ANT MAN:
Ant Man releases his ant army from his belt, telling them to scout for the Collector.
He rushes the duck, shrinking down, making a long leap punching him in the face.
This way, his ants do not get eaten by a duck.
Howard the Duck is knocked silly by the Ant-Punch.
SPIDER-MAN:
Spider-Man takes a photo of duck. "What a FOWL temper you have!"
He webs the duck from his two wrist cartridges. "Don't pay me now! I'll send you the BILL! You should have DUCKED!"
Howard is now unconscious and webbed up. But the webbing strands are almost 3mm apart, so Ant-Man can easily slip between them.
VISION:
"Why is Spider-Man emphasizing the very words which have double meanings? That seems certain to increase the chance of misunderstanding. Is he doing it on purpose?"
INVISIBLE GIRL
Sue looks alarmed. "Look out! That is a mysterious space duck! He may have dangerous powers! Good thing we do not have any rash teenagers like my brother Johnny here in the group!"
She looks around in wonder. "This is the first fight I have ever been in when the fire alarm was not going off. How odd!"
An alarmed look:
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SCARLET WITCH:
scans the cases for interesting weapons as she keeps an eye also on the interior door.
She doesn't think she can help the duck's madness. And something about him . . . repels her.
STORM:
Shred the spacesuits! Oh...wait. Wrong game. (No one shred their space suit!)
Storm flies upward, away from the ruckus, to begin searching for the gem.
She frowns. She cannot think of a way to use her storm-related powers to make this either. She settles for employing the sight power from her mark-one standard eyeballs!
Scarlet Witch and Storm spy the liquid red crystal at the same moment. This must be what Machine Man called the Aether Stone!
Machine Man's extensible arms grab the Aether Stone and bring it back to the Scarlet Witch.
"Can you fix this?" he asks.
She brushes her fingertips over the Stone, trying to wipe away its rage as she did with Machine Man.
Instead, the Scarlet Witch sees a vision of all her friends lying dead. Not just the six people she came up with, but everyone she knows: the Avengers, her family, her brother Quicksilver ... everyone but the Vision, actually.
The Vision frowns at all the death surrounding.
"I do not know how to repair this," he says. But he places a finger to the jewel on his brow, which Thor referred to as the Life Stone.
"But I have to try," he says.
The Scarlet Witch concentrates on seeing the Aether Stone. She sees it balanced on one point of a geometric solid, with other colorful stones balanced on the other points. The geometric solid is black and filled with stars, or on closer inspection, galaxies.
Holding onto the Aether Stone is a purple glove. The hand in the glove tries to rotate the Stone in a precise way, like turning the tumblers on a combination lock.
The Scarlet Witch tries to interfere with the mind of the owner of the purple glove.
This mental contact causes her to see the fellow clearly. He's big, like the Hulk, and has purple skin. He wears a golden Merlin-like skullcap and blue tights, has a cape, and eyes like dark pools.
He's grinning.
She tries to cool his rage, but he isn't angry. Just determined, and entertained.
"Who are you?" she asks.
"You know me," he rumbles "All who fear Death know my name."
"I do not know your name," replies the Vision. "Are you Death?"
"I am not worthy," the purple man says.
"Why are you doing this?" the Scarlet Witch wants to know.
"For love of Death."
The Scarlet Witch conjures in her minds images of death's gorgeous handmaidens, hoping to distract the man.
"Yes .. the Valkyries," he agrees. "I will see them next. How badly do you want the Wrathstone?"
And he pulls on the stone, trying to take it from her grasp.
The Scarlet Witch pulls back. She sees not only all her friends dead, but what it would be like for she herself to be dead.
Pietro, her brother, rushes up to her.
"You don't want this," he says. "I have been here, you have not. You don't know what you're risking."
And he pushes her, gently, but with great speed, so she lets go of the Aether Stone.
"How are you?" she asks her dead brother.
He grins.
"Is not so bad," he says. "I've"
And then her fingers slip from the stone, and she can no longer see the dead.
When she can once again see the Collector's ship around her, the Aether Stone is gone.
Everyone else saw her touch it, the Stone ripple and warp, the Vision say some words, and then the Stone slipped from her grasp and was gone.
Ant-Man's ant scouts return. He's coming!
The Collector, a large white-haired man wearing a turban in the shape of metallic snakes, comes down a staircase with a broom and dustpan.
"Burglars?" he says, a little confused. Then,
"BURGLARS!"
He turns and runs away, up the stairs, carrying his broom and dustpan with him.
Wanda reaches out her fingers forlornly. "Pietro..." she murmurs.
ReplyDeleteHer eyes shining with tears, she tells the others:
"A being outside this Universe who is in love with Death. He has taken the anger stone beyond the Universe. He is ... trying to prove himself worthy of Death. And with one's hand on the stone, one may see death. And those who will die. You all appeared to have died. As did I.
"I tried to seize it, but my brother pushed me away."
Her throat gets tight.
"This being, he is seeking the Valkyries next. We should contact Thor."
"How does one contact Thor?" says the Vision reasonably. "I was given to understand that he is like the thunderstorm -- he comes when he wills and none shall say him nay. Actually, he told me that."
ReplyDeleteWanda shrugs expressively, "I do not know. In our last . . . " (squad/hit team?) ". . . group they kept very good tabs on us. I assumed you were the same. But . . . are you not of the same magic as Thor? Perhaps there is a connection. . . "
Delete"Am I, indeed, of the same magic as Thor?" the Vision says. "Perhaps I am. What I have been told about the moment of my creation is incomplete and contradictory. Thor and I have never spoken on the subject, although I doubt he is avoiding it."
Delete"Can I, by thinking, contact Thor directly? It's a fascinating thought, and I cannot see any reason not to try."
He stops, noticing Wanda. He has been halfway talking to himself.
"Can you?"
Wanda: "There are several possibilities. He might develop a paranoia about your contact. Or he might come in swinging his hammer. Is he prone to fits of temper? If not," she watches the Collector break through the force field,"or even if so, he might be hAndy to have atound."
DeleteINVISIBLE GIRL
ReplyDeleteAs the Collector turns to flee, but before he makes it up the stairs, Sue will put an invisible wall of force on the stairs, blocking the egress.
THUMP.
ReplyDeleteThe Collector rebounds off the forcefield as though he'd run smack into a bouncy castle.
Irritably, he snaps his fingers, coating them in ethereal energy, and peels open the force field, stepping through.
Sue feels dizzy when her forcefield is disrupted.
INVISIBLE GIRL
DeleteSue feels dizzy when her forcefield is disrupted.
She clings grimly to consciousness. "I can't -- can't faint now! Reed is not here to catch me, so there would be no point!"
She takes a moment to daydream about Reed catching her when she faints...
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Storm will blink after the Collector (who had been collecting dust) in astonishment.
ReplyDelete(The boys will answer tomorrow. Sorry!
ANT-MAN
ReplyDeleteAnt Man has such a brilliant idea that he doesn't bother to explain it until it is too late.
Using a shrinky disk, he shrink Spider-Man to spider-size. Ant-Man whistles for Antonio the flying ant and places Spidey on his back.
Then explains the plan: "Okay, Spider-Man, we are going to fly over the Collector's head and you are going to web the crown off. We then will ran back, I will collect my ants, and we will get the heck out of here!"
SPIDER-MAN
DeleteResponding to Ant-Man, he says, "You know, Anty, I see nothing at all wrong with this plan. Except for one tiny thing. The Plan."
Spidey mounts the flying ant and flies toward the Collector's head. Spider-Man webs the crown.
Spider-Man thinks, "Let me see. I have the proportional strength of a spider when I am man sized, and Ant-Man has the disproportional strength of a man when he is ant-sized, so if a spider is ant sized, and by the communicative property .... are we in a communicative property state? ... I've lost track of what I was thinking... Go, Spidy! Go!"
INVISIBLE GIRL
ReplyDeleteDriving back the desire to faint as not romantically useful at this point in time, Sue places a slanted forcefield invisibly on the stair just in front of the Collector's front foot. She places a second force field right at clothe-line level for him to bump into when and if his footing fails.