Chapter 3.
"For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
For want of a horse, the rider was lost.
For want of a rider, the message was lost.
For want of a message, the battle was lost.
And all for the want of a nail!"
This old (and frequently rephrased) Earth poem describes how even the most minor consequences can combine and compound to change the world in major ways. Sometimes, for the better. And sometimes... not.
For example: on Earth-774, history diverged when the scientists named Reed Richards and Charles Xavier permanently cured their colleague, Bruce Banner, of being the Hulk. Consequently, they decided to remain research partners on a permanent basis. They subsequently formed a "think tank" called BRX Research, Inc. and, thereby, deprived this world of its own counterparts of the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-men. For, with the Fantastic Four effectively disbanded, Jonathan Storm was able to go to college much earlier than he did on Earth-616. Ergo; he never discovered an amnesiac Sub-mariner in a certain Bowery flophouse. Which, in turn, not only prolonged the frozen sleep of the legendary Captain America. It also allowed a renegade SHIELD agent called the Black Commando to be more successful at killing this world's Dr. Doom than the Shroud of Earth-616 had been in killing his!
Likewise, without a "school for gifted youngsters" to attend, German mutant Kurt Wagner wound up joining the Morlocks of Manhattan as a result of their rescuing him from veritable enslavement by the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime.
It was left to other superheroes to fill the gap by banding together against those public menaces too powerful for conventional authorities. One such super-group was the Federal Emergency Missions Force. Two of whose members were currently arriving at Kennedy International Airport, in New York City, in a paramedical ambulance!
Sitting behind the steering wheel was Valerie Kirk; a woman with long red hair and brown eyes who was better known, among her FemForce teammates, as Colt the Weapons Mistress. While sitting beside her, in the ironically named "shotgun seat", was a slightly older woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes. A woman wearing a white smock with a white badge over the right lapel pocket. A badge with black lettering that read: "Dr. Carol Heisler."
"How long before her flight lands?" the latter now asked.
"ETA, five minutes," replied Colt.
Meanwhile, in a nearby terminal, Peter Parker, a free-lance photojournalist for THE DAILY BUGLE, was treating the two most important women in his life to a late lunch while waiting for the arrival of a mutual friend.
"Peter!" exclaimed the older of those two women. "Are you sure you can afford all this?"
"Positive, Aunt May! When it comes to handing out bonuses, Jolly Jonah might have a tighter grip than Spidey, himself. But, even he couldn't deny how once-in-a-lifetime that snapshot was."
"I couldn't agree more," replied Mary Jane Watson-Parker, Peter's lovely redheaded wife. "In fact, this photo will probably become even more iconic than the flag-raising on Iwo Jima!"
Six months earlier, a laboratory explosion at BRX Research, Inc. had caused Benjamin Grimm to mutate into a massively powerful superhuman with an orange, rock-like epidermis... and an emotionally explosive temperament. As a result, the U.S. Armed Forces had organized a special inter-service task force to pursue and capture him under the code name "Operation: Rockhound." Yet, in the end, it was not they who wound up capturing him. It was Spider-man and one other. The one who had proven literally unyielding while being pummeled over and over again by Grimm. With the photograph of that impasse having been published by THE DAILY BUGLE on the front page, along with the headline:
"LEGENDARY HERO BATTLES MONSTROUS THING."
The red-and-blue living legend known as... Captain Paragon.
"What happened after you took that shot?" Mary Jane now asked. "May and I never got to see as all the TV news crews were among the dozens of on-lookers forcibly evacuated by the cops."
Peter modestly shrugged.
"Nothing much. While Cap kept the Thing's attention focused on him, I crept up from behind and covered his entire head in triple-thick webbing! The Thing, I mean. Not Cap! Of course, the Thing would've torn the webbing off in a good five minutes or less. But Cap didn't give him that opportunity. Instead? He leaped behind the Thing and pinned his arms behind him in a full-Nelson. Keeping him like that until he passed out from lack of oxygen! Then, this new guy appeared. Commando D. He phased up through the street like a freaking ghost! Right after which, he pointed this weird-looking ring at the Thing. A ring that shot out this big beam of yellow light... that immediately shrank the Thing down to the size of a gnat. Before drawing him inside it like a tractor beam on STAR TREK!"
"And?" prompted his wife, "What happened next?"
"I don't know. When I asked where they were going to take him, Cap said- -quite apologetically, of course- -that that was on a need-to-know basis, only."
"Hmph!" snorted Aunt May in resentment. "Of all the ungrateful nerve!"
Peter shrugged again. "It's probably just as well. After all-"
Whatever else he was about to say was cut off by the shout of a familiar, and decidedly male, voice. Whereupon, the trio turned as one and looked towards the entrance to the cafeteria. Approaching them through it was Eugene "Flash" Thompson and a woman they presumed to be the aunt he had been telling them about, during his last telephone call from Orlando, Florida. For she was about May Parker's age, with the same silvery shade of gray hair. Yet, she was wearing much more expensive-looking clothes than Peter's aunt!
It was Mary Jane -ever the actress- who recognized that woman first.
"I don't believe it. Stella Stargaze is his aunt?!"
Meanwhile, back in the ambulance, Colt the Weapons Mistress clutched at her teammate's right shoulder.
"Carol! Trouble! One o'clock high."
Carol Heisler looked to her right and gasped. Because, at the end of a nearby runway, a tremendously huge figure was emerging from the neighboring wetlands. A masked figure dressed in a brown-and-golden-orange costume; and one hundred feet tall, at least.
"Erik Josten," muttered Carol. "A.k.a. Atlas."
tbc