FIRE!
Part 12
by DarkMark
The Avengers Quinjet was capable of landing on darned near anything. That came in handy sometimes, such as today. They were able to land it right on the playing ground at Soldier's Field, where the Masters of Evil had assembled. The Executioner still had Mayor Daley in hand, and the Enchantress was still keeping the fans and ballplayers in a stasis spell. Altogether, it looked like a classic set-up.
But the team had walked into deadlier traps than this, and come out smiling in the end.
Hawkeye, Cap, Thor, Sif, Iron Man, the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, the Vision, Ant-Man, and the Wasp were inside the aircraft, quickly undoing their safety belts and streaming out of the opened hatch. Clint noticed that the Vision and Quicksilver were keeping their distance from one another, and didn't have to ask why. But he did notice a certain expression on Cap's face...not just tense, but thoughtful.
He had to ask about that. "Penny for 'em, Cap?"
"Back in the War, the Invaders came under the influence of the Red Skull once," Captain America said, not taking his eyes off the enemy as he arose from his seat. "He turned us into villains and made us confront the Liberty Legion at the big ballpark in New York."
"So this..."
"This reminds me of that. Yeah." Cap swung himself out the hatch as he spoke. Hawkeye did his best to catch up.
Thor had his hand on Quicksilver's shoulder. "Be not rash in thy advance, friend Pietro," he said. "There be more to this gathering than verily 'twould seem."
"If you mean this smells like a trap, Thor, I agree," grated Quicksilver. "But nothing will stop me from tearing that spinning pretender into pieces no bigger than a child's top."
"That being said, do so, Quicksilver," advised Sif, her sword already drawn. "But with care."
The Quinjet had landed in the outfield and the villains were clustered roughly between home plate and second base. The Cubs and their opponents had been stacked, thoughtfully, like cordwood near the dugout. The Executioner was still holding his axe in one hand and Mayor Daley in the other.
"They're here," gasped the mayor. "Can you let me go now?"
The Executioner turned his helmeted head, in disdain, and opened his hand. The mayor fell on his backside. "Begone," said Skurge.
Daley didn't have to be told twice. He ran past the piles of stacked ballplayers and was gone. Nobody could blame him.
Quicksilver was already sprinting. Even the other Avengers had trouble tracking him. Iron Man activated his jets and took to the air, keeping his eyes on the Melter but making for the Radioactive Man. He felt his armor could shield him from most of the Chinese villain's output.
Thor and Sif were heading pell-mell for the Executioner and Enchantress, ready to close on their Asgardian foemen. Hawkeye notched a blast arrow to his bow and let fly at the Masters. Hank Pym, already in his Ant-Man helmet and costume, shrunk to mite-size along with the Wasp and cybernetically summoned a flying ant to ride into battle. The Vision changed density and, airy-light, flew at the enemy, intending to become diamond-hard when he contacted them. The Scarlet Witch lifted her arms for a hex and fought down a chill, earned from the first time when she had fought and been overwhelmed by the Enchantress.
And Captain America lifted his shield arm, in full-tilt charge, and sounded the battle cry:
"AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!"
There was something wrong. The team of Executioner, Enchantress, Whirlwind, Melter, Klaw, and Radioactive Man weren't coming at them. They were just standing pat and, from what the Avengers could see of them, grinning.
In mid-field, Iron Man slammed into a barrier. Quicksilver did the same, a little further downfield. Both of them, and the ones who crashed into it seconds later, were immobilized and pained. The blasted thing, glowing and apparently as thick as a sheet of paper, just wouldn't give.
Then a hole seemed to open in the air above them, and the barrier dissolved. It had done its work.
Out of the hole (and the Avengers had seen enough space-warps not to be astonished at them, very much) tumbled four figures that the team had once seen, fought, and never expected to see again. They had been tailored specifically by the Grandmaster to fight the heroes in a tournament he had never lost, until then.
Hyperion. Nighthawk. The Whizzer. Doctor Spectrum.
Altogether, they were known as the Squadron Sinister.
Klaw spoke, in a voice that echoed throughout the entire stadium: "We brought guests."
Hawkeye, whose blast arrow had detonated harmlessly on Dr. Spectrum's force barrier, swore under his breath and grabbed another arrow. "Things just got a lot more interestin'."
"You expected anything less?" asked Ant-Man, flying near his ear.
"Heck, no, Hank. Let's go get 'em!"
Dr. Spectrum's power prism emitted a blast that tore up turf, shook the Avengers off their pins, and spearheaded an attack that was echoed by Hyperion flying down and smashing Thor and Sif off the ground with a single blow.
Who was getting whom was quickly in question.
-M-
Nobody quite expected the Statue of Liberty to rise up off its pedestal and hover over the waters just off Bedloe's Island, but the Wizard managed it, with some help from his partners.
The Wizard, longtime head of the Frightful Four, was the creator of anti-gravity disks that exerted tremendous lifting power and negated the force of gravity within their reach. Of course, the Sandman had to transform himself into a living plane of hardened, sharpened sand and sever the connections between the Statue and its base to make it possible, but he received credit for it from the rest. The Trapster, Electro, and a few others had put the tourists and guards to flight, so they had the place temporarily to themselves.
It looked like they were trying to draw attention, and it worked.
As soon as the first reports hit the TV screen, President Nixon ordered a state of national emergency. The Fantastic Four trundled out of bed, dressed, and were in the Fantasti-Car within minutes. They took their breakfasts with them and ate on the way.
Johnny Storm, in his non-flaming state, looked at the buildings of New York passing by below at rapid speed and went into the zone for a minute. The Thing, sitting in the unit beside him and looking as vulnerable as the planet Jupiter, gave him a look. "What's up, match-head?"
"Aw, not much, Ben. Just remembering how I used to be scared of heights when I was a kid. Climbed on top of Dad's garage and couldn't get down. He had to climb up and get me. And now..."
"Yeah. Things do kinda change when ya got the power to fly, don't they?"
"How was it with you, Ben? I mean, when you learned to fly?"
The Thing, knowing he had about five minutes left for talk, looked out at the Statue hovering sixty feet above the water. "Ah, you know. It just happened."
"Like how?"
Ben Grimm looked at his young friend, across a generation of time. "Got out of college in May of '41. Lookin' for a job as a football coach. Made assistant to P.S. 47 in August, ain't nowhere near my old neighborhood, an' that was good. Didn't wanna go back there 'cept for a visit. Then December, wham. Signed up on the 8th for the Army, got into the air corps, you know the rest."
"What about that time you got captured in the Pacific?"
"You don't wanna hear about that. Even I don't wanna hear about that."
"I'm sorry, Ben."
"Not half as sorry as me." Ben winced, remembering the torture he'd endured at the hands of the Japanese on that island, remembering how he'd saved the life of his rescuer, Captain Simon Savage, but gotten his hands burned so badly he couldn't fly. So he got in a plane with Savage and told him what to do. They got back to safety.
A year and a half after that, Simon Savage was on a ship that got torpedoed by the Japs. That was how it went.
Reed was speaking. "Our first objective is to get the Statue back on its pedestal. Ben, Johnny, I want you to run interference for us when we get attacked. Sue, you keep the ship guarded with your force-field. I'll get above the Statue and see what I can do."
What Reed Richards could do, Johnny knew, was probably pull something out of his back pocket that could invert the universe in five minutes if that was what was needed for the situation. Maybe this would be his last gig with the Fantastic Four for awhile. Then again, considering the frequency in which they found themselves mixed up with super-villains, maybe not.
Anyway...
Johnny Storm loosened his flight harness, put his hands on the fireproofed sides of the Fantasticar unit, and stood up partway.
"FLAME ON!"
The Human Torch shot upward on a jet of fire.
The Thing smiled grimly and touched a button on the control panel before him with one of his four massive fingers. The wing of his Fantasticar section began to uncouple from the main unit. Within three seconds, it was free and the afterburners were firing. Heck, yeah, it was like being back in the Pacific Theater. Just like those damn aircraft carrier takeoffs that just about made him toss his cookies for two months.
Stretcho ought to have been glad he was in the OSS, and only had to ride the things, not fly 'em.
The two Fantastic Four members headed towards the Statue of Liberty in a rough pincers movement. The main Fantasticar unit, containing Reed and Sue Richards, was banking at an angle that would send it straight over Lady Liberty's greenish crown. Reed stretched his rubbery limbs a bit to make access to various controls easier. Sue Richards's face was locked in an expression of concentration. Without seeing it, Reed knew she was surrounding the Fantasticar in an invisible force-field.
He brought the craft over the Statue, cutting the afterburners and putting the hover units below on full. From there, Reed could feel the effects of the Wizard's anti-grav discs. Their power was enough to hurl the Fantasticar up and into the stratosphere, if he didn't keep control of the situation. Thankfully, he expected he could do that.
A massive purple disk was very visible on top of the Statue's head. If he pulled that off or deactivated it, its lifting power would be negated. Also, the Statue of Liberty would plummet to the bottom of the bay and probably break apart.
"Ready, Reed?" asked Sue.
"Just about," said Reed, and took a slightly smaller disk out from a compartment beneath his seat. He was no stranger to the Wizard's anti-gravity theories, and this device should manage the situation, if it worked properly.
Two trains of thought diverged in Reed's mind. He was capable of maintaining quite a lot of such trains, almost like (he laughed, internally) a cerebral Grand Central Station. While he kept his mind on the main action, he couldn't stop these secondary trains from wandering.
Down one track: how long had he been doing this sort of thing? He'd signed up for the Army on the same day as Ben Grimm in '41, taken the IQ tests, got offered the chance to work with Wild Bill Donovan in OSS, and jumped at it. For most of the War, he'd been in secret ops, which often took him into the field on rescue missions or sabotage, and in strategy, which was somewhat safer...for him.
Then, after the war, he'd had about sixteen years of relative peace. So had Ben. He'd invented many things, retained just as many patents, made millions of dollars. Invented, designed, and created the Pocket Rocket. The one Jack Kennedy wouldn't allow to fly to the moon, since it wasn't tested enough.
But Masters Khruschev and Castro, among others, had convinced Reed that the time had come to show the Sputnik-wielders a thing or two about space exploration. He'd hijack the Pocket Rocket himself, take it to the Moon and back, and prove the Communists were second-raters compared to the Free World, once again. Somehow, Ben, Johnny, and Sue got into the act...
...and all of them knew how that had turned out.
Then, it was back to another war in short order, against super-villains, Atlanteans, aliens, Skrulls, Kree, and just about everything in between. He was responsible for the creation of the Fantastic Four.
And he wondered how long he could go on being responsible for its existence.
The other train headed down a more suspicious track. The Frightful Four and whoever else was with them had nothing much to gain from this stunt, financially. You couldn't exactly hold the Statue of Liberty for ransom.
No. The only reason they did this was to lure whomever came to the rescue into a trap.
Reed elongated his arm to an amazing extent, slapped the magnetically-affixed disk to the bottom of the Fantasticar between the hover-jets, and kept the craft steady above the Statue. It was hard to say that this had anything to do with what the Avengers were facing in Chicago. Super-villains operated simultaneously very often, and different super-heroes had to take care of them.
But, with the Riker's Island breaks, it wasn't likely all this could be chalked up to coincidence. He'd have to get together with Jasper Sitwell later and compare notes.
He activated the disk on the bottom of the Fantasticar. This had to be done precisely, like a lab experiment. The results of failure...well, at least no life would be lost. But Reed well knew the power of symbolism. And what would become of the spirit of America, in these fragmented times, if the Statue of Liberty were lost?
He didn't want to think about that.
The disk of his own devising began taking hold of the Wizard's anti-grav disk's power, grasping it as if in an invisible hand. The Fantasticar shuddered under the weight. He turned up the power. "Sue," he said. "Can you..."
"Say no more, Reed," said Sue Richards. She focused her energy-power and formed an invisible platform under the Statue. It was like a giant, unseen plank, with one end of it anchored on the base from which the Statue had been torn. The Fantasticar's strain eased a bit. Reed Richards sighed and set about the task at hand.
Reed turned on the Fantasticar's afterburners. Slowly, delicately as its massive bulk would permit, the Statue of Liberty came with it, drawn from below by invisible force. He couldn't risk negating the Wizard's disk at this time, since Lady Liberty would most likely be torn into pieces or topple into the waters. But, if this worked...
Well, it had to work.
Idly, he took note of some TV news helicopters nearby that were filming the action from what he hoped was a safe distance. This'll make quite a story, friends, he thought, if we pull it off. His elongated hands deftly manipulated the controls of the craft and of his disk.
Sue Richards concentrated hard, focusing her every energy on maintaining her platform of invisible force. The Statue began to slide along it, like a huge cargo being slid on a tilted plane off the back of a truck. She could feel, in a reduced way, the weight of its tonnage. Her brow began to spurt sweat.
She rarely doubted Reed's judgment. She hoped, today, she wouldn't have cause to.
Reed kept the Fantasticar pushing forward, thankful they hadn't been attacked yet. This had to be done quickly, precisely. That went without saying. And there would be only one chance to do it right.
With the uplifted arm of the Statue on one side of the car, the man called Mr. Fantastic took the Statue ever forward, its base borne up by Sue's force field. He thought he felt it drop a tad, and looked back at Sue. Her face was red and strained, but she said two words to him: "Go on."
He gunned the engines a bit more. For her sake, he had to do this even more quickly.
There was a real danger of the Statue's head being torn from its shoulders. If that happened, everything would be lost. But Sue was overtaxed as it was, keeping the force-field plank in place. They were less than a half-mile away from the Statue's base on Bedloe's Island. Reed remembered how, seven years ago, a weird band of warriors had challenged Nick Fury and Captain America here, and how he and Ben had to drain the power of New York to enable a weapon to defeat the pair's enemies. That had caused the Big Blackout, unfortunately, and their part in it was immediately hushed up by the authorities. Reed had been grateful for that.
"Reed..." gasped Sue, from behind.
"Just a little longer, Sue," he said, tightly. "Please...don't falter. Not just yet."
She said nothing. The engines of the Fantasticar were at their peak now.
With a metallic creaking, the great creation followed the attraction-force of Reed Richards's disk. The waters, sixty feet and more below, waited to swallow it should the effort fail.
Now, the base and the island were only 500 yards distant. Involuntarily, his muscles began to relax.
He felt the craft and the Statue drop.
It was halted before he had a chance to cry out. The Fantasticar and the Statue were stabilized above the waters, and, looking back and then down, he saw his wife, her face almost white with effort, and what seemed to be a circular hole in the waters below, around which they lapped and flowed.
"I made it into a support beam," Sue Richards said, tersely. "Get the thing up there."
"You've got it, honey," he replied.
Reed Richards pulled back the control yoke of the Fantasticar and put it into a rough climb. The Statue was pulled off the top of Sue's invisible support pillar. He felt the sag of its weight, upped the power in his disk to try and compensate, and took the great creation the remaining distance between ocean and island.
Johnny and Ben were there, the Torch flying near the Statue's torn base and the Thing standing beside it. Neither of them had been attacked, either. Thank heaven for what small favors were allowed.
"Sue," he said, "I want you to form a socket for me to put this thing into. Form it around the base of the statue. Can you do that one thing for me?"
"I'll try," she responded.
He pulled the thing up, a good fifty feet over the base, and began to let it down.
Reed could feel the abutment of Sue's force-field socket about the base. Sue gently manipulated it to guide the huge creation into place. The creaks of the strained metal were very audible. To lose the thing at this stage would be unthinkable. But not impossible.
Down, ten feet at a time...then five...then less than that. It had to work. The base would be torn, and repairs would have to be made. But if the Statue could be put back intact, all that could be seen to later.
It had to work. It had to.
It...
He felt the spring of settlement below him, as the energy-force contracted and expanded.
The Statue was back on its base.
Reed sighed, said, "Hold on, honey," and turned a dial which increased the power of his disk to full force.
With a great pop of sound, the Wizard's disk was depowered, pulled from the Statue's head, and drawn upwards to mate with Reed's disk. The powers of both were united to hold the figure of Lady Liberty in place.
Reed stretched his head down hundreds of feet to speak with Johnny and Ben, manipulating the controls of the Fantasticar by touch with his hands.
"Ben, I'm going to have Sue lift the field on the left side," he said to the Thing. "I'll need you to hold the Statue in place. Johnny, I want you to weld it back onto the base as best you can. I know I don't have to tell you..."
"Be careful," finished the Human Torch. "I know, Reed. Just give the word."
"And incidentally, Stretch," said the Thing, "congrats."
With the four of them working in concert, first one side, then the opposite, then another, and finally the last side of the Statue of Liberty was reunited with its base, thanks to the Torch's welding power, the Thing's supportive strength, the bulwark of Sue's force field, and the skill of Mr. Fantastic.
Sue held it in place for a few more minutes, until she could be sure the Torch's weld was firm. Then, with a sigh of relief, she dissipated her field. The rubbery arm of Mr. Fantastic went about her, supporting her, embracing her.
"You never fail us, honey," he said.
"That's all right, Reed," she said, feeling the sweat stain the underarms of her blue uniform. "Just...what comes next?"
Far below them, the Thing let go of the side of the Statue's base he was supporting and leaped to the pavement below, his powerful legs taking the impact without harm. The fiery form of the Torch was quickly beside him. "You okay, blue-eyes?" said Johnny Storm.
"Been worse, squirt," opined Ben. "But that ain't the problem. We saved the Statue, but where in blue blazes're the guys what tore it off?"
From a grating nearby, a stream of sand poured with amazing rapidity. Neither of them saw it quickly enough. It formed into a huge mallet, at least the size of a man and of much greater density, lifted itself, and smashed hard into the Thing, knocking him flat.
The Torch, almost without thinking, shot a fireball at the sand-hammer. As he threw it, a bolt of blinding blue electricity contacted him, causing him to cry out in pain and fall. He landed hard on the concrete and turned it black with carbon.
The hammer reformed itself into the Sandman, grinning down at a loggy Thing. Electro stepped from the shadows, and was quickly joined by the figures of the Wizard, the Trapster, and several others.
"You asked a question, Thing," said the Wizard, smiling ruthlessly. "We're the answer."
-M-
PARKER
Don't ask me why I had to go on patrol that day. I just did. Sure, the old Spider Sense had been on low boil most of the afternoon, but with the Statue of Liberty about to take a swim, why wouldn't it be?
As soon as I got out of Stark Labs, I called up Gwen and told her I was going on the prowl. She begged me not to. I told her I'd be back as soon as I could and hung up. Then I changed, and started swinging.
Usually, when I went looking for trouble, it found me. I figured at least Kraven would be on the prowl, after the little social meeting we'd had shortly before. With the Frightful Four sighting that morning, I kinda figured that hell was a-popping somewhere, and I'd probably wind up getting my webbed hands hot with it.
I took it over the docks, figuring at least I could get a good look at what was going down with the Statue. By that time the FF had long since put it back in place, and I was glad. That was something even I couldn't manage, believe it. I clung to the side of a two-story building there, looking out to sea for a minute, glad things seemed to be working out the way they did.
Then the Spider Sense spiked like it was hitting big on the Richter scale. I had time enough to leap. That saved me from getting gouged out like a big part of the side of the building when three metal pincers on the end of a flexible arm tore it away.
I made a three-point landing on a nearby pier and did a 360. My head was tingling worse than the feeling I'd gotten when I saw Psycho for the first time, let me tell you. I could guess one of the faces I'd be seeing. I just didn't know about the guests he'd bring.
From the metal arm I'd just seen, it wasn't a surprise to me I saw Doc Ock nearby. But some other guys were starting to surround me, and none of 'em had the looks of anybody that was in my fan club.
One guy was walking in a big puff of dry-ice smoke, and the fishbowl thing on his head proved pretty definitely that he was Mysterio.
There was a pair of flapping wings overhead. I'd heard them many times before. I looked up and knew already that the Vulture was coming in on a bombing run.
Then there was a guy with a blue metal helmet that covered his head, a pair of blue chain-mail pants, a yellow chestplate, two steel boots with knife-edges up and down the sides, and I could have dealt with all that. Problem was, the guy had his trademarked circular blades whirring on top of his gloves, and they could cut metal into flinders without much problem. I'd never fought him, but I knew this jamoke was the Gladiator.
On top of that came a fifth cat, in a bullfighter's getup with a mask, carrying a sword that crackled with electrical sparks. This guy was another stranger to me, but I'd seen pictures of him in the papers. I kept up with super-villains as a matter of survival, mine and other people's. No question that this was Daredevil's old problem, the Matador.
About the only thing I could think of then, looking at the bunch of 'em, was one thought that truly seemed profound at the time:
"Spidey—you're in trouble."
-M-
Gary Gilbert had kept up with the dealings on Bedloe's Island through the TV reports. His father had taken off to watch them beside him, at their office at Gilbert Industries. The senior Gilbert's response of relief was genuine. Gary knew his was an effective fake.
"I'll be back in a bit, Dad," he'd told his father, implying that he was into a big business deal, and so he was. He had left in his fairly new XKE, determined to enjoy the pleasures of capitalism in its last few days.
The car had taken him to a certain place where he passed through his own checkpoints without problem. He threw open the door into one last chamber. David Graine was there, waiting for him.
"Well?" said Gilbert.
Graine said, "AIM is ready. They want to see you this evening."
Gary Gilbert smiled. "Right on schedule," he said.
It was time to prepare the Fire.
To be continued...