Spinning from the events of their spiffy Marvel comic, the THUNDERBOLTS team up with the X-Men's ARCHANGEL to save San Francisco from the menace of GRAVITON! But the destinies of all our heroes take a decidedly different turn than it did in the comics, as we break away from Marvel canon in this installment of...
NEXT BEST THING
The fanfic that is used as currency in some European economies!
by Jim Smith
Chapter 2! "Atlas Shrugged! (But Songbird Did All the Work...)"
With a little dialogue borrowed from KURT BUSIEK!
Continuity guide provided by special guest stars PRYDE and WISDOM!
Some pseudoscience supplied by DAVE VAN DOMELEN!
A zillion synonyms for "scream" from ROGET'S 21st CENTURY THESAURUS!
And, of course, Lassie...
***
"--Voila! One genuine Champscraft--built for the Champions but mothballed after they disbanded! It's a little old and dusty, but it's all here--and it's all ours!"
"A used car. How...practical."
"Gift horses, Moonstone. You gotta admit, the price was right--since it was free."
"Wait a minute--the Champions? I've heard the name, but--"
"They were a super-team, based out of Los Angeles a few years back--before you were active as Screaming Mimi, I think. They called themselves "the team for the common man," though I'm not sure how that made 'em different from the rest of us. Their members were pretty uncommon, though--some guys came an' went, but mostly they were Hercules, Ghost Rider, my ol' pal the Black Widow--the ex-X-Man called Iceman, and--"
"--And one more, archer, whom you'd have been smart to remember--"
"Huh? Aw--nuts!"
"--Namely, Warren K. Worthington III--better known back then as the Avenging Angel! It's Archangel these days--but I still take an interest in old Champions business--especially since all the old Champs equipment is in storage at Worthington Industries! When Natasha's memo came in, directing the Champscraft to be shipped out here, I couldn't verify it with her--so I came out to see who was getting it. And what do I find but a renegade Avenger--and a pair of wanted super-crooks!"
"Angel, wait! We don't--"
***
Just then, THUNDERBOLTS #27 was interrupted by Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom, walking in for their obligatory cameo.
KITTY: Hi, folks! Pryde and Wisdom here, continuing our plot to appear in every single fanfic in existence! Today we're providing some continuity notes for this story! Why us, when we don't have a thing to do with it? Well, Jim Smith figured he'd get into Fonts of Wisdom one way or the other, so he paid us to--(aside) you _did_ get the money, right--?
PETE: Oi shore az 'ell did! Oi kin bouy me a bloody truckload of fags with this 'ere lewt!
KITTY: As I was saying, Jim paid us to present this handy explanation. The first part of this fanfic served as a prologue to the events of THUNDERBOLTS #27, which is back up there a few paragraphs...
PETE: Cor, ain't no one gonna pay attention to yew when yew say the T-word, luv! Better take yer pants awff b'fore they go to sleep!
KITTY: Oh yeah. (removes pants) Anyway, since you can just go to the store and buy the comics, Jim wants to skip to after the Thunderbolts make friends with Archangel and go off to fight Graviton. Only problem is, #29 ended with a cliffhanger, and the story spilled over into #30, which puts us in a bind.
PETE: Whoy doesn't the bloke just set this part of the story _after_ #30, then?
KITTY: Because that issue has an even _bigger_ cliffhanger! (shows him the last page)
PETE: Strewth! That fellow's gonna 'ave a three-way!
KITTY: Sure, right. So, before we get to the _real_ plot of this fanfic, Jim's gotta bump off Graviton real quick. Won't take too long, we promise.
PETE: (frantically staring at last page of THUNDERBOLTS #30) This is f***in' incredible! Oi think this blonde is all into the other one watchin' her go down on this chap! Kitty, why the 'ELL 'aven't we been bouying this rag?
KITTY: Because I can't afford any comics besides X-Books, you nimrod. Everybody knows the average annual income in the world is _exactly_ $238.80, give or take the occasional issue of UNLIMITED. If I bought this too, we'd have to put another mortgage on the mansion!
PETE: So...are we done 'ere?
KITTY: I guess.
PETE: Wanna shag right 'ere on the floor, or wait until after that introduction to the Hellblazer/Xander/Pokemon crossover?
KITTY: *pish!* We are _so_ not just for the sole purpose of titillating Excalibur fans with our gratuitous sex scenes, Pete. Have a _little_ decency.
PETE: Under that table, then?
KITTY: Take me, Wisdom. Take me now.
JIM SMITH: (firing a shotgun in the air) Hey! Hey, you goldang kids! Quit'cher philandery and git offa mah property! G'wan, git! (chases them off) I expect these shenanigans from #subcafe After Dark, but this is too much! Now...where was I...oh yes, of course.
The story resumed, picking back up with the end of THUNDERBOLTS #29...
***
"I HAVE THE POWER! I HAVE THE VISION! I HAVE IT ALL! I'm GRAVITON! YOU HEAR ME?! I'M GRAVITONNN..."
No sooner had Archangel located the Champscraft and discovered the Thunderbolts picking it up than he found himself going to their base and investigating this team of ex-villains. While there, they learned of Graviton's plot to make himself the ruler of his own nation by levitating an island over San Francisco and drafting "citizens". The Thunderbolts, always looking for an opportunity to prove themselves, took off to confront the self-styled master of gravity, and he'd accompanied them. Until Jolt and Charcoal showed up to even the odds with some armbands that "cancel the gravity equation," they had been on the ropes. He and the Thunderbolts had only just started putting a dent in Graviton's defenses when a few discouraging remarks by Moonstone made him snap. He was glowing with power and raving like a lunatic.*
[* All of which happened in THUNDERBOLTS #27-29. But you knew that.]
Graviton had told his people to stay back during the fight--now they were taking that order one step further and evacuating "Sky Island" to avoid defeat and capture. Whatever Graviton had in store, he wouldn't hurt anyone besides a motley crew of quasi-heroes and one good-for-nothing winged mutant.
On the bright side, Warren mused, at least he'd gotten his mind off Betsy.
Before anyone could brace themselves for Graviton's coup de grace, however, it failed to materialize. The swirling energy surrounding him slowed, then stopped, and then swirled again in the opposite direction. He was so busy whining that it would have been impossible to tell if he even knew what was happening, as the gravitic field he was manipulating began to cave in on him. In his tantrum, the supervillain had inadvertently lashed out in the wrong direction, and instead of repelling everything around him he'd been exponentially increasing the gravitational pull of his center of mass. Like a dying star, each molecule of his body weighed several tons as he collapsed in on himself. Graviton might well have become a black hole if his death hadn't cut off his power. His 138-pound corpse, compacted into the size of a golf ball, plopped harmlessly to the ground.
"Well, hey," Hawkeye lit up. "That wasn't so bad."
What the archer had nearly forgotten, though, was that the ground Graviton's body plopped harmlessly onto was floating about two miles over San Francisco.
"Sky Island's still in the air!" Songbird shouted, trying to get her bearings.
"Machine Man told us to expect something like that," Jolt added. "The gravitational field Graviton made should stick around for a few minutes, even though its been cut off at the source!"
Hawkeye surveyed the situation. "That doesn't change the fact that this baby's gonna leave a big mark when it falls onto the city...Songbird! You're the only one here who's got half a chance of movin' something this big!"
"Are you crazy, Hawkeye!? I--"
"Do it!" he snapped. "At least get it as close to the bay as you can before gravity kicks in!" Not that Hawkeye knew what he'd do if the island were still over the city when it regained its natural weight, of course. As usual, he'd deal with that later.
A Songbird flew off, Archangel chimed in. "Maybe Moonstone and I should get us off this island before--"
Hawkeye ignored him. "Jolt, I don't suppose Machine Man considered this situation when he built you these armbands..."
"He sure did!" Jolt beamed. She was having a blast being the one with the last-minute solutions, even if there was a good chance of them being squashed. She took off her gravity-canceling armband and began tinkering with it. "He made sure this would be easy for me to recalibrate--I can use each of the armbands to hold the island up for...fifteen, twenty seconds or so. There wasn't much time, and the place is so big, we--"
"Atlas and Charcoal got flung off the island," Hawkeye recalled, "and there's no time for Songbird to fly back and give you her armband...that gives us less than a minute and half of sudden death overtime. We're gonna have to make the best of it..."
"There must be something else we can do," Archangel pondered.
The Thunderbolts' leader shook his head. "It's Songbird's game now."
***
The technology had been conceived and developed by Ulysses Klaw, but adapted to fit her needs by a former Thunderbolt, Techno. Songbird's bionically enhanced larynx had once been for nothing more than producing a vertiginous screech during her criminal career as Screaming Mimi. She'd damaged the cybernetics, however, while crying over the death of an old lover. Techno couldn't repair her vocal cords, so he hooked them up to a carapace that she wore around her shoulders to translate her voice into sonic force fields. She'd learned how to fly with this power, and how to hold other objects aloft inside big pink bubbles. Now it was just a matter of making a big enough bubble and pushing it out over the bay in mere minutes.
Songbird shrieked, and the soundwaves were noiselessly converted into a pinkish energy that burst out of her carapace and danced around Sky Island, stretching to completely encase it. She'd underestimated, though--her cry wasn't strong enough to spread the field entirely around the island. A few deep breaths and she yelled at it some more, inaudibly screaming bloody murder at the hunk of earth until, slowly, the field had enough sonic power to achieve the necessary size.
Maintaining the field's integrity was not quite so complicated, as the bionics in her larynx took over to ensure that each breath was channeled into just the right frequency and amplitude to keep the bubble and her wings intact. It was as though her vocal cords were automatically, flawlessly hitting each note in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. There was some level of conscious thought required, but Songbird was so experienced at this point that it was almost instinctive--as long as she kept breathing and kept concentrating, her song would continue.
But Sky Island was easily the largest object she'd ever tried to move--it was more like singing Beethoven's Ninth at the Royal Albert Hall for an audience on the moon. Her chest heaved and her nostrils flared, though she made absolutely no sound beyond her labored breathing. She was frustrated and upset. Good, she decided. Use it; imagine all her troubles are on the island and let 'em have it. She deliberately baited herself, reminding herself of whatever she could think of to rile her up. While they'd been fighting Graviton earlier, Songbird had nearly fallen to her death when he'd made her carapace weigh several tons. Hawkeye had saved her, and when they were briefly imprisoned on the island she tried to throw herself at him like some lovesick princess thanking her shining knight. They'd worked it out, but it had been an incredibly emotional and mortifying moment. Right now she was screaming her lungs out at it.
Sky Island finally began to move.
What the hell had she been thinking, trying to make it with Hawkeye? Hawkeye! And in the middle of a blasted prison cell, with the others in earshot? How far was she going to go before he stopped her? She tried to imagine what he must think of her now--the little tramp who only got mixed up with all these hardened criminals because she didn't care who was sticking it to her each night, as long as someone was. A slut who couldn't even wait a minute after her lover went to prison before she had to find some new meat. The other Thunderbolts had been terrorists, killers, mercenaries, and world-conquering madmen, but she was nothing but a two-bit--
Sky Island was in spitting distance from the bay.
And maybe that was true. Hell, maybe that was all there was to her. She wasn't proud of her life before the Grapplers, but maybe it was what she was best at. At least she did better than other women had. Maybe all she was good for was to stand around and look good, and give the boys a good time. Maybe that's why Cyclone made a pass at her once when they fought the Masters of Evil. Maybe that's why Techno wanted her to be his "reward" for helping Zemo taking over the world. Maybe that's why she flirted with Archang--
Her eyes widened, her breath became tense and shortened, and her lips curled into a feral sneer. With one last blood-curdling scream, Sky Island was flying out over the bay. San Francisco was safe at last.
Songbird's carapace, on the other hand, blew up.
***
"Attagirl," Hawkeye muttered under his breath as he stood on the edge of the island, watching the city pass out from under him. He spoke up to the others. "That last push even gave us enough momentum to land far enough away that the tidal wave shouldn't hit the city too bad. Looks like we just gotta worry about getting ourselves--"
Hawkeye's quiver exploded, knocking him forward and over the edge of Sky Island at almost the exact second Songbird's field abruptly dissipated. As he fell, smaller conflagrations popped in the compartments of his tunic straps.
"Hawkeye!" Moonstone shouted as her comrade fell. "Grab Jolt, Archangel, and we'll--"
Archangel complied but interrupted her. His eyesight was keen from years of aerobatics, and he'd happened to have been keeping his focus on a certain spot in the sky "Better rethink that plan, Moonstone--he's not the only T-bolt in trouble!"
***
Songbird's carapace had several pink nodules sticking up from it like headlights on the chassis of a vintage automobile. These were the primary and auxiliary transducers, necessary for converting the vibratory energy of sound into the physical force that shaped her sonic constructs. As she fell out of the sky, each of them burst like popcorn and became useless for flying. She curled into a ball, covering her face with her hands and hoping none of the shrapnel hit her--a slim chance when she was wearing a dozen tiny bombs. Even so, the transducers were pointed away from her head and chest, sparing her from serious injury. She was still falling, though, and there was no way she could save herself without the carapace.
It was too much, she thought. Only a few seconds before she'd been moping about Hawkeye saving her when her powers failed in mid-air, and now she was in that predicament all over again. Step right up, boys--save the Songbird with the broken wings and let her fall over herself trying to make it worth your while. Hey, she'd suddenly remembered the time the Black Knight saved her from the Super-Adaptoid, and she fawned over him enough to make MACH-1 jealous for about a week. Oh, and she certainly did her best to make it up to Abe afterwards, didn't she? It was a big vicious circle, and as she fell to her death she couldn't really bring herself to wish it wasn't ending.
But it wouldn't end. The people who designed the cybernetics in her throat took the liberty of modifying her hearing to withstand her own ear-piercing attack, so even while she clutched her face in despair she could hear someone flying to her rescue. It was like George Reeves's cape whooshing all over the place in that cheesy old TV show. Let's get it over with, she decided. Come and get me, Mister Hero, and see what you can get...
One arm reached around her back, the other scooped her legs up at the knees, and suddenly she could feel the sinews of muscles tightening to support her weight. She could once again feel the familiar sensation of flight--even if she wasn't holding herself up on her own wings--but she needed a moment before she could open her eyes again. "Thanks for the assist, Wings," she told Archangel, "but don't expect my eternal devotion or anything."
"I'll be sure to bear that in mind, if I ever grow a pair of wings."
Not Archangel. Songbird slowly pulled her hands away and saw the wry grin of Moonstone, her masked expression of amusement staring right back at her. They both knew why she'd been expecting someone else. "Just so you don't feel completely foolish," she told her, "Archangel _was_ the one who chivalrously noticed you falling. But he had more experience flying with people as badly hurt as Hawkeye, so I came after you."
"Right. Yeah." Songbird looked away, feeling too awkward to even ask what happened to Hawkeye. "Um, no offense, Karla. I'd just assumed--"
Moonstone rolled her eyes. "Oh, relax, Songbird. I'd be a pretty sorry psychaitrist if I didn't notice the your association between the opposite sex and being rescued. You _hardly_ have to apologize to me for not feeling quite so..." she searched for a diplomatic way to phrase it "..._grateful_ to me as you would to a man. You were falling. I caught you. Just a cigar."
Songbird was noticeably relieved--it was easier to get that out of the way when she knew Moonstone knew what she'd thought. "OK, never mind," she replied. "I've been on edge since last night in the prison. But you still saved my life, and I guess I _do_ owe you--"
"Yes," Moonstone said flatly, dropping her cheery facade. "You do."
And they both knew what she meant...
***
Archangel had planned to leave as soon as Graviton was dealt with--tell the Thunderbolts they'd proven themselves to him and that they could keep the Champscraft--but Hawkeye was hurt badly, and he couldn't just take off until he was safe. The archer had essentially become one of America's Most Wanted by aligning with the Thunderbolts, and checking him into a hospital wasn't an option. At least they'd found out on long trip back to Colorado that the injuries were only bad burns on his back, and not critical spinal damage.
Once Hawkeye was safely back at HQ, it was just a matter of determining which of the base's extensive battery of equipment could be used to treat him. Atlas's military training gave him just enough knowledge in triage to make sure the bowman was stable, and finally the team had gotten him patched up and laying on his bed.
"At least we know what happened," Atlas commented to Hawkeye as the team surrounded the fallen leader. "Just gotta call from the Avengers warning you that vibranium everywhere is exploding,* so you need to get rid of all your arrows that use the stuff before it's too late." He shrugged. "Better late than never--huh, boss?"
[* See CAPTAIN AMERICA #20-22 for the straight poop.]
"I'll live," Hawkeye groaned. "Lucky for me, I've always got arrowheads that blow up, so I make sure my costumes unstable molecules can protect me from the blast if they detonate prematurely. My suspender thingies held up--just some scratches there--but my quiver might as well've been ground zero." He turned his head to Songbird, flinching as he realized he hurt himself doing it. "But we're _really_ lucky you're okay, Songbird. I guess Techno refined Klaw's technology enough that there was only a little vibranium in your carapace."
"I hate to bring up the bad news," Moonstone observed, "but with one Thunderbolt recuperating and one grounded indefinitely we may have a hard time keeping the public relations momentum we built off of Graviton. We're not the Avengers..." she glanced to Archangel "...or the X-Men, and we're not in the position to take time off to lick our wounds."
"They're my wounds, Moonstone--and in your dreams." Hawkeye tried sitting up, but when that didn't work, he opted to look imposing from his pillow. "Everything else you said, though, would be a pretty nice segue for our next piece of business. I've been mulling over this for a while now, and I'm not much for talking people into things, so I'll just throw it out and see what sticks. Archangel...how'd you like to join the Thunderbolts?"
Archangel was floored. Sure, he'd worked well with this team, but how could he fit in with this bunch of sociopaths and hotheads? These definitely weren't the X-Men--hell, even the New Defenders were more stable--and just being seen with them had probably resulted in a nationwide manhunt for him. The Thunderbolts, however, weren't quite as unsure of the idea.
"Well, hey, that _would_ work pretty good! We know we can count on Wings!"
"With his connections we'd be better aligned with more superheroes..."
"Then we could start borrowing the X-Men's stuff too! I want a Bamf doll!"
On the bright side, Warren mused, he'd _really_ gotten his mind off Betsy...
***
NEXT: Behold...the five flunkies of apocalypse...
NEXT BEST THING
The fanfic that is used as currency in some European economies!
by Jim Smith
Chapter 2! "Atlas Shrugged! (But Songbird Did All the Work...)"
With a little dialogue borrowed from KURT BUSIEK!
Continuity guide provided by special guest stars PRYDE and WISDOM!
Some pseudoscience supplied by DAVE VAN DOMELEN!
A zillion synonyms for "scream" from ROGET'S 21st CENTURY THESAURUS!
And, of course, Lassie...
***
"--Voila! One genuine Champscraft--built for the Champions but mothballed after they disbanded! It's a little old and dusty, but it's all here--and it's all ours!"
"A used car. How...practical."
"Gift horses, Moonstone. You gotta admit, the price was right--since it was free."
"Wait a minute--the Champions? I've heard the name, but--"
"They were a super-team, based out of Los Angeles a few years back--before you were active as Screaming Mimi, I think. They called themselves "the team for the common man," though I'm not sure how that made 'em different from the rest of us. Their members were pretty uncommon, though--some guys came an' went, but mostly they were Hercules, Ghost Rider, my ol' pal the Black Widow--the ex-X-Man called Iceman, and--"
"--And one more, archer, whom you'd have been smart to remember--"
"Huh? Aw--nuts!"
"--Namely, Warren K. Worthington III--better known back then as the Avenging Angel! It's Archangel these days--but I still take an interest in old Champions business--especially since all the old Champs equipment is in storage at Worthington Industries! When Natasha's memo came in, directing the Champscraft to be shipped out here, I couldn't verify it with her--so I came out to see who was getting it. And what do I find but a renegade Avenger--and a pair of wanted super-crooks!"
"Angel, wait! We don't--"
***
Just then, THUNDERBOLTS #27 was interrupted by Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom, walking in for their obligatory cameo.
KITTY: Hi, folks! Pryde and Wisdom here, continuing our plot to appear in every single fanfic in existence! Today we're providing some continuity notes for this story! Why us, when we don't have a thing to do with it? Well, Jim Smith figured he'd get into Fonts of Wisdom one way or the other, so he paid us to--(aside) you _did_ get the money, right--?
PETE: Oi shore az 'ell did! Oi kin bouy me a bloody truckload of fags with this 'ere lewt!
KITTY: As I was saying, Jim paid us to present this handy explanation. The first part of this fanfic served as a prologue to the events of THUNDERBOLTS #27, which is back up there a few paragraphs...
PETE: Cor, ain't no one gonna pay attention to yew when yew say the T-word, luv! Better take yer pants awff b'fore they go to sleep!
KITTY: Oh yeah. (removes pants) Anyway, since you can just go to the store and buy the comics, Jim wants to skip to after the Thunderbolts make friends with Archangel and go off to fight Graviton. Only problem is, #29 ended with a cliffhanger, and the story spilled over into #30, which puts us in a bind.
PETE: Whoy doesn't the bloke just set this part of the story _after_ #30, then?
KITTY: Because that issue has an even _bigger_ cliffhanger! (shows him the last page)
PETE: Strewth! That fellow's gonna 'ave a three-way!
KITTY: Sure, right. So, before we get to the _real_ plot of this fanfic, Jim's gotta bump off Graviton real quick. Won't take too long, we promise.
PETE: (frantically staring at last page of THUNDERBOLTS #30) This is f***in' incredible! Oi think this blonde is all into the other one watchin' her go down on this chap! Kitty, why the 'ELL 'aven't we been bouying this rag?
KITTY: Because I can't afford any comics besides X-Books, you nimrod. Everybody knows the average annual income in the world is _exactly_ $238.80, give or take the occasional issue of UNLIMITED. If I bought this too, we'd have to put another mortgage on the mansion!
PETE: So...are we done 'ere?
KITTY: I guess.
PETE: Wanna shag right 'ere on the floor, or wait until after that introduction to the Hellblazer/Xander/Pokemon crossover?
KITTY: *pish!* We are _so_ not just for the sole purpose of titillating Excalibur fans with our gratuitous sex scenes, Pete. Have a _little_ decency.
PETE: Under that table, then?
KITTY: Take me, Wisdom. Take me now.
JIM SMITH: (firing a shotgun in the air) Hey! Hey, you goldang kids! Quit'cher philandery and git offa mah property! G'wan, git! (chases them off) I expect these shenanigans from #subcafe After Dark, but this is too much! Now...where was I...oh yes, of course.
The story resumed, picking back up with the end of THUNDERBOLTS #29...
***
"I HAVE THE POWER! I HAVE THE VISION! I HAVE IT ALL! I'm GRAVITON! YOU HEAR ME?! I'M GRAVITONNN..."
No sooner had Archangel located the Champscraft and discovered the Thunderbolts picking it up than he found himself going to their base and investigating this team of ex-villains. While there, they learned of Graviton's plot to make himself the ruler of his own nation by levitating an island over San Francisco and drafting "citizens". The Thunderbolts, always looking for an opportunity to prove themselves, took off to confront the self-styled master of gravity, and he'd accompanied them. Until Jolt and Charcoal showed up to even the odds with some armbands that "cancel the gravity equation," they had been on the ropes. He and the Thunderbolts had only just started putting a dent in Graviton's defenses when a few discouraging remarks by Moonstone made him snap. He was glowing with power and raving like a lunatic.*
[* All of which happened in THUNDERBOLTS #27-29. But you knew that.]
Graviton had told his people to stay back during the fight--now they were taking that order one step further and evacuating "Sky Island" to avoid defeat and capture. Whatever Graviton had in store, he wouldn't hurt anyone besides a motley crew of quasi-heroes and one good-for-nothing winged mutant.
On the bright side, Warren mused, at least he'd gotten his mind off Betsy.
Before anyone could brace themselves for Graviton's coup de grace, however, it failed to materialize. The swirling energy surrounding him slowed, then stopped, and then swirled again in the opposite direction. He was so busy whining that it would have been impossible to tell if he even knew what was happening, as the gravitic field he was manipulating began to cave in on him. In his tantrum, the supervillain had inadvertently lashed out in the wrong direction, and instead of repelling everything around him he'd been exponentially increasing the gravitational pull of his center of mass. Like a dying star, each molecule of his body weighed several tons as he collapsed in on himself. Graviton might well have become a black hole if his death hadn't cut off his power. His 138-pound corpse, compacted into the size of a golf ball, plopped harmlessly to the ground.
"Well, hey," Hawkeye lit up. "That wasn't so bad."
What the archer had nearly forgotten, though, was that the ground Graviton's body plopped harmlessly onto was floating about two miles over San Francisco.
"Sky Island's still in the air!" Songbird shouted, trying to get her bearings.
"Machine Man told us to expect something like that," Jolt added. "The gravitational field Graviton made should stick around for a few minutes, even though its been cut off at the source!"
Hawkeye surveyed the situation. "That doesn't change the fact that this baby's gonna leave a big mark when it falls onto the city...Songbird! You're the only one here who's got half a chance of movin' something this big!"
"Are you crazy, Hawkeye!? I--"
"Do it!" he snapped. "At least get it as close to the bay as you can before gravity kicks in!" Not that Hawkeye knew what he'd do if the island were still over the city when it regained its natural weight, of course. As usual, he'd deal with that later.
A Songbird flew off, Archangel chimed in. "Maybe Moonstone and I should get us off this island before--"
Hawkeye ignored him. "Jolt, I don't suppose Machine Man considered this situation when he built you these armbands..."
"He sure did!" Jolt beamed. She was having a blast being the one with the last-minute solutions, even if there was a good chance of them being squashed. She took off her gravity-canceling armband and began tinkering with it. "He made sure this would be easy for me to recalibrate--I can use each of the armbands to hold the island up for...fifteen, twenty seconds or so. There wasn't much time, and the place is so big, we--"
"Atlas and Charcoal got flung off the island," Hawkeye recalled, "and there's no time for Songbird to fly back and give you her armband...that gives us less than a minute and half of sudden death overtime. We're gonna have to make the best of it..."
"There must be something else we can do," Archangel pondered.
The Thunderbolts' leader shook his head. "It's Songbird's game now."
***
The technology had been conceived and developed by Ulysses Klaw, but adapted to fit her needs by a former Thunderbolt, Techno. Songbird's bionically enhanced larynx had once been for nothing more than producing a vertiginous screech during her criminal career as Screaming Mimi. She'd damaged the cybernetics, however, while crying over the death of an old lover. Techno couldn't repair her vocal cords, so he hooked them up to a carapace that she wore around her shoulders to translate her voice into sonic force fields. She'd learned how to fly with this power, and how to hold other objects aloft inside big pink bubbles. Now it was just a matter of making a big enough bubble and pushing it out over the bay in mere minutes.
Songbird shrieked, and the soundwaves were noiselessly converted into a pinkish energy that burst out of her carapace and danced around Sky Island, stretching to completely encase it. She'd underestimated, though--her cry wasn't strong enough to spread the field entirely around the island. A few deep breaths and she yelled at it some more, inaudibly screaming bloody murder at the hunk of earth until, slowly, the field had enough sonic power to achieve the necessary size.
Maintaining the field's integrity was not quite so complicated, as the bionics in her larynx took over to ensure that each breath was channeled into just the right frequency and amplitude to keep the bubble and her wings intact. It was as though her vocal cords were automatically, flawlessly hitting each note in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. There was some level of conscious thought required, but Songbird was so experienced at this point that it was almost instinctive--as long as she kept breathing and kept concentrating, her song would continue.
But Sky Island was easily the largest object she'd ever tried to move--it was more like singing Beethoven's Ninth at the Royal Albert Hall for an audience on the moon. Her chest heaved and her nostrils flared, though she made absolutely no sound beyond her labored breathing. She was frustrated and upset. Good, she decided. Use it; imagine all her troubles are on the island and let 'em have it. She deliberately baited herself, reminding herself of whatever she could think of to rile her up. While they'd been fighting Graviton earlier, Songbird had nearly fallen to her death when he'd made her carapace weigh several tons. Hawkeye had saved her, and when they were briefly imprisoned on the island she tried to throw herself at him like some lovesick princess thanking her shining knight. They'd worked it out, but it had been an incredibly emotional and mortifying moment. Right now she was screaming her lungs out at it.
Sky Island finally began to move.
What the hell had she been thinking, trying to make it with Hawkeye? Hawkeye! And in the middle of a blasted prison cell, with the others in earshot? How far was she going to go before he stopped her? She tried to imagine what he must think of her now--the little tramp who only got mixed up with all these hardened criminals because she didn't care who was sticking it to her each night, as long as someone was. A slut who couldn't even wait a minute after her lover went to prison before she had to find some new meat. The other Thunderbolts had been terrorists, killers, mercenaries, and world-conquering madmen, but she was nothing but a two-bit--
Sky Island was in spitting distance from the bay.
And maybe that was true. Hell, maybe that was all there was to her. She wasn't proud of her life before the Grapplers, but maybe it was what she was best at. At least she did better than other women had. Maybe all she was good for was to stand around and look good, and give the boys a good time. Maybe that's why Cyclone made a pass at her once when they fought the Masters of Evil. Maybe that's why Techno wanted her to be his "reward" for helping Zemo taking over the world. Maybe that's why she flirted with Archang--
Her eyes widened, her breath became tense and shortened, and her lips curled into a feral sneer. With one last blood-curdling scream, Sky Island was flying out over the bay. San Francisco was safe at last.
Songbird's carapace, on the other hand, blew up.
***
"Attagirl," Hawkeye muttered under his breath as he stood on the edge of the island, watching the city pass out from under him. He spoke up to the others. "That last push even gave us enough momentum to land far enough away that the tidal wave shouldn't hit the city too bad. Looks like we just gotta worry about getting ourselves--"
Hawkeye's quiver exploded, knocking him forward and over the edge of Sky Island at almost the exact second Songbird's field abruptly dissipated. As he fell, smaller conflagrations popped in the compartments of his tunic straps.
"Hawkeye!" Moonstone shouted as her comrade fell. "Grab Jolt, Archangel, and we'll--"
Archangel complied but interrupted her. His eyesight was keen from years of aerobatics, and he'd happened to have been keeping his focus on a certain spot in the sky "Better rethink that plan, Moonstone--he's not the only T-bolt in trouble!"
***
Songbird's carapace had several pink nodules sticking up from it like headlights on the chassis of a vintage automobile. These were the primary and auxiliary transducers, necessary for converting the vibratory energy of sound into the physical force that shaped her sonic constructs. As she fell out of the sky, each of them burst like popcorn and became useless for flying. She curled into a ball, covering her face with her hands and hoping none of the shrapnel hit her--a slim chance when she was wearing a dozen tiny bombs. Even so, the transducers were pointed away from her head and chest, sparing her from serious injury. She was still falling, though, and there was no way she could save herself without the carapace.
It was too much, she thought. Only a few seconds before she'd been moping about Hawkeye saving her when her powers failed in mid-air, and now she was in that predicament all over again. Step right up, boys--save the Songbird with the broken wings and let her fall over herself trying to make it worth your while. Hey, she'd suddenly remembered the time the Black Knight saved her from the Super-Adaptoid, and she fawned over him enough to make MACH-1 jealous for about a week. Oh, and she certainly did her best to make it up to Abe afterwards, didn't she? It was a big vicious circle, and as she fell to her death she couldn't really bring herself to wish it wasn't ending.
But it wouldn't end. The people who designed the cybernetics in her throat took the liberty of modifying her hearing to withstand her own ear-piercing attack, so even while she clutched her face in despair she could hear someone flying to her rescue. It was like George Reeves's cape whooshing all over the place in that cheesy old TV show. Let's get it over with, she decided. Come and get me, Mister Hero, and see what you can get...
One arm reached around her back, the other scooped her legs up at the knees, and suddenly she could feel the sinews of muscles tightening to support her weight. She could once again feel the familiar sensation of flight--even if she wasn't holding herself up on her own wings--but she needed a moment before she could open her eyes again. "Thanks for the assist, Wings," she told Archangel, "but don't expect my eternal devotion or anything."
"I'll be sure to bear that in mind, if I ever grow a pair of wings."
Not Archangel. Songbird slowly pulled her hands away and saw the wry grin of Moonstone, her masked expression of amusement staring right back at her. They both knew why she'd been expecting someone else. "Just so you don't feel completely foolish," she told her, "Archangel _was_ the one who chivalrously noticed you falling. But he had more experience flying with people as badly hurt as Hawkeye, so I came after you."
"Right. Yeah." Songbird looked away, feeling too awkward to even ask what happened to Hawkeye. "Um, no offense, Karla. I'd just assumed--"
Moonstone rolled her eyes. "Oh, relax, Songbird. I'd be a pretty sorry psychaitrist if I didn't notice the your association between the opposite sex and being rescued. You _hardly_ have to apologize to me for not feeling quite so..." she searched for a diplomatic way to phrase it "..._grateful_ to me as you would to a man. You were falling. I caught you. Just a cigar."
Songbird was noticeably relieved--it was easier to get that out of the way when she knew Moonstone knew what she'd thought. "OK, never mind," she replied. "I've been on edge since last night in the prison. But you still saved my life, and I guess I _do_ owe you--"
"Yes," Moonstone said flatly, dropping her cheery facade. "You do."
And they both knew what she meant...
***
Archangel had planned to leave as soon as Graviton was dealt with--tell the Thunderbolts they'd proven themselves to him and that they could keep the Champscraft--but Hawkeye was hurt badly, and he couldn't just take off until he was safe. The archer had essentially become one of America's Most Wanted by aligning with the Thunderbolts, and checking him into a hospital wasn't an option. At least they'd found out on long trip back to Colorado that the injuries were only bad burns on his back, and not critical spinal damage.
Once Hawkeye was safely back at HQ, it was just a matter of determining which of the base's extensive battery of equipment could be used to treat him. Atlas's military training gave him just enough knowledge in triage to make sure the bowman was stable, and finally the team had gotten him patched up and laying on his bed.
"At least we know what happened," Atlas commented to Hawkeye as the team surrounded the fallen leader. "Just gotta call from the Avengers warning you that vibranium everywhere is exploding,* so you need to get rid of all your arrows that use the stuff before it's too late." He shrugged. "Better late than never--huh, boss?"
[* See CAPTAIN AMERICA #20-22 for the straight poop.]
"I'll live," Hawkeye groaned. "Lucky for me, I've always got arrowheads that blow up, so I make sure my costumes unstable molecules can protect me from the blast if they detonate prematurely. My suspender thingies held up--just some scratches there--but my quiver might as well've been ground zero." He turned his head to Songbird, flinching as he realized he hurt himself doing it. "But we're _really_ lucky you're okay, Songbird. I guess Techno refined Klaw's technology enough that there was only a little vibranium in your carapace."
"I hate to bring up the bad news," Moonstone observed, "but with one Thunderbolt recuperating and one grounded indefinitely we may have a hard time keeping the public relations momentum we built off of Graviton. We're not the Avengers..." she glanced to Archangel "...or the X-Men, and we're not in the position to take time off to lick our wounds."
"They're my wounds, Moonstone--and in your dreams." Hawkeye tried sitting up, but when that didn't work, he opted to look imposing from his pillow. "Everything else you said, though, would be a pretty nice segue for our next piece of business. I've been mulling over this for a while now, and I'm not much for talking people into things, so I'll just throw it out and see what sticks. Archangel...how'd you like to join the Thunderbolts?"
Archangel was floored. Sure, he'd worked well with this team, but how could he fit in with this bunch of sociopaths and hotheads? These definitely weren't the X-Men--hell, even the New Defenders were more stable--and just being seen with them had probably resulted in a nationwide manhunt for him. The Thunderbolts, however, weren't quite as unsure of the idea.
"Well, hey, that _would_ work pretty good! We know we can count on Wings!"
"With his connections we'd be better aligned with more superheroes..."
"Then we could start borrowing the X-Men's stuff too! I want a Bamf doll!"
On the bright side, Warren mused, he'd _really_ gotten his mind off Betsy...
***
NEXT: Behold...the five flunkies of apocalypse...