Chapter 7: Magneto vs. Red Skull
Magneto stood wide-legged, hands folded behind him, as he stared out through the reinforced viewport at the bridge of Asteroid M. The immense space station looked small, though, against the scale of the vast planet that loomed in front of it. Preparations for transporting the portal technology had been arranged, and now there was just one loose end to tie up.
Johann Shmidt. Magneto clenched a gloved fist so hard he felt pain. Shmidt, or the Red Skull, had been Adolph Hitler's errand boy during the second World War, spreading terror chiefly in the United States. But more importantly, he was a Nazi; part of that group of madmen that had callously murdered his parents as a young boy. Magneto had agreed to join von Doom's team of super villains with the promise of the Red Skull's head after it was all over. But time alone on Asteroid M had allowed Magneto some time to think. He was tired of waiting. He wanted the Red Skull to pay, and the sooner the better.
He had requested the aid of HYDRA forces on his space station, as well as the Red Skull himself, in hopes of luring the Nazi to him so he could deal with the man himself. But Red Skull had stalled, sending instead one of his underlings, a man named Wolfgang von Strucker. So Magneto had changed his plans. Confusion would soon arise as pieces of the Dimension X portal were transported to Asteroid M. He could use the chaos to his favor, travelling to Earth to deal with Shmidt himself. He signaled one of his Acolytes, the group of mutants that followed him loyally.
"Ready my shuttle," he said. "I shall return to Earth."
The Red Skull sat in the control station of the secret Hydra Base beneath the Empire State building, watching green-suited Hydra soldiers run to and fro, preparing to transport the portal to Dimension X to Magneto's space station. The portal was too large to be transported inconspicuously into space; it would have to be disassembled, and then reassembled later on.
Magneto . . . the Red Skull worried about having Magneto on von Doom's team. He had been against the idea from the start; Magneto had been born in Nuremberg, Germany, but later moved to Warsaw, Poland, in the Jewish section. His time in the ghetto had been cut short when his parents had been executed, and then he had been deported to Auschwitz. Red Skull was still unsure of what had happened next-the records were terribly vague-but some time later Magneto had traveled to Israel and met Professor Charles Xavier. The thing that concerned Red Skull most was that the amount of time Magneto had spent in Auschwitz was more than enough to give him a healthy dosage of hatred for the Nazis. Red Skull had seen firsthand what hatred could do to a person.
Still, what was there to worry about? Magneto was in space, far away, while he was safe and sound here underneath the Empire State building. Red Skull shifted his gaze fractionally and found the reflection of a Hydra soldier in the glass window. The reflection saluted. "Hail Hydra!"
Red Skull did not move as he replied, "Hail Hydra, mein Kamerad. What is it?"
"Forgive my intrusion, sir," the soldier said, "but Lord Shredder demands an update."
The Red Skull turned around. "Prepare transportation," he said. If Shredder wanted a report, well, then, he'd get one.
A small space shuttle entered Earth's orbit and rapidly crash-landed in the Catskill Mountains in New York. Smoke rose from the wreckage as Magneto emerged unscathed. He needed to get to New York City as soon as possible, and as inconspicuously as possible. He kicked a small square of metal from the space shuttle and flipped it up with his foot, then suspended it in midair and climbed on. This would serve as transportation out of the mountains, and then he could hitchhike the rest of the way. As Magneto took off hovering across the ground at a fast pace, a blue-purple sphere of protective energy enveloped him.
Soon he came to the main road through the mountains, and stopped. Getting off of the metal square, he ducked into some shrubbery to change into a less conspicuous outfit. He soon emerged in a leather jacket and hiking boots, with jeans and a backpack that held his super villain costume. He started walking along the road, following signs out of the park. Soon, a blue Landcruiser appeared in the distance. Magneto stopped and waved his thumb in the traditional gesture of a hitchhiker. The car stopped, and Magneto walked over to the driver side window as it rolled down.
"Is it far to New York City, my friend?" he asked the driver, an older man with thinning grey hair streaked with white and a white mustache on his upper lip. He wore faded jeans, sandals with socks, an ancient Red Stripe Beer T-shirt under a ragged brown-plaid sports coat, and a pair of glasses.
"New York City?" The old man chuckled. "Chum, you're hopelessly off the road. Need a lift?"
"Sure," Magneto said. "Thanks." He walked around the car and got in the passenger seat.
"Name's Stan," the old man said, as he pulled the car back onto the road. "Yours?"
"Max," Magneto replied.
"Why're you headed to the Big Apple, chum?" asked Stan.
Magneto looked sideways at Stan and said one word: "Business."
They arrived in New York City at nightfall. Stan dropped Magneto off on a street corner in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Magneto thanked the man as he drove off, then stepped into a nearby gas station and asked to use the bathroom. Inside he changed into his costume and then left the store, walking down the street in the direction of Shredder's palace. He needed the exercise anyway.
The eight Footbots that were on guard in front of Shredder's palace were alert on any post. They were manufactured to be. Tonight, though, their status had been raised to high alert, because Shredder feared that the ninja turtles would make an attack on the palace. Here they were in a combat zone, where their missions depended on their perceptions, and on how fast their weapons could come out from inside those sheaths.
So when a man dressed in a red and purple outfit with a matching cape and helmet stepped out of the gloom nearby, the Footbots took it for granted that he was a threat. Weapons appeared with miraculous speed.
"Please don't try to resist," the man said in a clipped, educated German accent. "No one has to get hurt."
The Footbots disagreed, and rushed towards the man. But the man raised his hands, and two of the Footbots were lifted off the ground and thrown into the side of a dumpster so hard they shattered into pieces. The man produced three large metal balls the size of apples from the folds of his robes, and they hovered above his hand. He threw each ball at one of the remaining six Footbots, cutting their numbers in half. The three remaining Footbots were torn to pieces by invisible hands.
Magneto shook his head almost sadly. Well, he had warned them.
"I am happy to report, Herr Shredder, that the portal to Dimension X is ready for transportation," Red Skull said, as he knelt at the base of Shredder's throne. "My Hydra forces are loading the machinery as we speak onto special earth-space shuttles to take it up to Asteroid M."
"Excellent work," Shredder replied, seated on his throne and surrounded by four Footbots. Fishface and Rahzar stood nearby. "Any word from Magneto or the others?"
"No, Herr Shredder," Red Skull answered. "Otto Octavius is in my laboratories, examining the Destroyer Gun technology to try and incorporate the weapon into your Footbots. I have heard nothing from von Doom or the Asgardian."
"Nor have I," said Shredder. "And I am not at all confident that they can be trusted entirely. I will arrange for my spies to keep tabs on them."
Suddenly, the lights flickered, and went out. In the near-darkness, Red Skull placed a hand reassuringly on his high-energy pistol. Rahzar growled threateningly. "Footbots, on alert," he growled. "Someone's in here."
Shredder remained motionless on his throne. He was not at all worried. If it was those pestilential turtles of Hamato Yoshi's, he would deal with them quickly. They posed no threat. If it was not the turtles, then whoever it was would surely show their face soon enough.
He was right. The door at the far end of the throne room slid open, revealing a tall figure, his face shadowed by a helmet. He entered the room slowly and deliberately, and lifted his head. Both Shredder and Red Skull recognized him immediately as Magento.
"Eisenhardt." Shredder lifted off his throne. "What is the meaning of this?"
"The meaning of this, my good Shredder," Magento said coldly, "can be summed up in one word: revenge."
At this Red Skull broke out in a sweat, stealthily drawing his pistol from its holder.
Rahzar was having none of it. "Footbots, attack!" he said, throwing back his head and howling. The Footbots leaped at Magneto, and the latter reached into his mutant power to harness the natural magnetic field of the earth to use for his attack. He merely reconfigured the magnetic charges of the Footbots' body parts, and their leaps ended in crashes as they disassembled in midair and their pieces flew past him.
Magneto sighed. Robot bodyguards were terribly easy to combat.
Shredder ejected the blades on his right gauntlet. Instantly Rahzar and Fishface moved to attack, though a little more warily; they'd seen what had happened to the Footbots. Magneto continued slowly forward, his target not on Shredder, as he guessed the two mutants suspected, but on the Red Skull.
Rahzar leaped at Magneto with a snarl, claws outstretched. Magneto dodged nimbly to one side, towards Fishface. Fishface hissed and sprang, aiming for a kick at Magneto's head with his robotic legs. Magneto barely had to move his head to let the kick sail harmlessly past him, and on the way he stretched out a hand and tapped into the earth's magnetic field once again, ripping the fish mutant's metallic lower body to pieces. Fishface, now without legs, shouted as he collided with Rahzar and the two mutants tumbled to the ground.
Rahzar shoved Fishface's squirming body off of him, roaring as he flung a piece of metal leg at Magneto. Magneto raised a hand, and the leg flew off and skittered across the floor of the throne room. With the same hand, Magneto fired a powerful electromagnetic pulse, invisible to the naked eye, directly between Rahzar's eyes. The mutant toppled to the ground and lay still, smoke rising from his body.
Shredder leaped at Magneto's unprotected back, tackling the man to the ground. Rearing over him, he positioned his fist directly above the gap between Magneto's helmet and his cape, where some exposed neck flesh could be seen. "Traitor!" he shouted, activated the ejection mechanism for his gauntlet blades. But curiously, the blades refused to eject, as if some strange power were holding them back.
"Did you forget," said Magneto, chuckling, "that your weapons and armor are built of the same material over which I have complete control?"
Magneto increased pressure to the blades, snapping the spring inside Shredder's gauntlet so the blades tumbled harmlessly out the end. At the same time he used his magnetic powers to rip the other gauntlet off of Shredder's arm, leaving him weaponless. Now he employed a move he'd learned long ago on the streets of Warsaw, and grabbed one of Shredder's arms and twisted hard. The man was forced off of him, and Magneto rolled to the opposite side and got up.
Shredder came at him with a kick aimed at his head, but Magneto deftly blocked the blow and returned a punch towards Shredder's face. The leader of the Foot Clan deflected the attack with an armored forearm and grabbed Magneto to him, dealing several punches and kicks in the general chest area. Magneto flew across the room and landed at the base of the throne.
At this moment Red Skull's nerve broke, and he opened fire with his energy pistol. Instantly Magneto's body was engulfed in a blue-white sphere of energy that absorbed the shots. Magneto stood up, sighing. "I wanted a good, clean, hand-to-hand fight," he said disappointedly, "but then Herr Skull had to go and cheat. Ah, well. Time to finish this."
He half-turned and raised a hand, and Shredder screamed as his helmet, his prized kuro kabuto, began to contract on his skull. His head felt as though it would split open at any second. Shredder, still screaming, dropped to his knees and feebly attempted to pry the shrinking helmet off his head. The metal contracted more and more, shrinking steadily, until finally the pressure was too great and Shredder fainted.
Magneto turned to face his final remaining opponent, who attempted to scurry behind the throne as he continuously fired his pistol harmlessly into Magneto's force field. "That's enough," said Magneto, raising a hand to send the gun flying from Red Skull's grasp. In a final, desperate attempt, Red Skull drew some Dust of Death from his pocket and blew it directly into Magneto's face. The powder sizzled against the force field and dissolved.
"A good effort, Herr Skull," Magneto said, smiling evilly. "Actually, I lied. That was pathetic. But now it is my turn. As we speak, I am manipulate the iron-enriched blood inside you to your brain. Soon your brain will be flooded with blood, and then . . . oh, but don't worry, herr Skull, you will not die. I have much greater plans for you than death."
Those were the last words that reached Johann Shmidt's ears before he lost consciousness.