"Operation: Medusa"
February 25, 1972. The day before the invasion fleets arrived.
Attilan. The Royal Palace.
It had been over a year since Crystal had last used her private quarters at the palace. Longer still since crying had been heard within.
Medusa had come here to find out why Crystal had not gathered with the others to meet the rest the Fantastic Four upon their arrival to Attilan and here was Crystal, not only not in her Fantastic Four uniform, but lying in bed and crying. Medusa sat on the edge of the bed next to her younger sister and put a hand on Crystal's back. "Whatever is the matter?" Medusa asked.
"Nothing," Crystal lied.
"John is with them," Medusa coaxed. "Do you not want to see him?"
"Not if it means going with them," Crystal said, sitting upright and looking at her sister with tear-streaked eyes. "I just can't right now."
"It's alright," Medusa said, taking her in her arms and hugging her. "Everyone knows you need your rest. No one is going to fault you for needing to stay out of this fight."
"No, that's not it!" Crystal said, pushing away. "It's not just this fight. I'm sitting all of them out. I never want to lead such a dangerous life again! I'm quitting the Fantastic Four!"
February 27, 1972. The first full day of the battle in space.
Attilan. The Royal Palace.
Seven long hours after the Kree began their assault on Earth – with the Skrull armada not much farther away – something amazing happened. Crystal tried calling Medusa's room to rouse her so she could come see, but Medusa was not answering.
Crystal quickened her pace down the corridor as she neared Medusa's private quarters. She was so eager to tell her sister the news. The appearance of all those…things in space around the Earth was going to turn the tide. She knew it. With luck, it would not all be over before Medusa could see it.
The door was locked. "Unlock protocol," Crystal said. Voice recognition software in the door confirmed her voice and unlocked the door for her. "Medusa?" Crystal asked as she entered. There was no response. The lights were out through the whole apartment. The air seemed cooler than Medusa liked it in here. Crystal went to the open door to the bedroom to check there next. "Medusa?" she repeated at the doorway.
The bed was a shambles, the window was broken – no, mostly missing, like a big hole in the wall – and Medusa was nowhere to be seen.
March 2, 1972. Thursday afternoon.
Kathmandu, Nepal. Tribhuvan International Airport.
The jeep roared through the parking lot, scattering people and their luggage out of the way. A driveway wrapped around the west side of the control tower building before adjoining the runways, but there was a line of spikes crossing the driveway to keep non-authorized personnel from driving there. The jeep blew all its tires driving over the spikes, but kept rolling on flat tires to the runways before coming to a screeching stop.
The driver literally vaulted out of the vehicle using a fancy metal pole. He wore a turban and loose-fitting clothes, though his skin clearly seemed to mark him as an occidental. The woman was even more Western in appearance, with uncovered orange hair and wearing a tight yellow jumpsuit. The workers standing idle in the shade of the control tower nearby were offended at once by her appearance. With the roar of the turbine engines on the last plane that took off fading in the distance, the workers began taking off their ear covers.
"Did some men board that plane with a woman?" the pole-vaulter asked loudly in the Sherpa dialect as he pointed to the plane that had just taken off. "Was there a woman with long red hair taken aboard that plane?" Karnak asked again with more urgency.
The men, obviously displeased with both his urgency and his uncovered female companion, did not answer at first. Only when he was in striking range of them with that metal staff he carried, and perhaps sensing that this man knew how to wield it as a weapon, did they seem to share his sense of urgency and point to the plane and nod.
Crystal, seeing their response, went to the back of the jeep and flung open the door of a big wicker crate in the back. Lockjaw bounded out of it. "Lockjaw!" she said. "Can you sense Medusa now?"
Lockjaw looked around, his beefy jowls swinging from side to side as he moved his head. He turned completely around, looking in all directions, and then hung his head and gave a sad howl.
"They're out of range of my powers already. And whatever they have that's keeping Lockjaw from locking onto her location is good at even this range," Crystal said with frustration as Karnak came back to the jeep.
"Do not worry," Karnak told her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "We have contacts throughout the continent and that is not a long range plane. Wherever they land, we will find them."
March 5, 1972. Sunday night.
Islamabad, Pakistan.
The Margalla Hills were only a dark silhouette on a less-dark sky, but the city streets of Islamabad spreading out below the hills glowed bright with electric lights. The Islamabad International Airport, south of the city, was at least as brightly lit. But there were dark and shadowy places in the city as well. One such place was a one-acre jasmine garden enclosed within a high wall. At the center of the garden was a water treatment facility made to look like an old bathhouse of Punjabi architecture. Visitors from foreign countries had visited this jasmine garden before, but none as peculiar as the man from New York and the other man, originally from London, standing there now between two rows of high hedges.
"I don't like this," the Eel said.
"Shut yer gob," the Plantman said. "I've 'eard it before."
"It's taking too long. Something may have happened to Rabble-Rouser."
"Something else that could 'appen is you shutting up. He'll come with the truck."
"You're not at all worried about Medusa's family catching up to us again? They almost had us in Nepal. I'm telling you, we should just give Medusa back and get out while we can."
"Don't you care about your reputation?" Plantman asked with obvious disdain. "I don't know about you, but I'm not going back to England or the States as a loser. Eh?"
Both men turned to the sound of something whistling through the air as it drew closer quickly, crashing through the taller vegetation as it came. It came crashing through the hedge closest to Plantman and was revealed to be a chunk of granite weighing in at about 500 lbs. Plantman tried to twist out of the way crude missile, but caught it with his left elbow and was knocked by the impact into the Eel and knocking them both right through the hedge behind them. Plantman cried out in pain as if his left arm was broken. It was.
"They're here!" Eel cried in alarm as he slid out from under Plantman and came out of a summersault into a sprint for the building at the center of the garden.
"Bloody coward!" Plantman cried. He struggled to reach his feet just as something else came crashing through the foliage towards him. It was moving slower, but even bigger and closer to the ground. He clutched his raygun in his good right hand and began bathing the surrounding plants in the strange ray that made plants obey him. He had bathed every plant in sight just in time, as Lockjaw came barreling through what remained of the hedge between them. "Stop 'em!" Plantman cried to the plants.
Lockjaw howled as he charged at the green-garbed man, but before he could trample his target, he found jasmine vines looping around him and holding him back with unnatural strength. Lockjaw turned from side to side, trying to pull the plants free that crowded around him, and failed.
No more than 30 meters away, concealed from the combat by more hedges, Eel was stopped in his run when Karnak stepped out from behind a tall jasmine shrub. He had long-since discarded his human garb for the red uniform of a seeker. He held his multi-purpose weapon like a bo staff in front of him.
Neither combatant spoke, but went right for each other. Eel was more confident now, thinking he had a strategy that would allow him an easy win. As Karnak took the first swing with his weapon, Eel dodged, but he also reached out, grabbed hold of Karnak's weapon, and channeled electricity through his costume into the metal staff. Karnak only smiled as the weapon routed the electricity safely away from its wielder and discharged it in a lightning bolt back at Eel. Eel's rubber costume insulated and protected him, but the surprise of it had knocked him backward. Karnak followed up with a rapid series of swings that kept Eel on the defensive and dodging.
Further back, Lockjaw was gaining ground on Plantman, slowly uprooting and dragging behind him every plant that tried to hold him back. Some vines were still struggling to strangle the enormous, dog-like Inhuman, but his neck was so thick and muscular that the vines were more of a nuisance than a threat. Plantman was bathing more plants with his raygun and positioning them between himself and his monstrous foe as he continued his fighting withdrawal, but stopped abruptly when he heard a horn honk nearby. Plantman turned and broke into a run for the narrow driveway that led through the gardens to the water treatment plant. Lockjaw was finally able to run again too and bounded after his quarry.
Rabble-Rouser was behind the wheel of a 1970 Volkswagen Transporter, a pickup truck he had stolen for the purpose of transporting Medusa in the flatbed back to the nearest airport. Now Plantman raced to the truck hoping to use it as a getaway vehicle.
"What's going on?" Rabble-Rouser called out with his accent that sounded East European, but no one had been able to pin down what country he was from yet.
"When I get in the truck – floor it!" Plantman shouted back. He could see the look of surprise on Rabble-Rouser's face as Lockjaw plowed through some trees and came charging like a hairy, brown rhinoceros towards the truck.
Gorgon stepped out onto the driveway behind the truck. Without warning, he slammed one of his hooves down onto the pavement. The ground shook as if struck by an Earthquake. The pavement cracked and split apart into a field of debris. Plantman was knocked off his feet for the second time. He stumbled forward, accidentally grabbing the side of the truck with his broken arm and howling from the pain.
"Ooo, boy!" Rabble-Rouser said as he took his foot off the brake and slammed down the gas pedal. The tires squealed and burnt rubber as the truck peeled down the driveway. Plantman managed to hop on board the flatbed as the truck was gaining speed, but reached it only a second before Lockjaw did. Lockjaw grabbed the back corner of the truck between his jaws, clamped down, and shook the truck like a giant chew toy. Plantman was thrown off the truck at once, this time dropping his raygun in the process of twisting to avoid landing on his bad arm. Then Lockjaw lifted the truck completely off the ground and tossed it through the air. It came crashing down and landed on its side.
"Nice work, Lockjaw," Gorgon said as he came forward.
Rabble-Rouser climbed out of the side door of the truck, which was now facing the sky. "Now to see how you Inhumans like my Chaos Gauntlets," Rabble-Rouser said as he hopped down. He switched them on and pointed his hands towards Gorgon and Lockjaw. The same technology that had once been in his old wand radiated out from his new gauntlets.
Lockjaw had intended to step on Plantman and pin him to the ground, but the hypersonics of the Chaos Gauntlets made him confused and disoriented. He wound up stepping on Gorgon instead and pushing him over.
"Hey!" Gorgon exclaimed. The ultrasonics made him angry and he punched Lockjaw in the chest. Lockjaw picked up Gorgon in his mouth and tossed him over some nearby hedges on the side of the driveway.
"He's out of range of my gauntlets now," Rabble-Rouser told Plantman. "Run!"
Plantman had retrieved his raygun, but was not eager to stay behind for a rematch with Lockjaw. He took off running after Rabble-Rouser.
Gorgon had recovered quickly from his disorientation. He jumped into the air and vaulted well clear of the nearby, tipped-over truck. When he landed, the shockwave of his hooves striking the ground split the ground wide open before him. With a horrible rumble, the earth fell open into an increasingly long chasm until the chasm caught up with Plantman and Rabble-Rouser. They both fell three meters into earth and rock at the bottom of the chasm.
A light appeared from up ahead. It came from Karnak's multi-purpose weapon. He walked up to the edge of the chasm, holding an unconscious Eel under his arm. Karnak tossed the Eel into the chasm on top of Plantman and Rabble-Rouser.
"Look what I dug up," Gorgon quipped as he came up to join Karnak.
"Very amusing," Karnak said with a hint of a smile. "My foe gave me a good chase, but he proved less than durable when struck."
The three villains groaned at the bottom of the chasm as they tried to pull themselves to their feet.
"Lockjaw, stay here and guard," Gorgon said loudly. "If they give you any trouble...drop the truck on them."
Up the driveway, Chemistopheles was at the door to the water processing plant, looking out. He had heard tires squeal, a great crash, and then felt and heard what seemed to be an earthquake. "This does not bode well," he said out loud as he went back inside.
Inside, Medusa was wrapped tight from head to foot like a mummy in some heavy fabric and laying on a table. Chemistopheles tried to hold back a coughing fit as he came over to her. He took off his helmet and leaned over her face to listen to her breathing. He had just injected her with sedatives so she would not wake up when moved onto the truck and her breathing sounded shallow enough to confirm it had taken effect. "This could have been a simple kidnapping if your family was not so resourceful," he complained to her unconscious form. "I certainly did not want it to come to using you as a hostage."
He turned suddenly to face the door when he heard something that sounded like a heavy object being moved closer to the entrance. It could be the others, but his instincts told him it was not. He reached for the remote on the corner of the table and activated the acid bombs around the doorway before putting his helmet back on. Then he drew a knife from his belt sheath and held it by Medusa's bandaged face.
With a crash, something came bursting through the door. For a moment, Chemistopheles thought it might be the Thing, but whatever it was, it was covered in gray rocks instead of orange ones. The motion-sensitive bombs around the door exploded, showering a powerful acid bath all over the man-shaped mound of rocks. As the "rock-man" stepped into the room, though, the rocks began to fall away as if being shed. Underneath the rocky exterior stood Crystal.
"Handy superpower," Chemistopheles said, "but my knife is chemically treated so that one scratch is all I need to make your Medusa just as petrified as the victims of her namesake."
"Don't," Crystal said, standing her ground. "Why don't you just tell me what you want? Why have you done this?"
"What I want? I already sent you my ransom demands."
"Eight hundred pounds of gold," Crystal repeated back to them from the ransom demand they had received. "That's a lot, but we did bring it to Nepal. And then you changed the drop-off point again to India. And then dodged us again. If you want the gold so badly, why delay the exchange so long?"
"Let's just say we have a benefactor who will double our take if we stretch this out long enough."
"For what purpose?" Crystal pressed, but just then they heard the sound of footsteps outside.
"Your backup or mine?" Chemistopheles asked. He grabbed Medusa's head and raised it higher just as he brought his knife in closer, but then was interrupted by a coughing fit that sounded like it was filling his mask with phlegm.
Crystal took advantage of the distraction. At her mental command, Chemistopheles was struck with the force of a hurricane that threw him away from Medusa and pinned him against the far wall of the room. He had struck the wall hard enough that Crystal thought he might be knocked out, or at least should have the wind knocked out of him. She let the hurricane disappear and, since this was a concrete room, allowed a wall of fire to spring up around her prisoner to keep him motionless while she attended to Medusa.
Two figures appeared at the door. They were Crystal's backup – Gorgon and Karnak. "Look!" Karnak said, pointing to the wall of fire.
Chemistopheles ran through the ring of fire effortlessly, protected by his green suit of armor. He ran headlong through a side window and with a leap crashed right through it.
"Let him go," Karnak said, holding Gorgon back. "We have his three companions to question."
"And, more importantly, we have Medusa back," Crystal said, cradling her sister's head in her arms.
Four hours later, Medusa woke up to find she was lying on a stretcher aboard what appeared to be a private plane. Though initially concerned she was still a prisoner, she turned and saw Crystal sitting next to her.
"Oh! Thank Heaven you're awake!" Crystal said, hugging her sister.
"Crystal…you came for me," Medusa said weakly. "I am glad you did not…sit this out."
"I couldn't. Being Diablo's prisoner was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, until I almost lost you."
Both sisters held onto each other and shed happy tears the rest of the trip home.
March 5, 1972. Sunday night.
Attilan. Royal Palace.
The halls of the royal palace seemed unusually deserted, even as the alarm klaxons rang. Triton raced to the nearest guard station hoping to find someone. He was lucky enough to find two.
"Come with me!" Triton commanded.
The two guards fell into line and the three of them made a mad dash to the forbidden quarters of Maximus. Triton was surprised to see the door was not only not locked, it was not even closed tight. Triton kicked it in and sprang inside.
The room was empty. As was the next, and the next in the royal quarters that had long served as Maximus' prison cell. Triton had known to expect this when the alarm sounded, but still had to see for himself. For that particular alarm served only one purpose – to sound if Maximus should violate his house arrest and leave the royal palace.
NEXT ISH: Black Bolt returns from space to find his brother gone, Karnak hunts down Chemistopheles, and the rest of the Royal Family search for answers as to what Maximus had accomplished during their forced absence. Curious yourself? Read on in next month's "Return to Attilan" and the start of Year 2 of the Amazing…Inhumans!