Chapter 10: Snowball's Chance, Part Two
"Out of the way," Spider-Woman orders the rough crowd gathered around Piledriver and her.
Their fight began in the warehouse's vicinity. Over two miles, the Avenger and the Wrecking Crewman have fought in the streets, through a junkyard, over a frozen field, across traintracks, through deep snowdrifts, and into a tavern. They have brawled in the barroom. Now, they are in the dive bar's gravel parking lot near the traintracks. Distinctly, Spider-Woman has the advantage. Before her, genuflecting pugilist Piledriver has a black eye and a fat lip. Above her, she hoists someone's beater jalopy. She orders bystanders out of the way. Even the car's owner complies. The Kia Pride crashes down trapping the big brute inside tight quarters. Spider-Woman's victory yell complements a train horn sounding nearby.
Her barbaric yawp is cut short, however. A charging beast blitzes her. Huffing and puffing, winded Mad-Dog returns after sprinting back to the row. Panting, Mad-Dog eyes his prey. Smiling, Piledriver rips himself out of the tin can. He steps determinedly forward. At his boot, a manhole cover slides off. In mid-stride, Piledriver feels someone wrap his leg. He looks.
"You're going down," Doorman announces.
Oblivion's footsoldier pulls Piledriver into the depths. Doorman has finally returned to the earthly plane after healing in the darkforce dimension. He has been very busy tonight. Around eight o'clock, telelocation brought Doorman to the warehouse, and he overheard Coulson and Drew discussing CTE's approaching raiders. The teleporter fetched Big Bertha from the Madison hospital. He told Eddie and Lester to protect Lynn while Bertha was away. Then, he helped Phil Coulson take-out henchmen. Just now, Doorman took Piledriver down into the darkness, leaving Spider-Woman and Mad-Dog to face each other.
"You're bleeding," Mad-Dog sneers across the bar parking lot.
Spider-Woman examines the scene, "You're pretty bloody and battered yourself, but I can fix that for you."
The villain snickers, "Oh, how's that?"
"Let me cauterize those wounds for you," Spider-Woman has spotted a gas grill behind Mad-Dog. Her venom-blast finds the propane tank. The concussion and heat are enough. The dog goes down smoking.
Behind the bar, Doorman dumps Piledriver from the railroad control box onto the train tracks. Doorman disappears back into darkness. Exhausted Piledriver stands up when the train is but eight feet away. The speeding locomotive wrecks the Wrecking Crew member. Piledriver's powerful hands hardly take the initial iron impact, and his feet hardly take skidding swiftly backwards over ties and gravel. He remains in a standing position briefly. At an intersection, Piledriver's ankles and knees buckle, and stopped motorists witness the train suck a man beneath it. The engine drags the lowlife's back and butt over the unforgiving ground. Costume and skin are progressively shredded until—the Fox River Trestle. From the trestle, Piledriver falls into icy flowing waters thirteen-feet below. At least his friction burns should cool off.
Heatedly, Darren Cross addresses Agent Coulson back at the warehouse, "This locker ahead had better contain one of my devices, Phil. Otherwise, I am shoving one of my cousin William's ultrasonic devices into you. I might shove it in your mouth and rattle your brains to pudding. I might shove it into any orifice."
The g-man rolls his eyes, "That won't be necessary, Darren."
"Yeah, Darren, that won't be necessary. If you hurt Phil, I might shove a forklift blade right through you," Ashley Crawford sits upon a forklift near the storage locker. Big Bertha has fully dumped her mass and thereby escaped the racking rubble. Executive Crawford has figured out the forklift's ignition but neither the vehicle's drive nor its forks. Engineer Cross can tell, as could anyone.
Cross shoves Coulson toward the lockers, "Fetch my property. I'm going to remove the rest of the flesh from Bertha's bones." Darren stomps toward Ashley like Frankenstein's Monster. Crawford desperately works at understanding the machine's controls.
Coulson cannot believe that the bad guy takes an eye off of him. Apparently, bodily mutation and absolute power really can affect your brains. Oh well. Coulson led Cross toward this area for a reason anyway.
The SHIELD agent executes his plan. "Hey! Cross, catch!"
The monster-man's hands release Ashley's neck. His huge mitts catch the duffel bag thrown to him.
"Do you know what is in that bag, Darren?" Phil asks.
"No," Darren admits.
"Do you know Eddie Dyson?" Phil asks.
"Yes. Why? Is his dumb head in here?" Cross thinks himself clever. He feels and shakes the gift package.
"Well, your man Constrictor burnt poor Eddie's hands about like this," Coulson crushes the button of the remote control that he also fetched from the locker. It activates the car-melter in the bag. It is a car-melter just like the one with which Crossfire once instantly destroyed an entire truck in this very warehouse. The bag burns up instantly. Then, the melter melts into the monster's hands. Skin and flesh sizzle, stick, and stink smoldering.
Semi-aghast, Ashley announces, "Appropriately, that's payback." Big Bertha has spent much time watching-over the Michaels clan at the hospital. She has seen the hard effects of Crosses' nefarious orders.
Coulson gloats to Cross's shrieking face, "Besides Eddie Dyson, you should know the name Bruno Horgan. He was your fellow evil industrialist. You stole his Melter device after he died."
Heatedly, Cross rips his hands free from the searing device. The sight is as macabre as anyone would imagine. Coulson nearly massively purges like Bertha did. But, he gathers himself instead. Thumbing his nose, the SHIELD commander runs from the mammoth maniac who charges after him. The ranger radios his air cavalry in her flying car. He leads the enemy outside where Cap. Seagrum's large-caliber Gatling does to the terror's torso what the white-hot burner did to his hands and what Coulson's .30 cal could not. Most of Darren Cross drops dead in one spot. Cmdr Coulson does not feel too bad. Darren Cross recently oversaw a terrorist bombing after years of other heinous activities.
Minutes later, Spider-Woman walks up with unconscious Mad-Dog over her shoulder, "Wow, Darren Cross is dead. I did not expect that."
In Madison, Crossfire informs Augustine Cross, "Events did not go as expected. We need to get out of here, out of Wisconsin, out of the U.S." The ten o'clock news reports on the eight o'clock battles in Milwaukee and the Fox Valley. William knew already through other sources that the operations failed.
Mourning son Augustine gathers his thoughts, "We need to hide where neither SHIELD nor the Avengers can find us. Once there, we need to plan some tremendous revenge."
"Agreed," Crossfire—a homicidal schemer—is on-board.