"Homecoming"
February 12, 1972.
Attilan, the Great Refuge of the Inhumans.
Communications room of the Royal Palace.
Medusa, dressed in purple tights, sat in front of the large television screen. She turned a knob with her gloved hand to boost the reception. The signal from New York City was weak at this range, even if the Avengers did have access to Reed Richards' advanced human technology. She now saw the masked face of the Avenger called Hawkeye much more clearly and could hear him better as well.
"What was that last part you said?" Medusa asked.
"The main armada of the Kree is here," Hawkeye said, "or at least halfway between Earth and Mars, massing in formation."
"You warned us about the Kree months ago, but all we have observed is activity from the Skrulls," Medusa said.
"The Skrulls already had advance scouts here on Earth – had them here for 10 years right under our noses. Well, we're way past having to worry about scouts and stray raiding parties – this is it. Turns out, the Skrulls have showed up with their own armada and they're going to have an old-fashioned shootout with our planet right in the middle of it!"
"We have already pledged most of our royal guard to your cause, Hawkeye," Medusa said.
"Your majesty, or whatever I'm supposed to call ya," Hawkeye said, his speech becoming sloppier as he grew angrier, "if I wanted guards, I could'a called the Queen of England and got me some beefeeders. What we need is the Royal Family here pronto!"
Hawkeye was pushed by someone from in front of the camera and then a red-headed woman appeared in front of it. "Princess Medusa," the redhead said, "I am Black Widow. What Hawkeye is trying to say is that we need Black Bolt's power closer to our front lines."
"I must confess I am confused by who represents the Avengers," Medusa said. "Where is Spider-Man?"
"Spider-Man stepped down as chairman," Hawkeye said from off-camera. "I'm chairman now."
"Regardless," Medusa continued, "we have trouble of our own. If you have not been in contact with your own Fantastic Four recently, let me be the one to tell you that Crystal is missing and Lockjaw has been missing since he went to find her. Karnak has been seeking her out and the rest of us will soon be joining him in the search."
"That's crazy!" Hawkeye was saying off-camera, but the Black Widow was hushing him.
"Please reconsider, Medusa," the Black Widow said. "Without everyone working together, Earth may not endure. This is not hyperbole – this is our worst-case scenario."
"I will speak to Black Bolt again on this matter," Medusa said. "I can promise no more. Medusa out," and she cut her transmission with the turn of a dial.
February 12, 1972. Five minutes later.
Attilan, the Great Refuge of the Inhumans.
Launching pad of the Royal Palace.
The flying craft on the pad resembled no human contrivance. It was an assembly of five spheres of aluminum, both super-dense and transparent, attached like spokes to a central propulsion unit. Each sphere had a bank of controls around a chair. Four of the spheres were already inhabited and outside the fifth was an Inhuman, standing six foot, eight inches tall and unnaturally thin, but wearing powered armor that increased his bulk. Next to him, clad in brown leather, was Gorgon of the Royal Family, who watched the taller man about to enter the ship.
"I envy you, Danse," Gorgon said.
Danse, Sergeant-of-the-Guard, turned around to face his superior officer and friend. "Gorgon? Do you wish to go in my stead?"
"Don't tempt me. I would if Black Bolt had not forbade it and I would not disobey him for any amount of glory in battle."
Danse smiled. "I will let a few of the Kree devils slip past me so you can have some fun too," he said.
Gorgon smiled back and clasped Danse on the arm. "If you don't leave me at least a dozen, I am demoting you on your return. Now go on, join the others."
Danse nodded and entered the ship. The propulsion unit hummed to life and glowed before the ship lifted up off the ground and hovered still in the air. Gorgon stepped back, turned his back to his guardsmen, and walked away. From behind him he heard the deep, bass "boom" of the impulse engine as it kicked in and quickly lifted the ship far into the sky. The last ship heading into the orbital defense line around Earth was gone now and Gorgon had missed his last chance to participate. With a heavy sigh and a slouch in his shoulders he started along the balcony that ran around the transportation building with no destination in mind. Then he spotted Medusa down on the ground below, walking briskly on the moving sidewalk to double her speed. He had a sudden surge of hope that she might have news from Black Bolt of a change of heart.
"Medusa, wait!" he bellowed. He quickened his pace until he reached the pneumatic elevator, stepped in on the compressed air, and with a press of a button was lowered to the ground. "Medusa, wait!" Gorgon repeated as he emerged from the elevator shaft.
Medusa had long since spotted the source of her cousin's distressed voice, stepped off the moving sidewalk, and waited in the courtyard. "Gorgon! Is anything wrong?"
"There is plenty wrong," Gorgon said with a grimace, "if you count the fact that we are still here on the ground instead of in the sky."
Medusa sighed. "I cannot entirely argue with you."
"Crystal may be our youngest kin," Gorgon went on ranting, "but she is 38 years old now and she should be able to take care of herself. And Lockjaw-"
"Gorgon," Medusa said, putting her hand gently to his lips, "this is not about Crystal and Lockjaw. It's about Black Bolt."
Gorgon looked at her for a moment before he managed to get out, "Eh?"
"This is about Black Bolt and how important family is to him. Do you remember when Maximus took over and exiled us from Attilan? Being driven from Attilan was an excrutiating blow to Black Bolt, but at least he had us, his first and second cousins. No crisis, not even an alien invasion, is more frightening to him than losing the Royal Family. And can you blame him? His parents are dead and his brother is mad. We are all the family he has left. I am sure that if he trusted to leave Maximus here in Attilan virtually unguarded, we would all have left by now to find Crystal and Lockjaw."
Before either of them could say another word, they beheld a bright flash of light from the open courtyard where they stood. Turning, they saw the familiar shapes of Lockjaw and Crystal taking form before them.
"Am I the one you would have been looking for?" Crystal asked. She was wearing her old, favorite yellow outfit instead of a Fantastic Four uniform as they had seen her in last time she was back home.
"Yes, you!" Medusa cried as she ran to hug her younger sister.
"Lockjaw, were you being lazy in your mission?" Gorgon asked crossly, arms crossed before him.
Lockjaw snorted back at him.
"It was not Lockjaw's fault!" Crystal interjected. "We were both prisoners of Diablo and would be still had it not been for John."
"Where is your husband?" Medusa asked at the mention of John Storm.
"Gone with the rest of the Fantastic Four to face the Kree and Skrull armadas. I would have gone with them, but I understood all of Attilan was worried about us so we had to come back to tell everyone we are alright now."
"Then let us tell Black Bolt as well," Medusa said, grabbing her sister's wrist with a long tendril of hair. "He will be elated at the news!"
Medusa set a brisk pace, with Crystal forced to keep up and Gorgon and Lockjaw trailing behind. They had not cleared much of the palace grounds, however, when Gorgon pointed skyward and announced, "Look! We will not have to wait long to tell him after all!"
All eyes looked up to see their king, Black Bolt, soaring over the rooftops. The black-garbed monarch spotted the small party on the steps to the Hall of Genetics and angled his flight to circle down to them. He shortly landed in front of Crystal and gave his second cousin a sudden embrace. Releasing her, he knelt down next to Lockjaw and hugged his huge, furry muzzle. Although she had always known Black Bolt to be a caring kinsman, Crystal was closest to being surprised by this outburst of feeling, having been away from Attilan the longest and unaware of the recent stresses put on their king and kin.
"Black Bolt," Medusa said, "let us all find comfortable seats indoors, as I am sure we have many stories to trade with Crystal."
February 12, 1972. Twenty minutes later.
Attilan, the Great Refuge of the Inhumans.
Private chamber of the Royal Palace.
"I can't believe it!" Crystal said with a laugh, throwing her head back into her comfy chair.
"It's true," Gorgon said, sitting across from her. "You missed it both times."
"Yes..." Medusa said, sounding embarrassed. Her hair started to move as if on its own accord to cover the blush in her cheeks. "First cut off by Dr. Doom and then singed off by the Super-Skrull – I've been forced to wear my hair short, twice in the last two months. Luckily it grows back very fast."
Word had been sent to Triton and Karnak about Crystal and Lockjaw's return, but only Triton was close enough to Attilan to join them now. He rushed from the doorway towards Crystal and she stood up to receive his hug. Then Triton gave Lockjaw a playful scratch on the head. "We were all worried!" Triton said to Crystal. "I thought I told John it was going to be his job to protect you once you two were married!"
"Oh, I save him more often than he saves me," Crystal said, waving off his concerns with her gloved hand.
"This reunion is all well and good," Gorgon said, standing up, "but we have delayed long enough in dealing with the Kree threat. Now that we are reunited, should we not fetch Karnak and go join with the palace guard as they wait in high orbit for the coming attack?"
"The Avengers are clearly convinced that our chances are bleak," Medusa said from where she sat. "The armadas assembled in space must be huge."
Black Bolt, sitting where he could see everyone, looked every member of his family in the eye one by one. In Gorgon, he saw pride, and a potentially self-destructive lust for honor in battle. In Triton, he saw a grim, fatalistic determination to see through whatever came to him. In Medusa, he saw a deep love and her willingness to go anywhere he lead her. Only Crystal averted her gaze. Some new pain lurked beneath the surface she tried hard to conceal with her happy face of old. Finally, Black Bolt stood. All eyes turned to him. He looked to Medusa, pointed to himself, and then pointed up towards the ceiling.
"What of the rest of us?" Medusa said, rising from her seat. Her hair moved restlessly, but it was with her hand that she reached out for Black Bolt.
"You can't mean for us to stay?" Gorgon asked, clearly as upset as Medusa, though not necessarily for the same reason.
Black Bolt let Medusa read his features, but he made a sign with his fingers for the others to recognize.
"Maximus," Triton said coldly. "You want us to stay and keep an eye on Maximus. I have to say, it is the logical thing, with the ranks of the palace guard now so depleted."
Black Bolt finally let Medusa take his hand and he said things to her with his eyes that almost brought tears to hers. Then he motioned with his other hand to Gorgon and Triton, meaning for them to follow as he let go of Medusa's hand and moved to the exit of the room.
Medusa assumed Black Bolt had left her to stay behind so she could catch up longer with her sister, but when she looked into Crystal's eyes she saw the pain there that Black Bolt had seen. "Little sister, what's the matter?" Medusa asked sweetly, like she might have 20 years ago when Crystal was still a girl. She opened her arms, offering herself for a hug.
Crystal lost all composure and rushed into Medusa's arms, crying. "Oh, Medusa," she said. "The things I did…the things Diablo made me do when I was under his spell…"
Medusa held her sister and tried to feel calm and peaceful for Crystal to sense. Medusa repressed, for now, her burning desire for revenge on this Diablo for reducing her sister to tears.
There was one other person present in the room, though no one had known. He desired to stay longer and see if Crystal had any juicy details to confess, but knew he had a timetable to meet and could not linger longer. Protected from being seen or heard by the cloaking device he held, Maximus left the room, ranting out loud continuously. "You overthrow your brother once and he never stops suspecting you of things! Grrawl! Diablo was a fool to parade Crystal around until the Fantastic Four took notice. He was supposed to keep her prisoner until the rest of the Royal Family split up to go find her! But no, that's what I get for trusting a thousand-year old Spaniard! Now I need to rely on plan B. Good thing I had a plan B!" By now, Maximus had left the palace grounds and was heading for a meeting hall that should have been empty. Maximus expected otherwise. He continued ranting with, "But this is better. Far more ironic!" He produced an electronic skeleton key and unlocked the door. "The fools, thinking I couldn't invent anything because they'd taken away my tools. Little did they suspect I could create a long-range communicator with a gravy bowl, a spool of floss, and an old tape recorder. Where was I?" he prompted himself as he opened the door and entered. "Oh yes! The irony of being captured by her old comrades-in-arms – the Frightful Four!" That last part he had said in English with a flourish, after turning off his cloaking device and entering the room adjoining the foyer to find the four men he had expected.
They were four men, anyway. One was wearing a suit of green-painted chainmail armor and a helmet that covered his entire head. Another was wearing what looked like a purple rubber suit from head-to-toe with zig-zag patterns all over it. The third was wearing an even more bizarre green outfit with a leaf-motif all over it. The fourth was a moustached man wearing a green "business suit" as humans called them, but also a pair of over-sized mechanical gauntlets.
"Who are you?" Maximus asked. "Where are the Frightful Four?"
"That would be us," said the man in green armor. "You might have heard of me as the Asbestos Man, but now I go by a new name – Chemistopheles. My companions in crime are Eel, Plantman, and Rabble-Rouser."
Maximus looked at each of them in turn and then back at Chemistopheles. "You're who now? Which of you is the Wizard?"
The four supervillains turned and looked at each other awkwardly before their appointed spokesman continued. "Your information is slightly out-of-date. The Wizard has retired. The Frightful Four is now a franchise operation. We are the current franchise holders."
"It wasn't easy, finding your secret city and sneaking into it, you know," Plantman added.
"Fine," Maximus said. "You know – it's fine. My plan is so perfect, even this can't set me back."
"And what plan is that? Also we'd like to discuss payment," Chemistopheles said.
"Oh, you will be richly rewarded," Maximus said. "After you kidnap Medusa!"
NEXT ISH: This is the BIG one! Flashbacks to the birth of Black Bolt and the death of his parents! Black Bolt in space fighting in the Kree-Skrull War! Medusa under attack from the new Frightful Four! Crystal in action! Surprise guest-stars! Don't miss "Attacks at home and abroad!"