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!