The SHIELD Helicarrier.
300 feet above Doomstadt, Latveria.
Johnny Storm scratched his head and leaned toward Ben."The Infinity Formula?"
"S'what keeps Fury his young and dapper lookin' self."
Johnny shrugged. "And Doom wants it for himself."
Bed tapped his nose once. Johnny rolled his eyes and frowned, dour. "Story of our lives, Ben. Every time things calm down, another nutso crawls out and decides to blow stuff up. I've got places to go, you know. People to see."
"No you don't," Ben said and smiled.
At the port side, two Helicarriers hovered motionless above the expanse of Doomstadt—of Latveria itself. Minutes ago, Doom's Helicarrier—constructed using enchantments he stole from Stephen Strange—blasted its way from the Negative Zone and opened up its guns on SHIELD's own Helicarrier.
Reed did the math quickly, looking from one side of Doom's carrier to the other. Forty guns in all, just on one side. He looked to one side, to Fury, "Action?"
Ben Grimm slapped his forehead.
"He's broadsiding us," he said quietly. To one side Johnny rolled his eyes and said, 'How cliché can one man get?" Ben cupped one hand around his mouth and yelled up: "Reed! Get this thing moving!"
Reed looked back at Doom's carrier and saw the Lord of Latveria was gone. The only things that stood on the deck were rows and rows of Doombots and Servo-Guards, lorded over by two immense Sentinels.
Fury's eyes grew wide at the realization and he yelled into his gauntlet receiver. "Hard to starboard!" Fury looked back at the throngs of agents and superheroes. "Hang on!"
Iron Man lifted into the air on his armored repulsors.
Hank Pym grew to match the size of the Sentinels.
Captain America slung his shield around his shoulders and steadied himself.
Hawkeye pulled an explosive arrow from his quiver and held it taut in the bow.
The SHIELD carrier lurched heavily to starboard, veering away from Doom's carrier.
Standing in a cylindrical command bridge just large enough to fit his armored form, and surrounded by myriad video feeds, the lord's eyes narrowed behid the cold steel mask. His lips bared angry, clenched teeth.
"Fire!" The lord's voice was grim anger. He pivoted on his heels to one side, to a motionless and attentive Servo-Guard. "Let the Helicarrier be Fury's tombstone!"
At that moment, the deck guns on Doom's carrier erupted in a hellish display of firepower. From aft to stern, the guns fired with all the destructive power they had been issued.
Aboard the Helicarrier, Black Widow thrusted her assault rifle forward and gave the fire order, while guns underneath the deck returned Doom's fire. The first three ranks of Doombots flying across to the Helicarrier were mowed down by the combined firepower of three hundred SHIELD agents. But even the Black Widow at the head of the defense isn't enough.
Hawkeye let loose his arrow and kept up the firing, taking out isolated groups of attacking bots.
Captain America loosed his shield and threw it forward into the Doombot ranks. The edge decapitated a squad leader and caught three others through the waist before reversing course in a wide arc and returning to Cap's hand.
Iron Man powered on his chest repulsor and aimed indiscriminately at the horde, firing output at 90 percent.
Yellowjacket took to wrestling one of the Sentinels and in the process tumbled off the Helicarrier. The resulting redistribution of weight rocked the carrier and threw the legions of landed agents and Doombots across the deck, from port to starboard.
The Doombots kept coming.
Reed Richards stretched above the melee to get his bearings. He saw Black Widow kicking her way out of a pile of lifeless Doombots. She bore an assault rifle in one hand, and blood trickled down one side of her face. But she kept firing. The Doombots kept coming.
"Reed!"
Reed turns around at the sound of Fury's voice, and saw the Director of SHIELD holding his own. A squad of six Doombots had gathered around him like wild animals preying on a weakened victim. They advanced slowly, uncharacteristically, as Fry drew his pistol from its breast-holster. He surprised the 'bots, turning quickly and taking down three of them before hands stretched around the other three—hands as large as Fury's own body—and crushed them. Fury looked up at Reed.
"Get me to the bridge!"
Aboard his own carrier, the lord of Latveria found his way to the deck and watched in abject distance as his legions poured over the SHIELD carrier. He looked over the edge, down at Latveria's beautiful natural topography, and saw the hero Yellowjacket fighting a Sentinel with the delicacy and capability of an inebriated boxer. Pym, as Doom knew him, had the Sentinel in a headlock and was slowly working the contraption to its knees.
The lord looked back to the SHIELD carrier. Its undercarriage, just beneath the flight deck, was severely damaged. Smoke and flames billowed from the wounds in the armor plating. The lord pressed a button on his gauntlet, and the barrage from his carrier subsided. He raised one arm and pointed forward.
The Doombots kept going.
At the port bow, Iron Man flew circles around a squad of Doombots chasing him. He turned over in midair and delivered two blasts from repulsors armored over his human hands. He took the liberty of watching all six charred bodies fall to the deck.
Ben Grimm and Hawkeye had taken to fighting together and in the course of mere minutes found themselves back to back fighting off the host of Latveria.
"Don't these things ever die?!" Hawkeye yelled and wiped sweat from his chin. He positioned another arrow and fired it into an oncoming group of Doombots who had—cleverly, he had to admit—organized themselves into a flying V. Ben Grimm meanwhile, fought the automatons the hard way.
Hand to hand.
He punched one in what would have been a human stomach and it bowed to its knees. Grimm picked it up by the shoulder and jammed his knee in its chest, destroying the circuitry. Another came up from behind, and Grimm ducked before it could strike. He slid around the Doombot's back and punched a hole through its chest again, and aimed its right arm at oncoming horde. And as the repulsor ray in the Doombot's arm atomized its brethren, Ben Grimm smiled.
The Human Torch had grabbed Captain America and taken to the skies.
"Johnny, drop me!"
"Are you nuts?!"
"Just do it!" Cap said and rocked himself free. He fell away from Johnny in a series of backflips and landed on the shoulder blade of the remaining Sentinel—itself crouched on the deck of the SHIELD carrier wiping away agents and Doombots alike like nuisances. Cap pulled his shield from around his shoulders and jammed the edge into the base of the Sentinel's skull. And kept it up for three minutes, grabbing for purchase as the Sentinel tried and failed to pull the Avenger from its back.
The opening allowed Iron Man to swoop in on a low curve and get close to the Sentinel and the bright spot on its chest that gave away the location of the internal dynamo that powered it. Iron Man hovered close to the Sentinel's chest and powered the full-body repulsor ray to capacity.
"Steve," Iron Man said calmly into his communicator. "You might want to get off the Sentinel. And cover your eyes. This might be bright."
"Gone," Cap said. He dove off fearlessly and grabbed the leg of a passing Doombot. The Doombot's trajectory was ruined by Cap's added weight, and he used that to his advantage, flipping the robot over and crouching on its back. The crouch gave him leverage to launch himself off into another horde. The wayward Doombot careened into the Sentinel's faceplate, and the larger automaton stumbled backward off the deck.
On the deck, Reed Richards didn't have the time to hack into whatever database Victor was running his legions from. Time was of the essence, and Reed resigned himself to using his powers to fight. One of his hands formed into a hammer as big as Ben Grimm, while he merely stretched his other hand to twelve times its original proportion. The oversized nature of his appendages allowed him to crush, maim, sweep aside and decommission large quantities of Doombots and Servo-Guards. His expression was neither joyful nor exhausted. This was merely work to him, Mister Fantastic, work to be done so that he could get to Victor himself.
He's all that matters. All that's ever mattered.
He wrapped up a Servo-Guard in his stretched hand and tossed it carefully over to Doom's carrier. He stretched his neck to see the Servo-Guard's body land awkwardly slightly less than a foot from Victor's body.
Reed frowned at the sight of a strictly observant Victor, and shrunk slightly when he saw Victor's eyes locked on his. What's he waiting for?
He looked away and saw his wife, Susan, three meters away. He saw her jam one elbow in a Doombot's face and gesture toward an oncoming one. She was throwing invisible daggers through the robot's head circuitry. She flipped the elbow-bot over one shoulder and brought both her hands up to eye level. A squad of Doombots a meter away from her lifted off the ground, unknowingly caught in one of her forcefields, as she watched and willed the forcefield toward the sky. A moment later she withdrew it and watched the bodies fall to the deck.
Reed stretched to her side. She created an invisible bubble around herself and her husband. On the outside, a group of Doombots had taken to pounding on it, while another group used their repulsors to blast it away—both to no avail. Reed and Sue paid them no mind, and watched a squad of SHIELD agents mow them down with automatics.
"Nice job."
Susan looked at him and straightened her hair and smiled. "I know. And you were worried about me holding my own."
"I'll make it up to you tonight, Miss Storm," Reed said and winked.
Beneath the Richards', the deck rumbled and lurched to one side. Reed tapped his ear, opening a line to the bridge, and spoke with sudden gravity. "Nick, what's going on?"
"We're losing her," Fury yelled back in a harsh bass. "Got to get her over water or something. I don't want this thing rolling into the middle of Doomstadt or Bucharest."
"Understood."
"How—arghh—how's the Doombot population?"
Reed looked around quickly. Near the port bow, Black Widow and Agent 13 were still hammering away on a Servo-Guard, exhausting ammunition on the oversized automaton that didn't know which way it wanted to fall.
Up in the sky, Captain America was still playing acrobat, flipping around from Doombot to Doombot. The Human Torch made a wide arc of flame a hundred meters above the Helicarrier, then shot down in the center of it, vaporizing a group of Doombots. And yet, Doom's carrier seemed to be littered with the things. They came to the Helicarrier in a wide arc on the sky and for a moment almost blocked out the sun.
"It's starting to come apart, Nick. We might have to make a run for it soon."
The Doombots kept coming. And Victor…
Oh no.
"Nick, I have a problem."
"Such as?"
"Victor's gone. He was on the deck and now he's not. Can you track him?"
Reed looked at the sky just in time to see a Servo-Guard angle one arm toward the Admiral's Bridge. A second later a thin missile exploded from its wrist, streaming toward the bridge, on a straight and true and deadly path. He yelled into the communicator.
"Nick? Nick!?"
Reed's concentration as interrupted by another errant Servo-Guard crashing into Susan's barrier. The force broke her concentration and the bubble collapsed. Above the Richards' the missile slammed into the bridge and threw out a plume of smoke and fire and a deafening sound behind it.
Sue rejoined the fight, leaping into a horde of Doombots and trying to relieve a beleagured trio of SHIELD agents. Reed stretched after her and yelled into the communicator.
"Johnny? Ben? Anybody?! Answer me!"
On the Admiral's Bridge, Nick Fury slowly got to one knee. His head hurt, and he felt something warm at his hairline. Blood, he thought and sighed. He stood weakly and said, "damage…report?"
When his vision cleared, he looked around the bridge. Smoke obscured his view, but he knew well enough that he could still see. So there was that. As he surveyed the bridge, he saw a hole blown in the bow wall. Every body that was with him on the bridge was either buried under the rubble of the exploded equipment or incinerated or—
"Colonel Fury."
Fury turned slowly and leaned against the charred wall. His leg ached, and he knew instinctively to keep off it. He wiped sweat and dirt from his brow and stared ahead at the monolithic body in the ruined threshold.
Doom.
"Doom," Fury said and felt the blood bubble in his throat. "I'll have your head for this."
"This is your last chance, Colonel. Give me the formula, or I shall take it by force."
The ruined hole in the Admiral's Bridge glowed bright for a moment as the Human Torch alighted in the empty space between Fury and Doom and flamed off. He looked at Doom once and then stopped between the two men.
Fury watched Doom's eyes narrow at the sight of the Human Torch.
"Jonathan," Doom said with malice. "You'll see no mercy from me."
"You're embarrassing yourself," Johnny said with strength that surprised himself. "Take your little armada and go home."
Under the cold steel mask, Doom smiled. "Your strength is admirable and foolish. But nothing is over until Doom commands it."
Fury coughed a spat of blood and leaned against the wall.
Johnny flamed on. Slowly.
"You can still walk away," he said.
Under the faceplate, Doom's smile turned to a frown. His eyes burned hatred. "I am Victor von Doom. I have usurped the power of Galactus, I have travelled beyond the crossroads of infinity." Doom threw one side of his cape back and rested one arm akimbo. He was unimpressed with Johnny Storm. Even after all these years.
After a measured silence, the lord of Latveria spoke once more, and Johnny felt the derision in the lord's voice. Johnny Storm clenched his fists and inhaled deeply.
"I cannot be defeated by a mere boy."
Johnny's muscles tightened and his eyes burned white. Doom's gauntlets crackled to life and glowed blue-white with electricity.
It happened in slow motion for Johnny Storm. Launching himself at the great and feared Doctor Doom. And as Doom brought his fists up in defense, Johnny entertained the idea that he might actually win. He smiled.
He could live with that.
Continued...