iron Man's face.

"... right?"

Vision Reawakened

The Thing and Iron Man fistfight each other.

Namor bursts into the recreation hall, threatens everyone, and shrinks almost out of sight, hit by one of Ant-Man's shrinking disks. For a moment, he just stands there, blinking.

The Vision's eyes track and focus again as the life-jewel clicks into place. He sees the Scarlet Witch inches away.

She smiles at him, delighted. Rather like Garbo.

After a moment.

"The Collector escaped through a gate of teleportation."

She gestures/looks in the general direction.

"Ah," says the Vision. "Who is the Collector?"

No one enters, behind no invisible force field. And Storm can see what's happening from where she is, until the brawling Thing and Iron Man run into her. Or she could join the others.

A very high-pitched Namor says, "He stole the Serpent Crown! It is too dangerous to be in the hands of any but the Prince of Atlantis! I will smite all you strange giants until I recover the Crown, and return it to my safe keeping!"

To Defy The Collector!

Result:

The Collector receives the Scarlet Witch’s attempt to tamper with his mind … angrily.

He drops the Vision’s life-gem and turns both red and green beams on the Scarlet Witch, a pair of firehoses of energy meant to blast her out of existence like a snowman hit by two firehoses!

For an instant, the Scarlet Witch parries both beams WITH HER HANDS, her hex power stopping the beams just short of her body. It’s a tremendous strain as well as quite a surprise.

But the beams are getting through, and they would have gotten through, had Giant-Man (which is what Ant-Man is called when he’s giant) steps on the Collector!

The Collector goes down angry. Obviously.

“Nrrgh! It does not matter what size you are, I will simply …”

Then hurricane winds and lightning bolts strike the Collector. And Giant-Man, of course, who’s on top of him.

Being hit by lightning is not so bad at giant size. But it’s still extremely sudden and extremely disorienting. There’s a blast of red and green light just as his eyes are recovering from the lightning strikes.

The Collector is vanishing in the sky, flying at space-launch speed.  He flies into a slowly rotating vortex of force in the sky, which closes behind him. It looks a lot like the teleport hole that Loki used to invade New York; literally everyone on Earth has seen those videos.

Colossus calls back, “Iceman and I are on the way! You’re very close by - ten minutes!”

At which point Namor bursts in.

“So, Collector, you seek to trick the Son of Atlantis by changing your form! But you are mistaken if you think I cannot break every single person here until I find you! IMPERIUS REX!”

Giant-Man is woozy from the lightning, and the Vision is standing robotically still, so Namor goes after Machine Man.

“Hey, I just got here!” explains the metal man, to no effect.

Meanwhile, in the Conference Room:

Sue clamps a stun-laser in two flat force fields and turns it on Professor X, knocking him out.

This also works on Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch.

It does not, however, stop the Thing.

“Huh. It tickles!” he observes. “Suzy, I got nothing againstcha, but I’m in a rhino-chompin’ bad mood, so stay outta my way if you know what’s good for ya!”

Namor has left the room and burst into the Recreation Center. Iron Man, however, has not yet followed.

“Stark! I always wanted ta take you down a peg,” sneers the Thing.

“Okay, Terra Cotta Frankenstein,” says Iron Man. “Let’s go.”

And he holds out both hands to his sides, generating a buzzing gravitational field.

“Friday, plot path around the invisible force fields,” he says to himself. “And get working on generating a counter-field to neutralize ‘em. I got clobbering to do.”

“No, I GOT clobberin’ to do!” yells the Thing, and charges.

Spider-Man slides slowly down a force field wall.

The SHIELD agent on the floor says, “Swinging into action. That’s a new one.”

Collector vs. Fire Ants

INVISIBLE GIRL: During the moment when Reed is sane, and not strangling the Professor X, she erects a forcefield between the two of them, separating the combatants.

Sue Storm waits until Namor punches Iron Man across the room or Iron Man punches Namor across the room, and she erects an invisible force field between them, wall to wall, bisecting the room.

Sue then says aloud to Professor X, "Please break everyone else out of this terrible mind control. I -- I cannot hold them apart long -- they are too powerful -- ah!"

(Pretending that her force fields are always about to fail from stress is just something she does so that Reed does not feel useless and unmanly.)

(And it works. Reed always feels manly and useful.)

Sue is holding two force fields at once. The one protecting Professor X has to be complicated, because Reed keeps stretching around it. The one separating Namor and Stark can be pretty simple, but it's got to be very, very strong.

But Sue's held the Hulk before, so whatever. This is doable.

Professor X says,

"Do not fear, Miss Storm! I can release all the minds in my surroundings from their fear, their love, their dreadful hope and stubbornness ... into the cleansing bath of PURE RED RAGE!"

Sue feels the touch of red rage. But because of her experience with the Hate-Monger, she can resist it.

(Unless, of course, she doesn't WANT to ...)

Namor bellows, "Imperius Rex! Return the Serpent Crown, Stark, or your bones shall decorate the bottom of the Lightless Deeps wherein Monstro, King of the Devil Fish, dwells!"

Stark replies, "Yeah, no. Not happening. I don't have your crown, Your Majestyness, and should you guys rethink your monarch-choosing policy? I mean, Black Panther, now there's a monarch who doesn't punch out foreign leaders every few minutes. Aren't you still at war with the Russians, after that time you strangled Putin?"

Then he launches eight independently-targeted marble-sized drones, which bisect the air until they bump into Susan Storm. Then they all pivot onto that spot and fire stunning lasers.

"Which pass right through the INVISIBLE Girl ..." says Stark ruefully. "Of course. Hey, could you wait around until the Mark Twos are ready?"

With a whine of turbofans, the Fantasti-Car comes to a hover over the hole. The Thing is piloting, with the Human Torch flying alongside.

"There, Ben!" shouts Johnny. "Under the little hole ... it's Reed!"

"An' elbow-deep in Skrulls, it looks like," agrees the Thing. "That one looks a little like the Prof from the X-Men ... "

His eyes glaze red.

"...an' it's just about time I finished you off once an' for all!" he exclaims, leaping out onto the Human Torch's back.

"Great! I've been itching to set that brick puss of yours on fire for years now!" replies the Human Torch.

And they fall, battling, into the roof together. Making a THIRD hole.

SPIDER-MAN:

Spidey pauses to take a photo of Machine Man. Spider-Man goes to the nearest man in a black SHIELD uniform lying on the ground. Spidey asks him, "Hey Buddy! What happened in there? Was it Hitler?" Then he checks to see if the man is dead.

"It was..." says the agent, "if Hitler's a seven-foot old guy with wild Einstein hair and red light coming out of his eyes. Which is possible ..."

"Hey, kid. A little help?" says Tony Stark. Spider-Man's Spider-Signal comes on by itself, reshaping its beam into an arrow pointing, rather insistently, at Namor.

STORM:

Contact Bruce Banner, what a good... Okay. No.

"Where is the Collector?" says Storm. "And whom do I know whom is harmless? Nightcrawler?"

You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But in X-Men 2, General Stryker brainwashed Nightcrawler into being a vicious assassin, and it wasn’t all that hard. So Kurt’s got a dark side to him … I wouldn’t count on his being clear-headed.

Colossus, though --- slow to anger and rational even when very upset. He’s probably okay.

Storm will move toward a communicator to call for help while keeping a sharp eye out for the man with the red gem.

The red GLOW is visible in the direction of Recreation. By moving around the edge of the conference chamber, Storm can see a huge old man dressed in brown, wearing a green metal turban, with red waves of energy coming off his head, seize the Vision by the throat. The Vision is zapping him with his brow-jewel, but the yellow beam is parried halfway by the red energy.

The communicator is now live. Are you calling the X-Mansion?

SCARLET WITCH:

Scarlet Witch says "Sentrhul-rehkreashun-sentur"

She glides down the corridor, her feet not touching the floor, very, very rapidly. Her eyes are blazing magenta, and she is reaching out before her with slender hands. Not towards Ant Man. Just in the direction she is going.

Doors open by themselves. The Scarlet Witch enters the Recreation Hall, where the Vision is standing braced toward the Collector, whom he has just stopped zapping.

ANT MAN:

Ant Man fellows Scarlet Witch. He asks the Scarlet Witch where the Vision is. When finds out, he uses his ant helmet to command any ants in that area (where ever it may be) to bite the Collector, climb up his nose and get in his eyelashes.

"Ouch! Oh! Ow! The indignity! Ow!" says the Collector.

This makes him even angrier. He draws back the red energy and coats himself with it, blasting the ants in all directions like a powerful wind.

Vision immediately cuts off his beam, not wanting to hit an ally as he did that time with War Machine.

AND THEN:

The Collector reaches out his left hand, on which gleams a ring of purest red.

He furrows his brow, on which sits a turban in the shape of intertwined green metal snakes.

And he shoots out a red beam AND a green beam, which strike the Vision's forehead and pull the golden jewel right out of his skull!

Having overcome the Vision's struggles, the Collector now curls his right hand, using the red beam to pull the yellow jewel to himself, while covering himself in the green aura as a force field. But at the exact moment I now describe, the jewel is but an inch from the Vision, not yet having flown across the intervening distance into the Collector's waiting grasp!

Danger Vision

"Wait, this is Avengers Base?" says Machine Man suddenly. "Do you know the Vision?"

"Yes," says the Scarlet Witch, not quite understating matters.

"Do you think I could talk to him? Compare notes about being human, being artificial, like that."

She doesn't see why not.

"Vizsh, are you there?' she says into her Avengers mike. "We have a problem. Oh, and someone wants to meet you."

"I am here. Is your problem life-threatening?"

"Not yet ..."

"Mine is. A white-haired man is trying to remove the stone from my forehead. He has vast cosmic powers, and has been attempting to provoke me into rage. Fortunately, the part of my personality contributed by Ultron is no longer dominant."

"We'll be right there!" says the Scarlet Witch. "We're saving the Vision," she explains to Ant-Man and Spider-Man.

She and Machine Man rush in the opposite direction from the conference room, where Namor, Stark, Reed and Professor X are all murderously angry.

Come to think of it, maybe everyone should get further away from that room.

Place Your Bets!

Machine Man says, "Hitler? The guy from ... the past?"

Sue Storm and Just Plain Storm round the corner to the room where the Illuminati meet.

The roof, and one wall, have been blown down. A red glow fades away in the direction of the wrecked wall, as if a glowing entity were moving away from the meeting room, through interior walls.

In the middle of the room, where the furniture used to be, Iron Man and Namor are clobbering each other with their fists. Their eyes are solid red energy.

Off to one side, Reed Richards is strangling Professor Xavier with all ten fingers, formed into ten nooses. But Professor X is frowning at Reed, blasting his mind repeatedly, forcing the fingers to relax and then re-tighten.

"TO ME, MY X-MEN!" the Professor's voice rings out. "DESTROY THE INVADERS!"

Storm hears this telepathic shout. No one else does.

She has never heard Professor Xavier this angry. It is so strange, so unnatural, that she does not -- quite -- become enraged herself. Shouting isn't very persuasive.

She does, however, just know that Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and all the other X-Men with anger/trust issues are flipping out right this moment. Iceman's probably fine.

Reed, during one of the pauses while his mind resets from Professor X's attack, stretches his head over toward Storm.

"The rage ... is external, " he manages to say. "Caused by a red stone held by the Collector. You can't calm Namor down by giving him what he wants ... he doesn't want anything. He's just angry. It was done to him, by a weapon which produces mindless rage."

"You'll need help. But you need people who are harmless when they're enraged. War machine, Falcon,  ... people who use complex equipment. Don't call in anyone who can cause damage without thinking. Don't call Thor, or Ben. Or Johnny.

"And for the love of all that's measurable and quantifiable, in all the parallel worlds of the multiverse ..."

He draws a breath.

"... do NOT contact Bruce Banner."

Then another ripple shakes his frame, and his eyes glaze up red again.

Robot Rage

The purple robot punches the place where Ant-Man’s face was. But of course, Ant-Man’s face is no longer there. Shrinking is what he does, you know? If he can do the keyhole-jump, ducking a robot fist is cake.

Spider-Man felt the fist coming early, thanks to his Spider-Sense. He sticks to the ceiling, just like a spider.

Even before the failed punches land, the Scarlet Witch has made eerie finger motions and yanked the chef off the grill with tendrils of red lightning magic. His shirt is browned, but has not ignited, so he should be fine.

A whole lot of broken bricks cascade onto the chef! And collect against an invisible force field above him.

Storm’s winds blow the force field against the bricks, but the force field holds the wind back.

The purple robot’s eyes, already red, flare redder. Red energy actually sparkles outside his eyes, as though his rage were foaming over the top of his eyes.

The Scarlet Witch has seen these eyes before – he, although a robot, is already crazy with rage. And her power has just pushed him right over the edge.

“DESTROY ALL HUMANS!” he roars mechanically, and retracts his extension arms. At the same time, his eyes extend out of his head on stalks (they look like flashlights, not actual eyes, so it’s not as gross as it sounds) and emit beams of sizzling red energy in the shape of pirahnas. Propelled on beams of red light.

He sweeps the red light over everyone, biting them with his gaze! Except Ant-Man, whom he cannot see.

Or at least, that’s what he intends to do.

Spider-Man is aware that he’s going to zap Storm first, as she’s the most dramatic. Then it’ll be Spidey’s turn.

Ant-Man’s crazy ants have arrived and are crossing the floor toward the robot, but they won’t arrive until after his biting gaze.

Menu of DANGER!

It's the Avengers' turn to host the monthly meeting of The Boys, which is Tony Stark's name for the five most powerful leaders on Earth. No, not the President – the most POWERFUL leaders on Earth. They are:

Reed Richards, leader of the Fantastic Four

Professor Xavier, leader of the X-Men

Tony Stark, leader of the Avengers

Namor, Prince of Atlantis

And Dr. Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts and Sorceror Supreme

(Reed calls this group “The Monthly Group”, as you might expect. Professor Xavier calls it “The Symposium” and Namor calls it “The War Council.” Dr. Strange calls his colleagues “The Illuminati”, which coming from the Enlightened One himself, is quite a compliment.

While they’re discussing this month’s crises, Avengers Base is not entirely silent. Storm, one of Xavier’s most trusted X-Men, flew the Professor here in the X-Jet. She is waiting to fly him back.

Susan Storm, the Invisible Girl, is there because Reed often forgets to leave after the meeting and spends the night doing math in his head. She’s there to remind him.

Spider-Man and Ant-Man came along because Iron Man asked them. The Boys might need to know about their spider- and ant-senses, neither of which Stark fully understands, for a case they’re watching.

And the Scarlet Witch is there because, like the Vision and the Falcon, she lives on base.

The Avengers dining hall is open 24/7, with one of Tony Stark’s master chefs on hand. The kitchen, as the Scarlet Witch has seen, is enormous, with one of everything and two of almost everything.

It’s been about two hours. Sue and Storm know this is about average for an Illuminati meeting, but it’s everyone else’s first time.

Everyone knows everyone else by reputation, but I don’t think anyone’s actually been introduced. Perhaps Stark will get around to doing that afterward.

Spider-Man’s spider-sense tingles. Are they talking about him in there? Is he about to get fired from the Avengers? Will he still get his last check for the part of the week he’s already put in? Because it’s the first of the month next week, and the rent’s due …

Perhaps not, because with a gush of red seething energy, the hallway leading to the secure conference room EXPLODES!

Alarms hoot. Sirens blare. Firefighting nozzles spray icy foam from the ceiling. A squad of men in SHIELD black combat uniforms rush past, only to be blown back down the corridor like dry leaves.

Someone, or something, is in there with the Boys!

Then the kitchen ceiling collapses in a shower of debris. The chef, working on Spider-Man’s grilled cheese sandwich, is hit between the shoulders by a chunk of concrete the size of a softball, and he grunts, collapsing onto the grill.

Through the haze of concrete dust and smoke, a wild-eyed figure lunges in from above, red energy dots orbiting around his hands.

He is made of purple metal, with silver bands around his neck, shoulders, wrists, hips, and ankles. His face is a solid oval of peach-colored plastic with vague, mannequin-ish features sculpted on, and his eyes are two solid ovals of burning red.

“Fleshy garbage!” he shrieks mechanically, a feat previously thought impossible. “You soak in your own madness and expect the cosmos to obey your random biological whims? Well, WHIM THIS!”

And both his hands extend out from his wrists on silver mechanical extension poles, punching toward Spidey and Ant-Man. They’re coming very fast, and are also glowing with red energy dots.

Sue, Storm, Spider-Man and Ant-Man are sitting at nearby tables in the cafeteria. Spider-Man may well be sitting right next to someone, crowding their personal space.

Wanda, the Scarlet Witch, has just walked in here. She has a TV; she knows who Sue Storm, Storm, Spider-Man and Ant-Man are. But apart from meeting Ant-Man that once, she hasn’t really talked to any of them yet.

But now she’s got to talk fast, before Spider-Man and Ant-Man get their faces punched in!